Part 23 (2/2)

”You are present at all the exercises of the Community?”

”Yes; I only replace manual labour by meditation in my cell; my position as oblate, however, dispenses me, if I so wish, from getting up at two o'clock to follow the night office, but it is a great joy to me to recite the magnificent Benedictine Psalter before daybreak--but you are listening to me, and eat nothing. Let me give you a little more rice.”

”No, thank you, but I will take, if you will allow me, a spoonful of honey.

”The food is not bad,” he said, ”but I do not quite understand the same strange and identical taste in all the dishes; it smells, how shall I express it? like burnt fat or suet.”

”That is the warm oil with which the vegetables are dressed, you will soon grow accustomed to it, in a couple of days you will cease to notice it.”

”But in what consists, precisely, the part of an oblate?”

”His life is less austere, and more contemplative than that of a monk; he may travel if he will, and though he is not bound by vows, he shares in all the spiritual advantages of the order.

”In old times the rule admitted those whom it styled 'familiars.'

”Those were oblates who received the tonsure, wore a distinct costume, and p.r.o.nounced the three greater vows; they led in fact a mitigated life, half layman, half monk. This rule, which still exists among the true Benedictines, has disappeared among the Trappists since the year 1293, the date at which it was suppressed by the Chapter General.

”At the present time, in the Cistercian abbeys are only the fathers, the lay brothers, the oblates, when there are any, and the peasants employed in field labour.”

”The lay brothers, I suppose, are those whose heads are completely shaven, and who are clothed in a brown habit, like the monk who opened the door to me?”

”Yes; they do not sing office, and have only manual tasks.”

”By the way, the rule for retreat which I read in my room does not seem clear. As far as I recall it, it doubles certain offices, places Matins at four in the afternoon, and Vespers at two; in any case the horary is not the same as that of the Trappists; how am I to understand and reconcile them?”

”You have only to take into consideration the exercises set out on your card; Father Etienne must, I think, have said so; that mould was only made for people who cannot occupy and guide themselves. That explains to you how, to prevent them from becoming idle, the priests' breviary has been in some degree taken to pieces, and their time has been distributed in small slices, so that, for instance, they may be obliged to recite the psalms for Matins at hours when there is no psalm.”

Dinner was over; M. Bruno said grace, and said to Durtal,

”You have twenty minutes free from now to Compline; you can make acquaintance with the garden and woods.” He bowed politely and went out.

”I can smoke a cigarette,” thought Durtal, when he was alone. He took his hat and left the room. Night was coming on. He pa.s.sed through the great court, skirted a small building surmounted by a long chimney-stack, discovered by the smell that it was a chocolate factory, and entered an avenue of trees.

The sky was so obscure that he could scarcely see the group of trees he entered, and not seeing anyone he rolled his cigarettes, and smoked them slowly, with enjoyment, consulting his watch from time to time by his cigar lights.

He was astonished at the silence of the monastery; not a sound, however hushed, however distant, save now and then a gentle rustle of boughs; he went to the side whence the noise came, and saw a piece of water, on which a swan was sailing, which came towards him.

He saw its white plumage oscillate against the darkness which it displaced with a splash, when a bell sounded with slow strokes; ”Ah,”

said he, looking again at his watch, ”that is the hour of Compline.”

He went to the chapel, which was still empty; and he took occasion of the solitude to examine it at his ease.

It was in the form of a truncated cross, a cross without a foot, rounded at the summit, holding out two square arms, with a door at either end.

The upper part of the cross, below a cupola painted blue, formed a little circular apse, round which was a circle of stalls placed back against the wall; in the middle rose a great altar of white marble, surmounted by wooden chandeliers, flanked on the left and right by candelabra also of wood, placed on marble shafts.

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