Part 28 (1/2)
”By the way” ... he looked at his watch and started; it was two o'clock--”I have missed the office of Nones,” he said; ”I must simplify my complicated horary, or I shall never know where I am;” and at once he traced in a few lines:
”Morning. Rise at 3 o'clock, or rather at 3.30. Breakfast at 7--s.e.xt at 11, dinner at 11.30--Nones at 1.30--Vespers at 5.15--Supper at 6, and Compline at 7.25.”
”There, at least that is clear and easy to remember--If only Father Etienne have not noticed my absence from chapel!”
He left his room. ”Ah, here is the famous rule,” he said to himself, on seeing a framed table hung on the landing.
He approached and read:--
”Rule for Visitors.”
It was composed of numerous paragraphs, and opened as follows:--
”Those whom Divine Providence has guided to this monastery are requested to note the following:--
”They will at all times avoid meeting the religious and lay brothers, and will not go near their places of work.
”They are forbidden to leave the cloister for the farm or the neighbourhood of the monastery.”
Then came a series of instructions which he had already seen on the printed horary.
Durtal skipped several paragraphs, and read again:--
”Visitors are requested not to write anything on the doors, not to strike matches on the wall, and not to spill water on the floor.
”They are not allowed to visit each other's rooms or to speak to one another.
”Smoking is not allowed in the house.”
”Nor indeed outside,” thought Durtal. ”But I want a cigarette badly;”
and he went down.
In the corridor he ran against Father Etienne, who immediately observed that he had not seen him in his place during the office. Durtal excused himself as well as he could. The monk said no more, but Durtal understood that he was observed, and that under his childlike aspect the guest-master would, where discipline was concerned, hold him in an iron grip. He was confirmed in this impression when at Vespers he noticed that the monk's first glance on entering the chapel was at him, but that day he felt so sore and broken that he cared but little. This sudden change of existence, and of the manner in which he had been accustomed to spend his time, astounded him, and since the crisis of the morning he had been in a kind of torpor which took from him all power of recovery.
He drifted to the end of the day, no longer thinking of anything, sleeping as he stood, and when the evening came he fell on his bed a mere inert ma.s.s.
CHAPTER III.
He woke with a bound at eleven o'clock, with an impression of someone looking at him in his sleep. Lighting a match, he ascertained the time, and seeing no one, fell back in bed again, and slept at a stretch till four o'clock. Then he dressed himself in haste and ran to the church.
The vestibule, which had been dark on the previous evening, was lit up that morning, for an old monk was celebrating ma.s.s at the altar of St.
Joseph. He was bald and infirm, with a white beard waving from side to side in long threads with every gust of wind.
A lay brother was a.s.sisting him, a small man with black hair and a shaven head, like a ball painted blue; he looked like a bandit, with his beard in disorder and his worn-out robe of felt.
And the eyes of this bandit were gentle and startled like those of a little boy. He served the priest with an almost timid respect and a suppressed joy which was touching to see.
Others, kneeling on the flagstones, prayed with concentrated attention or read their ma.s.s. Durtal noticed the old man of eighty, immovable with outstretched face and closed eyes; and the youth whose look of pity had helped him near the pond, was following the office in his prayer-book with attentive meditation. He looked about twenty years old, tall and strong; his face, with an air of fatigue, was at once masculine and tender, with emaciated features, and a light beard which fell over his habit in a point.