his hands upon you. Hypocrites were frank with him, for he had a look that made them shudder. It was through him that the Mulots formed a conception of their God.
“Everything all right, Denis my lad? And when is Gaston going to open his confectionery shop?” Tit-Blanc pricked up his ears at this.
“Next week, I think.”
After whispering to Denis that he too had a fondness for picking apples, the priest went over to Broke Lallemand, who voiced his usual complaint of having no job.
“Gus, can’t you do something for him?”
“The deputy has his name on the list,” replied the president, with an evasive gesture.
“The black list,” said Méo Nolin, who knew all the communist catchwords.
“It’s too bad, but that’s politics for you,” observed Père Didace, a hereditary Liberal.
“With such a government the proletarian will never find work,” declared Adolphe Pomerleau, the leatherworker, who was growing a moustache like Hitler’s.
“It’s the trusts that are devouring us!” cried Bison Langevin.
Adolphe Pomerleau arose majestically and surveyed his audience. He was a small, thin man but he worked his jaws energetically. Running his hand carelessly along the brim of his hat, he began: “It’s the capitalists who have pocketed all the money. And where has all that brought us? To economic liberalism!” He stopped here, staring straight in front of him at the horizon of ideas. Then he lowered his head and sat down, resigned to the explosion which he knew his words would produce.
“Merde!” shouted Langevin. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He at once darted Gus Perrault an apologetic glance, for he had caught the latter’s frown.
“Keep still!” the Abbé Bongrain sternly commanded. “You elect governments, so put up with them. A social system is something more complicated than you think.” The abbé was at heart a great admirer of Laurier.
Tit-Blanc, who was still drunk, now became aggressive. “You can defend the trusts,” he said to the priest; “you’re part of them.”
This created a chill in the room. The men glanced at one another, knowing that they were about to witness an extermination. The Abbé Bongrain clenched his fists behind his back, but he was quite calm as he bent his gaze on Tit-Blanc.
“Yes,” he said, “a trust that twice has saved your job for you. We are members of a trust, but you came to wake us up in the night last year, when your wife was in childbirth.”
Pritontin, on the other hand, was thrown into a small convulsion by the insult which had been offered to the Church. He came forward, pale and trembling. It was an outrage, a thing like that. Imperceptible hiccups rose from the bottom of his throat, as if his anger had been cut to shreds by the sorrow that he felt.
“Drunkard that you are! If that isn’t a terrible thing, I ask you. And they wonder why religion is on the decline!” He looked to the Abbé Bongrain for support, hoping it would be reported to the Monsieur le Curé that he, Anselme Pritontin, the one whom they had passed over, had defended the Church’s cause.
“Shut your mouth, you pillar of the Church,” said Méo Nolin, who liked to hold forth on justice and equality. “Monsieur l’Abbé can take care of himself. And anyway, you’re a Soyeux; you’re not one of us.”
The priest knew how to deal with such stupidity — a gesture would suffice; he knew how to speak the word of truth to the poor, while remaining charitable toward this fellow Tit-Blanc. But of a sudden all the energy and ardour that was in him died down and he appeared to be smiling at his own weakness, at the weakness of humankind. He was thinking of the rows down there in the mines at Thetford, when he was earning the money to pay for his schooling. He had also shared the pleasures of his fellow workers, but he had found them vain and had sought and attained beauty as he conceived it. Today as yesterday, his life was made up of the “incomprehensible” that had come to take on a soul. At the seminary they had looked upon him as a social climber in a cassock, this big lad from the mines who in fits of anger would let drop a “damn” for the simple reason that he had been used to hearing it down under the earth. Was it his fault if such expressions clung to him like twigs even as he mounted heavenward?
He looked the group over, eager to transmit to them all the goodness of the world as seen through his own eyes; he longed to prove to them that they were really big, however small they might feel themselves to be.
Realizing that it was his turn to speak, Père Didace, the club’s oldest member, arose. He cleared his throat, batted his lashes, and assumed the tone of voice that he used at banquets.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “this is no time for speechmaking. But there is one thing I can tell you: my father was a Liberal, and I have been one for forty years, that is to say, ever since I reached the age of reason.”
“It was about time, old Didace,” said Gus Perrault ironically, “for you’re all of sixty now.” Gus was jealous.
“I was born a Catholic, and I’m proud of it. And the Liberal party in its politics is proud to stand side by side with the Church and its principles. Laurier —”
“That’s worth a good cigar.” Once more Gus interrupted him, for he could scarcely conceal his annoyance at not being the only one to make pompous speeches.
Anselme Pritontin by this time had recovered from his breathless indignation. “Are you going to prevent me from entering my protest against the sacrilegious expression that was used here?” he demanded to know. “The Church is a trust! When it has given us everything, religious education, piety, faith, hope, charity, traditions —”
“And chandeliers,” added Tit-Blanc.
This was more than Pritontin’s heart could bear. “If you rail against the Church,” he burst out, “that’s because you are married to a whore. Everybody knows what your Barloute is.”
“Sue him; I’m a witness,” urged Chaton, for he went in for lawsuits.
“You damned hypocrite!” And with a bellow Tit-Blanc threw himself upon Pritontin.
“In the belly, Tit-Blanc, in the belly, the belly!” cried Denis, getting worked up.
Pritontin was on the verge of fainting. “Monsieur l’Abbé! Save me!”
The priest leaped forward and separated the pair with a grip of steel: “Look here, Monsieur Pritontin, calm yourself, calm yourself; you’re too good a citizen to be discussing politics.”
Pritontin was ready to weep from anger and impotence. “Ah, no,” he said, “this is not going to be the end of it.” And he made for the door.
Bédarovitch, whose interest it was to keep on good terms with the priest of the parish, hung on to Pritontin’s arm. “I hope you are not offended, Monsieur Anselme. He’s an impudent fellow, Tit-Blanc, and he’s drunk.”
“I trust you will not take what a drunkard says seriously, my dear Monsieur Pritontin,” said Gus Perrault, who wished to maintain friendly relations between the Church and the Lapointe Liberal Association. “The Church and the Association.” “Gus the President.” How well that all sounded!
