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.
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.
