'Ah! you were right,' he said, casting a look of despair at Albine. 'It was forbidden. We have sinned, and we have merited some terrible punishment. . . . But I, indeed, I tried to reassure you, I did not hear the threats which sounded in your ears through the branches.'
Albine tried to clasp him in her arms again as she sobbed out, 'Get up, and let us escape together. Perhaps even yet there is time for us to love each other.'
'No, no; I haven't the strength. I should stumble and fall over the smallest pebble in the path. Listen to me. I am afraid of myself. I know not what man dwells in me. I have murdered myself, and my hands are red with blood. If you took me away, you would never see aught in my eyes save tears.'
She kissed his wet eyes, as she answered passionately, 'No matter! Do you love me?'
He was too terrified to answer her. A heavy step set the pebbles rolling on the other side of the wall. A growl of anger seemed to draw nigh. Albine had not been mistaken. Some one was, indeed, there, disturbing the woodland quiet with jealous inquisition. Then both Albine and Serge, as if overwhelmed with shame, sought to bide themselves behind a bush. But Brother Archangias, standing in front of the breach, could already see them.
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.
BOOK III
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.
'In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,' Abbe Mouret murmured again, giving them a final benediction.
'Amen,' responded Vincent.
It was early morning. The sun was not yet shining through the big windows of the church. Outside one could hear the noisy twittering of the sparrows in the branches of the service tree, whose foliage shot through the broken panes. La Teuse, who had not previously had time to clean the church, was now dusting the altar, craning up on her sound leg to wipe the feet of the ochre and lake-bedaubed Christ, and arranging the chairs as quietly as possible; all the while bowing and crossing herself, and following the service, but not omitting a single sweep of her feather broom. Quite alone, at the foot of the pulpit, was mother Brichet, praying in a very demonstrative fashion. She kept on her knees, and repeated the prayers in so loud a whisper that it seemed as if a swarm of bluebottles had taken possession of the nave.
At the other end of the church near the confessional, Catherine held an infant in swaddling clothes. As it began to cry, she turned her back upon the altar, and tossed it up, and amused it with the bell-rope, which dangled just over its nose.
'Dominus vobiscum,' said the priest, turning round, and spreading out his hands.
'Et cum spiritu tuo,' responded Vincent.
At that moment three big girls came into the church. They were too shy to go far up, though they jostled one another to get a better view of what was going on. They were three friends of Rosalie, who had dropped in for a minute or two on their way to the fields, curious as they were to hear what his reverence would say to the bride and bridegroom. They had big scissors hanging at their waists. At last they hid themselves behind the font, where they pinched each other and twisted themselves about, while trying to choke their bursts of laughter with their clenched fists.
'Well,' whispered La Rousse, a finely built girl, with copper-coloured skin and hair, 'there won't be any scrimmage to get out of church when it's all over.'
'Oh! old Bambousse is quite right,' murmured Lisa, a short dark girl, with gleaming eyes; 'when one has vines, one looks after them. Since his reverence so particularly desired to marry Rosalie, he can very well do it all alone.'
The other girl, Babet, who was humpbacked, tittered. 'There's mother Brichet,' she said; 'she is always here. She prays for the whole family. Listen, do you hear how she's buzzing? All that will mean something in her pocket. She knows very well what she is about, I can tell you.'
'She is playing the organ for them,' retorted La Rousse.
At this all three burst into a laugh. La Teuse, in the distance, threatened them with her broom. At the altar, Abbe Mouret was taking the sacrament. As he went from the Epistle side towards Vincent, so that the water of ablution might be poured upon his thumb and fore-finger, Lisa said more softly: 'It's nearly over. He will begin to talk to them directly.'
'Yes,' said La Rousse, 'and so big Fortune will still be able to go to his work, and Rosalie won't lose her day's pay at the vintage. It is very convenient to be married so early in the morning. He looks very sheepish, that big Fortune.'