XIII


Yet now the park was entirely their own. They had taken sovereign
possession of it. There was not a corner of it that was not theirs to
use as they willed. For them alone the thickets of roses put forth their
blossoms, and the parterre exhaled its soft perfume, which lulled them
to sleep as they lay at night with their windows open. The orchard
provided them with food, filling Albine's skirts with fruits, and spread
over them the shade of its perfumed boughs, under which it was so
pleasant to breakfast in the early morning. Away in the meadows the
grass and the streams were all theirs; the grass, which extended their
kingdom to such boundless distance, spreading an endless silky carpet
before them; and the streams, which were the best of their joys,
emblematic of their own purity and innocence, ever offering them
coolness and freshness in which they delighted to bathe their youth. The
forest, too, was entirely theirs, from the mighty oaks, which ten men
could not have spanned, to the slim birches which a child might have
snapped; the forest, with all its trees, all its shade, all its avenues
and clearings, its cavities of greenery, of which the very birds
themselves were ignorant; the forest which they used as they listed, as
if it were a giant canopy, beneath which they might shelter from the
noontide heat their new-born love. They reigned everywhere, even among
the rocks and the springs, even over that gruesome stretch of ground
that teemed with such hideous growth, and which had seemed to sink and
give way beneath their feet, but which they loved yet even more than the
soft grassy couches of the garden, for the strange thrill of passion
they had felt there.

Thus, now, in front of them, behind them, to the right of them and to
the left, all was theirs. They had gained possession of the whole
domain, and they walked through a friendly expanse which knew them, and
smiled kindly greetings to them as they passed, devoting itself to their
pleasure, like a faithful and submissive servitor. The sky, with its
vast canopy of blue overhead, was also theirs to enjoy. The park walls
could not enclose it, their eyes could ever revel in its beauty, and it
entered into the joy of their life, at daytime with its triumphal sun,
at night with its golden rain of stars. At every moment of the day it
delighted them afresh, its expression ever varying. In the early morning
it was pale as a maiden just risen from her slumber; at noon, it was
flushed, radiant as with a longing for fruitfulness, and in the evening
it became languid and breathless, as after keen enjoyment. Its
countenance was constantly changing. Particularly in the evenings, at
the hour of parting, did it delight them. The sun, hastening towards the
horizon, ever found a fresh smile. Sometimes he disappeared in the midst
of serene calmness, unflecked by a single cloud, sinking gradually
beneath a golden sea. At other times he threw out crimson glories, tore
his vaporous robe to shreds, and set amidst wavy flames that streaked
the skies like the tails of gigantic comets, whose radiant heads lit up
the crests of the forest trees. Then, again, extinguishing his rays one
by one, he would softly sink to rest on shores of ruddy sand,
far-reaching banks of blushing coral; and then, some other night, he
would glide away demurely behind a heavy cloud that figured the grey
hangings of some alcove, through which the eye could only detect a spark
like that of a night-light. Or else he would rush to his couch in a
tumult of passion, rolled round with white forms which gradually
crimsoned beneath his fiery embraces, and finally disappeared with him
below the horizon in a confused chaos of gleaming, struggling limbs.

It was only the plants which had not made their submission. Albine and
Serge passed like monarchs through the kingdom of animals, who rendered
them humble and loyal obeisance. When they crossed the parterre, flights
of butterflies arose to delight their eyes, to fan them with quivering
wings, and to follow in their train like living sunbeams or flying
blossoms. In the orchard, they were greeted by the birds that banqueted
in the fruit-trees. The sparrows, the chaffinches, the golden orioles,
the bullfinches, showed them the ripest fruit scarred by their hungry
beaks; and while they sat astride the branches and breakfasted, birds
twittered and sported round them like children at play, and even
purloined the fruit beneath their very feet. Albine found even more
amusement in the meadows, where she caught the little green frogs with
eyes of gold, that lay squatting amongst the reeds, absorbed in
contemplation; while Serge, with a piece of straw, poked the crickets
out of their hiding-places, or tickled the grasshoppers to make them
sing. He picked up insects of all colours, blue ones, red ones, yellow
ones, and set them creeping upon his sleeve, where they gleamed and
glittered like buttons of sapphire and ruby and topaz.

Then there was all the mysterious life of the streams; the grey-backed
fishes that threaded the dim waters, the eels whose presence was
betrayed by a slight quivering of the water-plants, the young fry, which
dispersed like blackish sand at the slightest sound, the long-legged
flies and the water-beetles that ruffled into circling silvery ripples
the stagnant surface of the pools; all that silent teeming life which
drew them to the water and impelled them to dabble and stand in it, so
that they might feel those millions of existences ever and ever gliding
past their limbs. At other times, when the day was hot and languid, they
would betake themselves beneath the voiceful shade of the forest and
listen to the serenades of their musicians, the clear fluting of the
nightingales, the silvery bugle-notes of the tomtits, and the far-off
accompaniment of the cuckoos. They gazed with delight upon the swift
flight of the pheasants, whose plumes gleamed like sudden sun rays
amidst the branches, and with a smile they stayed their steps to let a
troop of young roebucks bound past, or else a couple of grave stags that
slackened their pace to look at them. Again, on other days they would
climb up amongst the rocks, when the sun was blazing in the heavens, and
find a pleasure in watching the swarms of grasshoppers which at the
sound of their footsteps arose with a great crepitation of wings from
the beds of thyme. The snakes that lay uncoiled beneath the parched
bushes, or the lizards that sprawled over the red-hot stones, watched
them with friendly eyes.

Of all the life that thus teemed round them in the park, Albine and
Serge had only become really conscious since the day when a kiss had
awakened them to life themselves. Now it deafened them at times, and
spoke to them in a language which they did not understand. It was that
life--all the voices of the animal creation, all the perfumes and soft
shadows of the flowers and trees--which perturbed them to such a point
as to make them angry with one another. And yet throughout the whole
park they found nothing but loving familiarity. Every plant and every
creature was their friend. All the Paradou was one great caress.

Before they had come thither, the sun had for a whole century reigned
over it in lonely majesty. The garden, then, had known no other master;
it had beheld him, every morning, scaling the boundary wall with his
slanting rays, at noontide it had seen him pour his vertical heat upon
the panting soil; and at evening it had seen him go off, on the other
side, with a kiss of farewell upon its foliage. And so the garden had no
shyness; it welcomed Albine and Serge, as it had so long welcomed the
sun, as pleasant companions, with whom one puts on no ceremony. The
animals, the trees, the streams, the rocks, all continued in an
unrestrained state of nature, speaking aloud, living openly, without a
secret, displaying the innocent shamelessness, the hearty tenderness of
the world's first days. Serge and Albine, however, suffered from these
voluptuous surroundings, and at times felt minded to curse the garden.
On the afternoon when Albine had wept so bitterly after their saunter
amongst the rocks, she had called out to the Paradou, whose intensity of
life and passion filled her with distress:

'If you really be our friend, why, why do you make us so wretched?'

XIV


The next morning Serge barricaded himself in his room. The perfume from
the garden irritated him. He drew the calico curtains closely across the
window to shut out the sight of the park. Perhaps he thought he might
recover all his old serenity and calm if he shut himself off from that
greenery, whose shade sent such passionate thrills quivering through
him.

During the long hours they spent together, Albine and he never now spoke
of the rocks or the streams, the trees or the sky. The Paradou might no
longer have been in existence. They strove to forget it. And yet they
were all the time conscious of its presence on the other side of those
slight curtains. Scented breezes forced their way in through the
interstices of the window frame, the many voices of nature made the
panes resound. All the life of the park laughed, chattered, and
whispered in ambush beneath their window. As it reached them their
cheeks would pale and they would raise their voices, seeking some
occupation which might prevent them from hearing it.

'Have you noticed,' said Serge one morning during these uneasy
intervals, 'there is a painting of a woman over the door there? She is
like you.'

He laughed noisily as he finished speaking. They both turned to the
paintings and dragged the table once more alongside the wall, with a
nervous desire to occupy themselves.

'Oh! no,' murmured Albine. 'She is much fatter than I am. But one can't
see her very well; her position is so queer.'

They relapsed into silence. From the decayed, faded painting a scene,
which they had never before noticed, now showed forth. It was as if the
picture had taken shape and substance again beneath the influence of the
summer heat. You could sea a nymph with arms thrown back and pliant
figure on a bed of flowers which had been strewn for her by young
cupids, who, sickle in hand, ever added fresh blossoms to her rosy
couch. And nearer, you could also see a cloven-hoofed faun who had
surprised her thus. But Albine repeated, 'No, she is not like me, she is
very plain.'

Serge said nothing. He looked at the girl and then at Albine, as though
he were comparing them one with the other. Albine pulled up one of her
sleeves, as if to show that her arm was whiter than that of the pictured
girl. Then they subsided into silence again, and gazed at the painting;
and for a moment Albine's large blue eyes turned to Serge's grey ones,
which were glowing.

'You have got all the room painted again, then?' she cried, as she
sprang from the table. 'These people look as though they were all coming
to life again.'

They began to laugh, but there was a nervous ring about their merriment
as they glanced at the nude and frisking cupids which started to life
again on all the panels. They no longer took those survivals of
voluptuous eighteenth century art to represent mere children at play.
They were disturbed by the sight of them, and as Albine felt Serge's hot
breath on her neck she started and left his side to seat herself on the
sofa. 'They frighten me,' she murmured. 'The men are like robbers, and
the women, with their dying eyes, look like people who are being
murdered.'

Serge sat down in a chair, a little distance away, and began to talk of
other matters. But they remained uneasy. They seemed to think that all
those painted figures were gazing at them. It was as if the trooping
cupids were springing out of the panelling, casting the flowers they
held around them, and threatening to bind them together with the blue
ribbons which already enchained two lovers in one corner of the ceiling.
And the whole story of the nymph and her faun lover, from his first peep
at her to his triumph among the flowers, seemed to burst into warm life.
Were all those lovers, all those impudent shameless cupids about to step
down from their panels and crowd around them? They already seemed to
hear their panting sighs, and to feel their breath filling the spacious
room with the perfume of voluptuousness.

'It's quite suffocating, isn't it?' sighed Albine. 'In spite of every
airing I have given it, the room has always seemed close to me!

'The other night,' said Serge, 'I was awakened by such a penetrating
perfume, that I called out to you, thinking you had come into the room.
It was just like the soft warmth of your hair when you have decked it
with heliotropes. . . . In the earlier times it seemed to be wafted to
me from a distance, it was like the lingering memory of a perfume; but
now I can't sleep for it, and it is so strong and penetrating that it
quite stupefies me. The alcove grows so hot, too, at night that I shall
be obliged to lie on the couch.'

Albine laid her fingers on her lips, and whispered, 'It is the dead
girl--she who once lived here.'

They sniffed the odorous air with forced gaiety, but in reality feeling
very troubled. Certainly never before had the room exhaled such a
disquieting aroma. The very walls seemed to be still echoing the faint
rustling of perfumed skirts; and the floor had retained the fragrance of
satin slippers dropped by the bedside, and near the head of the bed
itself Serge thought he could trace the imprint of a little hand, which
had left behind it a clinging scent of violets. Over all the furniture
the phantom presence of the dead girl still lingered fragrantly.

'See, this is the armchair where she used to sit,' cried Albine; 'there
is the scent of her shoulders at the back of it yet.'

She sat down in it herself, and bade Serge drop upon his knees and kiss
her hand.

'You remember the day when I first let you in and said, "Good morrow, my
dear lord!" But that wasn't all, was it? He kissed her hands when the
door was closed. There they are, my hands. They are yours.'

Then they tried to resume their old frolics in order that they might
forget the Paradou, whose joyous murmur they heard ever rising outside,
and that they might no longer think of the pictures nor yield to the
languor-breathing influence of the room. Albine put on an affected
manner, leant back in her chair, and finally laughed at the foolish
figure which Serge made at her feet.

'You stupid!' she said, 'take me round the waist, and say pretty things
to me, since you are supposed to be in love with me. Don't you know how
to make love then?'

But as soon as she felt him clasp her with eager impetuosity, she began
to struggle, and freed herself from his embrace.

'No, no; leave me alone. I can't bear it. I feel as though I were
choking in this room.'

From that day forward they felt the same kind of fear for the room as
they already felt for the garden. Their one remaining harbour of refuge
was now a place to be shunned and dreaded, a spot where they could no
longer find themselves together without watching each other furtively.
Albine now scarcely ventured to enter it, but remained near the
threshold, with the door wide open behind her so as to afford her an
immediate retreat. Serge lived there in solitude, a prey to sickening
restlessness, half-stifling, lying on the couch and vainly trying to
close his ears to the sighs of the soughing park and his nostrils to the
haunting fragrance of the old furniture. At night he dreamt wild
passionate dreams, which left him in the morning nervous and disquieted.
He believed that he was falling ill again, that he would never recover
plenitude of health. For days and days he remained there in silence,
with dark rings round his sleepy eyes, only starting into wakefulness
when Albine came to visit him. They would remain face to face, gazing at
one another sadly, and uttering but a few soft words, which seemed to
choke them. Albine's eyes were even darker than Serge's, and were filled
with an imploring gaze.

