He clutched the edge of the pulpit in both hands and leaned forward. It was indeed tremendously that he was going to scold. He had a right to scold. All night, in his little brown room, under the snores of old Ernestine, he had been working himself up to the pitch for it.
Next Sunday was the Fête of the Patronage. The Grand Vicaire was to come, all the way from Meaux. Madame la Marquise was to present a banner.
The children romped in the street. The women put on hats and went and stood and gossiped in the market-place. The men went fishing; the boys went fishing.
Every Sunday it was the same thing.
In a high temper, Monsieur le Curé began, "My dear brothers," and stopped short.
He let go of the pulpit edge and stood straight and looked over the heads of the twenty-one of them. All the light there was in the deep old church seemed to be upon his face.
When he looked down at his people, it was with a lovely shining of kindliness. It was as if, suddenly, he realized how he loved them. He loved them too much to scold.
"My dear brothers," he said. All the words became little kind caresses. They were small humble words, poor little words, simple, like his listeners. They seemed to have the touch of many little wings across the faces lifted up, or to fall like showers of blossom petals.
One day, only so little a time afterwards, Monsieur le Curé stood among a heap of charred things and broken, blackened stones.
This is what used to be the pillar of the pulpit, and under all that, at the end there, must be buried the altar, with the cross and the candles that used to be stars. There are things that are burned, all black and charred, and things that are twisted. The curé cannot make out what they are. He had not known that there was iron in the church. Queer iron things are twisted and tortured. The new bright window he had thought so beautiful is all broken, the reds and blues and yellows sparkle among the stones.