He was really comforted when the servant said that Monsieur l'AbbÉ was at home. He entered a little drawing-room, and waited till the priest, whom he heard speaking to someone in the next chamber, was alone.

He looked at the little room, and marked that nothing was changed since his last visit. It was still furnished with a velvet sofa, of which the red, once crimson, had become the faded rose colour of raspberry jam on bread. There were also two tall arm-chairs on either side of the chimney, which was ornamented by an Empire clock, and some china vases filled with sand, in which were stuck some dry stalks of reed. In a corner against the wall, under an old wooden crucifix, was a prie-dieu, marked by the knees, an oval table in the centre, some sacred engravings on the walls; and that was all.

"It is like an hotel, or an old maid's lodging," thought Durtal. The commonness of the furniture, the curtains in faded damask, the panels hung with a paper covered with bouquets of poppies and field-flowers in false colours, were like lodgings by the month, but certain details, above all the scrupulous cleanliness of the room, the worked cushions on the sofa, the grass mats under the chairs, an hortensia like a painted cauliflower placed in a flower-pot covered with lace, looked on the other hand like the futile and icy room of a devout woman.

"Nothing was wanting but a cage of canaries, photographs in plush frames, shell-work and crochet mats."

Durtal had got so far in his reflections when the abbÉ came in with extended hand, gently finding fault with his long absence.

Durtal made what excuses he could, unusual occupations, long weariness.

"And our Blessed Lidwine, how do you get on with her?"

"Ah, I have not even begun her life; I am not in a state of mind which allows me to engage in it."

Durtal's accent of discouragement surprised the priest.

"Come, what is the matter? Can I be of any use to you?"

"I do not know, Monsieur l'AbbÉ. I am almost ashamed to talk to you about such troubles," and suddenly he burst out, telling his sorrows in any chance words, declaring the unreality of his conversion, his struggles with the flesh, his human respect, his neglect of religious practices, his aversion from the rites demanded of him, in fact from all yokes.

The abbÉ listened without moving, his chin on his hand.

"You are more than forty," he said, when Durtal was silent; "you have passed the age when without any impulse from thought, the awakening of the flesh excites temptations, you are now in that period when indecent thoughts first present themselves to the imagination, before the senses are agitated. We have then to fight less against your sleeping body than your mind, which stimulates and vexes it. On the other hand, you have arrears and prizes of affection to put out, you have no wife or children to receive them, so that your affections being driven back by celibacy, you will end by taking them there where at first they should have been placed; you try to appease your soul's hunger in chapels, and as you hesitate, as you have not the courage to come to a decision, to break once for all with your vices, you have arrived at this strange compromise; to reserve your tender feeling for the church and the manifestations of that feeling for women. That, if I do not mistake, is your correct balance-sheet. But, good heavens, you have not too much to complain of, for do you not see that the important thing is to care for woman only with your bodily senses? When Heaven has given you grace to be no longer taken captive by thought, all may be arranged with a little effort of will."

"This is an indulgent priest," thought Durtal.

"But," continued the abbÉ, "you cannot always sit between two stools, the moment will come when you must stick to the one, and push the other away."

And looking at Durtal, who looked down without answering,—

"Do you pray? I do not ask if you say your morning prayers, for not all those, who end by entering on the divine way, after wandering for years where chance might take them, call on the Lord so soon as they awake. At break of day the soul thinks itself well, thinks itself firmer, and at once takes occasion of this fleeting energy to forget God. It is with the soul as with the body when it is sick. When night comes our sensations are stronger, pain which was quieted awakes, the fever which slept blazes up again, filth revives and wounds bleed anew, and then it thinks of the divine Miracle-worker, it thinks of Christ. Do you pray in the evening?"

"Sometimes—and yet it is very difficult; the afternoon is tolerable, but you say truly when the daylight goes, evils spring up. A whole cavalcade of obscene ideas then pass through my brain; how can any one be recollected at such moments?"

"If you do not feel able to resist in the street or at home, why do you not take refuge in the churches?"