Then, after a week had gone by, Albine's visit never lasted more than a
few minutes. She seemed to shun him. When she came to the room, she
appeared thoughtful, remained standing, and hurried off as soon as
possible. When he questioned her about this change in her demeanour
towards him, and reproached her for no longer being friendly, she turned
her head away and avoided replying. He never could get her to tell him
how she spent the mornings that she passed alone. She would only shake
her head, and talk about being very idle. If he pressed her more
closely, she bounded out of the room, just wishing him a hasty
good-night as she disappeared through the doorway. He often noticed,
however, that she had been crying. He observed, too, in her expression
the phases of a hope that was never fulfilled, the perpetual struggling
of a desire eager to be satisfied. Sometimes she seemed quite
overwhelmed with melancholy, dragging herself about with an air of utter
discouragement, like one who no longer had any pleasure in living. At
other times she laughed lightly, her face shone with an expression of
triumphant hope, of which, however, she would not yet speak, and her
feet could not remain still, so eager was she to dart away to what
seemed to her some last certainty. But on the following day, she would
sink again into desperation, to soar afresh on the morrow on the pinions
of renewed hope. One thing which she could not conceal from Serge was
that she suffered from extreme lassitude. Even during the few moments
they spent together she could not prevent her head from nodding, or keep
herself from dozing off.

Serge, recognising that she was unwilling to reply, had ceased to
question her; and, when she now entered his room, he contented himself
with casting an anxious glance at her, fearful lest some evening she
should no longer have strength enough to come to him. Where could she
thus reduce herself to such exhaustion? What perpetual struggle was it
that brought about those alternations of joy and despair? One morning he
started at the sound of a light footfall beneath his window. It could
not be a roe venturing abroad in that manner. Moreover he could
recognise that light footfall. Albine was wandering about the Paradou
without him. It was from the Paradou that she returned to him with all
those hopes and fears and inward wrestlings, all that lassitude which
was killing her. And he could well guess what she was seeking out there,
alone in the woody depths, with all the silent obstinacy of a woman who
has vowed to effect her purpose. After that he used to listen for her
steps. He dared not draw aside the curtain and watch her as she hurried
along through the trees; but he experienced strange, almost painful
emotion, in listening to ascertain what direction she took, whether she
turned to right or to left, whether she went straight on through the
flower-beds, and how far her ramble extended. Amidst all the noisy life
of the Paradou, amidst the soughing chorus of the trees, the rustling of
the streams, and the ceaseless songs of the birds, he could distinguish
the gentle pit-pat of her shoes so plainly that he could have told
whether she was stepping over the gravel near the rivers, the crumbling
mould of the forest, or the bare ledges of the rocks. In time he even
learned to tell, from the sound of her nervous footfall, whether she
came back hopeful or depressed. As soon as he heard her step on the
staircase, he hurried from the window, and he never let her know that he
had thus followed her from afar in her wanderings. But she must have
guessed it, for with a glance she always afterwards told him where she
had been.

'Stay indoors, and don't go out,' he begged her, with clasped hands, one
morning when he saw her still unrecovered from the fatigue of the
previous day. 'You drive me to despair.'

But she hastened away in irritation. The garden, now that it rang with
Albine's footfalls, seemed to have a more depressing influence than ever
upon Serge. The pit-pat of her feet was yet another voice that called
him; an imperious voice that echoed ever more and more loudly within
him. He closed his ears and tried to shut out the sound, but the distant
footsteps still echoed to him in the throbbings of his heart. And when
she came back, in the evening, it was the whole park that came back with
her, with the memories of their walks together, and of the slow dawn of
their love, in the midst of conniving nature. She seemed to have grown
taller and graver, mellowed, matured by her solitary rambles. There was
nothing left in her of the frolicsome child, and his teeth would
suddenly set at times when he looked at her and beheld her so desirable.

One day, about noon, Serge heard Albine returning in hot haste. He had
restrained himself from listening for her steps when she went away.
Usually, she did not return till late, and he was amazed at her
impetuosity as she sped along, forcing her way through the branches that
barred her path. As she passed beneath his window, he heard her laugh;
and as she mounted the stairway, she panted so heavily that he almost
thought he could feel her hot breath streaming against his face. She
threw the door wide open, and cried out: 'I have found it!'

Then she sat down and repeated softly, breathlessly: 'I have found it! I
have found it!'

Serge, distracted, laid his fingers on her lips, and stammered: 'Don't
tell me anything, I beg you. I want to know nothing of it. It will kill
me, if you speak.'

Then she sank into silence with gleaming eyes and lips tightly pressed
lest the words she kept back should spring out in spite of her. And she
stayed in the room till evening, trying to meet Serge's glance, and
imparting to him, each time that their eyes met, something of that which
she had discovered. Her whole face beamed with radiance, she exhaled a
delicious odour, she was full of life; and Serge felt that she permeated
him through all his senses. Despairingly did he struggle against this
gradual invasion of his being.

On the morrow she returned to his room as soon as she was up.

'Aren't you going out?' he asked, conscious that he would be vanquished
should she remain there.

'No,' she said; she wasn't going out any more. As by degrees she
recovered from her fatigue he felt her becoming stronger, more
triumphant. She would soon be able to take him by the hand and drag him
to that spot, whose charm her silence proclaimed so loudly. That day,
however, she did not speak; she contented herself with keeping him
seated on a cushion at her feet. It was not till the next morning that
she ventured to say: 'Why do you shut yourself up here? It is so
pleasant under the trees.'

He rose from her feet, and stretched out his arms entreatingly. But she
laughed at him.

'Well, well, then, we won't go out, since you would rather
not. . . . But this room has such a strange scent, and we should be
much more comfortable in the garden. It is very wrong of you to have
taken such a dislike to it.'

He had again settled himself at her feet in silence, his eyelids
lowered, his features quivering with passionate emotion.

'We won't go out,' she repeated, 'so don't worry. But do you really
prefer these pictures to the grass and flowers in the park? Do you
remember all we saw together? It is these paintings which make us feel
so unhappy. They are a nuisance, always looking and watching us as they
do.'

As Serge gradually leant more closely against her, she passed her arm
round his neck and laid his head upon her lap, while murmuring in yet a
lower tone: 'There is a little corner there I know, where we might be so
very happy. Nothing would trouble us there; the fresh air would cool
your feverishness.'

Then she stopped, as she felt him quivering. She was afraid lest she
might again revive his old fears. But she gradually conquered him merely
by the caressing gaze of her blue eyes. His eyelids were now raised, and
he rested there quietly, wholly hers, his tremor past.

'Ah! if you only knew!' she softly breathed; and seeing that he
continued to smile, she went on boldly: 'It is all a lie; it is not
forbidden. You are a man now and ought not to be afraid. If we went
there, and any danger threatened me, you would protect me, you would
defend me, would you not? You could carry me off on your back, couldn't
you? I am never the least afraid when I have you with me. Look how
strong your arms have grown. What is there for any one with such strong
arms as yours to be afraid of?'

She caressed him beguilingly as she spoke, stroking his hair and neck
and shoulders with her hand.

'No, it is not forbidden,' she resumed. 'That is only a story for
stupids, and was invented, long ago, by some one who didn't want to be
disturbed in the most charming spot in the whole garden. As soon as you
sat down on that grassy carpet, you would be happy and well again.
Listen, then, come with me.'

He shook his head but without any sign of vexation, as though indeed he
liked thus being teased. Then after a short silence, grieved to see her
pouting, and longing for a renewal of her caresses, he opened his lips
and asked: 'Where is it?'

She did not answer him immediately. Her eyes seemed to be wandering far
away: 'It is over yonder,' she murmured at last. 'I cannot explain to
you clearly. One has to go down the long avenue, and then to turn to the
left, and then again to the left. We must have passed it at least a
score of times. You might look for it for ever without finding it, if I
didn't go with you to show you. I could find my way to it quite
straight, though I could never explain it to you.'

'And who took you there?'

'I don't know. That morning the trees and plants seemed to drive me
there. The long branches pushed me on, the grass bent down before me
invitingly, the paths seemed to open expressly for me to take them. And
I believe the animals themselves helped to lead me there, for I saw a
stag trotting on before me as though he wanted me to follow; while a
company of bullfinches flitted on from tree to tree, and warned me with
their cries whenever I was about to take a wrong direction.'

'And is it very beautiful?'

Again she did not reply. Deep ecstasy filled her eyes; at last, when she
was able to speak again, she said: 'Ah! so beautiful, that I could never
tell you of it. I was so charmed that I was conscious only of some
supreme joy, which I could not name, falling from the leaves and
slumbering amid the grass. And I ran back here to take you along with me
that I might not be without you.'

Then she clasped her arms round his neck again, and entreated him
passionately, her lips almost pressed to his own.

'Oh! you will come!' she stammered; 'you must come; you will make me so
miserable if you don't. You can't want me to be miserable. . . . And
even if you knew that you would die there, even if that shade should be
fatal to both of us, would you hesitate or cast a regretful look behind?
We should remain there, at the foot of the tree, and sleep on quietly
for ever, in one anther's arms. Ah! would it not be bliss indeed?'

'Yes, yes!' he stammered, transported by her passionate entreaties.

'But we shall not die,' she continued, raising her voice, and laughing
with the laugh which proclaims woman's victory; 'we shall live to love
each other. It is a tree of life, a tree whose shadow will make us
stronger, more perfect, more complete. You will see that all will now go
happily. Some blessed joy will assuredly descend on us from heaven! Will
you come?'

His face paled, and his eyelids quivered, as though too powerful a light
were suddenly beating against them.

'Will you come? will you come?' she cried again, yet more passionately,
and already half rising to her feet.

He sprang up and followed her, at first with tottering steps and then
with his arm thrown round her waist, as if he could endure no separation
from her. He went where she went, carried along in the warm fragrance
that streamed from her hair. And as he thus remained slightly in the
rear, she turned upon him a face so radiant with love, such tempting
lips and eyes, which so imperiously bade him follow, that he would have
gone with her anywhere, trusting and unquestioning, like a dog.

XV


They went down and out into the garden without the smile fading from
Serge's face. All that he saw of the greenery around him was such as was
reflected in the clear depths of Albine's eyes. As they approached, the
garden smiled and smiled again, a murmur of content sped from leaf to
leaf and from bough to bough to the furthest depths of the avenues. For
days and days the garden must have been hoping and expecting to see them
thus, clinging to one another, making their peace again with the trees
and searching for their lost love on the grassy banks. A solemn warning
breath sighed through the branches; the afternoon sky was drowsy with
heat; the plants raised their bowing heads to watch them pass.

'Listen,' whispered Albine. 'They drop into silence as we come near
them; but over yonder they are expecting us, they are telling each other
the way they must lead us. . . . I told you we should have no trouble
about the paths, the trees themselves will direct us with their
spreading arms.'

The whole park did, indeed, appear to be impelling them gently onward.
In their rear it seemed as if a barrier of brush-wood had bristled up to
prevent them from retracing their steps; while, in front of them, the
grassy lawns spread out so invitingly, that they glided along the soft
slopes, without thought of choosing their way.

'And the birds are coming with us, too,' said Albine. 'It is the tomtits
this time. Don't you see them? They are skimming over the hedges, and
they stop at each turning to see that we don't lose our way.' Then she
added: 'All the living things of the park are with us. Can't you hear
them? There is a deep rustling close behind us. It is the birds in the
trees, the insects in the grass, the roebucks and the stags in the
coppices, and even the little fishes splashing the quiet water with
their beating fins. Don't turn round, or you will frighten them. Ah! I
am sure we have a rare train behind us.'

They still walked on, unfatigued. Albine spoke only to charm Serge with
the music of her voice, while Serge obeyed the slightest pressure of her
hand. They knew not what they passed, but they were certain that they
were going straight towards their goal. And as they went along, the
garden became gradually graver, more discreet; the soughing of the
branches died away, the streams hushed their plashing waters, the birds,
the beasts, and the insects fell into silence. All around them reigned
solemn stillness.

Then Albine and Serge instinctively raised their heads. In front of them
they beheld a colossal mass of foliage; and, as they hesitated for a
moment, a roe, after gazing at them with its sweet soft eyes, bounded
into the thickets.

'It is there,' said Albine.

She led the way, her face again turned towards Serge, whom she drew with
her, and they disappeared amid the quivering leaves, and all grew quiet
again. They were entering into delicious peace.

In the centre there stood a tree covered with so dense a foliage that
one could not recognise its species. It was of giant girth, with a trunk
that seemed to breathe like a living breast, and far-reaching boughs
that stretched like protecting arms around it. It towered up there
beautiful, strong, virile, and fruitful. It was the king of the garden,
the father of the forest, the pride of the plants, the beloved of the
sun, whose earliest and latest beams smiled daily on its crest. From its
green vault poured all the joys of creation: fragrance of flowers, music
of birds, gleams of golden light, wakeful freshness of dawn, slumbrous
warmth of evening twilight. So strong was the sap that it burst through
the very bark, bathing the tree with the powers of fruitfulness, making
it the symbol of earth's virility. Its presence sufficed to give the
clearing an enchanting charm. The other trees built up around it an
impenetrable wall, which isolated it as in a sanctuary of silence and
twilight. There was but greenery there, not a scrap of sky, not a
glimpse of horizon; nothing but a swelling rotunda, draped with green
silkiness of leaves, adorned below with mossy velvet. And one entered,
as into the liquid crystal of a source, a greenish limpidity, a sheet of
silver reposing beneath reflected reeds. Colours, perfumes, sounds,
quivers, all were vague, indeterminate, transparent, steeped in a
felicity amidst which everything seemed to faint away. Languorous
warmth, the glimmer of a summer's night, as it fades on the bare
shoulder of some fair girl, a scarce perceptible murmur of love sinking
into silence, lingered beneath the motionless branches, unstirred by the
slightest zephyr. It was hymeneal solitude, a chamber where Nature lay
hidden in the embraces of the sun.

