They whispered in the refectory, consulted in the garden,--shook their heads, pointed at me in the cloister, and finally, I faithfully believe, worked themselves into the conviction that what they wished or imagined was actually true. Then they all felt their consciences interested in the investigation; and a select party, headed by an old monk of influence and reputation, waited on the Superior. They stated to him my abstraction, my mechanical movements, my automaton figure, my meanless words, my stupified devotion, my total alienation from the spirit of the monastic life, while my scrupulous, _wooden_, _jointless_ exactness in its forms was only a mockery. The Superior heard them with great indifference. He had held secret intelligence with my family, had communicated with the Director, and pledged himself that I should be a monk. He had succeeded by dint of exertions, (the result of which has been seen), and now cared very little whether I was mad or not. With a grave air he forbid their further interference in the matter, and reserved its future cognizance to himself. They retired defeated, but not disappointed, and they all pledged themselves to each other to _watch me_; that is, to harass, persecute, and torment me into being the very character with which their malice, their curiosity, or their mere industry of idleness and wantonness of unoccupied invention, had invested me already. From that hour the whole convent was in a tumult of conspiracy and combination. Doors were clapped to wherever I was heard to approach; and three or four would stand whispering near where I walked, and clear their throats, and exchange signs, and pass _audibly_ to the most trifling topics in my hearing, as if to intimate, while they affected to conceal it, that their last topic had been _me_. I laughed at this internally. I said to myself, “Poor perverted beings, with what affectation of dramatic bustle and contrivance you labour to diversify the misery of your hopeless vacancy;--you struggle,--I submit.” Soon the toils they were preparing began to tighten round me. They would throw themselves in my way with an assiduity I could not avoid, and an appearance of kindness I did not willingly repel. They would say, in the blandest tones, “My dear brother, you are melancholy,--you are devoured with chagrin,--would to God our fraternal efforts could banish your regrets. But from what arises that melancholy that appears to consume you?” At these words I could not help fixing on them eyes full of reproaches, and I believe of tears,--but I did not utter a word. The state in which they saw me, was a sufficient cause for the melancholy with which I was reproached. * * * * * *