perfumes.
"When Saint Francis de Paul and Venturini of Bergamo offered the
Sacrifice they smelt sweet. Saint Joseph of Cupertino secreted such
fragrant odours that his track could be followed; and sometimes it was
during illness that these aromas were diffused.
"The pus of Saint John of the Cross and of the Blessed Didée gave forth
strong and distinct scent of lilies; Barthole, the tertiary, gnawed to
the bones by leprosy, gave out pleasant emanations, and the same was the
case with Lidwine, Ida of Louvain, Saint Colette, Saint Humiliana,
Maria-Victoria of Genoa, Dominic of Paradise, whose wounds were boxes of
perfume, whence fresh scents escaped.
"And thus we can enumerate organs and senses one after another, and
declare marvellous effects. Without speaking of those faithful stigmata
which open or shut according to the Proper of the liturgical year, what
is more astounding than the gift of bilocation, the power of doubling
oneself, of being in two places at the same time, at the same moment?
And yet what numerous examples exist of this incredible fact: many are
celebrated, amongst others those of Saint Antony of Padua, Saint Francis
Xavier, Marie of Agreda, who was at the same time in her monastery in
Spain and in Mexico when she was preaching to infidels, Mother Agnes of
Jesus, who came to visit M. Olier at Paris without leaving her convent
at Langeac. And, again, the action from on High seems singularly
energetic when it takes hold of the central organ of circulation, the
motor which drives the blood into all parts of the body.
"Numbers of the elect had such a burning heart that the linen they wore
was singed; the fire which consumed Ursula Benincasa, the foundress of
the Theatines, was so strong that this saint breathed columns of smoke
as soon as she opened her mouth; Saint Catherine of Genoa dipped her
feet or her hands in iced water and the water boiled; snow melted round
Saint Peter of Alcantara, and, one day when the blessed Gerlach was
crossing a forest in the depth of winter he advised his companion, who
walked behind him, and who could not go on, as his legs were numb, to
put his feet into his footsteps, and immediately he ceased to feel cold.
"I will add that certain of these phenomena, which make freethinkers
smile, have been renewed and have been verified quite recently.
"Linen scorched by the fire of the heart has been observed by Dr.
Imbert-Gourbeyre on the stigmatized Palma d'Oria, and phenomena of high
mysticism, which no science can explain, were watched in the case of
Louise Lateau, minute by minute, and noted and controlled by Professor
Rohling, Dr. Lafebvre, Dr. Imbert Gourbeyre, Dr. de Noüe, by medical
delegates from all countries....
"But here we are," said the oblate; "excuse me, I will go first to show
you the way."
They had left the enclosure as he spoke, and cutting across the fields,
reached an immense farm. Trappists bowed respectfully as they entered
the court yard. M. Bruno, addressing himself to one of them, asked him
to be good enough to take them over the property.
The lay brother took them to the cattle sheds, then to the stables, then
to the poultry yard; Durtal, who was not interested in such sights,
confined himself to admiring the grace of these good people. No one
spoke, but they replied to questions by signs and winks.
"But how do they communicate with each other?" asked Durtal, when they
were outside the farm.
"You have just seen; they correspond by signs; they have a simpler
alphabet than that of the deaf and dumb, for each idea that they may
require to express for their common work is foreseen.
"Thus the word 'wash' is translated by one hand tapping on the other;
the word 'vegetable' by scratching the left forefinger; sleep is feigned
by leaning the head upon the fist; drink by raising a closed hand to the
lips. And for more spiritual expressions they employ a like method.
Confession is translated by a finger kissed and laid upon the heart;
holy water by five fingers of the left hand clasped on which a cross is
made with the thumb of the right hand; fasting by fingers which close
the mouth; the word 'yesterday' by turning the arm back towards the
shoulder; shame by covering the eyes with the hand."
"But supposing they wished to indicate me, who am not one of themselves,
how would they set about it?"
"They would use the sign of 'guest,' which they make by stretching out
the hand and bringing it near the body."
"That means that I come to them from far, an open and even transparent
fact if you like."
They went silently along a walk which led down into the labour fields.
"I have not noticed Brother Anacletus or old Simeon among these monks,"
exclaimed Durtal, suddenly.
"They are not occupied on the farm; Brother Anacletus is employed in the
chocolate factory, and Brother Simeon looks after the pigs; both are
working in the immediate neighbourhood of the monastery. If you like, we
will go and wish Simeon good-morning."
And the oblate added, "You can tell them, when you go back to Paris,
that you have seen a real saint, such as existed in the eleventh
century; he carries us back to the time of St. Francis of Assisi; he is
in some sense the reincarnation of that astonishing Juniper whose
innocent exploits the Fioretti celebrate for us. You know that work?"
"Yes; after the Golden Legend it is the book on which the soul of the
Middle Ages is most clearly impressed."
"But to return to Simeon; this old man is a saint of uncommon
simplicity. Here is one proof out of a thousand. Several months ago I
was in the prior's cell when Brother Simeon appeared. He made use of the
ordinary formula in asking permission to speak, 'Benedicite.' Father
Maximin replied 'Dominus,' and on this word, which permitted him to
speak, the brother showed his glasses and said he could no longer see
clearly.
"'That is not very surprising,' said the prior, 'you have been using the
same glasses for nearly ten years, and since then your eyes may well
have become weaker; never mind, we will find the number which suits your
sight now.'
"As he spoke, Father Maximin mechanically moved the glass of the
spectacles between his hands, and suddenly he laughed, showing me his
fingers, which were black. He turned round, took a cloth, cleaned the
spectacles, and replacing them on the brother's nose, said to him, 'Do
you see, Brother Simeon?'
"And the old man, astonished, cried 'Yes ... I see!'
"But this is only one side of this good man. Another is the love of his
beasts. When a sow is going to bring forth, he asks permission to pass
the night by her, and delivers her, looking after her like his child,
weeps when they sell his little pigs or when the big ones are sent to
the slaughter-house! And how all the animals adore him!"
"Truly," the oblate went on, after a silence, "God loves simple souls
above all, for he loads Brother Simeon with graces. Alone, here, he can
reabsorb and even prevent the demoniacal accidents which arise in
cloisters. Then we assist at strange performances: one fine morning all
the pigs fall on their sides; they are ill and at the point of death.
"Simeon, who knows the origin of these evils, cries to the Devil: 'Wait,
wait, and you will see!' He runs for holy water, and sprinkles them with
it, praying the while, and all the beasts who were dying jump up,
frisking about and wagging their tails.
"As for diabolic incursions into the convent itself, they are but too
real, and sometimes are only driven back after persistent prayers and
energetic fastings; at certain times in most convents the Demon sows a
harvest of hobgoblins of whom no one knows how to get rid. Here, the
father abbot, the prior, and all those who are priests have failed; it
was necessary, to give efficacy to the exorcisms, that the humble lay
brother should intervene; so, to forestall new attacks, he has obtained
the right to wash the monastery with holy water and to use prayers
whenever he thinks well to do so.
"He has the power of feeling where the Evil One is hidden, and he
follows him, tracks him, and finally casts him out."
"Here is the piggery," continued M. Bruno, showing a tumble-down old
place in front of the left wing of the cloister, surrounded by
palisades; and he added,
"I warn you, the old man grunts like a pig, but he will not answer your
questions except by signs."
"But he can speak to his animals?"
"Yes, to them only."
The oblate opened a small door, and the lay brother, all bent, lifted
his head with difficulty.
"Good-day, brother," said M. Bruno; "here is a gentleman who would like
to see your pupils."
There was a grunt of joy on the lips of the old man. He smiled and
invited them by a sign to follow him.
He introduced them into a shed, and Durtal recoiled, deafened by
horrible cries, suffocated by the pestilential heat of the liquid
manure. All the pigs jumped up behind their barrier, and howled with
joy at the sight of the brother.
"Peace, peace," said the old man, in a gentle voice; and lifting an arm
over the paling, he caressed the snouts which, on smelling him, were
almost suffocated by grunting.
He drew Durtal aside by the arm, and making him lean over the trellis
work, showed him an enormous sow with a snub nose, of English breed, a
monstrous animal surrounded by a company of sucking pigs which rushed,
as if mad, at her teats.
"Yes, my beauty; go, my beauty," murmured the old man, stroking her
bristles with his hand.
And the sow looked at him with little languishing 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 grass 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 passed like a
waterspout, upset a wheelbarrow, scattering everything round him with a
noise like a shell 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 God 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 retarded 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, God, 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 shells, 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 astonishing 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 God, while the monks smiled, admiring
this debauch of charity, and the excess of Juniper's simplicity.
"Brother Simeon would be humble enough and simple enough to renew again
such splendid jokes," thought Durtal, "but better still than the good
Franciscan, he recalls the memory of that astonishing Saint Joseph of
Cupertino, of whom the oblate spoke yesterday."
He, who called himself brother Ass, was a charming and poor creature, so
modest, and so ignorant, that he was turned away wherever he went. He
passed through life, with open mouth, thrusting himself eagerly against
all the cloisters that repulsed him. He wandered about unable to perform
even the lowest tasks. He was, to use a popular expression, a regular
butter-fingers, and broke whatever he touched. They ordered him to go
and fetch water, and he wandered without understanding, absorbed in God,
and at the end, when no one thought about it any more, brought some
after a month.
