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Droll Stories — Volume 3 by Honoré de Balzac
page 50 of 181 (27%)
nothing more to do with it: in short, a thousand and one things that
were doubts and contumelies against God.

At this desperate juncture there rose up a monk named Amador. This
name had been given him by way of a joke, since his person offered a
perfect portrait of the false god Aegipan. He was like him, strong in
the stomach; like him, had crooked legs; arms hairy as those of a
saddler, a back made to carry a wallet, a face as red as the phiz of a
drunkard, glistening eyes, a tangled beard, was hairy faced, and so
puffed out with fat and meat that you would have fancied him in an
interesting condition. You may be sure that he sung his matins on the
steps of the wine-cellar, and said his vespers in the vineyards of
Lord. He was as fond of his bed as a beggar with sores, and would go
about the valley fuddling, faddling, blessing the bridals, plucking
the grapes, and giving them to the girls to taste, in spite of the
prohibition of the abbot. In fact, he was a pilferer, a loiterer, and
a bad soldier of the ecclesiastical militia, of whom nobody in the
abbey took any notice, but let him do as he liked from motives of
Christian charity, thinking him mad.

Amador, knowing that it was a question of the ruin of the Abbey, in
which he was as snug as a bug in a rug, put up his bristles, took
notice of this and of that, went into each of the cells, listened in
the refectory, shivered in his shoes, and declared that he would
attempt to save the abbey. He took cognisance of the contested points,
received from the abbot permission to postpone the case, and was
promised by the whole Chapter the Office of sub-prior if he succeeded
in putting an end to the litigation. Then he set off across the
country, heedless of the cruelty and ill-treatment of the Sieur de
Cande, saying that he had that within his gown which would subdue him.
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