ry as he strolled along the
road; but he had not gone beyond the village. He had returned home,
overcome by the perfumes, the heat, the breadth of the landscape. It
was only in the evening, in the cool twilight air, that he ventured to
saunter a little in front of the church, on the terrace which led to
the graveyard. In the afternoons, to fill up his time, and satisfy his
craving for some kind of occupation, he had imposed upon himself the
task of pasting paper over the broken panes of the church windows, This
had kept him for a week mounted on a ladder, arranging his paper panes
with great exactness, and laying on the paste with the most scrupulous
care in order to avoid any mess.

La Teuse stood at the foot of the ladder and watched him. And Desiree
urged that he must not fill up all the windows, or else the sparrows
would no longer be able to get through. To please her, the priest left
a pane or two in each window unfilled. Then, having completed these
repairs, he was seized with the ambition of decorating the church,
without summoning to his aid either mason or carpenter or painter. He
would do it all himself. This sort of handiwork would amuse him, he
said, and help to bring back his strength. Uncle Pascal encouraged him
every time he called at the parsonage, assuring him that such exercise
and fatigue were better than all the drugs in the world. And so Abbe
Mouret began to stop up the holes in the walls with plaster, to drive
fresh nails into the disjoined altars, and to crush and mix paints,
in order that he might put a new coating on the pulpit and
confessional-box. It was quite an event in the district, and folks
talked of it for a couple of leagues round. Peasants would come and
stand gazing, with their hands behind their backs, at his reverence's
work. The Abbe himself, with a blue apron tied round his waist, and his
hands all soiled with his labour, became absorbed in it, and used it as
an excuse for no longer going out. He spent his days in the midst of his
repairs, and was more tranquil than he had been before; almost cheerful,
indeed, as he forgot the outer world, the trees and the sunshine and the
warm breezes, which had formerly disturbed him so much.

'Monsieur le Cure is free to do as he pleases, since the parish hasn't
got to find the money,' said old Bambousse, who came round every evening
to see how the work was progressing.

Abbe Mouret spent all his savings on it. Some of his decorations,
ind