Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier

Author:Gabriel Chevallier [Chevallier, Gabriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448105137
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2004-09-01T21:00:00+00:00

Nicolas’ insulting threat is parried by Toumignon, who has taken up a safe position behind a barrier of chairs:

“Come on and do it, then, you good-for-nothing idle dog!”

“I’ll do it before you know where you are, you wretched little pygmy!” Nicolas replies.

Any reference to his unfortunate physique drives Toumignon into a frenzy. He shouts out:

“You damned coward!”

You may be a beadle in full dress and, as such, in a position to disregard insinuations of any kind. But there are nevertheless certain words which constitute an irreparable outrage on your manly self-respect. Nicolas completely loses all self-control.

“Coward yourself, you wretched cuckold!”

At this direct hit Toumignon turns pale, takes two steps forward, and plants himself aggressively under the beadle’s very nose:

“Say that again, you curé’s lap dog!”

“Cuckold, then, for the second time! And let me add, a woman’s good-for-nothing!”

“Some men’s wives couldn’t go wrong if they wanted to, you lousy swine! That yellow hide of hers won’t get your wife many customers. You’ve been hanging round Judith, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been hanging round her? I have? Don’t you dare say such a thing to me!”

“Yes, you swine, you have. But what did she do? She just kicked you out. She sent you away with a flea in your ear, she did, you church dummy!”

It will be seen from the foregoing that no power on earth can now restrain these two men, whose honor, with the subject of their wives dragged into the dispute, has been publicly assailed. It so happens that Mme. Nicolas is seated in the nave. She is a woman of faded appearance, regarded by none other as a rival, but Nicolas’ calves have brought her many secret enemies. Many eyes are turned in her direction. It is true she has a yellow skin! But more than all else the quarrel has brought to mind a picture of Judith Toumignon, in all her splendor, with the rich abundance of her lovely milk-white flesh, her bold sweeping contours, her magnificent projections of poop and prow. A mental image of the lovely Judith invades and fills the holy place and reigns supreme, a frightful incarnation of lewdness, a satanic vision, convulsed and writhing in the shameful pleasures of guilty love. It makes the chorus of pious women shudder in terror and disgust. From this forlorn group there mounts upwards a sound of wailing and lamentation, muffled and long-drawn-out, like that of Holy Week. One woman, shocked and revolted, falls in a swoon on the harmonium, which gives out a sound as of distant thunder as though a herald of the wrath to come. The Curé Ponosse is bathed in perspiration. Disorder and confusion have reached their utmost limit. Shouts and cries, now uttered in fury, are still resounding everywhere, bursting like bombs beneath the low-vaulted roof, whence they rebound and strike the figures of horror-stricken saints.

“Coward!”

“Cuckold!”

There is now pandemonium, utter and complete, blasphemous, infernal. Which of the two moved first, which struck the first blow, none can tell. But Nicolas has raised his halberd like a bludgeon.

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