owls
having at times disappeared, the fowl-houses were now closed at night
with stout padlocks; moreover one Artaud had killed another Artaud one
evening behind the mill. These folk, begirt by that belt of desolate
hills, were truly a people apart--a race sprung from the soil, a
miniature replica of mankind, three hundred souls all told, beginning
the centuries yet once again.

Over the priest the sombre shadows of seminary life still hovered. For
years he had never seen the sun. He perceived it not even now, his
eyes closed and gazing inwards on his soul, and with no feeling for
perishable nature, fated to damnation, save contempt. For a long time
in his hours of devout thought he had dreamt of some hermit's desert,
of some mountain hole, where no living thing--neither being, plant,
nor water--should distract him from the contemplation of God. It was an
impulse springing from the purest love, from a loathing of all physical
sensation. There, dying to self, and with his back turned to the light
of day, he would have waited till he should cease to be, till nothing
should remain of him but the sovereign whiteness of the soul. To him
heaven seemed all white, with a luminous whiteness as if lilies there
snowed down upon one, as if every form of purity, innocence, and
chastity there blazed. But his confessor reproved him whenever he
related his longings for solitude, his cravings for an existence of
Godlike purity; and recalled him to the struggles of the Church, the
necessary duties of the priesthood. Later on, after his ordination, the
young priest had come to Les Artaud at his own request, there hoping to
realise his dream of human annihilation. In that desolate spot, on that
barren soil, he might shut his ears to all worldly sounds, and live the
dreamy life of a saint. For some months past, in truth, his existence
had been wholly undisturbed, rarely had any thrill of the village-life
disturbed him; and even the sun's heat scarcely brought him any glow
of feeling as he walked the paths, his whole being wrapped in heaven,
heedless of the unceasing travail of life amidst which he moved.

The big black dog watching over Les Artaud had determined to come up to
Abbe Mouret, and now sat upon its haunches at the priest's feet; but the
unconscious man remained absorbed amidst the sweetness of the morning.
On the previous evening he had begun the exercises of the Rosary, and
to the intercession of the Virgin with her Divine Son h