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Updated: June 18, 2025
The breeze, wafted in from the open country, was now laden with that penetrating perfume of verdure, that scent of wildflowers, which Albine had scattered from her bare arms, unfettered bosom, and streaming tresses at the Paradou. 'An accursed soul! a child of perdition! growled Brother Archangias, as he reseated himself at the dinner table.
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.
As a rule, the Brother's sportiveness only disquieted him. La Teuse, as Archangias rolled within her reach, kicked at him with her foot. 'Come! she said, 'are we to have our game to-night? His only reply was a grunt. Then, upon all fours, he sprang towards La Teuse as if he meant to bite her. But in lieu thereof he spat upon her petticoats. 'Let me alone! will you? she cried.
The old servant, however, was troubled by a suspicion, and taking her stand on her sound leg, she looked the young cure in the face. 'So you know the Paradou people? she said. Thereupon he simply told the truth, relating the visit he had paid to old Jeanbernat. La Teuse exchanged scandalised glances with Brother Archangias.
He walked straight to the group that stood around Albine's grave; and he stepped along with so lithe, so springy a gait, that none of them heard him coming. When he was close to them, he remained for a moment behind Brother Archangias and seemed to fix his eyes, for an instant, on the nape of the Brother's neck.
'Oh, no, Abbe Caffin certainly did what he could; but I must own that his efforts were all but barren in results. My own are mostly fruitless. Brother Archangias shrugged his shoulders. He walked on for a minute in silence, swaying his tall bony frame, which looked as if it had been roughly fashioned with a hatchet. The sun beat down upon his neck, shadowing his hard, sword-edged peasant's face.
'She's never taken her first communion, exclaimed La Teuse below her breath with a slight shudder. 'No, never, rejoined Brother Archangias. 'She must be sixteen now. She's growing up like a brute beast. I have seen her running on all fours in a thicket near La Palud. 'On all fours, muttered the servant, turning towards the window with superstitious anxiety.
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.
Meantime, while Voriau led the way before them along the dusty road, Brother Archangias was angrily saying to the priest: 'Let be! Monsieur le Cure, they're spawn of damnation, those toads are! They ought to have their backs broken, to make them pleasing to God. They grow up in irreligion, like their fathers. Fifteen years have I been here, and not one Christian have I been able to turn out.
She was the only miracle of our impious age the blue-robed lady that showed herself to little shepherdesses, the whiteness that gleamed at night between two clouds, her veil trailing over the low thatched roofs of peasant homes. When Brother Archangias coarsely asked him if he had ever espied her, he simply smiled and tightened his lips as if to keep his secret.
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