To accept would be
immoral; it was impossible for me to give the real reason for my
refusal, and I could not bring myself to give a false one. I had
recourse to the services of worthy M. Carbon, who undertook to tell my
story, and so spared me this painful interview. I thought it best to
go right through with the matter when once it had been begun, and I
completed in one day what I had intended to spread over several weeks,
so that on the evening of my return I belonged neither to the Seminary
nor to the Carmelite house.
I was terrified at seeing so many ties destroyed in a few hours, and I
should have been glad to arrest this fatal progress, all too rapid as
I thought; but I was perforce driven forward, and there were no means
of holding back. The days which followed were the darkest of my life.
I was isolated from the whole world, without a friend, an adviser or
an acquaintance, without any one to appeal to about me, and this after
having just left my mother, my native Brittany, and a life gilded with
so many pure and simple affections. Here I am alone in the world, and
a stranger to it. Good-bye for ever to my mother, my little room, my
books, my peaceful studies, and my walks by my mother's side. Good-bye
to the pure and tranquil joys which seemed to bring me so near to God;
good-bye to my pleasant past, good-bye to those faiths which so gently
cradled me. Farewell for me to pure happiness. The past all blotted
out, and as yet no future.
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