She stood erect before him, full of proud assertion, with outstretched arms. And, in a louder voice, she repeated:
‘Do you hear me, Serge? You belong to me.’
Then Abbé Mouret slowly rose to his feet. He leant against the altar, and replied:
‘No. You are mistaken. I belong to God.’
He was full of serenity. His shorn face seemed like that of some stone saint, whom no impulse of the flesh can disturb. His cassock fell around him in straight folds like a black winding-sheet, concealing all the outlines of his body. Albine dropped back at the sight of that sombre phantom of her former love. She missed his freely flowing beard, his freely flowing curls. And in the midst of his shorn locks she saw the pallid circle of his tonsure, which disquieted her as if it had been some mysterious evil, some malignant sore which had grown there, and would eat away all memory of the happy days they had spent together. She could recognise neither his hands, once so warm with caresses, nor his lissom neck, once so sonorous with laughter; nor his agile feet, which had carried her into the recesses of the woodlands. Could this, indeed, be the strong youth with whom she had lived one whole season—the youth with soft down gleaming on his bare breast, with skin browned by the sun’s rays, with every limb full of vibrating life? At this present hour he seemed fleshless; his hair had fallen away from him, and all his virility had withered within that womanish gown, which left him sexless.
‘Oh! you frighten me,’ she murmured. ‘Did you think then that I was dead, that you put on mourning? Take off that black thing; put on a blouse. You can tuck up the sleeves, and we will catch crayfishes again. Your arms used to be as white as mine.’
She laid her hand on his cassock, as though to tear it off him; but he repulsed her with a gesture, without touching her. He looked at her now and strengthened himself against temptation by never allowing his eyes to leave her. She seemed to him to have grown taller. She was no longer the playful damsel adorned with bunches of wild-flowers, and casting to the winds gay, gipsy laughter, nor was she the amorosa in white skirts, gracefully bending her slender form as she sauntered lingeringly beside the hedges. Now, there was a velvety bloom upon her lips; her hips were gracefully rounded; her bosom was in full bloom. She had become a woman, with a long oval face that seemed expressive of fruitfulness. Life slumbered within her. And her cheeks glowed with luscious maturity.
The priest, bathed in the voluptuous atmosphere that seemed to emanate from all that feminine ripeness, took a bitter pleasure in defying the caresses of her coral lips, the tempting smile of her eyes, the witching charm of her bosom, and all the intoxication which seemed to pour from her at every movement. He even carried his temerity so far as to search with his gaze for the spots that he had once so hotly kissed, the corners of her eyes and lips, her narrow temples, soft as satin, and the ambery nape of her neck, which was like velvet. And never, even in her embrace, had he tasted such felicity as he now felt in martyring himself, by boldly looking in the face the love that he refused. At last, fearing lest he might there yield to some new allurement of the flesh, he dropped his eyes, and said, very gently:
‘I cannot hear you here. Let us go out, if you, indeed, persist in adding to the pain of both of us. Our presence in this place is a scandal. We are in God’s house.’
‘God!’ cried Albine, excitedly, suddenly becoming a child of nature once more. ‘God! Who is He? I know nothing of your God! I want to know nothing of Him if He has stolen you away from me, who have never harmed Him. My uncle Jeanbernat was right then when he said that your God was only an invention to frighten people, and make them weep! You are lying; you love me no longer, and that God of yours does not exist.’