licious soever it may be, can impart the least idea. He
feels himself softly soaring in a heavenly sphere; he seems to rise to
an immeasurable height.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

After having for some moments revelled in this unspeakable felicity he
again finds himself in the dark abyss of his habitual thoughts. His
dream continues; but he is again but the muzzled miscreant who
blasphemes and curses in the paroxysm of his impotent rage. A voice is
heard--sonorous--solemn. It is Rodolph's. The Schoolmaster starts "like
a guilty thing upon a fearful summons." He has the vague consciousness
of a dream; but the alarm with which Rodolph inspires him is so great
that he tries, but vainly, to escape from this fresh vision. The voice
speaks--he listens. The tone of Rodolph is not severe; it is "rather in
sorrow than in anger."

"Unhappy man," he says to the Schoolmaster, "the hour of your repentance
has not yet sounded. God only knows when it will strike. The punishment
of your crimes is still incomplete; you have suffered, but not expiated.
Destiny follows out its work of full justice. Your accomplices have
become your tormentors. A woman, a child, tame, subdue, conquer you.
When I sentenced you to a terrible punishment for your crimes I said--do
you remember my words?--'You have wickedly abused the great bodily
strength bestowed upon you; I will paralyse that strength. The strongest
have trembled before you; I will make you henceforward shrink in the
presence of the weakest of beings.' You have left the obscure retreat in
which you might have dwelt for repentance and expiation. You were afraid
of silence and solitude. You sought to drown remembrance by new crimes.
Just now, in a fearful and bloodthirsty access of passion, you have
wished to kill your wife. She is here under the same roof as yourself.
She sleeps without defence. You have a knife. Her apartment is close at
hand. There was nothing to prevent you from reaching her. Nothing could
have protected her from your rage--nothing but your impotence. The dream
you have had, and in which you are still bound, may teach you much, may
save you. The mysterious phantoms of this dream bear with them a most
pregnant meaning. The lake of blood, in which your victims have
appeared, is the blood you have shed. The molten lava which replaced it
is the gnawing, eating remorse, which must consume you before one day,
that the Almighty, having merc