It was not like this in Claquebue. No doubt the Durs, the Berthiers and the Corenpots were also lonely riders: but there were the families, or better still the households, drawing their sustenance from the place where they had their being, like the trees with their roots thrust deep into the earth. Their desires were not mere shifting inclinations, furtive itches; they were enrooted, coiled, slowly digested, preserved by memories that did not waver. Each separate individual, father, mother, child, might ride alone, live separate lives; but the house kept watch, and each partook of the desires of all.
The words “carnal concupiscence,” sounding like a heavy, elastic-limbed toad, can achieve their true meaning only when applied to families whose growth springs directly from the earth itself. The deep coils of sensual appetite, the huge lusts and longings pent-up through the years, can exist only in the country places, where the households are separate entities, observing one another,
hating one another, but breathing the same air and brought together, obliged to rub shoulders, in the daily labour of the soil. At Claquebue these family lusts did not always find an outlet, but they were always in search of one. I may cite, among many instances, the case of the Corenpots and the Rousseliers, who had hated one another through countless generations. On a winter’s evening Corenpot and his two sons burst in upon the Rousseliers and ravished all the female members of the household. Thenceforward there was a marked improvement in the relations between the two houses, as though by this act the age-old quarrel had been determined, the last word spoken.
Among the Haudouins and the Malorets it was rare, and certainly accidental, for any individual to become consciously aware of the store of sensual violence accumulated within his house. The separate members of Honore’s family each sought his or her pleasure in love without being in any way obsessed with the existence of the Malorets: the case of Juliette and Noel was in this respect quite fortuitous. The households as a whole, primitive entities endowed with sexuality, having a composite substance that scarcely varied and a separate, composite will, did not resemble any one of the variable, contradictory individuals of which they were composed: the household drew its energies from all its members, stirring them together, compounding and hoarding them, and upon occasion restoring them to the individual in a dynamic form.
The cure of Claquebue well understood the worth of these family accumulations, to which he assigned a disciplinary value. He knew, and did his utmost to assist the process, that the “lonely riders” might here find outlet for a restlessness that was always dangerous to religion. But he knew also that the family reservoir sometimes burst its bounds, with resulting scandal. Such explosions were not uncommon, and if they did not always take a form as violent as in the case of the Corenpots and the Rousseliers, the danger was one that had to be borne in mind. Vanquished by the Corenpots, the Rousseliers, whom the cure had hitherto classed in the category of safe Catholics, allowed themselves to be corrupted by the abominable influence of their conquerors, nearly all deniers of God, and there-
after attended Mass only from force of habit. On the other hand, there had been cases of edifying returns to the fold. It was necessary, in short, for the cure to have an intimate knowledge of the sexual tendencies of each family if he was to direct these along channels serving the good of his flock as a whole. He was led, in consequence, to the consideration of problems of the utmost delicacy. For example, in the case of a sexual attraction between two families, was it to be assumed that they were of opposite sexes? And if so, how was one to distinguish between the female household and the male?
I knew nothing of the results of the cure's researches, and he can no longer be asked, since after an exemplary life of labour and authority the poor man has fallen into his dotage and now walks the lanes of Claquebue uttering obscene words and preaching universal brotherhood. God grant that he may die in peace, and we too!. . And so, being ignorant of the conclusions he may have arrived at, I have sought on my own account to solve this problem of the sex of the different households — I flatter myself, not without success. I have naturally devoted especial consideration to the case of the Haudouins and the Malorets.
There lies at the root of the problem an error into which a simple mind, such as my own, was bound to fall, and which consists in regarding the family as the sum of the individuals composing it: by which reckoning the household containing more men than women is to be considered male. I thought to enhance this reasoning by taking individual temperaments into account. Without going into details, I must give in outline the result of my observations. Honore and his sons showed a greater boldness in their approach to women than did the Maloret men; their anger was more prompt, their language more outspoken. Zephe and his sons, although they pursued their pleasure with a persistence that took little account of scruple, did not hold even the most beautiful woman to be worth an acre of land. Cautious and patient, they secretly whetted their desires until the moment was propitious; but on the other hand, they had a great deal more authority over their women than the Haudouin men had over theirs. These qualities in them, some of which are held to be predomi-
nantly male, cause me a good deal of perplexity’. Nor were their erotic habits and preferences any more conclusive. Did the tradition of incest among the Malorets bear witness to the virility of the head of the household, or did it merely point to an incapacity to find satisfaction elsewhere?
I came at length to the conclusion that simplicity alone would avail me. A family is a solid, childlike entity, quickly surveyed. I had already observed how easy it is to discern those habits and characteristics which by their repetition determine the features of a composite whole. One says of a town that it is friendly and lively and that its cooking is good, adding two or three lines of corroborative detail. Of a province one speaks even more broadly, saying, for example, that the people of Normandy are redfaced, sly and great drinkers of cider; and of a nation one simply says, “The Gauls had fair hair.” Accordingly I adjusted my sights to see the Haudouins and the Malorets in a broad perspective, as though they were Gauls.