"I aspired to holy
orders. But through the sins of the flesh I have rendered myself unworthy.
Here, perhaps, I can expiate and cleanse my heart of all the foulness it
gathered in the world."
He left me an hour or so later, to make his way back to Casi, having heard
enough of my past and having judged sufficiently of my attitude of mind to
approve me in my determination to do penance and seek peace in that
isolation. Before going he bade me seek him out at Casi at any time should
any doubts assail me, or should I find that the burden I had taken up was
too heavy for my shoulders.
I watched him go down the winding, mountain path, watched the bent old
figure in his long black gaberdine, until a turn in the path and a clump of
chestnuts hid him from my sight.
Then I first tasted the loneliness to which on that fair morning I had
vowed myself. The desolation of it touched me and awoke self-pity in my
heart, to extinguish utterly the faint flame of ecstasy that had warmed me
when first I thought of taking the dead anchorite's place.
I was not yet twenty, I was lord of great possessions, and of life I had
tasted no more than one poisonous, reckless draught; yet I was done with
the world--driven out of it by penitence. It was just; but it was bitter.
And then I felt again that touch of ecstasy to reflect that it was the
bitterness of the resolve that made it worthy, that through its very
harshness was it that this path should lead to grace.
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