byThe village was terrified.
It was a Sunday. The peasants of Saint-Nicolas and the surrounding area were coming out of the church and spreading across the square when, suddenly, some women who were walking ahead and already turning on the main road fell back, uttering horrified cries.
Immediately I saw—huge, terrible, like a monster—an immense red automobile rushing at us at a dizzying pace. Amidst the clamor and the frantic flight of people, it headed straight for the church, veered just as it was about to crash against the steps, brushed against the wall of the presbytery, found its way back to the national road, and then moved away without even—an incomprehensible miracle!—grazing, in this diabolical hook, a single one of the people who cluttered the place… and disappeared.
But we h
