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STRAIT IS THE GATE 176

tented with her and with myself, full of a vague hatred against what I still called “virtue," and of resentment against the habitual occupation of my heart. It seemed as though during this last meeting, and through the very exaggeration of my love, I had come to the end of all my fervour; each one of Alissa's phrases, against which I had at first rebelled, remained alive and triumphant within me, after my protestations had died away. Yes, no doubt, she was right! It was nothing but a phantom that I cared for; the Alissa that I had loved, that I still loved, was no more. ... Yes, no doubt we had grown old! This frightful obliteration of all poetry which had chilled my very heart, was nothing, after all, but a return to the natural course of things; if by slow degrees I had exalted her, if out of her I had made myself an idol, and adorned it with all that I was en amoured of, what now remained to me as the re sult of my labours but my fatigue? As soon as she was left to herself, Alissa had relapsed to her own level - a mediocre level, on which I found myself too, but on which I no longer desired her. Ah! how absurd and fantastic seemed this exhausting effort of virtue in order to reach her there, on the heights where she had been placed by my own sole endeavour. A little less pride