“Thou art nothing but dust and ashes.  Grief and tears art thy portion.  Believe not in any son of man.  There are no such things as friendship or ties of kindred.  All human affections are false.  Die in the morning, and thou wilt be forgotten before night.  Be humble—­despise thyself—­and let others despise thee.  Think not, reason not, live not—­but commit thy fate to the hands of a superior, who will think and reason for thee.  Weep, suffer, think upon death.  Yes, death! always death—­that should be thy thought when thou thinkest—­but it is better not to think at all.  Let a feeling of ceaseless woe prepare thy way to heaven.  It is only by sorrow that we are welcome to the terrible God whom we adore!”

Such were the consolations offered to this unfortunate man.  Affrighted, he again closed his eyes, and fell back into his lethargy.  As for leaving this gloomy retreat, he could not, or rather he did not desire to do so.  He had lost the power of will; and then, it must be confessed, he had finished by getting accustomed to this house, and liked it well—­they paid him such discreet attentions, and yet left him so much alone with his grief—­there reigned all around such a death-like silence, which harmonized closely with the silence of his heart; and that was now the tomb of his last love, last friendship, last hope.  All energy was dead within him!  Then began that slow, but inevitable transformation, so judiciously foreseen by Rodin, who directed the whole of this machination, even in its smallest details.  At first alarmed by the dreadful maxims which surrounded him, M. Hardy had at length accustomed himself to read them over almost mechanically, just as the captive, in his mournful hours of leisure, counts the nails in the door of his prison, or the bars of the grated window.  This was already a great point gained by the reverend fathers.

And soon his weakened mind was struck with the apparent correctness of these false and melancholy aphorisms.

Thus he read:  “Do not count upon the affection of any human creature”—­and he had himself been shamefully betrayed.

“Man is born to sorrow and despair”—­and he was himself despairing.

“There is no rest save in the cessation of thought”—­and the slumber of his mind had brought some relief to his pain.

Peepholes, skillfully concealed by the hangings and in the wainscoting of these apartments, enabled the reverend fathers at all times to see and hear the boarders, and above all to observe their countenance and manner, when they believed themselves to be alone.  Every exclamation of grief which escaped Hardy in his gloomy solitude, was repeated to Father d’Aigrigny by a mysterious listener.  The reverend father, following scrupulously Rodin’s instructions, had at first visited his boarder very rarely.  We have said, that when Father d’Aigrigny wished it, he could display an almost irresistible power of charming, and accordingly he threw all his tact