up in his reliquary. But, the devil having given him a hint of the danger
he ran of being taken for an ordinary man, for a saint, a Boniface or a
Pantaléon, he interrupted this harmony of love by a shriek in which the
thousand voices of hell joined. Earth lauded, heaven condemned. The church
trembled on its ancient foundations.

"Te Deum laudamus!" sang the crowd.

"Go to the devil, brute beasts that you are! 'Carajos demonios!' Beasts!
what idiots you are with your God!"

And a torrent of curses rolled forth like a stream of burning lava at an
eruption of Vesuvius.

"'Deus sabaoth! sabaoth'!" cried the Christians.

Then the living arm was thrust out of the reliquary and waved
threateningly over the assembly with a gesture full of despair and irony.

"The saint is blessing us!" said the credulous old women, the children and
the young maids.

It is thus that we are often deceived in our adorations. The superior man
mocks those who compliment him, and compliments those whom he mocks in the
depths of his heart.

When the Abbot, bowing low before the altar, chanted: "'Sancte Johannes,
ora pro nobis'!" he heard distinctly: "'O coglione'!"

"What is happening up there?" cried the superior, seeing the reliquary