dream. Would not
Chartres be a sort of monastic haven, of open cloister, where he could
enjoy his liberty and not have to give up his comforts? Would it not, at
any rate, for lack of an unattainable hermitage, be a sop thrown to his
desires; and supposing he could succeed in reducing his too exorbitant
demands, give him the final repose and peace for which he had yearned
ever since his return from La Trappe?

And nothing of all this had been realized. The unsettled feeling he had
experienced in Paris had pursued him to Chartres. He was, as it were, on
the march, or perched on a bough; he could not feel at home, but as a
man lingering on in furnished rooms, whence he must presently depart.

In short, he had deluded himself when he had fancied that a man might
make a cell of a solitary room in silent surroundings; the religious
jog-trot in a provincial atmosphere had no resemblance to the life of a
monastery. There was no illusion or suggestion of the convent.

This check, when he recognized it, added to the ardour or his regrets;
and the distress which in Paris had lurked latent and ill-defined,
developed at Chartres clear and unmistakable.

Then began an unremitting struggle with himself.

The Abbe Gevresin, whom he consulted, would only smile and treat him as
in a novices' school or a seminary a youthful postulant is treated who
confesses to deep melancholy and persistent weariness. His malady is not
taken seriously; he is told that all his companions suffer the same
temptations, the same qualms; he is sent away comforted, while his
superiors seem to be laughing at him.

But at the end of a little time this method no longer succeeded. Then
the Abbe was firm with Durtal, and one day, when his penitent was
bemoaning himself, he replied,--

"It is an attack you must get over," and then he added lightly after a
silence, "And it will not be the last or the worst."

At this Durtal turned restive; the Abbe, however, drove him to bay,
wanting to make him confess how senseless his struggles were.

"The idea of the cloister haunts you," said he. "Well, then, what is
there to hinder you? Why do you not retire to a Trappist convent?"

"You know very well that I am not strong enough to endure the rule."

"Then become an oblate; go to join Monsieur Bruno at Notre Dame de
l'Atre."

"No, indeed, not that, at any rate. To be an oblate at La Trappe is the
same thing as remaining at Chartres! It is a mere half-measure. Monsi