A monastery of Capucins which had received him, got rid of him. He went
his way, vaguely, out of his orbit among the towns, stumbled into
another convent where he employed himself in taking care of the animals,
whom he adored, and he rose into a perpetual ecstasy, revealing himself
as the most singular of wonder workers, putting the demons to flight,
and healing the sick. He was at once idiotic and sublime; in the
hagiography he stands alone, and seems to figure there to furnish a
proof that the soul is identified with Eternal Wisdom, rather by
ignorance than by science.
"He also loves animals," said Durtal to himself, as he looked at old
Simeon; "and he too puts to flight the Evil One, and works cures by his
sanctity.
"In a time when all men are exclusively haunted by the thoughts of
luxury and lucre, the soul appears extraordinary when divested of its
bark, as the candid and naked soul of this good monk. He is eighty years
old and more, and he has led from his youth up the restricted life of
the Trappists; he probably does not know in what time he lives, nor what
latitudes he inhabits, whether he is in America or in France, for he has
never read a newspaper, and outside rumours do not reach him.
"He does not even know the taste of flesh meat or wine; he has no notion
of money, of which he does not suspect the value nor the appearance; he
does not imagine how a woman is made; and save for the breeding of his
pigs, he perhaps cannot even guess the meaning and the consequences of
the sin of the flesh.
"He lives alone ringed round by silence, and buried in the shade; he
meditates on the mortifications of the Fathers in the Desert, which are
read to him as he eats, and the frenzy of their fasts makes him ashamed
of his miserable repast, and he accuses himself that he is so well to
do.
"Ah! this Father Simeon is innocent; he knows nothing that we know, and
knows that of which all others are ignorant; his education has been
taken in hand by the Lord Himself, who teaches him truths which we
cannot comprehend, models his soul after heaven, infuses Himself into
him, possesses him, and deifies him in the union of Blessedness.
"This puts us somewhat at a distance from hypocrites and devout persons;
as far indeed as modern Catholicism is from Mysticism, for certainly
that religion is as grovelling on the ground as Mysticism is high!
"And that is true. Instead of directing all our forces to that unknown
end, of taking our soul to fashion it in that form of a dove which the
Middle Ages gave to the pyxes; instead of making it the shrine where the
Host reposes in the very image of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic confines
himself to trying to conceal his conscience, to deceive his Judge by the
fear of a salutary hell; he acts not by choice, but by fear: he with the
aid of his clergy, and the help of his imbecile literature, and his
feeble press, has made of religion a mere fetishism, a ridiculous
worship composed of statuettes and alms boxes; candles and
chromo-lithographs; he has materialized the ideal of Love, in inventing
an entirely physical devotion to the Sacred Heart.
"What baseness of conception!" continued Durtal, who had come out of the
chapel, and was strolling along the bank of the great pond. He looked at
the reeds, which bent like an harvest still green, under a puff of wind;
then he half saw as he leant forward, an old boat, which bore almost
effaced on its blueish hull the name "Alleluia." This bark disappeared
under the tufts of leaves round which were twined the bells of the
convolvulus, a symbolic flower, since it widens out like a chalice, and
has the dead white of a wafer.
The scent of the water, at once enticing and bitter, intoxicated him.
"Ah!" he thought, "happiness certainly consists in being restricted to a
place closely locked, a prison very confined, or a chapel always open,"
and he caught himself up: "Ah! there is Brother Anacletus;" the lay
brother was coming towards him, bending under a hamper.
He passed before Durtal, smiling at him with his eyes: and while he went
his way, Durtal thought, "This man is a true friend of mine; when I was
suffering so much before my confession, he expressed all to me in a
look. To-day when he believes me serener, and more joyous, he is
content, and shows it to me by a smile; and I shall never speak to him,
I shall never thank him, I shall never even know who he is, I shall
perhaps never even see him again.
"In leaving this place, I shall keep a friend, for whom I too feel
affection; yet neither of us has even exchanged a gesture with the
other.
"After all," he thought, "does not this absolute reserve make our
friendship more perfect? it is stamped in the eternal distance, it
remains mysterious and incomplete, and more certain."
While thinking over these reflections, Durtal went towards the chapel,
where the Office called him, and thence to the refectory.
He was surprised to find the table laid only for one. "What has happened
to M. Bruno? Yet I may as well wait a while," and to kill time, he
occupied himself by reading a printed card, hung upon the wall.
It was a sort of advertisement which began thus:
"ETERNITY.
"Fellow sinners, you will die. Be ye always ready.
"Watch then, pray without ceasing, never forget the Four Last
Things which you see here traced
"Death, the gate of Eternity,
Judgment, which decides Eternity,
Hell, the abode of unhappy Eternity,
Paradise, the abode of blessed Eternity."
Father Etienne interrupted Durtal, telling him that M. Bruno had gone to
Saint Landry to make some purchases, and would only return at bed-time
at eight o'clock. "Dine then without waiting, and make haste, or all
your dishes will be cold."
"And how is the father abbot?"
"Better, he keeps his room still, but he hopes to be able to come down a
while, the day after to-morrow, and assist at least at some of the
offices."
And the monk bowed and disappeared.
Durtal seated himself at table, ate some bean broth, swallowed a
soft-boiled egg and a spoonful of warm beans, then once outside, he
passed along the chapel, entered it, and knelt before the altar of the
Virgin; but at once the spirit of blasphemy filled him; he wished,
whatever it cost him, to insult the Virgin; it seemed to him that he
would experience a sharp joy, an acute pleasure in soiling her; but he
restrained himself, he wrinkled his face not to allow the coal-heaver's
abuse, which was on his lips, to escape.
And he detested these abominations; he revolted against them, strove
against them with horror; and the impulse became so irresistible, that
in order to keep silence he was obliged to bite his lips till they bled.
"This is somewhat strong," he said, "to hear grumbling in oneself, the
contrary of what one is thinking;" but he had need to call to his help
all his will, he felt that he should yield, and spit out all these
impurities; wherefore he fled, thinking, that should he find no means of
resistance, it were better to vomit this filth in the court rather than
in the church.
And so soon as he quitted the chapel this madness of blasphemy ceased;
he walked along the pond astonished by the strange violence of the
attack.
Little by little there came to him the unexplained intuition of a danger
that menaced him. As a beast that scents a hidden enemy, he looked with
precaution within himself, and ended by seeing a black point on the
horizon of his soul, and suddenly, before he had time to reconnoitre,
and take account of the danger he saw arising, this point extended, and
covered him with its shadow; there was no more light in him.
He had that minute of unrest which precedes the storm, and in the
anxious silence of his being, arguments fell like drops of rain.
The painful effects of the Sacrament justified themselves, had he not
proceeded in such a way that his communion could not but be unfaithful?
Evidently; instead of collecting and straining himself, he had passed an
afternoon of revolt and anger; the very evening before he had unworthily
judged an ecclesiastic whose only wrong was that he took pleasure in the
vanity of easy jokes. Had he confessed this injustice, and these
revolts? Not the least in the world; and after the communion still less;
had he, as he should have done, shut himself up alone with his Guest? He
had abandoned Him, without thinking more of Him; had quitted his
innermost cell, had taken a walk in the wood, had not even been present
at the Offices.
"But come, come, this blame is foolish. I communicated, just as I was,
on the formal order of the confessor; as for the walk, I did not ask for
it nor wish for it. M. Bruno, in agreement with the abbot of La Trappe,
decided it would do me good; I have then nothing to reproach myself
with; I am blameless.
"This does not prove that you would not have done better to spend the
day in prayer, in the church.
"But," he cried, "with such a system one could not move, one could not
eat, nor sleep, for one should never leave the church. There must be
time for everything, or the devil take it all!
"No doubt, but a more diligent soul would have refused that excursion,
just because it was pleasant; would have avoided it, out of
mortification, in a spirit of penance."
"Evidently, but" ... these scruples tortured him; "the fact is," he
said, "I might have employed my afternoon more wholesomely than that;"
to believe that he had spent it ill was but a step, and he made it. He
pelted himself for an hour, sweating with agony, heaping on himself
imaginary sins, and entering so far on that road that he ended by
suddenly realizing his position and understanding he was out of the
right track.
The story of the rosary returned to his memory, and then he blamed
himself for allowing himself to be again driven into a corner by the
demon. He began to breathe again, to regain his footing, when other
attacks equally formidable presented themselves.
It was no longer an insinuation of arguments which ran drop by drop, but
a furious rain, which threw itself like an avalanche on his soul. The
storm, of which the wave of scruples was only the prelude, burst in its
fulness; and in the panic of the first moment, in the violence of the
tempest, the enemy unmasked his batteries, and struck him to the heart.
He had got no good from that communion, but he was also too young at it.
Ah! indeed, was he to believe that because a priest uttered five Latin
words over a bit of unleavened bread, that bread was transubstantiated
into the flesh of Christ? That a child should accept such nonsense,
might be possible, but that a man past forty should listen to such
formidable shams, was excessive; almost disquieting.
And these insinuations lashed him like hail showers: how could bread
made of wheat before, have only the appearance of wheat afterwards; what
is flesh that is neither seen nor felt; what is a body, which has such
ubiquity as to be at the same time on the altars of divers countries;
what is that power which is annihilated when the Host is not made of
pure wheat?
And this became a regular deluge which overwhelmed him, and yet like an
impenetrable pile, that Faith he had acquired without ever having known
how, remained immovable, disappeared under torrents of interrogation,
but never stirred.
He revolted, and said to himself: "This only proves that the sacramental
darkness of the Eucharist cannot be sounded. Moreover, if it were
intelligible, it would not be divine. If the God whom we serve could be
comprehended by reason, He could not be worth the trouble of serving,
said Tauler; and the 'Imitation' declares plainly also at the end of the
IVth book that if the works of God were such as man's intelligence could
easily grasp, they would cease to be marvellous, and could not be
qualified as ineffable."
