ABBE MOURET’S TRANSGRESSION

BOOK I

I

As La Teuse entered the church she rested her broom and feather-brush against the altar.  She was late, as she had that day began her half-yearly wash.  Limping more than ever in her haste and hustling the benches, she went down the church to ring the Angelus.  The bare, worn bell-rope dangled from the ceiling near the confessional, and ended in a big knot greasy from handling.  Again and again, with regular jumps, she hung herself upon it; and then let her whole bulky figure go with it, whirling in her petticoats, her cap awry, and her blood rushing to her broad face.

Having set her cap straight with a little pat, she came back breathless to give a hasty sweep before the altar.  Every day the dust persistently settled between the disjoined boards of the platform.  Her broom rummaged among the corners with an angry rumble.  Then she lifted the altar cover and was sorely vexed to find that the large upper cloth, already darned in a score of places, was again worn through in the very middle, so as to show the under cloth, which in its turn was so worn and so transparent that one could see the consecrated stone, embedded in the painted wood of the altar.  La Teuse dusted the linen, yellow from long usage, and plied her feather-brush along the shelf against which she set the liturgical altar-cards.  Then, climbing upon a chair, she removed the yellow cotton covers from the crucifix and two of the candlesticks.  The brass of the latter was tarnished.

‘Dear me!’ she muttered, ’they really want a clean!  I must give them a polish up!’

Then hopping on one leg, swaying and stumping heavily enough to drive in the flagstones, she hastened to the sacristy for the Missal, which she placed unopened on the lectern on the Epistle side, with its edges turned towards the middle of the altar.  And afterwards she lighted the two candles.  As she went off with her broom, she gave a glance round her to make sure that the abode of the Divinity had been put in proper order.  All was still, save that the bell-rope near the confessional still swung between roof and floor with a sinuous sweep.

Abbe Mouret had just come down to the sacristy, a small and chilly apartment, which a passage separated from his dining-room.

‘Good morning, Monsieur le Cure,’ said La Teuse, laying her broom aside.  ’Oh! you have been lazy this morning!  Do you know it’s a quarter past six?’ And without allowing the smiling young priest sufficient time to reply, she added ’I’ve a scolding to give you.  There’s another hole in the cloth again.  There’s no sense in it.  We have only one other, and I’ve been ruining my eyes over it these three days in trying to mend it.  You will leave our poor Lord quite bare, if you go on like this.’

Abbe Mouret was still smiling.  ’Jesus does not need so much linen, my good Teuse,’ he cheerfully replied.  ’He is always warm, always royally received by those who love Him well.’