‘Monsieur Caffin used to tell me everything,’ she moaned out.
However, she soon grew calmer. Brother Archangias was finishing a big piece of cheese, apparently quite unruffled by the scene. In his opinion Abbé Mouret really needed being kept straight, and La Teuse was right in making him feel the reins. Having drunk a last glassful of the weak wine, the Brother threw himself back in his chair to digest his meal.
‘Well now,’ finally asked the old servant, ‘what did you see at the Paradou? Tell us, at any rate.’
Abbé Mouret smiled and related in a few words how strangely Jeanbernat had received him. La Teuse, after overwhelming him with questions, broke out into indignant exclamations, while Brother Archangias clenched his fists and brandished them aloft.
‘May Heaven crush him!’ said he, ‘and burn both him and his witch!’
In his turn the Abbé then endeavoured to elicit some fresh particulars about the people at the Paradou, and listened intently to the Brother’s monstrous narrative.
‘Yes, that little she-devil came and sat down in the school. It’s a long time ago now, she might then have been about ten. Of course, I let her come; I thought her uncle was sending her to prepare for her first communion. But for two months she utterly revolutionised the whole class. She made herself worshipped, the minx! She knew all sorts of games, and invented all sorts of finery with leaves and shreds of rags. And how quick and clever she was, too, like all those children of hell! She was the top one at catechism. But one fine morning the old man burst in just in the middle of our lessons. He was going to smash everything, and shouted that the priests had taken his child from him. We had to get the rural policeman to turn him out. As to the little one, she bolted. I could see her through the window, in a field opposite, laughing at her uncle’s frenzy. She had been coming to school for the last two months without his even suspecting it. He had regularly scoured the country after her.’
‘She’s never taken her first communion,’ exclaimed La Teuse below her breath with a slight shudder.
‘No, never,’ rejoined Brother Archangias. ‘She must be sixteen now. She’s growing up like a brute beast. I have seen her running on all fours in a thicket near La Palud.’
‘On all fours,’ muttered the servant, turning towards the window with superstitious anxiety.