“They’ve taught me to love; did they think they could stop there? that I shouldn’t learn to lie, as well? and to hate, and be revengeful? and to be afraid?  Was I so bad when I came here, that all this has made me no worse?  I was happy, at any rate; my brain was clear; my mind had no fear, and no weariness—­it was like an athlete; my blood was cool.  Look at me now!  Am not I ruined by this patching and mending?  I can do no work.  When I think, it’s no longer of how I might become great, and wise, and powerful—­of nothing inspiring—­nothing noble; but all about these petty, heated, miserable affairs, that have twisted themselves around me, and are choking me up.  I don’t ask myself, any more, whether my name will be as highly honored and as long remembered as the Christian Apostles’, and Mohammed’s, and Luther’s.  My only question is, whether I’m to turn out more of a fool, or of a liar!  And I love Sophie Valeyon!  I’m to be her husband.”

The young man came to a sudden stop, and slowly lifted his head.  Through the sullen, unhappy, and resentful cloud that darkened his eyes, there glimmered doubtfully a light such as can be reflected only from what is most divine in man.  It was a strange moment for it to appear, for at no time had Bressant’s moral level been so low as now; but, happily, the phenomenon is by no means without precedent in human nature.  God is never ashamed to declare the share He holds in a sinner’s heart, however black the heart may be.

“No, no!” said he; and, as he said it, the first tears that he had ever known glistened for a moment in his eyes; “such as I am, I must never marry her.”

The point on which this sudden and momentous resolve turned was so subtle and delicately evanescent as scarcely to be susceptible of clearer portrayal.  To be consistent, the weight of his revengeful sentiments should have been directed upon Sophie, for she it was who had played the most effective part in changing his nature, and swerving him from his cold but sublime ambitions.  By teaching Bressant love, she had, by implication, done him deadly injury, yet was the love itself so pure and genuine as to prompt him to resign its object; he being rendered unworthy of her by that same moral dereliction which she herself had occasioned.

But the very quality which enables us to do a noble deed dulls our appreciation of our own praiseworthiness.  Bressant took no encouragement or pleasure from what he had done; probably, also, his realization of the extensive and fearful consequences of the action, to others as well as to himself, was as yet but rudimentary; so soon as the momentary glow was passed, he fell back into a yet darker mood than before, and felt yet more adrift and reckless.  To make a sacrifice is well, but does not hinder the need of what is given up from crippling us.