cloister, where the monotonous chant of prayers in an incense-laden
atmosphere would bring on a somnolence, a dreamy rapture of mystical
ideas. But only a simple soul, on which life's wear and tear had left no
mark, was capable of savouring the delights of such a self-abandon, and
his own soul was battered and torn with earthly conflict. He must admit
that the momentary desire to believe, to take refuge in the timeless,
proceeded from a multitude of ignoble motives: from lassitude with the
petty and repeated annoyances of existence, quarrels with the laundress,
with the waiter, with the landlord; the sordid scramble for money; in a
word, from the general spiritual failure of a man approaching forty. He
thought of escaping into a monastery somewhat as street girls think of
going into a house where they will be free from the dangers of the
chase, from worry about food and lodging, and where they will not have
to do their own washing and ironing.

Unmarried, without settled income, the voice of carnality now
practically stilled in him, he sometimes cursed the existence he had
shaped for himself. At times, weary of attempting to coerce words to do
his bidding, he threw down his pen and looked into the future. He could
see nothing ahead of him but bitterness and cause for alarm, and,
seeking consolation, he was forced to admit that only religion could
heal, but religion demanded in return so arrant a desertion of common
sense, so pusillanimous a willingness to be astonished at nothing, that
he threw up his hands and begged off.

Yet he was always playing with the thought, indeed he could not escape
it. For though religion was without foundation it was also without limit
and promised a complete escape from earth into dizzy, unexplored
altitudes. Then, too, Durtal was attracted to the Church by its intimate
and ecstatic art, the splendour of its legends, and the radiant naïveté