parents among the vines! You may be certain that jade of a Catherine is
among them. . . . There, didn't I tell you! Till to-night, Monsieur le
Cure. Oh, just you wait, you rascals!'

Off he went at a run, his dirty neckband flying over his shoulder, and
his big greasy cassock tearing up the thistles. Abbe Mouret watched him
swoop down into the midst of the children, who scattered like frightened
sparrows. But he succeeded in seizing Catherine and one boy by the ears
and led them back towards the village, clutching them tightly with his
big hairy fingers, and overwhelming them with abuse.

The priest walked on again. Brother Archangias sometimes aroused strange
scruples in his mind. With his vulgarity and coarseness the Brother
seemed to him the true man of God, free from earthly ties, submissive in
all to Heaven's will, humble, blunt, ready to shower abuse upon sin. He,
the priest, would then feel despair at his inability to rid himself more
completely of his body; he regretted that he was not ugly, unclean,
covered with vermin like some of the saints. Whenever the Brother had
wounded him by some words of excessive coarseness, or by some over-hasty
churlishness, he would blame himself for his refinement, his innate
shrinking, as if these were really faults. Ought he not to be dead to
all the weaknesses of this world? And this time also he smiled sadly as
he thought how near he had been to losing his temper at the Brother's
roughly put lesson. It was pride, it seemed to him, seeking to work his
perdition by making him despise the lowly. However, in spite of himself,
he felt relieved at being alone again, at being able to walk on gently,
reading his breviary, free at last from the grating voice that had
disturbed his dream of heavenly love.