CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Prom the Library of V. F. CALVERTON DATE DUE flPft li mm k^Z^lMZ T^^ V-r: 3 9 196S K U 4il4#== CAYLORD PRINT EDIN U.S.A. Cornell University Library PQ 2309.H4E5 1920 En route. 4 027 310 543 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027310543 EN ROUTE BY JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS LA-Bas En Route La Cathedral E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY EN ROUTE BY J.-K. HUYSMANS TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY C. KEGAN PAUL NEW YORK P. BUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE PtJBUSHED. 1920, BT E. p. button & COMPANY All Rights Reserved (■ V "^ Fdnted In the United States of America TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. It is seldom fair to an author, nor does it raise the value of literature to imagine too readily that a writer is himself depicted in his works. We rob Sir Walter Scott of much of his creative power if we assert that in Redgauntlet are exact portraits of himself and his father, nor is it just criticism to de- clare that Shakespeare left a likeness of himself in Hamlet. No one can of course create any fictitious character unless he have in himself undeveloped possibilities, some of which he sketches in his books, and, at times, he may have prophesied his own fu- ture course in the events under which he has brought the characters in his narrative. It would be intrusive and impertinent to declare that M. Huysmahs has written an analysis of him- self or a full description of his own conversion under the name of Durtal, because — though it is quite needless for the understanding of "En Route" — Durtal is also the hero of a former book, "La- Bas," wherein experience is made of Satanism, "Black Masses" and other forms of detestable im- piety, known in France, and at this moment under investigation in the law courts, but, so far as we are aware, unknown in England. In France, as a rule, the population is Catholic; French Protestants, who answer very much to our Unitarians, are confined for the most part to cer- vi TRANSLATOR'S NOTE tain centres, form isolated knots in other places; they do not in any sense leaven the people. Hence when a Frenchman loses Faith he has not as in Eng- land a Protestant sect handy, in joining which he may believe as much or as little as he please, but in which morals at least are upheld; he plunges only too often into sinful excesses, now and then into some complicated and enormous crime, becoming actively hostile td the dominant religion of his country; since it meets him at every turn, he cannot be indifferent to, nor ignore it. He is aided in his revolt, not by religious sects, bulwarks at least against the denial of God, but by societies of Freethinkers, "Solidaires," Freemasons, etc., bound to an active warfare with the Church, and sworn to keep the priest away from their fami- lies, so far as in them lies ; especially at the hour of birth, by refusing baptism ; in the hour of death, by withholding the last sacraments; and after death, by insisting on civil funerals. In the many episcopal approvals bestowed on an admirable little French book setting forth devotions, a guild, and a cloistered community, in aid of the dying, much is said of the work of Freemasons. We are probably safe in saying that English Free- masons are only members of a convivial society, who, knowing nothing of the splendour of Church vestments, banners and furniture, or of confraterni- ties in which even the laity may share, have adopted their own ornate badges and ritual. Freemasons in England might well be let alone by the Church, and would do no harm, were it not that it is the TRANSLATOR'S NOTE vii boast of every Mason that his society is one all the world over; and in France, in Italy, and else- where, it has allied itself with mueh that is detesta- ble and irreligious. We may take it, then, that when in France a man of position puts himself in distinct antagonism to the Church, and this is of course very different to ignoring it, or taking it for granted without writing about it, he is appealed to, not as in England by Protestants, but by Freemasons, "Solidaires," even by Satanism, and the more he thinks of religion, the viler and more terrible is the temptation that assails him, is the home which offers itself to his spirit. This M. Huysmans has realized : he is a French- man who knows his people, and in the book now presented to the reader he shows us a man, who having passed through the most terrible ordeals of unbelief, has been suddenly converted to faith, but has not reformed his life. "En Route" is a story of the struggles of such an one, while incidentally it contains also essays on Church music, Architec- ture, and other Arts, on Monasticism, on the Lives of the Saints, and on Mysticism. Faith is assumed, after a course of unbelief, and no explanation of the return to it is afforded. Many have taken in hand, particularly of late years, to give, each an Apologia pro Vita Sua, but it will be noticed that the exact process is as little explicable as the quickening of life in the womb. The soul awakes and says, "I believe," it has come about by the sudden irruption of Grace, and not by any state- viii TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ment of syllogisms, any admission of premises, any conscious drawing of conclusions. Remember- ing this, the Catholic has no right to be disappointed if he feels tongue-tied in the presence of those who do not see as he sees; he cannot argue, he cannot hope to do outwardly, what God did in his own case secretly, he recognizes that in spiritual matters men are not swayed by argument, which may well de- fend, but not carry, a position; in religion debate seldom bears sway; the daughter of debate is not concord, but discord. The Church collectively has learnt what each man individually learns, and to which he must perforce reconcile himself, that there is little active zeal for conversions among Catholic priests. Christ must be preached, the message has to be delivered, but in a nation where He is already known, all that the priest can do is to wait till the soul obeys divine grace, and then be ready with all necessary help; it is not the Church's business to go forth and argue with the intellects of those to whose hearts God Himself appeals, whom discussion would only harden. Preaching does not necessarily carry the gift of Faith to the listener, however true it may be that God often uses it as a vehicle for conferring the gift. The gift of Faith is His greatest gift, and no Frenchman, no Italian, no Spaniard, no German — of that part of the great Teutonic nation which has remained Catholic — ^would hesitate for a moment to accept certain words of Cardinal Newman at which many of our own countrymen have cavilled. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ix The Cardinal speaks of a beggar-woman who has the gift of Faith, but who may still have many vices, as nearer to the heart of God than many far more respectable than she. In M. Huysmans' book Faith is taken as axiomatic, and there is little attempt to explain it, though love for Art and hereditary ten- dencies had some part to play in the ready accept- ance of the gift; the book is the account of the Route taken by such an one towards a holy life. TJiere is another reason why we have no right to assume that this is an autobiography. The inviola- bility of the Confessional has two sides; the peni- tent has, as a rule, no right to make his verbal con- fession to the world as the hero is here presented as doing, though a writer may naturally give an imaginary confession, just as, to teach a penitent how to confess, an imaginary form might be sug- gested in a manual of moral theology; and of course in rare cases, as that of Saint Augustine, there may be occasional reasons for breaking through the rule of expedient reticence. The special trials in Durtal's way are those of the Flesh, and here again we recognize a vast dif- ference between the temper and tone of the English and French nations. It is true that when the au- thor brings his hero to actual statements and he asks "Is it necessary that I go into details?" the monk who is exercising his office says, "No ; it is not nec- essary," thereby agreeing with an experienced Jesuit Father who, a year or two since, told his Retreatants that when they unburthened their sins and sorrows they must "always be careful to re- X TRANSLATOR'S NOTE spect the modesty of the Confessional," and that the Priest would understand a veiled language; yet Durtal writes in narrative certain matters which a translation must hide, and merely hint ; that can be said in French, openly, which English men would not say to each other in private. This arises from a fundamental difference in the manner in which the two nations view certain facts of human nature. A young Englishman, who goes wrong, throws as a rule some glow or glamour of imagination over his coarsest excesses, justifying his deeds, if he think of them, by his imagination, or by some over-mastering need; a young Frenchman takes the same acts as matters of course, needing no veil, and no excuse. The present book is essential- ly intact, some half-dozen passages are softened in phrase ; it has not been considered necessary to the truth of rendering to give each word its exact equivalent, if, indeed, there be always such an equivalent. We have acted on the advice of the Trappist in the book, and the Jesuit in actual Eng- lish life, to respect the modesty of the Confessional. But however outspoken a Frenchman may be about his sins, he admits that they are sins, and that if he have Faith it behoves him to lead a decent life. Hence M. Huysmans is bound by the exigen- cies of his story to make Durtal endeavour to re- form. Led by his love of Art, Church Architec- ture and Church Services appeal to him; and as in his former life he was attracted by the abnormal and the monstrous, so now the strange lives and experiences of the mystic saints help him on the TRANSLATOR'S NOTE xi road. The commonplace repels him. Hence he cannot away with the music in, and the architecture of the churches of Paris, he is not attracted by the secular clergy; his retreat, his first confession, his first Communion since his childhood are made in a Trappist monastery, and the true interest in the book is its defence of the Monastic Orders, and the description of such a life as seen from very near. Here is, as it appears to us, the extraordinary value of the book for English readers. No one in England is likely to undervalue the secular clergy. It is they whom we know. Saint Thomas of Canterbury, one of the most familiar among our English heroes, is their patron; from them, with one exception, are drawn the whole of our English Hierarchy, they have charge of the enormous majority of our parishes, and by conse- quence they, with the exceptions of the Oratorians, a Congregation, and the Jesuits, are the guides of our laity. The Friars — Dominicans, Franciscans and Servites — hold outposts of our London life, but Monks — Benedictines, Trappists, Cistercians, Car- thusians — are known but to few. These are they whom this book upholds as the true masters of the spiritual life. Go to a monastery to make a Re- treat, is in fact the teaching of this book, take a monk as your director, but if a director be needed in Paris, go to a Jesuit or a Sulpician. "You can never astonish a monk," says one of them to Dur- tal, and indeed this may well be believed after read- ing the record of the trials to which those are sub- ject who give themselves to the cloistered life. xii TRANSLATOR'S NOTE Some years ago a Nonconformist minister in England wrote a book on "How to make the best of both Worlds," and though few would put his thesis in so bold a form, this is really what most persons are endeavouring to do, both within and without the Church. They ignore the tremendous conflict now going on between the powers of Light and Darkness; Satan and Hell are scarcely to be mentioned to ears polite. The late Canon Kingsley once began a sermon in Eversley Church much as follows : "My friends, you believe in God, but there are few indeed here who beUeve in the Devil," and the same might be said with absolute truth to almost all Christian con- gregations. It is not possible to ignore Satan in the Cloister. The hidden life is that which he most assails, the shades are deepest when the sun of righteousness is brightest. The cloister is the di- vinely appointed expiation for the sins of the world. Those who cannot understand the devotion of a Carmelite or a Trappist, and assert that an active life, whereof results may at once be seen, is the only one which ought to be consecrated to God, will do well to remember that in the expiatory life of Jesus Himself the years of His active ministry were in the exact proportion of one to ten of the years of His whole life. Those who have come nearest to Him in His sufferings have had the most acute consciousness that they were also taking on them a share of His expiatory life. The translation here presented to the reader is as full and as faithful as the genius of another TRANSLATOR'S NOTE xiil' language and another nation will allow. It has not seemed to the translator that it could be treated as a mere romance written for amusement only. It is indeed attractive, as is all written from the heart. May it speak to the heart of many men in England as it seems to have already done in France, and may it be acceptable to His Sacred Heart to whose com- passionate, redeeming, and expiatory love it is of- fered. EN ROUTE "Convolate ad urbes refugii, ad loca videlicet religiosa, ubi possitis de prseteritis agere pcEnitentiam, in praesenti obtinere gratiam at fiducialiter futuram gloriam praesto- lari." Saint Bonaventuke. EN ROUTE FIRST PART CHAPTER I. During the first week in November, the week within the Octave of All Souls, Durtal entered St. Sulpice, at eight o'clock in the evening. He often chose to turn into that church, because there was a trained choir, and because he could there examine himself at peace, apart from the crowd. The ugli- 1 ness of the nave, with its heavy vaulting, vanished at night, the aisles were often empty, it was ill- lighted by a few lamps — it was possible for a man to chide his soul in secret, as if at home. Durtal sat down behind the high altar, on the left, in the aisle along the Rue de St. Sulpice; the lamps of the choir organ were lighted. Far off, in the almost empty nave, an ecclesiastic was preach- ing. He recognized, by the unctuousness of his delivery, and his oily accent, a well-fed priest who poured on his audience, according to his wont, his best known commonplaces. "Why are they so devoid of eloquence?" thought Durtal. "I have had the curiosity to listen to many , of them, and they are much the same. They only vary in the tones of their voice. According to their 2 EN ROUTE temperament, some are bruised down in vinegar, others steeped in oil. There is no such thing as a clever combination." And he called to mind ora- tors petted like tenors, Monsabre, Didon, those Coquelins of the Church, and lower yet than those products of the Catholic training school, that belli- cose booby, the Abbe d'Hulst. "Afterwards," he continued, "come the mediocri- ties, each puffed by the handful of devotees who listen to them. If those cooks of the soul had any skill, if they served their clients with delicate meats, theological essences, gravies of prayer, concentrated sauces of ideas, they would vegetate misunderstood by their flocks. So, on the whole, it is all for the best. The low-water mark of the clergy must con- form to the level of the faithful, and indeed Provi- dence has provided carefully for this." A stamping of shoes, then the movement of chairs grinding on the flags interrupted him. The sermon was over. Then a great stillness was broken by a prelude from the organ, which dropped to a low tone, a mere accompaniment to the voices. A slow and mournful chant arose, the "De Pro- fundis." The blended voices sounded under the arches, intermingling with the somewhat raw sounds of the harmonicas, like the sharp tones of breaking glass. Resting on the low accompaniment of the organ, aided by basses so hollow that they seemed to have descended into themselves, as it were underground, they sprang ouf.'chahtirig the verse "De profundis EN ROUTE 3 ad te clamavi. Do — " and then stopped in fatigue, ^ letting the last syllables "mine" fall like a heavy tear; then these voices of children, near breaking, took up the second verse of the psalm, "Domine exaudi vocem meam," and the second half of the last word again remained in suspense, but instead of separating, and falling to the ground, there to be crushed out like a drop, it seemed to gather itself together with a supreme effort, and fling to heaven the anguished cry of the disincarnate soul, cast naked, and in tears before God. And after a pause, the organ, aided by two double- basses, bellowed out, carrying all the voices in its torrent — ^baritones, tenors, basses, not now serving only as sheaths to the sharp blades of the urchin voices, but openly with full throated sound — yet the dash of the little soprani pierced them through all at once like a crystal arrow. Then a fresh pause, and in the silence of the church the verses mourned out anew, thrown up by the orgian, as by a springboard. As he listened with attention endeavouring to resolve the sounds, closing his eyes, Durtal saw them at first almost horizontal, then rising little by little, then raising themselves upright, then quivering in tears, before their final breaking. Suddenly at the end of the psalm, when the re- sponse of the antiphon came — "Et lux perpetua luceat eis" — the children's voices broke into a sad, silken cry, a sharp sob, trembling on the word "eis," which remained suspended in the void. These children's voices stretched to breaking. 4 EN ROUTE these dear sharp voices threw into the darkness of the chant some whiteness of the dawn, joining their pure, soft sounds to the resonant tones of the basses, piercing as with a jet oi living silver the sombre cataract of the deeper singers; they sharpened the wailing, strengthened and embittered the burning salt of tears, but they insinuated also a sort of pro- tecting caress, balsamic freshness, lustral help ; they lighted in the darkness those brief gleams which tinkle in the Angelus at dawn of day; they called up, anticipating the prophecies of the text, the com- passionate image of the Virgin, passing, in the pale light of their tones, into the darkness of that se- quence. • ,(iThe "De Profundis" so chanted was incompara- bly beautiful. That sublime prayer ending in sobs, at the moment when the soul of the voices was about to overpass human limits, gave a wrench to Durtal's nerves, and made his heart beat. Then he wished to abstract himself, and cling especially to the meaning of that sorrowful plaint, in which the fallen being calls upon its God with groans and lamentations. Those cries of the third verse came back to him, wherein calling on his Saviour in despair from the bottom of the abyss, man, now that he knows he is heard, hesitates ashamed, know- ing not what to say. The excuses he has prepared appear to him vain, the arguments he has arranged seem to him of no effect, and he stammers forth, "If Th ou, O Lord, shalt obg erYeJnic^u ities, T^nrd,^ wholHail endure it?"_ ■^"It is a pity," said Durtal to himself, "that this EN ROUTE 5 psalm, which in its first verses chants so magnifi- cently the despair of humanity, becomes in those which follow more personal to King David. I know well," he went on, "that we must accept the symbolic sense of this pleading, admit that the despot confounds his own cause with that of God, that his adversaries are the unbelievers and the wicked, that he himself, according to the doctors of the Church, prefigures the person of Christ ; but yet the memory of his fleshly desires, and the pre- sumptuous praise he gives to his incorrigible people, contracts the scope of the poem. Happily the mel- ody has a life apart from the text, a life of its own, not arising out of mere tribal dissensions, but ex- tending to all the earth, chanting the anguish of the time to be born, as well as of the present day, and of the ages which are no more." The "De Profundis" had ceased; after a silence, the choir intoned a motet of the eighteenth century, but Durtal was only moderately interested in hu- man music in churches. What seemed to him su- perior to the most vaunted works of theatrical or worldly music was the old plain chant, that even and naked melody, at once ethereal and of the tomb, the solemn cry of sadness and lofty shout of joy, those grandiose hymns of human faith, which seem to well up in the cathedrals, like irresistible geysers, at the very foot of the Romanesque columns. What music, however ample, sorrowful or tender, is worth the "De Profundis" chanted in unison, the solemnity of the "Magnificat," the splendid warmth of the "Lauda Sion," the enthusiasm of the "Salve Re- 6 EN ROUTE I gina, the sorrow of the "Miserere," and the "Stabat 1 Mater," the majestic omnipotence of the "Te \ Deum" ? Artists of genius have set themselves to ^.translate the sacred texts: Vittoria, Josquin de Pres, Palestrina, Orlando Lasso, Handel, Bach, Haydn, have written wonderful pages; often in- deed they have been uplifted by the mystic effluence, the very emanation of the Middle Ages, for ever lost; and yet their works have retained a certain pomp, and in spite of all are pretentious, as opposed to the humble magnificence, the sober splendour of he Gregorian chant — w ith them the whole thing ame to an end, for corn pppfrg tm Inn^e r believed. Yet in modern times some religious pieces may be cited of Lesueur, Wagner, Berlioz, and Cesar Franck, and in these again we are conscious of the artist underlying his work, the artist determined to show his skill, thinking to exalt his own glory, and therefore leaving God out. We feel ourselves in the presence of superior men, but men with their weaknesses, their inseparable vanity, and even the vice of their senses. In the liturgical chant, created almost always anonymously in the depth of the •cloisters, was an extra-terrestrial well, without taint of sin or trace of art. It was an uprising of souls already freed from the slavery of the flesh, an ex- plosion of elevated tenderness and pure joy; it was also the idiom of the Church, a musical gospel ap- pealing like the Gospel itself at once to the most refined and the most humble. Ah! the true proof of Catholicism was that art wrhich it had founded, an art which has never been EN ROUTE 7 surpassed ; in painting and sculpture the Early Mas- ters, mystics in poetry and in prose, in music plain chant, in architecture the Romanesque and Gothic styles. And all this held together and blazed in one sheaf, on one and the same altar; all was reconciled in one unique cluster of thoughts : to revere, adore and serve the Dispenser, showing to Him reflected in the soul of His creature, as in a faithful mirror,, the still immaculate treasure of His gifts. Then in those marvellous Middle Ages, wherein Art, foster-child of the Church, encroached on death and advanced to the threshold of Eternity, and to God, the divine concept and the heavenly form were guessed and half-perceived, for the first and perhaps for the last time by man. They an- swered and echoed each other — art calling to art. The Virgins had faces almond-shaped, elongated like those ogives which the Gothic style contrived in order to distribute an ascetic light, a virginal dawn in the mysterious shrine of its naves. In the pictures of the Early Masters the complexion of holy women becomes transparent as Paschal wax, and their hair is pale as golden grains of frankin- cense, their childlike bosoms scarcely swell, their brows are rounded like the glass of the pyx, their fingers taper, their bodies shoot upwards like deli- cate columns. Their beauty becomes, as it were, liturgical. They seem to live in the fire of stained glass, borrowing from the flaming whirlwind of the rose-windows the circles of their aureoles. The ar- dent blue of their eyes, the dying embers of their lips, keeping for their garments the colours they 8 EN ROUTE disdain for their flesh, stripping them of their light, changing them, when they transfer them to stuffs, into opaque tones which aid still more by their con- trast to declare the seraphic clearness of their look, the grievous paleness of the mouth, to which, ac- cording to the Proper of the season, the scent of the lily of the Canticles or the penitential fragrance of myrrh in the Psalms lend their perfume. Then among artists was a coalition of brains, a welding together of souls. Painters associated themselves in the same ideal of beauty with archi- tects, they united in an indestructible relation cathe- drals and saints, only reversing the usual process — they framed the jewel according to the shrine, and modelled the relics for the reliquary. On their side the sequences chanted by the Church had subtle affinities with the canvases of the Early Painters. Vittoria's responses for Tenebrse are of a like inspiration and an equal loftiness with those of Quentin Matsys' great work, the Entombment of Christ. The "Regina Coeli" of the Flemish musi- cian Lasso has the same good faith, the same sim- ple and strange attraction, as certain statues of a reredos, or religious pictures of the elder Breughel. Lastly, the Miserere of Josquin de Pres, choir- master of Louis XIL, has, like the panels of the Early Masters of Burgundy and Flanders, a patient intention, a stiff, threadlike simplicity, but also it exhales like them a truly mystical savour, and its awkwardness of outline is very touching. EN ROUTE 9 The ideal of all these works is the same and at- tained by different means. As for plain chant, the agreement of its melody ' with architecture is also certain ; it also bends from time to time like the sombre Romanesque arcades, and rises, shadowy and pensive, like complete vault- ing. The "De Profundis," for instance, curves in on itself like those great groins which form the smoky skeleton of the bays ; it is like them slow and dark, extends itself only in obscurity and moves only in the shadow of the crypts. Sometimes, on the other hand, the Gregorian chant seems to borrow from Gothic its flowery ten- drils, its scattered pinnacles, its gauzy rolls, its tremulous lace, its trimmings light and thin as the voices of children. Then it passes from one ex- treme to another, from the amplitude of sorrow to an infinite joy ; at other times again, the plain music, and the Christian music to which it gave birth, lend themselves, like sculpture, to the gaiety of the peo- ple, associate themselves with simple gladness, and the sculptured merriment of the ancient porches; they take the popular rhythm of the crowd, as in the Christmas carol "Adeste Fideles" and in the Paschal hymn "O Filii et Filise" ; they become trivial and familiar like the Gospels, submitting themselves to the humble wishes of the poor, lending them a holiday tune easy to catch, a running melody which carries them into pure regions where these simple ■ souls can cast themselves at the indulgent feet of Christ. Bom of the Church, and bred up by her in the lo EN ROUTE choir-schools of the Middle Ages, plain chant is the aerial and mobile paraphrase of the immovable structure of the cathedrals; it is the immaterial and fluid interpretation of the canvases of the Early- Painters; it is a winged translation, but also the strict and unbending stole of those Latin sequences which the monks built up or hewed out in the clois- ters in the far-off olden time. Now it is changed and disconnected, foolishly overwhelmed by the crash of organs, and is chanted, God knows how! Most choirs, when they intone it, like to imitate the rumbling and gurgling of water-pipes, others the grating of rattles, the creaking of pulleys, the grinding of a crane, but, in spite of all, its beauty- remains unextinguished, dulled though it be by the wild bellowing of the singers. The sudden silence in the church roused Durtal. He rose and looked about him; in his corner was no one save two poor women asleep, their feet on the bars of chairs, their heads on their knees. Lean- ing forward a little, he saw, hanging above him in a dark chapel, the light of a lamp, like a ruby in its red glass; no sound save the military tread of the Suisse, making his round in the distance. Durtal sat down again; the sweetness of his soli- tude was enhanced by the aromatic perfume of wax, and the memories, now faint, of incense, but it was suddenly broken. As the first chords crashed on the organ Durtal recognized the "Dies irae," that despairing hymn of the Middle Ages; instinctively he bowed his head and listened. EN ROUTE II This was no more as in the "De Profundis" an humble supplication, a suffering which believes it has been heard, and discerns a path of light to guide it in the darkness, no longer the prayer which has hope enough not to tremble; it was the cry of abso- lute desolation and of terror. And, indeed, the wrath divine breathed tempestu- ously through these stanzas. They seemed ad- dressed less to the God of mercy, to the Son who listens to prayer, than to the inflexible Father, to Him whom the Old Testament shows us, overcome with anger, scarcely appeased by the smoke of the pyres, the inconceivable attractions of burnt-offer- ings. In this chant it asserted itself still more sav- agely, for it threatened to strike the waters, and break in pieces the mountains, and to rend asunder the depths of heaven by thunder-bolts. And the earth, alarmed, cried out in fear. A crystalline voice, a clear child's voice, pro- claimed in the nave the tidings of these cataclysms, and after this the choir chanted new strophes where- in the implacable judge came with shattering blare of trumpet, to purify by fire the rottenness of the world. Then, in its turn, a bass, deep as a vault, as though issuing from the crypt, accentuated the horror of these prophecies, made these threats more over- whelming, and after a short strain by the choir, an alto repeated them in yet more detail. Then, so soon as the awful poem had exhausted the enumera- tion of chastisement and suffering, in shrill tones — the falsetto of a little boy — the name of Jesus went 12 EN ROUTE by, and a light broke in on the thunder-cloud, the panting universe cried for pardon, recalling, by all the voices of the choir, the infinite mercies of the Saviour, and His pardon, pleading with Him for absolution, as formerly He had spared the penitent thief and the Magdalen. But in the same despairing and headstrong mel- ody the tempest raged again, drowned with its waves the half-seen shores of heaven, and the solos continued, discouraged, interrupted by the recurrent weeping of the choir, giving, with the diversity of voices, a body to the special conditions of shame, the particular states of fear, the different ages of tears. At last, when still mixed and blended, these voices had borne away on the great waters of the organ all the wreckage of human sorrows, all the buoys of prayers and tears, they fell exhausted, paralyzed by terror, wailing and sighing like a child who hides its face, stammering "Dona eis requiem"; they ended, worn out, in an Amen so plaintive that it died away in a breath above the sobbing of the organ. What man could have imagined such despair, dreamed of such disasters? And Durtal made an- swer to himself : "No man." In fact the attempt has been vain to discover the author both of the music and of the sequence. They have been attributed to Frangipani, Thomas of Celano, St. Bernard and a crowd of others, and they have remained anonymous, simply formed by the sad alluvial deposits of the age. The "Dies iras" seemed to have fallen, at first, like a seed of deso- EN ROUTE 13 lation, among the distracted souls o£ the eleventh century; it germinated there and grew slowly, nur- tured by the sap of anguish, watered by the rain of tear^. It was at last pruned when it seemed ripe, and had, perhaps, thrown out too many branches, for in one of the earliest known texts, a stanza, which has since disappeared, called up the magnifi- cent and barbarous image of an earth revolving as it belched forth flames, while the constellations burst into shards, and heaven shrivelled like a parched scroll. "All this," concluded Durtal, "does not prevent these triple stanzas woven of shadow and cold, full of reverberating rhymes, and hard echoes, this music of rude stuff which wraps the phrases like a shroud, and masks the rigid outlines of the work, from being admirable! Yet that chant which con- strains, and renders with such energy the breadth of the sequence, that melodic period, which without variation, remaining always the same, succeeds in expressing by turns prayer and terror, moves me less than the 'De Profundis,' which yet has not its grandiose spaciousness nor that artistic cry of despair. "But chanted to the organ the psalm is earthly and suffocating. It comes from out the very depths of the sepulchre, while the 'Dies irae' has its source only on the sill of the tomb. The first is the very voice of the dead, the second that of the living who inter him, and the dead man weeps, but takes cour- age a little, when those that bury him despair. "To sum up," Durtal concluded, "I prefer the 14 EN ROUTE text of the 'Dies irae' to that of the 'De Profundis,' and the melody of the 'De Profundis' to that of the 'Dies irae.' It is true also that this last sequence is modernized, and chanted theatrically here, without the imposing and needful march of unison. "This time, for instance, it is devoid of interest," he continued, ceasing his thoughts for a moment, to listen to the piece of modern music which the choir was just then rendering. "Ah, who will take on himself to proscribe that pert mysticism, those fonts of toilet-water which Gounod invented ! . . . There ought indeed to be astonishing penalties for choir masters who allow such musical effeminacy in church. This is, as it was this morning at the Made- leine, when I happened to be present at the inter- minable funeral of an old banker; they played a military march with violin and violoncello accom- paniments, with trumpets and timbrels, a heroic and worldly march to celebrate the departure and the decomposition of a financier! ... It is too ab- surd." And listening no more to the music in St Sulpice, Durtal transferred himself in thought to the Madeleine, and went off at full speed in his dreams. "Indeed," he said to himself, "the clergy make Jesus like a tourist, when they invite Him daily to came down into that church whose exterior is sur- mounted by no cross, and whose interior is like the grand reception-room at an hotel. But how can you make those priests understand that ugliness is sacri- lege, and that nothing is equal to the frightful sin of this confusion of Romanesque and Greek, these pictures of aged men, that flat ceiling studded with EN ROUTE 15 skylights, from which filter in all weathers the spoiled gleams of a rainy day, to that futile altar surmounted by a circle of angels who, in discreet abandonment, dance in honour of our Lady a mo- tionless marble rigadoon ? "Yet in the Madeleine, at a funeral, when the door opens, and the corpse advances in a gap of daylight, all is changed. Like a superterrestrial antiseptic, an extrahuman disinfectant, the liturgy purifies and cleanses the impious ugliness of the place." And thinking over his memories of the morning, Durtal saw again, as he closed his eyes, at the end of the semi-circular apse, the procession of red and black robes, white surplices, joining in front of the altar, descending the steps together, making their way together to the catafalque, dividing again on each side, joining to mix afresh in the great gang- way between the chairs. This slow and silent procession, led by incom- parable Suisses, in mourning, their swords hori- zontal, and a general's epaulets in jet, advanced, preceded by a cross, in front of the corpse laid on tressels, and far-off in all that confusion of lights falling from the roof, and lighted flambeaux round the catafalque and on the altar, the white of the tapers disappeared, and the priests who bore them seemed to march with empty hands uplifted as though to point out the stars which accompanied them, twinkling above their heads. Then when the bier was surrounded by the clergy, the "De Profundis" burst forth from the depths of the sanctuary, intoned by invisible singers. i6 EN ROUTE "That was good," said Durtal to himself. At the Madeleine the voices of the children are sharp and feeble, and the basses are badly trained and fail- ing; we are evidently far from the choir of St. Sul- pice, but all the same it was superb; then what a moment was that of the priests' communion, when suddenly arising from the murmuring of the choir, the voice of the tenor threw above the corpse the magnificent plain chant antiphon — "Requiem seternam dona eis Dotnine Et lux perpetua luceat eis." It seems that after all the lamentations of the "De Profundis" and the "Dies Irae," the presence of God, who comes then upon the altar, brings con- solation, and sanctions the confident and solemn pride of that melodious phrase, which then invokes Christ, without dread and without tears. The mass ended, the celebrant disappeared, and, as at the moment when the corpse entered, the clergy, preceded by the Suisses, advanced towards the body, and in the blazing circle of the tapers a priest, in his cope, said the mighty prayers of the general absolution. Then the liturgy took a higher tone, and became still more admirable. Mediative between the sinner and the judge, the Church, by the mouth of her priest, implores the Lord to pardon the poor soul : "Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo Domine" — then after the amen given by the organ and all the choir, a voice arose in the silence, and spoke in the name of the dead: — EN ROUTE 17 "Libera me!" and the choir continued the old chant of the tenth century. Just as in the "Dies irae," which appro- priates to itself fragments of these plaints, the Last Judgment flamed out, and pitiless responses declare to the dead the reality of his alarms, declare to him that at the end of Time the Judge will come with the crash of thunder to chastise the world. The priest marched round the catafalque, sprink- ling it with beads of holy water, incensed it, gave shelter to the poor weeping soul, consoled it, took it to himself, covered it, as it were, with his cope, and again, intervened to pray that, after so much weariness and sorrow, the Lord will permit the un- happy one to sleep the sleep that knows no waking, far from earth's noises. Never, in any religion, has a more charitable part, a more august mission been assigned to man. Lifted, by his consecration, wholly above humanity, almost deified by the sacerdotal office, the priest, while earth laments or is silent, can advance to the brink of the abyss, and intercede for the being whom the Church has baptized as an infant, who has no doubt forgotten her since that day, and may even have persecuted her up to the hour of his death. Nor does the Church shrink from the task. Be- fore that fleshly dust heaped in a chest, she thinks of that sewage of the soul, and cries: "From the gates of hell deliver him, O Lord !" but at the end of the general absolution, at the moment when the procession, turning its back, is on the way to the sacristy, she too seems disquieted. Perhaps recall- tt8 EN ROUTE ing in an instant the ill deeds done by that body- while it was alive, she seemed to doubt if her sup- plications were heard, and the doubt her words would not frame passed into the intonation of the last amen, murmured at the Madeleine by children's voices. Timid and distant, plaintive and sweet, this amen said: "We have done what we could, but . . . but . . ." And in the funereal silence which fol- lowed the clergy leaving the nave, there remained only the ignoble reality of the empty husk, lifted in the arms of men, thrust into a carriage, like the refuse of the shambles carted ofif each morning to be made into soap at the factories. "If," continued Durtal, "in opposition to these sad prayers, these eloquent absolutions, we call up before us a marriage mass, all is changed. There the Church is disarmed and her musical liturgy is as nought. Then she may well play Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and borrow from profane authors the gaiety of their songs to celebrate the brief and empty joy of the body. Imagine, and indeed it happens, the canticle of the Virgin used to mag- nify the glad impatience of a bride. Fancy the Te Deum^ to hymn the blessedness of a bridegroom!" Far away from this infamous barter of the flesh, plain chant remains shut up in the antiphonaries, like a monk in the cloister, and when it goes forth, it is to cast up before Christ his garnered pains and sorrows. It gathers and sums them up in admir- able supplications, and if, fatigued with pleading it adores, its impulse is to glorify eternal events, EN ROUTE 19 Palm Sunday and Easter, Pentecost and the Ascen- sion, Epiphany and Christmas, then its joy bursts forth so magnifigently, that it springs beyond the world to show its ecstatic joy at