incredible when I now add that nothing of this kind has happened at
Semur. The wonderful manifestation which interrupted our existence has
passed absolutely as if it had never been. We had not been twelve hours
in our houses ere we had forgotten, or practically forgotten, our
expulsion from them. Even myself, to whom everything was so vividly
brought home, I have to enter my wife's room to put aside the curtain
from little Marie's picture, and to see and touch the olive branch
which is there, before I can recall to myself anything that resembles
the feeling with which I re-entered that sanctuary. My grandfather's
bureau still stands in the middle of my library, where I found it on my
return; but I have got used to it, and it no longer affects me.
Everything is as it was; and I cannot persuade myself that, for a time,
I and mine were shut out, and our places taken by those who neither eat
nor drink, and whose life is invisible to our eyes. Everything, I say,
is as it was--every thing goes on as if it would endure for ever. We
know this cannot be, yet it does not move us. Why, then, should the
other move us? A little time, we are aware, and we, too, shall be as
they are--as shadows, and unseen. But neither has the one changed us,
and neither does the other. There was, for some time, a greater respect
shown to religion in Semur, and a more devout attendance at the sacred
functions; but I regret to say this did not continue. Even in my own
case--I say it with sorrow--it did not continue. M. le Curé is an
admirable person. I know no more excellent ecclesiastic. He is
indefatigable in the performance of his spiritual duties; and he has,
besides, a noble and upright soul. Since the days when we suffered and
laboured together, he has been to me as a brother. Still, it is
undeniable that he makes calls upon our credulity, which a man obeys
with reluctance. There are ways of surmounting this; as I see in Agnès
for one, and in M. de Bois-Sombre for another. My wife does not
question, she believes much; and in respect to that which she cannot