"But they are closed when one has most need of them; the clergy put Jesus to bed at nightfall."

"I know it, but if most churches are closed, there are a few which remain partly open very late. Ah, St. Sulpice is among the number, and there is one which remains open every evening, and where those who visit it are always sure of prayers and Benediction: Notre Dame des Victoires, I think you know it."

"Yes, Monsieur l'AbbÉ. It is ugly enough to cause tears, it is pretentious, it is in bad taste, and the singers churn up a margarine of rancid tones. I do not go there then as I go to St. Severin and St. Sulpice, to admire there the art of the old 'Praisers of God,' to listen, even if they are incorrectly given, to the broad, familiar melodies of plain chant. Notre Dame des Victoires is worthless from the Æsthetic point of view, and yet I go there from time to time, because alone in Paris it has the irresistible attraction of true piety, it alone preserves intact the lost soul of the Time. At whatever hour one goes there people are praying there, prostrate in absolute silence; it is full as soon as it is open, and full at its closing, there is a constant coming and going of pilgrims from all parts of Paris, arriving from the depths of the provinces, and it seems that each one, by the prayers that he brings, adds fuel to the immense brazier of Faith whose flames break out again under the smoky arches like the thousands of tapers which constantly burn, and are renewed from morning till evening, before Our Lady.

"Well, I who seek the most deserted corners and the darkest places in the chapels, I who hate mobs, mix almost willingly with those I find there; because there everyone is isolated, no one is concerned with his neighbour, you do not see the human bodies which throng you, but you feel the breath of souls around. However refractory, however damp you may be, you end by taking fire at this contact, and are astonished to find yourself all at once less vile; it seems to me that the prayers which elsewhere when they leave my lips fall back to the ground exhausted and chilled, spring upwards in that place, are borne on by others, grow warm and soar and live.

"At St. Severin I have indeed experienced the sensation of a help spreading from the pillars and running through the arches, but, as I think, the aid is less strong. Perhaps since the Middle Ages that church makes use of, but cannot renew the celestial effluvia with which it is charged; while at Notre Dame the help which springs up from the very pavement is for ever vivified by the uninterrupted presence of an ardent crowd. In the one it is the impregnate stone, the church itself which brings consolation, in the other it is above all things the fervour of the crowds which fill it.

"And then I have the strange impression that the Virgin, attracted and retained by so great faith, only spends a little while in other churches, goes there as a visitor, but has made her home, and really resides in Notre Dame."

The abbÉ smiled.

"Come, I see that you know and love it; and yet the church is not on our left bank, beyond which, you said to me one day, there is no sanctuary worth having."

"Yes, and I am surprised at it, especially as it is placed in a thoroughly commercial quarter, two paces from the Exchange, whose ignoble shouts can be heard in it."

"It was itself an Exchange," said the abbÉ.

"In what way?"

"After having been baptized by the monks, and having served as a chapel for the discalced Augustinians, it was horribly desecrated in the Revolution, and the Exchange was set up within its walls."

"I was not aware of that detail," said Durtal.

"But," continued the abbÉ, "it was with it, as with those holy women, who, if we believe their biographers, recovered by a life of prayer the virginity they had formerly lost. Our Lady washed it from its violation, and though it is comparatively modern, it is at the present day saturated with emanations, infused by effluences of angels, penetrated with divine drugs, it is for sick souls what certain thermal springs are for the body. People keep their season there, make their novenas, and obtain their cure.

"Now to come back to our point; I tell you you will do wisely, if on your bad evenings you will attend Benediction in that church. I shall be surprised if you do not come out cleansed and at peace."

"If he have only that to offer me, it is little enough," thought Durtal. And after a disappointed silence he rejoined,

"But, Monsieur l'AbbÉ, even were I to visit that sanctuary, and follow the offices in other churches, when temptations assail me, even were I to confess and draw near the Sacraments, how would that advantage me? I should meet as I came out the woman whose very sight inflames my senses, and it would be with me as after my leaving St. Severin all unnerved; the very feeling of tenderness which I had in the chapel would destroy me, and I should fall back into sin."

