“Why did it do that?” exclaimed the boy, as if alarmed. “Why did it do that?”
“Perhaps it was the wind. Everything is shaking. Come, come, my child, there is nothing to be afraid of.”
He laid the crucifix on the table. Paul dried his eyes with his fists.
“I don’t like to-day,” he said. “I don’t like to-day.”
The priest patted him on the shoulder.
“The weather has upset you,” he said, smiling.
But the nervous behaviour of the child deepened strangely his own sense of apprehension. When he had robed he waited for the arrival of the bride and bridegroom. There was to be no mass, and no music except the Wedding March, which the harmonium player, a Marseillais employed in the date-packing trade, insisted on performing to do honour to Mademoiselle Enfilden, who had taken such an interest in the music of the church. Androvsky, as the priest had ascertained, had been brought up in the Catholic religion, but, when questioned, he had said quietly that he was no longer a practising Catholic and that he never went to confession. Under these circumstances it was not possible to have a nuptial mass. The service would be short and plain, and the priest was glad that this was so. Presently the harmonium player came in.
“I may play my loudest to-day, Father,” he said, “but no one will hear me.”
He laughed, settled the pin—Joan of Arc’s face in metal—in his azure blue necktie, and added:
“Nom d’un chien, the wind’s a cruel wedding guest!”