—Tolerably so.
—And the women?
—Much the same as all country-folk, ignorant and narrow-minded.
—No, you were not the man needed there. You would lose your time and your powers. I will send one of those brutes of whom I have just been speaking. Well, go; you can tell the Abbé Ridoux that you will have the cure. Come again to-morrow. I even think it will be useless for you to return to Althausen.
LXXXVII.
THE SEMINARY.
"I turned my head and I saw a number of the dead in living bodies. These are the worst spectres, because they must be subdued: you touch them, they touch you, and, in order to drag you away to their tomb, they seize you with an arm of flesh which is no better than the marble hand of the Commendatore."
EUGENE PELLETAN (ÉLISÉE, Voyage d'un homme à la recherche de lui-même).
Marcel went away disconsolate. So it was done. He was changed, another put in his place at Althausen. He had hoped for opposition, he had counted on objections from the Bishop, he thought, in short, that he would remain in suspense for some weeks, perhaps for some months, during which he would have the time to look before him and reflect; but no, all at once: "Go and tell the Abbé Ridoux that you have the cure." Well, and Suzanne? Could he leave Suzanne in this way? He had, it is true, informed her of his departure the day before; but had not everything changed since the day before? Could be abandon thus his heart which he had left behind there? More than his heart, his whole soul, his life, the maiden who had yielded herself.
Strange contradictions. When he had believed his change far distant and still but slightly probable, he had thought he could leave Suzanne easily, arrange far away from her for secret interviews, and await events; now that this change was certain and had just become an accomplished fact, he looked upon it as a catastrophe. Instead of hastening to announce the good news to Ridoux, he proceeded to roam through the streets, assailed by his thoughts.