No matter if
the roof leaks and there are no benches or chairs in the rest of the
church, you will always find the chapel of the Virgin bright with
flowers and lights, for it seems as if all the religious tenderness of
Brittany has concentrated there; it is the softest spot of its heart; it
is its weakness, its passion, its treasure. Though there are no flowers
in these parts, there are flowers in the church; though the people are
poor, the Virgin is always sumptuous and beautiful. She smiles at you,
and despairing souls go to warm themselves at her knees as at a
hearthstone that is never extinguished. One is astonished at the way
these people cling to their belief; but does one know the pleasure and
voluptuousness they derive from it? Is not asceticism superior
epicureanism, fasting, refined gormandising? Religion can supply one
with almost carnal sensations; prayer has its debauchery and
mortification its raptures; and the men who come at night and kneel in
front of this dressed statue, feel their hearts beat thickly and a sort
of vague intoxication, while in the streets of the city, the children on
their way home from school stop and gaze dreamily at the woman who
smiles at them from the stained window of the church.
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