Françoise was sitting there between two of her friends, Berthe, the Macquerons' girl, a pretty brunette who had received a ladylike education in Cloyes, and Suzanne, the Lengaines' daughter, a plain, saucy blonde whom her parents were going to send to Châteaudun to become an apprentice dressmaker. All three were laughing in an unseemly manner. Next to them, poor pregnant Lise, fat and cheerful, was displaying her scandalous protuberance in front of the altar.

Father Godard was finally making his way into the sacristy when he ran into Delphin and Nénesse who were playfully pushing each other as they prepared the altar cruet. The former, Bécu's boy, an eleven-year-old, was a sun-tanned, strapping young lad, already sturdy in build, fond of working in the fields and glad to play truant to do so; whilst Ernest Delhomme's eldest son, of the same age, was a slim lackadaisical fair-headed boy who always kept a mirror in his pocket.

‘Well, you young scamps!’ exclaimed the priest. ‘Do you think you're in a cowshed?’

And turning towards a tall thin young man, with a pale face sprouting a few ginger hairs, who was tidying his books away on a cupboard shelf, he said:

‘Really, Monsieur Lequeu, you might keep them in order when I'm not here!’

This was the village schoolmaster, a country boy who through his education had become imbued with hatred for his class. He used to brutalize his pupils, whom he called savages, and beneath his ceremonious correctness towards the priest and the mayor he concealed progressive ideas. He sang bass in the choir and even looked after the prayer and hymn books but he had categorically refused to be the bell-ringer although this was customary; he considered such a task beneath the dignity of a free man.

‘It's not my job to keep discipline in the church,’ he retorted. ‘But if they were at school, what a clout I'd give them!’

And as the priest, without replying, started hurriedly to put on his alb and stole, he went on:

‘Low Mass, I suppose?’

‘Of course, and as quickly as possible! I've got to be at Bazoches by ten-thirty for High Mass.’

Lequeu closed the cupboard from which he had just taken an old missal and went out to place it on the altar.

‘Come on, come on!’ the priest kept saying, to hurry Delphin and Nénesse along.

Sweating and puffing, he went back into the church carrying the chalice and began the service while the cheeky young altar-boys cast sidelong glances at each other. It was a church with a single nave, barrel-vaulted and oak-panelled but falling into disrepair because the municipal council refused to vote any money towards its upkeep: rain came through the broken slates on the roof; there were large areas of badly rotten wood; and in the choir, shut off by an iron railing, a dirty green streak straggled across the fresco in the apse, cutting in two the face of the Eternal Father who was being adored by angels.

When the priest turned towards the congregation with his arms outstretched, he became a trifle calmer when he saw that the numbers had increased: the mayor, his deputy, some municipal councillors, old Fouan and Clou, the blacksmith who played the trombone at choral Eucharist. Lequeu had remained sitting in the front pew, looking dignified. Bécu, drunk as a lord, was at the back, sitting up as stiff as a ramrod. And the women's pews in particular were filling up with Fanny, Rose, La Grande and a number of others, so that the Daughters of Mary had had to move closer together, with their heads bowed over their prayer books. They were now pictures of propriety. But the priest was particularly gratified to catch sight of Monsieur and Madame Charles with their granddaughter Elodie; he was wearing a black frock-coat while his lady had on a green silk dress; both of them were solemn and prosperous-looking, setting an excellent example to all.

However, he was in a hurry to expedite the Mass, gabbling the Latin and hurrying through the responses. For the sermon, he did not go up into the pulpit but sat on a chair in the middle of the choir-stalls, mumbling, losing the thread – and not bothering to recover it: oratory was not his strong point; unable to find words, he would hum and haw and never finish his sentences. This was the reason why the bishop had left him to moulder for twenty-five years in the little parish of Bazoches-le-Doyen. And then he rushed through the rest of the service, so that the bell for the elevation of the host tinkled like some electrical device that was out of order while his Ite missa est despatched his flock like a gunshot. Hardly was the church empty than Father Godard reappeared, wearing his hat all askew in his haste. A group of women were stationed in front of the church doors: Coelina, Flore and Bécu's wife, highly offended at having been rushed through the service at such speed. So he wouldn't give them any more of his time because he looked down on them? It was All Souls' Day, too!

‘Tell me, Father,’ Coelina asked sourly, stopping him, ‘do you have a grudge against us since you sent us packing like a bundle of old clothes?’

‘What else can I do?’ he replied. ‘My parishioners are expecting me… I can't be in Bazoches and in Rognes at the same time. If you want High Mass you must get a priest of your own.’

This was the perpetual bone of contention between Rognes and Father Godard, the villagers demanding consideration, he keeping to the strict letter of the law, since the parish refused to maintain the church and he was continually disheartened by scandalous goings-on. Pointing to the Daughters of Mary, who were going off together, he went on:

‘And anyway, is it decent to have ceremonies where the young people have no respect for God's commandments?’

‘I hope that remark's not intended to refer to my daughter,’ Coelina said, clenching her teeth.

‘Nor to mine, indeed?’ added Flore.

‘I'm referring to the girl I must be referring to… It's as plain as a pikestaff. Look at her, all dressed in white! I can never have a procession here without someone being pregnant… It's impossible, you'd try the patience of our Lord himself.’

He flounced off and Bécu's wife, who had said not a word, had to act as peacemaker between the two excited mothers, who were hurling their respective daughters at each other's heads; but she did it with such nasty insinuations that their squabble only increased. Oh yes, that Berthe of yours, with her velvet bodices and her piano, we'll see how she turns out! And what a clever idea to send Suzanne to a dressmaker in Châteaudun where she'd certainly come to no good!

Free at last, Father Godard was on the point of hurrying away when he found himself face to face with the Charles. He swept his hat from his head and gave a radiant smile. In reply Monsieur Charles greeted him with a majestic gesture while Madame made a stately bow. But the priest was fated not to be allowed to leave, for he had still not reached the end of the square before he was stopped again. This time it was a tall woman of some thirty years who looked at least fifty; her hair was sparse, her dull, flat face was yellow and flabby; exhausted and broken-down by excessive toil, she was tottering under the weight of a bundle of firewood.

‘Palmyre,’ he asked, ‘why didn't you come to Mass on All Souls' Day? It's very bad.’

She gave a feeble moan:

‘Of course, Father, but what can I do? My brother's cold, it's freezing at home. So I went to pick up a few bits of firewood along under the hedges.’

‘La Grande is still as hard-hearted as ever?’

‘Oh, she'd sooner die than throw us a log or a crust of bread.’

And she went on in her whining voice about their grandmother, who had turned them out of her house so that she, together with her brother, had had to take shelter in an abandoned stables.