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Updated: June 22, 2025
Agnes stood for a moment before she too lay down on her hard pallet in the one chamber above that served all four as bedroom. Through the uncurtained window high up in the room the June stars looked down upon her. She had no notion of prayer, except telling beads to Latin Paters and Aves; but the instinct of the awakened spirit rose in something like it.
I pulled the ladder up again, and sat down at the top. Cesar lay down under the gymnasium, his tail straight out, his ears pricked up, his coat bristling, growling in a sullen way. I appealed to the Holy Virgin to help me. I prayed fervently, vowed to say three supplementary Aves, three Credos, and three Paters every day.
Passing the beads of the chaplet more slowly between his fingers, he again began saying his "Aves" and "Paters," whilst his eyelids drooped on his flabby face, to which a childish expression had been returning during the many years that he had been virtually cut off from the world. Meantime Ferrand had signalled to Brother Isidore's sister, Marthe, to come to him.
However, all eloquence here consisted in displaying the strength of one's lungs in a violent delivery of the phrase or cry which the whole crowd had to repeat; for the addresses were nothing more than so much vociferation interspersed with "Ayes" and "Paters."
And they went to and fro, carrying garlands and strewing flowers, so that, although mid-winter, it was like a garden in June, so sweet of roses, and lilies, and gillyflowers. And the angels sang; and when they had finished their work, they said, "It is well," and departed, holding hands and flying into the sky above the fir-trees. And Hilarion wondered greatly, and said five Paters and six Aves.
To this end they gave him a small brass medal, stamped with her image, to be worn at his neck, while they were to repeat a certain number of Aves and Paters, in which he was urgently invited to join; as the result of which, it was hoped the Virgin would appear on the same night.
She was depicted trampling on a grinning knight evidently the devil in one of his many disguises, though as like Prosper as description could provide. Underneath, on the pedestal, ran the legend Sancta Isolda Dei Genetricis Ancilla Ora Pro Nobis. He set this up in his chamber over a faldstool, and said three Paters and nine Aves before it daily.
For that matter, all the folks of the region were superstitious, devout, and simple-minded, the whole countryside being peopled, so to say, with mysteries trees which sang, stones from which blood flowed, cross-roads where it was necessary to say three "Paters" and three "Aves," if you did not wish to meet the seven-horned beast who carried maidens off to perdition.
He might well shut his eyes, and try to collect himself, it was impossible for him at the end of the second ten to follow his prayers; he hesitated, forgetting the large beads of the Paters, losing his way in the small beads of the Aves, stamping on the ground.
He approached and regarded it; then began mumbling aves and paters, running them together as he had not done during the visitation and storm. The stone was outlined with the shape of a man, long, young, and slender. The face was sharply cut, refined, impassioned, and intellectual. A smile of cynical contentment dwelt on the strong mouth. The eyes were fixed on something before him.
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