The Sermon on the Fall of Rome, стр. 32

of Corte, who had come over to sing in the mass before performing at the party on Easter Monday and they, too, were hastily trying to sober up as best they could. A sleepy congregation packed the church. The electric lights had been switched off. Light came only from the tall candles lit in front of the altar. The smell of incense reminded Matthieu of Izaskun’s skin. He crossed himself, stifling a sour hiccup. Pierre-Emmanuel and his friends found themselves a spot in the apse, the text of the Psalms in their hands. They cleared their throats and whispered in one another’s ears, shifting from one foot to the other. The priest proclaimed that, so that the world might be saved, darkness was about to descend upon the world, as it prepared to put its savior to death, who was now in tears in the garden of Gethsemane. The singers struck up the first psalm,

In Salem also is His tabernacle and His dwelling in Zion,

their voices filled the church and were marvelously clear. An expression of extreme relief appeared on Pierre-Emmanuel’s face, he closed his eyes to concentrate on his own singing and the priest stepped forward and snuffed out one of the candles. You could hear the noise of the rattles and the feet stamping on the wooden prayer stools to bear witness to the end of the world as it sank into darkness,

The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved,

and now Gavina Pintus looked up toward the cross with the eyes of a frightened little girl, and in the front row Virgile Ordioni was nervously twisting his cap in his hands, as if the whole village were really going to be swallowed up, there was confusion now between the grinding of the rattles and the noise of shaken foundations, the stones of the church shuddered until the cacophony came to an end and the singing rose up once more,

That the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice,

and the priest snuffed out the candles one by one. Soon there was only a single flickering flame left, Gavina Pintus took her son’s hand as he repressed a sacrilegious yawn, Matthieu was hoping the end of the world would not be as tedious as this, he was cold and sleepy, while over there, in bedclothes so close at hand, Izaskun’s body radiated warmth to no avail and the priest raised his tall copper candlesnuffer and it was now completely dark.

The horns of the righteous shall be exalted.

The priest continued speaking in the darkness and said that Christians were not afraid of the darkness from the midst of which he was speaking at that moment, for they knew that it did not mean the triumph of nothingness, the light that had been extinguished was only the light of men and the darkness covered them so that in the end the divine light should appear, for the darkness was its cradle, as the sacrifice of the Lamb proclaimed the resurrection of the Son in the glory of the Father, the everlasting Word, the beginning of all things, and the darkness was not death, for it bore witness not only to the end but also to the luminous beginning, for it was, in truth, one and the same witness. The milky light of dawn crept in beneath the closed doors. After blessing them the priest released his flock, a significant number of whom hurried across to the bar to get over their emotion. Libero made cups of coffee and placed a bottle of whisky on the counter for those whose emotion might really have been too intense. Pierre-Emmanuel was worried about the quality of his performance and Libero assured him that it had been very good, even though, it had to be admitted, polyphonic music was, all in all, boring as hell and hard to take in large doses. Virgile Ordioni who, after drinking his coffee, was reaching out a timid hand toward the whisky, voiced his disagreement.

“It was beautiful! Magnificent! Libero knows nothing about it.”

Pierre-Emmanuel patted him on the back with a laugh.

“And what about you? What do you know about it?”

but Virgile was not vexed, he appeared to reflect for a moment, then said,

“That’s true. I don’t know much about it. But it was beautiful, all the same,”

and there ensued an animated discussion touching on polyphonic music, the various musical abilities of different people, rattles, candles and priests, a discussion crowned by the opportune appearance of another bottle of whisky, and so it was that when Izaskun and Sarah arrived at opening time, they had to kick everyone out into the rain that was just starting to fall. But on Easter Monday the day dawned on a radiant spring. Pierre-Emmanuel and the men from Corte set up their sound system in the open air and tuned their instruments. Matthieu drank some rosé in the sunlight as he watched Izaskun and raised his glass to her. She responded with a little gesture of her hand, the sketch of a kiss. She was his sister, his loving, incestuous sister. He watched one of the men from Corte whispering sweet nothings in her ear, she laughed, but he was not jealous, he did not care what she might do with this fellow, she was his sister, not his wife, and she would come back to him, no one could take anything away from him and he enjoyed a formidable feeling of superiority, as if he had been raised up to heights where no one could harm him anymore. He was amazed that his happiness was unshakeable to this degree and he drank his wine in the warmth of the spring sunshine. The next day he set off with Libero. They gave Bernard Gratas the keys to the bar, they kissed the girls and set off for Ajaccio, waving goodbye and calling out,

“Be good! Don’t let the joint go under, whatever you do! See you next week!”

On the road they talked about what they were