was good living; he let everything go to rack and ruin.'

'Oh, no, Abbe Caffin certainly did what he could; but I must own that
his efforts were all but barren in results. My own are mostly
fruitless.'

Brother Archangias shrugged his shoulders. He walked on for a minute in
silence, swaying his tall bony frame, which looked as if it had been
roughly fashioned with a hatchet. The sun beat down upon his neck,
shadowing his hard, sword-edged peasant's face.

'Listen to me, Monsieur le Cure,' he said at last. 'I am too much
beneath you to lecture you; but still, I am almost double your age, I
know this part, and therefore I feel justified in telling you that you
will gain nothing by gentleness. The catechism, understand, is enough.
God has no mercy on the wicked. He burns them. Stick to that.'

Then, as Abbe Mouret, whose head remained bowed, did not open his mouth,
he went on: 'Religion is leaving the country districts because it is
made over indulgent. It was respected when it spoke out like an
unforgiving mistress. I really don't know what they can teach you now in
the seminaries. The new priests weep like children with their
parishioners. God no longer seems the same. I dare say, Monsieur le
Cure, that you don't even know your catechism by heart now?'

But the priest, wounded by the imperiousness with which the Brother so
roughly sought to dominate him, looked up and dryly rejoined:

'That will do, your zeal is very praiseworthy. But haven't you something
to tell me? You came to the parsonage this morning, did you not?'