Then one day his sacristan’s wife, who did the Abbé Marignan’s housework, informed him, choosing her words very carefully, that his niece had a lover. He was appalled when he heard this news as he was shaving, and stood there speechless, with lather all over his face. When he had gathered his wits and could put his thoughts into words again he spluttered: ‘It’s not true! You’re making it up, Mélanie!’

But the simple woman put her hand on her heart.

‘As God is my witness, Father, as soon as your sister’s gone to bed, off she goes. Along the river they meet. See for yourself between ten and midnight.’

He stopped scratching his chin and, as was his wont when he wanted to think something through, started pacing briskly up and down. Taking up his razor again later, he managed to cut himself three times between the nose and the ear. All day long he remained silent, suppressing his growing anger and indignation. As a priest he was furious at losing a future nun to earthly love. As her moral tutor also he was exasperated. He was like a father to her, after all, the guardian of her soul. And to think that he had been deceived, tricked and cheated by this slip of a girl! He felt all the selfish shock of parents confronted with the news that their daughter has chosen her own husband without or despite their advice.

After dinner he tried to read for a while but failed. His exasperation increased. When the clock struck ten he took up his stick, a formidable oak staff which he always took with him on night visits to the sick. He smiled down at the great cudgel he now twirled menacingly in his horny hand. Suddenly he raised it and, gnashing his teeth as he did so, brought it down on a chair with such force that the back split and it crashed to the floor.

He opened his door and was about to leave when suddenly he stopped in amazement on the threshold of the house. He had rarely in his life seen such magnificent moonlight as now. Like some of the early Christian Fathers, he was blessed with a soul open to rapture and with a poetic disposition. He was suddenly moved, not to say overwhelmed, by the great serenity and beauty of the pale night before him. In his little garden bathed in soft light his rows of fruit trees threw in shadow the shapes of their branches barely in bud; the breath of the huge honeysuckle spreading over the wall of the house wafted its sweet perfume like the soul of fragrance upon the clear and balmy air. He began to breathe deeply himself, drinking it in greedily and slowing down his pace. He was entranced by the scene, so lost in wonder that the thought of his niece all but faded away.