I
returned from a distant expedition, loaded with spoils and
honour, to find my happiness was destroyed for ever! I too
sought the cloister; and Satan, who had marked me for his own,
breathed into my heart a vapour of spiritual pride, which could
only have had its source in his own infernal regions. I had
risen as high in the church as before in the state. I was,
forsooth, the wise, the self-sufficient, the impeccable!--I was
the counsellor of councils--I was the director of prelates. How
should I stumble?--wherefore should I fear temptation? Alas! I
became confessor to a sisterhood, and amongst that sisterhood I
found the long-loved--the long-lost. Spare me further
confession!--A fallen nun, whose guilt was avenged by self-murder, sleeps soundly in the vaults of
Engaddi; while, above her
very grave, gibbers, moans, and roars a creature to whom but so
much reason is left as may suffice to render him completely
sensible to his fate!"
"Unhappy man!" said Richard, "I wonder no longer at thy misery.
How didst thou escape the doom which the canons denounce against
thy offence?"
"Ask one who is yet in the gall of worldly bitterness," said the
hermit, "and he will speak of a life spared for personal
respects, and from consideration to high birth.
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