En Route Part 31

[1] The opinion of M. Bruno has been lately adopted by all the abbeys of the order. In a General Chapter of La Trappe, held from the 12th to the 18th September, 1894, in Holland, at Tilburg, it was decided that except in seasons of fasting, the monks might eat a little in the morning, dine at eleven, and sup in the evening.

Article CXVI. of the new const.i.tutions, voted by this a.s.sembly of the Chapter and approved by the Holy See, is in effect thus conceived:--

"Diebus quibus non jejunatur a Sancto Pascha usque ad Idus Septembris, Dominicis per totum annum et omnibus festis Sermonis aut feriatis extra Quadrigesimam, omnes monachi mane accipiant mixtum, hora undecima prandeant et ad seram coenent."

"And the fathers lead the same life as the lay brothers?"

"Absolutely--they set the example; they all swallow the same pittance, and sleep in the same dormitory on similar beds; there is complete equality. Only, the fathers have the advantage of singing the office and obtaining more frequent communions."

"Among the lay brothers there are two who have interested me particularly, one quite young, a tall fair man with a pointed beard, the other a very old man, quite bent?"

"The young one is Brother Anacletus; this young man is a veritable column of prayer, and one of the most precious recruits whom Heaven has bestowed upon our abbey. As for old Simeon, he is a child of La Trappe, for he was brought up in an orphanage of the order. There you have an extraordinary soul, a true saint, who already lives absorbed in G.o.d. We will talk of him at greater length another day, for it is time we went down; the hour of s.e.xt is near.

"Wait, here is the rosary which I am pleased to offer you. Allow me to add to it a medal of Saint Benedict." And he made over to Durtal a small wooden rosary, and the strange circle engraved with cabalistic letters, the amulet of Saint Benedict.

"Do you know the meaning of these signs?"

"Yes; I read it once in a pamphlet of Dom Gueranger."

"Good. And, by-the-bye, when do you communicate?"

"To-morrow."

"To-morrow; it is impossible!"

"Why impossible?"

"Because there will be only a single ma.s.s to-morrow, that of five o'clock, and at that the rule prevents your communicating alone. Father Benedict, who usually says an earlier ma.s.s, went away this morning and will not return for two days. There is some mistake."

"But the prior positively declared to me that I should communicate to-morrow!" exclaimed Durtal. "Not all the fathers here, then, are priests?"

"No, in fact, as to priests, there is the abbot who is ill, the prior who will offer the sacrifice to-morrow at five o'clock, Father Benedict of whom I spoke to you, and another whom you have not seen and who is travelling. And then, if it had been possible, I also should have approached the Holy Table."

"Then, if the fathers are not all ordained, what difference is there between those who have obtained the priesthood and the simple lay brothers?"

"Education--to be a father a man must have studied, must know Latin, and in a word must not be what the lay brothers are, peasants or workmen. In any case I shall see the prior, and as to the communion to-morrow, I will let you know, after the office. But it is tiresome; it is a pity you could not have come up this morning, with us."

Durtal made a gesture of regret. He went into the chapel, dwelling on this misfortune and praying G.o.d not to delay his re-entry into grace any longer.

After s.e.xt, the oblate came to rejoin him. "It is just as I thought," he said, "but nevertheless you will be admitted to take the Sacrament. The father prior has arranged with the curate who dines with us. He will say a ma.s.s to-morrow morning before leaving, and you will then communicate."

"Oh!" groaned Durtal.

This news broke his heart. That he should have come to La Trappe to receive the Eucharist from the hands of a priest of pa.s.sage, from a jovial priest such as this man! "Ah, no, I have confessed to a monk, and I wished to receive the communion from a monk!" he exclaimed. "It would have been better to wait till Father Benedict returned--but what can I do? I can hardly explain to the prior how repugnant this unknown priest is to me, and how terribly painful it would be to me, after having gone through so much, to end by being thus reconciled in a cloister."

And he complained to G.o.d, telling Him that all the joy he might have felt in being purified and clean at last, was now spoilt by this disappointment.

