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Jean-Christophe Journey's End by Romain Rolland
page 277 of 655 (42%)
from their forbears, who for centuries had bowed before the Son of
Man.--It goes without saying that both men were anti-clerical.

The amusing part of it was that the honest stationer lived with a very
pious niece who did just what she liked with him. She was a very dark
little woman, plump, with sharp eyes and a gift of volubility spiced
with a strong Marseilles accent, and she was the widow of a clerk in the
Department of Commerce. When she was left alone with no money, with a
little girl, and received a home with her uncle, the common little
creature gave herself airs, and was more than a little inclined to think
that she was doing her shop-keeping relation a great favor by serving in
his shop: she reigned there with the airs of a fallen queen, though,
fortunately for her uncle's business and his customers, her arrogance
was tempered by her natural exuberance and her need of talking. As
befitted a person of her distinction, Madame Alexandrine was royalist
and clerical, and she used to parade her feelings with a zeal that was
all the more indiscreet as she took a malicious delight in teasing the
old miscreant in whose house she had taken up her abode. She had set
herself up as mistress of the house, and regarded herself as responsible
for the conscience of the whole household: if she was unable to convert
her uncle--(she had vowed to capture him _in extremis_),--she
busied herself to her heart's content with sprinkling the devil with
holy water. She fixed pictures of Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Anthony
of Padua on the walls: she decorated the mantelpiece with little painted
images in glass cases: and in the proper season she made a little chapel
of the months of Mary with little blue candles in her daughter's
bedroom. It was impossible to tell which was the predominant factor in
her aggressive piety, real affection for the uncle she desired to
convert or a wicked joy in worrying the old man.

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