"--You there! Are you coming in, or are you staying outside? scorned a horned devil, prodding me with his fork. "--Me? I'm not going in. I am a friend of Almighty God. "--So, you're a friend of God.... Eh! You damned fool! What are you doing here?... "--I have come.... Oh! don't bother me, I can hardly stand up.... I have come ... I have come from a far away ... to humbly ask ... if ... if, by any chance, you have someone here from Cucugnan.... "--Oh! God's teeth! you're playing the idiot, you; it's as though you didn't know that the whole of Cucugnan is here. Well, ugly crow, watch and you will see how things are here with your precious Cucugnanians...." * * * * * "And I saw, in the middle of a terrible, flaming vortex of flame: "The lanky Coq-Galine--you all knew him, my brothers--Coq-Galine, who was regularly drunk, and so often knocked ten bells out of his poor Clairon. "I saw Catarinet ... that little vixen ... with her nose in the air ... who slept _alone_ in the barn.... You remember that, you rascals!... But let's move on, I've said too much already. "I saw Pascal Doigt-de-Poix, who made his olive oil--with monsieur Julien's olives! "I saw Babet the gleaner, who, as she gleaned, grabbed handfuls from the stacks to make up her quota! "I saw Master Grapasi, who oiled his wheelbarrow rather a lot, so as not to be heard! "And Dauphine, who greatly overcharged for water from her wells. "And le Tortillard, who, when he met me carrying the Good Lord, rushed away, with his biretta perched on his head and his pipe stuck in his mouth ... as proud as Lucifer ... as though he had come across a mangy dog. "And Coulau with his Zette, and Jacques, and Pierre, and Toni...." * * * * * Much moved and ashen with fear, the congregation whimpered, while imagining their fathers, and their mothers and their grandmothers and their sisters, when hell's gates were opened.... --Your feelings don't deceive you, brothers, the good abbot continued, you sense that this can't go on. I am responsible for your souls, and I do want to save you from the abyss towards which you are rushing helter-skelter and head first. "Tomorrow, at the latest, my task begins. And the work will not be in vain! This is how I am going to go about it. For it to come out well, everything must be done in an orderly way. We will proceed step by step, like at Jonquières when there's a dance. "Tomorrow, Monday. I will give confession to the old men and women. Nothing much there. "Tuesday. The children. I'll soon have done. "Wednesday. The young men and women. That might take a long time. "Thursday. The men. We'd better cut that short. "Friday. The women. I will tell them, not to build up their parts! "Saturday. The miller. A day mightn't be enough for him. "And, if we've finished by Sunday, we'll have done very well.