“Two years passed without my hearing a word from them.  Then I received a letter from New York.  She was married and wrote to tell me.  And since then we write to each other every year, on New Year’s Day.  She tells me about her life, talks of her children, her sisters, never of her husband!  Why?  Ah! why?  And as for me, I only talk of the Marie Joseph.  That was perhaps the only woman I have ever loved—­no—­that I ever should have loved.  Ah, well! who can tell?  Circumstances rule one.  And then—­and then—­all passes.  She must be old now; I should not know her.  Ah! she of the bygone time, she of the wreck!  What a creature!  Divine!  She writes me her hair is white.  That caused me terrible pain.  Ah! her yellow hair.  No, my English girl exists no longer.  How sad it all is!”

THEODULE SABOT’S CONFESSION

When Sabot entered the inn at Martinville it was a signal for laughter.  What a rogue he was, this Sabot!  There was a man who did not like priests, for instance!  Oh, no, oh, no!  He did not spare them, the scamp.

Sabot (Theodule), a master carpenter, represented liberal thought in Martinville.  He was a tall, thin, than, with gray, cunning eyes, and thin lips, and wore his hair plastered down on his temples.  When he said:  “Our holy father, the pope” in a certain manner, everyone laughed.  He made a point of working on Sunday during the hour of mass.  He killed his pig each year on Monday in Holy Week in order to have enough black pudding to last till Easter, and when the priest passed by, he always said by way of a joke:  “There goes one who has just swallowed his God off a salver.”

The priest, a stout man and also very tall, dreaded him on account of his boastful talk which attracted followers.  The Abbe Maritime was a politic man, and believed in being diplomatic.  There had been a rivalry between them for ten years, a secret, intense, incessant rivalry.  Sabot was municipal councillor, and they thought he would become mayor, which would inevitably mean the final overthrow of the church.

The elections were about to take place.  The church party was shaking in its shoes in Martinville.

One morning the cure set out for Rouen, telling his servant that he was going to see the archbishop.  He returned in two days with a joyous, triumphant air.  And everyone knew the following day that the chancel of the church was going to be renovated.  A sum of six hundred francs had been contributed by the archbishop out of his private fund.  All the old pine pews were to be removed, and replaced by new pews made of oak.  It would be a big carpentering job, and they talked about it that very evening in all the houses in the village.

Theodule Sabot was not laughing.

When he went through the village the following morning, the neighbors, friends and enemies, all asked him, jokingly: 

“Are you going to do the work on the chancel of the church?”