At this very hour Abbe Mouret could remember the chill of the scissors when he was marked with the tonsure at the beginning of his first year of theology.  It had made him shudder slightly.  But the tonsure had then been very small, hardly larger than a penny.  Later, with each fresh order conferred on him, it had grown and grown until it crowned him with a white spot as large as a big Host.  The organ’s hum grew softer, and the censers swung with a silvery tinkling of their slender chains, releasing a cloudlet of white smoke, which unrolled in lacelike folds.  He could see himself, a tonsured youth in a surplice, led to the altar by the master of ceremonies; there he knelt and bowed his head down low, while the bishop with golden scissors snipped off three locks—­one over his forehead, and the other two near his ears.  Yet another twelvemonth, and he could again see himself in the chapel amid the incense, receiving the four minor orders.  Led by an archdeacon, he went to the main doorway, closed the door with a bang, and opened it again, to show that to him was entrusted the care of churches; next he rang a small bell with his right hand, in token that it was his duty to call the faithful to the divine offices; then he returned to the altar, where fresh privileges were conferred upon him by the bishop—­those of singing the lessons, of blessing the bread, of catechising children, of exorcising evil spirits, of serving the deacons, of lighting and extinguishing the candles of the altars.

Next came back the memory of the ensuing ordination, more solemn and more dread, amid the same organ strains which sounded now like God’s own thunder:  this time he wore a sub-deacon’s dalmatic upon his shoulders, he bound himself for ever by the vow of chastity, he trembled in every pore, despite his faith, at the terrible Accedite from the bishop, which put to flight two of his companions, blanching by his side.  His new duties were to serve the priest at the altar, to prepare the cruets, sing the epistle, wipe the chalice, and carry the cross in processions.  And, at last, he passed once more, and for the last time, into the chapel, in the radiance of a June sun:  but this time he walked at the very head of the procession, with alb girdled about his waist, with stole crossed over his breast, and chasuble falling from his neck.  All but fainting from emotion, he could perceive the pallid face of the bishop giving him the priesthood, the fulness of the ministry, by the threefold laying of his hands.  And after taking the oath of ecclesiastical obedience, he felt himself uplifted from the stone flags, when the prelate in a full voice repeated the Latin words:  ’Accipe Spiritum Sanctum. . . .  Quorum remiseris peccata, remittuntur eis, et quorum retinueris, retenta sunt.’—­’Receive the Holy Ghost. . . .  Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained.’

XVI