Albine and Serge stood there in an ecstasy of joy. As soon as the tree
had received them beneath its shade, they felt eased of all the anxious
disquiet which had so long distressed them. The fears which had made
them avoid each other, the fierce wrestling of spirit which had torn and
wounded them, without consciousness on their part of what they were
really contending against, vanished, and left them in perfect peace.
Absolute confidence, supreme serenity, now pervaded them, they yielded
unhesitatingly to the joy of being together in that lonely nook, so
completely hidden from the outside world. They had surrendered
themselves to the garden, they awaited in all calmness the behests of
that tree of life. It enveloped them in such ecstasy of love that the
whole clearing seemed to disappear from before their eyes, and to leave
them wrapped in an atmosphere of perfume.

'The air is like ripe fruit,' murmured Albine.

And Serge whispered in his turn: 'The grass seems so full of life and
motion, that I could almost think I was treading on your dress.'

It was a kind of religious feeling which made them lower their voices.
No sentiment of curiosity impelled them to raise their heads and scan
the tree. The consciousness of its majesty weighed heavily upon them.
With a glance Albine asked whether she had overrated the enchantment of
the greenery, and Serge answered her with two tears that trickled down
his cheeks. The joy that filled them at being there could not be
expressed in words.

'Come,' she whispered in his ear, in a voice that was softer than a
sigh.

And she glided on in front of him, and seated herself at the very foot
of the tree. Then, with a fond smile, she stretched out her hands to
him; while he, standing before her, grasped them in his own with a
responsive smile. Then she drew him slowly towards her and he sank down
by her side.

'Ah! do you remember,' he said, 'that wall which seemed to have grown up
between us? Now there is nothing to keep us apart--you are not unhappy
now?'

'No, no,' she answered; 'very happy.'

For a moment they relapsed into silence whilst soft emotion stole over
them. Then Serge, caressing Albine, exclaimed: 'Your face is mine; your
eyes, your mouth, your cheeks are mine. Your arms are mine, from your
shoulders to the tips of your nails. You are wholly mine.' And as he
spoke he kissed her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. He kissed her arms, with
quick short kisses, from her fingers to her shoulders. He poured upon
her a rain of kisses hot as a summer shower, deluging her cheeks, her
forehead, her lips, and her neck.

'But if you are mine, I am yours,' said he; 'yours for ever; for I now
well know that you are my queen, my sovereign, whom I must worship on
bended knee. I am here only to obey you, to lie at your feet, to
anticipate your wishes, to shelter you with my arms, to drive away
whatever might trouble your tranquillity. And you are my life's goal.
Since I first awoke in this garden, you have ever been before me; I have
grown up that I might be yours. Ever, as my end, my reward, have I gazed
upon your grace. You passed in the sunshine with the sheen of your
golden hair; you were a promise that I should some day know all the
mysteries and necessities of creation, of this earth, of these trees,
these waters, these skies, whose last secret is yet unrevealed. I belong
to you; I am your slave; I will listen to you and obey you, with my lips
upon your feet.'

He said this, bowed to the ground, adoring Woman. And Albine, full of
pride, allowed herself to be adored. She yielded her hands, her cheeks,
her lips, to Serge's rapturous kisses. She felt herself indeed a queen
as she saw him, who was so strong, bending so humbly before her. She had
conquered him, and held him there at her mercy. With a single word she
could dispose of him. And that which helped her to recognise her
omnipotence was that she heard the whole garden rejoicing at her
triumph, with gradually swelling paeans of approval.

'Ah! if we could fly off together, if we could but die even, in one
another's arms,' faltered Serge, scarce able to articulate. But Albine
had strength enough to raise her finger as though to bid him listen.

It was the garden that had planned and willed it all. For weeks and
weeks it had been favouring and encouraging their passion, and at last,
on that supreme day, it had lured them to that spot, and now it became
the Tempter whose every voice spoke of love. From the flower-beds, amid
the fragrance of the languid blossoms, was wafted a soft sighing, which
told of the weddings of the roses, the love-joys of the violets; and
never before had the heliotropes sent forth so voluptuous a perfume.
Mingled with the soft air which arose from the orchard were all the
exhalations of ripe fruit, the vanilla of apricots, the musk of oranges,
all the luscious aroma of fruitfulness. From the meadows came fuller
notes, the million sighs of the sun-kissed grass, the multitudinous
love-plaints of legions of living things, here and there softened by the
refreshing caresses of the rivulets, on whose banks the very willows
palpitated with desire. And the forest proclaimed the mighty passion of
the oaks. Through the high branches sounded solemn music, organ strains
like the nuptial marches of the ashes and the birches, the hornbeams and
the planes, while from the bushes and the young coppices arose noisy
mirth like that of youthful lovers chasing one another over banks and
into hollows amid much crackling and snapping of branches. From afar,
too, the faint breeze wafted the sounds of the rocks splitting in their
passion beneath the burning heat, while near them the spiky plants loved
in a tragic fashion of their own, unrefreshed by the neighbouring
springs, which themselves glowed with the love of the passionate sun.

'What do they say?' asked Serge, half swooning, as Albine pressed him to
her bosom. The voices of the Paradou were growing yet more distinct. The
animals, in their turn, joined in the universal song of nature. The
grasshoppers grew faint with the passion of their chants; the
butterflies scattered kisses with their beating wings. The amorous
sparrows flew to their mates; the rivers rippled over the loves of the
fishes; whilst in the depths of the forest the nightingales sent forth
pearly, voluptuous notes, and the stags bellowed their love aloud.
Reptiles and insects, every species of invisible life, every atom of
matter, the earth itself joined in the great chorus. It was the chorus
of love and of nature--the chorus of the whole wide world; and in the
very sky the clouds were radiant with rapture, as to those two children
Love revealed the Eternity of Life.

XVI


Albine and Serge smiled at one another.

'I love you, Albine,' said Serge.

'Serge, I love you,' Albine answered.

And never before had those syllables 'I love you' had for them so
supreme a meaning. They expressed everything. Joy pervaded those young
lovers, who had attained to the fulness of life. They felt that they
were now on a footing of equality with the forces of the world; and with
their happiness mingled the placid conviction that they had obeyed the
universal law. And Serge seemed to have awakened to life, lion-like, to
rule the whole far expanse under the free heavens. His feet planted
themselves more firmly on the ground, his chest expanded, there was
pride and confidence in his gait and demeanour. He took Albine by the
hands, she was trembling, and he was obliged to support her.

'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'you are she whom I love.'

It was Albine now who had become the submissive one. She drooped her
head upon his shoulder, glancing up at him with anxious scrutiny. Would
he never bear her spite for that hour of adoration in which he had
called himself her slave? But he smiled, and stroked her hair, while she
said to him: 'Let me stay like this, in your arms, for I cannot walk
without you. I will make myself so small and light, that you will
scarcely know I am there.' Then becoming very serious she added, 'You
must always love me; and I will be very obedient and do whatever you
wish. I will yield to you in all things if you but love me.'

Serge felt more powerful and virile on seeing her so humble. 'Why are
you trembling so?' he asked her; 'I can have no cause to reproach you.'

But she did not answer him, she gazed almost sadly upon the tree and the
foliage and the grass around them.

'Foolish child!' he said, laughing; 'are you afraid that I shall be
angry with you for your love? We have loved as we were meant to love.
Let me kiss you.'

But, dropping her eyelids so that she might not see the tree, she said,
in a low whisper, 'Take me away!'

Serge led her thence, pacing slowly and giving one last glance at the
spot which love had hallowed. The shadows in the clearing were growing
darker, and a gentle quiver coursed through the foliage. When they
emerged from the wood and caught sight of the sun, still shining
brightly in the horizon, they felt easier. Everything around Serge now
seemed to bend down before him and pay homage to his love. The garden
was now nothing but an appanage of Albine's beauty, and seemed to have
grown larger and fairer amid the love-kisses of its rulers.

But Albine's joy was still tinged with disquietude. She would suddenly
pause amid her laughter and listen anxiously.

'What is the matter?' asked Serge.

'Nothing,' she replied, casting furtive glances behind her.

They did not know in what out-of-the-way corner of the park they were.
To lose themselves in their capricious wanderings only served to amuse
them as a rule; but that day they experienced anxious embarrassment. By
degrees they quickened their pace, plunging more and more deeply into a
labyrinth of bushes.

'Don't you hear?' asked Albine, nervously, as she suddenly stopped
short, almost breathless.

Serge listened, a prey, in his turn, to the anxiety which the girl could
no longer conceal.

'All the coppice seems full of voices,' she continued. 'It sounds as
though there were people deriding us. Listen! Wasn't that a laugh that
sounded from that tree? And over yonder did not the grass murmur
something as my dress brushed against it?'

'No, no,' he said, anxious to reassure her, 'the garden loves us; and,
if it said anything, it would not be to vex or annoy us. Don't you
remember all the sweet words which sounded through the leaves? You are
nervous and fancy things.'

But she shook her head and faltered: 'I know very well that the garden
is our friend. . . . So it must be some one who has broken into it. I am
certain I hear some one. I am trembling all over. Oh! take me away and
hide me somewhere, I beseech you.'

Then they went on again, scanning every tree and bush, and imagining
that they could see faces peering at them from behind every trunk.
Albine was certain, she said, that there were steps pursuing them in the
distance. 'Let us hide ourselves,' she begged.

She had turned quite scarlet. It was new-born modesty, a sense of shame
which had laid hold of her like a fever, mantling over the snowy
whiteness of her skin, which never previously had known that flush.
Serge was alarmed at seeing her thus crimson, her face full of distress,
her eyes brimming with tears. He tried to clasp her in his arms again
and to soothe her with a caress; but she slipped away from him, and,
with a despairing gesture, made sign that they were not alone. And her
blushes grew deeper as her eyes fell upon her bare arms. She shuddered
when her loose hanging hair stirred against her neck and shoulders. The
slightest touch of a waving bough or a passing insect, the softest
breath of air, now made her tremble as if some invisible hand were
grasping at her.

'Calm yourself,' begged Serge, 'there is no one. You are as crimson as
though you had a fever. Let us rest here for a moment. Do; I beg you.'

She had no fever at all, she said, but she wanted to get back as quickly
as possible, so that no one might laugh at her. And, ever increasing her
pace, she plucked handfuls of leaves and tendrils from the hedges, which
she entwined about her. She fastened a branch of mulberry over her hair,
twisted bindweed round her arms, and tied it to her wrists, and circled
her neck with such long sprays of laurustinus, that her bosom was hidden
as by a veil of leaves.

And that shame of hers proved contagious. Serge, who first had jested,
asking her if she were going to a ball, glanced at himself, and likewise
felt alarmed and ashamed, to a point that he also wound foliage about
his person.

Meantime, they could discover no way out of the labyrinth of bushes, but
all at once, at the end of the path, they found themselves face to face
with an obstacle, a tall, grey, grave mass of stone. It was the wall of
the Paradou.

'Come away! come away!' cried Albine.

And she sought to drag him thence; but they had not taken another twenty
steps before they again came upon the wall. They then skirted it at a
ran, panic-stricken. It stretched along, gloomy and stern, without a
break in its surface. But suddenly, at a point where it fringed a
meadow, it seemed to fall away. A great breach gaped in it, like a huge
window of light opening on to the neighbouring valley. It must have been
the very hole that Albine had one day spoken of, which she said she had
blocked up with brambles and stones. But the brambles now lay scattered
around like severed bits of rope, the stones had been thrown some
distance away, and the breach itself seemed to have been enlarged by
some furious hand.

XVII


'Ah! I felt sure of it,' cried Albine, in accents of supreme despair. 'I
begged you to take me away--Serge, I beseech you, don't look through
it.'

But Serge, in spite of himself, stood rooted to the ground, on the
threshold of the breach through which he gazed. Down below, in the
depths of the valley, the setting sun cast a sheet of gold upon the
village of Les Artaud, which showed vision-like amidst the twilight in
which the neighbouring fields were already steeped. One could plainly
distinguish the houses that straggled along the high road; the little
yards with their dunghills, and the narrow gardens planted with
vegetables. Higher up, the tall cypress in the graveyard reared its
dusky silhouette, and the red tiles on the church glowed brazier-like,
the dark bell looking down on them like a human face, while the old
parsonage at the side threw its doors and windows open to the evening
air.

'For pity's sake,' sobbed Albine, 'don't look out, Serge. Remember that
you promised you would always love me. Ah! will you ever love me enough,
now? Stay, let me cover your eyes with my hands. You know it was my
hands that cured you. You won't push me away.'

