Then Pierre, in a few minutes, again lived through the frightful torment
which, during two long months, had ravaged him. It was not that he had
found controversial works of an anti-religious character in the bookcase,
or that his father, whose papers he sorted, had ever gone beyond his
technical studies as a /savant/. But little by little, despite himself,
the light of science dawned upon him, an /ensemble/ of proven phenomena,
which demolished dogmas and left within him nothing of the things which
as a priest he should have believed. It seemed, in fact, as though
illness had renewed him, as though he were again beginning to live and
learn amidst the physical pleasantness of convalescence, that still
subsisting weakness which lent penetrating lucidity to his brain. At the
seminary, by the advice of his masters, he had always kept the spirit of
inquiry, his thirst for knowledge, in check. Much of that which was
taught him there had surprised him; however, he had succeeded in making
the sacrifice of his mind required of his piety. But now, all the
laboriously raised scaffolding of dogmas was swept away in a revolt of
that sovereign mind which clamoured for its rights, and which he could no
longer silence. Truth was bubbling up and overflowing in such an
irresistible stream that he realised he would never succeed in lodging
error in his brain again. It was indeed the total and irreparable ruin of
faith. Although he had been able to kill his flesh by renouncing the
romance of his youth, although he felt that he had altogether mastered
carnal passion, he now knew that it would be impossible for him to make
the sacrifice of his intelligence.
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