CHAPTER III

DEATH


After she had made a curtsey at the threshold, she would walk up
the aisle between the double lines of chairs, open Madame Aubain's
pew, sit down and look around.

Girls and boys, the former on the right, the latter on the
left-hand side of the church, filled the stalls of the choir; the
priest stood beside the reading-desk; on one stained window of the
side-aisle the Holy Ghost hovered over the Virgin; on another one,
Mary knelt before the Child Jesus, and behind the altar, a wooden
group represented Saint Michael felling the dragon.

The priest first read a condensed lesson of sacred history.
Félicité evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the
blazing cities, the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of
this she developed a great respect for the Almighty and a great
fear of His wrath. Then, when she listened to the Passion, she
wept. Why had they crucified Him who loved little children,
nourished the people, made the blind see, and who, out of
humility, had wished to be born among the poor, in a stable? The
sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those familiar things
which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her life; the word
of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with increased
tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because of the