This word was like a thunderclap presaging a storm to come. She looked at the priest, and was pierced by the sudden chill with which even the bravest are seized in the face of a sudden and imminent danger. No look could have read what was passing through the mind of this man; but the boldest would have seen more to tremble at than to hope for in the expression of those eyes, once pale and yellow like those of a tiger, but over which privation and austerity had cast a veil like that which lies on the horizon in sultry weather : the earth is hot and bright, but the mist renders it indistinct, vaporous, it is almost invisible. A heaviness that was wholly Spanish, deep lines which the countless scars of a dreadful smallpox made hideous, like trampled furrows, scored his olive-skinned, sun-baked face. The harshness of this physiognomy was brought out all the more sharply by the hair which framed it, the tattered wig of a priest who no longer cares about his person, threadbare and of a black which showed red in the light. His athletic torso, his old soldier’s hands, his square build and massive shoulders belonged to one of those caryatids which the architects of the Middle Ages have placed before certain Italian palaces, imperfectly recalled by those at the Porte Saint Martin theatre. Individuals of no great penetration would have thought that the strongest passions or circumstances out of the ordinary must have thrown this man into the bosom of the Church; certainly, only the most extraordinary blows of fate could have changed him, if indeed such a nature had been susceptible of change.

What constitutes a whore

WOMEN who have led the life now so violently repudiated by Esther reach a point of total indifference to man’s exterior form. They are like the literary critic of today, who may be compared with them in more than one respect and who attains to a profound unconcern with artistic standards: he has read so many books, forgotten so many, is so accustomed to written pages, has watched so many plots unfold, witnessed so many dramatic climaxes, he has produced so many articles without saying what he really thought, so often betraying art to serve his friendships and his enmities, that in the end he views everything with distaste and continues nevertheless to judge. It would need a miracle for such a writer to produce a single book of his own, just as it needs a miracle for a pure and noble love to blossom in the heart of a courtesan. The manner and tone of this priest, who might have stepped out of a canvas by Zurbaran, appeared so hostile to the poor little tart, unable to see him in any such terms, that she felt herself to be less an object of solicitude than the victim of a plan. Incapable of distinguishing between smooth words and fair promises and the unction of charity, for one needs to be very vigilant to notice the bad money palmed off by a friend, she felt as though she were pinned by the claws of a monstrous and ferocious bird which had swooped on her after long hovering and, in her fear, she uttered these words in a voice of alarm: ‘I believed that priests were meant to console us, and it is my death you intend!’

At this cry of innocence, the ecclesiastic made a vague gesture, and paused; he collected himself before replying. During that moment, the two individuals so strangely brought together eyed each other. The priest understood the girl, without the girl understanding the priest. Evidently he gave up some plan which threatened poor Esther, and returned to his earlier purpose.

‘We are the doctors of souls,’ he said in a gentle voice, ‘and we know what remedies are suited to their sicknesses.’

‘Much has to be forgiven to unhappiness,’ said Esther.

She believed that she had been mistaken, slid down from the bed, prostrated herself at the feet of this man, kissed his cassock with deep humility, and raised towards him eyes bathed in tears.

‘I thought I had done all I could,’ she said.

‘Listen, my child, your fearful reputation has plunged Lucien’s family into grief; they fear, and not without justice, lest you lead him into dissipation, into a world of folly…’

‘It is true, I took him to the ball to awaken his curiosity.’

‘You are sufficiently beautiful for him to want to triumph through you in the eyes of the world, to show you off with pride like a prize horse. If it were only money it cost him!… but he will spend his time, his strength; he will lose all taste for the brilliant future that has been prepared for him. Instead of one day being an ambassador, rich, admired, famous, he will have been, like so many of the debauched whose talents have foundered in the mud of Paris, the lover of a harlot. As for you, after rising briefly into the world of fashion, you would have gone back to your old life, for you lack the power which a good education gives to resist vice and plan for the future. You would no more have broken with your former companions than you were able to break with the men who shamed you at the Opera, this morning. Lucien’s true friends, alarmed by the love you inspire in him, followed in his footsteps and learned all. Anxious and worried, they sent me to you to sound out your dispositions and decide what was to be done with you; they are powerful enough to clear any stumbling block out of this young man’s way, but they are also merciful. Know this, my daughter: a person loved by Lucien has rights in their eyes, as a true Christian may adore mire in which, by some chance, the divine light shines. I am here as the vehicle of their benevolence; but had I found you altogether perverted, armed with guile and effrontery, corrupt to the bone, deaf to the voice of repentance, I should have abandoned you to their wrath. That civic and political release, so difficult to obtain, which the Police rightly delays in the interests of Society itself, and which I heard you crave for with the strength of true remorse, I have it here,’ said the priest, drawing from his girdle an official-looking document. ‘You were seen yesterday, this form is dated today: you may conceive how powerful are those who take an interest in Lucien.’

At the sight of this paper, Esther in her ingenuousness was so shaken by the trembling which an unhoped-for piece of good fortune may cause, that her lips bore a fixed smile like that of an idiot. The priest hesitated, looking at the child to see whether, robbed of the horrible strength which the corrupt draw from their very corruption, and brought back to a fragile and delicate original nature, she would continue impressionable. A deceitful whore, Esther would have acted as in a play; but, returned to innocence and truth, she could have died, as a blind man on whom a successful operation has been performed may lose his sight again on being struck by too vivid a light. This man thus saw human nature to its depths, but remained in a calm terrible by reason of its fixity : he was cold as an Alp, white and close to the sky, impermeable and supercilious, granite-sloped, beneficent nevertheless. The daughters of pleasure are essentially unstable beings, changing without reason from bewildered suspicion to absolute trust. In this respect, they are lower than the animals. Extreme in everything, in their joys, their despairs, their religion, their irreligion; most of them would go mad if they were not decimated by an unusual rate of mortality, and if accidents of fortune did not raise some of them out of the mire in which they live.