And a mocking voice replied,
"That is what you call answering, avowing that there is nothing to
answer."
"In fact," said Durtal, who reflected, "I have been present at
spiritualistic experiences, where no trickery was possible. It was quite
evident that there was no fluid from the spectators, no suggestion of
persons surrounding the table who dictated the responses; then in giving
its raps, the table expressed itself suddenly in English, though no one
spoke that language, then a few minutes later, addressing itself to me,
who was at a distance from it, and consequently was not touching it, it
told me this time in French, facts which I had forgotten, and I alone
could know. I am then certainly obliged to suppose an element of the
supernatural, using a table in guise of an interpreter, to accept if not
the evocation of the dead, but at least the proved existence of ghosts.
"Then it is not more impossible, more surprising that Christ should
substitute Himself for a piece of bread, than that a ghost should hide
and brag in the foot of a table. These phenomena equally put our senses
to rout; but if one of them be undeniable, and spiritualistic
manifestation certainly is so, what motives can we invoke to deny the
other, which is moreover attested by thousands of saints?
"After all," he went on with a smile, "we have already demonstration by
the absurd, but this may be called demonstration by the abject, for if
the Eucharistic mystery is sublime, it is not the same with
spiritualism, which is after all only the latrine of the supernatural!"
"If this were the only enigma," began the voice again, "but all the
Catholic doctrines are on the same model; examine religion from its
birth, and see if it do not always issue by an absurd dogma.
"Here is a God, infinitely perfect, infinitely good, a God who is not
ignorant of past, present, or future. He knew then that Eve would sin;
therefore of two things, one; either He is not good, in that He
submitted her to that proof knowing that she had not power to stand it;
or again, He was not certain of her defeat; in that case He is not
omniscient, He is not perfect."
Durtal gave no answer to this dilemma; which is in fact difficult to
resolve.
"Yet," he thought, "we may at once exclude one of these two
propositions, the latter; for it is childish to concern ourselves about
the future, when we have to do with God; we judge Him by our miserable
understanding, and there is for Him neither present nor past, nor
future; He sees them all at the same moment in light uncreate. For Him
distance has no figure, and space is nought. It is consequently
impossible to doubt that the Serpent will conquer. This amputated
dilemma is then out of order."
"Be it so, but the other alternative remains; what do you make of His
goodness?"
"His goodness?" And Durtal had need to repeat again the arguments drawn
from free will, and the promised coming of the Saviour; and he was
obliged to admit that these answers were weak.
And the voice became more pressing,
"Then you admit original sin?"
"I am obliged to admit it, because it exists. What are heredity and
atavism, save, under another name, the terrible sin of the beginning?"
"And does it appear to you just that innocent generations should make
amends now and always for the sin of the first man?"
And as Durtal did not reply, the voice insinuated gently,
"This law is so iniquitous that it seems as if the Creator were ashamed
of it, and that in order to punish Himself for His ferocity, and not to
make Himself for ever execrated by His creature, He wished to suffer on
the Cross, and expiate His crime in the person of His own Son."
"But," cried Durtal, exasperated, "God could not commit a crime and
punish Himself: were that so, Jesus would be the Redeemer of His Father,
and not ours; it is madness!"
Little by little he recovered his balance; he recited slowly the
Apostles' Creed, while the objections which demolished it, pressed one
after the other within him.
"There is one fact certain," he said to himself, for in all this
tumult, he was perfectly lucid, "that for the moment we are two persons
in one. I can follow my reasonings, and I hear on the other side, the
sophisms my double breathes in me. This duality has never appeared so
clear to me."
And the attack grew feebler, on this reflection; it might have been
believed that the enemy now discovered was beating a retreat.
But nothing of the kind; after a short truce, the assault began again on
another point.
"Are you very sure that you have not suggested and shown the blow to
yourself? By having wished, you have ended by begetting belief, and by
implanting in yourself a fixed idea, disguised under the name of grace,
round which everything now clings. You complain that you did not
experience sensible joys after your communion; this simply proves that
you were not careful enough, or that, tired by the excess of the evening
before, your imagination showed itself unready to play the infatuating
fairy story you expected from yourself after the mass.
"Moreover, you ought to know that in these questions all depends on the
more or less feverish activity of the brain and the senses; see what
takes place in the case of women, who deceive themselves more easily
than men; for that again declares the difference of conformations, the
variety between the sexes; Christ gives Himself carnally under the
appearances of bread; that is mystical marriage, the divine union
consummated by the way of the lips; He is indeed the spouse of women,
while we men, without willing it, by the very lodestone of our nature,
are more attracted by the Virgin. But she does not give herself, like
her Son, to us; she does not reside in the Sacrament; possession is in
her case impossible; she is our Mother, but she is not our Spouse, as he
is the Spouse of virgins.
"We conceive, therefore, that women are more violently duped, that they
adore better, and imagine more easily the more they are petted.
Moreover, M. Bruno said to you yesterday, 'Woman is more passive, less
rebellious to the action of Heaven ...'
"Well, what has that to do with me; what does that prove? that the more
we love the better we are loved: but if that axiom is false, from the
earthly point of view, it is certainly exact from the divine point of
view; which would be monstrous, and would come to this, that the Lord
would not treat the soul of a Poor Clare better than mine."
There was again a time of rest, and the attack turned and rushed on a
new place.
"Then you believe in an eternal hell? You suppose a God more cruel than
yourself, a God who has created people, without their having been
consulted, without their having asked to be born; and after having
suffered during their existence, they will be again punished without
mercy after their death; but consider, if you were to see your worst
enemy in torture, you would be taken by pity, and would ask pardon for
him. You would pardon, and the Almighty be implacable; you will admit
this is to have a singular idea of Him."
Durtal was silent; hell going on infinitely became in fact wearisome.
The reply that it is legitimate, that punishment should be infinite,
because rewards are so, was not decisive, since indeed it were the
property of perfect goodness, to abridge the chastisements and prolong
the joys.
"But, in fact," he said to himself, "Saint Catherine of Genoa has
elucidated the question. She explains very well that God sends a ray of
mercy, a current of pity into hell, that no damned soul suffers as much
as it deserves to suffer; that if expiation ought not to cease, it may
be modified, and weakened, and become at length less rigorous, less
intense.
"She remarks also, that at the moment of its separation from the body,
the soul becomes obstinate or yields; if it remain hardened and shows no
contrition for its faults, its guilt cannot be remitted, since, after
death, free will subsists no more; the will which we possess at the
moment of quitting the world remains invariable.
"If, on the contrary, it does not persist in those impenitent
sentiments, a part of the repression will no doubt be removed; and
consequently is not devoted to a continual gehenna, as that which
deliberately, while there is yet time, will not return to amendment,
refuses in fact to lay aside its sins.
"Let us add that according to the saint, God does not even make the soul
empty to be never polluted by sin, for it goes there of itself; it is
led there by the very nature of its sins, it flings itself in as into
its own good; is, if one may say so, naturally engulfed there.
"In fact we may imagine to ourselves a very small hell, and a very large
purgatory; may imagine that hell is scantily peopled, is only reserved
for cases of rare wickedness, that in reality the crowd of disincarnate
souls presses into Purgatory and there endures punishments proportioned
to the misdeeds it has willed here below. These ideas have nothing which
cannot be sustained, and they have the advantage of being in accord with
the ideas of mercy and justice."
"Exactly," replied the voice in railing tones. "Man then will do well to
constrain himself; he may steal, rob, kill his father, and violate his
daughter; the price is the same; provided he repent at the last minute,
he is saved!"
"But no, contrition takes away the eternity of punishment only, and not
punishment itself; everyone must be punished or rewarded according to
his works. He who will be soiled by a parricide or an incest will bear a
chastisement different in pain and length to him who has not committed
them; equality in expiatory suffering, in reparative pain, does not
exist.
"Moreover this idea of a purgative life after death is so natural, so
certain, that all religions assume it. All consider the soul is a sort
of air balloon, which cannot mount and attain its last end in space
except by throwing away its ballast. In the religions of the East, the
soul is re-incarnistic; in order to purify itself it rubs itself against
a new body, like a blade in sandstone troughs, to brighten it. For us
Catholics it undergoes no terrestrial avatar, but it lightens and scours
itself, clears itself in the Purgatory, where God transforms it, draws
it out, extracts it little by little from the dross of its sins, till it
can raise itself and lose itself in Him.
"To have done with this irritating question of a perpetual hell, why not
conceive that divine justice hesitates in the majority of cases to
pronounce inexorable decrees? Humanity is for the most part composed of
unconscious rascals and fools, who do not take any count of the reach of
their faults. These are saved by their complete want of comprehension.
As for others who rot, knowing what they do, they are evidently more
blameworthy, but society which hates superior beings takes on itself
their punishment, humiliates and persecutes them; and it is therefore
allowed us to hope that our Lord will pity these poor souls so miserably
pelted during their stay upon earth by a horde of fools."
"Then there is every advantage in being imbecile, since one is spared
both on earth and in heaven?"
"Ah! certainly, and yet ... and yet.... What is the good of discussion,
since we cannot frame for ourselves the least idea of the infinite
justice of a God?"
"Moreover, this is enough, these debates overwhelm me." He tried to
distract his thoughts from these subjects, and would feign to break the
obsession, betake himself to Paris; but five minutes had not passed
before his double returned to the charge.
