“Yes, a convent. You need silence and rest. With your nature, life will always perturb and dismay you. You do not understand that the triumph of the wicked is temporary, and that they are all on the eve of their undoing. You are unable to realize this. It is necessary for you to cut yourself off once and for all from every contact with them, to withdraw yourself into silence, and to occupy yourself with prayer and the reading of sacred books. You are proud to call yourself a Christian, but do you intimately know the Holy Writ? Have you often in your life read the Gospel? Be sincere—confess!”
Irene was obliged to confess, with a blush, that she had never once read it through in its entirety, and had contented herself with what religious instruction she had received at school, and with the extracts from the Gospel that she had heard read out at church.
“There! That’s just it. I had foreseen that,” exclaimed the priest. “And yet it is only on reading and studying the Gospel that many things become clear. Read it, and a divine peace will steal into your heart. This great Holy Book will take, for you, the place of all others. Day by day, your former despair will be replaced by hope, and your soul will be filled with joy and rapture. You have suffered agonies of doubt, and you well know how unbearable they are. Now you stand on the threshold of that incomparable bliss that only true faith can give. Et Dieu viendra causer avec vous, ma fille. Vous serez une de ses élues, et Il vous honorera de Sa Parole. Remember the elect in the Bible, who were found worthy of intercourse with God, but who nevertheless remained human.”
“But how can I?” said Irene reflectively “Leave the world? Leave all human ties and associations for ever? But that is terrible!”
“What has that world, what have those human ties given you? Can you call to mind a single hour, a single moment of real happiness, even the shadow of happiness?”
Irene had to admit the absence even of that shadow.
“There! You see it yourself. You are afraid of a convent; but, do you know? you have been a nun for a long time.”
Irene opened her eyes wide.
“Yes; it is so. Look round at your own life. You live virtuously, you hardly associate with men at all. Balls and theatres have long ceased to interest you. You dress in dark colours, and you yourself told me only recently that you eat very little meat, but prefer living mostly on vegetable diets. You have no specially near and dear relations, and feel a contempt even for your country. What, then, can attach you to the world?”
“Really—I don’t know. Liberty, independence⸺”