Werewolf of Paris (5 page)

Frightened and now completely at a loss, an incomprehensible flood of words tumbled from her lips.

“Why, you are all chilled,” he said kindly. “Come and warm yourself up with a glass of wine.” He ushered her gently back into the sacristy, poured out two generous portions of consecrated wine, and made her drink one while he himself emptied the other.

Dazed and dizzied, she permitted him to fondle her and press her close to his cassock. She was warm there and comforted. But her fright rose again when she felt him touch her in precisely the way Françoise, but the day before, had been warning her not to allow anyone to touch her. Now she wished to release herself, but her limbs were as if paralyzed. She struggled a little, but his strength was greater. And he kept pouring strange consoling words into her ear. She permitted him to lead her to the couch and do with her as he pleased.

She left without saying a word of her mission. Indeed she had quite forgotten the original purpose of her coming. In her ears resounded only the father's oft and insistently repeated caution that she must never utter a word of what had happened. He had made her swear by the cross.

The thunder shower had just ceased when Josephine returned. She came walking in, looking around out of wide-opened eyes, one finger pulling down her lower lip, as if she could no longer recognize her surroundings.

“Why, what is the matter with you, Josephine?” Mme Didier asked. She had been only a trifle worried at Josephine's absence, and that largely because she reproached herself for not seeing to it that the girl took her cloak along. When Josephine had not returned at once, Mme Didier had surmised that, caught in the thunderstorm, the girl had taken refuge and would return when the rain had abated. Which was precisely what happened. But why should she return as if she had seen the devil in person?

But Josephine would not answer and only shook her head.

“Come, Josephine, do not play the stubborn. Tell me what is the matter with you.” Still the girl only shook her head.

“She has caught a cold. That's it!” Mme Didier exclaimed. “Why, your clothes are dry. No, they are a little damp. Tell me, were you caught in the rain? Or did you get to the chapel in time to miss the worst of it? Good heavens, why won't the child answer?”

Still Josephine made no reply. Then Mme Didier lost her patience and declared roughly, shaking her: “Then go to bed at once. And don't let me see you again until you find your tongue.”

“Come now, my dear aunt,” her nephew spoke up from his chair by the window. “Give the little girl a chance. Before you were all for thinking her incapable of going around the corner. Perhaps she really did lose her way. Let me talk to her.”

But his efforts were no more successful than those of his aunt. Finally Mme Didier said, as if the idea were an inspiration from on high:

“I know, she shall come with me to Father Pitamont. Surely she will not refuse to talk to him.”

And truly her words were inspired, for all of a sudden Josephine let out a torrent of words, but so intermingled with sobs that one could make neither head nor tail of them. At the same time she threw herself down on the floor as if possessed.

Mme Didier was herself so taken aback that she could not summon her wits. But her nephew, fed on anti-clerical literature, cried out at once: “What did he do to you?”

“He did what Françoise said I shouldn't!” Josephine cried out, redoubling her sobs.

The nephew laughed sardonically. “So that's your Father Pitamont. A pretty bird.”

“But I don't understand what Father Pitamont has to do with this,” Mme Didier expostulated, completely at sea.

The nephew was suddenly resolved. Now was the time to break with Napoleon, who was at the moment off on a visit to the Pope, and throw this juicy bit of scandal into the public pot. He was so taken by his resolution that he forgot the matter at hand, and rose from his chair by the aid of his stick, determined to seek out the editor of
La Solidarité
.

Mme Didier, however, would not let him go until she had learned what all this business meant. And when she had heard, again she would not let him depart until she had sworn him not to say a word of it to anyone. Her reason was that the child was hysterical and that it would never do to believe her until the matter had been more fully investigated. His reason was simpler: all or at least most of his money came from his aunt, and further, he hoped to inherit from her some day. He could not afford to be a political pamphleteer without his aunt's support.

