Part 34 (1/2)

And all of a sudden the impression came over him that he was suffocating and wanted air; the ma.s.s was finished; he rushed out and ran to his walk; there he wished to take an account of himself and he found nothing.

And in front of the cross pond, in whose waters the Christ was drowning, there came over him an infinite melancholy, a vast sadness.

It was a true syncope of the soul; it lost consciousness; and when it came to itself, he was astonished that he had not felt an unknown transport of joy; then he dwelt on a troublesome recollection, on the all too human side of the deglut.i.tion of a G.o.d; the Host had stuck against his palate, and he had had to seek it with his tongue and roll it about like a pancake in order to swallow it.

Ah! it was still too material! he only wanted a fluid, a perfume, a fire, a breath!

And he tried to explain to himself the treatment that the Saviour made him follow.

All his antic.i.p.ations had returned; it was the absolution and not the communion which had worked. When with the confessor he had very clearly perceived the presence of the Redeemer; all his being had, in a manner, been injected with divine effluvia, and the Eucharist had only brought him suffocation and trouble.

It seemed that the effects of the two Sacraments had changed places the one with the other; they had worked the wrong way with him; Christ had been perceptible to his soul before and not afterwards.

”But it is easy enough to see,” he reflected, ”that the great question for me is to have an absolute certainty of my forgiveness! By a special favour, Jesus has ratified my faith in the healing power of Penance. Why should He have done more?”

”And then, what bounties would He reserve for His saints? After all I am astonis.h.i.+ng. It is too much that I should wish to be treated as He certainly treats Brother Anacletus and Brother Simeon.”

”I have obtained more than I deserve. And what an answer I had, this very morning? Yes, indeed, but why should such advances end suddenly in this recoil?”

And making his way towards the abbey to eat his bread and cheese, he said to himself: ”My error towards G.o.d is to be always arguing, when I ought to adore stupidly as these monks here do. Ah! to be able to keep silence, silence to one's self, that is indeed a grace!”

He reached the refectory, which, as a rule, he had to himself, M. Bruno never coming to the meal at seven o'clock in the morning. He was beginning to cut himself a piece of bread, when the father guest-master appeared.

He had a whetstone and some knives in his hand, and smiling at Durtal, he said: ”I am going to polish the knives of the monastery, for they want it badly.” And he placed them on a table in a small room attached to the refectory.

”Well, are you satisfied?” he said, on coming back.

”Certainly--but, what happened this morning, how is it I was communicated by the abbot of La Trappe, when I should have been by the curate who dines with me?”

”Ah!” exclaimed the monk, ”I was as much surprised as you. On waking, the Father Abbot suddenly declared that he must say ma.s.s this morning.

He got up in spite of the observations of the prior, who as a doctor, forbade him to leave his bed. Neither I, nor any one else, knows what took him. Then they told him that a retreatant would communicate and he answered 'Just so, I shall communicate him.' And then M. Bruno took the opportunity of also approaching the Sacrament, for he loves to receive our Saviour from the hands of Dom Anselm.”

”And this arrangement also satisfied the curate,” the monk went on, smiling; ”for he left La Trappe at an earlier hour this morning and has been able to say his ma.s.s in a parish where he was expected.... By the way, he told me to make his excuses to you for not having been able to bid you good-bye.”

Durtal bowed. ”There is no doubt about it,” he thought, ”G.o.d wished to give me an unmistakable answer.”

”And your health?”

”It is good, father; I am astounded; my digestion has never been so good as it is here; to say nothing of the fact that the neuralgia, which I feared so much, has spared me.”

”That shows that Heaven protects you.”

”Yes, indeed. But now that I remember it, I have long wished to ask you this--how are your offices arranged? They do not correspond with those printed in my prayer-book.”

”No, they differ from yours, which belong to the Roman ritual. At the same time, the Vespers are almost similar, except sometimes the lessons, and then what may put you out is that ours are often preceded by the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin. As a general rule we have a psalm less in the office, and the lessons are nearly always short.

”Except,” Father Etienne went on, smiling, ”in Compline, the very one you recite. Thus you may have noticed we know nothing of 'In ma.n.u.s tuas, Domine,' which is one of the few short lessons sung in parish churches.

”We have also a special Proper of Saints; we celebrate the commemoration of the Blessed of our order which you will not find in your books. In fact we follow the letter of the monastic breviary of Saint Benedict.”