But he put her from him gently. Then, while she fell down and clung to
his legs, he passed his hands across his face, as though he were wiping
from his brow and eyes some last lingering traces of sleep. It was
yonder, then, that lay the unknown world, the strange land of which he
had never dreamed without vague fear. Where had he seen that country?
From what dream was he awakening, that he felt such keen anguish
swelling up in his breast till it almost choked him? The village was
breaking out into life at the close of the day's work. The men were
coming home from the fields with weary gait, their jackets thrown over
their shoulders; the women, standing by their doors, were beckoning to
them to hasten on; while the children, in noisy bands, chased the fowls
about and pelted them with stones. In the churchyard a couple of
scapegraces, a lad and a girl, were creeping along under the shelter of
the wall in order to escape notice. Swarms of sparrows were retiring to
roost beneath the eaves of the church; and, on the steps of the
parsonage, a blue calico skirt had just appeared, of such spreading
dimensions as to quite block the doorway.

'Oh! he is looking out! he is looking out!' sobbed Albine. 'Listen to
me. It was only just now that you promised to obey me. I beg of you to
turn round and to look upon the garden. Haven't you been very happy in
the garden? It was the garden which gave me to you. Think of the happy
days it has in store for us, what lasting bliss and enjoyment. Instead
of which it will be death that will force its way through that hole, if
you don't quickly flee and take me with you. See, all those people
yonder will come and thrust themselves between us. We were so quite
alone, so secluded, so well guarded by the trees! Oh! the garden is our
love! Look on the garden, I beg it of you on my knees!'

But Serge was quivering. He had began to recollect. The past was
re-awakening. He could distinctly hear the stir of the village life.
Those peasants, those women and children, he knew them. There was the
mayor, Bambousse, returning from Les Olivettes, calculating how much the
approaching vintage would yield him; there were the Brichets, the
husband crawling along, and the wife moaning with misery. There was
Rosalie flirting with big Fortune behind a wall. He recognised also the
pair in the churchyard, that mischievous Vincent and that bold hussy
Catherine, who were catching big grasshoppers amongst the tombstones.
Yes, and they had Voriau, the black dog, with them, helping them and
ferreting about in the dry grass, and sniffing at every crack in the old
stones. Under the eaves of the church the sparrows were twittering and
bickering before going to roost. The boldest of them flew down and
entered the church through the broken windows, and, as Serge followed
them with his eyes, he recollected all the noise they had formerly made
below the pulpit and on the step by the altar rails, where crumbs were
always put for them. And that was La Teuse yonder, on the parsonage
doorstep, looking fatter than ever in her blue calico dress. She was
turning her head to smile at Desiree, who was coming up from the yard,
laughing noisily. Then they both vanished indoors, and Serge, distracted
with all these revived memories, stretched out his arms.

'It is all over now,' faltered Albine, as she sank down amongst the
broken brambles. 'You will never love me enough again.'

She wept, while Serge stood rooted by the breach, straining his ears to
catch the slightest sound that might be wafted from the village,
waiting, as it were, for some voice that might fully awaken him. The
bell in the church-tower had begun to sway, and slowly through the quiet
evening air the three chimes of the _Angelus_ floated up to the Paradou.
It was a soft and silvery summons. The bell now seemed to be alive.

'O God!' cried Serge, falling on his knees, quite overcome by the
emotion which the soft notes of the bell had excited in him.

He bent down towards the ground, and he felt the three peals of the
_Angelus_ pass over his neck and echo through his heart. The voice of
the bell seemed to grow louder. It was raised again sternly, pitilessly,
for a few moments which seemed to him to be years. It summoned up before
him all his old life, his pious childhood, his happy days at the
seminary, and his first Masses in that burning valley of Les Artaud,
where he had dreamt of a solitary, saintly life. He had always heard it
speaking to him as it was doing now. He recognised every inflection of
that sacred voice, which had so constantly fallen upon his ears, like
the grave and gentle voice of a mother. Why had he so long ceased to
hear it? In former times it had promised him the coming of Mary. Had
Mary come then and taken him and carried him off into those happy green
fastnesses, which the sound of the bell could not reach? He would never
have lapsed into forgetfulness if the bell had not ceased to ring. And
as he bent his head still lower towards the earth, the contact of his
beard with his hands made him start. He could not recognise his own self
with that long silky beard. He twisted it and fumbled about in his hair
seeking for the bare circle of the tonsure, but a heavy growth of curls
now covered his whole head from his brow to the nape of his neck.

'Ah! you were right,' he said, casting a look of despair at Albine. 'It
was forbidden. We have sinned, and we have merited some terrible
punishment. . . . But I, indeed, I tried to reassure you, I did not hear
the threats which sounded in your ears through the branches.'

Albine tried to clasp him in her arms again as she sobbed out, 'Get up,
and let us escape together. Perhaps even yet there is time for us to
love each other.'

'No, no; I haven't the strength. I should stumble and fall over the
smallest pebble in the path. Listen to me. I am afraid of myself. I know
not what man dwells in me. I have murdered myself, and my hands are red
with blood. If you took me away, you would never see aught in my eyes
save tears.'

She kissed his wet eyes, as she answered passionately, 'No matter! Do
you love me?'

He was too terrified to answer her. A heavy step set the pebbles rolling
on the other side of the wall. A growl of anger seemed to draw nigh.
Albine had not been mistaken. Some one was, indeed, there, disturbing
the woodland quiet with jealous inquisition. Then both Albine and Serge,
as if overwhelmed with shame, sought to bide themselves behind a bush.
But Brother Archangias, standing in front of the breach, could already
see them.

The Brother remained for a moment silent, clenching his fists and
looking at Albine clinging round Serge's neck, with the disgust of a man
who has espied some filth by the roadside.

'I suspected it,' he mumbled between his teeth. 'It was virtually
certain that they had hidden him here.'

Then he took a few steps, and cried out: 'I see you. It is an
abomination. Are you a brute beast to go coursing through the woods with
that female? She has led you far astray, has she not? She has besmeared
you with filth, and now you are hairy like a goat. . . . Pluck a branch
from the trees wherewith to smite her on the back.'

Again Albine whispered in an ardent, prayerful voice: 'Do you love me?
Do you love me?'

But Serge, with bowed head, kept silence, though he did not yet drive
her from him.

'Fortunately, I have found you,' continued Brother Archangias. 'I
discovered this hole. . . . You have disobeyed God, and have slain your
own peace. Henceforward, for ever, temptation will gnaw you with its
fiery tooth, and you will no longer have ignorance of evil to help you
to fight it. It was that creature who tempted you to your fall, was it
not? Do you not see the serpent's tail writhing amongst her hair? The
mere sight of her shoulders is sufficient to make one vomit with
disgust. . . . Leave her. Touch her not, for she is the beginning of
hell. In the name of God, come forth from that garden.'

'Do you love me? Oh! do you love me?' reiterated Albine.

But Serge hastily drew away from her as though her bare arms and
shoulders really scorched him.

'In the name of God! In the name of God!' cried the Brother, in a voice
of thunder.

Serge unresistingly stepped towards the breach. As soon as Brother
Archangias, with rough violence, had dragged him out of the Paradou,
Albine, who had fallen half fainting to the ground, with hands wildly
stretched towards the love which was deserting her, rose up again,
choking with sobs. And she fled, vanished into the midst of the trees,
whose trunks she lashed with her streaming hair.

Book III



                                 I

When Abbe Mouret had said the _Pater_, he bowed to the altar, and went
to the Epistle side. Then he came down, and made the sign of the cross
over big Fortune and Rosalie, who were kneeling, side by side, before
the altar-rails.

'_Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti_.'

'_Amen_,' responded Vincent, who was serving the mass, and glancing
curiously at his big brother out of the corner of his eye.

Fortune and Rosalie bent their heads, affected by some slight emotion,
although they had nudged each other with their elbows when they knelt
down, by way of making one another laugh. But Vincent went to get the
basin and the sprinkler. Fortune placed the ring in the basin, a thick
ring of solid silver. When the priest had blessed it, sprinkling it
crosswise, he returned it to Fortune, who slipped it upon Rosalie's
finger. Her hand was still discoloured with grass-stains, which soap had
not been able to remove.

'_In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti_,' Abbe Mouret murmured
again, giving them a final benediction.

'_Amen_,' responded Vincent.

It was early morning. The sun was not yet shining through the big
windows of the church. Outside one could hear the noisy twittering of
the sparrows in the branches of the service tree, whose foliage shot
through the broken panes. La Teuse, who had not previously had time to
clean the church, was now dusting the altar, craning up on her sound leg
to wipe the feet of the ochre and lake-bedaubed Christ, and arranging
the chairs as quietly as possible; all the while bowing and crossing
herself, and following the service, but not omitting a single sweep of
her feather broom. Quite alone, at the foot of the pulpit, was mother
Brichet, praying in a very demonstrative fashion. She kept on her knees,
and repeated the prayers in so loud a whisper that it seemed as if a
swarm of bluebottles had taken possession of the nave.

At the other end of the church near the confessional, Catherine held an
infant in swaddling clothes. As it began to cry, she turned her back
upon the altar, and tossed it up, and amused it with the bell-rope,
which dangled just over its nose.

'_Dominus vobiscum_,' said the priest, turning round, and spreading out
his hands.

'_Et cum spiritu tuo_,' responded Vincent.

At that moment three big girls came into the church. They were too shy
to go far up, though they jostled one another to get a better view of
what was going on. They were three friends of Rosalie, who had dropped
in for a minute or two on their way to the fields, curious as they were
to hear what his reverence would say to the bride and bridegroom. They
had big scissors hanging at their waists. At last they hid themselves
behind the font, where they pinched each other and twisted themselves
about, while trying to choke their bursts of laughter with their
clenched fists.

'Well,' whispered La Rousse, a finely built girl, with copper-coloured
skin and hair, 'there won't be any scrimmage to get out of church when
it's all over.'

'Oh! old Bambousse is quite right,' murmured Lisa, a short dark girl,
with gleaming eyes; 'when one has vines, one looks after them. Since his
reverence so particularly desired to marry Rosalie, he can very well do
it all alone.'

The other girl, Babet, who was humpbacked, tittered. 'There's mother
Brichet,' she said; 'she is always here. She prays for the whole family.
Listen, do you hear how she's buzzing? All that will mean something in
her pocket. She knows very well what she is about, I can tell you.'

'She is playing the organ for them,' retorted La Rousse.

At this all three burst into a laugh. La Teuse, in the distance,
threatened them with her broom. At the altar, Abbe Mouret was taking the
sacrament. As he went from the Epistle side towards Vincent, so that the
water of ablution might be poured upon his thumb and fore-finger, Lisa
said more softly: 'It's nearly over. He will begin to talk to them
directly.'

'Yes,' said La Rousse, 'and so big Fortune will still be able to go to
his work, and Rosalie won't lose her day's pay at the vintage. It is
very convenient to be married so early in the morning. He looks very
sheepish, that big Fortune.'

'Of course,' murmured Babet. 'It tires him, keeping so long on his
knees. You may be sure that he has never knelt so long since his first
communion.'

But the girls' attention was suddenly distracted by the baby which
Catherine was dangling in her arms. It wanted to get hold of the
bell-rope, and was quite blue with rage, frantically stretching out
its little hands and almost choking itself with crying.

'Ah! so the youngster is there,' said La Rousse.

The baby now burst into still louder wailing, and struggled like a
little Imp.

'Turn it over on its stomach, and let it suck,' said Babet to Catherine.

Catherine lifted up her head, and began to laugh, with the shamelessness
of a little minx. 'It's not at all amusing,' she said, giving the baby a
shake. 'Be quiet, will you, little pig! My sister plumped it down on my
knees.'

'Naturally,' said Babet, mischievously. 'You could scarcely have
expected her to give the brat to Monsieur le Cure to nurse.'

At this sally, La Rousse almost fell over in a fit of laughter. She
leaned against the wall, holding her sides with her hands. Lisa threw
herself against her, and attempted to soothe her by pinching her back
and shoulders; while Babet laughed with a hunchback's laugh, which
grated on the ear like the sound of a saw.

'If it hadn't been for the little one,' she continued, 'Monsieur le Cure
would have lost all use for his holy water. Old Bambousse had made up
his mind to marry Rosalie to young Laurent, of Figuieres.'

However, the girls' merriment and their chatter now came to an end, for
they saw La Teuse limping furiously towards them. At this the three big
hussies felt alarmed, stepped back, and subsided into sedateness.

'You worthless things!' hissed La Teuse. 'You come to talk a lot of
filth here, do you? Aren't you ashamed of yourself, La Rousse? You ought
to be there, on your knees, before the altar, like Rosalie. I will throw
you outside if you stir again. Do you hear?'

La Rousse's copper cheeks were tinged with a rising blush, and Babet
glanced at her and tittered.

'And you,' continued La Teuse, turning towards Catherine, 'just you
leave that baby alone. You are pinching it on purpose to make it scream.
Don't tell me you are not. Give it to me.'

She took the child, hushed it in her arms for a moment, and then laid it
upon a chair, where it went to sleep, peacefully like a cherub. The
church then subsided into solemn quietness, disturbed only by the
chattering of the sparrows on the rowan tree outside. At the altar,
Vincent had carried the missal to the right again, and Abbe Mouret had
just folded the corporal and slipped it within the burse. He was now
saying the concluding prayers with a solemn earnestness, which neither
the screams of the baby nor the giggling of the three girls had been
able to disturb. He seemed to hear nothing of them, but to be wholly
absorbed in the prayers which he was offering up to Heaven for the
happiness of the pair whose union he had just blessed. The sky that
morning was grey with a hazy heat, which veiled the sun. Through the
broken windows a russet vapour streamed into the church, betokening a
stormy day. Along the walls the gaudily coloured pictures of the
Stations of the Cross displayed their red, blue, and yellow patches; at
the bottom of the nave the dry woodwork of the gallery creaked and
strained; and under the doorway the tall grass by the steps thrust
ripening straw, all alive with little brown grasshoppers. The clock, in
its wooden case, made a whirring noise, as though it were some
consumptive trying to clear his throat, and then huskily struck
half-past six.