Mme Didier, however, herself went to the chapel and, seeing no one about, boldly knocked at the door to the sacristy. Receiving no answer, she entered. Father Pitamont was asleep on a couch. Asleep, he no longer looked the holy man she had usually taken him to be. He seemed old and coarse. His heavy features, particularly his bushy eyebrows, joined together by a heavy growth of hair above his nose, lent him a strange, almost beastly expression. In that moment, Mme Didier almost believed, but restrained herself for fear of doing him an injustice.

Feeling the weight of her glance upon him, he opened his eyes. “Why, madame, it is you,” he exclaimed and rose at once.

Cutting short his greeting, she plunged quickly into her story. He nodded his head as if the matter were grave and interesting, but of no special concern to him.

“A young girl of about fourteen, you say?” he asked, as if he were trying to recall whether he had perhaps not seen such a girl somewhere.

At that moment, Mme Didier spied her bénitier, the vessel which she had given Josephine to hold the precious holy water. It was lying on the floor near the couch. At once he saw it too. How could he have forgotten to remove that! Throwing aside the rôle he had assumed, he cast himself at her feet. But she rose hastily and ran out, overcome with horror.

She disregarded the advice of her nephew, and made no complaint to the police, but went instead to the bishop and laid her case before him. With the result that Father Pitamont was called to account. The bishop, however, contented himself with transferring the culprit to another parish. There he had soon made a bad reputation for himself. The truth was that he could no longer hold himself in check. His temptations led him ever further astray into the world of sin. At night he slipped out of his cassock and, dressed in civilian clothes, frequented the most disreputable haunts of the city.

One night Mme Didier, leaving the theater late with her nephew, caught sight of him entering a voiture de place, gallantly helping in a young lady first. The broad expression of pleasure on his face, the extreme of fashion in which the young lady was clad—lacy décolleté without shoulder-straps, leaving her shoulders and bosom bare down to just above the line of her nipples, long tight skirt flaring at the ankles—all this left little doubt as to the nature of the commerce that obtained between these two. Mme Didier shuddered. Her nephew had the kindness to make no comment. Subsequently she learned that Pitamont had been reported to his superiors again and again and was finally requested either to make a lengthy retreat among the forever silent Trappists, or lay down his frock. Pitamont expressed his decision by disappearing suddenly along with some valuable articles belonging to the church to which he was last attached.
*

“We are well rid of him,” thought Mme Didier. In truth she was far from being rid of Father Pitamont, although she never saw him again.

Her nephew, Aymar Galliez, had of late given up his own rooms and moved over to his aunt's apartment. This was partly to save money, and partly to be near his aunt, for his badly healed wounds left him a prey to fits of melancholy in which he could not bear solitude.

He was sitting at his favorite place near the window one day, and making an occasional note on a pad of paper. He had the itch to distinguish himself in the field of literature but was not quite sure of the form of the great work which he proposed to write. So many fine things were appearing lately, in all lines. Only recently the younger Dumas had electrified Paris with his
Dame aux Camélias
and a revolution in writing was taking place. Those in the know were all talking excitedly about the new way of writing. The password was
realism
.

He was being annoyed by the constant entry and exit of Josephine. “What the deuce can that girl be wanting in here every minute?” he asked himself irritably. For like all melancholic natures, much as he hated solitude, he was irritated by the presence of others. But after a while he became interested in the girl herself, wondering if here were not the subject for an incisive little sketch: a young girl seduced by a priest and thereupon rejected by her legitimate suitor. Or perhaps one might have the girl fall in love with the priest and he abandon his religion in order to marry her. But that was all old stuff, he had read countless things of the sort. The trouble with literature was that every subject had been done. There was nothing new for the pen to tackle.

As his thoughts ran on so, he almost forgot the girl. Gradually, however, he began to notice her strange demeanor. There could be no doubt of it, she was trying to attract his attention. Though ostensibly engaged in straightening the room and tidying up, she turned toward him every few moments, looked at him with big eyes, then suddenly looked away as if abashed. Meanwhile her body contorted itself in a positively indecent fashion. Her torso was in constant sinuous motion like the body of a snake. Her breast rose and fell as she sighed audibly.

