Rumour Mongering

There was this guy named Ugolin, who lived in the French village of Bourg in the years before World War II. He is a hunchback but was a kind man and a devout Christian. He was also ugly. In fact, he was so ugly that he scared children and stopped traffic. So the villagers mocked him. They stared at his hunched little body and pointed out that Ugolin’s hands twitched and hung to his knees. People followed Ugolin as he walked, and sometimes they jeered at him. “Whore’s child!” they shouted. “Devil’s spawn!” Ugolin made what he could of life in Bourg. During the night hours he would loiter near the village station, hoping to earn a few coins by carrying a bag for a visitor.

Ugolin has one older sister named Solange, who had taken care of Ugolin as he grew up. When Solange was a teenager she had gone to work for a farmer in order to make something to support herself and her brother. This arrangement worked until one day when the farmer tried to take advantage of Solange. She resisted, so the farmer took his revenge by accusing her of theft and getting her jailed for two years.

It was while Solange was in jail that Ugolin’s spine had become diseased. When she was released, she tried to get a job, but nobody would hire her. Wasn’t she a thief, after all?

Ugolin’s health deteriorated during this period and was restored only when Solange showed up one day not only with her usual words of kindness, but also with food and medicine. She also arranged for a physician to see Ugolin and even got her brother some treatment in a hospital. How had all this happened? Ugolin found out the truth only after he was discharged from the hospital. The truth was that his lovely sister had become a whore in order to pay for his care. Because she loved her brother, Solange had rented out
her body to some of the same customers who had treated Ugolin so shamefully.

One night Ugolin was making his way home when he ran into a crowd that was in a jovial mood. Some of the men were drunk, and one of them tied Ugolin to a lantern post, and stripped him. Then a ring formed, and pretty soon everybody in the ring was dancing around Ugolin and singing, “The lovers of your sister pay a dollar apiece.” Finally the village priest appeared, cut Ugolin loose, and carried him away. The village priest, Father de la Roudaire, the 80-year-old priest, hoisted Ugolin over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes, carried him home, and put him to bed.

In the morning, while the priest was at Mass, Ugolin woke up, walked to the river, and drowned himself. That afternoon Solange shot herself in a room at the brothel.

Father de la Roudaire performed a Mass of requiem, treating the deaths as murder, not suicide. Never was such a crowd at church as on the day of the funeral. Half the shops were closed, and all the dignitaries were there, and most of the local rowdies. Up in front, one black cloth covered the two coffins of Solange and Ugolin, sister and brother.

Father de la Roudaire mounted the pulpit and stood there for a moment in silence.

He slowly swept the congregation with his eyes, as if he wanted to peer into the soul of every man and woman who was there.
“Then he said: ‘CHRISTIANS!’ and the word was like a whiplash. ‘CHRISTIANS!’

When the Lord of life and death shall ask me on the Day of Judgment,

‘Pasteur de la Roudaire, where are your sheep?’

I will not answer Him. And when the Lord shall ask me for the second time:

‘Pasteur de la Roudaire, where are your sheep?’ I still will not answer him.

“But when the Lord shall ask me the third time,

‘Pasteur de la Roudaire . . . where. . . .are. . . .your. . . sheep? then I shall hang my head, and I shall say:

‘O Lord, I never had any sheep. All I had was a pack of wolves!’”

End of the story???!

[ This story is extracted from Pierre Van Passen's book titled “The Days of Our Years”]


Is there a conclusion to this story? Perhaps I will let you end this story yourself.


Proverbs 26:22 (NIV)
The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts.