Years soon pass away in the life of a Trappist priest.
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
Another June came quickly into the lonely valley of the Abbey of
Gethsemane. Again the same sweet monastery bells in the purple
twilights, and the same midnight masses. Monks again at work in the
gardens, their cowls well tied up with hempen cords. Monks once more
teaching the pious pupils in the school across the lane. The gorgeous
summer came and passed beyond the southern horizon, like a mortal
vision of beauty never to return. There were few changes to note. Only
the abbot seemed to have grown much feebler. His hand trembled visibly
now as he lifted the crosier, and he walked less than of yore among his
brethren while they busied themselves with the duties of the waning
autumn. But he was oftener seen pacing to and fro where the leaves
fell sadly from the moaning choir of English elms. Or at times he would
take a little foot-path that led across the brown November fields,
and, having gained a crest on the boundary of the valley, would stand
looking far over the outward landscape into imaginary spaces, limitless
and unexplored.
But Father Palemon, where was he? Amid what splendors of the great
metropolis was he bursting Joy's grape against his palate fine? What
of his dreams of love and duty, and a larger, more modern stature of
manhood?
* * * * *
Late one chill, cloud-hung afternoon in November there came into the
valley of Gethsemane the figure of a young man. He walked slowly along
the road towards the abbey, with the air of one who is weary and
forgetful of his surroundings. His head dropped heavily forward on his
breast, and his empty hands hung listlessly down. At the iron gate of
the porter's lodge entrance was refused him; the abbey was locked in
repose for the night. Urging the importance of his seeing the abbot, he
was admitted. He erased a name from a card and on it wrote another, and
waited for the interview.
Again the same great dark room, lighted by a flickering spark. He did
not stand half in light and half in shadow, but hid himself away in one
of the darkest recesses. In a few moments the abbot entered, holding
the card in his hand and speaking with tremulous haste:
"'Father Palemon?'--who wrote this name, 'Father Palemon?'"
Out of the darkness came a low reply:
"I wrote it."
"I do not know you."
"I am Father Palemon."
The calm of a great sadness was in the abbot's voice, as he replied,
musingly:
"There--_is_--no--Father Palemon: he died long ago."
"Oh, my father! Is this the way you receive me?"
He started forward and came into the light. Alas! No; it was not Father
Palemon. His long hair was unkempt and matted over his forehead, his
face pinched and old with suffering, and ashen gray except for the red
spots on his cheeks. Deep shadows lay under his hollow eyes, which were
bloodshot and restless and burning.
"I have come back to lead the life of a monk. Will you receive me?"
"Twice a monk, no monk. Receive you for what time? Until next June?"
"Until death."
"I have received you once already until death. How many times am I to
receive you until death?"
"I beseech you do not contest in words with me. It is too much. I am
ill. I am in trouble."
He suddenly checked his passionate utterance, speaking slowly and with
painful self-control:
"I cannot endure how to tell you all that has befallen me since I went
away. The new life that I had begun in the world has come to an end.
Father Abbot, she is dead. I have just buried her and my child in one
grave. Since then the one desire I have had has been to return to
this place. God forgive me! I have no heart now for the duties I had
undertaken. I had not measured my strength against this calamity. It
has left me powerless for good to any human creature. My plans were
wrecked when she died. My purposes have gone to pieces. There is no
desire in me but for peace and solitude and prayer. All that I can do
now is to hide my poor, broken, ineffectual life here, until by God's
will, sooner or later, it is ended."
"You speak in the extremity of present suffering. You are young.
Nearly all your life lies yet before you. In time Nature heals nearly
all the wounds that she inflicts. In a few years this grief which now
unmans you--which you think incurable--will wear itself out. You do not
believe this. You think me cruel. But I speak the truth. Then you may
be happy again--happier than you have ever been. Then the world will
resume its hold upon you. If the duties of a man's life have appealed
to your conscience, as I believe they have, they will then appeal
to it with greater power and draw you with a greater sense of their
obligations. Moreover, you may love again--ah! Hush! Hear me through!