When she saw that he was looking at her, she ceased. But a moment later she came up to him and, picking up a piece of paper from the floor, she asked: “Is this yours?” And when he thanked her she continued: “Shall I open the window a little more?” And again: “Are the curtains blowing in your way?” All of which he found most annoying. In leaning across his little table to reach the curtains and tie them back, she brought her young body up against his face. He breathed the warmth of her flesh. Despite himself he felt a powerful compulsion. Thoroughly disturbed, he found some excuse or other to dismiss the girl, and remained for a long time incapable of concentrating on his literary endeavors.

*
The report of this theft to the police uncovered the whole tale and thus came to the knowledge of Favre, who included it among the various cases in the chapter: “Suffer little children to come unto me…”

Chapter Three

O
ne day as he was hobbling out, the door to the kitchen opened and Aymar heard himself called softly by Françoise: “M Aymar!
Psst!
”

He turned around. She beckoned him mysteriously to come into the kitchen and when he had followed her call, she first closed the door, and then whispered to him: “Do you know what terrible things are happening here?”

“Why, no,” he said innocently.

“I mean about Josephine.”

“Why, what's the trouble with her?” He had wanted to say: “Why, what's the trouble with her again?” but had restrained himself, not being quite sure that Françoise had been informed of the Pitamont affair, Mme Didier having been so anxious to keep the matter quiet.

“Her conduct is…how shall I say, monsieur…c'est une dévergondée!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the butcher's boy, the concierge's young son, the greengrocer himself, everybody, simply everybody has had her. And if they have not had her, then it was only because they were decent enough to refuse. Yes, monsieur, I never thought that would happen to this house. A young country girl. Why, when she came here she acted as if she didn't know A from B. Monsieur, the whole neighborhood is talking about it!”

“Are you sure of this?” said Aymar, though he himself was convinced at once. “How do you know that this is not simply malicious gossip?”

She then told him how she had seen things with her own eyes. How she had caught the girl and the concierge's son up in the garret in a manner that left no doubt. Thereafter she had forbidden the girl to leave the house, but she had run away. Of course, people would say there was another girl ruined by the wicked city, but she knew better. That girl must have brought those habits with her from the country.

Aymar let her talk on, wondering himself. Could it be that that first display of bewilderment and grief and shame had been mere acting on Josephine's part? No. Impossible. The girl had been pure before. It was Father Pitamont who had unleashed this beast in her body. The mayor of Mme Didier's own home village would never have recommended a girl with a bad character.

“What I want you to tell me, monsieur, is how I shall break the news to Madame. I'm afraid to go to her with all this trouble. She has had sorrow enough, poor Madame.”

“Leave that to me,” Aymar consoled her. “I'll take care of everything.”

“Yes, but do it at once. For who knows what may happen? Last night I woke up and found her gone from our bed. I waited, thinking she had gone out for only a moment. But when she didn't come back, I got out of bed and looked for her. I must tell you, monsieur, that she was not in the house at all. She had unlocked the door and gone out. It must be Jeannot the concierge's son who unlocked the door downstairs for her. I fell asleep again and when I woke up she was back in bed and denied that she had ever been out. What shall we do with such a creature?”

“Leave it to me,” Aymar said again, and wondered what he could do.

But that evening Josephine waited on them at the dinner table as usual. And as usual she brought herself annoyingly into contact with Aymar. Nevertheless, her girlish face expressed nothing but purity and innocence. How could those tender, immature lineaments have expressed anything else? When she had retired to the kitchen and was busy with her own meal and with the washing of the dishes, Aymar opened up on his aunt.

“Do you see any change in Josephine since that terrible event?”

“Fortunately, no. She seems to have gotten over it and I hope will soon have completely forgotten it.”