the feet of God. As to the very ceremonies of the funeral, they are now only the regular way of getting money, an official routine, a prayer-wheel which is turned mechanically without thought of it. The organist while he plays thinks of his family, and considers how wearied he is ; the bellows-blower thinks, as he fills the pipes, of the half-pint which will dry his sweat; the tenors and basses are careful of their effects, and admire themselves in the more or less rippled water of their voices; the choir boys dream of their scampers after mass; and, moreover, not one of them at all understands a word of the Latin they sing and abridge, as for instance the "Dies iras," of which they suppress a part of the stanzas. In its turn beadledom calculates the sum the dead man brings in, and even the priest, wearied with the prayers of which he has read so many, and needing his breakfast, prays mechanically from the lips out- ward, while the assistants are in a hurry that the mass to which they have not listened should come to an end, that they may shake hands with the rela- tions, and leave the dead. There is absolute inattention, profound weariness. Yet how terrible is that thing on the tressels that is waiting there in the church, that empty dwelling- place, that body which is already breaking up. 20 EN ROUTE Liquid manure that stinks, gases which evaporate, flesh that rots is all that remains ! "And the soul, now that life is over, and all be- gins? No one thinks of it, not even the family worn out by the length of the service, absorbed in their own sorrow; who in fact regret only the vis- ible presence of the being they have lost; no one except myself," thought Durtal, "and a few curious people, who associate themselves in their alarm with the 'Dies irse' and the 'Libera,' of which they under- stand both the language and the meaning." Then by the external sound of the words, with- out the aid of contemplation, without even the help of thought, the Church acts. There it is, the miracle of her liturgy, the power of her word, the constantly renewed prodigy of phrases created by revolving time, of prayers ar- ranged by ages which are dead. All has passed, nothing exists that was raised up in those bygone times. Yet those sequences remain intact. Cried aloud by indifferent voices and cast out from empty hearts, they plead, groan, and implore even with efficacy, by their virtual power, their talismanic might, their inalienable beauty by the almighty con- fidence of their faith. The Middle Ages have left us these to help us to save, if it may be, the soul of the modem and dead fine gentleman. At the present time, concluded Durtal, there is nothing left peculiar to Paris, but the ceremonies, very like each other, of taking the veil and of fu- nerals. It is unfortunate that when we have to do EN ROUTE 21 with a sumptuous corpse, undertakers have their way. They then bring out their terrible upholstery, plated statues of our Lady in atrocious taste, zinc basins in which blaze bowls of green punch, tin candelabra at the end of a branch, like a cannon on end with its mouth upwards, supporting spiders on their backs, with burning candles set about their legs, all the funeral ironmongery of the First Em- pire, with curtain rods in relief, acanthus leaves, winged hour-glasses, lozenges and Greek frets. It is unfortunate, too, that to touch up the miserable furniture of these ceremonies they play Massenet and Dubois, Benjamin Godard and Widor, or, worse still, the sacristy orchestra, mystical bellowing, such as the women sing, who are affiliated to the confra- ternities of the month of May. And alas, we hear no longer the tempests of the great organs and the majestic dolours of plain chant, save at the funerals of the monied classes; for the poor, nothing — no choir, no organ, just a handful of prayers, then a few dips of the brush in the holy water stoup, and there is a dead man the more on whom the rain falls, who iB carried away. But the Church knows that the carrion of the rich rots as much as that of the poor, while his soul stinks more, but she jobs indulgences and haggles about masses; she, even she, is consumed by the lust of gold. "Yet I must not think too ill of these wealthy fools," said Durtal, after silent thought, "for after all it is thanks to them that I can hear the admirable liturgy of the burial service, these people who per- 22 EN ROUTE haps have done no good action in their life, do at least this kindness to a few, without knowing it, after their death." A noise recalled him to St. Sulpice; the choir was going, the church was about to close. "I might as well have tried to pray," he said to himself, "it would have been better than to dream in the empty church on a chair. Pray indeed ? I have no desire for it. I am haunted by Catholicism, intoxicated by its atmosphere of incense and wax, I prowl about it, moved even to tears by its prayers, touched even to the marrow by its psalms and chants. I am thor- oughly disgusted with my life, very tired of my- self, but it is a far cry from that to leading a dif- ferent existence! And yet — and yet ... If I am perturbed in these chapels, I become unmoved and dry again, as soon as I leave them. After all," he said to himself, getting up, and following the few persons who were moving towards a door, driven out by the Suisse, "after all, my heart is hardened and smoke-dried by dissipation, I am good for nothing." CHAPTER II. How had he again become a Catholic, and got to this point ? Durtal answered himself : "I cannot tell, all that I know is that, having been for years an unbeliever, I suddenly believe. "Let us see," he said to himself, "let us try at least to consider if, however great the obscurity of such a subject, there be not common sense in it. "After all, my surprise depends on preconceived ideas of conversions. I have heard of sudden and violent crises of the soul, of a thunderbolt, or even of faith exploding at last in ground slowly and cleverly mined. It is quite evident that conversions may happen in one or other of these two ways, for God acts as may seem good to Him, but there must be also a third means, and this no doubt the most usual, which the Saviour has used in my case. And I know not in what this consists; it is something analogous to digestion in a stomach, which works though we do not feel it. There has been no road to Damascus, no events to bring about a crisis; nothing has happened, we awake some fine morn- ing, and, without knowing how or why, the thing is done. "Yes, but in fact this manoeuvre is very like that of the mine which only explodes after it has been deeply dug. Yet not so, for in that case the opera- 23 24 EN ROUTE tions are material, the objections in the way are resolved; I might have reasoned, followed the course of the spark along the thread, but in this case, no! I sprang unexpectedly, without warning, without even having suspected that I was so care- fully sapped. Nor was it a clap of thunder, unless I admit that a clap of thunder can be occult and silent, strange and gentle. And this again would be untrue, for sudden disorder of the soul almost always follows a misfortune or a crime, an act of which we are aware. "No, the one thing which seems certain, in my case, is that there has been divine impulse, grace. "But," said he, "in that case the psychology of conversion is worthless," and he made answer to himself, — "That seems to be so, for I seek in vain to re- trace the stages through which I have passed; no doubt I 'can distinguish here and there some land- marks on the road I have travelled: love of art, heredity, weariness of life; I can even recall some of the forgotten sensations of childhood, the sub- terranean workings of ideas excited by my visits to the churches; but I am unable to gather these threads together, and group them in a skein, I can- not understand the sudden and silent explosion of light which took place in me. When I seek to ex- plain to myself how one evening an unbeliever, I became without knowing it, on one night a believer, I can discover nothing, for the divine action has vanished, and left no trace. "It is certain," he continued, after silent thought. EN ROUTE 25 "that in these cases the Virgin acts upon us, it is she who moulds and places us in the hands of her Son, but her fingers are so light, so supple, so ca- ressing, that the soul they have handled has felt nothing. "On the other hand, if I ignore the course and stages of my conversion, I can at least guess the motives which, after a life of indifference, have brought me into the harbours of the Church, made me wander round about her borders, and finally gave me a shove from behind to bring me in." And he said to himself, without more ado, "There are three causes : — "First, the atavism of an old and pious family, scattered among the monasteries;" and the mem- ories of childhood returned to him, of cousins, of aunts, seen in convent parlours; gentle women and grave, white as wafers, who alarmed him by their low voices, who troubled him by their looks, and asked if he were a good boy. He felt a sort of terror, and hid himself, in his mother's skirts, trembling when he went away, and was obliged to bend his brow to those colourless lips, and undergo the touch of a chilly kiss. Now that he thought of them at a distance, the interviews which had wearied him so much in his childhood seemed to him charming. He put into them all the poetry of the cloister, clothed those bare parlours with a faded scent of wainscotting and of wax, and he saw again the convent gardens through which he had passed, impregnated with the bitter salt scent of box, planted with clipped hedges, 26 EN ROUTE intermingled with trellises, whose green grapes never ripened, divided by benches whose rtioulder- ing stone kept the traces worn by water; and a thou- sand details came back to him of those silent lime alleys, of the paths where he ran in the interlaced shade which branches threw upon the ground. These gardens had seemed to him to become larger as he grew older, and he retained a somewhat con- fused memory of them, amid which was the vague recollection of an old stately park, and of a presbj- tery orchard in the north, always somewhat damp, even when the sun shone. It was not surprising that these sensations, trans- formed by time, had left in him some traces of pious thought, which grew deeper as his mind embellished them ; all this might have fermented indistinctly for thirty years, and now began to work. But the two other causes which he knew, must have been still more active. These were his disgust for his life, and his pas- , sion for art ; and the disgust was certainly aggra- f vated by his solitude and his idleness. After having, in old days, made friends by chance, and having taken the impression of souls which had nothing in common with his own, he had at last chosen after much useless vagabondage; he had become the intimate friend of a certain Doctor des Hermies, a physician, who devoted much atten- tion to demoniac possession and to mysticism, and of a Breton, named Carhaix, the bell-ringer at St. Sulpice. These friendships were not like those he had for- EN ROUTE 27 merly made, entirely superficial and external, they were wide and deep, based on similarity of thought, and the indissoluble ties of soul, and these had been roughly broken; within two months of each other Des Hermies and Carhaix died, the former of ty- phoid fever, the latter of a chill that prostrated him in his tower, after he had rung the evening Angelus. These were frightful blows for Durtal. His life, now without an anchor, drifted; he wandered all astray, declaring to himself that this desolation was final, since he had reached an age at which new friends are not made. So he lived alone, apart among his books, but the solitude which he bore bravely, when he was occupied, when he was writing a book, became in- tolerable to him now that he was idle. He lounged in an armchair in the afternoons, and abandoned himself to his dreams: then, especially, fixed ideas took hold on him, and these ended by playing panto- mimes of which the scenes never varied behind the lowered curtain of his eyes. Nude figures danced in his brain to the tune of psalms, and he woke from these dreams weak and panting, ready, if a priest had been there, to throw himself at his feet with tears, just as he would have abandoned himself to the basest pleasures, had the temptation suddenly come to him. "Let me chase away these phantoms by work," he cried. But at what should he work? He had just published the "Life of Gilles de Rais," which might interest a few artists, and he now remained without a subject, on the hunt for a book. As, in 28 EN ROUTE art, he was a man of extremes, he always went from one excess to the other, and after having dived into the Satanism of the Middle Ages, in his account of "Marshal de Rais," he saw nothing so interesting to investigate as the life of a saint. Some lines which he had discovered in Gorres' and Ribet's "Studies in Mysticism" had put him on the trace of a certain Blessed Lidwine in search of new docu- ments. But admitting that he could unearth anything about her, could he write the life of a saint? He did not believe it, and the arguments on which he based his opinion seemed plausible. Hagiography was now a lost branch of art, as completely lost as wood carving, and the miniatures of the old missals. Nowadays it is only treated by church officers and priests, by those stylistic agents who seem when they write to put the embryos of their ideas on ballast trucks, and in their hands it has become a commonplace of goody-goody, a translation into a book of the statuettes of Froc Robert, and the coloured images of Bouasse. The way then was free, and it seemed at first easy enough to plan it out, but to extract the charm of the legends needed the simple language of by- gone centuries, the ingenuous phrases of the days that are dead. Who in our time can express the melancholy essence, the pale perfume of the ancient translations of the Golden Legend of Voragine, how bind in one bright posy the plaintive flowers, which the monks cultivated in their cloistered en- closures, when hagiography was the sister of the EN ROUTE 29 barbaric and delightful art of the illuminators and glass stainers, of the ardent and chaste paintings of the Early Masters ? Yet we may not think of giving ourselves over to studious imitations, nor coldly attempt to ape such works as these. The question remains, whether we can with the present artistic resources, succeed in setting up the humble yet lofty figure of a saint ; and this is at least doubtful, for the lack of real simplicity, the over-ingenious art of style, the tricks of careful design and the false craft of colour would probably transform the elect lady into a strolling player. She would be no longer a saint, but an actress who rendered the part more or less adroitly ; and then the charm would be destroyed, the miracles would seem mechanical, the episodes would be ab- surd, then . . . then . . . one must have a lively faith, and believe in the sanctity of one's heroine, if one would try to exhume her, and put her alive again in a book. This is so true that we may examine Gustave Flaubert's admirable pages on the legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller. Their development is like a dazzling yet regulated tumult, evolved in superb language whose apparent simplicity is only due to the complicated ingenuity of consummate skill. All is there, all except the accent which would have made this work a true masterpiece. Given the sub- ject, the fire which should course through these magnificent phrases is absent, there lacks the cry of the love that faints, the gift of the superhuman exile, the mystical soul. 30 EN ROUTE t On the other hand, Hello's "Physionomies de Saints" are worth reading. Faith flashes out in each of his portraits, enthusiasm runs over in each chapter, unexpected allusions form deep reservoirs of thought between the lines; but after all Hello was so little of an artist that the fairest legends fade when his fingers touch them; the meanness of his style impoverishes the miracles and renders them ineffectual. The art is lacking which would rescue the book from the category of pale and dead publications. The example of these two men, in complete op- position as ever writers were, neither of whom at- tained perfection, one in the legend of St. Julian because faith was wanting, the other because his art was poor and narrow, thoroughly discouraged Durtal. He ought to be both at once, and yet re- main himself ; if not, there was no good in buckling to for such a task, it were better to be silent; and he threw himself back in his chair sullen and hope- less. Then the contempt of his desolate life grew upon him, and once more he wondered what inter- est Providence could have in thus tormenting the descendants of the first convicts. If there were no answer, he was obliged to admit that the Church in these disasters gathered up the waifs, sheltered the shipwrecked, brought them home again, and as- sured them a resting-place. No more than Schopenhauer, whom he had once admired, but whose plan of labelling every one be- fore death and whose herbarium of dry sorrows had wearied him, has the Church deceived man, nor EN ROUTE 31 sought to decoy him, by boasting the mercy of a life which she knew to be ignoble. In all her inspired books she proclaims the horror of fate, and mourns over the enforced task of living. Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes, the book of Job, the Lamentations of Jeremias manifest this sorrow in their every line, and the Middle Ages too in the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" cursed existence, and cried out loudly for death. More plainly than Schopenhauer the Church de- clared that there is nothing to wish for here below, nothing to expect, but where the mere catalogues of the philosopher stop, the Church went on, over- passing the limits of the senses, declared the end of man, and defined his limitations. "Then," he said to himself, "if it be well con- sidered, the vaunted argument of Schopenhauer against the Creator, drawn from the misery and in- justice of the world, is not irrefutable, for the world is not as God made it, but as man has refashioned it." Before accusing heaven for our ills, it is, no doubt, fitting to examine through what phases of consent, through what voluntary falls the creature has passed, before ending in the gloomy disaster it deplores. We may well curse the vices of our an- cestors and our own passions which beget the greater part of the woes from which we suffer; we may well loathe the civilization which has rendered life intolerable to cleanly souls, and not the Lord, who, perhaps, did not create us to be shot down by can- non in time of war, to be cheated, robbed, and 32 EN ROUTE stripped in time of peace, by the slave drivers of commerce and the brigands of the money market. But that which remains forever incomprehensi- ble is the initial horror, the horror imposed on each of us, of having to live, and that is a mystery no philosophy can explain. "Ah !" he went on, "when I think of that horror, that disgust of existence which has for years and years increased in me, I understand how I am forced to make for the Church, the only port where I can find shelter. "Once I despised her, because I had a staff on which to lean when the great winds of weariness blew ; I believed in my novels, I worked at my his- tory, I had my art. I have come to recognize its absolute inadequacy, its complete incapacity to af- ford happiness. Then I understood that Pessimism was, at most, good to console those who had no real need of comfort; I understood that its the- ories, alluring when we are young, and rich, and well, become singularly weak and lamentably false, when age advances, when infirmities declare them- selves, when all around is crumbling. "I went to the church, that hospital for souls. There, at least, they take you in, put you to bed and nurse you, they do not merely turn their backs on you as in the wards of Pessimism and tell you the name of your disease." Finally Durtal had been brought back to religion by art. More even than his disgust for life, art had been the irresistible magnet which drew him to God. The day, when out of curiosity and to kill EN ROUTE 33 time, he had entered a church, and after so many years of forgetfulness, had heard the Vespers for the dead fall heavily, psalm after psalm, in antiph- onal chant, as the singers threw up, like ditchers, their shovelsful of verses, his soul had been shaken to its depths. The evenings when he had listened at St. Sulpice to the admirable chanting during the Octave of All Souls, he had felt himself caught once for all ; but that which had put most pressure on him, and brought him yet more completely into bondage were the ceremonies and music of Holy Week. He had visited the churches during that week; and they had opened to him like palaces ruined, like cemeteries laid waste by God. They were forbid- ding with their veiled images, their crucifixes wrapped lozenge-wise in purple, their organs dumb, their bells silent. The crowd flowed in, busy, but noiseless, along the floor over the immense cross formed by the nave and the two transepts, and en- tering by the wounds of which the doors were fig- ures, they went up to the altar, where the blood- stained head of Christ would lie, and there on their knees eagerly kissed the crucifix which marked the place of the chin below the steps. And the crowd itself, as it ran in the cruciform mould of the church, became itself an enormous cross, living and crawling, silent and sombre. At St. Sulpice, where the whole assembled sem- inary lamented the ignominy of human justice and the foreordained death of a God, Durtal had fol- lowed the incomparable offices of those mournful 34 EN ROUTE days, through all their black minutes, had listened to the infinite sadness of the Passion, so nobly and profoundly expressed at Tenebrje by the slow chant- ing of the Lamentations and the Psalms, but when he thought it over, that which above all made him shudder was the thought of the Virgin coming on the scene on the Thursday at nightfall. The Church, till then absorbed in her sorrow, and prostrate before the Cross, raised herself and fell a-weeping on beholding the Mother. By all the voices of the choir, it pressed round Mary, endeavouring to console her, mixing the tears of the "Stabat Mater" with her own, sighing out that music of plaintive weeping, pressing the wound of that sequence, which gave forth water and blood like the wound of Christ Himself. ' Durtal left the church worn out with these long services, but his temptations to unbelief were gone; he had no further doubt; it seemed to him that at St. Sulpice grace mixed with the eloquent splen- dours of the liturgies, and that in the dim sorrow of the voices there had been appeals to him; and he therefore felt filial gratitude to that church where he had lived through hours so sweet and sad. Yet, in ordinary weeks he did not go there; it seemed to him too great and too cold, and it was so ugly. He preferred warmer and smaller sanc- tuaries, in which there were still traces of the Middle Ages. Thus on idle days when he came out of the Louvre, where he had strayed for a long time be- fore the canvases of the Early Painters, he was EN ROUTE 35 wont to take refuge in the old church of St. Severin, hidden away in a corner of the poorer part of Paris. He carried with him the visions of the canvases he had admired at the Louvre, and contemplated them again, in this surrounding where they were thoroughly at home. Then he spent delightful moments, in which he was carried away in the clouds of harmony, divided by the white splendour of a child's voice flashing out from the rolling thunder of the organ. There, without even praying, he felt a plaintive languor, a vague uneasiness, steal over him; St. Severin delighted him, aided him more than other churches on some days to gain an indescribable im- pression of joy and pity, sometimes even, when he thought of the filth of his senses, to weave together the regret and the terror of his soul. He often went there, especially on Sunday morn- ings, to High Mass at ten o'clock. He was wont to place himself behind the high altar, in that melancholy and delicate apse, planted like a winter garden with rare and somewhat fan- tastic trees. It might have been called a petrified arbour of very old trunks in flower, but stripped of leaf, forests of pillars, squared or cut in broad panels, carved with regular notches near the base, hollowed through their whole length like rhubarb stalks, channelled like celery. No vegetation expanded at the summit of those trunks which bent their naked boughs along the vaulting and joined and met, and gathered at their junction thin, engrafted knots, extravagant bunches 36 EN ROUTE of heraldic roses, armorial flowers with open tra- cery. For more than four hundred years no sap had run, no bud had formed in these trees. The shafts bent forever remained untouched, the white bark of these pillars was scarcely worn, but the greater part of the flowers were withered, the heraldic petals were wanting, some keystones of the arches had only stratified calices, open like nests, with holes like sponges, in rags like handfuls of russet lace. And among this mystic flora, amid these petri- fied trees, there was one, strange and charming, which suggested the fanciful idea that the blue smoke of the rolling incense had condensed, and, as it coagulated, had grown pale with age, to form, in twisting, the spiral of a column which was inverted on itself and ended broadening out into a sheaf, whereof the broken stems fell from above the arches. The corner where Durtal took refuge was faintly lighted by pointed stained windows, with black diamond-shaped divisions set with minute panes darkened by the accumulated dust of years, rendered still more obscure by the woodwork of the chapels, which cut off half their surface. This apse might have been called a frozen grove of skeleton trees, a conservatory of dead specimens belonging to the palm family, calling up the mem- ory of an impossible phoenix and unlikely palms; but it also recalled by its half-moon shape and doubt- ful light, the image of a ship's prow below water. In fact it allowed to filter through its bars, to its EN ROUTE 37 windows trelHsed with all black network, the mur- mur, suggested by the rolling of the carriages which shook the street, of a river which sifted the golden light of day through the briny course of its waters. On Sundays, at the time of High Mass, the apse was empty. The public filled the nave before the high altar, or spread themselves somewhat further into a chapel dedicated to Our Lady. Durtal was therefore almost alone, and even the people who crossed his refuge were neither stupid nor hostile, like the faithful in other churches. In this district were beggars, the very poor, hucksters. Sisters of Charity, ragpickers, street arabs; above all, there were women in tatters walking on tiptoe who knelt without looking round, poor creatures overwhelmed by the piteous splendour of the altars, looking out of the comer of their eyes, and bending low when the Suisse passed them. Touched by the timidity of this silent misery, Durtal listened to the mass chanted by a scanty choir, but one patiently taught. The choir of St. Severin intoned the Credo, that marvel of plain chant, better than it was done at St. Sulpice, where, however, the offices were as a rule solemn and cor- rect. It bore it, as it were, to the top of the choir, and let it spread with its great wings open and al- most without motion, above the prostrate flock, when the verse "Et homo factus est" took its slow and reverent flight in the low voice of the singer. It was at once monumental and fluid, indestructible like the articles of the Creed itself, inspired like the 38 EN ROUTE text, which the Holy Spirit dictated, in their last meeting, to the united apostles of Christ. At St. Severin a powerful voice declaimed a verse as a solo; then all the children, sustained by the rest of the singers, delivered the others, and the unchangeable truths declared themselves in their order, more attentive, more grave, more accentu- ated, even a little plaintive in the solo voice of a man, more timid perhaps, but also more familiar and more joyous, in the dash, however restrained, of the boys. At such a moment Durtal was roused, and ex- claimed within himself : "It is impossible that the alluvial deposits of Faith which have created this musical certainty are false. The accent of these declarations is such as to be superhuman, and far from profane music, which has never attained to the solid grandeur of this naked chant." The whole mass, moreover, at St. Severin was perfect. The "Kyrie eleison," solemn and sumptu- ous, the "Gloria in excelsis," shared by the grand and the choir organs, the one taking the solos, the other guiding and sustaining the singers, was full of exultant joy; the "Sanctus," concentrated, al- most haggard, resounded through the arches when the choir shouted the "Hosanna in excelsis," and the "Agnus Dei" was sung low to a clear, suppliant melody, so humble that it dared not become loud. Indeed, except for a contraband "O Salutaris," introduced there as in other churches, St. Severin maintained, on ordinary Sundays, the musical liturgy, sang it almost reverentially with the fragile EN ROUTE 39 but well-toned voices of the boys, the solidly built basses bringing vigorous sounds from the deep. It was a joy to Durtal to linger in the delightful surroundings of the Middle Ages, in that shadowy loneliness, amid the chants which rose behind him, without being annoyed by tricks of the mouths which he could not see. He ended by being moved to the very marrow, choked by nervous tears, and all the bitterness of his life came up before him; full of vague fears, of confused prayers which stifled him, and found no words, he cursed the ignominy of his life and swore to master his carnal affections. When the mass was over, he wandered in the church itself, and was delighted with the spring of the nave, which four centuries built and sealed with their arms, placing on it those strange impressions, those wonderful seals which expand in relief under the reversed groining of the arches. These centuries combined to bring to the feet of Christ the super- human effort of their art, and the gifts of each are still visible. The thirteenth century shaped those low and stunted pillars, whose capitals are crowned with water-lilies, water-parsley, foliage with large leaves, voluted with crockets and turned in the form of a crosier. The fourteenth century raised the columns of the neighbouring bays on the sides of which prophets, monks, and saints uphold the spring of the arches. The fifteenth and sixteenth created the apse, the sanctuary, some windows pierced above the choir, and though they have been restored by 40 EN ROUTE incompetent builders, they have still retained a bar- baric grace, and a really touching simplicity. They seem to have been designed by ancestors of the Epinal foundries, and stained by them with crude colours. The donors and the saints who pass through these bright, stone-framed pictures are all awkward and pensive, dressed in robes of gamboge, bottle-green, prussian-blue, gooseberry-red, pump- kin-purple and wine lees, and these are made still deeper by contact with the flesh tints, either omitted or destroyed, which have at any rate remained un- coloured like a thin skin of glass. In one of these windows Christ on His cross seems limpid, all in light, between blue splashes of sky, and the red and green patches, formed by the wings of the two an- gels whose faces also seem cut in crystal and full of light. These windows differ from those of other churches, in that they absorb the rays of the sun, without refracting them. No doubt they have been deliberately divested of reflection that they may not by the insolent joyousness of stones on fire insult the melancholy sorrow of this church which rises in the squalid haunts of a quarter inhabited by beg- gars and thieves. Then these thoughts assailed Durtal. In Paris the modern churches are useless; they remain deaf to the prayers which break against the icy indiffer- ence of their walls. No man recollects himself in those naves where souls have left nothing of them- selves, or where they have perhaps given them- selves away, have had to turn and fall back on them- EN ROUTE 41 selves, rebuffed by the insolence of a photographic glare, darkened by the neglect of those altars at which no saint has ever said mass. It seemed that God had always gone out, and would only come home to keep His promise to appear at the moment of consecration, and that He would retire imme- diately afterwards, despising these edifices which have not been built expressly for Him, since by the baseness of their form they might be put to any profane use, since above all they do not bring Him, in default of sanctity, the only gift which might please Him, the gift of art which He has lent to man, and which allows Him to see Himself in the abridged restitution of His work, and to rejoice in the development of that flower of which He has sowed the seed in souls which He has carefully chosen, in souls which are truly the elect, second only to those of His Saints. Ah, those charitable churches of the Middle Ages, those chapels damp and smoky, full of ancient song, of exquisite paintings, of the odour of extinguished tapers, of the perfume of burning incense! In Paris there remain now only a few specimens of this art of other years, a few sanctuaries whose stones really exude the Faith; among these St. Severin seemed to Durtal the most exquisite and the most certain. He only felt at home there; he be- lieved that if he could ever pray in earnest he could do it in that church; and he said to himself that there lived the spirit of the fabric. It is impossible but that the burning prayers, the hopeless sobs of the Middle Ages, have not forever impregnated 42 EN ROUTE the pillars and stained the walls; it is impossible but that the vine of sorrows whence of old the Saints gathered warm clusters of tears has not preserved from those wonderful times emanations which sus- tain, a breath which still awakes a shame for sin, and the gift of tears. As Saint Agnes remained immaculate in the brothels, this church remained intact amid infamous surroundings, when all near it in the streets from the Chateau Rouge to the Cremerie Alexandre, only two paces off, the modem rabble of rascality com- bine their misdeeds, minghng with prostitutes their brewage of crime, their adulterated absinthe and spirits. In this especial territory of Satanism, the church rises, delicate and little, closely enveloped in the rags of taverns and hovels, and seen far off, raises above the roofs its light spire, like a netting needle, its point below, and lifting its eye into the light and air, through which can be seen a minute bell surmounting a sort of anvil. Such it appears, at least, from the Place Saint Andre des Arts. Sym- bolically it might be called a piteous appeal, always rejected by souls hardened and hammered by vice, of that anvil which was only an optical illusion, and that very real bell. "They say," thought Durtal, "they say that ig- norant architects and unskilled archaeologists wish to free St. Severin from its rags, and surround it with trees in an enclosed square. But it has always lived in its network of black streets and is volun- tarily humble, in accordance with the miserable dis- EN ROUTE 43 trict it aids. In the Middle Ages the church was a monument seen only within, and not one of those impetuous basilicas which are put up as a show in open spaces. "Then it was an oratory for the poor, a church on its knees, and not standing; it would, therefore, be the most absolute nonsense to free it from its surroundings, to take it out of the day of an eternal twilight, out of those hours of shadow which brighten the melancholy beauty of a servant in prayer behind the impious hedge of hovels. "Ah, were it possible to steep the church in the glowing atmosphere of Notre Dame des Victoires, and join to its meagre psalmody the powerful choir of St. Sulpice, that would be complete," said Dur- tal, "but alas, here below, nothing whole, nothing perfect exists !" Indeed, from an artistic point of view, it was the only church which satisfied him, for Notre Dame de Paris was too grand, and too much overrun by tourists; there were few ceremonies there, just the necessary amount of prayers were weighed out, and the greater part of the chapels remained closed; and lastly the voices of the choir boys always wanted mending; they broke, while the advanced age of the basses made them hoarse. At St. Etienne du Mont it was worse still; the shell of the church was charming, but the choir was an offshoot of the school of Sanfourche, you might think yourself in a kennel, where a medley pack of sick beasts were growling; as for the other .sanctuaries on the right bank of the river, they were worthless, plain chant 44 EN ROUTE was as far as possible suppressed, and the poverty of the voices was everywhere ornamented with promiscuous tunes. Yet on the right bank were the more self-respect- ing churches, for religious Paris stops on that side of the Seine, and comes to an end as you pass the bridges. In fact, to sum up all, he might believe that St. Severin by its scent, and the delightful art of its old nave, St. Sulpice by its ceremonies and its chant- ing, had brought him back towards' Christian art, which in its turn had directed him to God. Then when once urged on this way, he had pur- sued it, had left architecture and music, to wander in the mystic territories of the other arts, and his long visits to the Louvre, his researches into the breviaries, into the books of Ruysbrock, Angela da Foligno, Saint Teresa, Saint Catherine of Genoa, Saint Magdalen of Pazzi, had confirmed him in his belief. But the upheaval of all his ideas which he had undergone was too recent for his soul at once to regain its equilibrium. From time to time it seemed to wish to go back, and he discussed with himself in order to set it at rest. He spent himself in dis- putation, came to doubt the reality of his conver- sion, and said: "After all I am united to the church only on the side of art. I only go there to see or hear and not to pray ; I do not seek the Lord, but my own pleasure. This is not business. Just as in a warm bath I do not feel the cold if I am motionless, but if I move I freeze, so in the church EN ROUTE 45 my impulses are upset when I move, I am almost on fire in the nave, less warm in the porch, and I become perfectly icy outside. These are literary postulates, vibrations of the nerves, skirmishes of thought, spiritual brawls, whatever you please, ex- cept Faith." But what disquieted him still more than the need •of helps to feeling, was that his shameless senses rebelled at the contact of religious ideas. He floated like wreckage between Licentiousness and the Church ; they each threw him back in turn, obliging him as he approached one to return at once to that which he had left, and he was inclined to ask if he were not a victim to some mystification of his lower instincts, seeking to revive themselves, without his consciousness, by the cordial of a false piety. In fact he had often seen realized in himself that unclean miracle, when he had left St. Severin, al- most in tears. Insensibly, without connection of ideas, without any welding together of sensations, without the explosion of a spark, his senses took fire, and he was powerless to let them burn them- selves out, to resist them. He loathed himself afterwards, and it was high time. Then came the reverse movement; he longed to run to some chapel, there to wash and be clean, and he was so disgusted with himself that now and then he went as far as the door and dared not enter. At other times, on the contrary, he rebelled against himself, and cried in fury: "It is mon- strous; I have in fact spoiled for myself the only pleasure that remained to me — the flesh. Once I 46 EN ROUTE amused myself without blame; now I pay for my poor debauches with torments. I have added one more weariness to existence — would that I could undo it." He lied to himself in vain, trying to justify him- self by suggesting doubts. "Suppose all this were not true, if there were nothing in it, if I were deceiving myself, what if the freethinkers were right?" But he was obliged to be sorry for himself, for he felt distinctly to the bottom of his soul that he held unshaken the certitude of true Faith. "These discussions are miserable, and the ex- cuses I make for my filthinesses are odious," he said to himself, and a flame of enthusiasm sprang up within him. How doubt the truth of dogmas, how deny the divine power of the Church, for she commands assent ? First she has her superhuman art and her mysti- cism, then she is most wonderful in the persistent folly of conquered heresies. All since the world began have had the flesh as their springboard. Logically and humanly speaking they should have triumphed, for they allowed man and woman to satisfy their passions, saying to themselves there was no sin in these, even sanctifying them as the Gnostics, rendering homage