"What do you know about it?" and the priest suddenly rose, and took long strides through the room.

"You have no right to speak thus, for the virtue of the Sacrament is formal, the man who has communicated is no longer alone. He is armed against others and defended against himself," and crossing his arms before Durtal he exclaimed,—

"To lose one's soul for the pleasure of momentary gratification! what madness. And since the time of your conversion, does not that disgust you?"

"Yes, I am disgusted with myself, but only after my swinish desires are satisfied. If only I could gain true repentance."

"Rest assured," said the abbÉ, who sat down again, "you will find it."

And, seeing that Durtal shook his head,

"Remember what Saint Teresa said: 'One trouble of those who are beginning is, that they cannot recognize whether they have true repentance for their faults; but they have it, and the proof is their sincere resolution to serve God.' Think of that sentence, for it applies to you; that repugnance to your sins which wearies you is witness to your regret, and you have a desire to serve the Lord, since you are in fact struggling to go to Him."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well, then, Monsieur l'AbbÉ, what is your advice?"

"I advise you to pray in your own house, in church, everywhere, as much as you can. I do not prescribe any religious remedy, I simply invite you to profit by some precepts of pious hygiene, afterwards we will see."

Durtal remained undecided, discontented, like those sick persons who find fault with doctors, who, to satisfy them, prescribe only colourless drugs.

The priest laughed.

"Confess," he said, looking him in the face, "confess that you are saying to yourself, 'It was not worth while to put myself out, for I am no further advanced, this good fellow, the priest, practises expectant medicine; instead of cutting short my crises with energetic remedies, he palters, advises me to go to bed early, not to catch cold—'"

"Oh, Monsieur l'AbbÉ," protested Durtal.

"Yet I do not wish to treat you like a child, or talk to you like a woman; now attend to me!

"The way in which your conversion has worked leaves me in no doubt whatever. There has been what Mysticism calls the divine touch, only—note this—God has dispensed with human intervention, even with the interference of a priest, to bring you back into the road you have left for more than twenty years.

"Now we cannot reasonably suppose that the Lord has acted lightly, and that He will now leave His work unaccomplished. He will carry it through if you put no obstacle in His way.

"In fact you are at this moment like a block in His hands; what will He do with it? I do not know, but since He has kept to Himself the conduct of your soul, let Him act; be patient, He will explain His action; trust in Him, He will help you; be content to protest with the Psalmist: 'Doce me facere voluntatem tuam, quia Deus meus es tu.'

"I tell you again I believe in the preventive virtue, the formal power of the Sacraments. I quite understand the system of PÈre Milleriot, who obliged those persons to communicate whom he thought would afterwards fall again into sin. For their only penance he obliged them to communicate again and again, and he ended by purifying them with the Sacred Species, taken in large doses. It is a doctrine at once realistic and exalted.

"But reassure yourself," continued the abbÉ, looking at Durtal, who seemed wearied, "I do not intend to experiment on you in this way; on the contrary, my advice is that in the state of ignorance in which we are of God's will, you abstain from the Sacraments.

"For you should desire them, and it should come from you rather than from Him; be sure that sooner or later you will thirst for Penance, hunger for the Eucharist. Well, when unable to restrain yourself longer, you ask for pardon and entreat to be allowed to approach the Holy Table, we shall see, we will ask Him what way He will choose to take, in order to save you."

"But there are not, I presume, several ways of confessing and communicating?"

"Certainly not, that is just what I meant to say ... but ..."

And the priest hesitated, at a loss for words.

"It is quite certain," he began again, "that art has been the principal means which the Saviour has used to make you absorb the Faith. He has taken you on your weak side—or strong side, if you like that better. He has infused into your nature the chief mystical works; he has persuaded and converted you, less by the way of reason than the way of the senses; and indeed those are the special conditions you have to take into account.

"On the other hand your soul is not humble and simple, you are a sort of 'sensitive,' whom the least imprudence, the least stupidity of a confessor would at once repel.

