Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/171

Rh with excrement the front of the parsonage, which had just been re-painted.

Jaundiced with spite and rancour, the pastor seemed to stand alone against the whole parish and even against the entire island.

"How," Balthus Bomberg asked himself, "how reduce this haughty Kehlmark? How undermine his prestige, detach from him these misled and blinded brutes, and make them rise against their idol and burn what they adore?"

Far from listening to him they deserted his church. In the end, he preached but to empty benches. A dozen bigoted old women, including his wife and the two sisters of the Burgomaster alone remained to support him.

In the idolatrous devotion which the young Dykgrave had excited there was mingled something of the worship which the Roman populace had for Nero, their indulgent and prodigal provider of bread and games.