Jouse and Marie were humble people; very grateful
and flattered when they found that the Cure was
showing an interest in their elder son, and had even
put himself to the trouble of enquiring whether le
tout petit Loup might accompany his brother to the
Sunday classes. Le tout petit Loup was still rather
fragile and was not at all well disposed towards
religion, being fretful or impish when saying his
prayers, and this despite his illustrious patron. How-
ever, he was now made to wash his small hands, and
to clean his small nails —which were shockingly
bitten —and to blow his small nose with a decent
care, and to walk without trying to hop like a frog
as he went to the church with Christophe on Sundays.
For Marie would have her sons well-grounded in
their faith—in such matters she could be conscientious
to sternness.
The Cure did not much like le tout petit Loup who
fidgeted and shuffled his feet without ceasing, and
who made himself sticky with the sucre de pomme
which was always slyly concealed on his person.
Moreover, if le tout petit Loup looked annoyed, as he
frequently did when the Cure asked him questions,
Christophe had a habit of producing toys — little
figures of beasts and birds carved by Anfos; and unless
the subject should chance to be the ark, these toys
would be quite out of place in the lesson. However,
they would cheer up le tout petit Loup, and when
Christophe was remonstrated with by the Cure, he
would always reply in much the same vein: *I have
brought them in order to stop him crying.5 So the
Cure must make the best of the thing by reminding
his pupils of the Creation. But once he had said:
'And God created great whales/ which had so much
excited le tout petit Loup that instead of allowing the
matter to drop he had promptly demanded to be told
all about them. No, the Cure did not like this wisp of
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