He entered once more on that halting dilemma which had so recently
assailed the goodness of the Creator in regard to the sins of man.
"Purgatory is then exorbitant, for after all," said he, "God knew that
man would yield to temptations; then why allow them, and above all why
condemn them? Is that goodness, is that justice?"
"But it is a sophism," cried Durtal, growing angry. "God has left to
every man his liberty; no one is tempted beyond his power. If in certain
cases, he allows the seduction to overpass our means of resistance, it
is to recall us to humility, to bring us back to Him by remorse, for
other causes which we know not, which it is not His business to show us.
Then probably those transgressions are appreciated in a different way to
those which we have practised with our full accord."
"The liberty of man! it is a pretty thing. Yes, let us speak of it, and
atavism, and our surroundings and diseases of the brain, and of the
marrow. Is a man driven by the impulses of sickness, overwhelmed by
troubles of the generative organs, responsible for his acts?"
"But what can be said if under these conditions these acts are imputed
to him on high. It is after all idiotic always to compare divine justice
to man's tribunals; for it is exactly the contrary; human judgments are
often so infamous that they attest the existence of another equity.
Rather than the proofs of a theodicy, the magistrature proves God; for
without Him, how can be satisfied that instinct of justice so innate in
each of us, that even the humblest beast possesses it?"
"Yet," replied the voice, "all this does not hinder the change of
character according as the stomach does its work ill or well; slander,
anger, envy are accumulated bile, or faulty digestion; good temper, joy,
come from a free circulation of blood, the expansion of the body at
will; mystics are anemo-nervous people; your ecstatics are hysterical
patients badly-fed, madhouses are full of them; they depend on science
when visions begin."
All at once Durtal recovered himself, the material arguments were but
little disquieting, for none could remain standing: all confounded the
function and the organ, the lodger and the lodging, the clock and the
hour. Their assertions rested on no base. To liken the happy lucidity
and unequalled genius of a Saint Teresa to the extravagances of
nymphomaniacs and other mad women were so obtuse, so clumsy, that it
could only raise a smile!
The mystery would remain complete; no doctor has been able to discover
or could discover the psyche in those round or fusiform cells, in the
white matter or grey substance of the brain. They would recognize more
or less justly the organs which the soul uses to pull the strings of the
puppet, which it is condemned to move, but itself remains invisible; it
has gone, when after death they force open the rooms of its habitation.
"No; these newsmongers have no effect on me," Durtal assured himself.
"But does this one do any better? Do you believe in the utility of life,
in the necessity of this endless chain, this towage of sufferings, to be
prolonged for the most part after death? True goodness would have
consisted in inventing nothing, creating nothing, in leaving all as it
was, in nothingness, in peace."
The attack turned round on itself, and after apparent variations,
returned always to the same starting point.
Durtal lowered his head, for this argument dismasted him; all the
replies which could be imagined were remarkably weak, and the least
feeble, that which consists in denying to ourselves the right to judge
because we only see the details of the divine plan, because we can
possess no general view of it cannot avail against that terrible phrase
of Schopenhauer: "If God made the world I would not be that God, for
the misery of the world would break my heart!"
"There is no haggling in the matter," he said to himself. "I can quite
understand that sorrow is the true disinfectant of souls, yet I am
obliged to ask myself why the Creator has not invented a less atrocious
way of purifying us?
"Ah! when I think of the sufferings shut up in madhouses, and hospital
wards, I am revolted, and inclined to doubt everything.
"If, again, grief were an antiseptic for future misdeeds or a detersive
for past faults, one might again understand, but now it falls
indifferently on the bad and on the good; it is blind. The best proof is
the Virgin who was without spot, and who had not like her Son to expiate
for us. She consequently ought not to be punished; yet she too underwent
at the foot of Calvary the punishment exacted by this horrible law.
"Good; but then," replied Durtal, after a silence of reflection, "if the
innocent Virgin has given us an example, by what right do we who are
culpable dare to complain?
"No; we must therefore resolve to dwell in darkness, to live surrounded
by enigmas. Money, love, nothing is clear; chance if it exist is as
mysterious as Providence, and indeed still more so; it is inexplicable.
God is at least an origin of the unknown, a key.
"An origin which is itself another secret, a key which opens nothing!
"Ah! it is irritating," he said to himself, "to be thus harassed in
every sense. Enough of it; besides these are questions which a
theologian is alone able to discuss; I am unarmed, the game is not
equal; I will not answer any more."
And he could not but hear a vague laughter which arose in him.
He quitted the garden, and directed his steps towards the chapel, but
the fear of being seized again by the madness of blasphemy turned him
away from it. Knowing not whither to go, he regained his cell, saying to
himself, that he ought not to wrangle thus; yes, but how could he help
hearing the cavils which rose he knew not whence? He almost shouted
aloud: "Be silent, let the other speak!"
When he was in his chamber he desired to pray, and fell on his knees at
his bedside.
This was abominable; for memories of Florence recurred to him. He rose,
but the old aberrations returned.
He thought of that creature, her strange tastes, her mania for biting
his ears, for drinking toilet scents in little glasses, for nibbling
bread and butter with caviare, and dates. She was so wild, and so
strange; a fool no doubt, but obscure.
"And if she were in this room, before you, what would you do?"
He stammered to himself: "I would try not to yield."
"You lie; admit then that you would send your conversion, the monastery,
all, to the devil."
He grew pale at the thought; the possibility of his cowardice was a
punishment. To have communicated, when one was no more certain of the
future, no more certain of oneself, was almost a sacrilege, he thought.
And he became angry. Up till now he had kept right, but the vision of
Florence subdued him. He threw himself, in desperation, on a chair, no
longer knowing what would become of him, gathering what of courage
remained to him to descend to the church, where the Office was
beginning.
He dragged himself there, and held himself down, assailed by filthy
temptations, disgusted with himself, feeling his will yielding, wounded
in every part.
And when he was in the court he remained overwhelmed, asking himself
where he could take shelter. Every place had become hostile to him; in
his cell were carnal memories, outside were temptations against Faith,
"or rather," he cried, "I carry these with me always. My God, my God! I
was yesterday so tranquil."
He strolled by chance into an alley, when a new phenomenon arose.
He had had, up to this hour, in the sky within him, a rain of scruples,
a tempest of doubts, a thunderstroke of lust; now was silence and death.
Complete darkness was within him.
He sought his soul by groping for it, and found it inert, without
consciousness, almost icy. He had a body living and healthy; all his
intelligence, all his reason, and his other powers, his other faculties,
were benumbed little by little, and stopped. In his being there was
manifested an effect at once analogous and contrary to that which curara
produces on the organism, when it circulates in the network of the
blood; the members are paralyzed, no pain is experienced, but cold
rises, the soul ends by being sequestered alive in a corpse; in this
case it was the living body that detained a dead soul.
Harassed by fear, he disengaged himself with a supreme effort, he would
make a visit to himself, see where he was, and like a sailor who
descends into the hold in a ship that has sprung a leak, he had to step
backwards, for the gangway was cut, the steps opened upon an abyss.
In spite of the terror which rushed upon him, he hung fascinated over
the hole, and by fixing the black point he distinguished appearances; in
a light as of eclipse in rarefied air, he perceived at the basis of
himself the panorama of his soul, a desert twilight on the horizons that
approached the night, and under this doubtful light there seemed
something like bare fields, a marsh heaped with rubbish and cinders; the
place of the sins torn up by the confessor remained visible, but besides
the dry darnel of dead vices which grew still, nothing budded.
He saw himself exhausted; he knew that he had no further force to
extirpate the last roots, and he fancied that he had again to sow the
seed of virtues, to till this arid soil, manure this dead ground. He
felt himself incapable of all work, and had at the same time the
conviction that God rejected him, that God would aid him no more. This
certainty tore him to pieces. It could not be expressed, for nothing
could translate the anxiety, the anguish of a state through which he
must have passed who could understand it. The terror of a child who has
never left its mother's petticoats, and who is deserted, without
warning, in the open country in a fog, could only give a vestige of an
idea of it, and again by reason of his age the child after having felt
desolate would end by growing calmer, by distracting himself from his
grief, no longer seeing the danger which surrounds him, while in this
state is danger, clinging and absolute, the immovable thought of
abandonment, obstinate fear, which nothing diminishes, nothing appeases.
One dare not advance nor retreat; rather cast oneself on the ground,
with bowed head, and wait the end of what we know not, and be assured
that the menaces we ignore, and those at which we guess, are removed.
Durtal was at this point; he could not return on his steps, for the way
he had quitted horrified him. He would rather have died than return to
Paris, there to begin again his carnal experiences, to live again his
hours of libertinage and lassitude; but if he could not again retrace
his road, neither could he advance, for the road ended in a blind alley.
If earth repulsed him, heaven at the same time was closed for him.
He was lying, half on his side, in the darkness, in the shade, he knew
not where.
And this state was aggravated by an absolute failure to understand the
causes which brought him there, was exaggerated by the memory of graces
before received.
Durtal remembered the sweetness of the beginning, the caress of the
divine touches, the steady progress without obstacles, the encounter
with a solitary priest, his being sent to La Trappe, the very ease with
which he bent to the monastic life, the absolution which had such truly
sensible effects, the rapid and clear answer that he might communicate
without fear.
And suddenly, without his will, he had in fact failed. He who had till
then held him by the hand, refused to guide him, cast him off into the
darkness without a word.