to God by the foulest uncleanness. All have suffered shipwreck. The Church, tm- bending in this matter, has remained upright and entire. She orders the body to be silent, and the EN ROUTE 47 soul to suffer, and contrary to all probability, hu- manity listens to her, and sweeps away like a dung- heap the seductive joys proposed to her. Again, the vitality of the Church is decision, which preserves her in spite of the unfathomable stupidity of her sons. She has resisted the disquiet- ing folly of the clergy, and has not even been broken up by the awkwardness and lack of ability in her defenders, a very strong point. "No, the more I think of her," he cried, "the more I think her prodigious, unique, the more I am convinced that she alone holds the truth, that out- side her are only weaknesses of mind, impostures, scandals. The Church is the divine breeding ground, the heavenly dispensary of souls; she gives them suck, nourishes them, and heals them ; she bids them understand, when the hour of sorrow comes, that true life begins, not at birth, but at death. The Church is indefectible, before all things admirable, she is great — "Yes, but then we must follow her directions and practise the sacraments she orders!" And Durtal, shaking his head, gave himself no further answer. CHAPTER III. Before his conversion he had said like all un- believers : "If I believed that Jesus Christ is God, and that eternal life is not a decoy, I would not hesitate to change all my habits, to follow as far as possible the rules of religion, and, in any case, to 5ive chaste." And he was surprised that people he knew, who were in these conditions, did not main- tain an attitude higher than his own. He who had so long indulgently forgiven himself became sin- gularly intolerant, so soon as he had to do with a Catholic. He now understood the injustice of his judg- ments, and confessed that between faith and prac- tice was a gulf difficult to overpass. He did not like to discuss this question with him- self, but it returned and took possession of him all the same, and he was obliged to admit the mean- ness of his arguments, the despicable reasons for his resistance. He was still honest enough to say: "I am no longer a child; if I have Faith, if I admit Catholi- cism, I cannot conceive it as lukewarm and unfixed, warmed up again and again in the saucepan of a false zeal. I will have no compromise or truce, no alternations of debauch and communions, no stages 48 EN ROUTE 49 of licentiousness and piety, no, all or nothing; to change from top to bottom, or not change at all." Then he drew back in alarm, endeavoured to es- cape the part he was about to take, endeavoured to exculpate himself, cavilling for hours, invoking the most wretched motives for remaining as he was, and not budging a jot. "What am I to do? If I do not obey orders, which I feel with increasing force, I am preparing for myself a life of uneasiness and remorse, for I know well I ought not to remain , forever on the threshold, but to penetrate into the sanctuary and stay there. And if I make up my mind — no indeed — for then I must bind myself to a heap of observ- ances, bend to a series of rules, assist at mass on Sunday, abstain on Friday, live like a bigot, and look like a fool." And then to help his revolt, he thought of the air, the look of people who frequented the churches; for two men who looked intelligent and clean, how many were without doubt rascals and impostors ! Almost all had a side-long look, an oily voice, downcast eyes, immovable spectacles, clothes like sacristans as if of black wood, almost all told thin beads ostentatiously, and with more strategy and more knavery than the wicked, took toll from their neighbours on leaving God. The devout women were still less reassuring; they invaded the church, walking about as if quite at home, disturbing everybody, upsetting chairs, knocking against you without begging pardon ; then they knelt down with much ado, in the attitude of 50 EN ROUTE contrite angels, murmured interminable paternosters and left the church more arrogant and sour than before. "It is not encouraging to have to mix with this flock of pious geese," he exclaimed. But soon, against his will, he made answer to himself : "You have nothing to do with others ; were you more humble, these people would cer- tainly seem less offensive ; at any rate they have the courage you lack, they are not ashamed of their faith, and are not afraid to kneel to God in public." And Durtal remained dumfounded, for he had to admit that the riposte struck home. It was clear his humility was at fault, but what was worse, he could not free himself from human respect. He was afraid of being taken for a fool; the prospect of being seen on his knees, in church, made his hair stand on end ; the idea, that, if he ever had to communicate, he would have to rise and go to the altar in the sight of all, was intolerable to him. "If that moment ever come it will be hard to bear," said he; "and yet I am an idiot, for what have I to do with the opinion of people I do not know ?" but much as he might repeat that his alarms were absurd, he could not get over them, or free himself from the fear of ridicule. "After all," he said, "even if I decide to jump the ditch, to confess and communicate, that terrible question of the senses would always have to be re- solved. I must determine to fly the lusts of the flesh, and accept perpetual abstinence. I could never attain to that. EN ROUTE 51 "Without counting that in any case the time would be ill-chosen were I now to make such an efifort, for never have I been so tormented as since ray conversion; Catholicism unfortunately excites unclean suggestions when I prowl about it, without entering." And to this exclamation another answered at once : "Yes, but you must enter." He was irritated at this change of front without change of place, and he tried to turn the conversa- tion, as though it had been held with another, whose questions perplexed him ; but he came back to it all the same, and, in his annoyance, summoned all his reasoning powers to his aid. "Come, let us try to take stock at any rate ! It is plain that as I have drawn near the Church, my unclean desires have become more frequent and more persistent ; and yet another fact is certain that I have been so used up by twenty years of de- bauchery that I ought not to have any further carnal appetites. In fact, if I chose it, I could perfectly well remain chaste; but then I must bid my miser- able brain be silent, and I have no power to do so! It is frightful all the same that I am more excited than in youth, for now my desires go a-travelling, and since they have not their ordinary shelter they go off in search of evil haunts. How may this be explained? It is a sort of dyspepsia of the soul, which cannot digest ordinary meats, and tries to feed on spiced dreams, highly seasoned thoughts; it is then want of appetite for wholesome meals which has begotten this greediness for strange 52 EN ROUTE dishes, this trouble of the mind, this wish to escape from myself, and jump were it but for a moment over the permitted limits of the senses. "In that case Catholicism would play a part at once repellent and depressing. It would stimulate these sick desires, and weaken me at the same time, would give me over to nervous emotions without strength to resist them." Wandering thus in self-examination, he came to a dead stand where was no issue, arriving at this conclusion : "I do not practise my religion, because I yield to my baser instincts, and I yield to these in- stincts because I do not practise my religion." Brought up thus by a dead wall, he resisted, ask- ing if this last observation were indeed true; for, after all, nothing proved that if he approached the Sacraments he would not be attacked with even greater violence. It was even probable he would be, for the devil makes a dead set at pious people. Then he rebelled against the cowardice of these remarks, and cried: "I lie, for I know well that if I made the least sign of resistance I should be powerfully aided from on high." Clever at self-torture, he continued to harass his soul, always on the same line. "Suppose," he said, "for the sake of argument, that I have tamed my pride, and subdued my body ; suppose that at pres- ent there were nothing to do, but to go forward, I am still brought up, for the final obstacle terrifies me. "Up to now I have been able to walk alone, with- out earthly assistance, without advice ; I have been EN ROUTE 53 converted without the help of anyone, but now I cannot make a step without a guide, I cannot ap- proach the altar without the aid of an interpreter, and the bulwark of a priest." And once more he drew back, for in former times he had been intimate with a certain number of ec- clesiastics, and had found them so mediocre, so lukewarm, above all so hostile to Mysticism, that he was revolted at the very notion of laying before them the schedule of his requirements and his regrets. "They will not understand me," he thought; "they will answer that Mysticism was interesting in the Middle Ages, but has now become disused and is in any case quite out of touch with the mod- em spirit. They will think me mad, will assure me, moreover, that God does not want so much, will advise me with a smile, not to make myself sin- gular, to do as others, and to think like them. "I have indeed no intention of entering on the way of Mysticism, but they may at least allow me to envy it and not inflict on me their middle-class ideal of a God. "For, not to deceive oneself, Catholicism is not only that moderate religion that they offer us; it is not composed only of petty cases and formulas; it is not wholly confined to rigid observances, and the toys of old maids, to all that goody-goody business, which spreads itself abroad in the Rue Saint Sul- pice ; it is far more exalted, far purer, but then we must penetrate its burning zone, and seek in Mysti- 54 EN ROUTE cism, the art, the essence, and the very sottl of the Church. "Using the powerful means at her disposal, we then have to empty ourselves, and strip the soul, so that Christ if He will may enter it; we have to purify the house, to cleanse it with the disinfectant of prayer and the sublimate of Sacraments; in a word, to be ready when the Guest shall come and bid us to empty ourselves wholly into Him, as He will pour Himself into us. "I know thoroughly well that this divine alchemy, this transmutation of the human creature into God, is generally impossible, for the Saviour, as a rule, keeps His singular favours for His elect; but after all, every one, however unworthy, is presumably able to attain that majestic end, since God only decides, and not man, whose humble acquiescence alone is requisite. "I see myself saying that to the priests! They will tell me I have no business with mystical ideas, and will give me in exchange the petty religion of rich women; they will wish to mix themselves up with my life, to inquire about the state of my soul, to insinuate their own tastes; they will try to con- vince me that art is dangerous, will sermonize me with imbecile talk, and pour over me their flowing bowls of pious veal broth. "I know what I am; at the end of a couple of interviews I shall rebel, and become wicked." Durtal shook his head, remained in thought, and began again, — "Yet one must be just ; perhaps the secular clergy EN ROUTE 55 are only the leavings, for the contemplative orders and the missionary army carry away every year the pick of the spiritual basket; the mystics, priests athirst for sorrows, drunk with sacrifice, bury them- selves in cloisters or exile themselves among sav- ages whom they teach. So when the cream is off, the rest of the clergy are plainly but skim milk, the scourings of the seminaries. "Yes, but after all," he continued, "the question is not whether they are intelligent or narrow; it is not my business to take the priest to pieces to dis- cover under the consecrated rind the nothingness of the man; not my business to abuse his inadequacy since it is thoroughly suited to the understanding of the crowd. Would it not be, after all, more cour- ageous and more hiimble to kneel before a being of whose brains you know the weakness ? "And then . . . then ... I am not reduced to that, for indeed I know one in Paris, a true mystic. Suppose I go and see him !" And he "thought of a certain Abbe Gevresin, with whom he had formerly some acquaintance; he had often met him at a bookseller's in the Rue Servan- doni, old Tocane, who had rare books on liturgy and the lives of the saints. Learning that Durtal was looking for works on Blessed Lidwine, the priest was at once interested in him, and on leaving the shop they had a long conversation. The abbe was very old and walked with difficulty, therefore he willingly took Durtal's arm, who saw him home. "The life of that victim of the sins of her time 56 EN ROUTE is a magnificent subject," he said; *'yoti remember it, do you not?" and as they walked he sketched its lines, broadly. "Lidwine was bom towards the end of the four- teenth century, at Schiedam, in Holland. Her beauty was extraordinary, but she lost it through illness at the age of fifteen. She recovered, but while skating one day with her companions on the frozen canals she fell and broke a rib. From the time of that accident to her death she was bed- ridden. She was afflicted with most frightful ail- ments, her wounds festered, and worms bred in her putrefying flesh. Erysipelas, that terrible malady of the Middle Ages, consimied her. Her right arm was eaten away, a single muscle held it to the body, her brow was cleft in two, one of her eyes became blind, and the other so weak that it could not bear the light. "While she was in this condition the plague rav- aged Holland and decimated the town in which she lived ; she was the first attacked. Two boils formed, one under her arm, the other above the heart. 'Two boils, it is well,' she said to the Lord, 'but three would be better in honour of the Holy Trinity,' and immediately a third pustule broke out on her face. "For thirty-five years she lived in a cellar, taking no solid food, praying and weeping, so chilly in ■winter that each morning her tears formed two frozen streams down her cheeks. "She thought herself still too fortunate and en- treated the Lord not to spare her, and obtained EN ROUTE 57 from Him the grace that by her sufiferings she might expiate the sins of others. Christ heard her pray- ers, visited her with His angels, communicated her with His own hand, gave her the delight of heaven- ly ecstasies, and caused her festering wounds to ex- hale delicious perfumes. "At the moment of her death He stood by her and restored her poor body to its former sound- ness. Her beauty, so long vanished, shone out again, the town was moved, the sick came in crowds, and all who drew near were healed. "She is the true patroness of the sick," concluded the abbe, and, after a silence, he added, — "From the point of view of the higher mysticism, Lidwine is wonderful, for in her we can verify that plan of substitution which was, and is, the glorious reason for the existence of convents." And as, without answering, Durtal questioned him with a look, he went on, — "You are aware, sir, that in all ages nuns have offered themselves to heaven as expiatory victims. The lives of saints, both men and women, who de- sired these sacrifices abound, of those who atoned for the sins of others by sufferings eagerly demand- ed and patiently borne. But there is a task still more arduous and more painful than was desired by these admirable souls. It is not now that of purging the faults of others, but of preventing them, hindering their commission, by taking the place of those who are too weak to bear the shock. "Read Saint Teresa on this subject ; you will see that she gained permission to take on herself, and 58 EN ROUTE without flinching, the temptations of a priest who could not endure them. This substitution of a strong soul freeing one who is not strong from perils and fears is one of the great rules of mysti- cism. "Sometimes this exchange is purely spiritual, sometimes on the contrary it has to do only with the ills of the body. Saint Teresa was the surro- gate of souls in torment ; Sister Catherine Emmerich took the place of the sick, relieved, at least, those who were most suffering; thus, for instance, she was able to undergo the agony of a woman suffer- ing from consumption and dropsy in order to permit her to prepare for death in peace. "Well, Lidwine took on herself all bodily ills, she lusted for physical suffering, and was greedy for wounds; she was, as it were, the reaper of punishments, and she was also the piteous vessel in which everyone discharged the overflowings of his malady. If you would speak of her in other fashion than the poor hagiographies of our day, study first that law of substitution, that miracle of perfect charity, that superhuman triumph of Mys- ticism; that will be the stem of your book, and naturally, without effort, all Lidwine's acts graft themselves on it." "But," asked Durtal, "does this law still take effect?" "Yes : I know convents which apply it. More- over, Orders like the Carmelites and the Poor Clares willingly accept the transfer to them of temp- tations we suffer; then these convents take on their EN ROUTE 59 backs, so to speak, the diabolical expiations o£ those insolvent souls whose debts they pay to the full." "All the same," said Durtal, shaking his head, "if you consent to take on yourself the assaults intended for your neighbour, you must make pretty sure not to sink." "The nuns chosen by our Lord," replied the abbe, "as victims of expiation, as whole burnt-offerings, are in fact few, and they are generally, especially in this age, obliged to unite and coalesce in order to bear without failing the weight of misdeeds which try them, for in order that a soul may bear alone the assaults of Satan, which are often terrible, it must be indeed assisted by the angels and elect of God." And after a silence the old priest added, — ■ "I believe I may speak with some experience in these matters, for I am one of the directors of those nuns who make reparation in their convents." "And yet," cried Durtal, "the world asks what is the good of the contemplative Orders." "They are the lightning conductors of society," said the abbe, with great energy. "They draw on themselves the demoniacal fluid, they absorb temp- tations to vice, preserve by their prayers those who live, like ourselves, in sin ; they appease, in fact, the wrath of the Most High that He may not place the earth under an interdict. Ah! while the sisters who devote themselves to nursing the sick and in- firm are indeed admirable, their task is easy in comparison with that undertaken by the cloistered Orders, the Orders where penance never ceases, and the very nights spent in bed are broken by sobs." 6o EN ROUTE "This priest is far more interesting than Ms brethren," said Durtal to himself as they parted; and, as the abbe invited his visits, he had often called on him. He had always been cordially welcomed. On several occasions he had warily sounded the old man on several questions. He had answered evasively in regard to other priests. But he did not seem to think much of them, if Durtal might judge by what he said one day in regard to Lid- wine, that magnet of sorrows. "Notice," he said, "that a weak and honest soul has every advantage in choosing a confessor, not from the clergy who have lost the sense of Mys- ticism, but from the monks. They alone know the effects of the law of substitution, and if they see that in spite of their efforts the penitent succumbs, they end by freeing him, by taking his trials on themselves, or by sending them off to some convent in the country where resolute people can use them." Another time the question of nationalities was discussed in a newspaper which Durtal showed him. The abbe shrugged his shoulders, putting aside the patriotic twaddle. "For me," he said calmly, "for me my country is that where I can best pray." Durtal could not make out what this priest was. He understood from the bookseller, that the Abbe Gevresin, on account of his great age and infirmity, was incapacitated for the regular duties of the priesthood. "I know that, when he can, he still says his mass each morning in a convent; I be- lieve also he receives a few of his brethren for EN ROUTE 6i confession in his own house"; and Tocane added with disdain, "He has barely enough to live on, and they do not look on him with favour at the archbishop's because of his mystical notions." There ended all he knew about him. "He is evi- dently a very good priest," repeated Durtal; "his physiognomy declares it, and his mouth and eyes contradict each other; his eyes certainly declare his entire goodness, his lips, somewhat thick, purple and always moist, have on them an affectionate but somewhat sad smile, and to this his blue eyes give the lie — ^blue, childlike eyes which laugh out aston- ished under white eyebrows in a rather red face, touched on the cheeks like a ripe apricot, with lit- tle points of blood. "In any case," said Durtal waking from his meditations, "I am very wrong not to continue the relations into which I have entered with him. "Yes, but then nothing is so difficult as to be- come really intimate with a priest ; first by the very education he receives at the seminary the ecclesiastic thinks himself obliged to disperse his affections and not concentrate himself on particular friendships; then, like a doctor, he is a man harassed with busi- ness, who is never to be found. You can catch them now and then between two confessions or two sick calls. Nor even then are you quite certain that the eager welcome of the priest rings true, for he is just the same to all who come to him, and, in- deed, since I do not call on the Abbe Gevresin for his help or advice, I am afraid of being in his way. 62 EN ROUTE and of taking up his time, hence I am acting with discretion in not going to see him. "Yet I am sorry; suppose I write, or go to him one morning, but what have I to say to him? I ought to know what I want before I allow myself to trouble him. If I go only to complain, he will answer I am wrong not to be a communicant, and I have nothing to answer. No: the better plan is to meet him as by chance, on the quays, where no doubt he sometimes looks over the book-stalls, or at Tocane's, for then I can talk to him more in- timately, at least less officially, about my vacilla- tions and regrets." So Durtal searched the quays, and never once met the abbe. He went to the bookseller's, and pre- tended to look over his stock, but as soon as he pronounced the name Gevresin, Tocane exclaimed, "I have heard nothing of him, he has not been here for the last two months." "I will not turn back, but just disturb him in his own house," said Durtal, "but he will wonder why I came back after so long an absence. Besides the awkwardness I feel in calling on people whom I have neglected, I am also troubled by thinking the abbe may suspect some interested object in my visit. That is not convenient; if I had but a good pre- text; there is certainly that life of Lid wine which interests him, I might consult him on various points. Yes, but which ? I have not concerned myself with that saint for a long time, and must read over again the meagre old books on her biography. After all, it will be simpler and better to be frank, and say, EN ROUTE 63 'This is why I have come; I want to ask advice, which I have not determined to follow, but I have so much need of speaking, of giving the reins to my soul, that I beg you to be so kind as to lose an hour for my sake.' "He will do it certainly and willingly. "Then that is agreed on; suppose I go to-mor- row?" But he checked himself at once. "There was nothing pressing; there was plenty of time; better take time and think; ah, yes, here is Christ- mas close upon us, I cannot decently trouble a priest who has his penitents to confess, for there are many communicants on that day. Let him get his hard work over, and then we will see." He was at first pleased at having invented that excuse, then he had to admit in his heart that, after all, there was not much in it, for there was nothing to show that this priest, who was not attached to a parish, was busy in hearing confessions. It was hardly probable, but he tried to convince himself that it might be so after all, and his hesi- tation began again. Angry at last with the dis- cussion, he adopted a middle course. For greater certainty, he would not call on the abbe till after Christmas, but he would not be later than a given time; he took an almanack, and swore to keep his promise — ^three days after that feast. CHAPTER IV. Oh ! that midnight mass ! He had had the unfortu- nate idea of going to it at Christmas. He went to St. Severin, and found a young ladies' day school installed there, instead of the choir, who, with sharp voices like needles, knitted the worn-out skeins of the canticles. He had fled to St. Sulpice, and plunged into a crowd which walked and talked as if in the open air; had heard there choral-society marches, tea-garden waltzes, firework tunes, and had come away in a rage. It had seemed to him superfluous to try St. Ger- main-des-Pres, for he held that church in horror. Besides the weariness inspired by its heavy, ill-re- stored shell, and the miserable paintings with which Flandrin loaded it, the clergy there were specially, almost alarmingly, ugly, and the choir was truly in- famous. They were like a set of bad cooks, boys who spat vinegar, and elderly choir-men, who cooked in the furnace of their throats a sort of vocal broth, a thin gruel of sound. Nor did he think of taking refuge in St. Thomas Aquinas, where he dreaded the barking and the choruses; there was indeed St. Clotilde, where the psalmody, at least, is upright, and has not, like that of St. Thomas, lost all shame. He went there, but 64 EN ROUTE 65 again encountered dance music and profane tunes, a worldly orgie. At last he went to bed in a rage, saying to him- self, "In Paris, at any rate, a singular baptism of music is reserved for the New-Born." Next day, when he woke, he felt he had no cour- age to face the churches ; the sacrileges of last night would, he thought, continue; and as the weather was almost fine, he went out, wandered in the Lux- embourg, gained the square of the Observatoire, and the Boulevard de Port Royal, and mechanically made his way along the interminable Rue de la Sante. He knew that street of old, and had taken melan- choly walks in it, attracted by its poor houses, like those of a provincial town; then it was fit for a dreamer, for it was bounded on the right by the Prison de la Sante and Sainte Anne's madhouse, and on the left by convents. Light and air circu- lated in the street, but, behind it, all was black; it was a kind of prison corridor, with cells on either side, where some were condemned to temporary sentences, and others, of their own free will, suf- fered lasting sorrows. "I can imagine," thought Durtal, "how it would have been painted by an Early Flemish master; the long street paved by patient pencils, the stories open fro;ti top to bottom, and the cupboards the same; and on one side massive cells with iron bedsteads, a stoneware jug; little peepholes in the doors se- cured by strong bolts, inside, scoundrels and thieves, gnashing their teeth, turning round and round, their 66 EN ROUTE hair on end, howling like caged animals; on the other side little rooms, furnished with a pallet-bed, a stoneware jug, a crucifix, these also closed by doors iron-banded, and within nuns or monks, kneeling on the flags, their faces clean cut against the light of a halo, their eyes lifted to heaven, their hands joined, raised from the ground in ecstasy, a pot of lilies at their side. Then at the back of the canvas, between these two rows of houses, rises a great avenue, at the end of which, in a dappled sky, sits God the Father with Christ on His right, choirs of Seraphim play- ing on guitar and viol; God the Father immovable under his lofty tiara. His breast covered by His long beard, holds scales which balance exactly, the holy captives expiating precisely by their penances and prayers the blasphemies of the rascals and the in- sane. "It must be admitted," thought Durtal, "that this street is very peculiar, that there is probably none like it in Paris, for it unites in its course virtues and vices, which in other quarters, in spite of the efforts of the Church, trend apart as far as possible from each other." Thus thinking he had come as far as St. Anne's, where the street grows lighter and the houses are lower, with only one or two stories, then, gradually, there is greater space between them, and they are only joined to each other by blank ends of walls. "At any rate," thought Durtal, "if this street has no distinction, it is very private; here at least one need not admire the impertinent decoration of those EN ROUTE 67 modern shops which expose in their windows as precious commodities chosen piles of firewood, and in glass sweetmeat jars, coal drops and coke lolli- pops. "And here is an odd lane," and he looked at an alley which led down a sharp decline into a main street, where was to be seen the tricolor flag in zinc on a washhouse ; he read the name : Rue de I'Ebre. He entered it, it was but a few yards long; the whole of one side was occupied by a wall, behind which were half seen some stunted buildings, sur- mounted by a bell. An entrance-gate with a square wicket was placed in the wall, which was raised higher as it sloped downwards, and at the end was pierced by round windows, and rose into a little building, surmounted by a clock-tower so low that its point did not even reach the height of the two- storied house opposite. On the other side three hovels sloped down, close- ly packed together ; zinc pipes ran everywhere, grow- ing like vines, ramifying like the stalks of a hollow vine along the walls, windows gaped on rusty leaden hinges. Dim courts of wretched hovels could be seen ; in one was a shed where some cows were re- posing ; in two others were coach-houses for wheel- chairs, and a rack behind the bars of which ap- peared the capsuled necks of bottles. "But this must be a church," thought Durtal,. looking at the little clock tower, and the three or four round bays, which seemed cut out in emery paper to look like the black rough mortar of the wall; "where is the entrance?" 68 EN ROUTE He found it on turning out of the alley into the Rue de la Glaciere. A tiny porch gave access to the building. He opened the door, and entered a large room, a sort of closed shed, painted yellow, with a flat ceil- ing, with small iron beams coloured grey, picked out with blue, and ornamented with gas-jets like a wine shop. At the end was a marble altar, six lighted tapers, and gilt ornaments, candelabra full of tapers, and under the tabernacle, a very small monstrance, which sparkled in the -light of the tapers. It was almost dark, the panes of the windows having been crudely daubed with bands of indigo and yellowish green ; it was freezing, the stove was not alight, and the church, paved like a kitchen floor, had no matting or carpet. Durtal wrapped himself up as best he could and sat down. His eyes gradually grew accustomed to the obscurity of the room, and what he saw was strange; in front of the choir on rows of chairs were seated human forms, drowned in floods of white muslin. No one stirred. Suddenly there entered by a side door a nun equally wrapped from head to foot in a large veil. She passed along the altar, stopped in the middle, threw herself on the ground, kissed the floor, and by a sudden effort, without helping herself by her arms, stood upright, advanced silently into the church, and brushed by Durtal, who saw under the muslin a magnificent robe of creamy white, an EN ROUTE 69 ivory cross at her neck, at her girdle a white cord and beads. She went to the entrance-door, and there ascend- ed a little staircase into a gallery which commanded the church. He asked himself, What could be this Order so sumptuously arrayed, in this miserable chapel, in such a district? Little by little the room filled, choir-boys in red with capes trimmed with rabbit's skin lighted the candelabra, went out, and ushered in a priest, vested in a grand cope, with large flowers, a priest tall and young, who sat down, and in a sonorous tone chanted the first antiphon of vespers. Suddenly Durtal turned round. In the gallery an harmonium accompanied the responses of voices never to be forgotten. It was not a woman's voice, but one having in it something of a child's voice, sweetened, purified, sharpened, and something of a man's, but less harsh, finer and more sustained, an unsexed voice, filtered through litanies, bolted by prayers passed through the sieves of adoration and tears. The priest, still sitting, chanted the first verse of the unchanging psalm, "Dixit Dominus Domino meo." And Durtal saw in the air, in the gallery, tall white statues, holding black books in their hands, chanting slowly with eyes raised to heaven. A lamp cast its light on one of these figures, which for a second leant forward a little, and he saw under the 70 EN ROUTE lifted veil a face attentive and sorrowful, and very pale. The verses of the vesper psalms were now sung alternately, by the nuns above and by the congrega- tion below. The chapel was almost full; a school of girls in white veils filled one side; little girls of the middle-class, poorly dressed brats who played with their dolls occupied the other. There were a few poor women in sabots, and no men. The atmosphere became extraordinary. The warmth of the souls thawed the ice of the room; here were not the vespers of the rich, such as were celebrated on Sundays at St. Sulpice, but the ves- pers of the poor, domestic vespers, in the plain chant of the countryside, followed by the faithful with mighty fervour in silent and singular devotion. Durtal could fancy himself transported beyond the city, to the depths of some village cloister; he felt himself softened, his soul rocked by the mo- notonous amplitude of these chants, only recog- nizing the end of the psalms by the return of the doxology, the "Gloria Patri et Filio," which sepa- rated them from each other. He had a real impulse, a dim need of praying to the Unknowable, penetrated to the very marrow by this environment of aspiration, it seemed to him that he thawed a little, and took a far-off part in the tinited tenderness of these bright spirits. He sought for a prayer, and recalled what St. Paphnu- tius taught Thais, when he cried, "Thou art not worthy to name the name of God, thou wilt pray only thus : 'Qui plasmasti me miserere mei ;' Thou EN ROUTE 71 who hast formed me have mercy on me." He stam- mered out the humble phrase, prayed not out of love or of contrition, but out of disgust with himself, unable to let himself go, regretting that he could not love. Then he thought of saying the Lord's Prayer, but stopped at the notion that this is the hardest of all prayers to pronounce, when the phrases are weighed in the balance. For in it we declare to God that we forgive our neighbours' trespasses. Now how many who use these words forgive others? How many Catholics do not lie when they tell the All-knowing that they hate no one? He was roused from these reflections by sudden silence; vespers were over. Then the organ played again, and all the voices of the nuns joined, those in the choir below and in the gallery above, singing the old carol "Unto us a child is bom." He listened, moved by the simplicity of the strain, and suddenly, in a minute, brutally, without under- standing why, infamous thoughts filled his mind. He resisted in disgust, wished to repulse the as- sault of these shameful feelings, and they were per- sistent. He seemed to see before him a woman whose perverse ways had long maddened him. All at once this hallucination ceased ; his eye was mechanically attracted towards the priest, who was looking at him, while speaking in a low voice to a beadle. He lost his head, imagining that the priest guessed his thoughts and was turning him out, but this no- tion was so foolish, that he shrugged his shoulders. 72 EN ROUTE and more sensibly thought that men were not ad- mitted to this convent of women, and that the abbe who had seen him was sending the beadle to beg him to leave. The beadle came straight to him; Durtal was* ready to take his hat, when in persuasive and gentle tones that functionary said that the procession was about to begin, that it was the custom for the gen- tlemen to follow the Blessed Sacrament, and that although he was the only man there, the abbe thought he would not refuse to follow the proces- sion about to start. Overwhelmed by this request, Durtal made a vague gesture, in which the beadle seemed to see assent. "No," he thought as soon as he was left alone ; "I will not meddle with the ceremony; first I know nothing about it, and I should spoil it all, and again I will not make a fool of myself." He prepared to slip away quietly, but he had no time to carry out his intention; the usher brought him a lighted candle and asked him to accompany him. He put the best face he could on the matter, and while thinking that he was blushing all over, he followed the beadle to the altar. There the beadle stopped him and bid him not to move. The whole congregation was now sttpding, the girls' school divided into two files, preceded by a woman carrying a banner. Durtal came in front of the first rank of nuns. Their veils lowered before the profane, even in church, were raised before the Blessed Sacrament, EN ROUTE 73 before God. Durtal was able to look at these sisters for a moment; at first his disillusion was complete. He had supposed them pale and grave like the nun he had seen in the gallery, and almost all of them were red, freckled, crossing their poor hands swelled and wounded by chilblains. Their faces were puffy and all seemed at the beginning or end of a cold; they were evidently country girls, and the novices, known by their grey robes under the white veil, were still more common looking; they had cer- tainly been accustomed to farm labour, and yet on seeing them all turned to the altar, the poverty of their faces, the ugliness of their hands blue with cold, their broken nails, injured in the wash, dis- appeared ; their eyes, modest and humble under their long lashes, changed their coarse features into pious simplicity. Lost in prayer, they did not even see his curious looks, and did not even suspect a man was there examining them. Durtal envied the admirable wisdom of these poor girls who alone understood it was mad to wish to live. He thought : "Ignorance leads to the same result as knowledge. Among the Carmelites are rich and pretty women who have lived in the world and left it, wholly convinced of the vainness of its joys ; and these nuns, who evidently know nothing, have had an intuition of that vacuity which it has needed years of experience for the others to gain. By different ways they have arrived at the same meeting-place. Then what clearness of thought is revealed by their entrance into an Order! for if in- deed they had not been gathered by Christ, what 74 EN ROUTE would have become of these unhappy girls? Mar- ried to drunkards and hammered by beatings; or perhaps maids in taverns, ill-treated by their mas- ters, brutalized by the other servants, destined to the scorn of the streets and the dangers of ill-usage. And without knowing anything they have avoided it all, have remained innocent, far from these perils, and far from this defilement, under an obedience which is not ignoble, disposed by their very way of life to experience, should they be worthy, the most powerful joys which the soul of a human creature can feel. They remain, perhaps, beasts of burthen, but at any rate God's beasts of burthen." He had got so far in his reflections when the beadle beckoned to him. The priest, who had de- scended from the altar, held the little monstrance; the girls' procession was moving before him. Dur- tal passed in front of the line of nuns who did not take part in the ceremony, and torch in hand he followed the beadle, who carried behind the priest an open white silk parasol. Then the harmonium in the gallery filled the church with its drawling tones, like an enlarged ac- cordion, and the nuns standing beside it intoned the old chant, rhythmical as a march, the "Adeste Fideles," while below the novices and the faithful repeated after each stanza the sweet chorus of in- vitation, "Venite adoremus." The procession went several times round the chapel, above the heads bowed in the smoke from the censers, which the choir boys swung, turning at each pause to face the priest. EN ROUTE 75 "Well, after all, I have not come so badly out of it," said Durtal to himself, when they had re- turned to the altar. He thought his part was fin- ished, but, this time without asking his permission, the beadle asked him to kneel at the communion rail in front of the altar. He was ill at ease and annoyed, at knowing that the whole school and the whole convent was behind him, nor was he accustomed to kneel; it seemed as if wedges were thrust into his limbs, as if he were subjected to the tortures of the Middle Ages. Em- barrassed by his taper, which was guttering, and threatened to cover him with spots, he shifted his position quietly, trying to make himself more com- fortable by slipping the skirts of his great coat be- tween his knees and the steps; but in moving he only increased the evil, his flesh was folded back be- tween the bones, and his skin was chafed and burn- ing. He sweated at last with the pain, and feared to distract the fervour of the community by fall- ing; while the ceremony went on forever, the nuns sang in the gallery, but he listened no more and deplored the length of the service. At last the moment of Benediction approached. Then in spite of himself, seeing himself there, so near to God, Durtal forgot his suiiferings, and bowed his head, ashamed to be so placed, like a cap- tain at the head of his company, in the first rank of this maiden troop; and when in a great silence, the bell tinkled, and the priest turning, lightly cut the air in the form of a cross, and, with the Blessed Sacrament, blessed the congregation kneeling at his 76 EN ROUTE feet, Durtal remained, his body bent, his eyes closed, seeking to hide himself, to make himself small, and not be seen there in front amid that pious crowd. The psalm "Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes," rang out when the beadle came to take his taper. Durtal could hardly resist a cry, when he had to stand up; his benumbed knees cracked, and their joints would hardly work. Yet he regained his place somehow ; let the crowd pass, and approaching the beadle, asked him the name of the convent, and the order to which the nuns belonged. "They are the Franciscan missionaries of Mary," answered the man, "but the chapel is not theirs as you seem to think; it is a chapel of ease for the parish of St. Marcel de la Maison Blanche: it is only joined by a corridor to the house those sisters occupy behind us there in the Rue de I'Ebre. They join in the offices, in fact, just as you and I may do, and they keep a school for the children of the district." "It is a touching little chapel," thought Durtal, when he was alone. "It is well matched with the neighbourhood it shelters, with the gloomy brook of the tanners, which runs through the yards below the Rue de la Glaciere. It gives me the effect of being to Notre Dame de Paris what its neighbour the Bievre is to the Seine. It is the streamlet of the church, the pious pavement, the miserable sub- urb of worship. "How poor and yet how exquisite are those nuns' voices, which seem non-sexual and mellow! God EN ROUTE 'jy knows how I hate the voice of a woman in the holy place, for it still remains unclean. I think woman always brings with her the lasting miasma of her indispositions and she turns the psalms sour. Then, all the same, vanity and concupiscence rise from the worldly voice, and its cries of adoration ac- companied by the organ are only cries of carnal de- sire, its very pleadings in the most sombre liturgi- cal hymns are only addressed to God from the lips outward, for at bottom a woman only mourns the mediocre ideal of earthly pleasure to which she cannot attain. Thus I thoroughly understand that the Church has rejected woman from her offices, and that the musical robe of her sequences may not be contaminated she employs the voices of the boy and the man. "Yet in convents of women, that is changed; it is certain that prayer, communion, abstinence and vows purify the body and the soul, as well as the vocal odour which proceeds from them. The ema- nations from them give to the voices of the nuns, however crude, however ill-trained they may be, their chaste inflexions, their simple caresses of pure love, they recall to it the ingenuous sounds of childhood. "In certain orders, they seem even to prune it of the greater part of its branches, and concentrate the threads of sap which remain in a few twigs" ; and he thought of a Carmelite convent to which he had gone from time to time, remembered their failing, almost expiring voices, where the little health that remained to them was concentrated in three notes. 