The priest touched him lightly on the shoulder.
"I did not intend to annoy you, my friend. Keep yourself quiet. Be a little reasonable. Here is Easter close at hand; I hope you will show an example by going to communion along with the others."
"That is too much! I—I submit to such absurdities!"
At this blasphemy the curé turned pale, his eyeballs gleamed, his jaw quivered.
"Silence, unhappy man! silence! And it is his wife who looks after the church linen!"
"Well, what then? What has she done to you?"
"She always stays away from mass. Like yourself, for that matter!"
"Oh! a schoolmaster is not sent away for a thing of that kind!"
"He can be removed."
The priest said no more.