"All is over," he thought; "I am condemned to float here below, like a
waif which no one wants; no shore is henceforward accessible, for if the
world refuses me, I disgust God. Ah! Lord, remember the garden of
Gethsemani, the tragic defection of the Father whom Thou didst implore
in unspeakable pangs." In the silence which received his cry he gave
way, and yet he desired to react against this desolation, endeavoured to
escape from his despair; he prayed, and had again that very precise
sensation that his petitions did not carry, were not even heard. He
called her who superintends allegiance, the Mediatrix of pardon, to his
aid, and he was persuaded that the Virgin heard him no longer.
He was silent and discouraged, while the shade grew still more dense,
and complete darkness covered him. He did not then suffer any longer in
the true sense of the word, but it was worse, for this was annihilation
in the void, the giddiness of a man who is bent over a gulf; and the
scraps of reasoning which he could gather and knit together in this
breaking up, ended by branching out into scruples.
He sought for any sins which since his communion might justify such a
trial, and he could not find them. He even tried to magnify his small
faults, enlarge his want of patience; he wished to convince himself that
he had taken a certain pleasure in finding the image of Florence in his
cell, and he tortured himself so violently that he reanimated the soul,
which had half fainted, by these moxas, and placed it again, without
wishing it, in that acute state of scruples, in which it was when the
crisis declared itself.
And in these brawling reflections he did not lose the sad faculty of
analysis. He said to himself while gauging himself at a glance: "I am
like the litter in a circus, trodden down by all the sorrows which go
and come to play their parts. Doubts about Faith, which seemed to
stretch into every sense, turned in fact in the same circle. And now
scruples, from which I thought myself freed, reappear and course through
me."
How should he explain this? Was he who inflicted this torture on him the
Spirit of Malice, or God?
That he had been bruised by the Evil One was certain, the very nature of
his attacks showed his handiwork, but how could this abandonment of God
be explained, for in fact, the Demon could not prevent the Saviour from
assisting him, and he was quite obliged to conclude that if he were
martyrized by the one, the Other took no interest in him, let him be,
and retired from him completely?
This certainty deduced from precise observations, this reasoned
assurance, finished him. He cried out from the anguish of it, looking at
the pond by which he was walking, wishing he might fall in, thinking
that death by drowning were preferable to such a life.
Then he trembled before the water which attracted him, and carried away
his sorrows to the charm of the woods. He tried to wear himself out by
long walking, but he wearied himself without effect, and he ended by
sinking down worn and broken at the refectory table.
He looked at his plate, with no courage to eat, no desire to drink; he
breathed hard, and, exhausted as he was, could not keep in one place. He
rose and wandered in the court till Compline, and there in the chapel,
where at least he hoped to find some solace, was the crowning point of
all; the mine went off; the soul, sapped since the morning, exploded.
On his knees, desolate, he tried again to invoke help, and nothing came;
he choked, immured in so deep a trench, under a vault so thick, that
every appeal was stifled, and no sound vibrated. Without courage, he
wept with his head in his hands, and while he complained to God that He
had brought him thither to punish him in a Trappist monastery, ignoble
visions assailed him.
Fluids passed before his face, and peopled the space with priapisms. He
did not see them with the eyes of his body, which were in no degree
hallucinated, but perceived them outside him, and felt them within him;
in a word, the touch was external, and the vision internal.
He tried to gaze on the statue of Saint Joseph, before which he kept
himself, and to see nothing but it, but his eyes seemed to revolve, to
see only within, and were filled with indecencies. It was a medley of
apparitions with undecided outlines, and confused colours, which gained
precision only in those parts coveted by the secular infamy of man. And
this changed again. The human forms vanished. There remained only, in
invisible landscapes of flesh, marshes reddened by the fires of what
sunset it was impossible to say, marshes shuddering under the divided
shelter of the grasses. Then the sensual spot grew smaller still, but
remained, and this time did not move; it was the growth of an unclean
flood, the spreading of the daisy of darkness, the unfolding of the
lotos of the caverns, hidden at the bottom of the valley.
And there, burning gasps excited Durtal, enwrapped him, stifled him with
furious gasps which drank his mouth.
He looked in spite of himself, unable to withdraw himself from the
outrages imposed by these violations, but the body was still and
remained calm, while the soul revolted with a groan; the temptation was
then of no effect; but if the tricks only succeeded in suggesting to him
disgust and horror, they made him suffer beyond measure, while they
delayed; all the days of his shameful existence came to the surface, all
these enticements to greedy desires crucified him. Joined to the sum of
sorrows accumulated since the dawn, the overcharge of these sorrows
overwhelmed him, and a cold sweat bathed him from head to foot.
He was in agony, and suddenly, as though he had come to overlook his
ministers, and to see if his orders were carried out, the executioner
himself entered on the scene. Durtal did not see him, but felt him, and
it was indescribable. Since he had the impression of a real demoniac
presence, his whole soul trembled and desired to fly, like a terrified
bird that clings to the window-panes.
And it fell back exhausted; then unlikely as it may appear, the parts of
his life were inverted, the body was upright, and held its own,
commanding the terrified soul, repressed this panic in a furious
tension.
Durtal perceived very plainly and clearly for the first time the
distinction, the separation of the soul from the body, and for the first
time also, he was conscious of the phenomenon of a body, which had so
tortured its companion by its needs and wants, to forget all its hatred
in the common danger, and hinder her who resisted it, the habit of
sinking.
He saw that in a flash, and suddenly all vanished. It seemed that the
Demon had taken himself off, the wall of darkness which encompassed
Durtal opened, and light issued from all parts; with an immense impulse
the "Salve Regina," springing up from the choir, swept aside the
phantoms, and put the goblins to flight.
The elevated cordial of this chant restored him. He took courage, and
began again to hope that this frightful desertion might cease; he
prayed, and his petitions found vent; he understood that they were at
last heard.
The Office was at an end; he gained the guest-house, and when he
appeared so worn out and pale before Father Etienne and the oblate, they
cried: "What is the matter with you?"
He sank on a chair, and endeavoured to describe to them the terrible
Calvary he had climbed. "This has lasted," he said, "for more than nine
hours; I wonder that I have not gone mad;" and he added, "Yet I never
could have believed that the soul could suffer so much."
The face of the father was illuminated. He pressed Durtal's hands and
said,
"Rejoice, my brother, you have been treated here like a monk."
"How is that?" said Durtal, surprised.
"Yes, this agony, for there is no other word to define the horror of the
state, is one of the most serious trials which God inflicts on us; it is
one of the operations of the purgative life. Be happy, for it is a great
grace which Jesus does to you."
"And this proves that your conversion is good," affirmed the oblate.
"God! But it was not He at any rate who insinuated doubts about the
Faith, who caused to be born in me that madness of scruples, who raised
in me that spirit of blasphemy, who caressed my face with disgusting
apparitions."
"No, but He allows it. It is frightful, I know it," said the
guest-master. "God conceals Himself, and however you may call on Him, He
does not answer you. You think yourself deserted, yet He is very near
you; and while He effaces Himself, Satan advances. He twists you about,
places a microscope over your faults, his malice gnaws your brain like a
dull file, and when to all this are joined, to try you to the utmost,
impure visions...."
The Trappist stopped; then, speaking to himself, he said, slowly,
"It would be nothing to be in presence of a real temptation, of a true
woman in flesh and bone, but these appearances on which imagination
works, are horrible!"
"And I used to think there was peace in the cloister!"
"No, we are here on this earth to strive, and it is just in the cloister
that the Lowest works; there, souls escape him, and he will at all price
conquer them. No place on earth is more haunted by him than a cell, no
one is more harassed than a monk."
"A story which is told in the Lives of the Fathers in the Desert, is
typical from this point of view. One demon only was charged to watch a
town; and he went to sleep while two or three hundred demons who had
orders to guard a monastery had no rest, but behaved themselves, here is
the place for the phrase, like very devils.
"And indeed, the mission to increase the sin of the towns is a sinecure,
for Satan holds them, though they are not aware of it; all then he has
to do is to torment them so as to take from them trust in God, since all
obey him without his taking the least trouble about it.
"And so he keeps his legions to besiege convents where resistance is
determined. And indeed, you see the way in which he conducts the
attack."
"Ah!" exclaimed Durtal, "it is not he who makes you suffer the most; for
what is worse than scruples, worse than temptations against purity, or
against the Faith, is the supposed abandonment of Heaven; no, nothing
can describe that."
"That is what mystical theology calls 'the Night Obscure,'" answered M.
Bruno.
And Durtal exclaimed,
"Ah! now I am with you; I remember.... That is why Saint John of the
Cross declares that it is impossible to describe the sorrows of that
night, and why he exaggerates nothing when he says, that one is then
plunged alive into hell.
"And I doubted the veracity of his books, I accused him of excess;
rather he minimized. Only one must have felt this oneself to believe
it."
"And you have seen nothing," the oblate replied quietly; "you have
passed through the first portion of that night, through the night of the
senses; it is terrible enough, as I know by experience, but it is
nothing in comparison with the Night of the Spirit which sometimes
succeeds it. That is the exact image of the sufferings which our Lord
endured in the Garden of Olives, when, sweating blood, He cried at the
end of His force, 'Lord, let this chalice pass from me.'
"This is so terrible ..." and M. Bruno was silent and grew pale.
"Whoever has undergone that martyrdom," he said, after a pause, "knows
beforehand what awaits the damned in another life."
"But," said the monk, "the hour of bed-time has struck. There exists but
one remedy for all these evils, the Holy Eucharist; to-morrow, Sunday,
the community approaches the Sacrament; you must join us."
