"That is true," said the abbé, with a smile; "now I do not suppose I shall see you again before you start, for I go to-morrow to Mâcon, where I shall stay five days, time to see my nephews and to sign some law papers: at any rate keep up your courage, and do not forget to send me news of yourself. Write to me without much delay, that I may find your letter when I return to Paris."
And as Durtal thanked him for his constant kindness, he took his hand and held it in his own.
"Say nothing about that," he said; "you have only to thank Him, whose fatherly impatience has broken the obstinate slumber of your Faith; you owe thanks to God only.
"Thank Him in getting rid of your nature as soon as possible, and leaving the house of your conscience empty for Him. The more you die to yourself the better will He live in you. Prayer is the most powerful ascetic means by which you can renounce yourself, empty yourself and render yourself humble in this matter; pray therefore without ceasing at La Trappe. Implore our Lady especially, for like myrrh which consumes the proud flesh of wounds, she heals the ulcers of the soul; I on my side will pray for you as best I can; you can thus in your weakness lean, so as not to fall, on that firm and protecting pillar of prayer of which Saint Teresa speaks. Once again, a safe journey to you; we shall meet soon again, my son, good-bye."
Durtal remained much disturbed. "It is most tiresome," he thought, "that this priest is leaving Paris before me, for indeed if I have need of spiritual help or counsel, to whom shall I go? It is clearly written that I must end as I have begun, alone, but ... but ... solitude under these conditions is alarming. I am no spoilt child, whatever the abbé may say."
Next morning Durtal awoke ill; furious neuralgia bored his temples like a gimlet; he tried to stop it with antipyrine, but this medicine in a large dose put his stomach out of order without abating the strokes of the machine which penetrated his skull. He wandered about his rooms, changing from one seat to another, coiling himself up in an arm-chair, getting up to lie down again, jumping from his bed in fits of sickness, upsetting his furniture from time to time.
He could assign no precise cause for this attack; he had slept his fill, and had not exceeded in any way the night before.
He thought, with his head in his hands, "There are still two days counting to-day before I leave Paris, and very fit I am for it! I shall not be in a state to travel by train, and if I travel, the food at La Trappe will finish me."
He had a minute's comfort from the idea that through no fault of his own he might perhaps avoid his painful duty, and remain at home; but the reaction was immediate; he understood that if he did not go, he was lost; the vacillation of his soul had become chronic, the crisis of disgust of self, the acute regret of an effort consented to with pain, and suddenly missed, the certainty that it would only be postponed for a time, that he would have to pass again through alternations of revolt and terror, and begin again to fight with himself for conviction.
"Admitting that I am not in a state to travel, I have always the resource of making my confession to the abbé when he returns, and of communicating in Paris," he thought, but he shook his head, saying to himself once more that he felt and knew that was not his duty. "But then," he said to God: "since Thou dost implant this idea in me so violently that I cannot even discuss it, in spite of its entire common sense—for after all it is not necessary to immure myself in a Trappist monastery in order to reconcile myself to Thee—then let me go!"