‘Well, what of it?’ queried Brother Archangias.
La Teuse looked at him, half suffocated by indignation.
‘What of it? It would be sinful, of course,’ she muttered. ‘This altar is like a neglected tomb in a graveyard. If it were not for me, the spiders would spin their webs across it, and moss would soon grow over it. From time to time, when I can spare a bunch of flowers, I give it to the Virgin. All the flowers in our garden used to be for her once.’
She had mounted the altar steps, and she took up two withered bunches of flowers, which had been left there, forgotten.
‘See! it is just as it is in the graveyards,’ she said, throwing the flowers at Abbé Mouret’s feet.
He picked them up, without replying. It was quite dark now, and Brother Archangias stumbled about amongst the chairs and nearly fell. He growled and muttered some angry words, in which the names of Jesus and Mary recurred. When La Teuse, who had gone for a lamp, returned into the church, she asked the priest:
‘So I can put the brushes and pots away in the attic, then?’
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I have finished. We will see about the rest later on.’
She walked away in front of them, carrying all the things with her, and keeping silence, lest she should say too much. And as Abbé Mouret had kept the withered bunches of flowers in his hand, Brother Archangias said to him, as they passed the farmyard: ‘Throw those things away.’
The Abbé took a few steps more, with downcast head; and then over the palings he flung the flowers upon a manure-heap.