“Yes; but where can I find the necessary strength to brush myself clean from this dust of the soul?”

And at last, when he felt himself bruised by these alternating desires and fears, he took refuge with Notre Dame de Sous-Terre.

The crypt was closed in the afternoon, but he found his way in by a small door in the sacristy inside the cathedral, and descended into utter darkness.

Having reached the crypt in front of the altar, he round once more the doubtful but soothing odour of that vault, smoked by burning tapers, and went forward in the soft, warm atmosphere of frankincense and a cellar.  It was even darker than in the early morning, for the lamps were out; floating wicks only, shining through what looked like very thin orange-peel, threw gleams of tarnished gold on the sooty walls.

As he turned, with his back to the altar, he could see the low aisle in retreating perspective, and at the end, as in a tunnel, the light of day—­unluckily, for it allowed him to discern certain hideous paintings of scenes commemorating the ecclesiastical glories of Chartres:  the visit paid to the cathedral by Mary de’ Medici and Henri IV.; Louis XIII. and his mother; Monsieur Olier offering to the Virgin the keys of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice with a dress of gold brocade; Louis XIV. at the feet of Notre Dame de Sous-Terre; by the grace of heaven, the remaining frescoes seemed extinct; at any rate, they lay in shadow.

What was really blissful was to be alone with the Virgin, who looked down, her dark face gleaming dimly in the gloom when a wick happened to flicker with short flashes of brighter light.

Durtal, kneeling before Her, determined to address Her, to say to Her,—­

“I am afraid of the future and of its cloudy sky, and I am afraid of myself, for I am wasting in depression and bewilderment.  Thou hast hitherto led me by the hand.  Do not desert me; finish Thy work.  I know that it is folly thus to take care for the future, for Thy Son has said, ‘Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.’  Still, that depends on temperament.  What is easy to some is so hard for others.  Mine is a restless spirit, always astir, always on the alert.  Do what I will, it wanders, feeling its way about the world, and gets lost!  Bring it home, keep it near Thee in a leash, kind Mother, and after so much weariness, grant me to find rest!

“Oh! to be no longer thus torn in sunder, to be of one mind!  Oh! to have a soul so quenched that it should know no sorrows, no joys, but those of the liturgy, that it might only be claimed, day by day, by Jesus or by Thee, and follow Your lives as they are unfolded in the annual cycle of the Church services!  To rejoice at the Nativity, to laugh on Palm Sunday, to weep in Holy Week, and be indifferent to all else, to cease to hold oneself as of any account, to care not at all for one’s individual self!  What a dream!  How easy it then would be to take refuge in a cloister!