Part 29 (2/2)
Durtal choked with disgust; the avowal of these horrors was a terrible effort to him; yet crushed as he was by shame, he was beginning to breathe, when suddenly he plunged his head again in his hands.
The remembrance of the sacrilege in which Madame Chantelouve had made him share, came back to him.
Hesitatingly he confessed that he had from curiosity a.s.sisted at a black ma.s.s, and that afterwards, without wis.h.i.+ng it, he had defiled a Host which that woman, saturated with Satanism, concealed about her.
The prior listened without moving.
”Did you continue your visits to that woman?”
”No; that had given me a horror of her.”
The Trappist reflected and said,
”That is all?”
”I think I have confessed everything,” replied Durtal.
The confessor was silent for some minutes, and then in a pensive voice, he murmured,
”I am struck, even more than yesterday, by the astonis.h.i.+ng miracle which Heaven has worked in you.
”You were sick, so sick that what Martha said of the body of Lazarus might truly have been said of your soul, 'Iam foetet!' And Christ has, in some manner, raised you. Only do not deceive yourself, the conversion of a sinner is not his cure, but only his convalescence; and this convalescence sometimes lasts for several years and is often long.
”It is expedient that you should determine from this moment to fortify yourself against any falling back, and to do all in your power for recovery. The preventive treatment consists of prayer, the sacrament of penance, and holy communion.
”Prayer?--you know it, for without much prayer you could not have decided to come here after the troubled life you had led.”
”Ah! but I prayed so badly!”
”It does not matter, as your wish was to pray well! Confession?--It was painful to you; it will be less so now that you no longer have to avow the acc.u.mulated sins of years. The communion troubles me more; for it is to be feared that when you have triumphed over the flesh the Demon should await you there, and endeavour to draw you away, for he knows well that, without this divine government, no healing is possible. You will therefore have to give this matter all your attention.”
The monk reflected a minute, and then went on,
”The holy Eucharist ... you will have more need of it than others, for you will be more unhappy than less cultured and simpler beings. You will be tortured by the imagination. It has made you sin much; and, by a just recompense, it will make you suffer much; it will be the badly closed door of your soul by which the Demon will enter and spread himself in you. Watch over this, and pray fervently that the Saviour may help you.
Tell me, have you a rosary?”
”No, father.”
”I feel,” said the monk, ”that the tone in which you said 'No' shows a certain hostility to the rosary.”
”I admit that this mechanical manner of saying prayers wearies me a little; I do not know why, but it seems to me that at the end of some seconds I can no longer think of what I am saying; I should mock, and should certainly end by stammering out something stupid.”
”You have known,” quietly answered the prior, ”some fathers of families.
Their children stammer forth caresses, and tell them no matter what, and yet they are delighted to listen! Why should not our Lord, who is a good Father, love to hear His children when they drawl, or even when they talk nonsense?”
And after a pause he went on,
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