78 EN ROUTE voices which had lost the musical colours of life, the tints of open air, keeping only in the cloister those of the costumes they seemed to reflect, white and brown, chaste and sombre tones. Ah! those Carmelites, he thought of them now, as he descended the Rue de la Glaciere, and he called up the memory of a profession, the thought of which took entire possession of him every time he meditated on convents. He saw again in memory a morning in the little chapel in the Avenue de Saxe, a chapel, Spanish Gothic in style, with narrow win- dows glazed with panes so dark that the light which remained in their colours did not pass through them. At the end rose the high altar in shade, raised on six steps; on the left a large iron grating in an arch was covered with a black curtain, and on the same side, but almost at the base of the altar, a little arch traced on the plain wall, like a lancet window, with an aperture in the middle, a sort of square, a frame, without a panel, empty. That morning the chapel, cold and dark, spark- led, lighted by groves of candles ; and the odour of incense, not adulterated as in other churches by spices and gums, filled it with a dull smoke; it was crammed with people. Crouched in a corner, Dur- tal had turned round, and like his neighbours looked at the backs of the thurifers and priests, who were going towards the entrance. The door opened sud- denly, and he saw, in a burst of daylight, a red vision of the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, passing up the nave, turning from side to side a horse-like EN ROUTE 79 head, in front of it a big spectacled nose, bending his tall form all on one side, blessing the congrega- tion with a long twisted hand, like a crab's claw. He and his suite ascended the altar steps, and knelt at a prie-Dieu, then they took off his tippet, and vested him in a silk chasuble with a white cross embroidered in silver, and the mass began. Shortly before the communion, the black veil was gently withdrawn ; behind the high grating, and in a blue- ish light like that of the moon, Durtal faintly saw white phantoms gliding and stars twinkling in the air, and close to the grating a woman's form, kneel- ing motionless on the ground, she too holding a star at the end of a taper. The woman did not move but the star shook; then when the moment of com- munion was at hand, the woman rose, then disap- peared, and her head, as if decapitated, filled the square of the wicket opened in the arch. Then as he leant forward he saw, for a second, a dead face, with closed lids, white, eyeless, like ancient marble statues. And all passed away, as the Cardinal bent above the grating, with the cibo- rium in his hand. All was so rapid that he asked himself if he were not dreaming ; the mass was over. Behind the iron grating resounded mournful psalms, slow chants drawn out, weeping, always on the same notes, wan- dering lights and white forms passed in the azure fluid of the incense. Monseigneur Richard was sit- ting, mitre on head, interrogating the postulant who had returned to her place, and was kneeling before him behind the grating. 8o EN ROUTE He spoke in a low voice, and could not be heard. The whole congregation bent to listen to the novice as she pronounced her vows, but only a long mur- mur was heard. Durtal remembered that he had el- bowed his way, and got near the choir, where, through the crossed bars of the grating, he saw the woman clad in white, prostrate on her face, in a square of flowers, while the whole convent filed past, bending over her, intoning the psalms for the dead, and sprinkling her with holy water, like a corpse. "It is admirable," he cried, moved in the street by the memory of the scene, and he thought of what a life was that of these women ! To lie on an hair mattress without pillow or sheets, to fast seven months out of the twelve, except on Sundays and feasts; always to eat, standing, vegetables and ab- stinence fare ; to have no fire in winter, to chant for hours on ice-cold tiles, to scourge the body, to be- come so humble as, however tenderly nurtured, to wash up dishes with joy, and attend to the meanest tasks, to pray from morning to midnight even to fainting, to pray there till death. They must indeed pity us, and set themselves to expiate the imbecility of a world which treats them as hysterical fools, for it cannot even understand the joy in suffering of souls like these. "We cannot be proud of ourselves, in thinking of the Carmelites, or even of those humble Franciscan Tertiaries, who are after all more vulgar. It is true they do not belong to a contemplative order, but all the same their rules are very strict, their EN ROUTE 8i existence is so hard that they too can atone by their prayers and good works for the crimes of the city they protect." He grew enthusiastic in thinking of the convents. Ah! to be earthed up among them, sheltered from the herd, not to know what books appear, what newspapers are printed, never to know what goes on outside one's cell, among men — to complete the beneficent silence of this cloistered life, nourishing ourselves with good actions, refreshing ourselves with plain song, saturating ourselves with the inex- haustible joys of the liturgies. Then, who knows? By force of good will, and by ardent prayer, to succeed in coming to Him, in entertaining Him, feeling Him near us, perhaps almost satisfied with His creature. And he called up before him the joys of those abbeys in which Jesus abode. He remembered that astonishing con- vent of Unterlinden, near Colmar, where in the thirteenth century not only one or two nuns, but the whole convent, rose distractedly before Christ with cries of joy, nuns were lifted above the ground, others heard the songs of seraphim, and their ema- ciated bodies secreted balm; others became trans- parent or were crowned with stars; all these phe- nomena of the contemplative life were visible im that cloister, a high school of Mysticism. Thus wrapped in thought, he found himself at his own door, without remembering the road he had taken, and as soon as he was in his room, his whole soul dilated and burst forth. He desired to thank, to call for mercy, to appeal to someone» 82 EN ROUTE he knew not whom, to complain of he knew not what. All at once the need of pouring himself forth, of going out of himself, took shape, and he fell on his knees saying to Our Lady, "Have pity on me, and hear me; I would rather anything than continue this shaken existence, these idle stages without an aim. Pardon me. Holy Vir- gin, unclean as I am, for I have no courage for the battle. Ah, wouldest thou grant my prayer! I know well that I am over bold in daring to ask, since I am not even resolved to turn out my soul, to empty it like a bucket of filth, to strike it on the bottom, that the lees may trickle out and the scales fall off, but . . . but . . . thou knowest I am so weak, so little sure of myself, that in truth I shrink. "Oh, all the same I would desire to flee away, a thousand miles from Paris, I know not where, into a cloister. My God ! yet this is very madness that I speak, for I could not stay two days in a convent; nor indeed would they take me in." Then he thought, — "Though this once I am less dry, less unclean than is my wont, I can find nothing to say to Our Lady but insanities and follies, when it would be so sim- ple to ask her pardon, to beg her to have pity on my desolate life, to aid me to resist the demands of my vices, not to pay as I do the royalties on my nerves, the tax on my senses. "All the same," he said, rising, "enough of this, I will at least do what little I can; without more delay I will go to the abbe to-morrow. I will ex- plain the struggle of my soul, and we will see what happens afterwards." CHAPTER V. He was really comforted when the servant said that Monsieur I'Abbe was at home. He entered a little drawing-room, and waited till the priest, whom he heard speaking to someone in the next chamber, was alone. He looked at the little room, and marked that nothing was changed since his last visit. It was still furnished with a velvet sofa, of which the red, once crimson, had become the faded rose colour of rasp- berry jam on bread. There were also two tall arm- chairs on either side of the chimney, which was or- namented by an Empire clock, and some china vases filled with sand, in which were stuck some dry stalks of reed. In a corner against the wall, under an old wooden crucifix, was a prie-dieu, marked by the knees, an oval table in the centre, some sacred engravings on the walls; and that was all. "It is like an hotel, or an old maid's lodging," thought Durtal. The commonness of the furniture, the curtains in faded damask, the panels hung with a paper covered with bouquets of poppies and field- flowers in false colours, were like lodgings by the month, but certain details, above all the scrupulous cleanliness of the room, the worked cushions on the sofa, the grass mats under the chairs, an hor- tensia like a painted cauliflower placed in a flower- 83 84 EN ROUTE pot covered with lace, looked on the other hand like the futile and icy room of a devout woman. Nothing was wanting but a cage of canaries, photographs in plush frames, shell-work and crochet mats. Durtal had got so far in his reflections when the abbe came in with extended hand, gently finding fault with his long absence. Durtal made what excuses he could, unusual oc- cupations, long weariness. "And our Blessed Lidwine, how do you get on with her?" "Ah, I have not even begun her life; I am not in a state of mind which allows me to engage in it." Durtal's accent of discouragement surprised the priest. "Come, what is the matter? Can I be of any use to you?" "I do not know. Monsieur I'Abbe. I am almost ashamed to talk to you about such troubles," and suddenly he burst out, telling his sorrows in any chance words, declaring the unreality of his con- version, his struggles with the flesh, his human respect, his neglect of religious practices, his aver- sion from the rites demanded of him, in fact from all yokes. The abbe listened without moving, his chin on his hand. "You are more than forty," he said, when Durtal was silent; "you have passed the age when without any impulse from thought, the awakening of the flesh excites temptations, you are now in that period EN ROUTE 85 when indecent thoughts first present themselves to the imagination, before the senses are agitated. We have then to fight less against your sleeping body than your mind, which stimulates and vexes it. On the other hand, you have arrears and prizes of af- fection to put out, you have no wife or children to receive them, so that your afJections being driven back by celibacy, you will end by taking them there where at first they should have been placed ; you try to appease your soul's himger in chapels, and as you hesitate, as you have not the courage to come to a decision, to break once for all with your vices, you have arrived at this strange compromise; to reserve your tender feeling for the church and the manifes- tations of that feeling for women. That, if I do not mistake, is your correct balance-sheet. But, good heavens, you have not too much to complain of, for do you not see that the important thing is to care for woman only with your bodily senses? When Heaven has given you grace to be no longer taken captive by thought, all may be arranged with a little effort of will." "This is an indulgent priest," thought Durtal. "But," continued the abbe, "you cannot always sit between two stools, the moment will come when you must stick to the one, and push the other away." And looking at Durtal, who looked down without answering, — "Do you pray? I do not ask if you say your morning prayers, for not all those, who end by entering on the divine way, after wandering for years where chance might take them, call on the 86 EN ROUTE Lord so soon as they awake. At break of day the soul thinks itself well, thinks itself firmer, and at once takes occasion of this fleeting energy to forget God. It is with the soul as with the body when it is sick. When nigh t ^ comes .. our ^ensation^_are str onge r, pam which was quieted awakes, tEe fever^ wnichsTept blazes up again, filth revives and wounds bleed anew, and then it thinks of the divine Miracle- worker, it thinks of Christ. Do you pray in the evening?" "Sometimes — ^and yet it is very difficult, the after- noon is tolerable, but you say truly when the day- light goes, evils spring up. A whole cavalcade of obscene ideas then pass through my brain; how can any one be recollected at such moments ?" "If you do not feel able to resist in the street or at home, why do you not take refuge in the churches ?" "But jhc]^ are, closed when one has most need of Jigffl4JilJeL.clergy jEut Jelu^^ nip;htfalll' "" "I know it, but if most cTiurcHes are closed, there are a few which remain partly open very late. Ah, St. Sulpice is among the number, and there is one which remains open every evening, and where those who visit it are always sure of prayers and Bene- diction: Notre Dame des Victoires, I think you know it." "Yes, Monsieur I'Abbe. It is ugly enough to cause tears, it is pretentious, it is in bad taste, and the singers chum up a margarine of rancid tones. I do not go there then as I go to St. Severin and St. Sulpice, to admire there the art of the old EN ROUTE 87 'Praisers of God,' to listen, even if they are incor- rectly given, to the broad, familiar melodies of plain chant. Notre Dame des Victoires is worthless from the aesthetic point of view, and yet I go there from time to time, because alone in Paris it has the irresistible attraction of true piety, it alone pre- serves intact the lost soul of the Time. At what- ever hour one goes there people are praying there, prostrate in absolute silence; it is full as soon as it is open, and full at its closing, there is a constant coming and going of pilgrims from all parts of Paris, arriving from the depths of the provinces, and it seems that each one, by the prayers that he brings, adds fuel to the immense brazier of Faith whose flames break out again under the smoky arches like the thousands of tapers which constantly burn, and are renewed from morning till evening, before Our Lady. "Well, I who seek the most deserted corners and the darkest places in the chapels, I who hate mobs, mix almost willingly with those I find there; be- cause there everyone is isolated, no one is concerned with his neighbour, you do not see the human bodies which throng you, but you feel the breath of souls around. However refractory, however damp you may be, you end by taking fire at this contact, and are astonished to find yourself all at once less vile ; it seems to me that the prayers which elsewhere when they leave my lips fall back to the ground exhausted and chilled, spring upwards in that place, are borne on by others, grow warm and soar and live. 88 EN ROUTE "At St. Severin I have indeed experienced the sensation of a help spreading from the pillars and running through the arches, but, as I think, the aid is less strong. Perhaps since the Middle Ages that church makes use of, but cannot renew the celestial effluvia with which it is charged; while at Notre Dame the help which springs up from the very pave- ment is forever, vivified by the uninterrupted pres- ence of an ardent crowd. In the one it is the im- pregnate stone, the church itself which brings con- solation, in the other it is above all things the fer- vour of the crowds which fill it. "And then I have the strange impression that the Virgin, attracted and retained by so great faith, only spends a little while in other churches, goes there as a visitor, but has made her home, and really resides in Notre Dame." The abbe smiled. "Come, I see that you know and love it ; and yet the church is not on our left bank, beyond which, you said to me one day, there is no sanctuary worth having." "Yes, and I am surprised at it, especially as it is placed in a thoroughly commercial quarter, two paces from the Exchange, whose ignoble shouts can be heard in it." "It was itself an Exchange," said the abbe. "In what way?" "After having been baptized by the monks, and having served as a chapel for the discalced Augus- tinians, it was horribly desecrated in the Revolution, and the Exchange was set up within its walls." EN ROUTE 89 **I was not aware of that detail," said Durtal. "But," continued the abbe, "it was with it, as with those holy women, who, if we believe their biographers, recovered by a life of prayer the vir- ginity they had formerly lost. Our Lady washed it from its violation, and though it is comparatively modern, it is at the present day saturated with emanations, infused by effluences of angels, pene- trated with divine drugs, it is for sick souls what certain thermal springs are for the body. People keep their season there, make their novenas, and obtain their cure. "Now to come back to our point ; I tell you you will do wisely, if on your bad evenings you will attend Benediction in that church. I shall be sur- prised if you do not come out cleansed and at peace." "If he have only that to offer me, it is little enough," thought Durtal. And after a disappointed silence he rejoined. "But, Monsieur I'Abbe, even were I to visit that sanctuary, and follow the offices in other churches, when temptations assail me, even were I to confess and draw near the Sacraments, how would that ad- vantage me? I should meet as I came out the woman whose very sight inflames my senses, and it would be with me as after my leaving St. Severin all unnerved; the very feeling of tenderness which I had in the chapel would destroy me, and I should fall back into sin." "What do you know about it?" and the priest 90 EN ROUTE suddenly rose, and took long strides through the room. "You have no right to speak thus, for the virtue of the Sacrament is formal, the man who has com- municated is no longer alone. He is armed against others and defended against himself," and crossing his arms before Durtal he exclaimed, — "To lose one's soul for the pleasure of momen- tary gratification! what madness. And since the time of your conversion, does not that disgust you?" "Yes, I am disgusted with myself, but only after my swinish desires are satisfied. If only I could gain true repentance." "Rest assured," said the abhe, who sat down again, "you will find it." And, seeing that Durtal shook his head, "Remember what Saint Teresa said : 'One trouble of those who are beginning is, that they cannot recognize whether they have true repentance for their faults; but they have it, and the proof is their sincere resolution to serve God.' Think of that sen- tence, for it applies to you ; that repugnance to your sins which wearies you is witness to your regret, and you have a desire to serve the Lord, since you are in fact struggling to go to Him." There was a moment of silence. "Well, then, Monsieur I'Abbe, what is your ad- vice?" "I advise you to pray in your own house, in church, everywhere, as much as you can. I do not prescribe any religious remedy, I simply invite you EN ROUTE 91 to profit by some precepts of pious hygiene, after- wards we will see." Durtal remained undecided, discontented, like those sick persons who find fault with doctors, who, to satisfy them, prescribe only colourless drugs. The priest laughed. "Confess," he said, looking him in the face, "con- fess that you are saying to yourself, 'It was not worth while to put myself out, for I am no further advanced ; this good fellow, the priest, practises ex- pectant medicine ; instead of cutting short my crises with energetic remedies, he palters, advises me to go to bed early, not to catch cold — ' " "Oh, Monsieur I'Abbe," protested Durtal. "Yet I do not wish to treat you like a child, or talk to you like a woman; now attend to me! "The way in which your conversion has worked leaves me in no doubt whatever. There has been what Mysticism calls the divine touch, only — note this — God has dispensed with human intervention, even with the interference of a priest, to bring you back into the road you have left for more than twenty years. "Now we cannot reasonably suppose that the Lord has acted lightly, and that He will now leave His work unaccomplished. He will carry it through if you put no obstacle in His way. "In fact you are at this moment like a block in His hands; what will He do with it? I do not know, but since He has kept to Himself the con- duct of your soul, let Him act; be patient, He will explain His action; trust in Him, He will help 92 EN ROUTE you ; be content to protest with the Psalmist : 'Doce me facere voluntatem tuam, quia Deus meus es tu.' "I tell you again I believe in the preventive vir- tue, the formal power of the Sacraments. I quite understand the system of Pere Milleriot, who obliged those persons to communicate whom he thought would afterwards fall again into sin. For their only penance he obliged them to communicate again and again, and he ended by purifying them with the Sacred Species, taken in large doses. It is a doctrine at once realistic and exalted. "But reassure yourself," continued the abbe, looking at Durtal, who seemed wearied, "I do not in- tend to experiment on you in this way ; on the con- trary, my advice is that in the state of ignorance in which we are of God's will, you abstain from the Sacraments. "For you should desire them, and it should come from you rather than from Him; be sure that sooner or later you will thirst for Penance, hunger for the Eucharist. Well, when unable to restrain yourself longer, you ask for pardon and entreat to be allowed to approach the Holy Table, we shall see, we will ask Him what way He will choose to take, in order to save you." "But there are not, I presume, several ways of confessing and communicating?" "Certainly not, that is just what I meant to say ... but . . ." And the priest hesitated, at a loss for words. "It is quite certain," he began again, "that art has been the principal means which the Saviour EN ROUTE 93 has used to make you absorb the Faith. He has taken you on your weak side — or strong side, if you like that better. He has infused into your na- ture the chief mystical works; he has persuaded and converted you, less by the way of reason than the way of the senses; and indeed those are the special conditions you have to take into account. "On the other hand your soul is not humble and simple, you are a sort of 'sensitive,' whom the least imprudence, the least stupidity of a confessor, would at once repel. "Therefore that you may not be at the mercy of a troublesome impression, certain precautions must be taken. In the state of weakness and feebleness in which you are, a disagreeable face, an unlucky word, antipathetic surroundings, a mere nothing would be enough to rout you — is it not so?" "Alas!" sighed Durtal, "I am obliged to answer that you are right; but. Monsieur I'Abbe, I do not think I shall have to fear such disillusions if when the moment you predict has come you will allow me to make my confession to you." The priest was silent for a while; then said: "No doubt, since I have met you, I may probably be useful to you, but I have an idea that my part will be confined to pointing out the road to you; I shall be a connecting link, and nothing more ; you will end as you have begun, without help, alone." The abbe remained in thought, then shook his head, and went on : "Let us leave the subject, however, for we cannot anticipate the designs of God; to sum up, try to stifle in prayer your attacks of the flesh; 94 EN ROUTE it is a less matter not to be overcome at the mo- ment, than to direct all your efforts not to be so." Then the priest added gently to rouse the spirits of Durtal, whom he saw to be depressed, "If you.f^ll do nqt^despair, a nd throw the handle aftertheh^cKt.'™'^ayto''y^ tust is^not me most unpardonable of faults, that it is one of two sins for which the human being pays cash, and which are consequently expiated in part at least before death. Say to yourself that wantonness and avarice refuse all credit and will not wait; and in fact, whoever unlawfully commits a fleshly act is almost always punished in his life- time. For some there are bastards to provide for, sickly wives, low connections, broken careers, abom- inable deceptions on the part of those they have loved. On whichever side we turn when women are concerned we have to suffer, for she is tnerftB§t powerful instr mamL . .pf sorrow_.jHiMch ' (^flOaaS- fifiven to man. "It is the same with the passion for gain. Every being who allows himself to be overcome by that hateful sin pays for it as a rule before his death. Look at the Panama business. Cooks, housekeep- ers, small proprietors who till then had lived in peace, seeking no inordinate gains, no illicit profit, threw themselves like madmen into that business. They had one only thought, to gain money; the chastisement of their cupidity was, as you know, sudden." "Yes," said Durtal, laughing, "the de Lesseps were the agents of providence, when they stole the EN ROUTE 95 savings of fools, who had moreover got them prob- ably by thieving." "In a word," said the abbe, "I repeat my last advice: do not be at all discouraged if you sink. Do not despise yourself too much; have the courage to enter a church afterwards; for the devil catches you by cowardice, the false shame, the false humil- ity he suggests, nourish, maintain, solidify your wantonness in some measure. "Well! no good-bye; come and see me soon again." Durtal found himself in the street a little con- fused. "It is evident," he murmured, as he stalked along, "that the Abbe Gevresin is a clever spiritual watchmaker. He has dexterously taken to pieces the movement of my passions, and made the hours of idleness and weariness strike, but, after all, his advice comes only to this: stew in your own juice and wait. "Indeed he is right; if I had come to the point I should not have gone to him to chatter, but really to confess. What is strange is that he does not at all seem to think he will have to put me through the wash-tub ; and to whom does he mean to go — ^to the first comer who will wind about me his spool of commonplaces, and stroke me with his big hands without seeing clearly? "Well, well . . . what is the time?" He looked at his watch. "Six o'clock, and I do not care to go home. What shall I do till dinner?" He was near St. Sulpice. He went in and sat down, to clear his thoughts a little, taking a place 96 EN ROUTE in the Chapel of Our Lady, which at that hour was almost empty. He felt no wish to pray, and rested there, look- ing at the great arch of marble and gold, like a scene in a theatre, where the Virgin, the only figure in the light, advances towards the faithful, as from' a decorated grotto, on plaster clouds. Meanwhile two Little Sisters of the Poor came and knelt not far from him, and meditated, their heads between their hands. He thought as he looked at them, — "Those souls are to be envied who can thus be abstracted in prayer. How do they manage it? For, in fact, it is not easy if one thinks of the sor- rows of the world, to praise the vaunted mercy of God. It is all very fine to believe that He exists, to be certain that He is good; in fact, we do not know Him — we are ignorant of Him. He is, and, in fact. He can only be, immanent, permanent, and inaccessible. He is we know not what, and at most we know what He is not. Try to imagine Him, and the senses fail, for He is above, about, and in each one of us. He is three and He is one ; He is each and He is all; He is without beginning, and He will be without end; He is above all and for ever incomprehensible. If we try to picture Him to ourselves and give Him a human wrappage, we come back to the simple conception of the early times, we represent Him under the features of an ancestor. Some old Italian model, some old Father Tourgeneff, with a long beard, and we cannot but smile, so childish is the likeness of God the Father. EN ROUTE 97 "He is, in fact, so absolutely above the imagina- tion and the senses, that He comes only nominally into prayer, and the impulses of humanity ascend especially to the Son, Who only can be addressed, because He became a man, and is to us somewhat of an elder brother, because, having wept in human form, we think He will hear us more readily, and be more compassionate to our sorrows. "As to the third Person, He is even more dis- concerting than the first. He is especially the un- knowable. How can we imagine this God formless and bodiless, this Substance equal to the two others, who, as it were, breathe Him forth? We think of Him as a brightness, a fluid, a breath; we cannot even lend to Him as to the Father the face of a man, since on the two occasions that He took to Himself a body. He showed Himself under the like- nesses of a dove and of tongues of fire, and these, two different aspects do not help to a suggestion of the new appearance He might assume. "Certainly the Trinity is terrible, and makes the brain reel. Ruysbrock has moreover said admir- ably, 'Let those who would know and study what. God is, know that it is forbidden; they will go mad.' "So," he continued, looking at the two Little Sisters, who were now telling their beads, "these good women are right not to try to understand, and to confine themselves to praying with all their heart to the Mother and the Son. "Moreover, in all the lives of the saints which they have read, they have made certain that Jesus 98 EN ROUTE and Mary always appeared to the elect to console and strengthen them. "In fact, how stupid I am. To pray to the Son is to pray to the two others, for in praying to one among them I pray at the same time to the three, since the three make but one. And the Substances are, however, special, because if the divine Essence is one and simple, it is so in the threefold distinc- tion of the Persons; but, again, what is the use of fathoming the Impenetrable? "Yet," he continued, remembering the interview he had just had with the priest, "how will all this end? If the abbe be right, I no longer belong to myself; I am about to enter the unknown, which frightens me. If only the sound of my vices con- sents to be silent, but I feel that they rise furiously within me. Ah, that Florence" — and he thought of a woman to whose vagaries he was riveted — "con- tinues to walk about in my brain. I see her behind the lowered curtain of my eyes, and when I think of her I am a terrible coward." He endeavoured once more to put her away, but his will was overcome at the sight of her. He hated, despised, and even cursed her, but the madness of his illusions excited him; he left her disgusted with her and with himself; he swore he would never see her again, but did not keep his resolve. He saw her now in vision extend her hand to him. He recoiled, struggling to free himself; but his EN ROUTE 99 dream continued mingling her with the form of one of the sisters whose gentle profile he saw. Suddenly he started, returned to the real world, and saw that he was at St. Sulpice, in the chapel. "It is disgusting that I should come here to soil the church with my horrible dreams ; I had better go." He went out in confusion, thinking, "Perhaps if I visit Florence once again, I may perhaps put an end to this haunting sense of her presence, seeing and knowing the reality." And he was obliged to answer himself that he was becoming idiotic, for he knew by experience that past desire grows in proportion as it is nour- ished. "No, the abbe was right; I have to become and to remain penitent. But how? Pray? How can I pray, when evil imaginations pursue me even in church ? Evil dreams followed me to La Glaciere ; here they appear again, and smite me to the ground. How can I defend myself ? for indeed it is frightful to be thus alone, to know nothing and have no proof, to feel the prayers which one tears out of oneself fall into the silence and the void without a gesture to answer, without a word of encourage- ment, without a sign. I do not even know if He be there, and if He listens. The abbe tells me to wait an indication, an order from on high; but, alas ! they come to me from below." CHAPTER VI. Many months passed. Durtal continued his alter- nation of wanton and pious ideas. Without power to resist, he saw himself slipping. "All this is far from clear," he cried, one day, in a rage, when, less apathetic than usual, he forced himself to take stock. "Now, Monsieur I'Abbe, what does this mean? Whenever my sensual obsessions are weaker, so also are my religious impressions." "That means," said the priest, "that your adver- sary is holding out to you the most treacherous of his baits. He seeks to persuade you that you will never attain to anything unless you will give your- self up to the most repugnant excesses. He tries to convince you that satiety and disgust of these acts alone will bring you back to God ; he incites you to commit them that they may, so to speak, bring about your deliverance ; he leads you into sin under pretext of delivering you from it. Have a little 'energy, despise these sophistries and resist him." He went to see the Abbe Gevresin every week. He liked the patient discretion of the old priest, who let him talk when he was in a confidential hu- mour, listened to him carefully, manifested no sur- prise at his frequent temptations and his falls. Only the abbe always returned to his first advice, insisted 100 EN ROUTE loi on regular prayer, and that Durtal should each day, if possible, visit a church. He also now said, "The hour is important for the success of these practices. If you wish that the chapels should be favourable to you, get up in time to be present at daybreak at the first mass, the servants' mass, and also be very often in the sanctuaries at nightfall." The priest had evidently formed a plan; Durtal did not yet wholly understand it, but he was bound to admit that this discipline of temporizing, this constant call to thought always directed to God, by his daily visits to the churches, acted upon him at last, and little by little softened his soul. One fact proved it : that he who for so long a time had been unable to meditate in the morning, now prayed as soon as he awoke. Even in the afternoon he found himself on some days seized with the need of speak- ing humbly with God, with an irresistible desire to ask His pardon and implore His help. It seemed then that the Lord knocked at his door with gentle touches, wishing so to recall his atten- tion, and draw him to Him; but when, softened and troubled, Durtal would enter into himself to seek God, he wandered vaguely, not knowing what he said, and thinking of other things while speak- ing to Him. He complained of these wanderings and distrac- tions to the priest, who answered, — "You are on the threshold of the probationary life; you cannot yet experience the sweet and fa- miliar friendship of prayer. Do not sadden your- self because you cannot close behind you the gate I02 EN ROUTE of your senses. Watch and wait ; pray badly if you can do nothing else, but pray all the same. "Be very sure too that ev ery one has ex perienced the troubles which dis^ess you ; above'"Sl7[)elieve that we do not walk biindi'old, that Mysticism is an absolutely exact science. It can foretell the greater part of the phenomena which occur in that soul which the Lord intends for a perfect life; it follows also spiritual operations with the same clearness as physiology observes the different states of the body. For ages and ages it has disclosed the progress of grace and its effects, now impetuous and now slow ; it has even pointed out the modifications of material organs which are transformed when the soul en- tirely loses itself in God. "Saint Denys the Areopagite, Saint Bonaventure, Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bernard, Ruysbrock, Angela of Fo- ligno, the two Eckharts, Tauler, Suso, Denys the Carthusian, Saint Hildegarde, Saint Catherine of Genoa, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Magdalen of Pazzi, Saint Gertrude, and others have set forth in a masterly way the principles and theories of Mysticism, and it has found at last an admirable psychologist to sum up its rules and their excep- tions; a Saint who has verified in her own person the supernatural phases she has described — a woman whose lucidity was more than human — Saint Teresa. You have read her life, and her 'Castles of the Soul?'" Durtal nodded assent. "Then you have your information ; you ought to EN ROUTE 103 know that before reaching the shores of Blessed- ness, before arriving at the fifth dwelling of the interior castle, at that prayer of union wherein the soul is awakened in regard to God, and completely- asleep to all things of earth and to herself, she must pass through lamentable states of dryness, and the most painful strainings. Take heart therefore ; say to yourself that this dryness should be a source of humility, and not a cause of disquietude ; do, in fact, as Saint Teresa would have you : carry your cross, and not drag it after you." "That magnificent and terrible Saint frightens me," sighed Durtal. "I have read her works, and, do you know, she gives me the idea of a stainless lily, but a metallic lily, forged of wrought iron; you will admit that those who suffer have scant consolations to expect from her." "Yes; in the sense that she does not think of the creature except in the way of Mysticism. She sup- poses the fields already ploughed, the soul already freed from its more vehement temptations, and sheltered from crises; her starting-point is as yet too high and too distant for you, for, in fact, she is addressing nuns, women of the cloister, beings who live apart from the world, and who are conse- quently already advanced on those ascetic ways wherein God is leading them. "But make an effort in the spirit to free yourself from this mud, cast away for a few moments the memory of your imperfections and your troubles, and follow her. See then how experienced she is in the domain of the supernatural, how, in spite of 104 EN ROUTE her repetitions and tediousraess, she explains wisely and clearly the mechanism of the soul unfolding when God touches it. In subjects where words fail and phrases crumble away, she succeeds in making herself understood, in showing, making felt, almost making visible, the inconceivable sight of God buried in the soul, and taking His pleasure there. "And she goes still further into the mystery, even to the end; bounds with a final spring to the very- gates of heaven, but then she faints in adoration, and being unable to express herself further, she soars, describing circles like a frightened bird, wan- dering beyond herself, in cries of love." "Yes, Monsieur I'Abbe, I recognize that Saint Teresa has explored deeper than any other the un- known regions of the soul; she is in some measure its geographer, has drawn the map of its poles, marked the latitudes of contemplation, the interior lands of the human sky. Other Saints have ex- plored them before her, but they have not left us so methodical nor so exact a topography. "But in spite of this I prefer those mystical writers who have less self-analysis, and discuss less, who always do throughout their works what Saint Teresa did at the end of hers — that is, who are all on fire from the first page to the last, and are con- sumed and lost at the feet of Christ. Ruysbrock is among these. The little volume which Hello has translated is a very furnace ; and, again, to quote a woman, take Saint Angela of Foligno, not so much in the book of her visions which may not be always effectual, as in the wonderful life which she die- EN ROUTE 105 tated to Brother Armand, her confessor. She too explains, and much earlier than Saint Teresa, the principles and effects of Mysticism; but if she is less profound, less clever in defining shades, on the other hand she is wonderfully effusive and tender. She caresses the soul ; she is a Bacchante of divine love, a Maenad of purity. Christ loves her, holds long conversations with her; the words she has re- tained surpass all literature, and are manifestly the most beautiful ever written. This is no longer the rough Christ, the Spanish Christ who begins by trampling on His creature to make him more sup- ple; He is the merciful Christ of the Gospels, the gentle Christ of Saint Francis, and I like the Christ of the Franciscans better than the Christ of the Carmelites." "What will you say, then," said the abbe, with a smile, "of St. John of the Cross? You compared Saint Teresa just now to a flower in wrought iron ; he too is such, but he is the lily of tortures, the royal flower which the executioners were wont of old time to stamp on the heraldic flesh of convicts. Like red-hot iron, he is at the same time burning and sombre. As you turn over the pages. Saint Teresa now and then bends over and sorrows and compassionates us; he remains impenetrable, buried in his internal abyss, occupied, above all things, in describing the sufferings of the soul which, after having crucified its desires, passes through the 'Night obscure,' that is to say, through the renun- ciation of all which comes from the sensible and the created. io6 EN ROUTE "He wills that we should extinguish our imagina- tion — so lethargize it that it can no longer form images — imprison our senses, annihilate our facul- ties. He wills that he who desires to unite himself to God should place himself under an exhausted receiver, and make a vacuum within, so that, if he choose, the Pilgrim should descend therein, and purify himself, tearing out the remains of sins, extirpating the last relics of vice. "Then the sufferings which the soul endures over- pass the bounds of the possible, it lies lost in utter darkness, falls under discouragement and fatigue, believes itself for ever abandoned by Him to whom it cries, who now hides Himself and answers not again, happy still when in that agony the pangs of the flesh are not added, and that abominable spirit which Isaias calls the spirit of confusion, and which is none other than the disease of scrupulousness pushed to its extreme. "Saint John makes you shudder when he cries out that this night of the soul is bitter and terrible, and that the being who suffers it is plunged alive into hell. But when the old man is purged out, when he is scraped at every seam, raked over every face, light springs out, and God appears. Then the soul casts itself like a child into His arms, and the incomprehensible fusion takes place. "You see Saint John penetrates more deeply than others into the depths of mystical initiation. He also, like Saint Teresa and Ruysbrock, treats of the spiritual marriage, of the influx of grace, and its gifts; but he first dared to describe minutely the EN ROUTE 107 dolorous phases which till then had been but hinted at with trembling. "Then if he is an admirable theologian, he is also a rigorous and clear-sighted saint. He has not those weaknesses which are natural to a woman ; he does not lose himself in digressions, nor return con- tinually on his own steps; he walks straight for- ward, but you often see him at the end of the road, blood-stained and terrible, with dry eyes." "But, but," said Durtal, "surely not all souls whom Christ will lead in the ways of mysticism are tried thus ?" "Yes, almost always, more or less." "I will confess that I thought the spiritual life was less arid and less complex. I imagined that by leading a pure Hfe, praying one's best, and com- municating, one would attain without much trouble, not indeed to taste the infinite joys reserved for the saints, but at last to possess the Lord, and live, at least, near Him, at rest. "And I should be quite content with this middle class joy. The price paid in advance for the exalta- tion described by Saint John disconcerts me." The abbe smiled, but made no answer. "But do you know that if it be so," replied Dur- tal, "we are very far from the Catholicism that is taught us? It is so practical, so benign, so gentle, in comparison with Mysticism." "It is made for lukewarm souls — that is to say, for almost all the pious souls which are about us; it lives in a moderate atmosphere, without too great suffering or too much joy; it only can be assimi- io8 EN ROUTE lated by the masses, and the priests are right to present it thus, since otherwise the faithful would cease to understand it, or would take flight in alarm." "But if God judge that a moderate religion is amply sufficient — for the masses believe that he de- mands the most painful efforts on the part of those whom he deigns to initiate into the supremely ador- able mysteries of His Person — it is necessary and just that he should mortify them before allowing them to taste the essential intoxication of union with Him." "In fact, the end of Mysticism is to render vis- ible, sensible, almost palpable, the God who remains silent and hidden from all." "And to throw us into His deep, into the silent abyss of joy! But in order to speak correctly, we must forget the ordinary use of expressions which have been degraded. In order to describe this mysterious love, we are obliged to draw our com- parisons from human acts, and to inflict on the Lord the shame of our words. We have to em- ploy such terms as 'union,' 'marriage,' 'wedding feast'; but it is impossible to speak of the inex- pressible, and with the baseness of our language declare the ineffable immersion of the soul in God." "The fact is," murmured Durtal . . . "but to return to Saint Teresa. . . ." "She too," interrupted the abbe, "has treated of this 'Night obscure' which terrifies you; but she only speaks of it in a few lines. She calls it the EN ROUTE 109 soul's agony — a sadness so bitter that she strove in vain to depict it." "No doubt, but I prefer her to Saint John of the Cross, for she is not so discouraging as that in- flexible saint. Admit that he belongs too much to the land of those large Christs who bleed in caverns." "Of what nationality then was Saint Teresa?" "Yes, I know she was a Spaniard, but so com- plex, so strange, that race seems obliterated in her, less clearly defined. "It is clear she was an admirable psychologist, but also how strange is in her the mixture of an ardent mystic and a cool woman of business. For, in fact, she has a double nature ; she is a contempla- tive outside the world, and at the same time a states- man, a female Colbert of the cloister. In fact, never was woman so consummate a skilled artisan and so powerful an organizer. When we consider that, in spite of incredible difficulties, she founded thirty-two nunneries, that she put them all under obedience to a rule which is a model of wisdom, a rule which foresees and rectifies the most ignored mistakes of the heart, it is astonishing to hear her treated by strong-minded people as an hysterical madwoman." "One of the distinctive marks of the mystics," answered the abbe, with a smile, "is just their abso- lute balance, their entire common sense." These conversations cheered Durtal; they planted in him seeds of reflection which sprang up when he was alone; they encouraged him to trust to the ad- no EN ROUTE vice of this priest, and follow his counsels. He found himself all the better for this conduct, in that his visits to the churches, his prayers and readings occupied his objectless life, and he was no longer wearied. "I have at least gained peaceable evenings and quiet nights," he said to himself. He knew the soothing help of a pious evening. He visited St. Sulpice at those times when, under the dull gleam of the lamps, the pillars opened out and threw long panels of darkness on the ground. The chapels which remained open were in shade, and in the nave before the high altar a single cluster of lamps, above in the darkness, shone out like a luminous bunch of red roses. In the stillness no sounds were heard but the dull thud of a door, the creaking of a chair, the short paces of a woman, the hurried stride of a man. Durtal was almost isolated in the obscure chapel which he had chosen ; he kept himself there so far from all, so far from the city whose full pulse was beating only two paces from him. He knelt down and remained still, he prepared to speak, and had nothing to say, felt himself carried away by an impulse, but no words came. He ended by falling into a vague languor, experiencing that indolent ease, that dim sense of comfort, which the body feels in a medicated bath. He fell a-dreaming of the lot of the women who were round about him here and there, in chairs. Ahl those poor little black shawls, those miserable EN ROUTE III pleated caps, those wretched tippets, those doleful seed rosaries they fingered in the shade. Some in mourning, sobbed still inconsolable; others, overwhelmed, bent their backs and hung their heads on one side ; others prayed, their shoul- ders shaking, their head in their hands. The task of the day was over; those wearied of their life came to ask for mercy. Everywhere mis- fortune was kneeling, for the rich, the healthy, the happy hardly pray; all around in the church were women, widowed or old, without love, women de- serted, women whose home was a torture, praying that existence might become more merciful, that the dissoluteness of their husbands might cease, the vices of their sons amend, the health of those they loved grow stronger. A lamentable perfume went up like incense to Our Lady from a very sheaf of woes. Few men came to this hidden meeting-place of trouble; still fewer young people, for these have not yet suffered enough ; there were only a few old men, and a few sick who dragged themselves along by the backs of the chairs, and a little hunchback, whom Durtal saw coming there every evening, an outcast who could only be loved by Her who does not even see the body. A burning pity seized on Durtal at the sight of those unhappy ones who came to beg from Heaven a little of the love refused them by men; and he who could not pray on his own account ended by joining himself to their pleadings, and praying for them. 112 EN ROUTE So indiflferent in the afternoon, the churches were truly persuasive, truly sweet, in the evening; they seemed to bestir themselves at nightfall, and to compassionate in their solitude the sufferings of those sick creatures whose complaints they heard. And their first mass in the morning, the mass of working women and servant maids, was no less touching; there were there no bigots nor curious persons, but poor women who came to seek in com- munion strength to live their hours of onerous tasks and servile needs. They knew as they left the church that they were the living custodians of a God, of Him who was ever while on earth the Poor Man, who took pleasure only in souls who had scarce where to lay their head; they knew them- selves His chosen, and did not doubt that when He entrusted to them under the form of bread the me- morial of His suffering, He demanded of them in exchange that they should live in sorrow and hu- mility. And what harm then could do to them the cares of a day spent in the salutary shame of base occupations ? "I now understand," thought Durtal, "why the abbe made such a point of my seeing the churches early or late; those are, in fact, the only times in which the spul expands." But he was too idle to be often present at early mass; he was content to take his relaxation after dinner in the chapels. He came out with a feeling of peace, even if he had prayed badly or not prayed at all. On other evenings, on the contrary, he felt tired of solitude, tired of silence, tired of darkness, EN ROUTE 113 and then he abandoned St. Sulpice and went to Notre Dame des Victoires. In this well-lighted sanctuary there was no longer that depression, that despair of poor wretches who dragged themselves to the nearest church and sat down in the shade. The pilgrims to Notre Dame des Victoires brought a surer confidence, and their faith softened their sorrows, whose bitterness was dissipated in the explosions of hope, the stam- mering adoration, which spouted up all around. There were two currents in that refuge, that of people who asked for favours, and that of those who, having gained them, were profuse in thank- fulness and in acts of gratitude. Therefore, that church had its especial physiognomy, more joyous than sad, less melancholy, more ardent under all circumstances than that of other churches. It had, moreover, the peculiarity of being much frequented by men, but less by hypocrites, who will not look you in the face, or with upturned eyes, than by men of all classes whose features were not degraded by false piety. There alone were to be seen clear expressions and clean faces ; there, above all, was not that horrible grimace of the working man of the catholic clubs — that hideous creature in a blouse, whose breath belies the ill-defined unction of his features. In that church, covered with ex votos, plastered even above the arches with inscriptions on marble celebrating the joy for prayers granted and benefits received, before that altar of Our Lady where hun- dreds of tapers pierced the air blue with incense 114 EN ROUTE with the gilded blades of their lances, there were public prayers every evening at eight. A priest in the pulpit said the rosary, sometimes the Litany of Our Lady was sung to a singular air, a sort of musical cento, but it was impossible to say whence it was constructed, very rhythmical, and continu- ally changing its tone, now fast, now slow, bring- ing with it, for a moment, a vague recollection of seventeenth-century airs, then turning sharply at a tangent, to a barrel-organ tune, a modern, almost vulgar, melody. Yet, after all, there was something taking in this singular confusion of sounds after the "Kyrie elei- son" and the opening invocations. The Virgin came upon the scene to a dance measure like a bal- let girl; but when certain of her attributes were paraded, and certain of her symbolical names de- clared, the music became singularly respectful; it became lower, halting and solemn, thrice repeating, on the same motive, some of her attributes, the "Refugium Peccatorum" among others; then it went on again, and began her graces again with a skip. When by chance there was no sermon, the Bene- diction took place immediately afterwards. Then with raspings of the choir, a bass with a cold, and two boys who snivelled began their liturgi- cal chants: "Inviolata," that languishing and plaintive Sequence, with its clear and drawling tune so weak, so frail, that it would seem as if it should only be sung by voices in a hospital, then the "Parce Domine," that antiphon so suppliant and so sad; EN ROUTE 115 lastly, that scrap, detached from the "Panga Lingua," the "Tantum ergo," humble and thought- ful, attentive and slow. When the organ sounded out the first chords, and that plain chant melody began, the choir had only to cross their arms and hold their tongues. As tapers which are lighted by threads of fulminate attached one to the other, the faithful caught fire, and, accompanied by the organs, struck up for themselves the humble and glorious strains. They were then kneeling on the chairs, prostrate on the pavement, and when, after the exchange of anti- phons and responses, after the "oremus," the priest ascended to the altar, his shoulders and hands en- folded in the white silk scarf, to take the mon- strance, then, at the shrill and hurried sounds of the bells, a wind passed which at once bent every head like the mowing of grass. In these groups of souls on fire there was a ful- ness of devotion, a complete and absolute silence, till the bells again rang out, and invited human life which had been interrupted to wrap itself in a great sign of the Cross and resume its course. The "Laudate" was not ended when Durtal left the church, before the crowd began to move. "Verily," he said, as he entered his lodgings, "the fervour of that congregation, who do not come as in other churches from the districts, but are pilgrims from everywhere and one knows not where, is out of tune with the blackguardism of this fool- ish age." Then at Notre Dame at least one hears curious ii6 EN ROUTE singing, and he bethought him of those strange litanies which he had heard nowhere else, and yet he had experienced all kinds, in churches. At St. Sulpice, for example, it was recited to two tunes. When the choir sang it was set to a plain chant melody, bellowed by the gong of a bass to which the sharp fife of the boys made answer; but during Rosary month, on every day except Thursday the task of singing it was entrusted to young ladies; then in the evening round a wheezy old harmonium, a troup of young and old geese, made Our Lady run round on her litanies as on hobby horses to the music of a fair. In other churches, at St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, where they were also dropped out by women, the litanies were sprinkled with powder and perfumed by bergamot and ambergris. They were, in fact, adapted to a minuet tune, and therefore did not disagree with the operatic architecture of the church, where they presented a Virgin walking with mincing steps, pinching her petticoat with two fin- gers, bending in beautiful curtseys, and recovering herself with a fine bow. This has evidently nothing to do with church music, but it was none the less disagreeable to hear. It would have made the whole performance complete if the harpsichord had been substituted for the organ. Far more interesting than this lay quavering was the plain chant, given more or less badly, but yet given, -when there was no special ceremony at Notre Dame. It was not arranged there as at St. Sulpice and EN ROUTE 117- the other churches where the "Tantum ergo" is al- most always dressed up in foohsh flourishes, tunes- for mihtary ceremonials or public dinners. The Church has not allowed the actual text of Saint Thomas Aquinas to be altered, but she has; let any and every choirmaster suppress the plain chant in which it has been wrapped from its birth,, which has penetrated to its marrow, has clung to each of its phrases, and become with it one body and one soul. It was monstrous, and it must really be that these cures have lost, not the sense of art, for that they never had, but the most elementary sense of the liturgy, to accept such heresies, and tolerate such outrages in their churches. These thoughts enraged Durtal, but he returned little by little to Notre Dame des Victoires and grew calmer. It was well he should examine it under all aspects, but it remained none the less mysterious nor the less unique in Paris. At La Salette, at Lourdes, there have been ap- paritions. "Whether these have been authentic or controverted matters little," he thought. "For even supposing Our Lady were not there at the moment her coming was announced, she was attracted there, and dwells there now, retained there by the tide of prayer and the emanations cast up by the faith of crowds. Miracles have happened there ; it is there- fore not astonishing that pious crowds flock thither. But here at Notre Dame des Victoires has been no apparition; no Melanie, no Bernadette, have seen and described the luminous appearance of a 'beauti- ii8 EN ROUTE ful Lady.' There are no piscinas, no medical staff, no public cures, no mountain top, no grotto, noth- ing. One fine day in 1836 the cure of the parish, the Abbe Dufriche des Genettes, declared that while he was celebrating mass Our Lady manifested to him her desire that the sanctuary should be spe- cially consecrated to her, and that alone was enough. The church, then a desert, has never since been empty, and thousands of ex votos declare the graces which since that day the Madonna has accorded to the visitors." "Yes, but in fact," concluded Durtal, "all these suppliants are not specially extraordinary souls, for indeed the most part of them are like me, they come in their own interests, for themselves and not for Her." And he remembered the answer of the Abbe Gevresin, to whom he had already made the ob- servation. "You must be singularly far advanced on the road to perfection if you go there for Her only." Suddenly, after so many hours spent in the chapels, there was a reaction ; the flesh extinguished under the cinders of prayers took fire, and the con- flagration, springing up from below, became ter- rible. Florence seemed present, to Durtal's imagination, at his lodgings, in the churches, in the street, every- where, and he was constantly on the watch against her recurrent attractions. The weather was mixed up with it all ; the heaven broke up, a stormy summer raged, shattering the EN ROUTE 119 nerves, enfeebling the will, letting the awakened troop of vices loose in their gloomy moisture. Dur- tal blenched before the dread of long evenings and the abominable melancholy of days that never end- ed. At eight o'clock in the evening the sun had not set, and at three in the morning it seemed to wake again; the week was only one uninterrupted day, and life was never arrested. Oppressed by the ignominy of this angry sun- shine and these blue skies, disgusted at bathing in Niles of sweat, and feeling Niagaras run from his hat, he did not stir from home, and then, in his soli- tude, foul thoughts assailed him. It was an obsession by thought, by vision, in all ways, and the haunting was all the more terrible that it was so special, that it never turned aside, but concentrated itself always on the same point, the face and figure of Florence. Durtal resisted, then in distraction, took to flight, tried to tire himself out by long walks, and to divert his mind by excursions, but the ignoble desire fol- lowed him in his course, sat before him in the Cafe, came between his eyes and the newspaper he strove to read, becoming ever more definite. He ended, after hours of struggle, by giving way and going to see this woman ; he left her overwhelmed, half dead with disgust and shame, almost in tears. Nor did he thus find any solace in his struggle, but the contrary; far from escaping it, the hateful charm took more violent and tenacious possession of him. Then Durtal thought of and accepted a strange compromise, to visit another woman he 120 EN ROUTE knew, and in her society to break this nervous state, to put an end to this possession, this weariness and remorse ; and in doing so he strove to persuade him- self that in thus acting he would be more pardon- able, less sinful. The clearest result of this attempt was to bring back the memory of Florence, and her vicious charm. He continued therefore his intimacy with her, and then he had, during a few days, such a revolt from his slavery that he extricated himself from the sewer, and stood on firm ground. He succeeded in recovering and pulling himself together, and he loathed himself. During this crisis he had somewhat neglected the Abbe Gevresin, to whom he dared not avow his foulness, but since certain indications warned him of new attacks, he took fright, and went to see him. He explained his crises in veiled words, and he felt so unnerved, so sad, that tears stood in his eyes. "Well, are you now certain that you have that repentance which you assure me you have not ex- perienced up to this time ?" "Yes, but what is the good of it, if one is so weak that in spite of all efforts one is certain to be overthrown at the first assault?" "That is another question. Come, I see that at present you are in fact in a state of fatigue requir- ing help." "Comfort yourself therefore; go in peace and sin less, the greater part of your temptations will be remitted you; you can, if you choose, bear the EN ROUTE 121 remainder, only take care, if you fall henceforward, you will be without excuse, and I do not answer for it, that instead of mending, your condition will' not be aggravated." And as Durtal, stupefied, stammered out: "You believe " "I believe," said the priest, "in the mystical sub- stitution of which I spoke to you; you will more- over experience it in yourself; the saints will enter into the lists to help you; they will take the over- plus of the assaults which you cannot conquer; without even knowing your name, from their se- cluded province, nunneries of Carmelites and Poor Clares will pray for you on receiving a letter from me. And in fact from that very day the most acute attacks ceased. Did he owe that cessation, that truce, to the intercession of the cloistered Orders, or to a change in the weather, which then took place, to the less heat of the sun, which gave way to floods of rain? He could not tell, but one thing, was certain, his temptations were less frequent, and he could bear them with impunity. This idea of convents in their compassion drag- ging him out of the mud in which he had stuck, and by their charity bringing him to the bank, ex- cited him. He chose to go to the Avenue de Saxe, to pray in the home of the sisters of those who suffered for him. This time there were no lights, no crowds, as on the morning when he had been present at a Proces- sion, no odour of wax or incense, no sweeping by 122 EN ROUTE of robes of scarlet and cope of gold; all was de- serted and dark. He was there alone, in the sombre and dank chapel, smelling like stagnant water, and without saying rosaries mechanically, or repeating prayers by rote, he fell into a reverie, endeavouring to look somewhat clearly into his life and take stock of himself. And while he thus pulled himself together, far-off voices came behind the grating, drew nearer and nearer, passed by the black sieve of the veil, and dropped round the altar, whose form rose dimly in the shadow. These voices of the Carmelites aided Durtal to probe his despair deeply. Seated in a chair, he said to himself : "When any one is as incapable as I am when I speak to Him, it is almost shameful to dare to pray, for indeed, if I think of Him, it is that I may ask for a little happiness; and that is foolish. In the im- mediate shipwreck of human reason, wishing to explain the terrible enigma of the meaning of life, one only idea comes to the surface, in the midst of the wreckage of thoughts which sink, the idea of an expiation felt rather than understood, the idea that the sole end assigned to life is sorrow. "Every one has a sum of physical and moral suf- fering to pay, and whoever does not settle it here below, defrays it after death ; happiness is only lent, and must be repaid; its very phantoms are like duties paid in advance on a future succession of sorrows. "Who knows in that case whether anaesthetics EN ROUTE 123 which suppress corporal pain do not bring into debt those who use them ? Who knows whether chloro- form is not a means of revolt, and if the shrinking of the creature from suffering is not seditious, a rebellion against the will of Heaven? If this be so, the arrears of torture, the balance of distress, the warrants of pain avoided must accumulate ter- rible interest above, and justify the war cry of Saint Teresa, 'Lord, let me always suffer, or die'; this explains why, in their trials the saints rejoice, and pray the Lord not to spare them, for they know that the purifying amount of ills must be paid in order to be free from debt after death. "To be just, human nature would be too ignoble without pain, for it alone can raise the soul while purifying it, but all that is nothing less than con- soling," he added. "What an accompaniment to these sad thoughts are the wailing voices of these nuns; it is truly frightful." He ended by fleeing, and taking refuge, to shake off his depression, in the neighbouring convent at the bottom of the alley de Saxe, in a suburban lane, full of little cottages with gardens in front, where serpentine paths of pebbles wound round tufts of pot-herbs. This was the convent of the Poor Clares of the Ave Maria, an Order still more strict than that of the Carmelites, poorer, less fashionable, more humble. This cloister was entered by a little door, partly ajar; you ascended to the second storey without meeting anyone, and found a little chapel, through 124 EN ROUTE whose windows trees were visible, rocking to the chirping of riotous sparrows. This too was a place of burial, but no longer, as though opposite a tomb at the bottom of a dark cavern, but rather a cemetery where birds sang in the sun among the branches; you might have thought yourself in the country, twenty miles from Paris. The decoration of this bright chapel tried, how- ever, to be gloomy; it was like those wine shops whose walls are made to look like those of caves, with false stones painted in the imitation plaster. Only the height of the nave manifested the child- ishness of the imposture, and declared the vulgarity of the deception. At the end was an altar above a smooth waxed floor, and on either side of it a grating with a black veil. According to the rule of Saint Francis, all the ornaments, the crucifix, the candlesticks, the tabernacle, were of wood, no object was to be seen in metal, no flower, the only luxury in the chapel consisted of two modern stained windows, one of which represented Saint Francis, the other Saint Clare. Durtal thought the sanctuary airy and delight- ful, but he only stayed there a few minutes, for there was not here, as at the Carmelites, an abso- lute solitude, a sombre peace; here there were al- ways two or three Poor Clares trotting about the chapel, who looked at him while they were arrang- ing the chairs, and seemed surprised at his pres- ence. EN ROUTE 125 They were annoying to him, and he feared he was the same to them, so much so that he went away; but this short stay was enough to efface, or at least to lessen the funereal impression of the neighbouring convent. Durtal returned home, at once much appeased and much disquieted — much appeased in regard to his temptations, much disquieted about what he should do next. He felt rising in him, and increasing ever more and more, the desire to have done with these strifes and fears, but he grew pale when he thought of reversing his life, once for all. But if he still had hesitation and fear, he had no longer the firm intention of resisting; he now ac- cepted in principle the idea of a change of exist- ence, only he tried to retard the day, and put off the hour ; he tried to gain time. Then like people who grow angry at having to wait, on other days he wished to put off the inevi- table moment no longer, and cried within himself that this must end ; anything rather than remain as he was. Then as this desire did not seem heard, he grew discouraged, would no longer think of anything, regretted the time past, and deplored that he felt himself carried along by such a current. And when he was rather more cheerful, he tried again to examine himself. "In fact I do not at all know how I stand," he thought; "this flux and re- flux of different wishes alarms me, but how have 126 EN ROUTE I come to this point, and what is the matter with me?" What he felt, since he became more lucid, was so intangible, so indefinite, and yet so continu- ous that he was obliged to give up understanding it. Indeed every time he tried to examine his soul, a curtain of mist arose, and hid from him the un- seen and silent approach of he knew not what. The only impression which he carried with him as he rose was that it was less that he advanced towards the unknown, but that this unknown invaded him, penetrated him, and little by little took possession of him. When he spoke to the abbe of this state, at once cowardly and resigned, imploring and fearful, the priest only smiled. "Busy yourself in prayer, and bow down your back," he said one day. "But I am tired of bending my back, and of trampling always on the same spot," cried Durtal. "I have had enough of feeling myself taken by the shoulders and led I know not where, it is really time that in one way or another this situation came to an end." "Plainly." And standing up, and looking him in the face, the abbe said, impressively : "This advance towards God which you find so obscure and so slow is, on the contrary, so luminous and so rapid that it astonishes me, only as you your- self do not move, you do not take account of the swiftness with which you are borne along. "Before long you will be ripe, and then without EN ROUTE 127 need to shake the tree you will fall off of yourself. The question we have now to answer is into what receptacle we must put you, when at last you fall away from your life." CHAPTER VII. "But ... but . . ." thought Durtal, "we must at any rate come to an understanding ; the abbe wearies me with his quiet assumptions, his receptacle in which he must place me. He does not, I suppose, think of making me a seminarist or a monk; the seminary, at my age, is devoid of interest, and as to the convent, it is attractive from the mystical point of view, and even enticing from the artistic standpoint, but I have not the physical aptitudes, still less the spiritual predispositions, to shut myself up forever in a cloister; but, putting that aside, what does he mean? "On the other hand he has insisted on lending me the works of Saint John of the Cross, and has made me read them ; he has then an aim, for he is not a man to feel his way as he walks, he knows what he wishes and where he is going; does he imagine that I am intended for the perfect life, and does he intend to put me on my guard by this course of reading against the disillusions which, according to him, beginners experience? His scent seems to fail him there. I have a very horror of bigotry, and pious polish, but though I admire I do not feel at all drawn towards the phenomena of Mysticism. No, I am interested in seeing them in others, I like to see it all from my window but will not go down- 128 EN ROUTE 129 stairs, I have no pretension to become a saint, all that I desire is to attain the intermediate state, be- tween goody-goodiness and sanctity. This is a frightfully low ideal, perhaps, but in practice it is the only one I am capable of attaining, and yet ! "Then these questions have to be faced ! If I am' mistaken and am obeying false impulses, I am, as I advance, on the verge of madness. How, except by a special grace, am I to know whether I am in the right way, or walking in the dark towards the abyss ? Here, for instance, are those conversations between God and the soul so common in the mysti- cal life; how can one be sure that this interior voice, these distinct words not heard with bodily ears, but perceived by the soul in a clearer fashion than if they came by the channels of sense, are true, how be sure that they emanate from God, not from our imagination or from the devil himself? "I know, indeed, that Saint Teresa treats this matter at length in her 'Castles of the Soul,' and that she points out the signs by which we can recog- nize the origin of the words, but her proofs do not seem to me always as easy to discern as she thinks. " 'If these expressions confe from God,' she says, 'they are always accompanied by an effect, and bring with them an authority which nothing can resist ; thus a soul is in affliction, and the Lord sim- ply suggests the words "trouble not thyself," and at once the whirlwind passes, and joy revives. In the second place, these words leave an indissoluble peace of mind, they engrave themselves on the mem- ory, and often cannot be effaced. I30 EN ROUTE " 'In the other case,' she continues, 'if these words proceed from imagination or from the demon, none of these effects are produced, a kind of uneasiness, anguish and doubt torments you, moreover the ex- pressions evaporate in part, and fatigue the soul which endeavours in vain to recall them in their entirety.' "In spite of these tokens, we are, in fact, stand- ing on shifting ground in which we may sink at every step, but in his turn Saint John of the Cross intervenes, and tells you not to move. What then is to be done ? " 'No one,' he says, 'ought to aspire to these supernatural communications and rest there, for two motives ; first, humility, the perfect abnegation of refusing to believe in them; the second, that in acting thus, we deliver ourselves from the labour necessary to assure ourselves whether these vocal visions are true or false, and so we are dispensed from an examination which has no other profit for the soul than loss of time and anxiety.' "Good — but if these words are really pronounced by God, we rebel against His will if we remain deaf to them. And then, as Saint Teresa declares, it is not in our power not to listen to them, and the soul can only think of what it hears when Jesus speaks to it. Moreover, all the discussions on this subject are uncertain, for one does not enter of one's own will into the strait way, as the Church calls it, we are led, and even thrown into it often against the will, and resistance is impossible, phenomena occur, and nothing in the world has power to check them ; EN ROUTE 131 witness Saint Teresa, who, resist as she would by humihty, fell into ecstasy under the divine breathy and was raised from the ground. "No, these superhuman conditions alarm me, and I do not hold to knowing them by experience. As to Saint John of the Cross, the abbe is not wrong in calling him unique, but though he sounds the lowest strata of the soul, and reaches where human auger has never penetrated, he wearies me all the same in my admiration, for his work is full of nightmares which repel me; I am not certain that his hell is correct, and some of his assertions do not convince me. What he calls the 'night obscure' is incomprehensible; 'The sufferings of that dark- ness surpass what is possible,' he cries on each page. Here I lose foothold. I can imagine, though I have not experienced them, the moral and terrible pangs, of the deaths of friends and relations, love betrayed, hopes which failed, spiritual sorrows of all kinds, but such a martyrdom as he proclaims as superior to all others, is beyond me, for it is outside our human interests, beyond our affections; he rtloves in an inaccessible sphere, in an unknown world very "I am certainly afraid that this terrible saint, a true man of the south, abuses metaphor, and is full far off. of Spanish affectation. "Moreover I am astonished at the abbe on an- other point. He, who is so gentle, shows a certain leaning to the dry bread of Mysticism ; the effusions of Ruysbrock, of Saint Angela, of Saint Catherine of Genoa, touch him less than the arguments of 132 EN ROUTE saints who are hard reasoners; yet by the side of these he has advised me to read Marie d'Agreda, whom he ought not to fancy, for she has none of those qualities which are admired in the works of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross. "Ah ! he may flatter himself that he has inflicted on me a complete disillusion, by lending me her 'Cite Mystique.' "From the renown of this Spanish woman, I ex- pected the breath of prophecy, wide outlooks, ex- traordinary visions. Not at all ; her book is simply strange and pompous, wearisome and cold. Then the phraseology of her book is intolerable. All the expressions which swarm in those ponderous vol- umes, 'my divine