On Sunday morning, on his way to the Rue Monsieur, Durtal chewed the cud
of his reflections on the Monasteries. "It is certain," he thought,
"that in the accumulated filth of ages, they alone have remained clean,
are truly in relation with heaven, and serve as interpreters between it
and earth. But we must thoroughly understand and specify that we are
speaking only of the cloistered orders, which have remained, as far as
possible, poor...."
And thinking of the communities of women, he murmured as he hastened his
steps: "Here is a surprising fact, which proves once more, the
incomparable genius with which the Church is endowed; she has been able
to bring into common life women who do not assassinate each other, and
obey without recalcitrancy the orders of another woman--wonderful!
"Well, here I am"--and Durtal, who knew he was late, hastened into the
court of the Benedictine nunnery, took the steps of the little church
four at a time, and pushed the door open. He paused in hesitation on the
threshold, dazzled by the blaze of the lighted chapel. Lamps were lit
everywhere, and overhead the altar flamed with a forest of tapers
against which stood out as on a gold ground, the ruddy face of a bishop
all in white.
Durtal glided among the crowd, elbowing his way till he saw the Abbé
Gévresin beckoning to him. He joined him, and sat down on the chair the
priest had kept for him, and examined the abbot of Grande Trappe,
surrounded by priests in chasubles, and choir boys some in red and
others in blue, followed by a Trappist with shaven crown, surrounded by
a fringe of hair, holding a wooden cross, on the reverse of which was
carved the small figure of a monk.
Clad in a white cowl, with long sleeves and a gold button on his hood,
his abbot's cross on his breast, his head covered with an old French
mitre of low form, Dom Etienne, with his broad shoulders, his greyish
beard, his ruddy colour, had a look of an old Burgundian, tanned by the
sun while working at his vines; he seemed, moreover, a good sort of man,
uneasy under his mitre, oppressed by his honours.
A sharp perfume which burnt the nose as a spice burns the tongue, the
perfume of myrrh, floated in the air, the crowds surged; behind the
grating from which the curtain was withdrawn, the nuns standing sang the
hymn of Saint Ambrose, "Jesu corona virginum," while the bells of the
abbey rang a peal; in the short aisle leading from the porch to the
choir, a bending line of women on either side, a cross-bearer and
torch-bearers entered, and behind them appeared the novice dressed as a
bride.
She was dark, slight, and very short, and came forward shyly with
downcast eyes, between her mother and sister. At first sight Durtal
thought her insignificant, scarcely pretty, a mere nobody; and he looked
instinctively for the other party, put out in his sense of fitness, by
the absence of a man in the marriage procession.
Striving against her agitation the postulant walked up the nave into the
choir, and knelt on the left before a large taper, her mother and sister
on either side as bridesmaids.
Dom Etienne genuflected to the altar, mounted the steps, and sat down in
a red velvet arm-chair, placed on the highest step.
Then one of the priests conducted the girl, who knelt alone, before the
monk.
Dom Etienne was motionless as a figure of Buddha; with the same gesture,
he lifted one finger, and said gently to the novice,--
"What is it you ask?"
She spoke so low as scarcely to be heard.
"Father, feeling in myself an ardent desire to sacrifice myself to God,
as a victim in union with our Lord Jesus Christ, immolated on our
altars, and to spend my life in perpetual adoration of His divine
Sacrament, under the observance of the rule of our glorious Father Saint
Benedict, I humbly ask of you the grace of the holy habit."
"I will give it you willingly if you believe you can conform your life
to that of a victim devoted to the Holy Sacrament."
And she answered in a firmer tone,
"I trust so, leaning on the infinite goodness of my Saviour Jesus
Christ."
"God give you perseverance, my daughter," said the prelate; he rose,
turned to the altar, genuflected, and with uncovered head began the
chant "Veni Creator," taken up by the voices of the nuns behind the
light screen of iron.
Then he replaced his mitre, and prayed, while the chanted psalms rose
under the arches. The novice, who in the meantime had been reconducted
to her place at the prie-Dieu, rose, genuflected to the altar, and then
knelt between her two bridesmaids before the abbot of La Trappe, who had
reseated himself.
