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out?”
    “We’ve been able to get hold of two trucks. We’ve got enough petrol. They’re going somewhere that is only about fifty kilometres from your parish, you know. It won’t take you too far out of your way.”
    “I’m free until Thursday,” said Philippe. “One of my Brothers is replacing me.”
    “Oh, the journey won’t take that long! Your father tells me you are familiar with the house one of our benefactresses has placed at our disposal. It’s a large estate in the middle of the woods. The proprietor inherited it last year and the furniture, which was very beautiful, was sold just before the war. The children can camp in the grounds. They will enjoy doing that in this lovely weather. At the beginning of the war they spent three months camping in another château in Corrèze kindly offered to us by one of these good ladies. We didn’t have any heating at all there. Every morning we had to break the ice on the jugs. The children have never behaved so well. The days of peacetime luxury and ease,” said the director, “are over.”
    The priest looked at the clock.
    “Would you do me the honour of having lunch with me, Father?”
    Philippe declined. He’d arrived in Paris that morning having travelled through the night. He was worried that Hubert might do something hot-headed and had come to get him, but the family was leaving that very day for Nièvre. Philippe wanted to be there when they left: an extra pair of hands wouldn’t go amiss, he thought, smiling.
    “I’ll go and tell the boys you’ll be taking my place,” said the director. “Perhaps you’d like to say a few words to them to get acquainted. I had intended to speak to them myself, to tell them the whole country’s at war, but I’m leaving at four o’clock and . . .”
    “I’ll speak to them,” said Father Péricand.
    He lowered his eyes, joined his hands and placed his fingertips on his lips. His face took on an expression of harshness and sadness as he looked into his heart. He disliked these unfortunate children. He walked towards them with all the kindness and goodwill he was capable of, but all he felt in their presence was coldness and disgust, not a single glimmer of love, nothing of that divine feeling which even the most miserable of sinners awoke in him when begging for forgiveness. There was more humility in bragging atheists, in hardened blasphemers, than in the eyes and words of these children. Their superficial obedience was terrifying. Despite being baptised, despite the holy sacraments of Communion and penance, no divine light illuminated them. They were children of Satan, without even enough spirituality to elevate themselves to a point where they desired divine light; they didn’t feel it; they didn’t want it; they didn’t miss it. Father Péricand thought tenderly of the good little children to whom he taught the catechism. He had no illusions about them, of course. He knew very well that evil had already planted solid roots in their young souls, but at certain moments they showed such promise of kindness, of innocent grace, that they trembled with pity and horror when he spoke to them of the Passion of Christ. He was eager to get back to them. He thought of the First Communion they would celebrate the following Sunday.
    Meanwhile, he followed the director into the hall where the boys had been assembled. The shutters were closed. In the darkness, he tripped on one of the steps near the doorway and had to grab on to the director’s arm to avoid falling. He looked at the children, waiting, hoping for some stifled laughter. Sometimes a ridiculous incident like this breaks the ice between students and teachers. But no. Not one of them reacted. They stood in a semicircle against the wall with the youngest—those between eleven and fourteen—in front; their faces were pale, their lips tightly clenched, their eyes lowered. Almost all of them were small for their age and scrawny. The older ones, aged fifteen to