'_Ite, missa est_,' said the priest, turning round to the congregation.

'_Deo gratias_,' responded Vincent.

Then, having kissed the altar, Abbe Mouret once more turned round, and
murmured over the bent heads of the newly married pair the final
benediction: '_Deus Abraham, Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob vobiscum sit_'
--his voice dying away into a gentle whisper.

'Now, he's going to address them,' said Babet to her friends.

'He is very pale,' observed Lisa. 'He isn't a bit like Monsieur Caffin,
whose fat face always seemed to be on the laugh. My little sister Rose
says that she daren't tell him anything when she goes to confess.'

'All the same,' murmured La Rousse, 'he's not ugly. His illness has aged
him a little, but it seems to suit him. He has bigger eyes, and lines at
the corners of his mouth which make him look like a man. Before he had
the fever, he was too much like a girl.'

'I believe he's got some great trouble,' said Babet. 'He looks as though
he were pining away. His face is deadly pale, but how his eyes glitter!
When he drops his eyelids, it is just as though he were doing it to
extinguish the fire in his eyes.'

La Teuse again shook her broom at them. 'Hush!' she hissed out, so
energetically that it seemed as if a blast of wind had burst into the
church.

Meantime Abbe Mouret had collected himself, and he began, in a rather
low voice:

'My dear brother, my dear sister, you are joined together in Jesus. The
institution of marriage symbolises the sacred union between Jesus and
His Church. It is a bond which nothing can break; which God wills shall
be eternal, so that man may not sever those whom Heaven has joined. In
making you flesh of each other's flesh, and bone of each other's bone,
God teaches you that it is your duty to walk side by side through life,
a faithful couple, along the paths which He, in His omnipotence,
appoints for you. And you must love each other with God-like love. The
slightest ill-feeling between you will be disobedience to the Creator,
Who has joined you together as a single body. Remain, then, for ever
united, after the likeness of the Church, which Jesus has espoused, in
giving to us all His body and blood.'

Big Fortune and Rosalie sat listening, with their noses peaked up
inquisitively.

'What does he say?' asked Lisa, who was a little deaf.

'Oh! he says what they all say,' answered La Rousse. 'He has a glib
tongue, like all the priests have.'

Abbe Mouret went on with his address, his eyes wandering over the heads
of the newly wedded couple towards a shadowy corner of the church. And
by degrees his voice became more flexible, and he put emotion into the
words he spoke, words which he had formerly learned by heart from a
manual intended for the use of young priests. He had turned slightly
towards Rosalie, and whenever his memory failed him, he added sentences
of his own:

'My dear sister, submit yourself to your husband, as the Church submits
itself to Jesus. Remember that you must leave everything to follow him,
like a faithful handmaiden. You must give up father and mother, you must
cleave only to your husband, and you must obey him that you may obey God
also. And your yoke will be a yoke of love and peace. Be his comfort,
his happiness, the perfume of his days of strength, the support of his
days of weakness. Let him find you, as a grace, ever by his side. Let
him have but to reach out his hand to find yours grasping it. It is thus
that you will step along together, never losing your way, and that you
will meet with happiness in the carrying out of the divine laws. Oh! my
dear sister, my dear daughter, your humility will hear sweet fruit; it
will give birth to all the domestic virtues, to the joys of the hearth,
and the prosperity that attends a God-fearing family. Have for your
husband the love of Rachel, the wisdom of Rebecca, the constant fidelity
of Sarah. Tell yourself that a pure life is the source of all happiness.
Pray to God each morning that He may give you strength to live as a
woman who respects her responsibilities and duties; for the punishment
you would otherwise incur is terrible: you would lose your love. Oh! to
live loveless, to tear flesh from flesh, to belong no more to the one
who is half of your very self, to live on in pain and agony, bereft of
the one you have loved! In vain would you stretch out your arms to him;
he would turn away from you. You would yearn for happiness, but you
would find in your heart nothing but shame and bitterness. Hear me, my
daughter, it is in your own conduct, in your obedience, in your purity,
in your love, that God has established the strength of your union.'

As Abbe Mouret spoke these words, there was a burst of laughter at the
other end of the church. The baby had just woke up on the chair where La
Teuse had laid it. But it was no longer in a bad temper. Having kicked
itself free of its swaddling clothes, it was laughing merrily, and
shaking its rosy little feet in the air. It was the sight of these
little feet that made it laugh.

Rosalie, who was beginning to find the priest's address rather tedious,
turned her head to smile at the child. But, when she saw it kicking
about on the chair, she grew alarmed, and cast an angry look at
Catherine.

'Oh! you can look at me as much as you like,' said Catherine. 'I'm not
going to take it any more. It would only begin to cry again.'

And she turned aside to ferret in an ant-hole at a corner of one of the
stone flags under the gallery.

'Monsieur Caffin didn't talk so long,' now remarked La Rousse. 'When he
married Miette, he just gave her two taps on the cheek and told her to
be good.'

My dear brother,' resumed Abbe Mouret, turning towards big Fortune, 'it
is God who, to-day, gives you a companion, for He does not wish that man
should live alone. But, if He ordains that she shall be your servant, He
demands from you that you shall be to her a master full of gentleness
and love. You will love her, because she is part of your own flesh, of
your own blood, and your own bone. You will protect her, because God has
given you strong arms only that you may stretch them over her head in
the hour of danger. Remember that she is entrusted to you, and that you
cannot abuse her submission and weakness without sin. Oh! my dear
brother, what proud happiness should be yours! Henceforth, you will no
longer live in the selfish egotism of solitude. At all hours you will
have a lovable duty before you. There is nothing better than to love,
unless it be to protect those whom we love. Your heart will expand; your
manly strength will increase a hundredfold. Oh! to be a support and
stay, to have a love given into your keeping, to see a being sink her
existence in yours and say, "Take me and do with me what you will! I
trust myself wholly to you!" And may you be accursed if you ever abandon
her! It would be a cowardly desertion which God would assuredly punish.
From the moment she gives herself to you, she becomes yours for ever.
Carry her rather in your arms, and set her not upon the ground until it
be certain that she will be there in safety. Give up everything, my dear
brother--'

But here the Abbe's voice faltered, and only an indistinct murmur came
from his lips. He had quite closed his eyes, his face was deathly white,
and his voice betokened such deep distress that big Fortune himself shed
tears without knowing why.

'He hasn't recovered yet,' said Lisa. 'It is wrong of him to fatigue
himself. See, there's Fortune crying!'

'Men are softer-hearted than women,' murmured Babet.

'He spoke very well, all the same,' remarked La Rousse. 'Those priests
think of a lot of things that wouldn't occur to anybody else.'

'Hush!' cried La Teuse, who was already making ready to extinguish the
candles.

But Abbe Mouret still stammered on, trying to utter a few more
sentences. 'It is for this reason, my dear brother, my dear sister, that
you must live in the Catholic Faith, which alone can ensure the peace of
your hearth. Your families have taught you to love God, to pray to Him
every morning and evening, to look only for the gifts of His mercy--'

He was unable to finish. He turned round, took the chalice off the
altar, and retired, with bowed head, into the vestry, preceded by
Vincent, who almost let the cruets and napkin fall, in trying to see
what Catherine might be doing at the end of the church.

'Oh! the heartless creature!' said Rosalie, who left her husband to go
and take her baby in her arms. The child laughed. She kissed it, and
rearranged its swaddling clothes, while threatening Catherine with her
fist. 'If it had fallen,' she cried out, 'I would have boxed your ears
for you, nicely.'

Big Fortune now came slouching along. The three girls stepped towards
him, with compressed lips.

'See how proud he is,' murmured Babet to the others. 'He is sure of
inheriting old Bambousse's money now. I used to see him creeping along
every night under the little wall with Rosalie.'

Then they giggled, and big Fortune, standing there in front of them,
laughed even louder than they did. He pinched La Rousse, and let Lisa
jeer at him. He was a sturdy young blood, and cared nothing for anybody.
The priest's address had annoyed him.

'Hallo! mother, come on!' he called in his loud voice. But mother
Brichet was begging at the vestry door. She stood there, tearful and
wizen, before La Teuse, who was slipping some eggs into the pocket of
her apron. Fortune didn't seem to feel the least sense of shame. He just
winked and remarked: 'She is a knowing old card, my mother is. But then
the Cure likes to see people at mass.'

Meanwhile, Rosalie had grown calm again. Before leaving the church, she
asked Fortune if he had begged the priest to come and bless their room,
according to the custom of the country. So Fortune ran off to the
vestry, striding heavily through the church, as if it were a field. He
soon reappeared, shouting that his reverence would come. La Teuse, who
was scandalised at the noise made by all these people, who seemed to
think themselves in a public street, gently clapped her hands, and
pushed them towards the door.

'It is all over,' said she; 'go away and get to your work.'

She thought they had all gone, when her eye caught sight of Catherine,
whom Vincent had joined. They were bending anxiously over the ants'
nest. Catherine was poking a long straw into the hole so roughly, that a
swarm of frightened ants had rushed out upon the floor. Vincent
declared, however, that she must get her straw right to the bottom if
she wished to find the queen.

'Ah! you young imps!' cried La Teuse, 'what are you after there? Can't
you leave the poor little things alone? That is Mademoiselle Desiree's
ants' nest. She would be nicely pleased if she saw you!'

At this the children promptly took to their heels.

II


Abbe Mouret, now wearing his cassock but still bareheaded, had come back
to kneel at the foot of the altar. In the grey light that streamed
through the window, his tonsure showed like a large livid spot amidst
his hair; and a slight quiver, as if from cold, sped down his neck. With
his hands tightly clasped he was praying earnestly, so absorbed in his
devotions that he did not hear the heavy footsteps of La Teuse, who
hovered around without daring to disturb him. She seemed to be grieved
at seeing him bowed down there on his knees. For a moment, she thought
that he was in tears, and thereupon she went behind the altar to watch
him. Since his return, she had never liked to leave him in the church
alone, for one evening she had found him lying in a dead faint upon the
flagstones, with icy lips and clenched teeth, like a corpse.

'Come in, mademoiselle!' she said to Desiree, who was peeping through
the vestry-doorway. 'He is still here, and he will lay himself up. You
know you are the only person that he will listen to.'

'It is breakfast-time,' she replied softly, 'and I am very hungry.'

Then she gently sidled up to the priest, passed an arm round his neck,
and kissed him.

'Good morning, brother,' she said. 'Do you want to make me die of hunger
this morning?'

The face he turned upon her was so intensely sad, that she kissed him
again on both his cheeks. He was emerging from agony. Then, on
recognising her, he tried to put her from him, but she kept hold of one
of his hands and would not release it. She would scarcely allow him to
cross himself, but insisted upon leading him away.

'Come! Come! for I am very hungry. You must be hungry too.'

La Teuse had laid out the breakfast beneath two big mulberry trees,
whose spreading branches formed a sheltering roof at the bottom of the
little garden. The sun, which had at last succeeded in dissipating the
stormy-looking vapours of early morning, was warming the beds of
vegetables, while the mulberry-trees cast a broad shadow over the
rickety table, on which were laid two cups of milk and some thick slices
of bread.

'You see how nice it looks,' said Desiree, delighted at breakfasting in
the fresh air.

She was already cutting some of the bread into strips, which she ate
with eager appetite. And as she saw La Teuse still standing in front of
them, she said, 'Why don't you eat something?'

'I shall, presently,' the old servant answered. 'My soup is warming.'

Then, after a moment's silence, looking with admiration at the girl's
big bites, she said to the priest: 'It is quite a pleasure to see her.
Doesn't she make you feel hungry, Monsieur le Cure? You should force
yourself.'

Abbe Mouret smiled as he glanced at his sister. 'Yes, yes,' he murmured;
'she gets on famously, she grows fatter every day.'

'That's because I eat,' said Desiree. 'If you would eat you would get
fat, too. Are you ill again? You look very melancholy. I don't want to
have it all over again, you know. I was so very lonely when they took
you away to cure you.'

'She is right,' said La Teuse. 'You don't behave reasonably, Monsieur le
Cure. You can't expect to be strong, living, as you do, on two or three
crumbs a day, as though you were a bird. You don't make blood; and
that's why you are so pale. Don't you feel ashamed of keeping as thin as
a lath when we are so fat; we who are only women? People will begin to
think that we gobble up everything and leave you nothing but the empty
plates.'

Then both La Teuse and Desiree, brimful of health and strength, scolded
him affectionately. His eyes seemed very large and bright, but empty,
expressionless. He was still gently smiling.

'I am not ill,' he said; 'I have nearly finished my milk.' He had
swallowed two mouthfuls of it, but had not touched the bread.

'The animals, now,' said Desiree, thoughtfully, 'seem to get on much
more comfortably than we do. The fowls never have headaches, have they?
The rabbits grow as fat as ever one wants them to be. And you never saw
my pig looking sad.'

