Abbé Mouret attempted to express some doubt, but the Brother burst out: ‘Yes, on all fours! And she jumped like a wild cat. If I had only had a gun I could have put a bullet in her. We kill creatures that are far more pleasing to God than she is. Besides, every one knows she comes caterwauling every night round Les Artaud. She howls like a beast. If ever a man should fall into her clutches, she wouldn’t leave him a scrap of skin on his bones, I know.’
The Brother’s hatred of womankind was boiling over. He banged the table with his fist, and poured forth all his wonted abuse.
‘The devil’s in them. They reek of the devil! And that’s what bewitches fools.’
The priest nodded approvingly. Brother Archangias’s outrageous violence and La Teuse’s loquacious tyranny were like castigation with thongs, which it often rejoiced him to find lashing his shoulders. He took a pious delight in sinking into abasement beneath their coarse speech. He seemed to see the peace of heaven behind contempt of the world and degradation of his whole being. It was delicious to inflict mortification upon his body, to drag his susceptible nature through a gutter.
‘There is nought but filth,’ he muttered as he folded up his napkin.
La Teuse began to clear the table and wished to remove the plate on which Desirée had laid the blackbird’s nest. You are not going to bed here, I suppose, mademoiselle,’ she said. ‘Do leave those nasty things.’
Desirée, however, defended her plate. She covered the nest with her bare arms, no longer gay, but cross at being disturbed.
‘I hope those birds are not going to be kept,’ exclaimed Brother Archangias. ‘It would bring bad luck. You must wring their necks.’
And he already stretched out his big hands; but the girl rose and stepped back quivering, hugging the nest to her bosom. She stared fixedly at the Brother, her lips curling upwards, like those of a wolf about to bite.
‘Don’t touch the little things,’ she stammered. ‘You are ugly.’