Her two companions lifted the veil of the bride, took off her wreath of
orange flowers, unrolled the coils of her hair, while a priest spread a
napkin on the knees of the prelate, and the deacon presented a pair of
long scissors on a salver.
Then before the gesture of this monk, making himself ready, like an
executioner, to shear the condemned person, whose hour of expiation was
at hand, the terrible beauty of innocence becoming like crime, in
substitution for sins of which she was ignorant, which she could not
even understand, was evident to the public who had come to the chapel
out of curiosity, and in consternation at the superhuman denial of
justice, it trembled when the bishop seized the entire handful of her
hair, and drew it towards him over her brow.
Then there was as it were a flash of steel in a dark shower.
In the death-like silence of the church the grinding of the scissors was
heard in the mass of hair which fell under the blades, and then all was
silent. Dom Etienne opened his hand, and the rain fell on his knees in
long black threads.
There was a sigh of relief when the priests and bridesmaids led away the
bride, looking strange in her train, with her head discrowned and her
neck bare.
The procession returned almost immediately. There was no longer a bride
in a white skirt, but a nun in a black robe.
She bowed before the Trappist, and again knelt between her mother and
sister.
Then, while the abbot prayed the Lord to bless his handmaid, the master
of the ceremonies and the deacon took, from a credence near the altar, a
basket, wherein under loose rose leaves were folded a girdle of untanned
leather, emblem of the end of that luxury which the Fathers of the
Church placed in the region of the reins, a scapular, symbol of a life
crucified to the world, a veil, which signifies the solitude of the life
hidden in God, and the prelate explained the sense of these emblems to
the novice, then taking the lighted taper from the candlestick before
her, he gave it to her, declaring in one phrase the meaning of his
action: "Accipe, charissima soror, lumen Christi."
Then Dom Etienne took the sprinkler which a priest handed him with an
inclination, and as in the general absolution of the dead, he sprinkled
the girl with holy water in the form of a cross, then he sat down and
spoke gently and quietly without using a single gesture.
He spoke to the postulant alone, praising the august and humble life of
the cloister. "Look not back," he said, "have no regrets, for by my
voice Jesus repeats to you the promise once made to the Magdalen, 'yours
is the better part, which shall not be taken away from you.' Say also to
yourself, my daughter, that, henceforward, taken away from the eternal
trifling of labours in vain, you will accomplish a useful work upon
earth, you will practise charity in its highest form, you will make
expiation for others, you will pray for those who never pray, you will
aid, so far as your strength permits, to make amends for the hate the
world bears to the Saviour.
"Suffer and you will be happy; love your spouse, and you will see how
tender He is to His elect. Believe me, His love is such that He will not
even wait till you are purified by death to recompense you for your
miserable mortifications, your poor sufferings. Even before your hour is
come, He will heap His graces upon you, and you will beg Him to let you
die, so greatly will the excess of these joys exceed your strength."
Little by little the old monk grew warm, and returned to the words of
Christ to the Magdalen, showing how in reference to her Jesus set
forward the excellence of the contemplative over the other Orders, and
gave brief advice, dwelling on the necessity of humility and poverty,
which are, as Saint Clare says, the two great walls of cloistered life.
Then he blessed the novice, who kissed his hand, and when she had
returned to her place, he prayed to the Lord, lifting his eyes to
heaven, that He would accept this nun, who offered herself as a victim
for the sins of the world. Then, standing, he intoned the "Te Deum."
Every one rose, and preceded by the cross and torch bearers, the
procession passed out of the church, and was massed in the court.
Then Durtal might have believed himself carried back far from Paris,
into the heart of the Middle Ages.
The court, surrounded by buildings, was closed opposite the
entrance-gate by a high wall, in the midst of which was a folding-door;
on each side six thin pines rocked to and fro, and chanting was heard
behind the wall.
The postulant, in front, alone, near the closed door, held her torch,
with her head bent. The abbot of La Trappe, leaning on his crosier,
waited, unmoving, a few paces from her.