"But I cannot communicate in the state in which I am...."
"Well, then, be up to-night, at three o'clock. I will come for you to
your cell, and will take you to Father Maximin, who confesses us at that
time."
And without waiting for his answer, the guest-master pressed his hand
and went.
"He is right," said the oblate; "it is the true remedy."
And when he had regained his room, Durtal thought,
"I now understand why the Abbé Gévresin made such a point of lending me
Saint John of the Cross; he knew that I should enter into the 'Night
Obscure'; he did not dare warn me clearly, for fear of alarming me, and
yet he would put me on my guard against despair, and aid me by the
remembrance here of that reading. Only how could he think that in such a
shipwreck I should remember anything!
"All this makes me think that I have omitted to write to him, and that
to-morrow I must keep my promise by sending him a letter."
And he thought again of Saint John of the Cross, that extraordinary
Carmelite who described so placidly that terrible phase of the mystic
genesis.
He took count of the lucidity, the power of spirit of this saint,
explaining the most obscure vicissitude of the soul and the least known,
catching and following the operations of God, who dealt with that soul,
pressed it in His hands, squeezed it like a sponge, then let it suck up
again, fill itself out with sorrows, then wrung it again; making it drip
tears of blood to cleanse it.
CHAPTER VI.
"No," said Durtal, in a whisper, "I will not take the place of these
good people."
"But I assure you it is quite the same to them."
And while Durtal was still refusing to go before the lay brothers who
were waiting their turn for confession, Father Etienne insisted: "I will
stay with you, and as soon as the cell is free, you will enter."
Durtal was then on the landing of a staircase on every step of which was
posted a brother kneeling or standing, his head wrapped in his hood, his
face turned to the wall. All were sifting and closely examining their
souls.
"Of what sins can they really accuse themselves?" thought Durtal. "Who
knows?" he continued, perceiving Brother Anacletus, his head sunk on his
breast, and his hands joined, "who knows if he does not reproach himself
for the discreet affection he has for me; for in monasteries all
friendship is forbidden!"
And he called to memory in the "Way of Perfection" of Saint Teresa, a
page at once glowing and icy in which she cries out on the nothingness
of human ties, declares that friendship is a weakness, and asserts
clearly that every nun who desires to see her relations is imperfect.
"Come," said Father Etienne, who interrupted these reflections, and
pushed him towards the door of the cell out of which a monk came. Father
Maximin was there, seated close to a prie-Dieu.
Durtal knelt, and told him briefly his scruples and strifes of the
evening before.
"What has happened to you is not surprising after a conversion; indeed,
it is a good sign, for those persons alone for whom God has views are
submitted to these proofs," said the monk slowly, when Durtal had ended
his story.
And he continued,
"Now that you have no more grave sins, the Demon endeavours to drown you
by spitting at you. In fact, in these episodes of malice at bay, there
is for you temptation and no sin.
"You have, if I may sum up what you have said, undergone temptation of
the flesh, and of Faith, and you have been tortured by scruples.
"Let us leave on one side the sensual visions; such as they have been
were produced independently of your will, painful no doubt, but
ineffectual.
"Doubts about Faith are more dangerous.
"Steep yourself in this truth that besides prayer there exists but one
efficacious remedy against this evil, to despise it.
"Satan is pride; despise him, and at once his audacity gives way; he
speaks; shrug your shoulders and he is silent. You must not discuss with
him; however good a reasoner you may be, you will be worsted, for he is
a most tricky dialectician."
"Yes, but what can I do? I do not wish to listen to him, but I hear him
all the same. I was obliged to answer him if only to refute him."
"And it was just on that he counted to subdue you; keep this carefully
in your mind; in order to let you give him an easy throw, he will
present you at need grotesque arguments, and so soon as he sees you
confident, simply satisfied with the excellence of your replies, he will
involve you in sophisms so specious that you will fight in vain to solve
them.
"No; I repeat to you, had you the best reasons to oppose to him, do not
riposte, refuse the strife."
The prior was silent; then he began again, quietly,
"There are two ways of getting rid of a thing which troubles you--to
throw it far away, or let it fall. To throw it to a distance demands an
effort of which one may not be capable; to let it fall imposes no
fatigue, is simple, without danger, within the reach of all.
"To throw to a distance implies again a certain interest, a certain
animation, perhaps even a certain fear; to let it fall is indifference,
complete contempt; believe me, use this means and Satan will fly.
"This weapon of contempt will be also all-powerful to conquer the
assault of scruples, if in combats of this nature the person assailed
sees clear. Unfortunately, the peculiarity of scruples is to alarm
people, to make them lose at once the clearing breeze, and then it is
indispensable to have recourse to a priest to defend oneself.
"Indeed," pursued the monk, who had interrupted himself a moment to
think--"the closer one looks the less one sees; one becomes
short-sighted the moment one observes; it is necessary to place oneself
at a certain point of view to distinguish objects, for when they are
very close they become as confused as if they were far. Therefore in
such a case we must have recourse to the confessor, who is neither too
distant, nor too near, who holds himself precisely at the spot where
objects detach themselves in their relief. Only it is with scruples as
with certain maladies which, when they are not taken in time, become
almost incurable.
"Do not allow them, then, to become implanted in you; scruple cannot
resist being told as soon as it begins. The moment you formulate it
before the priest it dissolves; it is a kind of mirage which a word
effaces.
"You will object to me," continued the monk, after a silence, "that it
is very mortifying to avow delusions which generally are absurd; but it
is for this very reason that the demon suggests to you less clever
arguments than foolish. He takes hold of you thus by vanity, by false
shame."
The monk was silent again; then he continued,
"Scruples not treated, scruples not cured, lead to discouragement which
is the worst of temptations; for in other cases Satan attacks one virtue
only in particular, and he shows himself; while in this case he attacks
all at once, and he hides himself.
"And this is so true that if you are seduced by lust, by the love of
money, or by pride, you can, in examining yourself, give yourself
account of the nature of the temptation which exhausts you; in
discouragement, on the contrary, your understanding is obscured to such
a degree that you do not even suspect that the state in which you
succumb is only a diabolic manoeuvre which you must combat; and you let
go all, you give up the only arm which can save you, prayer, from which
the demon turns you aside as a vain thing.
"Never hesitate, then, to cut the evil at its root, to take care of a
scruple as soon as it is born.
"Now tell me; you have nothing else to confess?"
"No, except the indesire for the Eucharist, the languor in which I now
faint."
"There is some fatigue in your case, for no one can endure such a shock
with impunity; do not be uneasy about that, have confidence, do not
attempt to present yourself before God all neat and trim; go to Him
simply, naturally, in undress even, just as you are; do not forget that
if you are a servant you are also a son; have good courage, our Lord
will dispel all these nightmares."
And when he had received absolution, Durtal went down to the church to
await the hour of mass.
And when the moment for communion came, he followed M. Bruno behind the
lay brothers. All were kneeling on the pavement, and one after the other
rose to exchange the kiss of peace, and reach the altar.
Though he repeated to himself the counsels of Father Maximin, though he
exhorted himself to dismiss all his unrest, Durtal could not help
thinking as he saw these monks approach the Table, "The Lord will find a
change when I advance in my turn; after having descended into the
sanctuaries, He will be reduced to visit hovel." And sincerely, humbly,
he was sorry for Him.
And as the first time that he approached this peace-giving mystery, he
experienced a sensation of stifling, as if his heart were too large when
he returned to his place. As soon as the mass was over, he quitted the
chapel and escaped into the park.
Then gently, without sensible effects, the Sacrament worked; Christ
opened, little by little, his closed house and gave it air, light
entered into Durtal in a flood. From the windows of his senses which had
looked till then into he knew not what cesspool, into what enclosure,
dank, and steeped in shadow; he now looked suddenly, through a burst of
light, on a vista which lost itself in heaven.
His vision of nature was modified; the surroundings were transformed;
the fog of sadness which visited them vanished; the sudden clearness of
his soul was repeated in its surroundings.
He had the sensation of expansion, the almost childlike joy of a sick
man who takes his first outing, of the convalescent, who having long
crawled in a chamber, sets foot without; all grew young again. These
alleys, this wood, through which he had wandered so much, which he began
to know in all their windings, and in every corner, began to appear to
him in a new aspect. A restrained joy, a repressed gladness emanated
from this site, which appeared to him, instead of extending as formerly,
to draw near and gather round the crucifix, to turn, as it were, with
attention towards the liquid cross.
The trees rustled trembling, in a whisper of prayers, inclining towards
the Christ, who no longer twisted His painful arms in the mirror of the
pool, but He constrained these waters, and displayed them before Him,
blessing them.
They were themselves different; the dark fluid was covered with monastic
visions, in white robes, which the reflections of clouds left there in
passing, and the swan scattered them, in a splash of sunlight, making as
he swam great oily circles round him.
One might have said that these waves were gilt by the oil of the
catechumens, and the sacred Chrism, which the Church exorcises on the
Saturday of Holy Week, and above them heaven half-opened its tabernacle
of clouds, out of which came a clear sun like a monstrance of molten
gold in a Blessed Sacrament of flames.
It was a Benediction of nature, a genuflection of trees and flowers,
singing in the wind, incensing with their perfume the sacred Bread which
shone on high, in the flaming custody of the planet.
