ion along with the others."

"That is too much! I--I submit to such absurdities!"

At this blasphemy the cure turned pale, his eyeballs gleamed, his jaw
quivered.

"Silence, unhappy man! silence! And it is his wife who looks after the
church linen!"

"Well, what then? What has she done to you?"

"She always stays away from mass. Like yourself, for that matter!"

"Oh! a schoolmaster is not sent away for a thing of that kind!"

"He can be removed."

The priest said no more.

He was at the end of the room, in the shadow.

Petit was thinking, with his head resting on his chest.

They would arrive at the other end of France, their last sou eaten up by
the journey, and they would again find down there, under different
names, the same cure, the same superintendent, the same prefect--all,
even to the minister, were like links in a chain dragging him down. He
had already had one warning--others would follow. After that?--and in a
kind of hallucination he saw himself walking along a high-road, a bag on
his back, those whom he loved by his side, and his hand held out towards
a post-chaise.

At that moment his wife was seized with a fit of coughing in the
kitchen, the new-born infant began to squeal, and the boy was crying.

"Poor children!" said the priest in a softened voice.

The father thereupon broke into sobs:

"Yes, yes! whatever you require!"

"I count upon it," replied the cure.

And, having made the customary bow:

"Well, good evening to you, gentlemen."

The schoolmaster remained with his face in his hands.

He pushed away Bouvard. "No! let me alone. I feel as if I'd like to die.
I am an unfortunate man."

The two friends, when they reached their own house, congratulated
themselves on their independence. The power of the clergy terrified
them.

It was now employed for the purpose of strengthening public order. The
Republic was about to disappear.

Three millions of electors found themselves excluded from universal
suffrage. The security required from newspapers was raised; the press
censorship was re-established. It was even suggested that it should be
put in force against the fiction columns. Classical philosophy was
considered dangerous. The commercial classes preached the dogma of
material interests; and the populace seemed satisfied.

The country-people came back to their old masters.

M. de Faverges, who had estates in Eure, was declared a member of the
Legislative Assembly, and his