En Route Part 35

He gave his hand to Durtal and begged him to sit down.

Then he asked if the food seemed to be enough for him. And on receiving a reply in the affirmative from Durtal he inquired if the long silence did not weigh upon him too much.

"Not at all, this solitude suits me perfectly."

"Well," said the abbot, laughing, "you are one of the few laymen who have borne our rule so easily. Generally those who have tried to make a retreat here have been devoured by home sickness and spleen, and have had but one idea, to get away."

"Let us see," he said after a pause; "it is not possible, all the same, that such a sudden change of habits should not bring with it some painful privations; there must be at least one which you feel above all the others?"

"True, I feel the want of being able to light a cigarette whenever I like."

The abbot answered smiling, "But I suppose you have not been entirely without smoking, since you came here?"

"I should tell a lie if I said I had not smoked in secret."

"Why, bless me, tobacco was not foreseen by St. Benedict; there is no mention of it in his rule, and I am therefore free to allow its use; so smoke as many cigarettes as you like without being uneasy."

And Dom Anselm added:

"I hope shortly to have a little more time to myself, unless, indeed, I am obliged to keep my room, in that case I shall be happy to have a longer talk with you."

And the monk, who seemed exhausted, shook them by the hand.

Going down into the court with the oblate Durtal exclaimed,

"The Father Abbot is charming, and quite young."

"He is hardly forty."

"He appears to be really ill."

"Yes, he is not well, and he required no common energy to say his ma.s.s this morning; but let us see, we will first of all visit the grounds of La Trappe which you can hardly have been over completely, then we will leave the enclosure and push on to the farm."

They started, skirting the remains of the ancient abbey, and as they walked, turning by the piece of water near which Durtal had been seated in the morning, M. Bruno entered into explanations about the ruins.

"This monastery was founded in 1127 by St. Bernard, who installed the Blessed Humbert as abbot, an epileptic Cistercian, whom he had cured by a miracle. At that time there were apparitions in the convent; a legend relates that two angels came and cut one of the lilies planted in the cemetery every time one of the monks died.

"The second abbot was the Blessed Guerric, who was famous for his knowledge, his humility and his patience in enduring evils. We possess his relics and they are enclosed in the shrine under the high altar.

"But the most remarkable of the superiors, who succeeded each other here in the middle ages, was Peter Monoculus, whose story was written by his friend, the member of the synod, Thomas de Reuil.

"Pierre, called Monoculus, or the one-eyed, was a saint thirsting for austerities and sufferings. He was a.s.sailed by horrible temptations at which he laughed. Exasperated, the Devil attacked his body and, by fits of neuralgia, broke his skull, but Heaven came to his aid and cured it.

By shedding tears from a spirit of penitence, Peter lost an eye, and he thanked our Lord for this blessing, 'I had' he said, 'two enemies; I have escaped the first, but the one I retain troubles me more than the one I have lost.'

"He worked miracles of healing. The king of France, Louis VII., venerated him so much that, on seeing the empty eyelid, he wished to kiss it. Monoculus died in 1186; they soaked linen cloths in his blood, and washed his entrails in wine which was distributed, for the mixture was a powerful remedy.

"The property of the abbey was then immense; it comprised all the country which surrounds us, kept up several lazar houses in the neighbourhood, and was the home of more than three hundred monks.

Unfortunately what happened to others happened to Notre-Dame de l'Atre.

Under the rule of abbots in commendam it declined, and it was dying with only six religious to look after it when the Revolution suppressed it.

The church was then pulled down and afterwards replaced by the rotunda chapel.

"Only in 1875 the present house, which I think dates from 1733, was reconciled and became a monastery again. Trappists were brought here from Sainte Marie de la Mer, in the diocese of Toulouse, and this small colony has made Notre-Dame de l'Atre the Cistercian nursery you see.

"Such, in few words, is the history of the convent," said the oblate.

"As for the ruins they are buried underground, and no doubt precious fragments might be discovered, but for want of money and men no excavations have been made.

"In addition to the broken columns and the capitals we pa.s.sed, there remains from the old church a large statue of the Virgin which has been erected in one of the corridors of the abbey; besides this there are two angels fairly well preserved and which you may see down there at the end of the cloister in a small chapel, hidden behind a curtain of trees."

"A virgin, before which St. Bernard may possibly have knelt, ought surely to have been put in the church on the altar dedicated to Mary, for the coloured statue, which surmounts it, is of crying ugliness--like that one also," said Durtal, pointing out in the distance the cast-iron Madonna which towered above the pond.

The oblate bowed his head and did not reply.

"Do you know," exclaimed Durtal, who in the face of this silence did not persist and changed the conversation, "do you know that I envy you living here?"