Then, turning towards her brother, she went on with an air of rapture:

'I have named it Matthew, because it is so like that fat man who brings
the letters. It is growing so big and strong. It is very unkind of you
to refuse to come and look at it as you always do. You will come to see
it some day, won't you?'

While she was thus talking she had laid hold of her brother's share of
bread, and was eating away at it. She had already finished one piece,
and was beginning the second, when La Teuse became aware of what she was
doing.

'That doesn't belong to you, that bread! You are actually stealing his
food from him now!'

'Let her have it,' said Abbe Mouret, gently. 'I shouldn't have touched
it myself. Eat it all, my dear, eat it all.'

For a moment Desiree fell into confusion, with her eyes fixed upon the
bread, whilst she struggled to check her rising tears. Then she began to
laugh, and finished the slice.

'My cow,' said she, continuing her remarks, 'is never as sad as you are.
You were not here when uncle Pascal gave her to me, on the promise that
I would be a good girl, or you would have seen how pleased she was when
I kissed her for the first time.'

She paused to listen. A cock crowed in the yard, and a great uproar
followed, with flapping of wings and cackling, grunting, and hoarse
cries as if the whole yard were in a state of commotion.

'Ah! you know,' resumed Desiree, clapping her hands, 'she must be in
calf now. I took her to the bull at Beage, three leagues from here.
There are very few bulls hereabouts, you know.'

La Teuse shrugged her shoulders, and glanced at the priest with an
expression of annoyance.

'It would be much better, mademoiselle,' said she, 'if you were to go
and quiet your fowls. They all seem to be murdering one another.'

Indeed, the uproar in the yard had now become so great that the girl was
already hurrying off with a great rustling of her petticoats, when the
priest called her back. 'The milk, my dear; you have not finished the
milk.'

He held out his cup to her, which he had scarcely touched. And she came
back and drank the milk without the slightest scruple, in spite of La
Teuse's angry look. Then she again set off for the poultry-yard, where
they soon heard her reducing the fowls to peace and order. She had,
perhaps, sat down in the midst of them, for she could be heard gently
humming as though she were trying to lull them to sleep.

III


'Now my soup is too hot!' grumbled La Teuse, as she returned from the
kitchen with a basin, from which a wooden spoon was projecting.

She placed herself just in front of Abbe Mouret, and began to eat very
cautiously from the edge of the spoon. She wanted to enliven the Abbe
and to draw him out of his melancholy moodiness. Ever since he had
returned from the Paradou, he had declared himself well again, and had
never complained. Often, indeed, he smiled in so soft and sweet a
fashion, that his fever seemed to have increased his saintliness, at
least so thought the villagers. But, at intervals, he had fits of gloomy
silence, and appeared to be suffering torture which he strove to bear
uncomplainingly. It was a mute agony which bore down upon him, and, for
hours at a time, left him stupefied, a prey to a frightful inward
struggle, the violence of which could only be guessed by the sweat of
anguish that streamed down his face.

At such times La Teuse refused to leave him, and overwhelmed him with a
torrent of gossip, until he had gradually recovered tranquillity by
crushing the rebellion of his blood. On that particular morning, the old
servant foresaw a more grievous attack than usual, and poured forth an
amazing flood of talk, while continuing her wary manoeuvres with the
spoon, which threatened to burn her tongue.

'Well, well,' said she, 'one has to live among a lot of wild beasts to
see such goings-on. Would any one ever think in a decent village of
being married by candlelight? It shows what a poor sort these Artauds
are. When I was in Normandy, I used to see weddings that threw every one
into commotion for a couple of leagues round. They would feast for three
whole days. The priest would be there, and the mayor, too; and at the
marriage of one of my cousins, all the firemen came as well. And didn't
they have a fine time of it! But to make a priest get up before sunrise
and marry people before even the chickens have left their roost, why,
there's no sense in it! If I had been your reverence, I should have
refused to do it. You haven't had your proper sleep, and you may have
caught cold in the church. It is that which has upset you. Besides which
it would be better to marry brute beasts than that Rosalie and her ugly
lout. That brat of theirs dirtied one of the chairs.--But you ought to
tell me when you feel poorly, and I could make you something warm.--Eh!
Monsieur le Cure, speak to me!'

He answered, in a feeble voice, that he was quite well, and only needed
a little fresh air. He had just leant against one of the mulberry-trees,
and was breathing rather quickly, as if faint.

'Oh! all right,' went on La Teuse, 'do just as you like. Go on marrying
people when you haven't the strength for it, and when you know very well
that it's bound to upset you. I knew how it would be; I told you so
yesterday. And if you took my advice, you wouldn't stay where you are.
The smell of the yard is bad for you. It is frightful just now. I can't
imagine what Mademoiselle Desiree can be stirring about there. She's
singing away, and doesn't seem to mind it at all. Ah! that reminds me of
something I want to tell you. You know that I did all I could to keep
her from taking the cow to Beage; but she's like you, obstinate, and
will go her own way. Fortunately, however, for her, she's none the worse
for it. She delights to be amongst the animals and their young ones. But
come now, your reverence, do be reasonable. Let me take you to your
room. You must lie down and rest a little. What, you don't want to!
Well, then, so much the worse for you, if you suffer! Besides, it's
absurd to keep one's worries locked up in one's heart till they stifle
one.'

Then, in her indignation, she hastily swallowed a big spoonful of soup
at the risk of burning her throat. She rattled the handle of the spoon
against the bowl, muttering and grumbling to herself.

'There never was such a man,' said she. 'He would die rather than say a
word. But it's all very well for him to keep silent. I know quite
enough, and it doesn't require much cleverness to guess the rest. Well!
well! let him keep it to himself. I dare say it is better.'

La Teuse was jealous. Dr. Pascal had had a tremendous fight with her in
order to get her patient away at the time when he had come to the
conclusion that the young priest's case would be quite hopeless if he
should remain at the parsonage. He had then explained to her that the
sound of the bell would aggravate and intensify Serge's fever, that the
religious pictures and statuettes scattered about his room would fill
his brain with hallucinations, and that entirely new surroundings were
necessary if he was to be restored to health and strength and
peacefulness of mind. She, however, had vigorously shaken her head, and
declared that her 'dear child' would nowhere find a better nurse than
herself. Still, she had ended by yielding. She had even resigned herself
to seeing him go to the Paradou, though protesting against this
selection of the doctor's, which astonished her. But she retained a
strong feeling of hatred for the Paradou; and she was hurt by the
silence which Abbe Mouret maintained as to the time he had spent there.
She had frequently laid all sorts of unsuccessful traps to induce him to
talk of it. That morning, exasperated by his ghastly pallor, and his
obstinacy in suffering in silence, she ended by waving her spoon about
and crying:

'You should go back yonder again, Monsieur le Cure, if you were so happy
there--I dare say there is some one there who would nurse you better
than I do.'

It was the first time she had ventured upon a direct allusion to her
suspicions. The blow was so painful to the priest that he could not
check a slight cry, as he raised his grief-racked countenance. At this
La Teuse's kindly heart was filled with regret.

'Ah!' she murmured, 'it is all the fault of your uncle Pascal. I told
him what it would be. But those clever men cling so obstinately to their
own ideas. Some of them would kill you, just for the sake of rummaging
in your body afterwards--It made me so angry that I would never speak of
it to any one. Yes, Monsieur le Cure, you have me to thank that nobody
knew where you were; I was so angry about it. I thought it abominable!
When Abbe Guyot, from Saint-Eutrope, who took your place during your
absence, came to say mass here on Sundays, I told him all sorts of
stories. I said you had gone to Switzerland. I don't even know where
Switzerland is.--Well! well! I surely don't want to say anything to pain
you, but it was certainly over yonder that you got your trouble. Very
finely they've cured you indeed! It would have been very much better if
they had left you with me. I shouldn't have thought of trying to turn
your head.'

Abbe Mouret, whose brow was again lowered, made no attempt to interrupt
her. La Teuse had seated herself upon the ground a few yards away from
him, in order if possible to catch his eye. And she went on again in her
motherly way, delighted at his seeming complacency in listening to her.

'You would never let me tell you about Abbe Caffin. As soon as I began
to speak of him, you always made me stop. Well, well; Abbe Caffin had
had his troubles in my part of the world, at Canteleu. And yet he was a
very holy man, with an irreproachable character. But, you see, he was a
man of very delicate taste, and liked soft pretty things. Well, there
was a young party who was always prowling round him, the daughter of a
miller, whom her parents had sent to a boarding-school. Well, to put it
shortly, what was likely to happen did happen. When the story got about,
all the neighbourhood was very indignant with the Abbe. But he managed
to escape to Rouen, and poured out his grief to the Archbishop there.
Then he was sent here. The poor man was punished quite enough by being
made to live in this hole of a place. I heard of the girl afterwards.
She had married a cattle-dealer, and was very happy.'

La Teuse, delighted at having been allowed to tell her story,
interpreted the priest's silence as an encouragement to continue her
gossiping. So she drew a little nearer to him and said:

'He was very friendly with me, was good Monsieur Caffin, and often spoke
to me of his sin. It won't keep him out of heaven, I'm sure. He can rest
quite peacefully out there under the turf, for he never harmed any one.
For my part, I can't understand why people should get so angry with a
priest when such a thing unhappily befalls him. Of course it's wrong,
and likely to anger God; but then one can confess and repent, and get
absolution. Isn't it so, your reverence, that when one truly repents,
one is saved in spite of one's sins?'

Abbe Mouret slowly raised his head. By a supreme effort he had overcome
his agony, and though his face was still very pale, he exclaimed in a
firm voice, 'One should never sin; never! never!'

'Ah! sir,' cried the old servant, 'you are too proud and reserved. It is
not a nice thing, that pride of yours.--If I were in your place, I would
not harden myself like that. I would talk of what was troubling me, and
not try to rend my heart in pieces. You should reconcile yourself to the
separation gradually. The worry wears off little by little. But, instead
of that, you won't even allow people's names to be uttered. You forbid
them to be mentioned. It is as though they were dead. Since you came
back, I have not dared to tell you the least bit of news. Well, well, I
am going to speak now, and I shall tell you all I know; because I see
quite well that it is all this silence that is preying upon your heart.'

He looked at her sternly, and lifted his finger to silence her.

'Yes, yes,' she went on, 'I get news from over yonder, very often
indeed, and I am going to tell it to you. To begin with, there is some
one there who is no happier than you are.'

'Silence! Silence!' said Abbe Mouret, summoning all his strength to rise
and move away.

But La Teuse also rose and barred his way with her bulky figure. She was
angry, and cried out:

'There, you see, you want to be off already! But you are going to listen
to me. You know quite well that I am not over fond of the people yonder,
don't you? If I talk to you about them, it is for your own good. Some
people say that I am jealous. Well, one day I mean to take you over
there. You would be with me, and you wouldn't be afraid of any harm
happening. Will you go?'

He motioned her away from him with his hands, and his face was calm
again as he said:

'I desire nothing. I wish to know nothing. There is high mass to-morrow.
You must see that the altar is made ready.'

Then, as he walked away, he added, smiling:

'Don't be uneasy, my good Teuse. I am stronger than you imagine. I shall
be able to cure myself without any one's assistance.'

With these words he went off, bearing himself sturdily, with his head
erect, for he had vanquished his feelings. His cassock rustled very
gently against the borders of thyme. La Teuse, who for a moment had
remained rooted to the spot where she was standing, sulkily picked up
her basin and wooden spoon. Then, shrugging her big shoulders again and
again, she mumbled between her teeth:

'That's all bravado of his. He imagines that he is differently made from
other men, just because he is a priest. Well, as a matter of fact, he is
very firm and determined. I have known some who wouldn't have had to be
wheedled so long. And he is quite capable of crushing his heart, just as
one might crush a flea. It must be the Almighty who gives him his
strength.'

As she returned to the kitchen she saw Abbe Mouret standing by the gate
of the farmyard. Desiree had stopped him there to make him feel a capon
which she had been fattening for some weeks past. He told her pleasantly
that it was very heavy, and the big child chuckled with glee.

'Ah! well,' said La Teuse in a fury, 'that bird has got to crush its
heart too. But then it can't help itself.'

IV


Abbe Mouret spent his days at the parsonage. He shunned the long walks
which he had been wont to take before his illness. The scorched soil of
Les Artaud, the ardent heat of that valley where the vines could never
even grow straight, distressed him. On two occasions, in the morning, he
had attempted to go out and read his breviary as he strolled along the
road; but he had not gone beyond the village. He had returned home,
overcome by the perfumes, the heat, the breadth of the landscape. It was
only in the evening, in the cool twilight air, that he ventured to
saunter a little in front of the church, on the terrace which led to the
graveyard. In the afternoons, to fill up his time, and satisfy his
craving for some kind of occupation, he had imposed upon himself the
task of pasting paper over the broken panes of the church windows, This
had kept him for a week mounted on a ladder, arranging his paper panes
with great exactness, and laying on the paste with the most scrupulous
care in order to avoid any mess.

