ns before which he remained distracted
without either strength or courage.

The sight of that ashen Rome, whose edifices faded away into the night,
at last brought him such a heart-pang that he came back into the room and
fell on a chair near his luggage. Never before had he experienced such
distress of spirit, it seemed like the death of his soul. After his
disaster at Lourdes he had not come to Rome in search of the candid and
complete faith of a little child, but the superior faith of an
intellectual being, rising above rites and symbols, and seeking to ensure
the greatest possible happiness of mankind based on its need of
certainty. And if this collapsed, if Catholicism could not be rejuvenated
and become the religion and moral law of the new generations, if the Pope
at Rome and with Rome could not be the Father, the arch of alliance, the
spiritual leader whom all hearkened to and obeyed, why then, in Pierre's
eyes, the last hope was wrecked, the supreme rending which must plunge
present-day society into the abyss was near at hand. That scaffolding of
Catholic socialism which had seemed to him so happily devised for the
consolidation of the old Church, now appeared to him lying on the ground;
and he judged it severely as a mere passing expedient which might perhaps
for some years prop up the ruined edifice, but which was simply based on
an intentional misunderstanding, on a skilful lie, on politics and
diplomacy. No, no, that the people should once again, as so many times
before, be duped and gained over, caressed in order that it might be
enthralled--this was repugnant to one's reason, and the whole system
appeared degenerate, dangerous, temporary, calculated to end in the worst
catastrophes. So this then was the finish, nothing remained erect and
stable, the old world was about to disappear amidst the frightful
sanguinary crisis whose approach was announced by such indisputable
signs. And he, before that chaos near at hand, had no soul left him,
having once more lost his faith in that decisive experiment which, he had
felt beforehand, would either strengthen him or strike him down for ever.
The thunderbolt had fallen, and now, O God, what should he do?

To shake off his anguish he began to walk across the room. Aye, what
should he do now that he was all doubt again, all dolorous negation, and
that his cassock weighed more heavily than it had ever weighed upon his
shoulders? He remembered having told Monsignor Nani