Ebook Maria Chapdelaine

Ite, missa est: depart, the mass is finished. The door of the church at Peribonka opened, and the men began to come out.

A moment earlier it had appeared desolate, this church, set by the side of the road, on the bank high above the Peribonka river, - its surface, frozen and covered with snow, all like a level plain. The snow lay deep on the road too, and on the fields, for the April sun was shedding through the grey clouds only sparse rays without heat, and the heavy spring rains had not yet come. This cold whiteness, the small size of the wooden church and of the few houses, likewise of wood, set at intervals along the road, the somber verge of the forest, so near that it seemed a menace, - all told of a hard life in an austere land.