f his imprisonment, of his guilt, of the
overwhelming consciousness of having been a perjured priest,
immediately the hated melody made itself heard, and he saw himself in
the ignoble position of a priest compelled by his evil conscience to
take flight, and the words of his unknown monitor sounded in his ears:
"Fly for all is betrayed." He had once met on the street the red-headed
boy to whom he had confided his message to Lydia. The boy had saluted
him in an evidently derisive manner, and Paolo blushed to the roots of
his hair. He feared to find in every peasant wench the bearer of his
warning and meet a second person who knew of his sin. Every mocking
gesture, made by some uncouth pupil of the college during the hours of
instruction quite decomposed him. He could not free himself from the
feeling that he was being watched, being spoken of. He continually
fancied himself abused and as he looked aside pale and agitated, when
people wished to greet him, he was in reality treated with less
friendly feeling than before, in the which he only saw a confirmation
of his opinion, that a universal contempt was felt for him. By day and
night he thought over whether it could be proved that he had betrayed
the clergymen, whether he in case of an inquiry could deny the
appointment made with Lydia. All his thoughts were concentrated on this
point; he was hurrying towards depression and monomania. A coarser
nature would have easily set aside trespasses which as a fact had never
been committed; his melancholy disposition supplemented the evil. In
his own eyes he was not like other young men who had stumbled, but a
priest who had broken his oaths, and violated his consecration. For God
punishes heavily the sins of men, the more their moral conceptions are
developed. None can enjoy at one and the same time the pure pleasure of
ideality and the debasing joys of sensuality; for the proverb "_quod
licet bovi non licet Jovi_" avails also when inverted. "Thou hast
wished to purchase pleasure outside the limits of the law, and
purchased thereby sorrow," said he to himself. "Thy just punishment has
been meted to thee and only in so far as thou deservest it." And yet it
seemed to him as if in early days much injustice had been done to him.

Accompanying this feeling was his grief for his lost love. Since Klytia
had become another's, he felt for the first time, that his sentiments
towards the sweet fair child had in reality been more than a sensuo