The protest in Lago di Velo turns Don Aurelio’s departure into a public contest over parish loyalty, ecclesiastical authority, and access to worship. The women of the village pledge to stay away from church until their priest returns, while Massimo Alberti attempts to temper their anger by defending both the bishop and the sacrament. Their cause is not resolved: the gathering disperses, but the women intend to meet again, and the notice they leave on the church becomes the immediate focus of Massimo’s effort to restore calm.

Causes and Grievances

The protest is reported to Lelia Camin by villagers she meets on the road to Sant’Ubaldo. In their account, the priest has fled like a thief, while the provost wanted to drive him out because he was a good Christian. The women are angry at both the provost and the bishop. Their account presents Don Aurelio’s departure not as a private clerical change but as an injury to the parish, and it frames the dispute in sharply opposed moral terms: a priest valued by his people against superiors whom they believe have wronged him.

The villagers’ anger takes a specifically religious form. The women vow not to attend church on Sundays or at Easter, and not to bring children for baptism or couples for marriage, unless the priest returns. Their pledge makes the absence of a familiar pastor a reason to withdraw from the parish’s ordinary rites. The protest therefore risks extending the conflict beyond the priest’s removal: it would interrupt the communal occasions through which villagers participate in church life.

The Gathering and Its Message

Women lead the protest, but several men are present as well. A young gentleman has spoken in their defense of Don Aurelio, and the villagers remember that he spoke well and like a good Christian, though his appeal achieved nothing. After the gathering, the women write a coal message on the church’s two doors. When Lelia reaches the church, she finds no crowd waiting there, only the inscription on a side door declaring that it is closed until Don Aurelio returns.

The assembly has already dispersed by the time Lelia hears about it. The women nevertheless say they mean to gather again in the evening, so the quiet around the church does not signal that the protest has ended. The written notice gives their demand a visible, public form: even in the crowd’s absence, the closed church door speaks for the villagers’ refusal to accept the situation as settled.

Massimo’s Intervention

Massimo arrives with Lucia carrying a basin and sponge, prepared to remove the writing. Before resorting to this physical act, he has tried to persuade the villagers through argument. He urges them not to blame the provost or the bishop, suggesting that malicious people may have misrepresented the situation to them. He also warns that a boycott would cause Don Aurelio grave pain and could harm the priest in the eyes of his superiors, who might ask what kind of religion he had taught his parishioners.

Massimo distinguishes the sacrament from the individual priest: he argues that it deserves more love and respect than any one clergyman. This appeal does not persuade the villagers, but he takes moral satisfaction in having risen above resentment, as he believes Don Aurelio would have done. The contrast is pointed. The villagers express loyalty by refusing church attendance; Massimo expresses it by insisting that their anger must not be allowed to turn them away from religious practice.

When Lelia asks who wrote the message, Massimo calmly explains what happened and resumes scrubbing. A farmer coming from Maso warns him not to continue, implying that the work may bring trouble. Massimo asks directly whether the warning comes from the farmer himself. The man is unsettled, denies it, and leaves muttering. The exchange shows that the protest carries a local pressure beyond the initial assembly, although the warning remains vague and no specific threat is carried out in the scene.

Consequences and Significance

The inscription is being erased, but the underlying dispute remains unresolved: the villagers have dispersed, not withdrawn their demand, and they plan to reconvene. Massimo’s action removes their message from the church door without persuading them to abandon their boycott. The episode thus sets two forms of religious loyalty against one another: communal attachment to a particular pastor and Massimo’s insistence on continued respect for the sacraments despite anger at the clergy’s decisions.

For Massimo, the encounter also sharpens a personal resolve. Having acted, in his own view, above rancor, he feels serene in Lelia’s presence and more certain that his recent love for her belonged to a period of weakness. The village dispute therefore intersects with his effort to discipline his feelings: his public defense of religious duty becomes part of a broader attempt to live according to dignity and principle. Yet the protest’s unfinished ending preserves the tension between institutional authority and the people who believe that authority has deprived them of their priest.