ABBÉ. With your leave, I'll say then that I have found your behaviour just as abominable as you have found it yourself.
MAURICE. What can I do, what can I do, to get out of this?
ABBÉ. You know as well as I do.
MAURICE. No, I know only that I am lost, that my life is spoiled, my career cut off, my reputation in this world ruined forever.
ABBÉ. And so you are looking for a new existence in some better world, which you are now beginning to believe in?
MAURICE. Yes, that's it.
ABBÉ. You have been living in the flesh and you want now to live in the spirit. Are you then so sure that this world has no more attractions for you?
MAURICE. None whatever! Honour is a phantom; gold, nothing but dry leaves; women, mere intoxicants. Let me hide myself behind your consecrated walls and forget this horrible dream that has filled two days and lasted two eternities.
ABBÉ. All right! But this is not the place to go into the matter more closely. Let us make an appointment for this evening at nine o'clock in the Church of St. Germain. For I am going to preach to the inmates of St. Lazare, and that may be your first step along the hard road of penitence.
MAURICE. Penitence?