drama. I must get out of it at any
cost, and I had no way of unravelling
it. I resolved by all means to find one."

J. JANIN (_L'Ans morte_).

He sat by his desolate hearth and began to think with terror of the eternal
solitude of that hearth. Alone! always alone! Already he had said to
himself very often that he had chosen the wrong road, that this arid and
desolate path was not the one needful to his ardent soul, that the hopes
with which he had formerly been deluded, were falsehoods in reality, and
that the God whom they had made him believe that he loved with such ardour,
left his soul empty and barren.

To love God! The love of God! High-sounding, hollow words which enable
hypocrites to take advantage of the common people; fantastic passion
kindled in the heart of fools for the amazement of the simple!

Ah! how willingly would he have replaced the worn-out vision of this
chimerical phantom with the likeness of some young girl, with sweet look
and smile, full of promise.

And the burning memory of the wanton player came and blended with the fresh
and radiant memory of the charming pupil of Saint-Denis.

"But why, priest, dost thou permit thy fevered guilty imagination to wander
thus? Pursue thy course, pursue it without stopping, without looking back;
henceforth it is too late to retrace thy path; anyhow be chaste, be chaste
under pain of shame and infamy.