Durtal examined their faces, the girl, so commonplace in her bridal
costume, had become charming, her body was now full of a timid grace,
the lines, somewhat too marked under her worldly dress, were softened,
under her religious shroud her outline was only a simple sketch, it was
as though the years had rolled back, and as though there was a return to
the forms only prophesied in childhood.
Durtal drew near to examine her better, he tried to look at her face,
but under the chill bandage of her head-dress, she remained mute, and as
if absent from life, with her eyes closed, and as though she lived only
in the smile of her happy lips.
Seen nearer, the monk who had seemed so stout and ruddy in the chapel,
seemed also changed, his frame remained robust, and his complexion
bright, but his eyes of a light blue, like chalk water, water without
reflections or waves, eyes wonderfully pure, changed the common
expression of his features, and took away from him that look of a
vine-dresser which he had at a distance.
"It is clear," thought Durtal, "that the soul is everything in these
people, and their faces are modelled by it. There is a holy clearness in
their eyes, and their lips, in those only apertures through which the
soul comes to look out of the body, and almost shows itself."
The chants behind the wall suddenly ceased, the girl made a step
forward, and knocked with her closed fingers at the door, and then with
a failing voice she sang,--
"Aperite mihi portas justitiae: Ingressa in eas, confitebor Domino."
The door opened. Another large court, paved with pebbles was seen,
bounded at the end by a building, and all the community, in a sort of
semicircle, with black books in their hands, cried,--
"Haec porta Domini: Justi intrabunt in eam."
The novice made another step to the sill and answered in her far-away
voice,--
"Ingrediar in locum tabernaculi admirabilis: usque ad domum Dei."
And the choir of nuns, unmoving, answered,--
"Haec est domus Domini firmiter aedificata: Bene fundata est supra
firmam petram."
Durtal hastily looked at those faces which could only be seen for a few
minutes and on the occasion of such a ceremony. It was a row of dead
bodies standing in black shrouds. All were bloodless, with white cheeks,
lilac eyelids and grey lips, the voices of all were exhausted and fined
down by prayer, and most of them, even the young, were bent. "Their poor
bodies are worn with austere fatigue," thought Durtal.
But his reflections were cut short, the bride, now kneeling on the
threshold, turned to Dom Etienne and chanted in a low voice,--
"Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi: Hic habitabo quoniam elegi eam."
The monk laid aside his mitre and crosier and said,--
"Confirma hoc Deus, quod operatus es in nobis."
And the postulant murmured,--
"A templo sacro tuo quod est in Jerusalem."
Then before re-covering his head and resuming his crosier, the prelate
prayed God Almighty to pour the dew of His blessing on His handmaid;
then directing the girl towards a nun who left the group of sisters and
advanced to the threshold, he said to her,--
"Into your hands, Madame, we commit this new bride of the Lord, sustain
her in the holy resolution she has so solemnly taken upon her, in asking
to sacrifice herself to God as a victim, and to dedicate her life in
honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, sacrificed on our altars. Lead her in
the way of the divine Commandments, in the practice of the counsels of
the Holy Gospel, and in the observance of the monastic rule. Prepare her
for the eternal union to which the heavenly Spouse invites her, and from
this blessed increase of the flock committed to your charge draw a new
motive for maternal care. The peace of the Lord rest upon you."
This was all: the nuns one by one turned and disappeared behind the
wall, while the girl followed them like a poor dog, who with drooping
head accompanies at a distance a new master.
The folding doors closed.
Durtal remained stupefied, looking at the outline of the white bishop,
the backs of the priests who were mounting the steps to give Benediction
in the church, while behind them came in tears, their faces in their
handkerchiefs, the mother and sister of the novice.
"Well?" said the abbé, passing his arm through Durtal's.
"Well, this scene is to my mind the most touching alibi of death that it
is possible to see, this living woman, who buries herself in the most
frightful of tombs--for in it the flesh continues to suffer--is
wonderful.
"I remember that you have yourself told me of the pressure of this
observance, and I shivered in thinking of perpetual Adoration, in those
winter nights, when a child like this is awakened out of her first
sleep, and cast into the darkness of a chapel where unless she faints
from weakness or terror, she must pray alone, through the freezing hours
on her knees on the pavement.
"What passes in that conversation with the unknown, that interview with
the Shadow? Does she succeed in escaping from self, and in leaving the
earth, in gaining, on the threshold of Eternity, the inconceivable
Spouse, or does the soul, powerless to spring on high, remain riveted to
the soil?
"We figure her to ourselves, her face bent forward, her hands joined,
making appeal to herself, concentrating herself, in order to pour
herself forth the better, and we imagine her thus sickly, with no
strength left, trying to set her soul on fire in a shivering frame. But
who can tell if on certain nights she attains to it?
"Ah! those poor lamps of exhausted oil, of flames almost dead, which
tremble in the obscurity of the sanctuary, what will God make of them?
"Then there was the family present at the taking the habit, and if the
daughter filled me with enthusiasm I could not restrain myself from
pitying the mother. Think if the daughter died, the mother would embrace
her, would perhaps speak to her, or if she did not recognize her, it
would at least not be with her own good will; but in this case it is not
the body, but the very soul of her child that dies before her eyes. Of
her own accord her child knows her no longer, it is the contemptuous end
of an affection. You will admit that for a mother this is very hard."
"Yes, but this so-called ingratitude, gained at the price of God knows
what struggles, is it not, even apart from the divine vocation, the most
equitable repartition of human love? Think that this elect creature
becomes the scapegoat of sins committed, and like a lamentable daughter
of Danaus she will unceasingly pour the offering of her mortifications
and prayers, of her vigils and fastings, into the bottomless vessel of
offences and crimes. Ah! if you knew what it was to repair the sins of
the world. In regard to this I remember that one day the abbess of the
Benedictines in the Rue Tournefort said to me: 'Since our tears are not
holy enough, nor our souls pure enough, God makes trial of us in our
bodies.' Here are long illnesses which cannot be cured, illnesses which
doctors fail to understand, and we make thus much expiation for others.
"But if you will think over the ceremony which is just ended, you need
not be affected beyond measure or compare it to the well-known
ceremonies of a funeral; the postulant whom you saw has not yet
pronounced her final vows, she can if she choose leave the convent, and
return to her own home. At present she is in regard to her mother, a
child in a foreign country, a child at school, but she is not a dead
child.
"You may say what you please, but there is a tragedy in that door which
closed upon her."
"Therefore in the Benedictine convent in the Rue Tournefort, the scene
takes place in the interior of the convent, and the family is not
present, the mother is spared, but mitigated thus, the ceremony is but a
mere form, almost a foolish rule in the seclusion wherein the Faith is
hidden."
"Those nuns are also Benedictines of the perpetual Adoration, are they
not?"
"Yes, do you know their convent?"
And as Durtal shook his head, the abbé continued,--
"It is older, but less interesting than that in the Rue Monsieur, the
chapel is mean, full of plaster statuettes, cotton flowers, bunches of
grapes and ears of corn in gold paper, but the old building of the
nunnery is curious. It contains, what shall I call it? a school
dining-room, and a retreatant's drawing-room, and so gives at once the
impression of old age and childhood."
"I know that class of convents," said Durtal. "I used often to see one,
when I used to visit an old aunt at Versailles. It always used to
impress me as a Maison Vauquer, brought to devotional uses, it had the
air at once of a _table d'hôte_ in the Rue de la Clef and the sacristy
of a country church."
"Just so," and the abbé went on with a smile,--
"I had many interviews with the abbess in the Rue Tournefort; you guess
at rather than see her, for you are separated from her by a screen of
black wood, behind which is stretched a black curtain which she draws
aside."
"I can see it," thought Durtal, who, remembering the Benedictine custom,
saw in a second a little face confused in neutral tinted light, and
lower, at the top of her habit, the gleam of a medal of the Blessed
Sacrament in red enamelled in white.
He laughed and said to the abbé,--
"I laugh, because having had some business to transact with my nun aunt
of whom I was speaking, only visible like your abbess through a trellis,
I found out how to read her thoughts a little."
"Ah! how was that?"
"In this way. Since I could not see her face, which was hidden behind
the lattice of her cage, and disappeared behind her veil, and if she
should answer me, having nothing to guide me but the inflexions of her
voice, always circumspect and always calm, I ended by trusting only to
her great glasses, round, with buff frames, which almost all nuns wear.
Well, all the repressed vivacity of this woman burst out there; suddenly
in a corner of her glasses, there was a glimmer, and I then understood
that her eye had lighted up, and gave the lie to the indifference of her
voice, the determined quietness of her tone."
The abbé in his turn began to laugh.
"Do you know the Superior of the Benedictines, in the Rue Monsieur?"
said Durtal.
"I have spoken with her once or twice; there the parlour is monastic,
there is not the provincial and middle-class side of the Rue Tournefort,
it is composed of a sombre room, of which all the breadth at the end is
taken up by an iron grating, and behind the grating are again wooden
bars, and a shutter painted black. You are quite in the dark, and the
abbess, scarcely in the light, appears to you like a phantom."
"The abbess is, I suppose, the nun, elderly, fragile and very short, to
whom Dom Etienne committed the novice?"
"Yes. She is a remarkable shepherdess of souls, and what is more, a very
well educated woman of most distinguished manners."
"Oh," thought Durtal: "I can imagine that these abbesses are charming,
but also terrible women. Saint Teresa was goodness itself, but when she
speaks in her 'Way of Perfection' of nuns who band themselves together
to discuss the will of their mother, she shows herself inexorable, for
she declares that perpetual imprisonment should be inflicted on them as
soon as possible and without flinching, and in fact she is right, for
every disorderly sister infects the flock, and gives the rot to souls."
Thus talking they had reached the end of the Rue de Sèvres, and the abbé
stopped to rest.
"Ah," he said, as if speaking to himself, "had I not had all my life
heavy expenses, first a brother, then nephews to maintain, I should many
years ago have become a member of Saint Benedict's family. I have
always had an attraction towards that grand Order, which is, in fact,
the intellectual Order of the Church. Therefore, when I was stronger and
younger, I always went for my retreats to one of their monasteries,
sometimes to the black monks of Solesmes, or of Ligugé, who have
preserved the wise traditions of Saint Maurus, sometimes to the
Cistercians, or the white monks of La Trappe."
"True," said Durtal, "La Trappe is one of the great branches of the tree
of Saint Benedict, but how is it that its ordinances do not differ from
those which the Patriarch left?"
"That is to say that the Trappists interpret the rule of Saint Benedict,
which is very broad and supple, less in its spirit than in its letter,
while the Benedictines do the contrary.
"In fact, La Trappe is an offshoot of Citeaux, and is much more the
daughter of Saint Bernard, who was during forty years the very sap of
that branch, than the descendant of Saint Benedict."
"But, so far as I remember, the Trappists are themselves divided, and do
not live under a uniform discipline."
"They do so now, since a pontifical brief dated March 17th, 1893,
sanctioned the decisions of the general Chapter of the Trappists
assembled in Rome, and ordered the fusion into one sole order, and under
the direction of a sole superior, of the three observances of the
Trappists, who were in fact ruled by discordant constitutions."
And seeing that Durtal was listening attentively, the abbé continued,--
"Among these three observances, one only, that of the Cistercian
Trappists, to which belonged the abbey of which I was a guest, followed
in their integrity the rules of the twelfth century, and led the
monastic life of Saint Bernard's day. This alone recognized the rule of
Saint Benedict, taken in its strictest application, and completed by the
Charte de Charité, and the use and customs of Citeaux; the two others
had adopted the same rule, but revised and modified in the seventeenth
century by the Abbé de Rancé, and again one of them, the Belgian
congregation, had changed the statutes imposed by that abbot.
