Then J6usfe dragged hard at his beard and swore,
and his oaths embraced the whole calendar of saints,
not even excepting the three Holy Marys. And he lost
his thread and swore by his sister; then he lost it
again and swore by his bitch; then he found it and
swore by the sword of Saint Loup — the sword that
had vanquished the hordes of the heathen. Indeed,
so bewildered did Jouse become — for his anger had
gone to his head like liquor — that in the end it was
hard to decide who, or what, had roused up this
access of fury.
'Malan de Dieu,5 he swore finally, cit is time that I
go and punish the beast — who knows but that it is
time I killed her! And you also I would very much
like to thrash. Dieu, there is little to choose between
you!5 Slipping into a dusty old overcoat which he
took from a peg just inside the doorway, he went round
to the yard and fetched a strong chain, and a stick
wherewith he would beat Mireio. Then he turned to
his sister: 'Come, let us go quickly!5
When they finally reached Madame Roustan's
house, Jouse rushed to the bedroom in search of his
son. Christophe lay sprawled in the cot sound asleep.
€Now may Jesus and His Mother be thanked,' whis-
pered Jouse. Then he dragged the bitch from under
the bed, who, knowing her master, came unprotesting;
and when he had got her outside on the road he
twisted her collar and started to beat her. And the
stick crashed ruthlessly down on her bones, for her
flesh was scanty through long under-feeding.
But Mireio endured with never a cry for hers was a
dumbly courageous nature, and moreover she well
knew that she would endure even death, if need be, for
the sake of Christophe. And so while the stick
crashed down on her bones, there leapt up in her poor
and much battered body, a thing very nearly akin
to God, a gleam of the selfless love of the spirit — for