Part 30 (2/2)
M. Bruno laughed. ”Yes,” he said, ”he produces that effect on those who never come near him, but when one a.s.sociates with him, one finds that he is only strict for himself, for no one is more indulgent to others. In every acceptation of the term he is a true and holy monk; besides, he has great judgment....”
And as Durtal spoke to him of the other cen.o.bites, and wondered that there were some quite young men among them, M. Bruno replied,
”It is a mistake to suppose that most Trappists have lived in the world.
The idea, so widespread, that people take refuge in La Trappe after long sorrows or disorderly lives, is absolutely false; besides, to be able to stand the weakening rule of the cloister it is necessary to begin young, and not to come in worn out with every kind of abuse.
”It is also necessary to avoid confounding misanthropy with the monastic vocation; it is not hypochondria, but the divine call, which leads to La Trappe. There is a special grace, which makes all young men who have never lived in the world long to bury themselves in silence and therein suffer the hardest privations; and they are happy as I hope you will be; and yet their life is still more rigorous than you would think; take the lay brothers, for example.
”Think of their giving themselves up to the most painful labour, and that they have not, like the fathers, the consolation of singing and a.s.sisting at all the offices; remember that even their reward, the communion, is not very often conceded to them.
”Now think of the winter here. The cold is frightful; in these decayed buildings nothing shuts properly, and the wind sweeps the house from top to bottom; they freeze without fires, they sleep upon pallets, and they cannot help or encourage each other, for they hardly know each other, as all conversation is forbidden.
”Think, also, that these poor people never hear a kindly word, a word which would soothe and comfort them. They work from dawn till night, and the master never thanks them for their zeal, never tells the good workman that he is pleased.
”Consider, also, that in summer when men are hired from the neighbouring villages to reap the harvest, these rest when the sun scorches the fields; they sit in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves under the shade of the ricks, and drink, if they are thirsty, and eat; and the lay brother in his heavy clothes looks at them and goes on with his work, and neither eats nor drinks. Ah! men must have well-tempered souls to stand such a life.”
”But surely there must be some off days,” said Durtal, ”when the rule is relaxed?”
”Never; there is not even, as in some very strict orders--the Carmelites, to take one instance--an hour of recreation, when the religious may talk and laugh. Here, the silence is eternal.”
”Even when they are together in the refectory?”
”Then they read the Conferences of Ca.s.sien, the 'Holy Ladder' of Climacus, the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, or some other pious book.”
”And on Sunday?”
”On Sunday they rise an hour earlier; but on the whole it is their best day, for they can follow all the offices and pa.s.s their whole time in church.”
”Humility and self-denial carried to such an extent are superhuman!”
cried Durtal. ”But they are surely given a sufficient quant.i.ty of strong nourishment to enable them to give themselves up from morning till evening to exhausting work in the fields?”
M. Bruno smiled.
”They simply get vegetables which are not even as good as those which are served to us, and, by way of wine, they quench their thirst with a sour and insipid liquid, which leaves half a gla.s.s full of sediment.
They get a pint each, and if they are thirsty they can add water.”
”And how often do they eat?”
”That depends. From the 14th September to Lent they only eat once a day, at half-past two--and during Lent this meal is put off till four o'clock. From Easter to the 14th September, when the Cistercian fast is less strict, dinner is at about half-past eleven, and to this may be added a light meal in the evening.”
”It is frightful! to work for months on one meal a day, two hours after noon, after being up since two o'clock in the morning; having had no dinner the evening before.”
”It is sometimes necessary to relax the rule a little, and when a monk fails from weakness he is not refused a morsel of bread.
”It would be well,” continued M. Bruno, pensively, ”to relax still further the grasp of these observances, for this question of food is becoming a veritable stumbling-block in recruiting for La Trappe; souls which delight in these cloisters are forced to fly them, because their bodies cannot stand the rule.”[1]
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