go soon.'

"I understood that he thought of putting an end to himself.

"'There are few men,' I said, speaking with deliberation, with effort,
'who do not feel at some period of life that all is over for them, that
there is nothing to hope for, that happiness is a dream which will visit
them no more.'

"'Have you ever felt like that? You speak of it calmly, but have you
ever experienced it?'

"I hesitated. Then I said:

"'Yes.'

"'You, who have been a monk for so many years!'

"'Yes.'

"'Since you have been here?'

"'Yes, since then.'

"'And you would tell me that the feeling passed, that hope came again,
and the dream as you call it?'

"'I would say that what has lived in a heart can die, as we who live in
this world shall die.'

"'Ah, that--the sooner the better! But you are wrong. Sometimes a thing
lives in the heart that cannot die so long as the heart beats. Such is
my passion, my torture. Don't you, a monk--don't dare to say to me that
this love of mine could die.'

"'Don't you wish it to die?' I asked. 'You say it tortures you.'

"'Yes. But no--no--I don't wish it to die. I could never wish that.'

"I looked at him, I believe, with a deep astonishment.

"'Ah, you don't understand!' he said. 'You don't understand. At all
costs one must keep it--one's love. With it I am--as you see. But
without it--man, without it, I should be nothing--no more than that.'

"He picked up a rotten leaf, held it to me, threw it down on the ground.
I hardly looked at it. He had said to me: 'Man!' That word, thus said by
him, seemed to me to mark the enormous change in me, to indicate that it
was visible to the eyes of another, the heart of another. I had passed
from the monk--the sexless being--to the man. He set me beside himself,
spoke of me as if I were as himself. An intense excitement surged up
in me. I think--I don't know what I should have said--done--but at that
moment a boy, who acted as a servant at the monastery, came running
towards us with a letter in his hand.

"'It is for Monsieur!' he said. 'It was left at the gate.'

"'A letter for me!' the stranger said.

"He held out his hand and took it indifferently. The boy gave it, and
turning, went away through the wood. Then the stranger glanced at the
envelope. Domini, I wish I could make you see what I saw then, the
change that came. I can't. There are things the eyes must see. The
tongue can't tell them. The ghastly whiteness went out of his face.