Go to mass again? Not I!--nor to confession
either!--and no more of my earnings will click into your great brass
collection plate, mon reverend! Ah no!--I have been a foolish woman
indeed, to trust so long in a God who for all my tears and prayers
never gives me a sign or a hope of an answer,--and though I suppose
this wretched world of ours was made by somebody, whoever it is that
has done it is a cruel creature at best, so _I_ say,--without as
much good feeling as there is in the heart of an ordinary man, and
without the sense of the man either! For who that thinks twice about
it would make a world where everything is only born to die?--and for
no other use at all! Bah! It is sheer folly and wickedness to talk
to me of a God!--a God, if there were one, would surely be far above
torturing the creatures He has made, all for nothing!"
And the priest who heard this blasphemous and savage tirade on the
part of Martine Doucet, retreated from her in amazement and horror,
and presently gave out that she was possessed of a devil, and was
unfit to be admitted to the Holy Sacrament. Whereat, when she heard
of it, Martine laughed loudly and ferociously.
"Look you!--what a charitable creature a priest is!" she cried--"If
you don't do the things he considers exactly right and fitting, he
tells your neighbours that the devil has got you!--and so little
does he care to pick you out of the clutches of this same devil,
that he refuses you the Sacrament, though THAT is said to drive away
Satan by the mere touch of it! But wait till I ASK to have the
Sacrament given to me!--it will be time enough then to refuse it!
Many a fat chicken of my stock has the reverend father had as a free
gift to boil in his soup maigre!" and again she laughed angrily--"
But no more of them does he get to comfort his stomach while doing
penance for his soul!--the hypocrite! He must find another silly
woman to cheat with his stories of a good God who never does
anything but kill and curse us every one!--he has had all that he
will ever get out of Martine Doucet!"
It was to this redoubtable virago that Henri and Babette had betaken
themselves in the market place directly school was over.
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