Write to me, my dear master, direct me. Strengthen me in the doctrine which was, which is still mine, in the conviction of universal necessity which wills that even our most detestable actions, even this cold enterprise in which I embarked in the interest of science, even my weakness before the compact of death, are a part of the laws of this immense universe. Tell me that I am not a monster, that there are no monsters, that you will, if I emerge from this supreme crisis, have me for your disciple, your friend. If you were a physician, and a sick man came to you, you would heal him for humanity’s sake. You are a physician, a great physician of souls. Ah! mine is badly hurt and bleeding. I pray you for a word to comfort me, a word, a single word, and you will be forever blessed by your faithful. ROBERT GRESLON. V. TORMENT OF IDEAS. A MONTH had passed since the mother of Robert Greslon had brought into the hermitage of the Rue Guy de la Brosse the strange manuscript which Adrien Sixte had hesitated to read. And the philosopher, after these four weeks, was still the slave of the trouble inflicted by the reading, to such an extent that even his humble neighbors noticed it. There were continual consultations between Mlle. Trapenard and the Carbonnets, in the lodging filled with its odor of leather, where the faithful servant and the judicious _concierges_ discussed the cause of the strange change in the manners of the celebrated analyst. The admirable, automatic regularity of his goings out and comings in, which had made him a living chronometer for the whole quarter, had been suddenly transformed into a febrile and inexplicable anxiety. The philosopher, since the visit of Mme. Greslon, went and came, like one who cannot stay in any place, who, as soon as he goes out thinks he will return, and as soon as he has come in, cannot endure his room. In the street, instead of walking along with the methodical step which reveals a nervous machine perfectly balanced, he hurried on, he stopped, he gesticulated, as if disputing with himself. This enervation was betrayed by signs still more strange. Mlle. Trapenard had told to the Carbonnets that her master did not go to bed now, before two or three o’clock in the morning: “And it is not because he is writing,” insisted the good woman, “for he walks and walks. The first time I thought he was ill. I got up to ask him if he wished some infusion. He, who is always so polite, so gentle, that you would not suspect him to be a man who knows so much, he sent me away in a brutal manner.” “And I who saw him the other day,” responded Mother Carbonnet, “as I was returning from a course at the _café_! I would not believe my eyes. He was there, behind the window reading a paper. If I had not known him I should have been afraid. You ought to have seen him--that knit brow and that mouth.”