Read Online Fermina Marquez (1911) by Valery Larbaud - Free Book Online

thought. Her love and respect for poor people were so great that she would have liked to be able to kneel before them in the .roadway. She wished she could be as them. These elegant dresses, all this worldly vanity were burdensome to her; she transformed them into instruments of mortification, for she only wore them to obey her aunt who exercised a mother's authority over her. Occasionally even, she thought she resembled the poor so closely that it seemed to her that she was walking along clothed in rags. Yet was not this very idea prideful? One day, when they had gone out on foot, somebody in a shop had said to them: "No doubt you can't afford it." Mama Dolore had kicked up a fuss and had left furious. But as for her, how happy she had been!
"Just think, we had been taken for poor people!" He asked her whether she gave many alms.
"You well know that these are never matters for discussion; the money we bring the poor, these are trysts we keep with their Father, the King of Heaven."
Joanny looked at this Christian in astonishment; slightly uneasily as well: wasn't there something irreverent in this chatting about matters sacred, in these words spoken in such a manner, out in the open air, in a place and in circumstances which were wholly secular? The religious instruction we received at Saint Augustine's seemed to ignore these transports of ecstasy. We were carefully kept away from theology and mysticism. Our chaplain, formerly with the army, looked more like an old nobleman and soldier than a priest. Sunday mass and vespers also had something military about them: we attended in dress uniform and the servants, in their best livery, were mixed in with us. The result for most of us was that religion was associated with feelings of discipline and decorum. It was an infallible guide when conscience wavered; through it, we could abandon ourselves to Providence; it was a great and shining hope. And we revered it all the more because we did not talk about it.
"You do surprise me," murmured Joanny.
"Perhaps you think that it's the desire for a reward that attracts me to my God? Yet how can one see Him on His Cross and not love Him; love Him for Himself without hope of resurrection and salvation? But to love Him is also to trust in Him, it is to be ready for Him at any time!"
Joanny, while listening to her, thought he was seeing the reverse side of life. Earthly joys, wealth, fame itself became contemptible and unbearable. She stirred up so many ideas in him that he did not resent her for disparaging things he valued most. He heard a jumbled panegyric of Saint Rose of Lima, whom she said she was striving to resemble; and she told him that she would have liked to endure all the agonies of the Cross. One day when she was really thirsty, she had followed her aunt and sister into a boulevard cafe. They had ordered iced drinks. And at the moment she put her glass to her lips, she had reflected that He had been thirsty in His death throes, and this thought was so appalling that the thirst she herself was experiencing seemed to be full of delight to her; and she had given her glass to Pilar without touching it ...
She was saying all this in a muffled, breathless voice. Joanny listened without interrupting her. This was her life's secret which she was unveiling to him. After such confidences, could she forget him? She did not display so little constraint with Mama Dolore. She seemed rather to regard her as a tyrannical and capricious mother God had bestowed upon her to try her patience. And Pilar was most certainly not her sister's confidante. Well then? Well, was he not then her friend?
When they took their leave of each other that evening, they shook hands more firmly and for longer than usual. This was a tacit promise to keep their secrets. She said that she would bring him a Life of Saint Rose of Lima the next day.
Leniot arrived a little late for prep for the first time. All the pupils were already working. Walking past the