La Teuse stood at the foot of the ladder and watched him. And Desiree
urged that he must not fill up all the windows, or else the sparrows
would no longer be able to get through. To please her, the priest left a
pane or two in each window unfilled. Then, having completed these
repairs, he was seized with the ambition of decorating the church,
without summoning to his aid either mason or carpenter or painter. He
would do it all himself. This sort of handiwork would amuse him, he
said, and help to bring back his strength. Uncle Pascal encouraged him
every time he called at the parsonage, assuring him that such exercise
and fatigue were better than all the drugs in the world. And so Abbe
Mouret began to stop up the holes in the walls with plaster, to drive
fresh nails into the disjoined altars, and to crush and mix paints,
in order that he might put a new coating on the pulpit and
confessional-box. It was quite an event in the district, and folks
talked of it for a couple of leagues round. Peasants would come and
stand gazing, with their hands behind their backs, at his reverence's
work. The Abbe himself, with a blue apron tied round his waist, and his
hands all soiled with his labour, became absorbed in it, and used it as
an excuse for no longer going out. He spent his days in the midst of his
repairs, and was more tranquil than he had been before; almost cheerful,
indeed, as he forgot the outer world, the trees and the sunshine and the
warm breezes, which had formerly disturbed him so much.

'Monsieur le Cure is free to do as he pleases, since the parish hasn't
got to find the money,' said old Bambousse, who came round every evening
to see how the work was progressing.

Abbe Mouret spent all his savings on it. Some of his decorations,
indeed, were so awkward that they would have excited many people's
smiles. The replastering of the stonework soon tired him: so he
contented himself with patching up the church walls all round to a
height of some six feet from the ground. La Teuse mixed the plaster.
When she talked of repairing the parsonage as well, for she was
continually fearing that it would topple down on their heads, he told
her that he did not think he could manage it, that a regular workman
would be necessary; a reply which led to a terrible quarrel between
them. La Teuse said it was quite ridiculous to go on ornamenting the
church, where nobody slept, while their bedrooms were in such a crazy
condition, for she was quite sure they would all be found, one morning,
crushed to death by the fallen ceilings.

'I shall end by bringing my bed here, and placing it behind the altar,'
she grumbled. 'I feel quite terrified sometimes at night.'

However, when the plaster was all used up, she said no more about
repairing the parsonage. The painting which the priest executed quite
delighted her. It was the chief charm of the improvements. The Abbe, who
had repaired the woodwork everywhere with bits of boards, took
particular pleasure in spreading his big brush, dipped in bright yellow
paint, over all this woodwork. The gentle, up-and-down motion of the
brush lulled him, left him thoughtless for hours whilst he gazed on the
oily streaks of paint. When everything was quite yellow, the pulpit, the
confessional-box, the altar rails, even the clock-case itself, he
ventured to try his hand at imitation marble work by way of touching up
the high altar. Then, growing bolder, he painted it all over. Glistening
with white and yellow and blue, it was pronounced superb. People who had
not been to mass for fifty years streamed into the church to see it.

And now the paint was dry. All that remained for Abbe Mouret to do was
to edge the panels with brown beading. So, that afternoon, he set to
work at it, wishing to get it done by evening; for on the following day,
as he had reminded La Teuse, there would be high mass. She was there
ready to arrange the altar. She had already placed on the credence the
candlesticks and the silver cross, the porcelain vases filled with
artificial roses, and the laced cloth which was only used on great
festivals. The beading, however, proved so difficult of execution, that
it was not completed till late in the evening. It was growing quite dark
as the Abbe finished his last panel.

'It will be really too beautiful,' said a rough voice from amidst the
greyish gloom of twilight which was filling the church.

La Teuse, who had knelt down to get a better view of the Abbe's brush as
it glided along his rule, started with alarm.

'Ah! it's Brother Archangias,' she said, turning round. 'You came in by
the sacristy then? You gave me quite a turn. Your voice seemed to sound
from under the floor.'

Abbe Mouret had resumed his work, after greeting the Brother with a
slight nod. The Brother remained standing there in silence, with his fat
hands clasped in front of his cassock. Then, shrugging his shoulders, as
he observed with what scrupulous care the priest sought to make his
beading perfectly straight, he repeated:

'It will be really too beautiful.'

La Teuse, who knelt near by in ecstasy, started again.

'Dear me!' she said, 'I had quite forgotten you were there. You really
ought to cough before you speak. You have a voice that comes on one so
suddenly that one might think it was a voice from the grave.'

She rose up and drew back a little the better to admire the Abbe's work.

'Why too beautiful?' she asked. 'Nothing can be too beautiful when it is
done for the Almighty. If his reverence had only had some gold, he would
have done it with gold, I'm sure.'

When the priest had finished, she hastened to change the altar-cloth,
taking the greatest care not to smudge the beading. Then she arranged
the cross, the candlesticks, and the vases symmetrically. Abbe Mouret
had gone to lean against the wooden screen which separated the choir
from the nave, by the side of Brother Archangias. Not a word passed
between them. Their eyes were fixed upon the silver crucifix, which, in
the increasing gloom, still cast some glimmer of light on the feet and
the left side and the right temple of the big Christ. When La Teuse had
finished, she came down towards them, triumphantly.

'Doesn't it look lovely?' she asked. 'Just you see what a crowd there
will be at mass to-morrow! Those heathens will only come to God's house
when they think He is well-to-do. Now, Monsieur le Cure, we must do as
much for the Blessed Virgin's altar.'

'Waste of money!' growled Brother Archangias.

But La Teuse flew into a tantrum; and, as Abbe Mouret remained silent,
she led them both before the altar of the Virgin, pushing them and
dragging them by their cassocks.

'Just look at it,' said she; 'it is too shabby for anything, now that
the high altar is so smart. It looks as though it had never been painted
at all. However much I may rub it of a morning, the dust sticks to it.
It is quite black; it is filthy. Do you know what people will say about
you, your reverence? They will say that you care nothing for the Blessed
Virgin; that's what they'll say.'

'Well, what of it?' queried Brother Archangias.

La Teuse looked at him, half suffocated by indignation.

'What of it? It would be sinful, of course,' she muttered. 'This altar
is like a neglected tomb in a graveyard. If it were not for me, the
spiders would spin their webs across it, and moss would soon grow over
it. From time to time, when I can spare a bunch of flowers, I give it to
the Virgin. All the flowers in our garden used to be for her once.'

She had mounted the altar steps, and she took up two withered bunches of
flowers, which had been left there, forgotten.

'See! it is just as it is in the graveyards,' she said, throwing the
flowers at Abbe Mouret's feet.

He picked them up, without replying. It was quite dark now, and Brother
Archangias stumbled about amongst the chairs and nearly fell. He growled
and muttered some angry words, in which the names of Jesus and Mary
recurred. When La Teuse, who had gone for a lamp, returned into the
church, she asked the priest:

'So I can put the brushes and pots away in the attic, then?'

'Yes,' he answered. 'I have finished. We will see about the rest later
on.'

She walked away in front of them, carrying all the things with her, and
keeping silence, lest she should say too much. And as Abbe Mouret had
kept the withered bunches of flowers in his hand, Brother Archangias
said to him, as they passed the farmyard: 'Throw those things away.'

The Abbe took a few steps more, with downcast head; and then over the
palings he flung the flowers upon a manure-heap.

V


The Brother, who had already had his own meal, seated himself astride a
chair, while the priest dined. Since Serge's return to Les Artaud, the
Brother had thus spent most of his evenings at the parsonage; but never
before had he imposed his presence upon the other in so rough a fashion.
He stamped on the tiled floor with his heavy boots, his voice thundered
and he smote the furniture, whilst he related how he had whipped some of
his pupils that morning, or expounded his moral principles in terms as
stern, as uncompromising as bludgeon-blows. Then feeling bored, he
suggested that he and La Teuse should have a game at cards. They had
endless bouts of 'Beggar-my-neighbour' together, that being the only
game which La Teuse had ever been able to learn. Abbe Mouret would
smilingly glance at the first few cards flung on the table and would
then gradually sink into reverie, remaining for hours forgetful of his
self-restraint, oblivious of his surroundings, beneath the suspicious
glances of Brother Archangias.

That evening La Teuse felt so cross that she had talked of going to bed
as soon as the cloth was removed. The Brother, however, wanted his game
of cards. So he caught hold of her shoulders and sat her down, so
roughly that the chair creaked beneath her. And forthwith he began to
shuffle the cards. Desiree, who hated him, had gone off carrying her
dessert, which she generally took upstairs with her every evening to eat
in bed.

'I want the red cards,' said La Teuse.

Then the struggle began. The old woman at first won some of the
Brother's best cards. But before long two aces fell together on the
table.

'Here's a battle!' she cried, wild with excitement.

She threw down a nine, which rather alarmed her, but as the Brother, in
his turn, only put down a seven, she picked up the cards with a
triumphant air. At the end of half an hour, however, she had only gained
two aces, so that the chances remained fairly equal. And a quarter of an
hour later she lost an ace. The knaves and kings and queens were
perpetually coming and going as the battle furiously progressed.

'It's a splendid game, eh?' said Brother Archangias, turning towards
Abbe Mouret.

But when he saw him sitting there, so absorbed in his reverie, with such
a gentle smile playing unconsciously round his lips, he roughly raised
his voice:

'Why, Monsieur le Cure, you are not paying any attention to us! It isn't
polite of you. We are only playing on your account. We were trying to
amuse you. Come and watch the game. It would do you more good than
dozing and dreaming away there. Where were you just now?'

The priest started. He said nothing, but with quivering eyelids tried to
force himself to look at the game. The play went on vigorously. La Teuse
won her ace back, and then lost it again. On some evenings they would
fight in this way over the aces for quite four hours, and often they
would go off to bed, angry at having failed to bring the contest to a
decisive issue.

'But, dear me! I've only just remembered it!' suddenly cried La Teuse,
who greatly feared that she was going to be beaten. 'His reverence has
to go out to-night. He promised Fortune and Rosalie that he would go to
bless their room, according to the custom. Make haste, Monsieur le Cure!
The Brother will go with you.'

Abbe Mouret had already risen from his chair, and was looking for his
hat. But Brother Archangias, still holding his cards, flew into a
tantrum: 'Oh! don't bother about it,' said he. 'What does it want to be
blessed for that pigsty of theirs? It is a custom that you should do
away with. I can't see any sense in it. Stay here and let us finish the
game. That is much the best thing to do.'

'No,' said the priest, 'I promised to go. Those good people might feel
hurt if I didn't. You stay here and play your game out while you are
waiting for me.'

La Teuse glanced uneasily at Brother Archangias.

'Well, yes, I will stay here,' cried the Brother. 'It is really too
absurd.'

But before Abbe Mouret could open the door, he flung his cards on the
table and rose to follow him. Then half turning back he called to La
Teuse:

'I should have won. Leave the cards as they are, and we will play the
game out to-morrow.'

'Oh! they are all mixed now,' answered the old servant, who had lost no
time in shuffling them together. 'Did you suppose that I was going to
put your hand away under a glass case? And, besides, I might very well
have won, for I still had an ace left.'

A few strides brought Brother Archangias up with Abbe Mouret, who was
walking down the narrow path that led to the village. The Brother had
undertaken the task of keeping watch over the Abbe's movements. He
incessantly played the spy upon him, accompanying him everywhere, or, if
he could not go in person, sending some school urchin to follow him.
With that terrible laugh of his, he was wont to remark that he was
'God's gendarme.'

And, in truth, the Abbe seemed like a culprit ever guarded by the black
shadow of the Brother's cassock; a culprit to be treated distrustfully,
since in his weakness he might well lapse into fresh crime were he left
free from surveillance for a single moment. Thus he was watched and
guarded with all the spiteful eagerness that some jealous old maid might
have displayed, the overreaching zeal of a gaoler who might carry
precautions so far as to exclude even such rays of light as might creep
through the chinks of the prison-house. Brother Archangias was always on
the watch to keep out the sunlight, to prevent even a whiff of air from
entering, to shut up his prison so completely that nothing from outside
could gain access to it. He noted the Abbe's slightest fits of weakness,
and by his glance divined his tender thoughts, which with a word he
pitilessly crushed, as though they were poisonous vermin. The priest's
intervals of silence, his smiles, the paling of his brow, the faint
quivering of his limbs, were all noted by the Brother. But he never
spoke openly of the transgression. His presence alone was a sufficient
reproach. The manner in which he uttered certain words imparted to them
all the sting of a whip stroke. With a mere gesture he expressed his
utter disgust for the priest's sin. Like one of those betrayed husbands
who enjoy torturing their wives with cruel allusions, he contented
himself with recalling the scene at the Paradou, in an indirect fashion,
by some word or phrase which sufficed to annihilate the Abbe, whenever
the latter's flesh rebelled.

It was nearly ten o'clock and most of the villagers of Les Artaud had
retired to rest. But from a brightly lighted house at the far end, near
the mill, there still came sounds of merriment. While keeping the best
rooms for his own use, old Bambousse had given a corner of his house to
his daughter and son-in-law. They were all assembled there, drinking a
last glass, while waiting for the priest.

'They are drunk,' growled Brother Archangias. 'Don't you hear the row
they are making?'

Abbe Mouret made no reply. It was a lovely night and all looked bluish
in the moonlight, which lent to the distant part of the valley the
aspect of a sleeping lake. The priest slackened his pace that he might
the more fully enjoy the charm of that soft radiance, and now and then
he even stopped as he came upon some expanse of light, experiencing the
delightful quiver which the proximity of fresh water brings one on a hot
day. But the Brother continued striding along, grumbling and calling
him.

'Come along; come along! It isn't good to loiter out of doors at this
time of night. You would be much better in bed.'

