It was at that exact moment that the chaplain carne
in. When I saw him I felt a little shudder go through me.
He noticed it and told me not to be afraid. I told him
that it wasn’t his usual time. He replied that it was just a friendly visit and had nothing to do with my appeal,
which he knew nothing about. He sat down on my bunk
and invited me to sit next to him. I refused. All the
same, there was something very gentle about him.
He sat there for a few seconds, leaning forward,
with his elbows on his knees, looking at his hands. They
were slender and sinewy and they reminded me of two
nimble animals. He slowly rubbed one against the other.
Then he sat there, leaning forward like that, for so long
that for an instant I seemed to forget he was there.
But suddenly he raised his head and looked straight
at me. “Why have you refused to see me?” he asked. I
said that I didn’t believe in God. He wanted to know if
I was sure and I said that I didn’t see any reason to ask
myself that question : it seemed unimportant. He then
leaned back against the wall, hands Bat on his thighs.
Almost as if .it wasn’t me he was talking to, he remarked
that sometimes we think we’re sure when in fact we’re
not. I didn’t say anything. He looked at me and asked,
“What do you think?” I said it was possible. In any
case, I may not have been sure about what really did
interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.
And it just so happened that what he was talking about
didn’t interest me.
He looked away and without moving asked me if I
wasn’t talking that way out of extreme despair. I explained to him that I wasn’t desperate. I was just afraid,
which was only natural. “Then God can help you,” he
said. “Every man I have known in your position has turned to Him.” I acknowledged that that was their right.
It also meant that they must have had the time for it. As
for me, I didn’t want anybody’s help, and I just didn’t
have the time to interest myself in what didn’t interest
me.
At that point he threw up his hands in annoyance
but then sat forward and smoothed out the folds of his
cassock. When he had finished he started in again, addressing me as “my friend.” If he was talking to me this
way, it wasn’t because I was condemned to die; the way
he saw it, we were all condemned to die. But I interrupted
him by saying that it wasn’t the same thing and that be­
sides, it wouldn’t be a consolation anyway. “Certainly,”
he agreed. “But if you don’t die today, you’ll die tomorrow, or the next day. And then the same question
will arise. How will you face that terrifying ordeal?” I
said I would face it exactly as I was facing it now.
At that he stood up and looked me straight in the
eye. It was a game I knew well. I played it a lot with
Emmanuel and Celeste and usually they were the ones
who looked away. The chaplain knew the game well
too, I could tell right away : his gaze never faltered.
And his voice didn’t falter, either, when he said, “Have
you no hope at all? And do you really live with the
thought that when you die, you die, and nothing remains?” “Yes,” I said.
Then he lowered his head and sat back down. He
told me that he pitied me. He thought it was more than
a man could bear. I didn’t feel anything except that he was beginning to annoy me. Then I turned away and
went and stood under the skylight. I leaned my shoulder
against the wall. Without really following what he
was saying, I heard him start asking me questions
again. He was talking in an agitated, urgent voice. I
could see that he was genuinely upset, so I listened
more closely.
He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would
be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from
which I had to free myself. According to him, human
justice was nothing and divine justice was everything. I
pointed out that it was the former that had condemned
me. His response was that it hadn’t washed away my sin
for all that. I told him I didn’t know what a sin was.
All they had told me was that I was guilty. I was
guilty, I was paying for it, and nothing more could be
asked of me. At that point he stood up again, and the
thought occurred to me that in such a narrow cell, if
he wanted to move around he didn’t have many options.
He could either sit down or stand up.
I was staring at the ground. He took a step toward me
and stopped, as if he didn’t dare come any closer. He
looked at the sky through the bars. “You’re wrong, my
son,” he said. “More could be asked of you. And it may
be asked.” “And what’s that?” “You could be asked to
see.” “See what?’
The priest gazed around my cell and answered in a
voice that sounded very weary to me. “Every stone here
sweats with suffering, I know that. I have never looked at them without a feeling of anguish. But deep in my
heart I know that the most wretched among you have
seen a divine face emerge from their darkness. That is
the face you are asked to see.”
This perked me up a little. I said I had been looking
at the stones in these walls for months. There wasn’t
anything or anyone in the world I knew better. M aybe
at one time, way back, I had searched for a face in them.
But the face I was looking for was as bright as the sun
and the flame of desire-and it belonged to Marie. I had
searched for it in vain. Now it was all over. And in any
case, I’d never seen anything emerge from any sweating stones.
The chaplain looked at me with a kind of sadness. I
now had my back flat against the wall, and light was
streaming over my forehead. He muttered a few words
I didn’t catch and abruptly asked if he could embrace
me. “No,” I said. He turned and walked over to the wall
and slowly ran his hand over it. “Do you really love this
earth as much as all that?” he murmured. I didn’t
answer.
He stood there with his back to me for quite a long
time. His presence was grating and oppressive. I was
just about to tell him to go, to leave me alone, when all
of a sudden, turning toward me, he burst out, “No, I
refuse to believe you! I know that at one time or another
you’ve wished for another life.” I said of course I had,
but it didn’t mean any more than wishing to be rich,
to be able to swim faster, or to have a more nicely shaped mouth. It was all the same. But he stopped me and
wanted to know how I pictured this other life. Then I
shouted at him, “One where I could remember this
life!” and that’s when I told him I’d had enough. He
wanted to talk to me about God again, but I went up
to him and made one last attempt to explain to him that
I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste
it on God. He tried to change the subject by asking
me why I was calling him “monsieur” and not “father.”
That got me mad, and I told him he wasn’t my father;
he wasn’t even on my side.
“Yes, my son,” he said, putting his hand on my
shoulder, “I am on your side. But you have no way of
knowing it, because your heart is blind. I shall pray for
you.”
Then, I don’t know why, but something inside me
snapped. I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I
insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me.
I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pouring out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of
anger and cries of joy. He seemed so certain about everything, didn’t he? And yet none of his certainties was
worth one hair of a woman’s head. He wasn’t even sure
he was alive, because he was living like a dead man.
Whereas it looked as if I was the one who’d come
up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about
everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life
and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that
was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on it as it had on me. I had been right, I was still right, I was
always right.