princess,' 'my great queen,' when she addresses Our Lady, who in her turn speaks to her as 'my dearest,' just as Christ calls her 'my spouse,' 'my well-beloved,' and speaks of her con- tinually as 'the object of my pleasure and delight,' the way in which she speaks of the angels as 'the courtiers of the great King,' set my nerves on edge and weary me. "They smell of perriwigs and ruflSes, bows and dances like Versailles, a sort of court mysticism in which Christ pontificates, attired in the costume of Louis XIV. Moreover Marie d'Agreda enters into most ex- travagant details. She tells us of the milk of Our Lady which cannot grow sour, of female complaints from which she was exempt, she explains the mys- tery of the conception by three drops of blood which fell from the heart into the womb of Mary, and EN ROUTE 133 which the Holy Ghost used to form the child; last- ly, she declares that Saint Michael and Saint Ga- briel played the part of midwives, and stood living, under human forms, at the lying-in of the Virgin. "This is too strong. I know well that the abbe would say that we need not concern ourselves with these singularities and these errors, but that the 'Cite Mystique' is to be read in relation to the inner life of the Blessed Virgin. Yes, but then the book of M. Oilier, which treats of the same subject, seems to me curious and trustworthy in quite a dif- ferent way." Was the priest forcing the note, playing a part? Durtal asked himself this, when he saw how deter- mined he was not to avoid the same questions dur- ing a certain time. He tried now and then, in order to see how the matter was, to turn the conversa- tion, but the abbe smiled, and brought it back to the point he wished. When he thought, that he had saturated Durtal with mystical works, he spoke of them less, and seemed to attach himself mainly to the religious Orders, and especially to that of Saint Benedict. He very cleverly induced Durtal to become inter- ested in this institution, and to ask him about it, and when pnce he had entered on this ground, he did not depart from it. It began one day when Durtal was talking with him about plain chant. "You have reason to like it," said the abbe, "for even independently of the liturgy and of art, this chant, if I may believe Saint Justin, appeases the 134 EN ROUTE desires and concupiscences of the flesh, 'affectiones et concupiscentias carnis sedat/ but let me assure you, you only know it by hearsay, there is no longer any true plain chant in the churches, these are like the products of therapeutics, only more or less au- dacious adulterations presented to you. "None of the chants which are to some extent respected by choirs, the 'Tantum ergo,' for exam- ple, are now exact. It is given almost faithfully till the verse 'Prsestet fides,' and then it runs off the rails, taking no account of the shades, which are, however, quite perceptible, that the Gregorian mel- ody introduces when the text declares the impotence of reason and the powerful aid of Faith; these adulterations are still more apparent, if you listen to the 'Salve Regina' after Compline. This is abridged more than half, is enervated, blanched, half its pauses are taken away, it is reduced to a mere stump of ignoble music, if you had even heard this magnificent chant among the Trappists, you would weep with disgust at hearing it bawled in the churches at Paris. "But besides the textual alteration of the melody as we now have it, the way in which the plain chant is bellowed is everywhere absurd. One of the first conditions for rendering it well is that the voices should go together, that they should all chant in the same time, syllable for syllable and note for note, in one word it must be in unison. "Now, you can verify it yourself, the Gregorian melody is not thus treated; every voice takes its own part, and is isolated. Next, plain music allows EN ROUTE 135 no accompaniment; it must be chanted alone, with- out organ; it bears at most that the instrument should give the intonation and accompany it very softly, just enough if need be to sustain the pitch taken by the voices; it is not so that you will hear it given in the churches." "Yes, I know it well," said Durtal. "When I hear it at St. Sulpice, St. Severin, or Notre Dame des Victoires, I am aware that it is sophisticated, but you must admit that it is even then superb. I do not defend the tricks, the addition of fiorituri, the falseness of the musical pauses, the felonious accompaniment, the concert-room tone inflicted on you at Saint Sulpice, but what can I do? in de- fault of the original I must be content with a more or less worthless copy, and I repeat, even executed in that fashion the music is so admirable that I am enchanted by it." "But," said the abbe quietly, "nothing obliges you to listen to the false plain chant, when you can hear the true, for saving your presence, there exists, even in Paris, a chapel where it is intact, and given according to the rules of which I have spoken." "Indeed, and where is that?" "At the Benedictine nuns of the Blessed Sacra- ment in the Rue Monsieur." "And can anyone enter the convent and be pres- ent at the offices?" "Anyone. Every day in the week Vespers are sung at three o'clock, and on Sundays High Mass is said at nine." 136 EN ROUTE "Ah, had I but known this chapel earlier," said Durtal, the first time he came out. In fact it combined all the conditions he could wish. Situated in a solitary street, it had the com- pletest privacy. The architect who built it had in- troduced no innovations or pretentiousness, had built a Gothic church, and introduced no fancies of his own. It was cruciform, but one of the arms was scarcely the full length, for want of room, v^hile the other was prolonged into a hall, separated from the choir by an iron grating, above which the Blessed Sacrament was adored by two kneeling angels, whose lilac wings were folded over thin rose-coloured backs. Except these two figures, of which the execution was truly sinful, the rest was at least veiled by shadow, and was not too afflict- ing to the eyes. The chapel was dim, and always at the time of the offices a young sacristan-sister, tall and pale, and rather bent, entered like a shadow, and each time that she passed before the altar she fell on one knee and bowed her head profoundly. She seemed strange and scarcely human, gliding noiselessly over the pavement, her head bowed, with a band as low as her eyebrows, and she seemed to fly like a large bat when standing before the tabernacle she turned her back, moving her large black sleeves as she lighted the tapers. Durtal one day saw her features, sickly but charming, her eye- lids dark, her eyes of a tired blue, and he guessed that her body was wasted by prayers, under her black robe drawn together by a leathern girdle or- EN ROUTE 137 namented by a little medal of the Blessed Sacra- ment of gilt metal, under the trimming, near her heart. The grating of the enclosure, on the left of the altar, was large, and well lighted from behind, so that even when the curtains were drawn it was possible to see the whole chapter drawn up in file in their oaken stalls surmounted at the end by a higher stall in which the abbess sat. A lighted taper stood in the middle of the hall, and before it a nun prayed day and night, a cord round her neck, to expiate the insults offered to Jesus under His Eucharistic form. The first time Durtal had visited the chapel he had gone there on Sunday a little before the time of Mass, and he had been thus able to be present at the entry of the Benedictine nuns, behind the iron screen. They advanced two and two, stopped in the middle of the grating, turned to the altar and genuflected, then each bowed to her neighbour, and so to the end of this procession of women in black, only brightened by the whiteness of the head-band and the collar, and the gilt spot of the little mon- strance on the breast. The novices came last, to be recognized by the white veils which covered their heads. And when an old priest, assisted by a sacristan, began the mass softly at the end of the chapter, a small organ gave the tone to the voices. Then Durtal might well wonder, for he had never before heard a sole and only voice made up of per- haps some thirty, of a tone so strange, a super- 138 EN ROUTE terrestrial voice, which burnt upon itself, in the air, and intertwined its soft cooings. This bore no resemblance to the icy and obstinate lament of the Carmelites, nor was it like the un- sexed tone, the child's voice, squeaking, rounded off at the end of the Franciscan nuns, but quite an- other thing. At La Glaciere in fact those raw voices, though softened and watered by prayers, kept somewhat of the drawling, almost vulgar, inflexion of the people from whom they came; they were greatly purified, but remained none the less human. Here the tenderness of tones was rendered angelic, that voice with no defined origin long bolted through the divine sieve, patiently modelled for the liturgical chant, caught fire as it unfolded, blazed in virginal clusters of white sound, died down, flowered out again in pale pleadings, distant, seraphic at the end of certain chants. Thus interpreted the Mass gave a special accent to the sense of the sequences. Standing, behind the grating, the convent an- swered the priest. Durtal had then heard, after a mournful and solemn "Kyrie Eleison," sharp and almost tragic, the decided cry, so loving and so grave, of the "Gloria in Excelsis," to the true plain chant ; he had listened to the Credo, slow and bare, solemn and pensive, and he was able to affirm that these chants were totally different from those which were sung everywhere in the churches. St. Severin and St. Sulpice now seemed to him profane ; in the place of EN ROUTE 139 their gentle warmth, their curls and their fringes, the angles of their polished melodies, their modern endings, their incoherent accompaniments arranged for the organ, he found himself in the presence of a chant, thin, sharp and nervous, like the work of an early master, and saw the ascetic severity of its lines, its sonorous colouring, the brightness of its metal hammered out with the rude yet charming art of Gothic jewels, he heard under the woven robe of sound, the beating of a simple heart, the ingenuous love of ages, and he noticed that curious shade in Benedictine music; it ended all cries of adoration, all tender cooings, in a timid murmur, cut short, as though shrinking in humility, effacing itself modestly as though asking pardon of God for daring to love Him, "Ah, you were very right to send me there," said Durtal to the abbe when next he saw him. . "I had no choice," answered the priest, smiling, "for the plain chant is respected only in convents under the Benedictine rule. That grand Order has restored it. Dom Pothier has done for it what Dom Gueranger has done for the liturgy. "Moreover, beyond the authenticity of the vocal text, and the manner of rendering it, there are still two essential conditions for restoring the special life of these melodies, and they are hardly found except in cloisters, first Faith, and next the under- standing of the meaning of the words sung." "But," interrupted Durtal, "I do not suppose that the Benedictine nuns know Latin." "I beg your pardon, among the nuns of Saint I40 EN ROUTE Benedict, and even among the cloistered sisters of other Orders, there are a certain number who study the language enough to understand the Breviary and the Psalms. That is a serious advantage which they have over the choirs, composed for the most part of artisans without instruction and without piety, only simple workers with their voices. "Now without wishing to abate your enthusiasm for the musical honesty of these nuns, I am bound to say that in order to understand this magnificent chant in its height and breadth, you must hear it, not winnowed by the mouths of virgins, even if unsexed, but as it issues, unsmoothed, untrimmed, from the lips of men. Unfortunately, though there are at Paris, in the Rue Monsieur and the Rue Tournefort, two communities of Benedictine nuns, there is not on the other hand a single monastery of Benedictine monks." "At the Rue Monsieur do they absolutely follow the rule of Saint Benedict?" "Yes ; but over and above the usual vows of pov- erty, chastity, remaining in the cloister, obedience, they make a further vow of separation and adora- tion of the Blessed Sacrament, as formulated by Saint Mechtilde. "And so they lead the most austere existence of any nuns. They scarcely taste flesh; they rise at two in the morning to sing Matins and Lauds, night and day, summer and winter, they take turns before the taper of reparation, and before the altar. It need not be said," continued the abbe after a pause, "that woman is stronger and braver than EN ROUTE 141 man; no male ascetic could live and lead such a life, especially in the enervating atmosphere of Paris." "What perhaps astounds me still more," said Durtal, "is the kind of obedience exacted of them. How can a creature endowed with free will anni- hilate herself to such an extent?" "Oh," said the abbe, "the obedience is the same in all the great Orders, absolute, without reserve; its formula is well summed up by Saint Augustine. Listen to this sentence which I remember to have read in a commentary on his rule : " 'We must enter into the feelings of a beast of burthen, and allow ourselves to be led like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding ; or, rather, that obedience may be still more perfect, since these animals kick against the spur, we must be in the hands of a superior like a block, or the stock of a tree, which has neither life, nor movement, nor action, nor will, nor judgment.' Is that clear?" "It is most frightful ! I quite admit," said Dur- tal, "that in exchange for such abnegation, the nuns must be powerfully aided from on high, but are there not some moments of falling away, some cases of despair, some instants in which they pine for a natural life in the open air, in which they lament that death in life which they have made for them- selves; are there not days in which their senses wake and cry aloud?" "No doubt ; in the cloistered life the age of twen- ,ty-nine is terrible to pass, then a passionate crisis 142 EN ROUTE arises; if a woman doubles that cape, and she al- most always does so, she is safe. "But carnal emotions are not, to speak correctly, the most troublesome assault they have to undergo. The real punishment they endure in those hours of sorrow is the ardent, wild regret for that maternity of which they are ignorant; the desolate womb of woman revolts, and full of God though she be, her heart is breaking. The child Jesus whom they loved so well then appears so far ofiF and so inaccessible, and His very sight would hardly satisfy them, for they have dreamed of holding Him in their arms, of swathing and rocking Him, of giving Him suck, in one word, of being mothers. "Other nuns undergo no precise attack, no as- sault to which a name can be given, but without any definite reason they languish and die suddenly, like a taper, blown out. The torpor of the cloister kills them." "But indeed. Monsieur I'Abbe, these details are far from encouraging." The priest shrugged his shoulders. "It is the poor reverse of a splendid stuff," he said, "wonder- ful recompenses are granted, even in this world, to< souls in convents." "Nor do I suppose that if a nun fall, stricken in the flesh, she is abandoned. What does the Mother abbess in such a case ?" "She acts according to the bodily temperament and state of the soul of the sick person. Note that she has been able to follow her during the years of her probation, that she has necessarily gained an EN ROUTE 143 influence over her; at such times therefore she will watch her daughter very closely, endeavour to turn the course of her ideas, breaking her by hard work, and by occupying her mind ; she must not leave her alone, must diminish her prayers, if need be, re- strict her hours of office, lessen her fasts, give her, if the case demands it, better food. In other cases, on the contrary, she will have recourse to more fre- quent communions, lessen her food or cause her to be blooded, mix cooling meats with her diet, and above all things she and all the community must pray for her. "An old Benedictine abbess, whom I knew at Saint-Omer, an incomparable guide of souls, lim- ited before all things the length of confessions. The moment she saw the least symptoms arise she gave two minutes, watch in hand, to the penitent and when the time was up she sent her back from the confessional, to mix with her companions." "Why so?" "Because in convents, even for souls which are well, confession is a most dangerous relaxation; it is, as it were, too long and too warm a bath. In it nuns go to excess, open their hearts uselessly, dwell upon their troubles, accentuate them, and revel in them; they come out more weakened and more ill than before. Two minutes ought indeed to be enough for a nun in which to tell her little sins. "Yet . . . yet ... I must admit it the confes- sor is a danger for a convent, not that I suspect his honour, that is not at all what I mean, but as he is generally chosen from among the bishop's favour- 144 EN ROUTE ites, there are many chances that he may be a man :who knows nothing, and quite ignprant of how to deal with such souls, ends by unsettling them while he consoles them. Again, if demoniac attacks, so common in nunneries, occur, the poor man can only gape, gives all sorts of confused counsel, and hin- ders the energy of the abbess, who in such matters knows far better than he." "And," said Durtal, who chose his words care- fully, "tell me, I suppose that tales like those which Diderot gives in his foolish volume 'La Religieuse* are incorrect?" "Unless a community is rotted by a superior given over to Satanism, which, thank God, is rare, the filthy stories told by that writer are false, and there is moreover a good reason why it should be so, for there is a sin which is the very antidote of the other, the sin of zeal." "What?" "Yes : the sin of zeal which causes the denuncia- tion of our neighbour, gives scope to jealousy, cre- ates spying to satisfy hate, that is the real sin of the cloister. Well, I assure you that if two sisters be- came shameless they would be denounced at once." "But I thought. Monsieur I'Abbe, that tale-bear- ing was allowed by the rules of most orders?" "It is, but perhaps there is a temptation to carry it somewhat to excess, especially in convents of women ; for you can imagine that if nunneries con- tain pure mystics, real saints, they have in them also some nuns less advanced in the way of perfec- tion, and who even still retain some faults. . . ." EN ROUTE 145 "Come, since we are in the chapter of minute details, dare I ask if cleanliness is not just a little neglected by these good women ?" "I cannot say ; all that I know is that in the Bene- dictine abbeys I have known each nun was free ta act as seemed good to her; in certain Augustinian constitutions the case was provided for in contrary fashion ; it was forbidden to wash the body, except once a month. On the other hand, amongst the Carmelites cleanliness is exacted. Saint Teresa hated dirt, and loved white linen; her daughters have even, I think, a right to have a flask of Eau de Cologne in their cells. You see this depends on the order, and probably also, when the rule does not expressly mention it, on the ideas which the superior may have on the subject. I will add that this question must not be looked at only from the worldly point of view, for corporal dirt is for cer- tain souls an additional suffering and mortification which they impose on themselves, as Benedict Labre." "He who picked up vermin which left him, and, put them piously in his sleeve. I prefer mortifica- tions of another kind." "There are harder ones, believe me, and I think they would suit you better. Would you like to im- itate Suso, who, to subdue his passions, bore on his naked shoulders, for eighteen years, an enormous cross set with nails, whose points pierced his flesh ? More than that he imprisoned his hands in leather gloves which also bristled with nails, lest he should be tempted to dress his wounds. Saint Rose o£ 146 EN ROUTE Lima treated herself no better; she bound a chairl so tightly round her body that it penetrated the skin, and hid itself under the bleeding pad of flesh ; she wore also a horsehair girdle set with pins, and lay on shards of glass ; but all these trials are noth- ing in comparison of those inflicted on herself by a Capuchin nun, the venerable Mother Pasidee of Siena. "She scourged herself with branches of juniper and holly, then poured vinegar into her wounds, and sprinkled them with salt ; she slept in winter on the snow, in summer on bunches of nettles, or peb- bles, or brushes, put drops of hot lead in her shoes, knelt upon thistles, thorns and sticks. In January she broke the ice in a cask and plunged into it and she even half-stifled herself by hanging head down- wards in a chimney in which damp straw was lighted, but that is enough; indeed," said the abbe, laughing, "if you had to choose, you would like best the mortifications which Benedict Labre imj)osed on himself." "I would rather have none at all," answered Durtal. There was a moment's pause. Durtal's thoughts went back to the Benedictine nuns: "But," said he, "why do they put in the 'Semaine religieuse,* after their title Benedictine Nuns of the Blessed Sacrament, this further name, 'Convent of Saint Louis du Temple?' " "Because," said the abbe, "their first convent was founded on the actual ruins of the Temple prison. EN ROUTE 147 given them by royal warrant, when Louis XVIII. returned to France. "Their foundress and superior was Louise Adelaide de Bourbon Conde, an unfortunate prin- cess of many wanderings, almost the whole of whose life was spent in exile. Expelled from France by the Revolution and the Empire, hunted in almost every country in Europe, she wandered by chance among convents seeking shelter, now among the nuns of the Annunciation at Turin and the Capuchins in Piedmont, now among the Trap- pistines in Switzerland and the Sisters of the Visi- tation at Vienna, now among the Benedictines of Lithuania and Poland. At last she found shelter among the Benedictines in Norfolk, till she could again enter France. "She was a woman singularly trained in monas- tic science and experienced in the direction of souls. "She desired that in her abbey every sister should offer herself to heaven in reparation for crimes committed; and that she should accept the most painful privations to make up for those which might be committed; she instituted there the per- petual adoration, and introduced the plain chant, in all its purity, to the exclusion of all others. "It is, as you have been able to hear, there pre- served intact; it is true that since her time, her nuns have had lessons from Dom Schmitt, one of the most learned monks in that matter. "Then, after the death of the princess, which took place, I think, in 1824, it was perceived that her body exhaled the odour of sanctity, and though 148 EN ROUTE she has not been canonized her intercession is in- voked by her daughters in certain cases. Thus, for example, the Benedictine nuns of the Rue Mon- sieur ask her assistance when they lose anything, and their experience #hows that their prayer is never in vain, since the object lost is found almost at once. "But," continued the abbe, "since you like the convent so well, go there, especially when it is lighted up." The priest rose and took up a "Semaine reli- gieuse," which lay upon the table. He turned over the leaves. "See," he said, and read, " 'Sunday 3 o'clock, Vespers chanted ; cere- mony of clothing, presided over by the Very Rev- erend Father Dom Etienne, abbot of the Grande Trappe, and Benediction.' " "That is a ceremony which interests me much." "I too shall probably be there." "Then we can meet in the chapel?" "Just so." "These ceremonies of clothing have not now the gaiety they had in the eighteenth century in cer- tain Benedictine institutions, amongst others the Abbey de Bourbourg in Flanders," said the abbe smiling, after a silence. And since Durtal looked at him questioningly — "Yes, there was no sadness about it, or at least it had a special sadness of its own; you shall judge. On the eve of the day that the postulant was to take the habit, she was presented to the abbess of Bourbourg by the governor of the town. Bread EN ROUTE 149 and wine were ofJered to her, and she tasted them in the church itself. On the morrow she appeared, magnificently dressed, at a ball which was attended by the whole community of nuns, where she danced, then she asked her parents' blessing, and was con- ducted, with violins playing, to the chapel, where the abbess took possession of her. She had for the last time seen, at the ball, the joys of the world, for she was immediately shut up, for the rest of her days in the cloister." "The joy of the Dance of Death," said Durtal, "monastic customs and congregations were strange in old days." "No doubt, but they are lost in the night of time. I remember, however, that in the fifteenth century there existed under the rule of Saint Augustine an order strange indeed, called the Order of the Daughters of Saint Magloire, whose convent was in the Rue Saint Denys at Paris. The condition's of admission were the reverse of those of all other charters. The postulant had to swear on the holy Gospels that she had been unchaste, and no one be- lieved her oath; she was examined, and if her oath were false, she was declared unworthy to be re- ceived. Nor might she have brought about this condition expressly in order to enter the convent, she must have well and truly given herself over to sin, before she came to ask the shelter of the cloister. "They were in fact a troop of penitent girls, and the rule of their subjection was savage. They were whipped, locked up, subjected to the most rigid ISO EN ROUTE fasts, made their confessions thrice in the week, rose at midnight, were under the most unremitting surveillance, were even attended in their most secret retirement; their mortifications were incessant and their closure absolute. I need hardly add that this nunnery is dead." "Nor likely to revive," cried Durtal. "Well then, Monsieur I'Abbe, we meet on Sunday in the Rue Monsieur?" And on the assent of the abbe, Durtal went his way, with the strangest ideas in his head about the monastic orders. The thing would be, he thought, to found an abbey where one could work at ease in a good library; there should be several monks, with decent meals, plenty of tobacco, and permis- sion to take a turn on the quays now and then. And he laughed ; but then that would not be a monastery ! or only a Dominican monastery, with monks who dine out, and have, at least, the amusement of preaching. CHAPTER VIII. On Sunday morning, on his way to the Rue Mon- sieur, Durtal chewed the cud of his reflections on the Monasteries. "It is certain," he thought, "that in the accumulated filth of ages, they alone have remained clean, are truly in relation with heaven, and serve as interpreters between it and earth. But we must thoroughly understand and specify that we are speaking only of the cloistered orders, which have remained, as far as possible, poor . . ." And thinking of the communities of women, he murmured as he hastened his steps: "Here is a surprising fact, which proves once more the in- comparable genius with which the Church is en- dowed; she has been able to bring into common life women who do not assassinate each other, and obey without recalcitrancy the orders of another woman — wonderful ! "Well, here I am" — and Durtal, who knew he was late, hastened into the court of the Benedic- tine nunnery, took the steps of the little church four at a time, and pushed the door open. He paused in hesitation on the threshold, dazzled by the blaze of the lighted chapel. Lamps were lit everywhere, and overhead the altar flamed with a forest of tapers against which stood out as on 151 152 EN ROUTE a gold ground, the ruddy face of a bishop all in white. Durtal glided among the crowd, elbowing his way till he saw the Abbe Gevresin beckoning to him. He joined him, and sat down on the chair the priest had kept for him, and examined the abbot of La Grande Trappe, surrounded by priests in chasu- bles, and choir boys some in red and others in blue, followed by a Trappist with shaven crown, sur- rounded by a fringe of hair, holding a wooden cross, on the reverse of which was carved the small figure of a monk. Clad in a white cowl, with long sleeves and a gold button on his hood, his abbot's cross on his breast, his head covered with an old French mitre of low form, Dom Etienne, with his broad shoul- ders, his greyish beard, his ruddy colour, had a look of an old Burgundian, tanned by the sun while working at his vines ; he seemed, moreover, a good sort of man, uneasy under his mitre, oppressed by his honours. A sharp perfume which burnt the nose as a spice burns the tongue, the perfume of myrrh, floated in the air, the crowds surged; behind the grating from which the curtain was withdrawn, the nuns standing sang the hymn of Saint Ambrose, "J^su corona virginum," while the bells of the abbey rang a peal; in the short aisle leading from the porch to the choir, a bending line of women on either side, a cross-bearer and torch-bearers entered, and behind them appeared the novice dressed as a bride. She was dark, slight, and very short, and came EN ROUTE 153 forward shyly with downcast eyes, between her mother and sister. At first sight Durtal thought her insignificant, scarcely pretty, a mere nobody; and he looked instinctively for the other party, put out in his sense of fitness, by the absence of a man in the marriage procession. Striving against her agitation the postulant walked up the nave into the choir, and knelt on the left before a large taper, her mother and sister on either side as bridesmaids. Dom Etienne genuflected to the altar, mounted the steps, and sat down in a red velvet arm-chair, placed on the highest step. Then one of the priests conducted the girl, who knelt alone, before the monk. Dom Etienne was motionless as a figure of Buddha ; with the same gesture, he lifted one finger, and said gently to the novice, — "What is it you ask?" She spoke so low as scarcely to be heard. "Father, feeling in myself an ardent desire to sacrifice myself to God, as a victim in union with our Lord Jesus Christ, immolated on our altars, and to spend my life in perpetual adoration of His divine Sacrament, under the observance of the rule of our glorious Father Saint Benedict, I humbly ask of you the grace of the holy habit." "I will give it to you willingly if you believe you can conform your life to that of a victim devoted to the Holy Sacrament." And she answered in a firmer tone. 154 EN ROUTE "I trust so, leaning on the infinite goodness of my Saviour Jesus Christ." "God give you perseverance, my daughter," said the prelate ; he rose, turned to the altar, genuflected, and with uncovered head began the chant "Veni Creator," taken up by the voices of the nuns behind the light screen of iron. Then he replaced his mitre, and prayed, while the chanted psalms rose under the arches. The novice, who in the meantime had been reconducted to her place at the prie-Dieu, rose, genuflected to the altar, and then knelt between her two brides- maids before the abbot of La Trappe, who had re- seated himself. Her two companions lifted the veil of the bride, took off her wreath of orange flowers, unrolled the coils of her hair, while a priest spread a napkin on the knees of the prelate, and the deacon pre- sented a pair of long scissors on a salver. Then before the gesture of this monk, making himself ready, like an executioner, to shear the condemned person, whose hour of expiation was at hand, the terrible beauty of innocence becoming like crime, in substitution for sins of which she was ignorant, which she could not even understand, was evident to the public who had come to the chapel out of curiosity, and in consternation at the superhuman denial of justice, it trembled when the bishop seized the entire handful of her hair, and drew it towards him over her brow. Then there was as it were a flash of steel in a dark shower. EN ROUTE 155 In the death-like silence of the church the grind- ing of the scissors was heard in the mass of hair which fell under the blades, and then all was si- lent. Dom Etienne opened his hand, and the rain fell on his knees in long black threads. There was a sigh of relief when the priests and bridesmaids led away the bride, looking strange in her train, with her head discrowned and her neck bare. The procession returned almost immediately. There was no longer a bride in a white skirt, but a nun in a black robe. She bowed before the Trappist, and again knelt between her mother and sister. Then, while the abbot prayed the Lord to bless his handmaid, the master of the ceremonies and the deacon took, from a credence near the altar, a basket, wherein under loose rose leaves were folded a girdle of untanned leather, emblem of the end of that luxury which the Fathers of the Church placed in the region of the reins, a scapular, symbol of a life crucified to the world, a veil, which signifies the solitude of the life hidden in God, and the pre- late explained the sense of these emblems to the novice, then taking the lighted taper from the can- dlestick before her, he gave it to her, declaring in one phrase the meaning of his action: "Accipe, charissima soror, lumen Christi." Then Dom Etienne took the sprinkler which a priest handed him with an inclination, and as in the general absolution of the dead, he sprinkled the girl with holy water in the form of a cross, then 156 EN ROUTE he sat down and spoke gently and quietly without using a single gesture. He spoke to the postulant alone, praising the au- gust and humble life of the cloister. "Look not back," he said, "have no regrets, for by my voice Jesus repeats to you the promise once made to the Magdalen, 'yours is the better part, which shall not be taken away from you.' Say also to yourself, my daughter, that, henceforward, taken away from the eternal trifling of labours in vain, you will ac- complish a useful work upon earth, you will prac- tise charity in its highest form, you will make ex- piation for others, you will pray for those who never pray, you will aid, so far as your strength permits, to make amends for the hate the world bears to the Saviour. "Suffer and you will be happy ; love your spouse, and you will see how tender He is to His elect. Believe me, His love is such that He will not even wait till you are purified by death to recompense you for your miserable mortifications, your poor sufferings. Even before your hour is come. He will heap His graces upon you, and you will beg Him to let you die, so greatly will the excess of these joys exceed your strength." Little by little the old monk grew warm, and re- turned to the words of Christ to the Magdalen, showing how in reference to her Jesus set forward the excellence of the contemplative over the other Orders, and gave brief advice, dwelling on the necessity of humility and poverty, which are, as Saint Clare says, the two great walls of cloistered EN ROUTE 157' life. Then he blessed the novice, who kissed his hand, and when she had returned to her place, he prayed to the Lord, lifting his eyes to heaven, that He would accept this nun, who offered herself as a victim for the sins of the world. Then, standing, he intoned the "Te Deum." Every one rose, and preceded by the cross and torch bearers, the procession passed out of the church, and was massed in the court. Then Durtal might have believed himself car- ried back far from Paris, into the heart of the Mid- dle Ages. The court, surrounded by buildings, was closed opposite the entrance-gate by a high wall, in the midst of which was a folding-door; on each side six thin pines rocked to and fro, and chanting was heard behind the wall. The postulant, in front, alone, near the closed door, held her torch, with her head bent. The ab- bot of La Trappe, leaning on his crosier, waited, unmoving, a few paces from her. Durtal examined their faces, the girl, so com- monplace in her bridal costume, had become charm- ing, her body was now full of a timid grace; the lines, somewhat too marked under her worldly dress, were softened; under her religious shroud her outline was only a simple sketch, it was as though the years had rolled back, and as though there was a return to the forms only prophesied in childhood. Durtal drew near to examine her better, he tried to look at her face, but under the chill bandage of 158 EN ROUTE her head-dress, she remained mute, and as if absent from life, with her eyes closed, and as though she lived only in the smile of her happy lips. Seen nearer, the monk who had seemed so stout and ruddy in the chapel, seemed also changed, his frame remained robust, and his complexion bright, but his eyes of a light blue, like chalk water, water without reflections or waves, eyes wonderfully pure, changed the common expression of his features, and took away from him that look of a vine-dresser which he had at a distance. "It is clear," thought Durtal, "that the soul is everything in these people, and their faces are mod- elled by it. There is a holy clearness in their eyes, and their lips, in those only apertures through which the soul comes to look out of the body, and almost shows itself." The chants behind the wall suddenly ceased, the girl made a step forward, and knocked with her closed fingers at the door, and then with a failing voice she sang, — "Aperite mihi portas justitiae : Ingressa in eas, confitebor Domino." The door opened. Another large court, paved with pebbles was seen, bounded at the end by a building, and all the community, in a sort of semi- circle, with black books in their hands, cried, — "Haec porta Domini : Justi intrabunt in earn." The novice made another step to the sill and an- swered in her far-away voice, — "Ingrediar in locum tabernaculi admirabilis: usque ad domum Dei." EN ROUTE 159 And the choir of nuns, unmoving, answered, — "Haec est domus Domini firmiter aedificta : Bene fundata est supra firmam petram." Durtal hastily looked at those faces which could only be seen for a few minutes and on the occasion of such a ceremony. It was a row of dead bodies standing in black shrouds. All were bloodless, with "white cheeks, lilac eyelids and grey lips, the voices of all were exhausted and fined down by prayer, and most of them, even the young, were bent. "Their poor bodies are worn with austere fatigue," thought Durtal. But his reflections were cut short, the bride, now kneeling on the threshold, turned to Dom Etienne and chanted in a low voice, — "Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi: Hie habitabo quoniam elegi eam." The monk laid aside his mitre and crosier and said, — "Confirma hoc Deus, quod operatus es in nobis." And the postulant murmured, — "A templo sacro tuo quod est in Jerusalem." Then before re-covering his head and resimiing his crosier, the prelate prayed God Almighty to pour the dew of His blessing on His handmaid; then directing the girl towards a nun who left the group of sisters and advanced to the threshold, he said to her, — "Into your hands, Madame, we commit this new bride of the Lord, sustain her in the holy resolution she has so solemnly taken upon her, in asking to sacrifice herself to God as a victim, and to dedicate i6o EN ROUTE her life in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, sacri- ficed on our altars. Lead her in the way of the divine Commandments, in the practice of the coun- sels of the Holy Gospel, and in the observance of the monastic rule. Prepare her for the eternal union to which the heavenly Spouse invites her, and from this blessed increase of the flock committed to your charge draw a new motive for maternal care. The peace of the Lord rest upon you." This was all: the nuns one by one turned and disappeared behind the wall, while the girl followed them like a poor dog, who with drooping head ac- companies at a distance a new master. The folding doors closed. Durtal remained stupefied, looking at the outline of the white bishop, the backs of the priests who were mounting the steps to give Benediction in the church, while behind them came in tears, their faces in their handkerchiefs, the mother and sister of the novice. "Well," said the abbe, passing his arm through Durtal's. "Well, this scene is to my mind the most touch- ing alibi of death that it is possible to see, this liv- ing woman, who buries herself in the most frightful of tombs — for in it the flesh continues to suffer — is wonderful. "I remember that you have yourself told me of the pressure of this observance, and I shivered in thinking of perpetual Adoration, in those winter nights, when a child like this is awakened out of her first sleep, and cast into the darkness of a EN ROUTE i6i chapel where unless she faints from weakness or terror, she must pray alone, through the freezing hours on her knees on the pavement. "What passes in that conversation with the un- known, that interview with the Shadow ? Does she succeed in escaping from self, and in leaving the earth, in gaining, on the threshold of Eternity, the inconceivable Spouse, or