A gentle story, sort of a compressed version of A Christmas Carol. There’s some great description of the beauty of this particular night and the effect it has on the priest.

I like the way the priest’s misogyny unfolds from the general:

But he hated woman; he hated her unconsciously and he despised her by instinct.

to the philosophical:

God, in this good priest’s opinion, had created woman only in order to try man and to prove him.

to the comic:

…she embraced him vehemently, pressing him against her heart, while he sought involuntarily to disengage himself from this embrace…

Along the way the character transforms from masterful philosopher to awkward old man trying to get away from a hug and back to the chaste loneliness of his chosen life, with the subtle suggestion that maybe his philosophy is self-justification for his celibacy and isolation, and not the other way around.

The on-paper drama (man’s worldview is shaken) is mild but effective, and I’m always down for a shot at a character who thinks he’s got it all figured out and is off to impose that knowledge on the world. The priest’s life is just empty enough for me to root for him to be changed.

This sudden charge of violence:

When ten o’clock struck he took his cane, a formidable oaken cudgel, which he carried always in his nightly walks when he went to see some sick parishioner. And he smiled as he surveyed the huge club which he twirled in his solid fist with a menacing whirl. Then suddenly he rose, and, grinding his teeth, brought it down on a chair, splitting the back, which fell to the floor.

While tame by the standards of, for example, modern TV, where the priest would have taken PCP and strangled someone, it’s disturbing in a story that has so far stayed on a cool, analytical plane. The very next line is the priest opening the door, cudgel in hand, but before the sentence is over he’s seen the moonlight.

What follows, the description of the moonlight and the sweet honeysuckle, is the pivot, and that’s where the best prose is. It’s very good.

Elsewhere there are hints of old-fashioned prose, but as a whole the story feels neatly constructed. There’s a sense of lightness and balance that I don’t always get from older stories, including others by de Maupassant, which often stray into allegory.