It would in any case be the life in common, school-life, which would begin again for him; it would be the garrison-rule of a convent! This floored him.

Then he tried to fight against it, and lost patience.
"Come, come!" he growled, "a man does not shut himself up in an abbey to take his ease there; a convent is not a pious Sainte-Perine; he retires there, I suppose, to expiate his sins and prepare for death.

What, then, is the use of expatiating on the kind of punishments to be endured?
A determination to accept them is all, to endure them and be strong!" Did he, then, sincerely long for suffering and penance?
He dared not answer himself.

In the depth of his soul a hesitating "Yes" rose up, smothered at once by the clamour of cowardice and fear.

Why then go?
He was only bewildering himself, and when the worst of this turmoil was over he thought of a respite, or of some half-measure, some mild mortification quite endurable, some repentance so slight as to be none at all.
"I am an idiot," he concluded; "I am fighting with the air; I am puzzling myself with words, about habits of which I have no knowledge.
The first thing to be done is to visit some Benedictine monastery--nay, several--to compare them, and to see for myself what the life is that is led there.