"Therefore that you may not be at the mercy of a troublesome impression, certain precautions must be taken. In the state of weakness and feebleness in which you are, a disagreeable face, an unlucky word, antipathetic surroundings, a mere nothing would be enough to rout you—is it not so?"

"Alas!" sighed Durtal, "I am obliged to answer that you are right; but, Monsieur l'AbbÉ, I do not think I shall have to fear such disillusions if when the moment you predict has come you will allow me to make my confession to you."

The priest was silent for a while; then said,

"No doubt, since I have met you, I may probably be useful to you, but I have an idea that my part will be confined to pointing out the road to you; I shall be a connecting link, and nothing more, you will end as you have begun, without help, alone." The abbÉ remained in thought, then shook his head, and went on: "Let us leave the subject, however, for we cannot anticipate the designs of God; to sum up, try to stifle in prayer your attacks of the flesh, it is a less matter not to be overcome at the moment, than to direct all your efforts not to be so."

Then the priest added gently to rouse the spirits of Durtal, whom he saw to be depressed,

"If you fall do not despair, and throw the handle after the hatchet. Say to yourself, that, after all Lust is not the most unpardonable of faults, that it is one of two sins for which the human being pays cash, and which are consequently expiated in part at least before death. Say to yourself that wantonness and avarice refuse all credit and will not wait; and in fact, whoever unlawfully commits a fleshly act is almost always punished in his lifetime. For some there are bastards to provide for, sickly wives, low connections, broken careers, abominable deceptions on the part of those they have loved. On whichever side we turn when women are concerned we have to suffer, for she is the most powerful instrument of sorrow which God has given to man.

"It is the same with the passion for gain. Every being who allows himself to be overcome by that hateful sin, pays for it as a rule before his death. Look at the Panama business. Cooks, housekeepers, small proprietors who till then had lived in peace, seeking no inordinate gains, no illicit profit, threw themselves like madmen into that business. They had one only thought, to gain money; the chastisement of their cupidity was, as you know, sudden."

"Yes," said Durtal, laughing, "the de Lesseps were the agents of providence, when they stole the savings of fools, who had moreover got them probably by thieving."

"In a word," said the abbÉ, "I repeat my last advice: do not be at all discouraged if you sink. Do not despise yourself too much; have the courage to enter a church afterwards; for the devil catches you by cowardice, the false shame, the false humility he suggests, nourish, maintain, solidify your wantonness in some measure.

"Well! no good-bye; come and see me soon again."

Durtal found himself in the street a little confused. "It is evident," he murmured, as he stalked along, "that the AbbÉ GÉvresin is a clever spiritual watchmaker. He has dexterously taken to pieces the movement of my passions, and made the hours of idleness and weariness strike, but, after all, his advice comes only to this: stew in your own juice and wait.

"Indeed he is right; if I had come to the point I should not have gone to him to chatter, but really to confess. What is strange is that he does not at all seem to think he will have to put me through the wash-tub; and to whom does he mean me to go—to the first comer who will wind about me his spool of commonplaces, and stroke me with his big hands without seeing clearly?

"Well, well ... what is the time?" He looked at his watch. "Six o'clock, and I do not care to go home. What shall I do till dinner?"

He was near St. Sulpice. He went in and sat down, to clear his thoughts a little, taking a place in the Chapel of Our Lady, which at that hour was almost empty.

He felt no wish to pray, and rested there, looking at the great arch of marble and gold, like a scene in a theatre, where the Virgin, the only figure in the light, advances towards the faithful, as from a decorated grotto, on plaster clouds.

Meanwhile two Little Sisters of the Poor came and knelt not far from him, and meditated, their heads between their hands.