does the soul, powerless to spring on high, remain riveted to the soil? "We figure her to ourselves, her face bent for- ward, her hands joined, making appeal to herself, concentrating herself, in order to pour herself forth the better, and we imagine her thus sickly, with no strength left, trying to set her soul on fire in a shivering frame. But who can tpll if on certain nights she attains to it? "Ah 1 those poor lamps of exhausted oil, of flames almost dead, which tremble in the obscurity of the sanctuary, what will God make of them? "Then there was the family present at the taking the habit, and if the daughter filled me with en- thusiasm I could not restrain myself from pitying the mother. Think if the daughter died, the mother would embrace her, would perhaps speak to her, or if she did not recognize her, it would at least not be with her own good will ; but in this case it is not the body, but the very soul of her child that dies before her eyes. Of her own accord her child knows her no longer, it is the contemptuous end of an affection. You will admit that for a mother this is very hard." "Yes, but this so-called ingratitude, gained at i62 EN ROUTE the price of God knows what struggles, is it not, even apart from the divine vocation, the most equitable repartition of human love? Think that this elect creature becomes the scapegoat of sins committed, and like a lamentable daughter of Da- naus she will unceasingly pour the offering of her mortifications and prayers, of her vigils and fast- ings, into the bottomless vessel of offences and crimes. Ah ! if you knew what it was to repair the sins of the world. In regard to this I remember that one day the abbess of the Benedictines in the Rue Toumef ort said to me : 'Since our tears are not holy enough, nor our souls pure enough, God makes trial of us in our bodies.' Here are long illnesses which cannot be cured, illnesses which doctors fail to understand, and we make thus much expiation for others. "But if you will think over the ceremony which is just ended, you need not be affected beyond meas- ure or compare it to the well-known ceremonies of a funeral; the postulant whom you saw has not yet pronounced her final vows, she can if she choose leave the convent, and return to her own home. At present she is in regard to her mother, a child in a foreign country, a child at school, but she is not a dead child. "You may say what you please, but there is a tragedy in that door which closed upon her." "Therefore in the Benedictine convent in the Rue Tournefort, the scene takes place in the interior of the convent, and the family is not present, the mother is spared, but mitigated thus, the ceremony EN ROUTE 163 is but a mere form, almost a foolish rule in the se- clusion wherein the Faith is hidden." "Those nuns are also Benedictines of the per- petual Adoration, are they not?" "Yes, do you know their convent?" And as Durtal shook his head, the abbe con- tinued, — "It is older, but less interesting than that in the Rue Monsieur, the chapel is mean, full of plaster statuettes, cotton flowers, bunches of grapes and ears of com in gold paper, but the old building of the nunnery is curious. It contains, what shall I call it? a school dining-room, and a retreatant's drawing-room, and so gives at once the impression of old age and childhood." "I know that class of convents," said Durtal. "I used often to see one, when I used to visit an old aunt at Versailles. It always used to impress me as a Maison Vauquer, brought to devotional uses, it had the air at once of a table d'hote in the Rue de la Clef and the sacristy of a country church." "Just so," and the abbe went on with a smile, — "I had many interviews with the abbess in the Rue Tournefort; you guess at rather than see her, for you are separated from her by a screen of black wood, behind which is stretched a black curtain which she draws aside." "I can see it," thought Durtal, who, remember- ing the Benedictine custom, saw in a second a little face confused in neutral tinted light, and lower, at the top of her habit, the gleam of a medal of the Blessed Sacrament in red enamelled in white. i64 EN ROUTE He laughed and said to the abbe, — "I laugh, because having had some business to transact with my nun aunt of whom I was speak- ing, only visible like your abbess through a trellis, I found out how to read her thoughts a little." "Ah! how was that?" "In this way. Since I could not see her face, which was hidden behind the lattice of her cage, and disappeared behind her veil, and if she should answer me, having nothing to guide me but the in- flexions of her voice, always circumspect and al- ways calm, I ended by trusting only to her great glasses, round, with buff frames, which almost all nuns wear. Well, all the repressed vivacity of this woman burst out there; suddenly in a corner of her glasses, there was a glimmer, and I then understood that her eye had lighted up, and gave the lie to the indifference of her voice, the determined quietness of her tone." The abbe in his turn began to laugh. "Do you know the Superior of the Benedictines, in the Rue Monsieur?" said Durtal. "I have spoken with her once or twice ; there the parlour is monastic, there is not the provincial and middle-class side of the Rue Tournefort, it is com- posed of a sombre room, of which all the breadth at the end is taken up by an iron grating, and be- hind the grating are again wooden bars, and a shut- ter painted black. You are quite in the dark, and the abbess, scarcely in the light, appears to you like a phantom." "The abbess is, I suppose, the nun, elderly, fra- EN ROUTE 165 gile and very short, to whom Dom Etienne com- mitted the novice ?" "Yes. She is a remarkable shepherdess of souls, and what is more, a very well educated woman of most distinguished manners." "Oh," thought Durtal : "I can imagine that these abbesses are charming, but also terrible women. Saint Teresa was goodness itself, but when she speaks in her 'Way of Perfection' of nuns who band themselves together to discuss the will of their mother, she shows herself inexorable, for she de- clares that perpetual imprisonment should_be in- flicted on them as soon as possible and without flinching, and in fact she is right, for every disor- derly sister infects the flock, and gives the rot to souls." Thus talking they had reached the end of the Rue de Sevres, and the abbe stopped to rest. "Ah," he said, as if speaking to himself, "had I not had all my life heavy expenses, first a brother, then nephews to maintain, I should many years ago have become a member of Saint Benedict's family. I have always had an attraction towards that grand Order, which is, in fact, the intellectual Order of the Church. Therefore, when I was stronger and younger, I always went for my retreats to one of their monasteries, sometimes to the black monks of Solesmes, or of Liguge, who have preserved the wise traditions of Saint Maurus, sometimes to the Cistercians, or the white monks of La Trappe." "True," said Durtal, "La Trappe is one of the great branches of the tree of Saint Benedict, but i66 EN ROUTE how is it that its ordinances do not differ from tiiose which the Patriarch left?" "That is to say that Trappists interpret the rule of Saint Benedict, which is very broad and supple, less in its spirit than in its letter, while the Bene- dictines do the contrary. "In fact. La Trappe is an off-shoot of Citeaux, and is much more the daughter of Saint Bernard, who was during forty years the very sap of that branch, than the descendant of Saint Benedict." "But, so far as I remember, the Trappists are themselves divided, and do not live under a uniform discipline." "They do so now, since a pontifical brief dated March 17th, 1893, sanctioned the decisions of the general Chapter of the Trappists assembled in Rome, and ordered the fusion into one sole order, and under the direction of a sole superior, of the three observances of the Trappists, who were in fact ruled by discordant constitutions." And seeing that Durtal was listening attentively, the abbe continued, — "Among these three observances, one only, that of the Cistercian Trappists, to which belonged the abbey of which I was a guest, followed in their in- tegrity the rules of the twelfth century, and led the monastic life of Saint Bernard's day. This alone recognized the rule of Saint Benedict, taken in its strictest application, and completed by the Charte de Charite, and the use and customs of Citeaux; the two others had adopted the same rule, but re- vised and modified in the seventeenth century by EN ROUTE 167 the Abbe de Ranee, and again one of them, the Bel- gian congregation, had changed the statutes im- posed by that abbot. "At the present day, as I have just said, all the Trappists form only one and the same institute under the name. Order of Reformed Cistercians of the Blessed Virgin Mary of La Trappe, and all re- sume the rules of Citeaux, and live again the life of the cenobites of the Middle Ages." "But if you have visited these ascetics," said Dur- tal, "you must know Dora Etienne?" "No, I have never stayed at La Grande Trappe, I prefer the poor and small monasteries where one is mixed up with the monks, to those imposing con- vents where they isolate you in a guest-house, and in a word keep you separate. "There is one in which I make my retreats, Notre Dame de I'Atre, a small Trappist monastery a few leagues from Paris, which is quite the most seduc- tive of shelters. Besides that the Lord really abides there, for it has true saints among its children, it is delightful also with its ponds, its immemorial trees, its distant solitude, far in the woods." "Yes, but," observed Durtal, "the life there must be unbending, for La Trappe is the most rigid order which has been imposed on men." For his only answer the abbe let go Durtal's arm, and took both his hands. "Do you know," he said, looking him in the face, "it is there you must go for your conversion ?" "Are you serious, Monsieur I'Abbe?" 1 68 EN ROUTE And as the priest pressed his hands more strong- ly Durtal cried, — "Ah, no indeed, first I have not the stoutness of S0ul, and if that be possible I have still less the bodily health needed for such a course, I should fall ill on my arrival, and then . . . and then , . ." "And then, what? I am not proposing to you to shut you up for ever in a cloister." "So I suppose," said Durtal, in a somewhat piqued tone. "But just to remain a week, just the necessary time for a cure. Now a week is soon over, then do you think that if you make such a resolution God will not sustain you?" "That is all very fine, but . . ." "Let us speak on the health question, then;" and the abbe smiled a smile of pity that was a little contemptuous. "I can promise you at once that as a retreatant, you will not be bound to lead the life of a Trappist in its austerest sense. You need not get up at two in the morning for Matins, but at three, or even at four o'clock, according to the day." And smiling at the face Durtal made, the abbe went on, — "As to your food it will be better than that of the monks; naturally you will have no fish nor meat, but you may certainly have an egg for dinner, if vegetables are not enough for you." "And the vegetables, I suppose, are cooked with salt and water, and no seasoning?" "No, they are dressed with salt and water only EN ROUTE 169 on fasting days; at other times you will have them cooked in milk and water, or in oil." "Many thanks," said Durtal. "But all that is excellent for your health," con- tinued the priest, "you complain of pains in the stomach, sick headaches, diarrhoea, well, this diet, in the country, in the air, will cure you better than all the drugs you take. "Now let us leave, if you like, your body out of the question, for in such a case it is God's part to act against your weakness. I tell you, you will not be ill at La Trappe, that were absurd ; it would be to send the penitent sinner away, and Jesus would not then be the Christ; but let us talk of your soul. Have the courage to take its measure, to look it well in the face. Do you see that ?" said the abbe after a silence. Durtal did not answer. "Admit," said the priest, "that you are horrified at it." They took a few steps in the street, and the abbe continued, — "You declare that you are sustained by the crowds of Notre Dame des Victoires and the emanations of St. Severin. What will it be then in the humble chapel, when you will be on the ground huddled to- gether with the saints? I guarantee you in the name of the Lord an assistance such as you have never had" ; and he went on with a laugh, "I may add that the Church will take pleasure in receiving you, she will bring out her ornaments which she has now left off: the authentic liturgies of the I70 EN ROUTE Middle Ages, true plain chant, without solos or organs." "Listen, your propositions astound me," said Durtal with an effort. "No : I assure you I am not at all disposed to imprison myself in such a place. I know well that at Paris I shall never come to any good. I swear to you that I am not proud of my life, nor satisfied with my soul, but from thence . . . to . . . where I cannot tell; I want at least a mitigated asylum, a quiet convent. There must be, on those conditions, somewhere, hospitals for souls." "I could only send you to the Jesuits, who make a specialty of retreats for men: but knowing you as I think I know you, I feel sure you would not stay there two days. You wotdd find yourself among amiable and very clever priests, but they would overwhelm you with sermons, would wish to interfere with your life, mix themselves up with your art, they would examine your thoughts with a magfiifying glass, and then you would be under treatment with good young people, whose unintelli- gent piety would horrify you, and you would flee in exasperation. "At La Trappe it is the contrary. You would certainly be the sole retreatant there, and no one will have the least idea of troubling himself about you; you will be free, you can if you choose leave the monastery just as you entered it, without hav- ing confessed or approached the Sacraments; your will will be respected there, and no monk will at- tempt to sound it without your authority. To you EN ROUTE 171 only it will appertain to decide whether you will be converted or no. "And you will like me to be frank to the last, will you not? You are, as indeed I have already said to you, a sensitive and distrustful man; well, the priest as you see him in Paris, even the religious not cloistered, seem to you, how shall I express it ? second rate souls, not to go further . . ." Durtal protested vaguely, with a gesture. "Let me go on. An afterthought will come to you in regard to the ecclesiastic to whom will fall the task of cleansing you, you will be quite certain that he is not a saint; this is not very theological, for were he even the worst of priests his absolu- tion would have just the same value, if you merit it, but indeed here is a question of sentiment which I respect, you will think of him in a word : he lives as I do, he is not more self-denying than I am, nothing shows that his conscience is very superior to mine, and thence to losing all confidence, and throwing up the whole thing there is but a step. At La Trappe, I will defy you to reason in this way, and not to become humble. When you see men, who after having abandoned everything to serve God, lead a life of privations and penance such as no government would dare to inflict on its convicts, you will indeed be obliged to admit that you are no great thing by their side." Durtal was silent. After the astonishment he had felt at the suggestion of such an issue, he be- came dully irritated against this friend, who hither- to so discreet, had suddenly rushed upon his soul 172 EN ROUTE and opened it by force. There came out the dis- gusting vision of an existence stripped, used up, reduced to a state of dust, a condition of rags. And Durtal shrank from himself, convinced that the abbe was right, that he must at any rate stanch the discharge of his senses, and expiate their inap- peasable desires, their abominable covetousness, their rotten tastes, and he was seized with a terror irrational and intense. He had the giddy fear of the cloister, a terror which attracted him to the abyss over which Gevresin made him lean. Enervated by the ceremony of taking the habit, stunned by the blow with which the priest had as- sailed him as they left the church, he now felt an anguish almost physical, in which everything ended in confusion. He did not know to what reflections he should give himself, and only saw, swimming on this whirlpool of troubled ideas, one clear thought, that the moment had come so dreaded by him in which he must make a resolution. The abbe looked at him, saw that he was really suffering, and was full of pity for a soul so unable to support a struggle. He took Durtal's arm, and said gently, — "My son, believe me that the day you gp your- self to the house of God, the day you knock at its door, it will open wide, and the angels will draw aside to let you pass. The Gospel cannot lie, and it declares that there is more joy over one sinner that repents than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. You will be much better welcomed than you expect, and be sufficiently my ' EN ROUTE 173 friend to think that the old priest you leave here will not remain inactive, and that he and the con- vents he can influence will pray their best for you." "I will see," said Durtal, really moved by the affectionate tone of the priest, "I will see. I can- not decide thus, unexpectedly; I will think. Ah! it is not simple." "Above all things pray," said the priest, who had reached his door. "I have on my side sought the Lord much that He would enlighten me, and I de- clare to you that the solution of La Trappe is the only one He has given me. Ask Him humbly, in your turn, and you will'be guided. I shall soon see you again, shall I not?" He pressed Durtal's hand, who, left alone, re- covered himself at last. Then he recalled the strategic smiles, the ambiguous phrases, the dreamy silences of the Abbe Gevresin, he understood the kindness of his counsels, the patience of his plans; and a little put out at having been, without knowing it, led so wisely, he exclaimed in spite of himself, "This, then, was the design the priest was ripening, with his air of not concerning himself with it at all." CHAPTER IX. He experienced that painful awakening of a sick man whom a doctor deceives for months, who learns some fine morning that he is to be taken at once to an hospital to undergo an urgent surgical operation. "But that is not the way things should be done," cried Durtal ; "people should be prepared, little by little, accustomed by words of warning, to the idea that they are to be cut up on a table, they are not struck down thus unexpectedly! "Yes, but what does that matter? since I know very well, in the depths of my soul, that this priest is right; I must leave Paris if I wish to amend; but all the same, the treatment he inflicts is hard indeed to follow ; I know not what to do." And from this moment his days were haunted by Trappists. He turned over the thought of his de- parture, and examined it on all sides, chewed the cud of for and against, and ended by saying to himself, "That he would take stock of his reflec- tions and open an account, and this with a debit and credit side, that he might know himself the better. "The debit is terrible. To gather up his life, and cast it into the stove of a cloister; and again, he ought to know if his body were in a state to bear such a remedy; mine is frail and soft, accustomed to rise late; it becomes weak if not nourished by 174 EN ROUTE 175 flesh meat, and is subject to neuralgia at any change of the hour of meals. I should never be able to hold out down there with vegetables cooked in warm oil or in milk ; first I detest oily cookery, and I hate milk still more, which I cannot digest. "Then I think I see myself on my knees, on the floor for hours, I who suffered so much at La Gla- ciere in remaining in that posture, on a step, for scarce a quarter of an hour. "Again, I am so accustomed to cigarettes that it is absolutely impossible to give them up, and it is pretty certain they will not let me smoke in a mon- astery. "No, indeed, from the bodily point of view, this plan is madness ; in my state of health there is no doctor who would not dissuade me from undertak- ing such a risk. "If I place myself in a spiritual point of view I must then again recognize that it is terrible to enter La Trappe. "I am afraid indeed that my drynessof soul, my want of love will remain, and then what would be- come of me in such surroundings? Then it is equally probable, that in that solitude and absolute silence, I should be wearied to death, and if it be so, what a miserable existence is it to stalk about a cell and count the hours. No, for that one needs to be firmly fixed on God, to be dwelt in wholly by Him. "Moreover, there are two formidable questions which I have never properly weighed, because it has been painful to think of them, but now that they come before me, and stop the road, I must face 176 EN ROUTE them, the questions of Confession and Holy Com- munion. "Confession? Yes, I will consent to it, I am so tired of myself, so disgusted with my wretched ex- istence that this expiation appears to me as de- served, even necessary. I desire to humble my- self, I would ask pardon with all my heart, but again this penance must be assigned me under pos- sible conditions. At La Trappe, if I believe the abbe, no one will trouble himself about me, in other words no one will encourage me, and aid me to sub- mit to this sorrowful extraction of my shames. I shall be somewhat like a sick man operated on in hospital, far from his friends and relatives. "Confession," he went on, "is an admirable dis- covery, for it is the most sensitive touchstone of souls, the most intolerable act which the Church has ever imposed on the vanity of men. "Is this strange? We speak easily of our lapses, of our grosser actions, even, indeed, to a priest in conversation, that does not seem to lead to any con- sequences, and perhaps a little bragging enters into our admission of easy sins, but to tell the same thing on one's knees, accusing oneself, after prayer, is different; that which was only rather amusing be- comes a very painful humiliation, for the soul is not the dupe of this false seeming, it knows so well in its inner tribunal that all is changed, it feels so well the terrible power of the Sacrament, that he who but now smiled, now trembles at the very thought. "Now, were I to find myself face to face with an EN ROUTE 177 old monk who emerges from an eternity of silence to listen to me, a monk who will not aid me, per- haps cannot even understand me, this will be ter- rible. I shall never get to the end of my troubles if he does not hold out a staff to me, if he lets me stifle and gives no air to my soul, nor brings me help. "The Eucharist also seems terrible. To dare to come forward, to offer Him as a tabernacle the sewer of self scarce purified by repentance, a sewer drained by absolution, but still hardly dry, is mon- strous. I am quite without such courage as to offer Christ this last insult, and so there is no good in fleeing to a monastery. "No; the more I think of it, the more I am obliged to conclude that I should be mad if I ven- tured into a Trappist house. "Now for the Credit side. The only proper work of my life would be to make a parcel of my life, and take it to a cloister to disinfect it, and if that cost me nothing, where is the merit ? "Nothing shows me, on the other hand, that my body, however weakened, cannot support the regi- men of La Trappe. Without believing or pretend- ing to believe with the Abbe Gevresin that that kind of food will be even helpful to me, I ought to count on Divine consolations, to admit the principle that, if I am sent there, it is not that I may take at once to my bed, or be obliged to leave again as soon as I arrive — at least, unless that is the chastisement pre- pared me, the expiation demanded, and again no. 178 EN ROUTE for that would be to ascribe to God pitiless tricks, and would be absurd ! "As to the cookery, it matters little that it is un- civilized, if my stomach can digest it; to have bad food, and get up in the middle of the night is noth- ing, provided the body can stand it, and no doubt I shall find some means of smoking cigarettes by stealth in the woods. "After all, a week is soon over, and I am not even obliged, if I feel poorly, to remain a week. "From the spiritual point of view, I must again count on the mercy of God, believe that it will not abandon me, will dress my wounds, and change the very foundation of my soul. I know well that these arguments do not rest on any earthly certainty, but yet if I have proofs that Providence has already taken part in my affairs, I have no reason to sup- pose that these arguments are weaker than the purely physical motives which served to support my other thesis. Now I must recall that conversion, so outside my will; I must take account of a fact which should encourage me, the weakness of the temptations which I now experience. "It is difificult to have been more rapidly and more completely heard. Whether I owe this grace to my own prayers or to those of the convents which have shielded me without knowing me, it is the case that for some time past my brain has been silent and my flesh calm. That monster Florence appears to me still at certain times, but she does not approach me, she remains in the shade, and the end EN ROUTE 179. of the Lord's Prayer, the 'ne nos inducas in tenta- tionem,' puts her to flight. "That is an unaccustomed fact, and yet a pre- cise one. Why should I doubt, then, that I shall be better upheld at La Trappe than I am in Paris it- self? "There remain confession and communion. "Confession? It will be what the Lord chooses, it should be. He will choose the monk for me; I shall only be able to make use of him ; and then the more disagreeable it is, the better worth it will be; and if I suffer much, I shall think myself less un- worthy to communicate. "That is," he went on, "the most painful point! Communicate! But let us consider, it is certain that I shall be base in proposing to Christ that He should descend like a scavenger into my ditch; but if I wait till it is empty, I shall never be in a state to receive Him, for my bulkheads are not closed, and sins would filter through the fissures. "All this well considered, the abbe spoke truth when he answered me one day : 'But I too am not worthy to approach Him; thank God, I have not those sewers of which you speak, but in the morn- ing, when I go to say my mass, and think of all the dust of the evening, do you not think that I am ashamed? It is always necessary, you see, to go back to the Gospels, and say to yourself that He came for the weak and the sick, the publicans and lepers; and, in fact, you must convince yourself that the Eucharist is a lookout post, a help, that it is given, as it is written in the ordinary of the. i8o EN ROUTE Mass, "ad tutamentum mentis et corporis et ad medelam percipiendam." ,It is, if I may say so, a spiritual medicine; you go to the Saviour just as you go to a doctor, you take your soul to Him to ■care for it, and He does so !' "I stand before the unknown," pursued Durtal, "I complain that I am arid, and have wandered from the right way, but who will declare to me that, if I determine to communicate, I shall remain in the same mind? For indeed, if I have faith, I ought to believe in the occult work of Christ in the Sacrament. Lastly, I am afraid of being wearied by solitude; I am not much amused here as it is, but at La Trappe I shall no longer have thase vacil- lations at every minute, those constant fears ; I shall at least have the advantage of having my time to myself; and then . . . and then . . . how well I inow solitude. Have I not lived apart since the deaths of des Hermies and Carhaix? Indeed, whom do I see? A few publishers, a few literary men, and my relations with these people are not inter- esting. As to silence, it is a blessing. I shall not hear any foolish sayings at La Trappe; I shall not listen to pitiable homilies and poor sermons; but I ought to rejoice on being at last isolated, far from Paris, far from men." He was silent, and made, as it were, a return in upon himself ; and said to himself, in a melancholy manner: "These strifes are useless, these reflec- tions vain. I need not try to take account of my soul, to make out the debit and credit; I know, without knowing how, that I must go; I am thrust EN ROUTE i8r out of myself by an impulse which rises from the very depths of my being, to which I am quite cer- tain I have to yield." At that moment Durtal had decided, but ten min- utes afterwards the attempt at resolution vanished. He felt his cowardice gain on him once more, he chewed once more the cud of arguments against his moving; came to the conclusion that his reasons for remaining in Paris were palpable, human, cer- tain, while the others were intangible, extra-natu- ral, and consequently subject to illusions, perhaps false. And he invented for himself the fear of not ob- taining the thing he feared, said to himself that La Trappe would not receive him, or certainly that it would refuse him communion; and then he sug- gested to himself a middle term : to confess at Paris and communicate at La Trappe. But then there passed in him an incomprehensi- ble fact: his whole soul revolted at this idea, and the formal order not to deceive himself was truly breathed into him, and he said to himself : "No, the bitter draught must be drained to the last drop, it is all or nothing; if I confess to the abbe it will be in disobedience to absolute and secret directions ; I should be capable of not going afterwards to Notre Dame de I'Atre. "What shall I do?" And he accused himself of distrust, called to his aid once more the memory of benefits received, how scales had fallen from his eyes, his insensible progress towards Faith, his en- counter with that singular priest, perhaps the only i82 EN ROUTE one who could understand him, and treat him irt a way so benign and so elastic; but he tried in vain to reassure himself, then he called up the dream of the monastic life, the sovereign beauty of the cloister; he imagined the joy of renuncia- tion, the peace of exalted prayers, the interior in- toxication of the spirit, the delight of not being at home any longer in his own body. Some words of the abbe about La Trappe served as a spring- board for his dreams, and he perceived an old ab- bey, grey and warm, immense avenues of trees, clouds flying confusedly amid the song of waters, silent strolls in the woods at nightfall; he called up the solemn liturgies of Saint Benedict's time; he saw the white pith of monastic chants rise under the scarcely pruned bark of sound. He succeeded in his decision, and cried : "You have dreamed for years of the cloisters, now rejoice that you will Tcnow them at last," and he wished to go at once and live there; then suddenly he fell down into reality, and said to himself : "It is easy to wish to live in a monastery, to tell God that you would de- sire to take shelter therein, when life in Paris weighs you down, but when it comes to the real point of emigration, it is quite another matter." He turned over these lAioughts everywhere, in the street, at home, in the chapels. He hurried like a shuttle from one church to another, hoping to solace his fears by changing his place, but they per- sisted, and rendered every place intolerable. Then in the sacred places came always that dry- ness of soul, the broken spring of impulse, a sud- EN ROUTE 183 den silence within, when he desired consolation in speaking to Him. His best moments, his pauses in the hurly-burly, were a few minutes of absolute torpor, which rested like snow on the soul and he heard nothing. But this drowsiness of thought lasted but a while, the whirlwind blew once more, and the prayers which were wont to appease it refused to leave his lips; he tried religious music, the despairing se- quences of the psalms, pictures of the Crucifixion by the Early Masters, to excite him, but his pray- ers ran on and became confused on his lips, ere divested of all sense, mere words, empty shells. At Notre Dame des Victoires, where he dragged himself that he might thaw a little under the warmth of his neighbours' prayers, he did in fact feel less chilly, and seemed to break up a little, fell drop by drop into sorrows which he could not for- mulate, and were all summed up in the cry of a sick child, in which he said to Our Lady, in low tones: "My soul is sorrowful." Thence he returned to St. Severin, sat down under those arches browned by the rust of pray- ers, and, haunted by his fixed idea, he pleaded for himself extenuating circumstances, exaggerated the austerities of La Trappe, tried almost to exasperate his fear to excuse his weakness in a vague appeal to Our Lady. "But I must go and see the Abbe Gevresin," he murmured, but his courage still failed him to pro- nounce the "Yes" which the priest would surely require from him. He ended by discovering a rea- i84 EN ROUTE son for his visit, without thinking himself obliged to promise just yet. "After all," he thought, "I have no precise in- formation about this monastery; I do not even know whether it may not be necessary to take a long and expensive journey to get there; the abbe indeed declares that it is not far from Paris, but it is impossible to decide on this simple declara- tion; it will be useful also to know the habits of these cenobites before going to stay with them." The abbe smiled when Durtal mentioned these objections. "The journey is short," he said. "You start from the Gare du Nord at eight o'clock in the morn- ing for Saint Landry, where you arrive at a quar- ter to twelve; you lunch at an inn close to the sta- tion, and while you are drinking your coffee they get you a carriage, and after a drive of four hours you arrive at Notre Dame de I'Atre for dinner. There is no difficulty there. "Then the cost is moderate. As far as I remem- ber the railway fare is about fifteen francs, add two or three francs for lunch, and six or seven for the carriage . . ." And as Durtal was silent, the abbe went on: "Well?" "Ah yes, yes ... if you knew ... I am in a pitiable state, I will and will not ; I know well that I ought to take refuge there, but in spite of myself, I wish to gain time and put off the hour of depar- ture." And he continued: "My soul is out of gear, EN ROUTE 185 when I would pray, my senses go all astray, I can- not recollect myself, and if I succeed in pulling myself together, five minutes do not pass but I am all astray again ; no, I have neither fervour nor true contrition, I do not love God enough, if it must be said. "And, indeed, during the last two days, a fright- ful certainty has grown up in me; I am sure that, in spite of my good intentions, if I found myself in the presence of a certain person, whose sight troubles me, I should send religion to the devil, I should return eagerly to my vomit; I only hold on because I am not tempted, I am no better than when I was sinning. You will admit that I am in a wretched state to enter a Trappist monastery." "Your reasons are at least weak," answered the abbe. "You say first that your prayers are dis- tracted, that you are unable to concentrate your at- tention; but in fact you are just like everybody else. Even Saint Teresa declares that often she was un- able to recite the Credo without distraction, it is a weakness in which we must just take our portion humbly: above all things it is necessary not to lay too much stress on these evils, for the fear of seeing them return ensures their assiduity; you are dis- tracted in prayer by the very fear of distraction, and by regret for it ; go forth more boldly, look at things more widely, pray as best you can, and do not trouble yourself. "Again, you declare that if you meet a certain person whose attraction is a trouble to you, you will succumb. How do you know that? Why should i86 EN ROUTE you take care about seductions which God does not yet inflict upon you, and which He will perhaps spare you? Why doubt His mercy? Why not be- lieve, on the contrary, that if He judge the tempta- tion useful. He will aid you enough to prevent your sinking under it? "In any case you ought not, by anticipation, to fear disgust at your weakness; the Imitation de- clares 'There is nothing more foolish and vain, than to afflict ourselves about future things which may perhaps never happen.' No, it is enough to occupy ourselves with the present, for 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,' — 'sufficit diei malitia sua.' "Finally you say you do not love God; again I answer, what do you know about it ? You have this love by the very token that you desire to have it, and that you regret you have it not; you love our Lord by the very fact that you desire to love Him." "That is special pleading," murmured Durtal. "But indeed," he went on, "suppose at La Trappe, the monk revolted at the long outrage of my sins, refused me absolution, and forbade me to com- municate." The abbe burst out laughing. "You are mad ! What is your notion of Christ ?" "Not of Christ but of His intermediary the hu- man being who replaces Him." "You can only chance upon a man pointed out beforehand from above to judge you; moreover, at Notre Dame de I'Atre you have every chance of kneeling at the feet of a saint, therefore God will EN ROUTE 187 inspire him, will be present, you have nothing to fear. "As to the Communion, the prospect of being rejected terrifies you, but is not that one proof the more that, contrary to your opinion, God does not leave you insensible?" "Yes, but the idea of commimicating alarms me none the less." "I say to you again : if Jesus were indifferent to you, it would be just the same to you, to consume or not to consume the sacred species." "All that does not convince me," sighed Durtal. "I do not know where I am ; I am afraid of a con- fessor, of others, of myself; it is foolish, but it is stronger than I. I cannot gain the upper hand." "You are afraid of the water; imitate Gribouille, throw yourself in boldly; look, suppose I write to La Trappe this very day to say you are coming; when?" "Oh !" cried Durtal, "wait a while." "To get an answer, we need two days each way ; will you go there five days hence?" And, as Durtal was astounded and silent, "Is that settled?" Then, at that moment, Durtal had a strange ex- perience, as often at St. Severin, a sort of caressing touch and gentle push ; he felt a will insinuate itself into his own, and he drew back disquieted at seeing he had a double self, to find he was no longer alone in the depth of his being; then he was inexplicably reassured, and gave himself up, and as soon as he had said "Yes" he felt immensely relieved; then i88 EN ROUTE passing from one extreme to the other, he was troubled at the idea that his departure could not take place at once, and was sorry that he had still to pass five days in Paris. The abbe laughed. "But the Trappists must have notice, it is a simple formality, for with a word from me you will be received at once, but wait at least until I have sent this word ; I will post it this evening, so have no anxiety, and sleep in peace." Durtal in his turn laughed at his own impatience. "You must think me very ridiculous," he said. The priest shrugged his shoulders. "Come, you asked me about my little monastery; I must try to satisfy you. It is very small, if compared with the grande Trappe at Soligny, or the establishments at Sept Fonds, Meilleray or Aiguebelle, for there are only about ten choir fathers, and about thirty lay brothers or 'conversi.' There are also a certain number of peasants who work with them, and help them to till their land, and make their chocolate." "They make chocolate !" "That surprises you. How do you think they live? Ah! I warn you, you are not going into a sumptuous monastery." "I like it so. But in regard to the stories of La Trappe, I suppose the monks do not greet each other with 'Brother, we must die,' and that they do not dig their graves every morning?" "All that is false. They take no trouble about their graves, and they salute each other silently, since they are forbidden to speak." "Then what am I to do if I need anything?" EN ROUTE 189 "The abbot, the confessor, and the guestmaster have the right of conversing with the guests, you will have to do with them alone; the others will bow when you meet them, but if you speak to them they will not answer." "It is well to know that. What is their dress ?" "Before the foundation of Citeaux, the Bene- dictines wore, or so it is supposed, the black habit of Saint Benedict; the Benedictines properly so- called wear it still, but at Citeaux the colour was changed, and the Trappists, who are a twig of this branch, have adopted the white robe of Saint Ber- nard." "Pray pardon all these questions, which must seem childish, but since I am about to visit these monks, I ought to be in some measure acquainted with the customs of their order." "I am wholly at your disposition," replied the abbe. Durtal asked him about the situation of the abbey itself, and he replied : "The present monastery dates from the eighteenth century, but you will see in the gardens the ruins of the old cloister, which was built in the time of Saint Bernard. In the Middle Ages there was a succession of Blessed in this convent; it is a truly sanctified land, fit for meditation and regret. "The abbey is situated at the bottom of a valley, according to the orders of Saint Bernard; for you know that if Saint Benedict loved the hills. Saint Bernard sought the low and moist plains wherein IQO EN ROUTE to found his convents. An old Latin line has pre- served the different tastes of these two saints : " 'Bemardus valles, coUes Benedictus amabat.' " "Was it on account of his own personal liking, or for a pious end, that Saint Bernard built his hermitages in unwholesome and flat places ?" "In order that his monks, whose health was en- feebled by the fogs, might have constantly before their eyes the salutary image of death." "The deuce he did!" "I may add at once that the valley in which Notre Dame de I'Atre rises is now drained, and the air is very pure. You will stroll by delightful ponds, and I may recommend you, on the borders of the en- closure, an avenue of secular chestnuts, where you may take some refreshing walks at daybreak." And after a silence the Abbe Gevresin con- tinued, — "Walk there a good deal, traverse the woods in all directions; the forests will tell you more about your soul than books. 