"At the present day, as I have just said, all the Trappists form only
one and the same institute under the name, Order of Reformed Cistercians
of the Blessed Virgin Mary of La Trappe, and all resume the rules of
Citeaux, and live again the life of the cenobites of the Middle Ages."
"But if you have visited these ascetics," said Durtal, "you must know
Dom Etienne?"
"No, I have never stayed at La Grande Trappe, I prefer the poor and
small monasteries where one is mixed up with the monks, to those
imposing convents where they isolate you in a guest-house, and in a word
keep you separate.
"There is one in which I make my retreats, Notre Dame de l'Atre, a small
Trappist monastery a few leagues from Paris, which is quite the most
seductive of shelters. Besides that the Lord really abides there, for it
has true saints among its children, it is delightful also with its
ponds, its immemorial trees, its distant solitude, far in the woods."
"Yes, but," observed Durtal, "the life there must be unbending, for La
Trappe is the most rigid order which has been imposed on men."
For his only answer the abbé let go Durtal's arm, and took both his
hands.
"Do you know," he said, looking him in the face, "it is there you must
go for your conversion?"
"Are you serious, Monsieur l'Abbé?"
And as the priest pressed his hands more strongly Durtal cried,--
"Ah, no indeed, first I have not the stoutness of soul, and if that be
possible I have still less the bodily health needed for such a course, I
should fall ill on my arrival, and then ... and then...."
"And then, what? I am not proposing to you to shut you up for ever in a
cloister."
"So I suppose," said Durtal, in a somewhat piqued tone.
"But just to remain a week, just the necessary time for a cure. Now a
week is soon over, then do you think that if you make such a resolution
God will not sustain you?"
"That is all very fine, but ..."
"Let us speak on the health question, then;" and the abbé smiled a smile
of pity that was a little contemptuous.
"I can promise you at once that as a retreatant, you will not be bound
to lead the life of a Trappist in its austerest sense. You need not get
up at two in the morning for Matins, but at three, or even at four
o'clock, according to the day."
And smiling at the face Durtal made, the abbé went on,--
"As to your food it will be better than that of the monks; naturally you
will have no fish nor meat, but you may certainly have an egg for
dinner, if vegetables are not enough for you."
"And the vegetables, I suppose, are cooked with salt and water, and no
seasoning?"
"No, they are dressed with salt and water only on fasting days; at other
times you will have them cooked in milk and water, or in oil."
"Many thanks," said Durtal.
"But all that is excellent for your health," continued the priest, "you
complain of pains in the stomach, sick headaches, diarrhoea, well, this
diet, in the country, in the air, will cure you better than all the
drugs you take.
"Now let us leave, if you like, your body out of the question, for in
such a case, it is God's part to act against your weakness. I tell you,
you will not be ill at La Trappe, that were absurd; it would be to send
the penitent sinner away, and Jesus would not then be the Christ; but
let us talk of your soul. Have the courage to take its measure, to look
it well in the face. Do you see that?" said the abbé after a silence.
Durtal did not answer.
"Admit," said the priest, "that you are horrified at it."
They took a few steps in the street, and the abbé continued,--
"You declare that you are sustained by the crowds of Notre Dame des
Victoires and the emanations of St. Severin. What will it be then, in
the humble chapel, when you will be on the ground huddled together with
the saints? I guarantee you in the name of the Lord an assistance such
as you have never had;" and he went on with a laugh, "I may add that the
Church will take pleasure in receiving you, she will bring out her
ornaments which she has now left off: the authentic liturgies of the
Middle Ages, true plain chant, without solos or organs."
"Listen, your propositions astound me," said Durtal with an effort. "No:
I assure you I am not at all disposed to imprison myself in such a
place. I know well that at Paris I shall never come to any good. I swear
to you that I am not proud of my life, nor satisfied with my soul, but
from thence ... to ... where I cannot tell; I want at least a mitigated
asylum, a quiet convent. There must be, on those conditions, somewhere,
hospitals for souls."