Durtal looked on in transport. He desired to cry aloud his enthusiasm
and his Faith to the landscape; he felt a joy in living. The horror of
existence counted for nothing when there were such moments, as no
earthly happiness can give. God alone had the power of thus filling a
soul, of making it overflow, and rush in floods of joy; and He alone
could also fill the basin of sorrows, as no event in this world could
do. Durtal had just tried it; his spiritual sufferings and joys attained
under the divine imprint an acuteness, which people most humanly happy
or unhappy cannot even suspect.
This idea brought him back to the terrible distresses of the evening
before. He endeavoured to sum up what he had been able to observe of
himself in this Trappist monastery.
First, the clear distinction between body and soul; then the action of
the demon, insinuating and obstinate, almost visible, while the heavenly
action remained, on the contrary, dull and veiled, appeared only at
certain moments, and seemed at others to vanish for ever.
And all this, when felt and understood, had an appearance simple in
itself, but scarcely explaining itself. The body appearing to throw
itself forward to the rescue of the soul, and no doubt borrowing from it
its will, to help it when it fainted, was unintelligible. How a body
could itself react obscurely, and yet show, all at once, so strong a
decision that it pressed its companion into a vice, and prevented its
flight--
"It is as mysterious as the rest," thought Durtal, and as in a dream he
continued,
"The secret action of Jesus in His Sacrament is not less strange. If I
may judge by what has happened to me; a first communion exasperates the
action of the devil, while a second represses it.
"Ah, and how I put myself in line with all my calculations! In taking
shelter here I thought myself pretty sure of my soul, and that my body
would trouble me; whereas just the contrary has been the case.
"My stomach has grown vigorous and shown itself fit to support an effort
of which I should never have thought it capable, and my soul has been
below everything, vacillating and dry, so fragile, so feeble!
"But we will let all that alone."
He walked about, lifted from earth by a confused joy. He grew vaporized
in a sort of intoxication, in a vague etherization, in which arose,
without his even thinking of formulating words, acts of thanksgiving; it
was an effort of thanks of his soul, of his body, of his whole being, to
that God whom he felt living in him, and diffused in that kneeling
landscape which also seemed to expand in mute hymns of gratitude.
The hour which struck by the clock in the portico reminded him it was
breakfast time. He went to the guest-house, cut himself a slice of bread
and butter with some cheese, drank half a glass of wine, and was about
to go out again when he reflected that the horary of the offices was
changed.
"They must be different from those of the week," he thought; and he went
up into his cell to consult his placards.
He found only one, that of the rule of the monks themselves, which
contained the regulations for the Sunday practices for the cloister; and
he read:
EXERCISES OF THE COMMUNITY FOR ALL ORDINARY SUNDAYS.
MORNING.
1. Rise. Little Office. Prayer till 1.30.
2. Grand Canonical Office chanted.
5.30. Prime, Morning Mass, 6 o'clock.
6.45. Chapter Instructions. Great Silence.
9.15. Asperges, Tierce, Procession.
10. High Mass.
11.10. Sext and special examination.
11.30. Angelus, Dinner.
12.15. Siesta, Great Silence.
EVENING.
2. End of Repose. None.
4. Vespers and Benediction.
5.45. Quarter of an hour for Prayer.
6. Supper.
7. Reading before Compline.
7.15. Compline.
7.30. Salve, Angelus.
7.45. Examination of conscience and Retreat.
8. Bed time, Great Silence.
Note.--After the Cross of September, no siesta. None is at 2
o'clock; Vespers at 3; Supper at 5; Compline at 6, and bed time at
7.
Durtal copied this rule for his use on a scrap of paper. "In fact," he
said to himself, "I have to be in chapel at 9.15 for Asperges, High Mass
and the Office of Sext, afterwards at 2 for None, then at 4 for Vespers
and Benediction, and lastly at 7.30 for Compline.
"Here is a day which will be occupied, without counting that I got up at
half-past two this morning," he concluded; and when he reached the
chapel, about nine o'clock, he found the greater part of the lay
brothers on their knees, the others saying their rosary; and when the
clock struck all returned to their place.
Assisted by two fathers in cowls, the prior, vested in a white alb,
entered, and while the antiphon "Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et
mundabor" was sung, all the monks in succession defiled before Father
Maximin, standing on the steps, turning his back to the altar; and he
sprinkled them with holy water, while they regained their stalls, each
making the sign of the cross.
Then the prior descended from the altar, and came to the entrance to the
vestibule, where he dispersed the water crosswise, traced by the
sprinkler over the oblate, and over Durtal.
At last he vested, and went to celebrate the sacrifice.
Then Durtal was able to think over his Sundays at the Benedictine nuns.
The "Kyrie Eleison" was the same but slower and more sonorous, more
grave on the prolonged termination of the last word; at Paris the voices
of the nuns drew it out and put a gloss on it at the same time, turned
into satin its final sound, rendered it less dull, less spaced, less
ample. The "Gloria in Excelsis" differed; that of La Trappe was more
primitive, more mounting, more sombre, interesting by its very
barbarism, but less touching, for in its forms of adoration, in the
"Adoramus te," for example, the "te" did not detach itself, did not drop
like a tear of amorous essence, like an avowal retained by humility on
the tip of the lips; but it was when the Credo arose, that Durtal could
uplift himself at ease.
He had never yet heard it so authoritative, and so imposing; it
advanced, chanted in unison, developing its slow procession of dogmas,
in sounds well furnished and rigid, of a violet almost obscure, a red
almost black, growing lighter towards the end, till it expired in a long
and plaintive Amen.
In following the Cistercian office Durtal could recognize the morsels of
plain chant still preserved in parish masses. All the part of the Canon,
the "Sursum Corda," the "Vere Dignum," the Antiphons, the "Pater,"
remained intact. Only the "Sanctus" and the "Agnus Dei" were changed.
Massive, built up, as it were, in the Roman style, they draped
themselves in the colour, glowing and dull, which clothes, in fact, the
offices of La Trappe.
"Well," said the oblate, when, after the ceremony, they sat at the table
of the refectory; "well, what do you think of our High Mass?"
"It is superb," answered Durtal. And he said dreamily, "Would that one
could have the whole complete! to bring here, instead of this
uninteresting chapel, the apse of St. Severin; hang on the walls the
pictures of Fra Angelico, Memling, Grünewald, Gerard David, Roger van
den Weyden, Bouts; add to these, admirable sculptures such as those of
the great door of Chartres, altar screens of sculptured wood, such as
those of the Cathedral of Amiens, what a dream!"
"Yet," he went on after a silence, "this dream has been a reality, it is
evident. This ideal church existed for ages, everywhere in the Middle
Ages! The chant, the goldsmith's work, the panels, the sculptures, the
tissues were all attractive; the liturgies possessed, to give them
value, fabulous caskets, but all that is far off."
"But you certainly cannot say," replied M. Bruno, with a smile, "that
the church ornaments are ugly here!"
"No; they are exquisite. First, the chasubles have not the shapes of a
miner's apron, and they do not hoist themselves up on the shoulders of
the priest, that excrescence, that puffing like the ear of a little
donkey lying back, which the vestment makers use at Paris.
"Nor is it any more that cross in stripe or woven, filling all the
stuff, falling like a sack-coat over the back of the celebrant; the
Trappist chasubles have kept the old form, as the old image makers and
the old painters preserved them in their religious scenes; and that
cross with four leaves, like those which the Gothic style chiselled on
the walls of its churches, is related to the very expanded lotus a
flower so full-blown that its falling petals droop."
"Without counting," pursued Durtal, "that the stuff which seems cut in a
sort of flannel or thick soft felt must have been plunged in threefold
dyes, for it takes a depth, and a magnificent clearness of tone. The
religious trimming-makers could trim these watered and plain silks with
silver and gold, yet never attain to give a colour at once so vehement
and so familiar to the eye as that crimson with sulphur-yellow flowers,
which Father Maximin wore the other day."
"Yes, and the mourning chasuble with its lobed crosses, and its discreet
white fullings, in which the Father abbot vested himself, the day on
which he communicated us, is not it also a caress for the eyes?"
Durtal sighed: "Ah! if the statues in the chapel showed a like taste!"
"By the way," said the oblate, "come and salute that Notre Dame de
l'Atre, of which I have spoken to you, found among the remains of the
old cloister."
They rose from table, passed along a corridor, and struck into a lateral
gallery, at the end of which they stopped before a statue of life size,
in stone.
It was heavy and massive, representing in a robe of long folds, a
peasant woman, crowned, and round-cheeked, holding on her arm a child
who blessed a ball.
But in this portrait of a robust peasant woman, sprung from Burgundy or
Flanders, there was a candour, a goodness almost tumultuous, which
sprang from her smiling face, her innocent eyes, her good and large
lips, indulgent, ready for all forgiveness.
She was a rustic Virgin made for the humble lay brothers; she was not a
great lady who could hold them at a distance, but she was indeed the
nursing mother of their souls, their true mother. "How was it they had
not understood her here? how instead of presiding in the chapel, did she
grow chill at the end of a corridor?" cried Durtal.
The oblate turned the conversation--"I warn you," he said, "that
Benediction will not take place after Vespers as your placard indicates,
but directly after Compline; this latter office will therefore be
advanced a quarter of an hour at least."
And the oblate went up to his cell, while Durtal went towards the large
pond. There he lay down on a bed of dry reed, looking at the water which
broke in wavelets at his feet. The coming and going of these limited
waters, folding back on themselves, yet never overpassing the basin they
had hollowed for themselves, led him on into long reveries.
