Kindle Notes & Highlights
In the depths of this desolate band of hills, this was a race apart, a tribe born of the soil, a whole humanity of three hundred head, starting again as if at the beginning of time.
He recalled that at the age of eight he used to tuck himself away and weep for love; he didn’t know who it was he loved; he simply wept because he loved someone far away. He had always remained emotional in this way.
The last time I went in, it was so dark under the leaves, and stank so strongly of wild flowers, and such strange puffs of wind blew along the paths, that I was almost frightened. I barricaded myself in here so the park couldn’t get in. A patch of sunshine, three feet of lettuce to look at, a big hedge to blot out the horizon, that’s already more than enough for happiness. Nothing, that’s what I’d like, nothing at all, something so small that the outside can’t come in and disturb me. Six feet of earth, if you like, so I can lie down and die on my back.’
Make me one of those angels who have nothing more than two great wings behind their cheeks; I shall have no more trunk, no limbs; I shall fly to you, if you call me; I shall be no more than a mouth to sing your praises, or a pair of spotless wings to cradle your journeys in the heavens.
And he began to sob more quietly, saying that winter was an illness of the earth and he would die along with it, unless spring came and cured them both.
Standing in the sunshine, he said: ‘How lovely the light is!’ It seemed as if those words were a vibration of the sun itself. They fell into the air, little more than a murmur, like a breath of music, a tremor of heat and life.
Some venerable plum trees, all hoary with moss, were still stretching up to drink in the blazing sun, without one leaf losing colour. Cherry trees were building whole townships with multistorey houses, flights of stairs, and floors made of branches, big enough to house ten families.
Abbé Mouret pointed to his cassock. ‘I cannot,’ he said simply; ‘I am a priest.’ ‘Priest!’ she repeated, no longer smiling. ‘Yes, Uncle says priests have no wife, no sister, no mother. That’s true, then... But why did you come? You took me as your sister and your wife. Were you just lying?’ He raised his face to her, pale, and showing beads of anguished sweat. ‘I have sinned,’ he murmured. ‘As for me,’ she went on, ‘when I saw how free you were, I thought you weren’t a priest any more. I thought that was over and done with, and you’d always be there, for me and with me... And now what do you
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‘Oh! if you only knew, you would tell me to carry you off, you would bind your arms round my neck so I couldn’t go away without you... Yesterday, I decided to see the garden again. It’s even bigger, more profound, and more unfathomable than ever. I found new scents in it, scents so exquisite they made me cry. In the avenues, I met showers of sunshine that drenched me with a shivering of desire. The roses spoke to me of you. The bullfinches were astonished at seeing me alone. The whole garden was sighing... Oh! come, never have the grasses unrolled such soft beds. I have marked with a flower
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He protested, quietly and calmly. Then she had a first moment of violence. ‘Be quiet! Could the garden ever die! It will sleep this winter, and wake up again in May, bringing back to us all that we have confided to it of our love; our kisses will bloom again in the flower garden; our vows will grow up again with the grass and the trees... If you could only see it, if you could hear it, it feels more deeply, and is more sweetly, more poignantly loving in this season of autumn, when it is falling asleep in its fruitfulness... You do not love me any more, you cannot understand.’
