curacy, situated in the depths of the
woods and even isolated from the life of the century.

Yes, I have loved as none in the world ever loved--with an insensate
and furious passion--so violent that I am astonished it did not cause my
heart to burst asunder. Ah, what nights--what nights!

From my earliest childhood I had felt a vocation to the priesthood, so
that all my studies were directed with that idea in view. Up to the
age of twenty-four my life had been only a prolonged novitiate. Having
completed my course of theology I successively received all the minor
orders, and my superiors judged me worthy, despite my youth, to pass the
last awful degree. My ordination was fixed for Easter week.

I had never gone into the world. My world was confined by the walls of
the college and the seminary. I knew in a vague sort of a way that there
was something called Woman, but I never permitted my thoughts to dwell
on such a subject, and I lived in a state of perfect innocence. Twice
a year only I saw my infirm and aged mother, and in those visits were
comprised my sole relations with the outer world.

I regretted nothing; I felt not the least hesitation at taking the last
irrevocable step; I was filled with joy and impatience. Never did a
betrothed lover count the slow hours with more feverish ardour; I slept
only to dream that I was saying mass; I believed there could be nothing
in the world more delightful than to be a priest; I would have refused
to be a king or a poet in preference. My ambition could conceive of no
loftier aim.

I tell you this in order to show you that what happened to me could
not have happened in the natural order of things, and to enable you to
understand that I was the victim of an inexplicable fascination.

At last the great day came. I walked to the church with a step so light
that I fancied myself sustained in air, or that I had wings upon my
shoulders. I believed myself an angel, and wondered at the sombre and
thoughtful faces of my companions, for there were several of us. I
had passed all the night in prayer, and was in a condition wellnigh
bordering on ecstasy. The bishop, a venerable old man, seemed to me God
the Father leaning over His Eternity, and I beheld Heaven through the
vault of the temple.

You well know the details of that ceremony--the benediction, the
communion under both forms, the anointing of the palms of the hands with
the Oil of Catechumens, and then the holy sacrifice of