He said to himself that a river was the most exact symbol of the active
life; one follows it from its source through all its courses across the
territories it fertilizes; it has fulfilled its assigned task before it
dies, immersing itself in the gaping sepulchre of the seas; but the
pond, that tamed water, imprisoned in a hedge of reeds which it has
itself caused to grow in fertilizing the soil of its bank, has
concentrated itself, lived on itself, not seemed to achieve any known
work, save to keep silence and reflect on the infinite of heaven.
"Still water troubles me," continued Durtal. "It seems to me that unable
to extend itself, it grows deeper, and that while running waters borrow
only the shadows of things they reflect, it swallows them without giving
them back. Most certainly in this pond is a continued and profound
absorption of forgotten clouds, of lost trees, even of sensations seized
on the faces of monks who hung over it. This water is full, and not
empty, like those which are distracted in wandering about the country
and in bathing the towns. It is a contemplative water, in perfect accord
with the recollected life of the cloisters.
"The fact is," he concluded, "that a river would have here no meaning;
it would only be passing, would remain indifferent and in a hurry, would
be in all cases unfit to pacify the soul which the monastic water of the
ponds appeases. Ah! in founding Notre Dame de l'Atre, Saint Bernard knew
how to fit the Cistercian rule and the site.
"But we must leave these fancies," he said, rising; and, remembering
that it was Sunday, he transferred himself to Paris, and revisited in
thought his halts on this day in the churches.
In the morning St. Severin enchanted him, but he ought not to thrust
himself into that sanctuary for the other Offices. Vespers there were
botched and mean; and if it were a feast day the organ master showed
himself possessed by the love of ignoble music.
Occasionally Durtal had taken refuge at St. Gervais, where at least they
played at certain times motets of the old masters; but that church was,
as well as St. Eustache, a paying concert, where Faith had nothing to
do. No recollection was possible in the midst of ladies who fainted
behind, their faces in their hands, and grew agitated in creaking
chairs. These were frivolous assemblies for pious music, a compromise
between the theatre and God.
St. Sulpice was better, where at least the public was silent. There,
moreover, Vespers were celebrated with more solemnity and less haste.
In general the seminary reinforced the choir, and rendered by this
imposing choir they rolled on majestically sustained by the grand organ.
Chanted, only in half, and not in unison, reduced to a state of
couplets, given, some by a baritone, others by the choir, they were
twisted and frizzled by a curling iron, but as they were not less
adulterated at the other churches, there was every advantage in
listening to them at St. Sulpice, whose powerful choir, very well led,
had not, as for example at Notre Dame, those dusty voices which break at
the least whisper.
This only became really odious when, with a formidable explosion, the
first strophe of the Magnificat struck the arches.
The organ then swallowed up one stanza out of two, and under the
seditious pretext that the length of the Office of incensing was too
long to be filled up entirely by singing, M. Widor, seated at his desk,
rolled forth stale fragments of music splashed about above, imitating
the human voice and the flute, the bagpipe and the bassoon, or indeed,
tired of affectations, he blew furiously on the keys, ending by
imitating the roll of locomotives over iron bridges, letting all the
stops go.
And the choirmaster, not wishing to show himself inferior to the
organist in his instinctive hatred of plain chant, was delighted, when
the Benediction began, to put aside Gregorian melodies and make his
choristers gurgle rigadoons.
It was no longer a sanctuary, but a howling place. The "Ave Maria," the
"Ave Verum," all the mystical indecencies of the late Gounod, the
rhapsodies of old Thomas, the capers of indigent musicasters, defiled in
a chain wound by choir leaders from Lamoureux, chanted unfortunately by
children, the chastity of whose voices no one feared to pollute in these
middle-class passages of music, these by-ways of art.
"Ah," thought Durtal, "if only this choirmaster, who is evidently an
excellent musician; for indeed, when he must, he knows how to get
executed better than anywhere else in Paris, the 'De Profundis' with
organ accompaniment, and the 'Dies Iræ'; if only this man would as at
St. Gervais give us some Palestrina and Vittoria, some Aichinger and
Allegri, some Orlando Lasso and De Près; but no, he must detest these
masters also, consider them as archaic rubbish, good to send into the
dust-heaps."
And Durtal continued,
"What we hear now at Paris, in the churches, is wholly incredible! Under
pretence of managing an income for the singers, they suppress half the
stanzas of canticles and hymns, and substitute, to vary the pleasure,
the tiresome divagations of an organ.
"There they howl the 'Tantum Ergo' to the Austrian National air; or what
is still worse, muffle it up with operatic choruses, or refrains from
canteens. The very text is divided into couplets which are ornamented
like a drinking song with a little burthen.
"The other Church sequences are treated in the same manner.
"And yet the Papacy has formally forbidden, in many bulls, that the
sanctuary should be soiled by those liberties. To cite one only, John
XXII., in his Extravagant 'Doctor Sanctorum,' expressly forbade profane
voices and music in churches. He prohibited choirs at the same time to
change plain chant into fiorituri. The decrees of the Council of Trent
are not less clear from this point of view, and more recently still a
regulation of the Sacred Congregation of Rites has intervened to
proscribe musical rioting in holy places.
"Then what are the parish-priests doing who, in fact, have musical
police charge in their churches? Nothing, they laugh at it.
"Nor is this a mere phrase, but with those priests who, hoping for
receipts, permit on fête days the shameless voices of actresses to dance
gambols to the heavy sounds of the organ, the poor Church has become far
from clean.
"At St. Sulpice," Durtal went on, "the priest tolerates the villainy of
jolly songs which are served up to him; but at least he does not, like
the one at St. Severin, allow strolling women players to lighten up the
Office by the shouts of such voices as remain to them. Nor has he
accepted the solo on the English horn which I heard at St. Thomas one
evening during the Perpetual Adoration. In short, if the grand
Benedictions at St. Sulpice are a shame, the Complines remain in spite
of their theatrical attitude really charming."
And Durtal thought of those Complines of which the paternity is often
attributed to Saint Benedict; they were in fact the integral prayer of
the evenings, the preventive adjuration, the safeguard against the
attempts of the Demon, they were in some measure the advanced sentinels
of the out-posts placed round the soul to protect it during the night.
And the regulation of this entrenched camp of prayer was perfect. After
the benediction the best trained voice, the most threadlike of the
choir, the voice of the smallest of the children, sang forth the short
lesson taken from the first Epistle of Saint Peter, warning the faithful
that they must be sober and watch, not allow themselves to be surprised
unexpectedly. A priest then recited the usual evening prayers; the choir
organ gave the intonation, and the psalms fell, chanted one by one, the
twilight psalms, in which before the approaches of night peopled with
goblins, and furrowed by ghosts, man calls God to aid, and prays Him to
guard his sleep from the violence of the ways of hell, the rape of the
lamias that pass.
And the hymn of Saint Ambrose, the "Te lucis ante terminum," made still
more precise the scattered meaning of these psalms, gathering it up in
its short stanzas. Unfortunately, the most important, that which
foresees and declares the luxurious dangers of darkness, was swallowed
up by the full organ. This hymn was not rendered in plain chant at St.
Sulpice as at La Trappe, but was sung to a pompous and elaborate air, an
air full of glory, with a certain proud attractiveness, originating no
doubt in the eighteenth century.
Then there was a pause--and man, feeling himself more sheltered, behind
a rampart of prayers, recollected himself, more assured, and borrowed
innocent voices to address new supplications to God. After the chapter
read by the officiant, the children of the choir chanted the short
response "In manus tuus Domine, commendo spiritum meum," which rolled
out, dividing in two parts, then doubled itself, and resolved at the
last its two separate portions by a verse, and part of an antiphon.
And after that prayer there was still the canticle of Simeon, who, as
soon as he had seen the Messiah, desired to die. This "Nunc dimittis,"
which the Church has incorporated in Compline to stimulate us at
eventide to self-examination--for none can tell whether he shall wake on
the morrow--was raised by the whole choir, which alternated with the
responses of the organ.
In fact, to end this Office of a besieged town, to take its last
dispositions and try to repose in shelter from a violent attack, the
Church built up again a few prayers, and placed her parishes under the
tutelage of the Virgin, to whom it chanted one of the four antiphons
which follow, according to the Proper.
"At La Trappe Compline was evidently less solemn, less interesting than
at St. Sulpice," concluded Durtal, "for the monastic breviary is, for a
wonder, less complete for that Office than the Roman breviary. As for
Sunday Vespers, I am curious to hear them."
And he heard them; but they hardly differed from the Vespers adopted by
the Benedictine nuns of the Rue Monsieur; they were more massive, more
grave, more Roman, if it may be said, for necessarily the voice of women
drew them out into sharp points, made them like acute arches, as it
were, in Gothic style, but the Gregorian tunes were the same.
On the other hand they resembled in nothing those at St. Sulpice, where
the modern sauces spoilt the very essences of the plain chants. Only the
Magnificat of La Trappe, abrupt, and with dry tone, was not so good as
the majestic, the admirable Royal Magnificat chanted at Paris.
"These monks are astonishing with their superb voices," said Durtal to
himself, and he smiled as they finished the antiphon of Our Lady, for he
remembered that in the primitive Church the chanter was called "Fabarius
cantor," "eater of beans," because he was obliged to eat that vegetable
to strengthen his voice. Now, at La Trappe, dishes of beans were common;
perhaps that was the secret of the ever young monastic voices.
He thought over the liturgy and plain chant while smoking cigarettes, in
the walks, after Vespers.
He brought to mind the symbolism of those canonical hours which recalled
every day to the Christian the shortness of life in summing up for him
its image from infancy to death.