He was thinking:
“What will become of this poor child, if he is suddenly expelled, ignorant of any sort of manual labour, weak, delicate, and timid? And what grief there will be in his infirm father’s shop!”
He walked along over the flints of the barren road. Having reached the mission cross, he took off his hat, wiped the perspiration from his forehead with his silk handkerchief, and said in a low voice:
“Oh God, inspire me to act according to Thy interests, whatever it may cost my paternal heart!”
At half-past six next morning Abbé Lantaigne was saying the concluding words of the mass in the bare, deserted chapel.
In front of a side-altar a solitary old sacristan was setting paper flowers in porcelain vases, beneath the gilt statue of Saint Joseph. A grey, rainy daylight poured sadly through the blurred window-panes. The celebrant, upright at the left of the high altar, was reading the last Gospel.
“Et Verbum caro factum est,” said he, bending his knees.
Firmin Piédagnel, who was serving the mass, knelt at the same time on the step where stood the bell; then he rose and, after the last responses, preceded the priest into the sacristy. Abbé Lantaigne set down the chalice with the corporal and waited for the server to help him remove his priestly vestments. Firmin Piédagnel, being sensitive to the mysterious influences of things, felt the charm of this scene, so simple and yet so sacred. His soul, suffused with tender unction, tasted with a kind of joy the familiar grandeur of the priesthood. Never had he felt so deeply the desire to be a priest and in his turn to celebrate the holy sacrifice. Having kissed and carefully folded up the alb and chasuble, he bowed before Abbé Lantaigne ere retiring. The head of the seminary, who had resumed his great-coat, made a sign to him to stay, and looked at him with such nobility and kindness that the young man received the look as a favour and a blessing. After a long silence:
“My child,” said M. Lantaigne, “whilst celebrating this mass which I asked you to serve, I prayed God to give me the strength to send you away. My prayer has been granted. You are no longer a member of this household.”
As he took in these words, Firmin was stupefied. It seemed to him that the flooring was giving way beneath his feet. Through eyes big with tears, he vaguely saw the lonely road, the rain, a life darkened with misery and toil, the fate of a lost child terrified by its own weakness and timidity. He looked at M. Lantaigne. The resolute gentleness, the quiet strength, the calmness of this man revolted him. Suddenly a feeling was born and grew in him, a feeling that sustained and strengthened him, a hatred of the priest, a deathless and fruitful hatred, a hatred to fill a whole life. Without uttering a word, he went with great strides out of the sacristy.