Part 23 (1/2)

”Nothing is easier; I will send you up a large pitcher every morning.”

”Thank you ... see, I have been studying the rules.”

”I will at once put you at ease,” said the monk. ”You are compelled to nothing but the strictest punctuality. You must follow the canonical offices to the letter. As to the exercises marked on the card, they are not of obligation; they may be useful, as they are laid down, for people who are very young and devoid of all initiative, but, as I think at least, they somewhat hamper others, and as a general rule we do not trouble the retreatants here, we let solitude act on them; it belongs to yourself to discriminate and distinguish the best mode of occupying your time holily. Therefore I will not impose on you any of the reading laid down on this card, and only take leave to get you to say the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. Have you it?”

”Here it is,” said Durtal, holding out a bound book.

”Your volume is charming,” said Father Etienne, as he turned over the pages exquisitely printed in red and black. He paused at one of them, and read aloud the third lesson of Matins.

”Is it not fine?” he cried. A sudden joy sprang up in his face; his eyes grew bright, his hands trembled on the cover. ”Yes,” he said, closing it, ”read this office, here especially, for you know our true patroness, the true Abbot of the Trappists, is the Blessed Virgin!”

After a silence he continued: ”I have fixed a week as the duration of your retreat, in the letter I sent to the Abbe Gevresin, but I need not say that if you are not too weary here, you can stay as long as seems good to you.”

”I hope to be able to prolong my stay among you, but this must depend upon the way in which my body stands the struggle; my stomach is somewhat weak, and I am not without some fear; I shall, therefore, be much obliged to you if you will let me see the confessor as soon as possible.”

”Good; you shall see him to-morrow. I will tell you the time this evening, after compline. As for the food, if you think it insufficient, I will see that you have an extra egg, but there ceases the discretion I can exercise, for the rule is precise, no fish, no flesh--vegetables, and I am bound to admit they are not first rate.

”But you shall judge, and, indeed, as it is just upon supper-time, I will show you the room where you will dine in company with M. Bruno.”

And as they descended the staircase, the monk went on: ”M. Bruno is a person who has renounced the world, and, without having taken the vows, lives enclosed. He is what our rule calls an oblate, he is a holy and learned man, whom you will certainly like; you can talk with him during the meal.”

”Ah!” said Durtal, ”and before and after I must keep silence?”

”Yes, unless you have anything to ask, in which case I shall be always at your service, ready to answer you. As for that question of silence, as for those of the hours of rising and going to bed, and the offices, the rule allows no modification, it must be observed to the letter.”

”Good,” said Durtal, a little taken aback by the decided tone of the Father, ”but I saw on my card a note directing me to consult a table of regulations, and I have not that table.”

”It hangs on the wall of the staircase, near your room; you can read it when your head is rested to-morrow. Will you go in?” he said, opening a door in the lower corridor, just opposite that of the auditorium.

Durtal bowed to an old gentleman who came to meet him; the monk introduced them and vanished.

The dishes were on the table, two poached eggs, a bowl of rice, another of French beans, and a pot of honey.

M. Bruno said grace, and proceeded to help Durtal.

He gave him an egg.

”This is a poor supper for a Parisian,” he said, with a smile.

”Ah, as long as there is an egg and wine it is bearable. I was afraid, I confess, that my only drink would be cold water.”

They talked as friends.

The man was pleasant, and distinguished, with ascetic features, but with a bright smile, lighting up a grave face, yellow and wrinkled.

He lent himself with perfect good grace to Durtal's inquiries, and told him, that after a tempestuous life, he felt that Grace had touched him, and he had retired from the world to expiate by years of austerities and silence his own sins and those of others.

”And you have never grown tired of being here?”

”Never, during the five years that I have spent in this cloister, time, cut up as it is at La Trappe, seems short.”