He arrived at the refectory hanging his head.

The curate was there already. Seeing Durtal's sad demeanour, he charitably tried to cheer him, but the jokes he attempted produced the opposite effect. Durtal smiled in order to be polite, but his air was so wearied that M. Bruno, who saw it, turned the conversation and monopolized the priest.

Durtal was in a hurry for his dinner to be over. He had eaten his egg and was painfully swallowing a warm potato soup made with hot oil, which from its appearance might have been mistaken for vaseline; but he now cared little about his food.

He said to himself, "It is dreadful to carry away an irritating and painful recollection of a first communion--and I know it will haunt me for ever. I know well enough that from a theological point of view it does not matter whether I am dealing with a priest or a Trappist; both are but interpreters between G.o.d and me, but yet, I feel very well that it is not at all the same thing. For once at least I need a guarantee of certain holiness, and how can I have it with an ecclesiastic who hawks about jokes like a bagman?" He stopped, remembering that the Abbe Gevresin, fearing this mistrust, had specially sent him to a Trappist monastery. "What a run of ill-luck!" he said to himself.

He did not even hear the conversation which was going on beside him between the curate and the oblate.

He struggled with himself all alone, as he chewed, with his nose in his plate.

"I do not wish to communicate to-morrow," he went on, and he was shocked. He was cowardly, and becoming foolish at the last. Would not the Saviour give Himself to him all the same?

He rose from the table, stirred by a dull anguish, and he wandered in the park and went down the paths as chance led him.

Another idea was now growing in him, an idea that Heaven was inflicting a trial upon him. "I want humility," he repeated. "Well, it is to punish me that I am refused the joy of being sanctified by a monk. Christ has forgiven me, that is much. Why should He do more by taking note of my preferences and granting my wishes?"

This thought appeased him for a few minutes, and reproaching himself for rebelling, he accused himself of being unjust towards a priest who, after all, might be a saint.

"Ah, enough of that," he said; "I must accept the fact, and try for once to be a little humble! but I have to recite my rosary." He seated himself on the gra.s.s and began.

He had not reached the second bead, when misunderstanding again pursued him. He began again on the Pater and Ave, and went on thinking no more of the sense of his prayers, reflecting: "What ill-luck that the one monk who says ma.s.s every day should be away, so that I have to go through such a disappointment to-morrow!"

He was silent and had a moment of calm, when suddenly a new element of trouble burst upon him.

He looked at the rosary, of which he had told ten beads.

"Let me see, the prior told me to recite ten every day--ten beads or ten rosaries?"

"Beads," he said, and almost at the same moment answered, "Rosaries."

He remained perplexed.

"But that is idiotic, he could not have told me to go through the rosary ten times a day; that would amount to something like five hundred prayers on end; no one could do such a task without losing his wits.

There is no doubt, it is clear he meant ten beads!

"But no! for if a confessor gives a penance, it must be admitted that he would proportion it to the greatness of the sins. And as I have such repugnance for these drops of devotion taken in globules, it is natural that he should gorge me with a large dose of the rosary!

"Still ... still ... it cannot be! I should not have even time for it all in Paris; it is absurd!"

And the idea that he was deceiving himself came intermittently charging back.

"Still, there must be no haggling; in ecclesiastical language 'ten'

means ten beads; no doubt ... but I remember very well that after he p.r.o.nounced the word rosary, the father expressed himself thus: 'you will say ten,' that means ten rosaries, for otherwise he would have specified ten ... of a rosary."

And so he thrust and parried with himself--"The father had no need to put the dots on all the i's, if he were using an ordinary phrase, known to everyone. This cavilling about the value of a word is ridiculous."

He tried to get rid of this torment by appealing to his reason; and suddenly there came out some argument which unsettled him.

He found out that it was through cowardice, idleness, desire for contradiction and the necessity of rebelling, that he did not wish to wind his ten reels. "Of the two interpretations I have chosen the one which would relieve me of all effort and trouble, it is really too easy!--that alone proves that I deceive myself when I try to persuade myself that the prior only ordered me to pick out ten beads!"