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BOOK III

WHEN Abbé 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 Fortuné 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.

Fortuné 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. Fortuné 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 Fortuné, who slipped it upon Rosalie's finger. Her hand was still discoloured with grassstains, which soap had not been able to remove.

'In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,' Abbé 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, Abbé 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 Fortuné 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 Fortuné.'

'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 Curé 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 Curé would have lost all use for his holy water. Old Bambousse had made up his mind to marry Rosalie to young Laurent, of Figuières.'

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 Abbé 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, Abbé 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 Abbé 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 illfeeling 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 Fortuné 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.'

Abbé 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: