Part 47 (2/2)

”Then, though because of the great heat we have often hardly slept, we must before dawn jump out of bed, and begin at once the great night office, the Vigils, which last at least two hours. Even after twenty years of Trappist life, one cannot but suffer at that getting up; in chapel you fight against sleep which crushes you, you sleep while you hear a verse chanted, you strive to keep awake, in order to be able to chant another, and fall asleep again.

”One ought to be able to turn the key on thought, and one is incapable of it.

”Truly, I a.s.sure you that even beyond the corporal fatigue which explains that state in the morning, there is then an aggression of the demon, an incessant temptation to make us recite the office badly.”

”And you all undergo this strife?”

”All; and this does not hinder,” concluded the monk, whose face was radiant, ”this does not hinder us from being very happy here.

”Because all these trials are nothing beside the deep and intimate joys which our good G.o.d gives us. Ah! He is a generous Master; he pays us a hundred-fold for our poor sorrows.”

As they spoke, they had pa.s.sed through the corridor and had arrived at its other end.

The monk opened the door, and Durtal was astounded to find himself in a vestibule just opposite his own cell.

”I did not think,” he said, ”that I was living so near you.”

”This house is a regular labyrinth--but M. Bruno will take you to the library where the Father prior is waiting for you; for I must go to my business. We shall meet presently,” he said, with a smile.

The library was situated on the other side of the staircase by which Durtal reached his chamber. It was large, furnished with shelves from top to bottom, occupied in the middle by a sort of counter table on which also were spread rows of books.

Father Maximin said to Durtal,

”We are not very rich, but at any rate we possess tools for work fairly complete on theology and the monography of the cloisters.”

”You have superb volumes,” cried Durtal, who looked at magnificent folios in splendid bindings with armorial bearings.

”Wait; here are the works of Saint Bernard in a fine edition,” and the monk presented to Durtal enormous volumes, printed in heavy letters on crackling paper.

”When I think that I promised myself to make acquaintance with Saint Bernard in this very abbey which he founded, and here I am on the eve of my departure, and have read nothing!”

”You do not know his works?”

”Yes; scattered fragments of his sermons and of his letters. I have run through some _selectae mediocres_ of his works, but that is all.”

”He is our chief master here; but he is not the only one of our ancestors in Saint Benedict whom the convent possesses,” said the monk with a certain pride. ”See,” and he pointed out on the shelves some heavy folios, ”here: 'Saint Gregory the Great,' 'Venerable Bede,' 'Saint Peter Damian,' 'Saint Anselm.' ... And your friends are there,” he said, following Durtal with a glance as he read the t.i.tles of the volumes, ”'Saint Teresa,' 'Saint John of the Cross,' 'Saint Magdalen of Pazzi,'

'Saint Angela,' 'Tauler,' ... and she who like Sister Emmerich dictated her conversations with Jesus during her ecstasy.” And the prior took from the range of books in octavo, ”The Dialogues of Saint Catherine of Siena.”

”That Dominican nun is terrible for the priests of her time,” the monk went on. ”She insists on their misdeeds, reproaches them roundly with selling the Holy Spirit, with practising sortilege, and with using the Sacrament to compose evil charms.”

”And there are besides the disorderly vices of which she accuses them in the series concerning the sin of the flesh,” added the oblate.

”Certainly, she does not mince her words, but she had the right to take up that tone, and menace in the name of the Lord, for she was truly inspired by Him. Her doctrine was drawn from divine sources. 'Doctrina ejus infusa non acquisita,' says the Church in the bull of her canonization. Her Dialogues are admirable; the pages in which G.o.d exposes the holy frauds which He sometimes uses to recall men to good, the pa.s.sages in which she treats of the monastic life, of that barque which possesses three ropes: chast.i.ty, obedience, and poverty, and which faces the tempest under the conduct of the Holy Spirit, are delightful.

She reveals herself in her work the pupil of the well-beloved disciple and of Saint Thomas Aquinas. One might believe that one heard the Angel of the School paraphrasing the last of the Evangelists.”

”Yes,” said the oblate, striking in, ”if Saint Catherine of Siena does not give herself to the high speculations of Mysticism; if she does not a.n.a.lyze like Saint Teresa the mysteries of divine love, nor trace the itinerary of souls destined to the perfect life, she reflects directly at least the conversations of Heaven. She calls, she loves! You have read, sir, her treatises on Discretion and Prayer?”

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