of awe, the same conscious eagerness to
arouse that feeling more and more in my soul, that had possessed me up
to the present moment. The priest, standing in front of a reading-desk,
slowly turned his face to me.

I was not more than five minutes in the room, but came out from it happy
and (so I persuaded myself) entirely cleansed--a new, a morally reborn
individual. Despite the fact that the old surroundings of my life now
struck me as unfamiliar (even though the rooms, the furniture, and my
own figure--would to heavens that I could have changed my outer man for
the better in the same way that I believed myself to have changed
my inner I--were the same as before), I remained in that comfortable
attitude of mine until the very moment of bedtime.

Yet, no sooner had I begun to grow drowsy with the conning over of my
sins than in a flash I recollected a particularly shameful sin which
I had suppressed at confession time. Instantly the words of the prayer
before confession came back to my memory and began sounding in my ears.
My peace was gone for ever. "For if thou concealest aught, then great
will be thy sin." Each time that the phrase recurred to me I saw myself
a sinner for whom no punishment was adequate. Long did I toss from side
to side as I considered my position, while expecting every moment to
be visited with the divine wrath--to be struck with sudden death,
perhaps!--an insupportable thought! Then suddenly the reassuring thought
occurred to me: "Why should I not drive out to the monastery when the
morning comes, and see the priest again, and make a second confession?"
Thereafter I grew calmer.

VII. THE EXPEDITION TO THE MONASTERY

Several times that night I woke in terror at the thought that I might
be oversleeping myself, and by six o'clock was out of bed, although the
dawn was hardly peeping in at the window. I put on my clothes and boots
(all of which were lying tumbled and unbrushed beside the bed, since
Nicola, of course had not been in yet to tidy them up), and, without a
prayer said or my face washed, emerged, for the first time in my life,
into the street ALONE.

Over the way, behind the green roof of a large building, the dim, cold
dawn was beginning to blush red. The keen frost of the spring morning
which had stiffened the pools and mud and made them crackle under my
feet now nipped my face and hands also. Not a cab was to be seen, though
I had counted upon one to make the journey out and