David, who had abstained from appearing in court, in order that he might give no occasion for an increase of anti-Semite hatred, awaited the result at Delbos's rooms in the Rue Fontanier. Until ten o'clock he remained counting the minutes, consumed by the most torturing fever, knowing not whether he ought to rejoice or despair at such delay. He continually went to the window to lean out, and listen to the sounds in the distance. And the very atmosphere of the street, and the exclamations of a few people passing, had already imparted to him the fatal tidings, when Marc arrived, sobbing, exhausted, and confirmed them. Salvan accompanied Marc--Salvan, whom the young man had met on quitting the court, and who was also beside himself. There came an hour of tragic despair, of utter collapse, when all that was good and just seemed to be engulfed for ever; and when Delbos, after an interview with Simon, whom he had found stricken yet still erect, arrived in his turn, he could only cast himself on David's neck and embrace him, even as he had embraced his brother yonder. 'Ah! weep, my friend!' he cried. 'It is the greatest iniquity of the century!' IV On his return to Jonville after the vacation that year, Marc had found himself engaged in another struggle, one having no connection with Simon's case. His adversary, Abbé Cognasse, the parish priest, anxious to get him into difficulties, had decided to make an effort to win over the village Mayor, one Martineau, a peasant, through the latter's wife, 'the beautiful Martineau,' as she was called. Abbé Cognasse was a terrible man, tall, lean, and angular, with a determined chin, and a sharp nose under a low brow and a thick mane of dark hair. His eyes glowed with aggressive fire; his knotty hands, which he seldom washed, seemed made expressly for the purpose of throttling those who dared to resist him. Forty years of age, he kept one servant, Palmyre, an old maid of sixty, who was inclined to be humpbacked and who was yet more terrible than her master, so miserly and harsh indeed that she was regarded as the terror of the district. The priest was said to lead a chaste life, but he ate a great deal and he drank very copiously, though without intoxicating himself. A peasant's son, and therefore narrow and stubborn in his opinions, he always insisted upon his rights and his dues, never foregoing a single copper of the latter, even when the poorest of his parishioners was in question. Thus he was very anxious to hold Mayor Martineau in his power in order to become the real master of the commune, and thereby increase his own profits as well as assure the triumph of religion. As for his quarrel with Marc, this had arisen over a sum of thirty francs a year which the parish had arranged to pay the schoolmaster for ringing the church bell, and which Marc, for a time, duly received, although he absolutely refused to put his hands to the bell-rope.