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Updated: May 20, 2025
He was dressed in the soutane, broad-brimmed hat and buckled shoes habitual to the French CURE, but as he stood opposite the innkeeper, he threw open his soutane for a moment, displaying the tri-colour scarf of officialism, which sight immediately had the effect of transforming Brogard's attitude of contempt, into one of cringing obsequiousness.
Promptly on the first stroke of the hour the Abbe appeared in the north transept of the Cathedral and made his way with quick, decided steps toward the chapel. He was a young man with thick dark hair almost concealed beneath his black three-cornered cap, and as he walked, his long black soutane swung about him in vigorous folds.
What I saw was a man uncommonly tall and well built, dressed in a rusty black soutane that reached in straight lines from beneath his chin to his feet, which were encased in low calf shoes with steel buckles.
The Abbe hesitated, rubbed a spot of mud off his soutane, raised his shoulders like a man lifting a heavy burden, then gave a deep cough.
In that cold courtyard, under the marble figure of Joan of Arc, he was a warm and human and most alive figure, in his flat black shoes, his long black soutane with its woollen sash, his woollen muffler and spectacles, with the eternal cigarette, that is part and parcel of every Belgian, dangling loosely from his lower lip.
He produced four candle-butts from the side-pockets of his soutane and placed them deftly among the coals and twisted papers. Stephen watched him in silence. Kneeling thus on the flagstone to kindle the fire and busied with the disposition of his wisps of paper and candle-butts he seemed more than ever a humble server making ready the place of sacrifice in an empty temple, a levite of the Lord.
"Give it to me," he said; "I will risk it." Christian watched him place the letter within the breast of his "soutane," unread. The two lay-brethren were noting every movement. Presently the priest removed his broad-brimmed hat and passed through the little doorway into the dimly lighted cabin where the dead sailor lay. He left the door ajar.
A few days later, I received an anonymous letter from Orvieto, I think reminding me that a priest suspended a divinis has no right to the soutane. "Let the traitor," it said, "give up the uniform he has disgraced let him at least have the decency to do that." In my trouble I had not thought of it. So I wrote to a friend in Rome to send me clothes. Eleanor's eyes filled with tears.
"Now you tread on dangerous ground, wicked one WICKED! And you so demure in your soutane!" But the Abbe only laughed and held up his small glass after the manner of any abandoned layman drinking a toast. "Madame," he said, "I drink to the hearts you have broken. And now I go to arrange the card tables, for your guests will soon be coming."
He considered a moment longer, and threw off his black soutane, having determined to take to the water, although it was truly a desperate chance, the current running like a mill-race with the ebbing tide, and, moreover, being choked with ice-floes. Ah, there was Blazer's bay, he must lose no time.
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