En Route

by J.-K. Huysmans

"Comfort yourself therefore; go in peace and sin less, the greater part of your temptations will be remitted you; you can, if you choose, bear the remainder, only take care, if you fall henceforward, you will be without excuse, and I do not answer for it, that instead of mending, your condition will not be aggravated."

And as Durtal, stupefied, stammered out: "You believe—"

"I believe," said the priest, "in the mystical substitution of which I spoke to you; you will moreover experience it in yourself; the saints will enter into the lists to help you; they will take the overplus of the assaults which you cannot conquer; without even knowing your name, from their secluded province, nunneries of Carmelites and Poor Clares will pray for you, on receiving a letter from me."

And in fact, from that very day the most acute attacks ceased. Did he owe that cessation, that truce, to the intercession of the cloistered Orders, or to a change in the weather, which then took place, to the less heat of the sun, which gave way to floods of rain? He could not tell, but one thing was certain, his temptations were less frequent, and he could bear them with impunity.

This idea of convents in their compassion dragging him out of the mud in which he had stuck, and by their charity bringing him to the bank, excited him. He chose to go to the Avenue de Saxe, to pray in the home of the sisters of those who suffered for him.

This time there were no lights, no crowds, as on the morning when he had been present at a Procession, no odour of wax or incense, no sweeping by of robes of scarlet and cope of gold, all was deserted and dark.

He was there alone, in the sombre and dank chapel, smelling like stagnant water, and without saying rosaries mechanically, or repeating prayers by rote, he fell into a reverie, endeavouring to look somewhat clearly into his life, and take stock of himself. And while he thus pulled himself together, far-off voices came behind the grating, drew nearer and nearer, passed by the black sieve of the veil, and dropped round the altar, whose form rose dimly in the shadow.

These voices of the Carmelites aided Durtal to probe his despair deeply.

Seated in a chair, he said to himself: "When any one is as incapable as I am when I speak to Him, it is almost shameful to dare to pray, for indeed, if I think of Him, it is that I may ask for a little happiness; and that is foolish. In the immediate shipwreck of human reason, wishing to explain the terrible enigma of the meaning of life, one only idea comes to the surface, in the midst of the wreckage of thoughts which sink, the idea of an expiation felt rather than understood, the idea that the sole end assigned to life is sorrow.

"Every one has a sum of physical and moral suffering to pay, and whoever does not settle it here below, defrays it after death; happiness is only lent, and must be repaid; its very phantoms are like duties paid in advance on a future succession of sorrows.