"Of what sins can they really accuse themselves?" thought Durtal. "Who knows?" he continued, perceiving Brother Anacletus, his head sunk on his breast, and his hands joined, "who knows if he does not reproach himself for the discreet affection he has for me; for in monasteries all friendship is forbidden!"
And he called to memory in the "Way of Perfection" of Saint Teresa, a page at once glowing and icy in which she cries out on the nothingness of human ties, declares that friendship is a weakness, and asserts clearly that every nun who desires to see her relations is imperfect.
"Come," said Father Etienne, who interrupted these reflections, and pushed him towards the door of the cell out of which a monk came. Father Maximin was there, seated close to a prie-Dieu.
Durtal knelt, and told him briefly his scruples and strifes of the evening before.
"What has happened to you is not surprising after a conversion; indeed, it is a good sign, for those persons alone for whom God has views are submitted to these proofs," said the monk slowly, when Durtal had ended his story.
And he continued,
"Now that you have no more grave sins, the Demon endeavours to drown you by spitting at you. In fact, in these episodes of malice at bay, there is for you temptation and no sin.
"You have, if I may sum up what you have said, undergone temptation of the flesh, and of Faith, and you have been tortured by scruples.
"Let us leave on one side the sensual visions; such as they have been were produced independently of your will, painful no doubt, but ineffectual.
"Doubts about Faith are more dangerous.