Part 37 (1/2)

And the sow looked at him with little languis.h.i.+ng eyes, and licked his fingers; she ended by screaming abominably when he went away.

And Brother Simeon showed off other pupils, pigs with ears like the mouth of a trumpet and corkscrew tails, sows whose stomachs trailed and whose feet seemed hardly outside their bodies, new-born pigs which sucked ravenously at the teats, larger ones, who delighted in chasing each other about and rolled in the mud, snorting.

Durtal complimented him on the beasts, and the old man was jubilant, wiping his face with his great hand; then, on the oblate inquiring about the litter of some sow, he felt his fingers in a row; replying to the observation that the animals were very greedy, by stretching his arms to heaven, showing the empty troughs, lifting ends of wood, tearing up tufts of gra.s.s which he carried to his lips, grunting as if he had his muzzle full.

Then he took them into the courtyard, placed them against the wall, opened a door beyond, and hid himself. A formidable boar pa.s.sed like a waterspout, upset a wheelbarrow, scattering everything round him with a noise like a sh.e.l.l bursting; then he broke into a gallop all round the courtyard, and ended by taking a header into a sea of liquid manure. He wallowed, turned head over heels, kicked about with his four feet in the air, and got up black and disgusting as the inside of a chimney.

After this he halted, grunted a cheerful note, and wished to fawn on the monk, who checked him with a gesture.

”Your boar is splendid!” said Durtal.

And the lay brother looked on Durtal with moist eyes as he rubbed his neck with his hand, sighing.

”That means they are going to kill him soon,” said the oblate.

And the old man acquiesced with a melancholy shake of his head.

They left him, thanking him for his kindness.

”When I think of how this being, who is devoted to the lowest duties, prays in church, I long to kneel before him and, like his pigs, kiss his hands!” exclaimed Durtal after a silence.

”Brother Simeon is an angelic being,” replied the oblate. ”He lives the Unitive life, his soul plunged, drowned in the divine essence. Under a rough exterior an absolutely white soul, a soul without sin, lives in this poor body; it is right that G.o.d should spoil him! As I have told you, He has given him all power over the Demon; and in certain cases He allows him also the power of healing by the imposition of hands. He has renewed here the wonderful cures of the ancient saints.”

They ceased speaking, and, warned by the bells which were ringing for Vespers, they moved towards the church.

And, coming to himself again, trying to recover, Durtal remained astounded. Monastic life r.e.t.a.r.ded time. How many weeks had he been at La Trappe, and how many days since had he approached the Sacraments? that was lost in the distance. Ah, life was double in these cloisters! And yet he was not tired of it; he had bent himself easily to the hard rule, and, in spite of the scanty meals, he felt no sick headaches or failing; he had never felt so well!--but what remained was a feeling of stifling, of restrained sighs, this burning melancholy for hours, and, more than all, this vague anxiety at listening again within himself, and hearing united in his person the voices of this Trinity, G.o.d, the Devil, and Man.

”This is not the peace of the soul I dreamed of--and it is even worse than at Paris,” he said to himself, recalling the maddening trial of the rosary--”and yet--how can I explain it? I am happy here all the same.”

CHAPTER V.

Rising, somewhat earlier than his wont, Durtal went down to the chapel.

The office of Matins was over, but some lay brothers, amongst whom was Brother Simeon, were praying on their knees on the ground.

The sight of this holy swine-herd threw Durtal into a long train of thought. He tried in vain to penetrate into the sanctuary of that soul, hidden like an invisible chapel behind the dunghill rampart of a body; he did not even succeed in representing to himself the docile and clinging soul of this man, who had attained the highest state to which the human creature can reach here below.

”What a power of prayer he has,” thought he, as he looked at the old man.

He remembered the details of his interview the evening before. ”It is true,” he thought, ”that in this monk I find something of the charm of that brother Juniper, whose surprising simplicity has come down through the ages.”

And he brought to mind the adventures of that Franciscan whom his companions left one day by himself in the convent, telling him to prepare dinner against their return.

Juniper reflected, ”What an amount of time is spent in preparing food!

The brothers who take turns in that work have not even time to pray”--and desiring to lighten the work of those who should succeed him in the kitchen, he determined to cook such plentiful dishes that the community might dine on them for a fortnight.

He lighted all the stoves, procured, we are not told how, enormous boilers, filled them with water, threw into them, pell-mell, eggs with their sh.e.l.ls, chickens with their feathers, vegetables he had neglected to trim, and before a fire which would roast an ox, he exerted himself to pile up and stir the ridiculous jumble of his stock-pots.

When the brothers came home, and sat down in the refectory, he ran, his face browned and his hands burnt, and joyously served up his stew. The superior asked him if he were not mad, while he remained stupefied that no one gobbled up this astonis.h.i.+ng mess. He declared in all humility that he thought he was doing a service to his brethren, and only when he observed that so much food would be wasted, did he weep hot tears, and declare himself a wretch; he cried that he was good for nothing but to spoil the property of Almighty G.o.d, while the monks smiled, admiring this debauch of charity, and the excess of Juniper's simplicity.