The Kiss of Satan: Reading Bernanos

Abstract

We would like to live “under the sun of God” (Eccl 8:15), but we find ourselves Under the Sun of Satan. Nobody has seen this, and also known this, better than Bernanos –for literature reaches what neither philosophy nor theology can say, in particular when it comes to the torment of evil. Hidden under the appearance of the “Picardy horse dealer,” and therefore of an ordinary man, the devil does not let himself be seen; he loves, rather, to disguise himself. We do not find evil on one side and good on the other in Bernanos, but rather “evil under the appearance of good.” This is the devil’s supreme ruse, and his surest way of seeing right through us. Blurring the boundaries, making himself pass for no one when he is someone, preferring the “Cold” of ice to the heat of flames, and lying (down) with Father Donissan to rob him of his breath, Satan is always lying in wait for us –less to show himself than to trap us. A “philosophical reading” of these searing pages of Under the Sun of Satan (Father Donissan’s encounter with the Picardy horse dealer) will elevate Bernanos to the rank of one of the greatest Catholic thinkers. Nobody doubted this. But reading him, and rereading him, permits us to confirm it.