“You see now,” went on Bardolotti, “how difficult our position is, between these sharpers on the one hand, who have stepped into our shoes, and the police on the other, who, when they mean to catch them, may very well lay hold upon us instead.”
“What is one to do?” wailed Fleurissoire. “I see danger everywhere.”
“Are you surprised now at our excessive prudence?” asked Bardolotti.
“And can you fail to understand that at moments we do not hesitate to clothe ourselves in the livery of sin and feign indulgence towards the most culpable of pleasures?”
“Alas!” stammered Fleurissoire, “you at any rate do no more than feign, and you only simulate sin to hide your virtues. But I....” And as the fumes of wine and the vapours of melancholy, drunken retchings and hiccuping sobs all beset him at once, he began—bent double in Protos’s direction—by bringing up his lunch and then went on to tell a muddled story of his evening with Carola and the lamented loss of his virginity. Bardolotti and Father Cave had a hard job to prevent themselves from bursting into laughter.
“But have you been to confession, my son?” asked the Cardinal, full of solicitude.
“I went next morning.”
“Did the priest give you absolution?”
“Far too readily. That’s why I’m so uneasy. But how could I confide to him that I was no ordinary pilgrim ... reveal what it was that brought me here?... No, no! It’s all over now. It was a chosen mission that demanded the service of a blameless life. I was the very man. And now it’s all over! I have fallen!” Again he was shaken by sobs and as he struck little blows on his breast, he repeated: “I’m no longer worthy! I’m no longer worthy!...” Then he went on in a kind of chant: “Ah! you who hear me, you who see my anguish, judge me, condemn me, punish me.... Tell me what extraordinary penance will wash away my extraordinary guilt. What chastisement?”
Protos and Bardolotti looked at one another. The latter rose at last and began to pat Amédée on the shoulder: