uld have
sacrificed honour, reputation, the universe and his God, he had abjured her
also in the arms of this drab.

And that was the wound which consumed his heart the most.

For as soon as we have yielded to the infernal temptation, the lying prism
vanishes, the halo disappears, and there only remains vice in all its
hideousness and repulsive nudity. It is then that we hear a threatening
voice mutter secretly in the depths of our being.

Happy is he who, already slipping on the fatal descent, listens to that
voice: "Stop, stop; there is still time, raise thyself up."

But most frequently we remain deaf to that importunate cry. And, weary of
crying in vain, conscience is silent. It no more casts its solemn serious
note into the intoxicating music of facile love.

And the wretch, devoured by insatiable desire, pursues his coarse and looks
not back. He goes on, he ever goes on, leaving right and left, like the
trees on the way-side, his vigour and his youth which he scatters behind
him. He set forth young, robust and strong, and he arrives at the
halting-place, worn-out, soiled and blemished. There is the ditch, and he
tumbles headlong into it. He falls into the common grave of cowardice and
infamy. The lowest depths receive him and restore him not again.

Seek no more, for there is no more; the worms which consume him to his gums
have already consumed his brain, and his heart is but gangrened. Disturb
not this corpse, it is only putrefaction.

The poet has said:

"Evil to him who has permitted lewdness
Beneath his breast its foremost nail to delve!
The pure man's heart is like a goblet deep:
Whe the first water poured therin is foul,
The sea itself could not wash out the spot,
So deep the chasm where the stain doth lie."

Marcel had not reached that point, but he felt that he was on a rapid
descent, and made these tardy reflections to himself:

"Shall I ever be able to see the light of day? Shall I ever dare to raise
my eyes after this filthy crime? Oh Heaven, Heaven, overwhelm me. Avenging
thunderbolt of omnipotent God, reduce me to ashes, restore me again to the
nothingness, from which I ought never to have come forth."

But Heaven did not overwhelm him that day, nor was there the slightest
rumbling of thunder. Nature continued her work peacefully, just as if no
minister of God had sinned. The sun, a glorious sun of Spring, came and
danced on his window, and he heard as usual the happy cries o