All at once, however, just as they were entering the village, Archangias
himself stopped short in the middle of the road. He was looking towards
the heights, where the white lines of the roads vanished amidst black
patches of pine-woods, and he growled to himself, like a dog that scents
danger.

'Who can be coming down so late?' he muttered.

But the priest, who neither saw nor heard anything, was now, in his
turn, anxious to press on.

'Stay! stay! there he is,' eagerly added Brother Archangias. 'He has
just turned the corner. See! he is in the moonlight now. One can see him
plainly. It is a tall man, with a stick.'

Then, after a moment's silence, he resumed, in a voice husky with fury:
'It is he, that beggar! I felt sure it was!'

Thereupon, the new-comer having now reached the bottom of the hill, Abbe
Mouret saw that it was Jeanbernat. In spite of his eighty years, the old
man set his feet down with such force, that his heavy, nailed boots sent
sparks flying from the flints on the road. And he walked along as
upright as an oak, without the aid of his stick, which he carried across
his shoulder like a musket.

'Ah! the villain!' stammered the Brother, still standing motionless.
'May the fiend light all the blazes of hell under his feet!'

The priest, who felt greatly disturbed, and despaired of inducing his
companion to come on, turned round to continue his journey, hoping that,
by a quick walk to the Bambousses' house, he might yet manage to avoid
Jeanbernat. But he had not taken five strides before he heard the
bantering voice of the old man close behind him.

'Hie! Cure! wait for me. Are you afraid of me?'

And as Abbe Mouret stopped, he came up and continued: 'Ah! those
cassocks of yours are tiresome things, aren't they? They prevent your
getting along too quickly. It's such a fine clear night, too, that one
can recognise you by your gown a long way off. When I was right at the
top of the hill, I said to myself, "Surely that is the little priest
down yonder." Oh! yes, I still have very good eyes. . . . Well, so you
never come to see us now?'

'I have had so much to do,' murmured the priest, who had turned very
pale.

'Well, well, every one's free to please himself. If I've mentioned the
matter, it's only because I want you to know that I don't bear you any
grudge for being a priest. We wouldn't even talk about your religion,
it's all one and the same to me. But the little one thinks that it's I
who prevents your coming. I said to her, "The priest is an idiot," and I
think so, indeed. Did I try to eat you during your illness? Why, I
didn't even go upstairs to see you. Every one's free, you know.'

He spoke on in the most unconcerned manner, pretending that he did not
notice the presence of Brother Archangias; but as the latter suddenly
broke into an angry grunt, he added, 'Why, Cure, so you bring your pig
out with you?'

'Take care, you bandit!' hissed the Brother, clenching his fists.

Jeanbernat, whose stick was still raised, then pretended to recognise
him.

'Hands off!' he cried. 'Ah! it's you, you soul-saver! I ought to have
known you by your smell. We have a little account to settle together,
remember. I have sworn to cut off your ears in the middle of your
school. It will amuse the children you are poisoning.'

The Brother fell back before the raised staff, a flood of abuse rising
to his lips; but he began to stammer and went on disjointedly:

'I will set the gendarmes after you, scoundrel! You spat on the church;
I saw you. You give the plague to the poor people who merely pass your
door. At Saint-Eutrope you made a girl die by forcing her to chew a
consecrated wafer which you had stolen. At Beage you went and dug up the
bodies of little dead children and carried them away on your back. You
are an old sorcerer! Everybody knows it, you scoundrel! You are the
disgrace of the district. Whoever strangles you will gain heaven for the
deed.'

The old man listened with a sneer, twirling the while his staff between
his fingers. And between the Brother's successive insults he ejaculated
in an undertone:

'Go on, go on; relieve yourself, you viper. I'll break your back for you
by-and-by.'

Abbe Mouret tried to interfere, but Brother Archangias pushed him away,
exclaiming: 'You are led by him yourself! Didn't he make you trample
upon the cross? Deny it, if you dare!' Then again, turning to
Jeanbernat, he yelled: 'Ah! Satan, you must have chuckled and no mistake
when you held a priest in your grasp! May Heaven curse those who abetted
you in that sacrilege! What was it you did, at night, while he slept?
You came and moistened his tonsure with your saliva, eh? so that his
hair might grow more quickly. And then you breathed upon his chin and
his cheeks that his beard might grow a hand's breadth in a single night.
And you rubbed all your philters into his body, and breathed into his
mouth the lasciviousness of a dog. You turned him into a brute-beast,
Satan.'

'He's idiotic,' said Jeanbernat, resting his stick on his shoulder. 'He
quite bores me.'

The Brother, however, growing bolder, thrust his fists under the old
man's nose.

'And that drab of yours!' he cried, 'you can't deny that you set her on
to damn the priest.'

Then he suddenly sprang backwards, with a shriek, for the old man,
swinging his stick with all his strength, had just broken it over his
back. Retreating yet a little further, Archangias picked from a heap of
stones beside the road a piece of flint twice the size of a man's fist,
and threw it at Jeanbernat. It would surely have split the other's
forehead open if he had not bent down. He, however, now likewise crossed
over to a heap of stones, sheltered himself behind it, and provided
himself with missiles; and from one heap to the other a terrible combat
began, with a perfect hail of flints. The moon now shone very brightly,
and their dark shadows fell distinctly on the ground.

'Yes, yes, you set that hussy on to ruin him!' repeated the Brother,
wild with rage. 'Ah! you are astonished that I know all about it! You
hope for some monstrous result from it all. Every morning you make the
thirteen signs of hell over that minx of yours! You would like her to
become the mother of Antichrist. You long for Antichrist, you villain!
But may this stone blind you!'

'And may this one bung your mouth up!' retorted Jeanbernat, who was now
quite calm again. 'Is he cracked, the silly fellow, with all those
stories of his? . . . Shall I have to break your head for you, before I
can get on my way? Is it your catechism that has turned your brain?'

'Catechism, indeed! Do you know what catechism is taught to accursed
ones like you? Ah! I will show you how to make the sign of the cross.
--This stone is for the Father, and this for the Son, and this for the
Holy Ghost. Ah! you are still standing. Wait a bit, wait a bit. Amen!'
Then he threw a handful of small pebbles like a volley of grape-shot.
Jeanbernat, who was struck upon the shoulder, dropped the stones he was
holding, and quietly stepped forwards, while Brother Archangias picked
two fresh handfuls from the heap, blurting out:

I am going to exterminate you. It is God who wills it. God is acting
through my arm.'

'Will you be quiet!' said the old man, grasping him by the nape of the
neck.

Then came a short struggle amidst the dust of the road, all bluish with
moonlight. The Brother, finding himself the weaker of the two, tried to
bite. But Jeanbernat's sinewy limbs were like coils of rope which
pinioned him so tightly that he could almost feel them cutting into his
flesh. He panted and ceased to struggle, meditating some act of
treachery.

The old man, having got the other under him, scoffingly exclaimed:
'I have a good mind to break one of your arms. You see that it isn't
you who are the stronger, but that it is I who am exterminating
you. . . . Now I'm going to cut your ears off. You have tried my
endurance too far.'

Jeanbernat calmly drew his knife from his pocket. But Abbe Mouret, who
had several times attempted to part the combatants, now raised such
strenuous opposition to the old man's design that he consented to defer
the operation till another time.

'You are acting foolishly, Cure,' said he. 'It would do this scoundrel
good to be well bled; but, since it seems to displease you, I'll wait a
little longer; I shall be meeting him again in some quiet corner.'

And as the Brother broke out into a growl, Jeanbernat cried
threateningly: 'If you don't keep still I will cut your ears off at
once!'

'But you are sitting on his chest,' said the priest, 'get up and let him
breathe.'

'No, no; he would begin his tomfoolery again. I will give him his
liberty when I go away, but not before. . . . Well, I was telling you,
Cure, when this good-for-nothing interrupted us, that you would be very
welcome yonder. The little one is mistress, you know; I don't attempt to
interfere with her any more than I do with my salad-plants. There are
only fools like this croaker here who see any harm in it. Where did you
see anything wrong, scoundrel? It was yourself who imagined it, villain
that you are!'

And thereupon he gave the Brother another shaking. 'Let him get up,'
begged Abbe Mouret.

'By-and-by. The little one has not been well for a long time. I did not
notice anything myself, but she told me; and now I am on my way to tell
your uncle Pascal, at Plassans. I like the night for walking; it is
quiet, and, as a rule, one isn't delayed by meeting people. . . . Yes,
yes, the little one is quite ailing.'

The priest could not find a word to say. He staggered, and his head
sank.

'It made her so happy to look after you,' continued the old man. 'While
I smoked my pipe I used to hear her laugh. That was quite sufficient for
me. Girls are like the hawthorns; when they break out into blossom, they
do all they can. Well, now, you will come, if your heart prompts you to
it. I am sure it would please the little one. Good night, Cure.'

He got up slowly, keeping a firm grasp of the Brother's wrists, to guard
against any treacherous attack. Then he proceeded on his way, with
swinging strides, without once turning his head. The Brother silently
crept to the heap of stones, and waited till the old man was some
distance off. Then, with both hands, and with mad violence, he again
began flinging stones, but they fell harmlessly upon the dusty road.
Jeanbernat did not condescend to notice them, but went his way, upright
like a tree, through the clear night.

'The accursed one!--Satan carries him on!' shrieked Brother Archangias,
as he hurled his last stone. 'An old scoundrel, that the least touch
ought to upset! But he is baked in hell's fire. I smelt his claws.'

The Brother stamped with impotent rage on the scattered flints. Then he
suddenly attacked Abbe Mouret. 'It was all your fault,' he cried; 'you
ought to have helped me, and, between us, we could have strangled him.'

Meantime, at the other end of the village, the uproar in the Bambousses'
house had become greater than ever. The rhythmic tapping of glasses on a
table could be distinctly heard. The priest resumed his walk without
raising his head, making his way towards the flood of bright light that
streamed out of the window like the flare of a fire of vine-cuttings.
The Brother followed him gloomily; his cassock soiled with dust, and one
of his cheeks bleeding from a stone-cut. And, after a short interval of
silence, he asked, in his harsh voice: 'Shall you go?'

Then as Abbe Mouret did not answer, he went on: 'Take care! You are
lapsing into sin again. It was sufficient for that man to pass by to
send a thrill through your whole body. I saw you by the light of the
moon looking as pale as a girl. Take care! take care! Do you hear me?
Another time God will not pardon you--you will sink into the lowest
abyss! Ah! wretched piece of clay that you are, filth is mastering you!'

Thereupon, the priest at last raised his head. Big tears were streaming
from his eyes, and it was in gentle heartbroken accents that he spoke:
'Why do you speak to me like that?--You are always with me, and you know
my ceaseless struggles. Do not doubt me, leave me strength to master
myself.'

Those simple words, bathed with silent tears, fell on the night air
with such an expression of superhuman suffering, that even Brother
Archangias, in spite of all his harshness, felt touched. He made no
reply, but shook his dusty cassock, and wiped his bleeding cheek. When
they reached the Bambousses' house, he refused to go inside. He seated
himself, a few yards away, on the body of an overturned cart, where he
waited for the Abbe with dog-like patience.

'Ah! here is Monsieur le Cure!' cried all the company of Bambousses and
Brichets as Serge entered.

They filled their glasses once more. Abbe Mouret was compelled to take
one, too. There had been no regular wedding-feast; but, in the evening,
after dinner, a ten-gallon 'Dame Jane' had been placed upon the table,
and they were making it their business to empty it before going to bed.
There were ten of them, and old Bambousse was already with one hand
tilting over the jar whence only a thread of red liquor now flowed.
Rosalie, in a very sportive frame of mind, was dipping her baby's chin
into her glass, while big Fortune showed off his strength by lifting up
the chairs with his teeth. All the company passed into the bedroom.
Custom required that the priest should there drink the glass of wine
which had been poured out for him. It brought good luck, and prevented
quarrels in the household. In Monsieur Coffin's time, it had always been
a very merry ceremony, for the old priest loved a joke. He had even
gained a reputation for the skilful way in which he could drain his
glass, without leaving a single drop at the bottom of it; and the Artaud
women pretended that every drop undrunk meant a year's less love for the
newly married pair. But with Abbe Mouret they dare not joke so freely.
However, he drank his wine at one gulp, which seemed to greatly please
old Bambousse. Mother Brichet looked at the bottom of the glass and saw
but a drop or two of the liquid remaining there. Then, after a few
jokes, they all returned to the living room, where Vincent and Catherine
had remained by themselves. Vincent, standing upon a chair, was clasping
the huge jar in his arms, and draining the last drops of wine into
Catherine's open mouth.

'We are much obliged to you, Monsieur le Cure,' said old Bambousse, as
he escorted the priest to the door. 'Well, they're married now, so I
suppose you are satisfied. And they are not likely to complain, I'm
sure. . . . Good night, sleep well, your reverence.'

Brother Archangias had slowly risen from his seat on the old cart.

'May the devil pile hot coals over them, and roast them!' he murmured.

Then without again opening his lips he accompanied Abbe Mouret to the
parsonage. And he waited outside till the door was closed. Even then he
did not go off without twice looking round to make sure that the Abbe
was not coming out again. As for the priest, when he reached his
bedroom, he threw himself in his clothes upon his bed, clasping his
hands to his ears, and pressing his face to the pillow, in order that he
might shut out all sound and sight. And thus stilling his senses he fell
into death-like slumber.