their wives must make their peace for them with
heaven! Except upon days of obligation, the most
that the men ever did —and they fathers —was to
clump into church looking awkward and large; and
then, having signed themselves with the cross, to
clump out again and light cigarettes — still, that
was obviously better than nothing, and as Marie
remarked with some truth to a neighbour who com-
plained that husbands were not famous at prayers:
'After all, it is they who earn money for our candles/
In the ancient houses had begun to appear many
yards of white net and of fine white muslin. Sewing
machines tapped and whirred in the evenings — one
could hear them as one walked past the open windows.
And, as likely as not, bending over her task, her work-
stained hands sharply contrasting with its whiteness,
a woman would be seaming the muslin dress in which
her daughter would kneel at the altar —the gentle
and innocent wedding dress to be worn by a youthful
bride of the spirit. But the veil, ah, that must be made
by hand with a prayer for every so many stitches* The
dress might be altered and worn again — since needs
must when a household was short of money —but
the veil would be carefully laid away wrapped in
sheets of elegant pink tissue paper, with perhaps a
few sprigs of lavender between, or some petals trodden
brown by the priest who had carried the monstrance
at Corpus ChristL The veil would be shown to inti-
mate friends, to relations who came on a family visit;
and, who knows, perhaps to the as-yet-unborn:
'Vois done, petite Angele, le voile qu'avait ta maman
pour sa Premiere Communion. Mais oui , , . elle
aussi a ete toute jeune. . . .* And the lavender
sprigs grown bare and scentless, and the petals grown
brittle and dropping to powder; for alas, time has
little respect at best, and none at all when we become
sentimental.
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