"I now understand why the Abbé Gévresin made such a point of lending me Saint John of the Cross; he knew that I should enter into the 'Night Obscure'; he did not dare warn me clearly, for fear of alarming me, and yet he would put me on my guard against despair, and aid me by the remembrance here of that reading. Only how could he think that in such a shipwreck I should remember anything!
"All this makes me think that I have omitted to write to him, and that to-morrow I must keep my promise by sending him a letter."
And he thought again of Saint John of the Cross, that extraordinary Carmelite who described so placidly that terrible phase of the mystic genesis.
He took count of the lucidity, the power of spirit of this saint, explaining the most obscure vicissitude of the soul and the least known, catching and following the operations of God, who dealt with that soul, pressed it in His hands, squeezed it like a sponge, then let it suck up again, fill itself out with sorrows, then wrung it again; making it drip tears of blood to cleanse it.
CHAPTER VI.
"No," said Durtal, in a whisper, "I will not take the place of these good people."
"But I assure you it is quite the same to them."
And while Durtal was still refusing to go before the lay brothers who were waiting their turn for confession, Father Etienne insisted: "I will stay with you, and as soon as the cell is free, you will enter."
Durtal was then on the landing of a staircase on every step of which was posted a brother kneeling or standing, his head wrapped in his hood, his face turned to the wall. All were sifting and closely examining their souls.