"It is certain that I do not deserve this favour, for, on the whole, the cloister is less an expiation than a reward; it is the only place where, far from the world and near heaven, the only place where a man may give himself up to this mystic life which only develops in solitude and silence."

"Yes, and if possible, I envy you yet more that you should have had the courage to venture into regions which, I confess, frightened me. And I know so well that, in spite of the spring-board of prayers and fasts, in spite of the green house, or orchid house atmosphere, wherein mysticism is grown, I should wither away in these regions without ever expanding again."

The oblate smiled. "What do you know about it?" he replied, "the thing is not done in an hour; the orchid you speak of does not flower in a day; the advance is so slow, that mortifications s.p.a.ce themselves out, fatigues are distributed over years, and, on the whole, are easily borne.

"As a general rule it is necessary, to cross the distance which separates us from the Creator, to go through three grades to attain that science of Christian perfection which is called mysticism; we must live in turn the life of Purification, of Illumination and of Unity--to join the uncreated Good and be poured out in Him.

"It matters little that these three grand phases of ascetic existence subdivide themselves into an infinity of stages; which are degrees according to Saint Bonaventure, dwelling places according to Saint Teresa, steps according to Saint Angela; they may vary in length and number, according to the will of the Lord and the temperament of those who go through them. It is not disputed that the journey of the soul towards G.o.d includes, first, perpendicular and breakneck roads--these are the roads of the life of Purification--next, narrower paths still, but well marked out and accessible--these are the paths of the life of Illumination--at length, a wide road almost smooth, the road of the life of unity, at the end of which the soul throws itself into the furnace of Love, and falls into the abyss of the most adorable Infinity!

"On the whole, these three ways are successively reserved to those who start in Christian asceticism, to those who practise it, and finally to those who attain to the supreme end, the death of self and the life in G.o.d.

"Long," pursued the oblate, "I have placed my desires beyond the horizon, yet I progress little; I am scarcely disengaged from the life of Purification, scarcely...."

"And you do not fear--how shall I say--material infirmities, for if at last you succeed in attaining the limits of contemplation, you risk the ruin of your body for ever. Experience seems to show, in effect, that the deified soul acts on the const.i.tution and brings incurable troubles."

The oblate smiled. "In the first place I should, no doubt, fail to attain to the last degree of initiation, the extreme point of mysticism; then, supposing I attain it, what would corporal accidents be in the face of such results?

"Let me also a.s.sure you that these accidents are neither so frequent nor so certain as you seem to think.

"A man may be a great mystic, or an admirable saint, and not be the subject of visible phenomena for those who surround him. Would you not think, for example, that levitation, or the flight of bodies in the air, which seems to const.i.tute the highest state of rapture, is one of the rarest? Whom can you quote to me? Saint Teresa, Saint Christina the Admirable, Saint Peter of Alcantara, Dominic of Mary Jesus, Agnes of Bohemia, Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Gorardesca of Pisa, and above all Saint Joseph of Cupertino, who raised himself at will from the ground. But they are ten or twenty out of thousands of the elect!

"And note well that these gifts do not prove their superiority over other Saints. Saint Teresa declares expressly: it must not be imagined that anyone, blessed as he may be in this respect, is better than those who are not so blessed, for our Lord directs each one according to his particular need.

"And then the doctrine of the Church is seen in the untiring prudence shown in the canonization of the dead. Qualities and not extraordinary acts decide this; for the Church, miracles themselves are only secondary proofs, for she knows that the Spirit of Evil imitates them.

"In the lives of the Blessed you will find, too, the most unusual deeds, and more amazing phenomena than in the biographies of the Saints. These phenomena have rather hindered than helped them. After having beatified them for their virtues, the Church has put off--and no doubt for a long time--their promotion to the sovereign dignity of Saints.

"It is difficult, on the whole, to formulate an exact theory on this subject, for if the cause, if the mental action is the same in all mystics, it differs a little, as I have said, according to G.o.d's will and the character of the subjects; the difference of s.e.x often changes the form of the mystic flow, though in essence it never varies; the rush of the Spirit from on High may produce different effects, but is none the less identical.

"The only observation we dare make in these matters is that women, as a rule, are more pa.s.sive and less reserved, while men resist more violently the wishes of Heaven."

"That makes me think," said Durtal, "that even in religion there are souls which seem to have mistaken their s.e.x. Saint Francis of a.s.sisi, who was all love, had rather the feminine soul of a nun, and Saint Teresa, who was the most attentive of psychologists, had the virile soul of a monk. We might correctly speak of Saint Francis as a woman and Saint Teresa as a man."