s the good? What
would he do? What would he say to them? There was henceforth an abyss
between him and these men who remained encrusted in the vessel of
clericalism, the most uncrossable of all abysses, that which divides the
thoughts. They were perhaps happy. He recalled to mind the long hours he
had passed beneath the Sacred Heart in the little chapel of an evening,
amidst the wax-lights, the incense and the flowers, mingling his voice in
exaltation with the voices of the young Levites, and singing senseless
hymns, with his heart melting with love of God.

And he began to envy those young fanatics whose blind and unintelligent
faith killed every rising thought, and who were ready to suffer martyrdom
to support the ridiculous beliefs which they had been taught and which they
were called upon to teach. Blind, idiotic and deaf.

"Why am I not so still!" he said; "I should believe myself the only guilty
one, the only wicked and perverse one among all those apostles; I should
curse my weaknesses and myself; but at least I should have faith, I should
walk onward with a star upon my brow, the star of sublime follies which
gives light and life, whereas I see nought around me but desolation and
death. I should humble myself before the Almighty, and I should cry to him
like the poet:

"'Oh Lord, oh Lord my God, thou art our Father:
Pity, for thou art kind! pity for thou art great!'

"And instead of that, I am obliged to humble myself before that Bishop whom
I despise, to endure the scorn of his lacqueys, and the offensive patronage
of his secretary, to have the opportunity of saying:

"'A little place in your good graces, Monseigneur!' No, a thousand times
no. My village, my poor belfry, my humble parsonage, my liberty, and my
Suzanne!"

By his dejected look, his uncle and the Comtesse believed he had not
succeeded.

--Too late! they cried. The cure is given away.

--Yes, he answered.

--To whom? To the _Sweet Jesus_, I wager. Ah, the Tartuffe.

--To me.

--And that is why you have a funereal expression?

--Yes, uncle, for I am burying for ever my tranquillity and my happiness.

--Is it only that? Madame la Comtesse, I present to you the oddest and the
most extraordinary man you have ever met. Judge him yourself. He has just
carried off at the first onset what he was eagerly desiring, and there he
is as cheerful as a flogged donkey. Ah, my dear Madame, how difficult it is
to benefit people in spite of themse