You think this is more unfeeling still. But I must speak, and speak
now. It is impossible to seclude you here against all temptation. Some
day you may see another woman's face--hear another woman's voice. You
may find your priestly vows intolerable again. Men who once break their
holiest pledges for the sake of love will break them again, if they
love again. No, no! If you were unfit for the life of a monk once, much
more are you unfit now. Now that you are in the world, better to remain
there."
"In Heaven's name, will you deny me? I tell you that this is the only
desire left to me. The world is as dead to me as though it never
existed, because my heart is broken. You misunderstood me then. You
misunderstand me now. Does experience count for nothing in preparing a
man for the cloister?"
"I did misunderstand you once; I thought that you were fitted for the
life of a monk. I understand you now: I do not make the same mistake
twice."
"This is the home of my childhood, and you turn me away?"
"You went away yourself, in the name of conscience and of your own
passion."
"This is the house of God, and you close its doors against me?"
"You burst them open of your own self-will."
Hitherto the abbot had spoken for duty, for his church, for the
inviolable sanctity of his order. Against these high claims the pent-up
tenderness of his heart had weighed as nothing. But now as the young
man, having fixed a long look upon his face, turned silently away
towards the door, with out-stretched arms he tottered after him, and
cried out in broken tones: "Stop! Stop, I pray you! You are ill. You
are free to remain here a guest. No one was ever refused shelter. Oh,
my God! what have I done?"
Father Palemon had reeled and fallen fainting in the door-way.
* * * * *
In this life, from earliest childhood, we are trained by merciful
degrees to brave its many sorrows. We begin with those of infancy,
which, Heaven knows, at the time seem grievous enough to be borne.
As we grow older we somehow also grow stronger, until through the
discipline of many little sufferings we are enabled to bear up under
those final avalanches of disaster that rush down upon us in maturer
years. Even thus fortified, there are some of us on whom these fall
only to overwhelm.
But Father Palemon. Unnaturally shielded by the cloister up to that
period of young manhood when feeling is deepest and fortitude least,
he had suddenly appeared upon the world's stage only to enact one
of the greatest scenes in the human tragedy--that scene wherein the
perfect ecstasy of love by one swift, mortal transition becomes the
perfect agony of loss. What wonder if he had staggered blindly, and if,
trailing the habiliments of his sorrow, he had sought to return to the
only place that was embalmed in his memory as a peaceful haven for the
shipwrecked? But even this quiet port was denied him.
* * * * *
Into the awful death-chamber of the abbey they bore him one midnight
some weeks later. The tension of physical powers during the days of his
suspense and suffering, followed by the shock of his rejection, had
touched those former well-nigh fatal ravages that had prostrated him
during the period of his austere novitiate. He was dying. The delirium
of his fever had passed away, and with a clear, dark, sorrowful eye he
watched them prepare for the last agony.
On the bare floor of the death-chamber they sprinkled consecrated ashes
in the form of a cross. Over these they scattered straw, and over the
straw they drew a coarse serge cloth. This was his death-bed--a sign
that in the last hour he was admitted once more to the fellowship of
his order. From the low couch on which he lay he looked at it. Then he
made a sign to the abbot, in the mute language of the brotherhood. The
abbot repeated it to one of the attendant fathers, who withdrew and
soon returned, bringing a white cowl. Lifting aside the serge cloth, he
spread the cowl over the blessed cinders and straw. Father Palemon's
request had been that he might die upon his cowl, and on this they now
stretched his poor emaciated body, his cold feet just touching the old
earth-stains upon its hem. He lay for a little while quite still, with
closed eyes. Then he turned them upon the abbot and the monks, who were
kneeling in prayer around him, and said, in a voice of great and gentle
dignity:
"My father--my brethren, have I your full forgiveness?"
With sobs they bowed themselves around him. After this he received
the crucifix, tenderly embracing it, and then lay still again, as if
awaiting death. But finally he turned over on one side, and raising
himself on one forearm, sought with the hand of the other among the
folds of his cowl until he found a small blood-stain now faint upon its
bosom. Then he lay down again, pressing his cheek against it; and thus
the second time a monk, but even in death a lover, he breathed out his
spirit with a faint whisper--"Madeline!"
And as he lay on the floor, so now he lies in the dim cemetery garth
outside, wrapped from head to foot in his cowl, with its stains on the
hem and the bosom.