amn--in the name of what original
sin?--whom thou darest punish--by the virtue of what covenants?--we
would have thee confess thine impudent cheats, thine inexpiable crimes!
We would drive deeper the nails into thy hands, press down the crown of
thorns upon thy brow, bring blood and water from the dry wounds of thy
sides.

"And that we can and will do by violating the quietude of thy body,
Profaner of ample vices, Abstractor of stupid purities, cursed Nazarene,
do-nothing King, coward God!" "Amen!" trilled the soprano voices of the
choir boys.

Durtal listened in amazement to this torrent of blasphemies and insults.
The foulness of the priest stupefied him. A silence succeeded the
litany. The chapel was foggy with the smoke of the censers. The women,
hitherto taciturn, flustered now, as, remounting the altar, the canon
turned toward them and blessed them with his left hand in a sweeping
gesture. And suddenly the choir boys tinkled the prayer bells.

It was a signal. The women fell to the carpet and writhed. One of them
seemed to be worked by a spring. She threw herself prone and waved her
legs in the air. Another, suddenly struck by a hideous strabism,
clucked, then becoming tongue-tied stood with her mouth open, the tongue
turned back, the tip cleaving to the palate. Another, inflated, livid,
her pupils dilated, lolled her head back over her shoulders, then jerked
it brusquely erect and belaboured herself, tearing her breast with her
nails. Another, sprawling on her back, undid her skirts, drew forth a
rag, enormous, meteorized; then her face twisted into a horrible
grimace, and her tongue, which she could not control, stuck out, bitten
at the edges, harrowed by red teeth, from a bloody mouth.

Suddenly Durtal rose, and now he heard and saw Docre distinctly.

Docre contemplated the Christ surmounting the tabernacle, and with arms
spread wide apart he spewed forth frightful insults, and, at the end of
his forces, muttered the billingsgate of a drunken cabman. One of the
choir boys knelt before him with his back toward the altar. A shudder
ran around the priest's spine. In a solemn but jerky voice he said,
"_Hoc est enim corpus meum_," then, instead of kneeling, after the
consecration, before the precious Body, he faced the congregation, and
appeared tumefied, haggard, dripping with sweat. He staggered between
the two choir boys, who, raising the chasuble, displayed his naked
belly. Docre made a few passes and the h