d at the mess we made.

Pont-l'Abbe is a peaceful little town, cut in two in its entire length
by a broad, paved street. Its modest inhabitants cannot possibly look
any more stupid or insignificant than the place itself.

For those who must see something wherever they go, there are the
unimportant remains of the castle and the church, an edifice that would
be quite passable were it not for the thick coat of paint that covers
it. The chapel of the Virgin was a bower of flowers; bunches of
jonquils, pansies, roses, jessamine, and honeysuckle were arranged in
blue glasses or white china vases and spread their bright colours over
the altar and upward between the two tall candlesticks framing the
Virgin's face and her silver crown, from which fell a long veil caught
on the gold star of the plaster Infant she held in her arms. One could
smell the odour of the holy water and the flowers. It was a perfumed,
mysterious little nook all by itself, a hidden retreat decorated by
loving hands, and peculiarly adapted for the exhalation of mystical
desires and long, heart-broken orisons. All his heart's sensuousness,
compressed by the climate and numbed by misery, is brought here by man
and laid at the feet of Mary, the Divine Mother, and he is thus able to
satisfy his unquenchable longing for love and enjoyment. No matter if
the roof leaks and there are no benches or chairs in the rest of the
church, you will always find the chapel of the Virgin bright with
flowers and lights, for it seems as if all the religious tenderness of
Brittany has concentrated there; it is the softest spot of its heart; it
is its weakness, its passion, its treasure. Though there are no flowers
in these parts, there are flowers in the church; though the people are
poor, the Virgin is always sumptuous and beautiful. She smiles at you,
and despairing souls go to warm themselves at her knees as at a
hearthstone that is never extinguished. One is astonished at the way
these people cling to their belief; but does one know the pleasure and
voluptuousness they derive from it? Is not asceticism superior
epicureanism, fasting, refined gormandising? Religion can supply one
with almost carnal sensations; prayer has its debauchery and
mortification its raptures; and the men who come at night and kneel in
front of this dressed statue, feel their hearts beat thickly and a sort
of vague intoxication, while in the streets of the city, the children on
their way home from scho