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“Look out, Father, a demon!”

Calédu rushes up and grabs him by the collar. Face contorted in hate, he starts slapping him.

“Quiet, you!”

“Satan!” Jacques yells.

Then Calédu pulls his revolver from his belt and shoots the lunatic point-blank. Jacques falls to his knees without a protest.

The procession stops abruptly. In the silence, you can only hear the crying of the children in the first row. Some of the nuns clutch their rosaries in their shaking hands. Others clench them convulsively. We are standing, bodies stiff in a kind of hypnotic trance. But Jacques, red with blood, begins to crawl toward us, scraping the earth with his nails. Holding his head up, he moves slowly, painfully Dr. Audier, sweat pouring down his face, takes a step toward him, but a bullet whistling near his feet nails him to the ground, terrified.

The pharmacist twirls his hat in his hands mechanically. He spins it faster and faster as if his movements are not in his control. The women have hidden their faces in their kerchiefs; the nuns, eyes turned to heaven, drone a Pater Noster. The beggars lying on the ground are watching the scene without moving.

I see Joël Marti turn his head to the right and to the left, as if looking for help. With bulging eyes, he points at his brother, who has just collapsed face-first on the ground. He wants to go to him. Someone holds him back.

“Don’t move,” Calédu yells.

He steps back, smoking gun in his fist, as we remain frozen in place.

Father Paul then whispers something to the choir children, and in an instant, he is surrounded by a halo of incense. Raising the monstrance over his head, framed by the choir children, he walks up to Calédu.

“And now,” he says, “I ask for your permission to perform my priestly duties.”

The buzz of prayer becomes more intense.

Still walking backward, the commandant makes an impatient movement with his left hand to indicate his total indifference, and disappears around the corner.

This was the signal for a mad dash. The trembling nuns gathered their students. Men, women, and children rushed home. Dr. Audier and his wife followed me into our living room. We then told the entire story to Jean Luze and Félicia, whom we had awakened from their nap.

Crowding behind partly opened blinds, we watched Joël Marti, who was weeping over the body.

Jean Luze glanced at Dr. Audier’s sweaty face.

“Are you sure he is dead?” he asked. “That there is nothing more that can be done?”

“I will find out later.”

“Later!” Jean Luze cried out, “later indeed, while you stay here trembling with fear!”

“Hush! Calm down, dear,” Félicia said softly.

“It’s none of my business. It’s not up to me to stand up to your district commandant. This is your home, not mine. It is not the responsibility of a passing stranger to reform a place where he does not belong.”

He raised his voice and we trembled even more.

“Hush!” Dr. Audier said in his turn, with a glance to the porch.

“You have to protest, respond to this with a demonstration, face the danger together. They would never destroy an entire town. These murders, these tortures, are meant to terrorize you. But let one person here lead an uprising and the other side will tremble …”

“You don’t understand anything,” Dr. Audier said laconically, softly resting his trembling hand on Jean Luze’s arm.

Mme Audier was weeping and blowing her nose loudly.

Jean Luze opened the door of the living room with a gesture of unconcealed anger and went out. We saw him help Joël Marti carry Jacques’ body away, holding the feet awkwardly.

Jacques is dead. He was buried today. A few poets came out of their holes and carried his coffin to the cemetery in silence, heads lowered. Policemen and beggars were posted along the route. Violette followed the cortège with some flowers in her arms. As for the others, myself among them, we stayed behind locked doors, sitting quietly at home.

Jean Luze shows contempt in his eyes and in his smile. He can’t forgive our cowardice, reproaching us for it in every visible