im,
to speak as he was speaking, for, since his journey to America, he
had learned to estimate the formidable power of the Company. But this
revelation of the past, looked at from the vantage-ground of a more
enlightened present, was for the young priest the excuse, or rather the
cause of the determination he had just signified to his superior, and
he wished to explain all faithfully, notwithstanding the danger he
knowingly encountered. He continued therefore, in an agitated voice:

"You know, father, that the last days of my childhood, that happy age
of frankness and innocent joy, were spent in an atmosphere of terror,
suspicion, and restraint. Alas! how could I resign myself to the least
impulse of confiding trust, when I was recommended to shun the looks of
him who spoke with me, in order to hide the impression that his words
might cause--to conceal whatever I felt, and to observe and listen to
everything? Thus I reached the age of fifteen; by degrees, the rare
visits that I was allowed to pay, but always in presence of one of our
fathers, to my adopted mother and brother, were quite suppressed, so as
to shut my heart against all soft and tender emotions. Sad and fearful
in that large, old noiseless, gloomy house, I felt that I became more
and more isolated from the affections and the freedom of the world.
My time was divided between mutilated studies, without connection and
without object, and long hours of minute devotional exercises. I ask
you, father, did they ever seek to warm our young souls by words of
tenderness or evangelic love? Alas, no! For the words of the divine
Saviour--Love ye one another, they had substituted the command: Suspect
ye one another. Did they ever, father, speak to us of our country or of
liberty?--No! ah, no! for those words make the heart beat high; and with
them, the heart must not beat at all. To our long hours of study and
devotion, there only succeeded a few walks, three by three--never two
and two--because by threes, the spy-system is more practicable, and
because intimacies are more easily formed by two alone; and thus might
have arisen some of those generous friendships, which also make the
heart beat more than it should.15 And so, by the habitual repression of
every feeling, there came a time when I could not feel at all. For six
months, I had not seen my adopted mother and brother; they came to visit
me at the college; a few years before, I should have received them with
transp