;
the dark infernal region of hell, which we had laughed away, exacts a
heavy interest, and takes a cruel revenge: this poor soul belongs to
it. What would become of her, alas! had she not a spiritual physician
at her bedside to succour and encourage her? "Do not leave me, I am
too much afraid!"--"Do not fear; you are not responsible for all this:
God will pardon you these disordered emotions; they are not yours; the
devil stirs thus within us."--"The devil! ah! I felt him; I thought,
indeed, this violent and strange emotion was foreign to me. But how
horrible to be the sport of the malignant spirit!"--"I am here; be not
afraid; hold me fast; go straight on; the abyss, it is true, is gaping
wide, on the right and on the left; but, by following the narrow
bridge, with God's assistance, we shall walk along this razor-edge to
Paradise."

Great, indeed, is the power to be so necessary, ever called and
desired! to hold, as it were, the two threads of hope and fear, which
drag the soul at pleasure. When troubled, they calm her; when calm,
they agitate her: she grows more and more feeble, and the physician is
so much the stronger; he perceives it, and he enjoys it. He, to whom
every natural enjoyment is forbidden, feels a gloomy happiness, a
mawkish sensuality, in exercising this power; making the ebb and the
flow, afflicting in order to console, wounding, healing, and wounding
again. "Oh! let her be ill for ever! I suffer, let her suffer with
me. It is at least something to have pain in common."

But they do not gather these sighs, and support the languid head with
impunity. He who wounded, is wounded in his turn. In these
outpourings of the heart, the most simple person often says, without
knowing it, things that inflame the passions. He draws back, as if
indignant and angry, before the scorching flame that a gentle hand has
applied without being aware of it: he endeavours to conceal his emotion
under a well-feigned pious anger; he tries to hate sin, but he only
envies it.

How gloomy he seems that day! See him ascend the pulpit. What ails
this holy man of God? People see too plainly; it is the zeal of the
law that devours him--he bears all the sins of the people. What
thunder and lightning in his discourse! is it the last judgment? every
one flinches. One woman, however, has received the whole force of the
thundering denunciation; she grows pale, her knees no longer support
her; the blow struck home: for