He Had Lived Seven Years In Retreat At A Convent
Of Nuns In Belgium, And Now Five At Our Lady
Of the Snows; he never saw
an English newspaper; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he spoken it
like a
Native, there was not much chance of conversation where he dwelt.
With this, he was a man eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-
minded like a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the
monastery, he was no less delighted to see an English face and hear an
English tongue.
He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among breviaries,
Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels. Thence he led me to the
cloisters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry, where the
brothers' gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with his
religious name upon a board - names full of legendary suavity and
interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; into the
library, where were all the works of Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the
Odes et Ballades, if you please, and even Moliere, to say nothing of
innumerable fathers and a great variety of local and general historians.
Thence my good Irishman took me round the workshops, where brothers bake
bread, and make cartwheels, and take photographs; where one superintends
a collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a
Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his own choice, apart
from his religious duties and the general labours of the house. Each
must sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in the
haymaking if he has a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although he
must be occupied, he may be occupied on what he likes. Thus I was told
that one brother was engaged with literature; while Father Apollinaris
busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot employs himself in binding
books. It is not so long since this Abbot was consecrated, by the way;
and on that occasion, by a special grace, his mother was permitted to
enter the chapel and witness the ceremony of consecration. A proud day
for her to have a son a mitred abbot; it makes you glad to think they let
her in.
In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers and brethren
fell in our way. Usually they paid no more regard to our passage than if
we had been a cloud; but sometimes the good deacon had a permission to
ask of them, and it was granted by a peculiar movement of the hands,
almost like that of a dog's paws in swimming, or refused by the usual
negative signs, and in either case with lowered eyelids and a certain air
of contrition, as of a man who was steering very close to evil.
The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still taking two meals a
day; but it was already time for their grand fast, which begins somewhere
in September and lasts till Easter, and during which they eat but once in
the twenty-four hours, and that at two in the afternoon, twelve hours
after they have begun the toil and vigil of the day. Their meals are
scanty, but even of these they eat sparingly; and though each is allowed
a small carafe of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without
doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves; our meals serve
not only for support, but as a hearty and natural diversion from the
labour of life. Yet, though excess may be hurtful, I should have thought
this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, at
the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all whom I beheld. A
happier nor a healthier company I should scarce suppose that I have ever
seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant
occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and death no
infrequent visitor, at Our Lady of the Snows. This, at least, was what
was told me. But if they die easily, they must live healthily in the
meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour; and the
only morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual brilliancy of eye, was
one that served rather to increase the general impression of vivacity and
strength.
Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet-tempered, with what I can
only call a holy cheerfulness in air and conversation. There is a note,
in the direction to visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt
speech of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks to speak
little. The note might have been spared; to a man the hospitallers were
all brimming with innocent talk, and, in my experience of the monastery,
it was easier to begin than to break off a conversation. With the
exception of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed
themselves full of kind and healthy interest in all sorts of subjects - in
politics, in voyages, in my sleeping-sack - and not without a certain
pleasure in the sound of their own voices.
As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only wonder how they
bear their solemn and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart from any view
of mortification, I can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion
of women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some experience of lay
phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a bacchanalian character; and
seen more than one association easily formed and yet more easily
dispersed. With a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted
longer. In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go
association that can be formed among defenceless men; the stronger
electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of boyhood, the schemes of
youth, are abandoned after an interview of ten minutes, and the arts and
sciences, and professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet
eyes and a caressing accent.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 15 of 35
Words from 14328 to 15357
of 34922
