A touch had again come which had
revealed him to himself.
He went upstairs to the disused citadel, flung himself into the
armchair, and covered his face with his hands.
He still did not know that his wife drank, but he could no longer
trust her, and his dream of happiness was over. He had been saved from
the Church- so as by fire, but still saved- but what could now save
him from his marriage? He had made the same mistake that he had made
in wedding himself to the Church, but with a hundred times worse
results. He had learnt nothing by experience: he was an Esau -one of
those wretches whose hearts the Lord had hardened, who, having ears,
heard not, having eyes saw not, and who should find no place for
repentance though they sought it even with tears.
Yet had he not on the whole tried to find out what the ways of God
were, and to follow them in singleness of heart? To a certain
extent, yes; but he had not been thorough; he had not given up all for
God. He knew that very well; he had done little as compared with
what he might and ought to have done, but still if he was being
punished for this, God was a hard taskmaster, and one, too, who was
continually pouncing out upon his unhappy creatures from ambuscades.
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