The priest mounted the pulpit, and everyone raised their heads and gazed at him in his white surplice as he leaned over the people and read the Gospel. In the light and colours flowing over him from the windows, he looked like an angel floating on a rainbow. The priest spoke long and fiercely so that many a soul sighed with a heart full of remorse, many a tear fell, while others lowered their eyes, searching their consciences repentantly and promising to mend their ways…….
For now he looked like an archangel in a fiery chariot of light: his face had grown pale, his eyes flashed like lightning when he began to berate the people for their sins, their avarice, their drunkenness, their debauchery, the wrongs they had inflicted, their neglect of the old folk, their godlessness! And he exhorted them in a great voice to come to their senses….
…the sound of lamenting, snivelling and wiping of noses filled the church, and when the priest turned to the altar with a prayer of penitence and fell to his knees, the whole church groaned as one, like a forest bent by the storm. They fell to the ground on their faces and until the dust flew and shrouded those contrite hearts like a cloud as the called on the Lord with sighs and cries for mercy.
Władysław Reymont, “The Peasants”, 1909
