Why did not Heaven at once strike him dead with its lightning?  That would have been less cruel.  It was with a voluptuous pang, like the pangs which assail the damned, that he recalled his transgression.  He shuddered when he again heard in his heart the abominable words that he had spoken at Albine’s feet.  Their echoes were now accusing him before the throne of God.  He had acknowledged Woman as his sovereign.  He had yielded to her as a slave, kissing her feet, longing to be the water she drank and the bread she ate.  He began to understand now why he could no longer recover self-control.  God had given him over to Woman.  But he would chastise her, scourge her, break her very limbs to force her to let him go!  It was she who was the slave; she, the creature of impurity, to whom the Church should have denied a soul.  Then he braced himself, and shook his fists at the vision of Albine; but his fists opened and his hands glided along her shoulders in a loving caress, while his lips, just now breathing out anger and insult, pressed themselves to her hair, stammering forth words of adoration.

Abbe Mouret opened his eyes again.  The burning apparition of Albine vanished.  It was sudden and unexpected solace.  He was able to weep.  Tears flowed slowly and refreshingly down his cheeks, and he drew a long breath, still fearing to move, lest the Evil One should again grip him by the neck, for he yet thought that he heard the snarl of a beast behind him.  And then he found such pleasure in the cessation of his sufferings that his one thought was to prolong the enjoyment of it.

Outside the rain had ceased falling.  The sun was setting in a vast crimson glow, which spread across the windows like curtains of rose-coloured satin.  The church was quite warm and bright in the parting breath of the sinking luminary.  The priest thanked God for the respite He had been pleased to vouchsafe to him.  A broad ray of light, like a beam of gold-dust, streamed through the nave and illumined the far end of the building, the clock, the pulpit, and the high altar.  Perhaps the Divine grace was returning to him from heaven along that radiant path.  He watched with interest the atoms that came and went with prodigious speed through the ray, like a swarm of busy messengers ever hastening with news from the sun to the earth.  A thousand lighted candles would not have filled the church with such splendour.  Curtains of cloth-of-gold seemed to hang behind the high altar; treasures of the goldsmith’s art covered all the ledges; candle-holders arose in dazzling sheaves; censers glowed full of burning gems; sacred vases gleamed like fiery comets; and around all there seemed to be a rain of luminous flowers amidst waving lacework—­beds, bouquets, and garlands of roses, from whose expanding petals dropped showers of stars.