"Yes, but when will you light the tapers, Renaud, that you are to burn in the church as I promised for you?" "Oh! I have a whole day before me," he replied. "Now let us go to the races." XIX THE BRANDING The relics having descended, the majority of those present left the dark church and returned to the dazzling outside world. As the crowd poured out through the narrow side-doors, another crowd was forcing its way in through the main entrance, making but slow progress,--two or three steps in a quarter of an hour,--all hot and perspiring, in a cloud of luminous dust. Many young men were there, for the pleasure of being pressed by the crowd against the pretty girls, their sweethearts, whose sinuous bodies they could feel against their own, and who could not escape them there. How many hands and waists were squeezed which the mothers could not see! And in undertones they said: "I love you, Lionnette." "Fie, François!" "Let me go, Tiennet!----" Thus, beside the infirm and incurable, who know naught of the good things of life, love saucily sports and laughs, feels its own force, and seeks return. The incense in the church serves only to inflame its desire, and more than one youth offers his beloved a rosary, whose boxwood cross he has ardently kissed before her eyes, so that she may find the kiss with her lips. All day long, the pilgrims and invalids enter the church. Many will pass the night there, keeping vigil with the tapers, on their knees or prostrate before the relics; and more than one, each in his turn, will lie down upon them, on cushions brought expressly for the purpose. For the moment--it is the first day of the fête--nothing is talked about in the streets of the town save the bulls and the sports. "Are you going to the races?" "Yes." "Does Prince run? He's the best horse in all the droves." "No, he won't run; Renaud, who usually handles him, told me that he was too tired." "Pshaw! what a pity!" "What about the bulls? Shall we have any that are a bit ugly?" "There's _Sirous_ and _Dogue_ and _Mâchicoulis_. I cut them out myself with Bernard and Renaud. They gave us a lot of trouble! They refused to leave the herd. As soon as we got them out, back they would go again. But we set _Martin_ and _Commetoi_ at them, two bull-dogs that can't be matched anywhere; and even _Mâchicoulis_ obeyed at last!" "_Martin_ and _Commetoi_?--Those are curious names for dogs!" "It's a joke. When any one asks: 'How is your dog called?'[13] The dog's master replies: '_Commetoi!_' [Like yourself.] The other man gets angry, and it raises a laugh." "And what about the full-blooded Spanish bull, with the horns twisted like a lyre; shall we see him?" "_Angel Pastor?_ He is sick. I like our straight-horned bulls better. The important thing is that the horns should be far enough apart for a man's body to go between them." "Are there any heifers?" "One, a wicked one--_Serpentine_." "And _bioulets_?"