He thought of escaping into a monastery somewhat as street girls think of going into a house where they will be free from the dangers of the chase, from worry about food and lodging, and where they will not have to do their own washing and ironing.
Unmarried, without settled income, the voice of carnality now practically stilled in him, he sometimes cursed the existence he had shaped for himself.

At times, weary of attempting to coerce words to do his bidding, he threw down his pen and looked into the future.

He could see nothing ahead of him but bitterness and cause for alarm, and, seeking consolation, he was forced to admit that only religion could heal, but religion demanded in return so arrant a desertion of common sense, so pusillanimous a willingness to be astonished at nothing, that he threw up his hands and begged off.
Yet he was always playing with the thought, indeed he could not escape it.

For though religion was without foundation it was also without limit and promised a complete escape from earth into dizzy, unexplored altitudes.

Then, too, Durtal was attracted to the Church by its intimate and ecstatic art, the splendour of its legends, and the radiant naivete of the histories of its saints.
He did not believe, and yet he admitted the supernatural.