“And I shall be obliged to live in this world which I have just caught a glimpse of, to elbow these men at every hour, to mingle in their intrigues, to blend myself in their life.  That unscrupulous old Comtesse, that insolent prelate, Gaudinet, Matou, Simonet and the rest, all oozing forth hypocrisy, intrigue and vice; dreaming of one thing alone, to satisfy their ambition, their passions, and their appetites.  And these are the ministers of God!  Veronica was quite right: 

“‘All the same, we are all the same, all.’  And I am one of the least bad.  I was blind and idiotic not to have cast my gaze earlier into this filthy sewer.—­Blind, idiotic and deaf.”

He passed near a lofty, gloomy building.  It was the Seminary.  The desire came upon him to go in.  Some of his old fellow-pupils had remained there, as masters or professors.  But he altered his mind.  What was the good?  What would he do?  What would he say to them?  There was henceforth an abyss between him and these men who remained encrusted in the vessel of clericalism, the most uncrossable of all abysses, that which divides the thoughts.  They were perhaps happy.  He recalled to mind the long hours he had passed beneath the Sacred Heart in the little chapel of an evening, amidst the wax-lights, the incense and the flowers, mingling his voice in exaltation with the voices of the young Levites, and singing senseless hymns, with his heart melting with love of God.

And he began to envy those young fanatics whose blind and unintelligent faith killed every rising thought, and who were ready to suffer martyrdom to support the ridiculous beliefs which they had been taught and which they were called upon to teach.  Blind, idiotic and deaf.

“Why am I not so still!” he said; “I should believe myself the only guilty one, the only wicked and perverse one among all those apostles; I should curse my weaknesses and myself; but at least I should have faith, I should walk onward with a star upon my brow, the star of sublime follies which gives light and life, whereas I see nought around me but desolation and death.  I should humble myself before the Almighty, and I should cry to him like the poet: 

  “’Oh Lord, oh Lord my God, thou art our Father: 
  Pity, for thou art kind! pity for thou art great!’

“And instead of that, I am obliged to humble myself before that Bishop whom I despise, to endure the scorn of his lacqueys, and the offensive patronage of his secretary, to have the opportunity of saying: 

“‘A little place in your good graces, Monseigneur!’ No, a thousand times no.  My village, my poor belfry, my humble parsonage, my liberty, and my Suzanne!”

By his dejected look, his uncle and the Comtesse believed he had not succeeded.

—­Too late! they cried.  The cure is given away.

—­Yes, he answered.

—­To whom?  To the Sweet Jesus, I wager.  Ah, the Tartuffe.