The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-08-19
THE SANCTITY OF love
A Charact eristic ketch OF French
Life by Guy De Maupassant.

A4NAC 4eAAPt4t v y " VIZ ~
He thought that he penetrated the de-
signs, the wishes, the intentions of the
creator.
Everything Ia nature seemed to him
created with an absolute and admirable
logic. The wherefore and the she
cause were always balanced. The dawns
were made to render glad your waking.
the days to ripen the harvest, the rains
to water them, the evenings to prepare
for sleeping, and the nights dark for
sleep.
The four seasons corresponded perfect
ly to all the needs of agriculture; and to
him the suspicion could never have come
that nature has no intentions, and that
all which lives has bent itself, on the
contrary, to the hard conditions Of differ
ent periods, of climates and of matter.
Only he did hate women; he hated
them Internationally, and he despised
them by instinct. He often repeated
the words of his Master, woman, what
have / to do with thee?' and he added,
"One would almost say that God HIM
self was i'll pleased with that particular
work of his hands, Woman was the
temptress who had ensnared the first
man; she was the being which is feeble,
dangerous, mysteriously troubling. And
even more than her weak body he hated
her loving soul.
He had often felt women's tenderness
attach itself to him, and though he knew
himself to be unassailable he grew ex-
a~sperated at the need 6f loving which
quivered always in their hearts.
Woman, to his mind, had only been
created to tempt man and to prove him.
You should not approach her without
these precautions for defense which you
would take, and those fears which you
would cherish, near a trap. She was,
indeed, just like a trap, with her arms
extended and her lips open toward a
man.
He had indulgence only for nuns rem
dered harmless by their VOW; but he
treated them harshly Notwithstanding,
because, ever living at the bottom Of
their chained up hearts, of their chast-
ened hearts, he perceived that eternal
tenderness which constantly went out to
him although he was q priest,
He was conscious of it in their looks,
more moist with piety than the looks of
monks; in their ecstacies, in their trans
ports Of love, which ahgeredhim because
it was wpmen's love; and he was also
conscious of it, of that accursed tender
ness of their voices when they spoke to
him, in their lowered eyes, and in the
maekness of their tears when he reproved
them.
And he shook his eassock on issuing
from the doors Of the convent, and he
went off with long strides, as though he
had fled before some danger,
He had q niece who lived with her
mother in a little house near by. He
was bent on making her a sister of char
ity.
She was pretty, and hairbrained, and
a great tease. When the able sermon-
lied she laughed, when he wa angry at
her she kissed him Vehemently, press
ing him to her heart, while he would
seek in~yoluntarily to free himself from
this embrace, which, Notwithstanding,
made him taste a certain sweet joy,
awaking deep within him that sensation
of fatherhood which slumbers in every
man.
Often he talked to her of God, of his
God, walking beside her along the foot
paths through the fields. She hardly
listened, and looked at the sky, the grass,
the flowers, with q joy of living which
could be seen in her eyes, Sometimes
she rushed forward to catch some flying
creature, and, bringing it back, would
cry: 'Look, my uncle, how pretty it isl
I should like to kiss it, And this me-
eessity to s'kiss flies or lilac berries
worried, irritated and revolted the priest,
who saw even in that the ~ineradicable
tenderness which ever springs at the
hearts of women.
And now one day the sacristan's wife,
who kept house for the Able Marignan,
told him very cautiously that his niece
had G lover.
He experienced o dreadful emotion,
and he stood choked with the soap all
over his face, being in the act of shaving.
When he found himself able to think
and speak ono more he cried, 1T is not
true; you are lying, Mcdaniel
But the peasant woman put her hand
on her heart: MAY u Lord judge me il
/ am lying, Monsieur le Cure. ! tell you
she goes to him every evening as soon
as your sister is in bed. They meet
each other beside the river. You have
only to get there between 10 o'clock and
midnight, and sec for yourself"
He ceased scratching his chin, and he
commenced TO walk the room violently,
as he always did IN his hours Of gravest
thought. When he tried to begin his
shaving again he cut himself three
times from nose to ear,
Alldayl long he remained silent, swollen
with anger and rage. TO his priestly zeal
against the mighty power of love was
added tho moral indignation of q father,
Of a teacher, Of o keeper of souls, who
has been deceived, robbed, played with
by a child, He had that egotistical chok-
ing sensation such as parents feel when
their daughter announces that she has
chosen y husband without them and in
spite of their advice.
After his dinner he tried t5 read a lit
tie, but he could not bring himself SO far,
and he grew angTier and angrier. When
it struck 10 he took his cane, a formi-
dable oaken club which he always carried
when he had to go out at night to visit
the sick, and he s,nilipgly regarded the
ann-,on7,o o11dCa1 bo11snr n s,~l,ic cn1id