*It corrects customs through laughter.

"I," said Binet, "once saw a piece called the 'Gamin de Paris,' in which

there was the character of an old general that is really hit off to a

T. He sets down a young swell who had seduced a working girl, who at the

ending--"

"Certainly," continued Homais, "there is bad literature as there is bad

pharmacy, but to condemn in a lump the most important of the fine arts

seems to me a stupidity, a Gothic idea, worthy of the abominable times

that imprisoned Galileo."

"I know very well," objected the cure, "that there are good works,

good authors. However, if it were only those persons of different sexes

united in a bewitching apartment, decorated rouge, those lights, those

effeminate voices, all this must, in the long-run, engender a

certain mental libertinage, give rise to immodest thoughts and impure

temptations. Such, at any rate, is the opinion of all the Fathers.

Finally," he added, suddenly assuming a mystic tone of voice while

he rolled a pinch of snuff between his fingers, "if the Church has

condemned the theatre, she must be right; we must submit to her

decrees."

"Why," asked the druggist, "should she excommunicate actors? For

formerly they openly took part in religious ceremonies. Yes, in the

middle of the chancel they acted; they performed a kind of farce called

'Mysteries,' which often offended against the laws of decency."

The ecclesiastic contented himself with uttering a groan, and the

chemist went on-"It's like it is in the Bible; there there are, you know, more than one

piquant detail, matters really libidinous!"

And on a gesture of irritation from Monsieur Bournisien-"Ah! you'll admit that it is not a book to place in the hands of a young

girl, and I should be sorry if Athalie--"

"But it is the Protestants, and not we," cried the other impatiently,

"who recommend the Bible."

"No matter," said Homais. "I am surprised that in our days, in this

century of enlightenment, anyone should still persist in proscribing an

intellectual relaxation that is inoffensive, moralising, and sometimes

even hygienic; is it not, doctor?"

"No doubt," replied the doctor carelessly, either because, sharing the

same ideas, he wished to offend no one, or else because he had not any

ideas.

The conversation seemed at an end when the chemist thought fit to shoot

a Parthian arrow.

"I've known priests who put on ordinary clothes to go and see dancers

kicking about."




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