Modern society--and the Church is one of its pillars--has succeeded so well in denaturing and weakening the great human forces that Annette, who bore within her a richer faith than that of a hundred devotees, imagined she was not religious. For she confounded religion with prayer-wheels and the ceremonies of an obsolete exoticism, a luxury of soul for the rich, a snare for the eyes and that consolation for the heart of the poor which assures the foundations of their poverty and of society. Since she had given up her religious observances, she had never felt the need for them. It did not occur to her that when she had her fiery transports of conscience, her passionate monologues, she was really saying mass. She did not think of giving her son what she had gone without herself. Perhaps the question would not even have occurred to her if, paradoxically, Sylvie had not brought it up. Sylvie, who had no more religion than a Parisian sparrow, would not have considered herself married without the concurrence of the Church; and it seemed to her indecent that Annette should not have her son baptised. Annette had not thought of this. But she had it done so that Sylvie might be the godmother. Then she thought no more of the matter, and things remained where they were until Julien's arrival. That Julien had a practical faith did not give Annette one, but it rendered the faith worthy of respect in her eyes and brought her attention back to the problem she had neglected. What was she to do for Marc? Send him to church? Teach him a religion in which she did not believe? She asked Julien, who was scandalized; he affirmed emphatically that the child had to be instructed in the divine truths. "But if they are not truths for me? Must I tell lies when Marc asks me questions?" "No, don't tell lies, but allow him to believe. It's for his good." "No, it couldn't be for his good for me to be dishonest. And what authority would I have when he found it out? Wouldn't he have the right to reproach me for it? He would not believe in me any longer. And how do I know whether this faith he would learn would not thwart his real development later?" Here Julien's brow darkened, and Annette hastened to change the subject. But what was she to do? She could not, as her Protestant friends advised, give her son a course in all the religions and leave him to choose for himself when he was sixteen years old. . . . Annette burst out laughing at this idea. What a strange conception of religion, as if it were a subject for an examination! In the end Annette had done nothing. She walked about with Marc, went into churches, sat down in a corner, marvelled with him at the upspringing forest of these lofty trunks of stone, the underwood gleams that filtered through the stained-glass windows, enjoyed the flight of the vaults, the distant chanting, the vague accompaniment of the organ. It was a veritable bath of reverie and self-communion.