But I Was Weary; And When I Had Quieted My Spirits With Elizabeth Seton's
Memoirs - A Dull Work - The Cold And The Raving Of The Wind Among The Pines
(For My Room Was On That Side Of The Monastery Which Adjoins The Woods)
Disposed Me Readily To Slumber.
I was wakened at black midnight, as it
seemed, though it was really two in the morning, by the first stroke upon
the bell.
All the brothers were then hurrying to the chapel; the dead in
life, at this untimely hour, were already beginning the uncomforted
labours of their day. The dead in life - there was a chill reflection.
And the words of a French song came back into my memory, telling of the
best of our mixed existence:
'Que t'as de belles filles,
Girofle!
Girofla!
Que t'as de belles filles,
L'Amour let comptera!'
And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to hope, and free to
love.
THE BOARDERS
But there was another side to my residence at Our Lady of the Snows. At
this late season there were not many boarders; and yet I was not alone in
the public part of the monastery. This itself is hard by the gate, with
a small dining-room on the ground-floor and a whole corridor of cells
similar to mine upstairs. I have stupidly forgotten the board for a
regular retraitant; but it was somewhere between three and five francs a
day, and I think most probably the first.
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