Abbe Mouret's Transgression

and there in reclaiming six or seven yards of chalky soil, planted with old olive

ing horizon, over the twisted outlines of that passion-breathing landscape as it stretched out in the sun before him, dry, barren, despairing of the fertilisation for which it longed. And he would lo

ur le Cure,' a passin

s. The Artauds were eagerly satisfying their passion for the soil, in the sun's full blaze. Sweating brows appeared from behind the bushes, heaving chests were slowly raised, the whole scene

some one gaily shouted in a powerful voice

uret lo

edge of the field in which the young peasant was

uilt, bold-looking young fellow, with skin already h

Monsieur le C

and you,' rep

thought it droll that a priest shou

the worse if old Bambousse refuses to let me have her. You saw your

ad not previously perceived, emerged from the shadow of a bush behind which he an

. What's happened isn't anybody's fault. It has happened to others who got on all right just the same. The matter

t. 'We've only this scrap of ground where the very devil seems to have been hailing stones.

would hang about the parsonage, well knowing that La Teuse always kept a couple of loaves for her fr

continued the priest. 'The marri

man, alarmed about her periodical presents. 'What do you say, Brich

e snig

saw her yesterday at the back of the mill. We haven't

, I am now going to speak to Bambousse. He

s reverence's admonitions. And she walked by the priest's side for another hundred yards, bemoaning her poverty, the failure of the potato crop, the frost which had nipped the olive t

He was now at Les Olivettes, the most fertile spot in the neighbourhood, where the mayor of the commune, Artaud, otherwise Bambousse, owned several fields of

here, Rosalie?'

she said, pointing with

s of a hard-working woman, her head unshielded from the sun, her neck all sunburnt, her hair black and co

ut, 'here's Monsieur l

ll hovering over her features. Bambousse, a stout, sweating, r

he clapped his earthy hands. 'Well, then, Monsieur le Cure, I can only say no, it's impossible. Th

nt burst into a loud guffaw, slapped his

plied the Abbe Mouret. 'I wanted to sp

to you, then?' inquired Ba

lender, feminine neck, as if trying to make him redden. He, however, bluntly and wi

ean, Bambousse. Sh

Brichets sent you, didn't they? Mother Brichet goes to mass, and so you give her a helping hand to ma

d that he ought to forgive Fortune, as the latter was willing to make reparation for hi

pauper, without a brass farthing. What an easy job, if one could marry a girl like that! At that rate we should have all the young things marrying off morning and nigh

d?' interrupt

ll be time enough to thin

aking, now thought it proper to ram her fists into her eyes

ge. And he proceeded to revile her in the coarsest terms,

t of hair, crumbling down her neck and smothering her in dust. Dizzy from the blow, she bounded to her feet and fled, sheltering her head between her hands. But Bambousse had ti

enched from the peasant's hand a number

ee that you don't know girls. Hard as nails, all of them. I might duck that one in the well, I might break all her bones with a

wicker-work, which lay warming on the hot ground. And breaking once more into a laugh,

asked the priest,

shall have to hire a lad the day she goes off.... We can have another talk about it after the vi

ns suited to the circumstances. But the old man had resumed his work; he shrugged his shoulders, jested, and grew more and more obstinate. At last, h

olling about under an olive tree with Voriau, who was licking her face. With her

tempt some fresh efforts with her father, adding that, in the meantime, she should do nothing to aggravate her sin. And then, as she impudently smiled at him, he pictured hell, where wi