e
forgot everything, and the Superior, old Father Richard, who watched him
with his little bright cunning eyes, and the unmoved professors, and his
watchful fellow-students, jeering and scoffing at first, then at last
astonished and jealous. "There is the stuff of an orator in him," the
Professor of Sacred Eloquence had said, "we must push this lad forward."
"He is full of talent and virtue," the Superior had replied, "he will get
on. He is our chosen vessel." And the same day he had dined at the master's
table, and they had spoken of him to Monseigneur. He had in fact been
pushed forward ... and with his talents, his learning, his virtues and his
eloquence, he had come to teaching the catechism to the little peasants of
Althausen!

Althausen! That was the blow of the hammer which recalled him to reality.
He found himself again the poor village Cure, and he began to laugh.

"Poor fool!" he cried, "I shall never be but a common imbecile! Is not my
way all traced out? I must continue my career, and let myself go with the
current of life. Is it then so hard? Why delude myself with phantoms? I
will try to slay the muttering passions, to drive away the fits of ambition
which rise to my brain; and perhaps by dint of subduing all that is
rebellious in me, I shall come to follow piously the line marked out by my
superiors. I will watch patiently amidst my flock, by the corner of my
fire, among the Fathers and my weariness.

"Weariness, that cold demon with the gloomy eye, but I will remain chaste
... and after a life filled with little nothingnesses and little works I
shall pass away in peace in the bosom of the Lord. And there is my life.
Nothing else to choose. No turning aside to the right or to the left. I
must remain a martyr, a martyr to my duty, or an apostate, and infamous
renegade. The triumph or the shame!"

And, as he just uttered these words with bitterness, a soft voice answered
like an echo:

--The shame?

The Cure started and raised his head. His lamp was out, and the dying
embers on the hearth cast only a feeble light into the room.

He distinguished, however, a few steps from him the outline of a woman's
form.

--Who is there? he cried with a sort of terror.

The shadowy outline stood forth more clearly.

He recognized his servant.

--Why the shame? she said.

XXII.

THE SERVANT.

"I have already said that dame
Jacinthe although little superannuated,
had still kept her bloom. I