He thought as he looked at them,—

"Those souls are to be envied who can thus be abstracted in prayer. How do they manage it? For, in fact, it is not easy, if one thinks of the sorrows of the world, to praise the vaunted mercy of God. It is all very fine to believe that He exists, to be certain that He is good; in fact, we do not know Him—we are ignorant of Him. He is, and, in fact, He can only be, immanent, permanent, and inaccessible. He is we know not what, and at most we know what He is not. Try to imagine Him, and the senses fail, for He is above, about, and in each one of us. He is three and He is one; He is each and He is all; He is without beginning, and He will be without end; He is above all and for ever incomprehensible. If we try to picture Him to ourselves and give Him a human wrappage, we come back to the simple conception of the early times, we represent Him under the features of an ancestor. Some old Italian model, some old Father TourgÉneff, with a long beard, and we cannot but smile, so childish is the likeness of God the Father.

"He is, in fact, so absolutely above the imagination and the senses, that He comes only nominally into prayer, and the impulses of humanity ascend especially to the Son, Who only can be addressed, because He became man, and is to us somewhat of an elder brother, because, having wept in human form, we think He will hear us more readily, and be more compassionate to our sorrows.

"As to the third Person, He is even more disconcerting than the first. He is especially the unknowable. How can we imagine this God formless and bodiless, this Substance equal to the two others, who, as it were, breathe Him forth? We think of Him as a brightness, a fluid, a breath; we cannot even lend to Him as to the Father the face of a man, since on the two occasions that He took to Himself a body, He showed Himself under the likenesses of a dove and of tongues of fire, and these two different aspects do not help to a suggestion of the new appearance He might assume.

"Certainly the Trinity is terrible, and makes the brain reel. RuysbrÖck has moreover said admirably, 'Let those who would know and study what God is, know that it is forbidden; they will go mad.'

"So," he continued, looking at the two Little Sisters, who were now telling their beads, "these good women are right not to try to understand, and to confine themselves to praying with all their heart to the Mother and the Son.

"Moreover, in all the lives of the saints which they have read, they have made certain that Jesus and Mary always appeared to the elect to console and strengthen them.

"In fact, how stupid I am. To pray to the Son is to pray to the two others, for in praying to one among them I pray at the same time to the three, since the three make but one. And the Substances are, however, special, because if the divine Essence is one and simple, it is so in the threefold distinction of the Persons; but, again, what is the use of fathoming the Impenetrable?

"Yet," he continued, remembering the interview he had just had with the priest, "how will all this end? If the abbÉ be right, I no longer belong to myself; I am about to enter the unknown, which frightens me. If only the sound of my vices consents to be silent, but I feel that they rise furiously within me. Ah, that Florence"—and he thought of a woman to whose vagaries he was riveted—"continues to walk about in my brain. I see her behind the lowered curtain of my eyes, and when I think of her I am a terrible coward."

He endeavoured once more to put her away, but his will was overcome at the sight of her.

He hated, despised, and even cursed her, but the madness of his illusions excited him; he left her disgusted with her and with himself; he swore he would never see her again, but did not keep his resolve.

He saw her now in vision extend her hand to him.

He recoiled, struggling to free himself; but his dream continued mingling her with the form of one of the sisters whose gentle profile he saw.

Suddenly he started, returned to the real world, and saw that he was at St. Sulpice, in the chapel. "It is disgusting that I should come here to soil the church with my horrible dreams; I had better go."

He went out in confusion, thinking, "Perhaps if I visit Florence once again, I may perhaps put an end to this haunting sense of her presence, seeing and knowing the reality."

And he was obliged to answer himself that he was becoming idiotic, for he knew by experience that past desire grows in proportion as it is nourished. "No, the abbÉ was right; I have to become and to remain penitent. But how? Pray? How can I pray, when evil imaginations pursue me even in church? Evil dreams followed me to La GlaciÈre; here they appear again, and smite me to the ground. How can I defend myself? for indeed it is frightful to be thus alone, to know nothing and have no proof, to feel the prayers which one tears out of oneself fall into the silence and the void without a gesture to answer, without a word of encouragement, without a sign. I do not even know if He be there, and if He listens. The abbÉ tells me to wait an indication, an order from on high; but, alas! they come to me from below."