again be overtaken by the interminable chatter that had been
buzzing in his ears ever since morning, he turned up to the right again,
and only felt safe when he at last stood before the great doorway, where
he could not be seen from the parsonage. The front of the church, quite
bare and worn by the sunshine and rain of years, was crowned by a narrow
open stone belfry, in which a small bell showed its black silhouette,
whilst its rope disappeared through the tiles. Six broken steps, on
one side half buried in the earth, led up to the lofty arched door, now
cracked, smothered with dust and rust and cobwebs, and so frailly hung
upon its outwrenched hinges that it seemed as if the first slight puff
would secure free entrance to the winds of heaven. Abbe Mouret, who had
an affection for this dilapidated door, leaned against one of its leaves
as he stood upon the steps. Thence he could survey the whole country
round at a glance. And shading his eyes with his hands he scanned the
horizon.

In the month of May exuberant vegetation burst forth from that stony
soil. Gigantic lavenders, juniper bushes, patches of rank herbage
swarmed over the church threshold, and scattered clumps of dark greenery
even to the very tiles. It seemed as if the first throb of shooting sap
in the tough matted underwood might well topple the church over. At that
early hour, amid all the travail of nature's growth, there was a hum of
vivifying warmth, and the very rocks quivered as with a long and silent
effort. But the Abbe failed to comprehend the ardour of nature's painful
labour; he simply thought that the steps were tottering, and thereupon
leant against the other side of the door.

The countryside stretched away for a distance of six miles, bounded by
a wall of tawny hills speckled with black pine-woods. It was a fearful
landscape of arid wastes and rocky spurs rending the soil. The few
patches of arable ground were like scattered pools of blood, red fields
with rows of lean almond trees, grey-topped olive trees and long lines
of vines, streaking the soil with their brown stems. It was as if some
huge conflagration had swept by there, scattering the ashes of forests
over the hill-tops, consuming all the grass of the meadow lands, and
leaving its glare and furnace-like heat behind in the hollows. Only here
and there was the softer note of a pale green patch of growing corn. The
landscape generally was wild, lacking even a threadlet of water, dying