"I could only send you to the Jesuits, who make a specialty of retreats
for men: but knowing you as I think I know you, I feel sure you would
not stay there two days. You would find yourself among amiable and very
clever priests, but they would overwhelm you with sermons, would wish to
interfere with your life, mix themselves up with your art, they would
examine your thoughts with a magnifying glass, and then you would be
under treatment with good young people, whose unintelligent piety would
horrify you, and you would flee in exasperation.
"At La Trappe it is the contrary. You would certainly be the sole
retreatant there, and no one will have the least idea of troubling
himself about you; you will be free, you can if you choose leave the
monastery just as you entered it, without having confessed or approached
the Sacraments, your will will be respected there, and no monk will
attempt to sound it without your authority. To you only it will
appertain to decide whether you will be converted or no.
"And you will like me to be frank to the last, will you not? You are, as
indeed I have already said to you, a sensitive and distrustful man;
well, the priest as you see him in Paris, even the religious not
cloistered, seem to you, how shall I express it? second rate souls, not
to go further...."
Durtal protested vaguely, with a gesture.
"Let me go on. An afterthought will come to you in regard to the
ecclesiastic to whom will fall the task of cleansing you, you will be
quite certain that he is not a saint; this is not very theological, for
were he even the worst of priests his absolution would have just the
same value, if you merit it, but indeed here is a question of sentiment
which I respect, you will think of him in a word: he lives as I do, he
is not more self-denying than I am, nothing shows that his conscience is
very superior to mine, and thence to losing all confidence, and
throwing up the whole thing there is but a step. At La Trappe, I will
defy you to reason in this way, and not to become humble. When you see
men, who after having abandoned everything to serve God, lead a life of
privations and penance such as no government would dare to inflict on
its convicts, you will indeed be obliged to admit that you are no great
thing by their side."
Durtal was silent. After the astonishment he had felt at the suggestion
of such an issue, he became dully irritated against this friend, who
hitherto so discreet, had suddenly rushed upon his soul and opened it by
force. There came out the disgusting vision of an existence stripped,
used up, reduced to a state of dust, a condition of rags. And Durtal
shrank from himself, convinced that the abbé was right, that he must at
any rate stanch the discharge of his senses, and expiate their
inappeasable desires, their abominable covetousness, their rotten
tastes, and he was seized with a terror irrational and intense. He had
the giddy fear of the cloister, a terror which attracted him to the
abyss over which Gévresin made him lean.
Enervated by the ceremony of taking the habit, stunned by the blow with
which the priest had assailed him as they left the church, he now felt
an anguish almost physical, in which everything ended in confusion. He
did not know to what reflections he should give himself, and only saw,
swimming on this whirlpool of troubled ideas, one clear thought, that
the moment had come so dreaded by him in which he must make a
resolution.
The abbé looked at him, saw that he was really suffering, and was full
of pity for a soul so unable to support a struggle.
He took Durtal's arm, and said gently,--
"My son, believe me that the day you go yourself to the house of God,
the day you knock at its door, it will open wide, and the angels will
draw aside to let you pass. The Gospel cannot lie, and it declares that
there is more joy over one sinner that repents than over ninety and nine
just persons who need no repentance. You will be much better welcomed
than you expect, and be sufficiently my friend to think that the old
priest you leave here will not remain inactive, and that he and the
convents he can influence will pray their best for you."
"I will see," said Durtal, really moved by the affectionate tone of the
priest, "I will see. I cannot decide thus, unexpectedly; I will think.
Ah! it is not simple."
"Above all things pray," said the priest, who had reached his door. "I
have on my side sought the Lord much that He would enlighten me, and I
declare to you that the solution of La Trappe is the only one He has
given me. Ask Him humbly, in your turn, and you will be guided. I shall
soon see you again, shall I not?"
He pressed Durtal's hand, who, left alone, recovered himself at last.
Then he recalled the strategic smiles, the ambiguous phrases, the dreamy
silences of the Abbé Gévresin, he understood the kindness of his
counsels, the patience of his plans; and a little put out at having
been, without knowing it, led so wisely, he exclaimed in spite of
himself, "This, then, was the design the priest was ripening, with his
air of not concerning himself with it at all."