They never sought to convince me in argument,
where I might have attempted some defence; but took it for granted that I
was both ashamed and terrified at my position, and urged me solely on the
point of time. Now, they said, when God had led me to Our Lady of the
Snows, now was the appointed hour.
'Do not be withheld by false shame,' observed the priest, for my
encouragement.
For one who feels very similarly to all sects of religion, and who has
never been able, even for a moment, to weigh seriously the merit of this
or that creed on the eternal side of things, however much he may see to
praise or blame upon the secular and temporal side, the situation thus
created was both unfair and painful. I committed my second fault in
tact, and tried to plead that it was all the same thing in the end, and
we were all drawing near by different sides to the same kind and
undiscriminating Friend and Father. That, as it seems to lay spirits,
would be the only gospel worthy of the name. But different men think
differently; and this revolutionary aspiration brought down the priest
with all the terrors of the law. He launched into harrowing details of
hell. The damned, he said - on the authority of a little book which he
had read not a week before, and which, to add conviction to conviction,
he had fully intended to bring along with him in his pocket - were to
occupy the same attitude through all eternity in the midst of dismal
tortures. And as he thus expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect with
his enthusiasm.
As a result the pair concluded that I should seek out the Prior, since
the Abbot was from home, and lay my case immediately before him.
'C'est mon conseil comme ancien militaire,' observed the commandant; 'et
celui de monsieur comme pretre.'
'Oui,' added the cure, sententiously nodding; 'comme ancien militaire - et
comme pretre.'
At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarrassed how to answer, in came
one of the monks, a little brown fellow, as lively as a grig, and with an
Italian accent, who threw himself at once into the contention, but in a
milder and more persuasive vein, as befitted one of these pleasant
brethren. Look at him, he said. The rule was very hard; he would have
dearly liked to stay in his own country, Italy - it was well known how
beautiful it was, the beautiful Italy; but then there were no Trappists
in Italy; and he had a soul to save; and here he was.
I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful Indian critic has dubbed
me, 'a faddling hedonist,' for this description of the brother's motives
gave me somewhat of a shock.