'Aliquid amplius invenies in sylvis quam in libris,' wrote Saint Bernard — ^pray and your days will seem short." Durtal went away froni the priest's house com- forted, almost joyful; he felt at least the solace of a fixed decision, a resolution taken at last. He said to himself that the only thing now to be done was to prepare himself as best he could for the retreat, and he prayed and went to bed for the first time for months with his mind at rest. But next day when he woke, his mood changed, all his preconceived ideas, all his fears returned ; he EN ROUTE 191 asked himself if his conversion were ripe enough to allow him to cut it separate and carry it to La Trappe; the fear of a confessor, the dread of the unknown assailed him afresh. "I was wrong to have answered so soon," and he asked himself, "Why did I say yes?" The recollection of this word pronounced by his lips conceived by a will which was still his own and yet other than his, came back to his mind. "It is not the first time that such a thing happened to me," he thought, "I have already experienced when alone in the churches unexpected counsels, silent orders, and it must be admitted that it is terrifying to feel this infusion into self of an invisible being, and to know that he can, if he choose, almost turn you out of the domain of your personality. "But no, it is not that, there is no substitution of an exterior will to one's own, for one's free will is absolutely intact; neither is it one of those irresisti- ble impulses endured by certain sick persons, for nothing is more easy than to resist it ; it is still less a suggestion, since, in this case, there are no mag- netic passes, no somnambulism induced, no hypno- tism; no, it is the irresistible entrance into oneself of a strange will, the sudden intrusion of a precise and discreet desire, a pressure on the soul at once firm and gentle. Ah! again I am incorrect, and play the fool, but nothing can describe that close pressure, which vanishes at the least movement of impatience — it is felt but cannot be expressed. "Its introduction is always attended by surprise, almost with anguish, since it does not make use of 192 EN ROUTE even an interior voice to make itself heard, and is formulated without the aid of words, all is blotted out, the breath which has thrilled you disappears. You would wish that this incitement should be con- firmed, that the phenomenon should be repeated in order to be more closely observed, to try to analyze it and understand it, when lo ! it is gone ; you remain alone with yourself, are free not to obey, your will is unfettered and you know it, but you know also that if you reject these invitations you take on your- self unspeakable risks for the future. "In fact," pursued Durtal, "it is an angelic in- flux, a divine touch, something analogous to the interior voice so well known by the mystics, but it is less complete, less precise, and yet it is quite as certain." He ended his dreams concluding, "I am consumed and collared by myself, before being able to answer this priest, whose arguments would scarce persuade me, unless I had had this help, this unexpected succour. "But then, since I am thus led by the hand, what have I to fear?" He feared all the same, and could not be at peace with himself; then if he profited by the comfort of a decision, he was consumed for the moment by the expectation of his departure. He tried to kill time in reading, but he had to admit once more that he could not expect consola- tion from any book. None came even distantly into relation with his state of mind. High Mysti- cism was so little human, soared at such heights EN ROUTE 193 far from our mire, that no sovereign aid could be expected from it. He ended by falling back on the "Imitation," in which Mysticism, placed within the reach of the crowd, was like a trembling and plain- tive friend who stanched your wounds within the cells of its chapters, prayed and wept with you, and in any case compassionated the desolate widowhood of souls. Unfortunately, Durtal had read so much, and was so saturated with the Gospels, that he had tem- porarily exhausted their sedative and soothing vir- tues. Tired of reading, he again began his courses in the churches. "And suppose the Trappists will not have me," he thought, "what will become of me?" "But I tell you that they will receive you," said the abbe, whom he went to see. He was not easy till the day the priest handed him the answer from La Trappe. He read : — "We will receive with pleasure, for a week, in our guesthouse the retreatant whom you wish to commend to us, and I do not see at the moment any reason why the retreat should not begin next Tues- day. "In the hope. Monsieur I'Abbe, that we shall also have the pleasure of seeing you again in our soli- tude, I beg to assure you that I am yours most respectfully, "F. M. Etienne, "Guestmaster." 194 EN ROUTE He read and re-read it, at once delighted and terrified. "There is no further doubt; it is irre- vocable," he said, and he went at once in haste to St. Severin, having less need of prayer than of go- ing near to Our Lady; of showing himself to her, paying her, as it were, a visit of thankfulness, and expressing his gratitude by his very presence. He was taken by the charms of that church, its silence, the shadow which fell on the apse, from the height of its palm trees of stone, and he ended by caring for nothing and sinking on a chair, filled with one sole desire, not to enter again on the life of the streets, never to leave his refuge, never to move. The next day, which was a Sunday, he went to the Benedictine nuns to hear High Mass. A black monk celebrated; he recognized a Benedictine when the priest chanted "Dominous vobiscoum," for the Abbe Gevresin had told him that the Benedictines pronounced Latin like Italian. Though he was not inclined to like that pronun- ciation which took away from Latin the sonorous tones of its words, and turned after a fashion the phrases of that tongue into a ring of bells with their clappers muffled or their vases stuffed with tow, he let himself go, taken hold of by the unction, by the humble piety of the monk, who almost trembled with reverence and joy when he kissed the altar, and he had a deep voice, to which, behind the grat- ing, answered the clear high voices of the nuns. Durtal panted, listening to the fluid pictures of the Early Masters sketch and form and paint them- EN ROUTE 195 selves on the air; he was affected to his very mar- row, as he had formerly been during High Mass at St. Severin. He had lost that emotion now in that church, where the flower of melody had faded for him since he knew the Benedictine plain song, and he now found it again, or rather he took it with him from St. Severin to this chapel. And for the first time he had a wild desire, a desire so violent that it seemed to melt his heart. It was at the moment of the Communion. The monk, elevating the Host, uttered the "Domine non sum dignus." Pale, with drawn features, sorrow- ful eyes, and serious mouth, he seemed to have escaped from a monastery of the Middle Ages, cut out of one of those Flemish pictures where the monks are standing in the background, while, be- fore them, nuns are praying on their knees with joined hands, near the donors, to the child Jesus on whom the Virgin smiles, while lowering her long lashes under her arching brow. And while he descended the steps and communi- cated two women, Durtal trembled, and his desires went forth towards the ciborium. It seemed to him that if he were nourished on that Bread, there would be an end of all his dry- ness and all his fears; it would seem to him that the wall of his sins, higher and higher from year to year, and now barring his view, would roll away, and at last he would see. And he was in haste to set off for La Trappe, that he too might receive the Sacred Body from the hands of a monk. That mass gave him new strength like a tonic. 196 EN ROUTE he came out of the chapel jayful and firmer, and when the impression grew somewhat feebler in the course of hours, he remained perhaps less afifected^ but still resolute, joking in the evening with a gentle melancholy about his condition : "There are many people who go to Bareges or Vichy to cure their bodies, and why should not I go and cure my soul in a Trappist monastery?" CHAPTER X. *'I SHALL make myself a prisoner in two days," sighed Durtal; "it is time to think about packing. What books shall I take to help me to live down there?" He searched his library, and turned over the mystical books, which had, by degrees, replaced profane works on the shelves. "I will not talk of Saint Teresa," he thought; "neither she, nor Saint John of the Cross, would be indulgent enough to me in solitude; I have need of more pardon and consolation. "Saint Denys the Areopagite, or the apocrj^hal book known under that name? He is the first of the Mystics, and perhaps has gone the furthest in his theological definitions. He lives in the rarefied air of the mountain tops, above the gulfs, on the threshold of the other world which he sees in part by flashes of grace, and he remains lucid, undazzled in the blaze of light around him. "It seems that in his 'Celestial Hierarchies,' in which he brings out in procession the armies of heaven, and shows the meaning of angelic attributes and symbols, he has already passed the limits as- signed to man, and yet in his 'Divine Names' he ventures even a step further, and then he raises 197 igS EN ROUTE himself into the super-essence of metaphysics at once calm and stem. "He over-heats the human word to give it greater force, but when after all his efforts he endeavours to define the Indescribable, to distinguish those never to be confounded Persons of the Trinity who in their plurality never lose their unity, words fail on his lips, and his tongue is paralyzed under his pen; then tranquilly and without any astonishment he makes himself again a child, comes down from those heights among us, and in order to try and explain to us what he understands, he has recourse to comparisons with domestic life; and that he may explain the Trinity in Unity he notices how, if many torches be lighted in one hall, lights, though distinct, mingle in one, and are in fact no more than one. "Saint Denys," thought Durtal, "is one of the boldest explorers of the eternal regions, but he would be dry reading at La Trappe. "Ruysbrock?" he thought — "perhaps, and yet I hardly am sure — I might put him in my bag as well as for a cordial the little collection distilled by Hello ; as for the Spiritual Marriages, so well trans- lated by Maeterlinck, they are disconnected and obscure, they stifle me, this Ruysbrock oppresses me less. This hermit is singular, all the same, for he does not enter into us, but rather goes round about us; he endeavours, like Saint Denys, to arrive at God, rather in heaven than in the soul, but, in wish- ing to take such a flight, he strains his wings, and stammers incomprehensibly when he comes down. EN ROU,TE 199 "We will leave him beHind, then. Now let us see. Saint Catherine of Genoa? Her discussions between the soul, the body, and self-love are un- meaning and confused, and when in her 'Dialogues' she treats of the operations of the interior life, she is greatly below Saint Teresa and Saint Angela. On the other hand her Treatise on Purgatory is clear. It declares that she alone has penetrated inta the spaces of unknown sorrows, and that she has disentangled and taken hold of the joys; she has in fact succeeded in reconciling two contraries which seemed eternally repugnant; the suffering of the soul in its purification from sin, and the joy of the soul, which at the very moment it is enduring fright- ful torment experiences immense happiness, for little by little it draws near to God, and feels His rays attract it more and more, and His love inun- dates it with such excess that it would seem the Saviour desires nought but only it. "Saint Catherine sets forth also that Jesus for- bids heaven to none, that it is the soul herself who, deeming herself unworthy to attain it, flings her- self by her own motion into Purgatory, there to cleanse herself, for she has only one end, to re- establish herself in her primitive purity, only one desire, to attain her last end, by destroying herself, annihilating herself, losing herself in God. "This is a conclusive study," murmured Durtal, ' "but not that which would lead to La Trappe. We must try again." He touched other volumes in the book-cases. "Here, for instance, is one which obviously I 200 EN ROUTE should use," he went on, as he took down the "Seraphic Theology" of Saint Bonaventure, "for he condenses the means of self-examination, of meditation for communion, of thoughts on death, then in these 'Selections' is a treatise on the Con- tempt of the World, whose terse phrases are ad- mirable; it is the true essence of the Holy Spirit, a jelly of unction firm set — we will put that on one side. "I shall hardly find a better help to remedy the probable weariness of solitude," murmured Durtal, turning over new ranks of volumes. He looked at the titles. "The Life of the Blessed Virgin," by M. Olier. He hesitated, saying to himself, "Under a style which is like water with scarcely the chill off, there are some interesting observations, some tasteful comments. M. Olier has in a way traversed the mysterious territory of hidden designs, and has there discovered the unimaginable truths which the Lord is sometimes pleased to reveal to His saints. He has made himself the liege-man of Our Lady, and living near her has made himself also the her- ald of her attributes, the legate of her graces. His Life of Mary is certainly the only one which seems really inspired and is possible to read. Where the abbess of Agreda wanders, he alone remains vig- orous and clear. He shows us the Virgin existing from all eternity in God, conceiving without ceasing to be immaculate, like the crystal which receives and reflects the rays of the sun, yet loses nothing of its lustre, and indeed shines with greater bright- EN ROUTE 201 ness, bringing forth without pain, but sufFering at the death of her Son the pangs she would have borne at His birth. Then he gives us learned dis- sertations on Her whom he calls the Treasure- house of all good, the Mediatrix of love and im- petration. Yes, but to converse with Her nothing is so good as the 'Officium parvum beatse Virginis,' and that," concluded Durtal, "I will put in my bag with my Prayer-book ; we will not disturb M. Olier'si -volume. "My stock begins to give out," he continued. "Angela of Foligno? Certainly she is a brasier at which one may warm one's soul. I will take her w^ith me. What more — Tauler's Sermons? I am tempted to do so, for never has any treated better than this monk the most abstruse subjects with a more perfectly lucid mind. By aid of familiar im- ages, humble analogies, he has rendered accessible the highest speculations of Mysticism. He is homely and deep, then he borrows a little from quietism, and, perhaps, it will be no bad thing to absorb, down there, a few drops of that mixture. Yet on the whole, no; I have rather need of nerve tonics. As to Suso, he is a remedy far inferior to Saint Bonaventure, or Saint Angela. I put aside also Saint Bridget of Sweden, for in her conversa- tions with heaven she seems aided by a God morose and tired, who reveals to her nothing unexpected, nothing new. "There is also Saint Magdalen of Pazzi, that voluble Carmelite whose work is a series of apos- trophes. An exclamatory person, clever at analo- 202 EN ROUTE gies, expert in coincidences, a saint infatuated with metaphors and hyperboles. She talks directly with God the Father, and stammers out in ecstasy ex- planations of the mysteries revealed to her by the Ancient of days. Her books contain one sovereign page on the Circumcision, another magnificent one, entirely made up of antitheses, on the Holy Spirit, others, very strange, on the deification of the hu- man soul, on its union with heaven, and on the part assigned in this operation to the wounds of the Word. "These are inhabited nests; the eagle which is the symbol of Faith resides in the eyrie of the left foot ; in the hole of the right foot resides the melan- choly sweetness of the turtle-doves; in the wound of the left hand the dove ensconces herself, th^ symbol of surrender, and in the cavity of the right hand reposes the pelican, the emblem of love. "These birds leave their nests and come to seek the soul that they may lead it to the nuptial cham- ber of the wound which bleeds in the side of Christ. "Was it not also that Carmelite nun who, rav- ished by the power of grace, despised so greatly the certitude acquired by the way of the senses, as to say to the Lord : 'If I saw Thee with mine eyes, I should have Faith no more, because Faith ceases where evidence comes in'? "All things considered," he said; "Magdalen of Pazzi, with her dialogues and contemplations, opens eloquent horizons, but the soul, snared in the bird- lime of its sins, cannot follow her. No; this saint cannot reassure me in the cloister. EN ROUTE 203 "Ah !" he went on, shaking the dust from a vol- ume in a grey cover; "ah! it is true I have The Precious Blood, of Father Faber." And he began to dream as he turned over its pages where he stood. He remembered the impression, till now forgot- ten, produced on him when he read it. The work of this Oratorian was at least strange. The pages boiled over, ran forth tumultuously, carrying with thetn grandiose visions, such as Hugo conceived, developing historical perspectives such as Michelet loved to paint. In this volume was seen advancing the solemn procession of the Precious Blood, start- ing from the confines of humanity, from the origin of the ages, and it broke the bounds of the worlds, overwhelmed the nations, submerged history. Father Faber was less a mystic, properly so- called, than a visionary and a poet; in spite of the abuse of rhetoric transferred from the pulpit to a book, he tore up souls by roots, carried them away on the rush of the stream, but when one regained footing, and sought to remember what had been heard and seen, one could recall nothing; on reflec- tion one recognized that the theme of the work was very thin, too slender to have been executed by so noisy an orchestra, and there remained of that read- ing something distracting and feverish which made you uneasy, and made you think that this kind of book had only very distant relation to the heavenly fulness of the great mystics. "No, not that," thought Durtal. "Now what have we selected? I keep the little collection of 204 EN ROUTE Ruysbrock, the Life of Angela of Foligno, and Saint Bonaventure, and the best of all for my state of soul," he said, striking his forehead. He went back to his book-case, and seized a little book, which lay alone in a comer. He sat down, and turned it over, saying, "Here is the tonic, the stimulant in weakness, the strych- nine for failure of Faith, the goad which drives you in tears to the feet of Christ, the 'Dolorous Passion' of Sister Emmerich." She was no chemist of the spiritual being, like Saint Teresa; she had nothing to do with our in- terior life ; in her book she forgot herself, and left us on one side, for she saw only Jesus crucified, and wished only to show the stages of His agony, and to leave marked on her pages, as on the veil of Veronica, the imprint of the Holy Face. Though she was of our time, for Catherine Em- merich died in 1824, this great work dates from the Middle Ages. It is a picture which seems to belong to the early schools of Franconia and Swabia. This woman was the sister of the Zeit- bloms and the Griinewalds, she had their clear visions, their vivid colouring, their wild scent; but she seemed to bring back also, by her care for exact detail, by her precise indication of places, the old Flemish Masters, Roger Van der Weyden and Bouts; she united in herself two currents, spring- ing one from Germany, the other from Flanders, and this painting brushed in with blood, and var- nished with tears, was transposed by her into a prose style which has no relation to any known EN ROUTE 20S literature, of which we can only find by analogy the ancestry in the panels of the fifteenth century. Moreover, she was quite illiterate, had never read a book, nor seen a painting; she told quite plainly what she saw in her ecstasies. The pictures of the Passion unfolded themselves before her while she was bed-ridden, crushed by suffering, bleeding from the wounds of her stig- mata; she mourned and wept, brought to nothing- ness by love and pity, before the torments of Christ. According to her words, which a scribe took down. Calvary rose, and the whole rascaldom of the soldiers rushed at the Saviour and spat on Him ; frightful episodes took place where Jesus, chained to a pillar, twisting like a worm, under the lashes of the scourgers, then falling, looking with His failing eyes, at the fallen women who held Him by the hand, and turned away in disgust from His lacerated body, from His face covered with threads of blood as with a red net. Then slowly, patiently, only stopping to sob, and cry for mercy, she described the soldiers tearing away the stuff which had stuck to the wounds, the Virgin weeping; her face livid and her lips blue, she related the agony of His bearing His Cross, how He fell on His knees, grew weaker and more worn when death came. It was a frightful spectacle, told in its every par- ticular, forming a sublime and frightful whole. The Redeemer was extended on a cross laid on the ground, one of the executioners placed a knee 2o6 EN ROUTE against His side, while another spread His fingers abroad, and a third hammered in a flat-headed nail as broad' as a crown, and so long that the point came out behind the wood. And when the right hand was riveted the torturers saw that the left would not reach to the place they intended to pierce, therefore they attached a rope to the arm, pulled it with all their force, dislocated the shoulder, and the cries of the Saviour were heard above the blows of the hammer, His breast was seen heaving, while His body was anguished and furrowed by terrible shuddering. The same scene was repeated to fix His feet. They also did not reach the place which the execu- tioners had marked. The body had to be tied and the arms bound so as not to tear the hands from the wood, and then it was necessary to hang on the legs so as to lengthen them as far as the bracket on which they were to rest; all at once the entire body yielded, the ribs moved under the skin; the shock was so fearful, that the executioners believed that the bones would start, and burst the flesh, wherefore they made haste to rest the left foot on the right, but their difficulties began again, the feet turned over, and it was necessary to bore them with an auger to fasten them. This continued till Jesus died, when Sister Em- merich fainted from terror, her stigmata bled afresh, and her wounded head rained blood. In this book the whole pack of Jewish hounds was seen in full cry, the imprecations and shouts of the crowd were heard, the Virgin was shown trem- EN ROUTE 207 bling with fever, the Magdalen, beyond herself, was terrible by her cries, and towering above this lamentable group, Christ appeared, pale and swol- len. His legs entangled in His robe, when He mounted to Golgotha clenching His broken nails on the cross as it slipped from His grasp. This extraordinary visionary, Catherine Emmer- ich, also described the surroundings of these scenes, the landscapes of Judaea, which she had never visit- ed, but have since been recognized as exact; with- out knowing it, without willing it, this illiterate woman became an unique and powerful artist. "Wonderful visionary, wonderful painter," cried Durtal, "and also wonderful saint," he added, run- ning over the life of this nun, placed as a preface to the book. She was bom in 1774, in the diocese of Munster, the child of poor peasants. From her infancy she had conversations with the Virgin, and possessed the gift which also was given to Saint Sibylline of Pavia, Ida of Louvain, and more recently to Louise Lateau, of discerning, when she looked at, or touched them, objects which had been blessed from those which had not. She entered, as a novice, the Augustinian convent at Dulmen, made her profes- sion when she was twenty-nine; her health failed and incessant pain tortured her, which she in- creased, for, like Blessed Lidwine, she obtained from Heaven permission to suffer for others, and succour the sick by taking their maladies. In 181 1, under the government of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, the convent was suppressed and the 2o8 EN ROUTE nuns dispersed. Infirm and penniless, she was car- ried to a room in an inn where she had to bear every sort of curiosity and insult. Christ added to her martyrdom in giving her the stigmata for which she asked ; she could neither rise, nor walk, nor sit, could take no food but the juice of a cherry, but she was transported by long ecstasies. In these she visited Palestine, following the Saviour step by step, dictated with groans this fond book, then said with her death-rattle, "Let me die in shame with Jesus on the Cross," and died overwhelmed with joy, thanking Heaven for the life of suffering she had endured. "Ah, yes; I will take the 'Dolorous Passion!'" cried Durtal to himself. "Take the Gospels also," said the abbe, who came in meanwhile; "they are the heavenly phials from which you will draw the oil you need to dress your wounds." "It will be equally useful, and truly in accord- ance with the atmosphere of La Trappe, to be able to read in the abbey itself the works of Saint Ber- nard, but they consist of unmanageable folios, and the abridgments and extracts in volumes of a more convenient form are so ill-chosen, that I have never had the courage to buy them." "They have Saint Bernard at La Trappe, and will lend you the volumes if you ask them; but where are you from the spiritual point of view? How are you getting on ?" "I am melancholy, badly prepared and resigned. I cannot tell if weariness has come from my turn- EN ROUTE 209 ing always on the same round, like a circus horse, but at this moment I am not sufifering. I am per- suaded that this change of place is necessary, and that it would be useless to hesitate. All the same," he said, after a silence, "it is very odd that I am going to imprison myself in a monastery, and in truth, in spite of myself, that astonishes me." "I will admit," said the abbe, laughing, "that when I first met you at Tocane's, I never thought I was pointed out to direct you to a monastery; ah, you see I must evidently belong to that category of people whom I may call mere bridges, involun- tary brokers of souls who are imposed on you for a certain end which you do not suspect, and of which even themselves are ignorant." "Rather, if any one were a mere bridge in this matter," answered Durtal, "it was Tocane, for it was he who brought us together, and we kick him away as soon as he has finished his unconscious task ; it was evidently designed that we should know, each other." "That is true," said the abbe, with a smile ; "now I do not suppose I shall see you again before you start, for I go to-morrow to Macon, where I shall stay five days, time to see my nephews and to sign some law papers : at any rate keep up your courage, and do not forget to send me news of yourself. Write to me without much delay, that I may find your letter when I return to Paris." And as Durtal thanked him for his constant kind- ness, he took his hand and held it in his own. "Say nothing about that," he said; "you have 210 EN ROUTE only to thank Him, whose fatherly impatience has broken the obstinate slumber of your Faith; you owe thanks to God only. "Thank Him in getting rid of your nature as soon as possible, and leaving the house of your con- science empty for Him. The more you die to your- self the better will He live in you. Prayer is the most powerful ascetic means by which you can re- nounce yourself, empty yourself and render your- self humble in this matter; pray therefore without ceasing at La Trappe. Implore our Lady especially, for like myrrh which consumes the proud flesh of wounds, she heals the ulcers of the soul; I on my side will pray for you as best I can; you can thus in your weakness lean, so as not to fall, on that firm and protecting pillar of prayer of which Saint Teresa speaks. Once again, a safe journey to you ; we shall meet soon again, my son, good-bye." Durtal remained much disturbed. "It is most tiresome," he thought, "that this priest is leaving Paris before me, for indeed if I have need of spiritual help or counsel, to whom shall I go? It is clearly written that I must end as I have begun, alone, but . . . but . . . solitude under these con- ditions is alarming. I am no spoilt child, whatever the abbe may say." Next morning Durtal awoke ill; furious neural- gia bored his temples like a gimlet ; he tried to stop it with antipyrine, but this medicine in a large dose put his stomach out of order without abating the strokes of the machine which penetrated his skull. He wandered about his rooms, changing from one EN ROUTE 211 seat to another, coiling himself up in an arm-chair, getting up to lie down again, jumping from his bed in fits of sickness, upsetting his furniture from time to time. He could assign no precise cause for this attack; he had slept his fill, and had not exceeded in any way the night before. He thought, with his head in his hands, "There are still two days counting to-day before I leave Paris, and very fit I am for it ! I shall not be in a state to travel by train, and if I travel, the food at La Trappe will finish me." He had a minute's comfort from the idea that through no fault of his own he might perhaps avoid his painful duty, and remain at home; but the re- action was immediate; he understood that if he did not go, he was lost; the vacillation of his soul had become chronic, the crisis of disgust of self, the acute regret of an effort consented to with pain, and suddenly missed, the certainty that it would only be postponed for a time, that he would have to pass again through alternations of revolt and terror, and begin again to fight with himself for conviction. "Admitting that I am not in a state to travel, I have always the resource of making my confession to the abbe when he returns, and of communicating in Paris," he thought, but he shook his head, saying to himself once more that he felt and knew that was not his duty. "But then," he said to God: "since Thou dost implant this idea in me so vio- lently that I cannot even discuss it, in spite of its 212 EN ROUTE entire common sense — for after all it is not neces- sary to immure myself in a Trappist monastery in order to reconcile myself to Thee — ^then let me go !" And he spoke to God quietly. "My soul is an evil place, sordid and infamous; till now it has loved only perverse ways; it has exacted from my wretched body the tithe of illicit pleasures and unholy joys, it is worth little, it is worth nothing, and yet down there near Thee, if Thou wilt succour me, I think that I shall subdue it, but if my body be sick, I cannot force it to obey me; this is worse than all, I am disarmed if Thou do not come to my aid. "Take count of this, O Lord; I know by experi- ence that when I am ill-fed, I have neuralgia; hu- manly, logically speaking, I am certain to be hor- ribly ill at Notre Dame de I'Atre; nevertheless, if I can get about at all, the day after to-morrow, I will go all the same. "In default of love, this is the sole proof I can give that I truly desire Thee, that truly I hope and believe in Thee, but then, O Lord, aid me." He added sadly, "Ah! indeed I am no Lidwine or Catherine Emmerich, who when Thou didst strike them cried out. More, more! — Thou dost scarce touch me, and I protest: but what wouldest Thou? Thou dost know better than I; physical suffering breaks me down, drives me to despair." He went to sleep at last to kill the day in bed; slumbering to wake again suddenly from frightful nightmares. The next day his head seemed empty and his EN ROUTE 213 heart feeble, but his neuralgia was less violent. He rose, saying to himself that he must eat, though he was not hungry, for fear his pain should return. He went out and wandered in the Luxembourg, saying to himself that he must arrange his time, that after breakfast he would visit St. Severin, then he would go home and pack, and afterwards finish the day at Notre Dame des Victoires. The walk did him good, his head was lighter, and his heart free. He went into a restaurant, where because of the early hour nothing was ready ; he spent the time before a newspaper, on a bench. How often he had held papers thus without read- ing them, how many evenings he had waited in cafes with his nose in an article, thinking of other matters, at those times especially when he was striv- ing with his vices ; when Florence appeared to him, still keeping the clear smile of a little girl on her way to school, her eyes cast down, her hands in the pockets of her apron. Suddenly the child changed into a ghoul who whirled round him wildly, and made him silently understand the horror of his desires. . . . All that was now far distant; almost in one day the charm was broken, without any real strife or true effort, without inward struggles; he had ab- stained from seeing her, and now when she roused his memory again she was no more in fact than a recollection odious and sweet. "After all," thought Durtal, as he cut up his beefsteak, "I wonder what she thinks of me; she must certainly suppose me dead or lost; happily I 214 EN ROUTE have never met her, and she does not know my address. "Well," he went on, "there is no use in stirring the mud, it will be time to cleanse it when I am at La Trappe," and he shuddered, for the idea of the confessor again took root in him, and he was obliged to tell himself for the twentieth time that the expected never happens, and to declare that he should find some good fellow of a monk who would listen to him; then he was afraid again, putting things at their worst, and fancy himself turned out, like a mangy dog. He finished his breakfast, and went to St. Sev- erin ; there the crisis declared itself, the overcharged soul gave way, struck down by a congestion of sad- ness. He lay on a chair in such a state of depression that he could think no more, he remained inert without the power of sufifering, till little by little the soul, recovered from its torpor, came to itself in a flood of tears. These tears gave him solace; he wept over his lot, thought himself so unhappy, so worthy of pity, that he hoped still more for help, yet he dare not address himself to Christ, whom he thought less accessible, but he spoke in low tones to the Virgin, murmuring that prayer in which Saint Bernard re- minds the Mother of Christ that never in human memory was it heard that she abandoned any of those who sought her aid. He left St. Severin, consoled and more resolved, and, when once at home, was taken up with prep- EN ROUTE 215 arations for dq)arture. Afraid that he would find nothing he wanted down there, he determined to stuff his portmanteau full; he crammed into the comers sugar, packets of chocolate, that he might try to deceive if needful the anguish of a fasting stomach, took towels thinking there would be few at La Trappe, prepared a stock of tobacco and matches; then besides books, paper, pencils, ink, packets of antipyrine, a phial of laudanum, which he wrapped in handkerchiefs and wedged into his slippers. When he had strapped his portmanteau, he said to himself, looking at the clock: "To-morrow at this time I shall be jolting in a cab, and my seclu- sion will be near at hand; never mind, I shall do well, in anticipation of bodily ailment, to ask for the confessor as soon as I get there, and suppose that turns out badly, I shall have time to make ar- rangements and take the train back at once. "AH the same this will not prevent my having a wretched moment this evening when I enter Notre Dame des Victoires," but his anxieties and emo- tions vanished when the hour of Benediction came. He was seized by the giddy infection of the church, and he wrapped, steeped, and lost himself in the prayer which arose from all those souls, in the chant which went up from every mouth, and when the monstrance was brought forward to make its sign in the air, he felt a vast peace descend upon him. At evening as he undressed he sighed: "To- morrow I shall lie down in a cell, amazing when 2i6 EN ROUTE I think of it! I should have considered anyone mad who, a few years ago, had prophesied that I should take refuge in a Trappist monastery; yet now I am going there of my own accord, and yet no, I am going driven by an unknown power, I am going as a whipped cur. "After all, what a symptom of the time it is! Society must indeed be unclean, if God has no longer the right to be hard, and is reduced to pick up what He finds, and to content Himself with gathering to Himself people like me!" SECOND PART. CHAPTER I. DuRTAL awoke, gay and brisk, astonished at not hearing himself groan, when the moment had come in which he should set ofif for La Trappe; he was wonderfully reassured. He tried to recollect him- self, and to pray, but he felt his thoughts more scattered and wandering than usual; he remained indifferent and unmoved. Surprised at this result, he tried to examine himself, and touched the void; he was slack that morning, in one of those sudden dispositions in which a man becomes a child again, incapable of attention, in which the wrong side of things disappears, and everything distracts. He dressed hastily, got into a cab, was too early at the station; and there experienced a perfectly childish attack of vanity. Looking at the people who hurried through the waiting rooms, thronged the ticket offices, or resignedly followed their lug- gage, he was not far from admiring himself. "If these travellers who think only of their pleasures or their business, knew where I am going," he thought. Then he reproached himself for the stupidity of these reflections, and as soon as he was settled in 217 2i8 EN ROUTE his compartment, in which he chanced to be alone, he lighted a cigarette, saying to himself, "Let us profit at least by the time there is still for smok- ing," and he began to wander, to dream about the position of the monastery, and rove about the neigh- bourhood of La Trappe. He remembered that a review had recently esti- mated the number of nuns and monks in France at two hundred thousand. "Two hundred thousand persons, who, in such an epoch, have understood the wickedness of the struggle for life, the filth of sexual relations, the horror of lyings^in, those are they who save the honour of the country," he thought. Then passing at a bound from cloistered souls to the treatises he had put in his portmanteau, he went on: "It is, all the same, curious, how com- pletely the temperament of French art rebels against Mysticism ! "All exalted writers are foreigners. Saint Denys the Areopagite was a Greek ; Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Sister Emmerich, were Germans; Ruysbrock came from Flanders; Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Marie d'Agreda, were Spaniards; Father Faber was English; Saint Bonaventure, Angela of Foligno, Magdalen of Pazzi, Catherine of Genoa, Jacopo de Voragine, were Italians. . . . "Ah!" he said, struck by the last name he had cited, "I ought to have brought his Golden Legend in my bag; how was it I did not remember it, for that book is, in fact, the very crowning work of the Middle Ages, the stimulant for hours rendered Ian- EN ROUTE 219 guid by the prolonged uneasiness of fasting, the simple aid of pious vigils? For the most incredu- lous souls of our time, the Golden Legend at least still seems like one of those pure parchments on which simple illuminators painted the faces of saints with gum water, or white of egg on golden back- grounds. Jacopo de Voragine is the Jehan Fou- quet, the Andre Beaunevue, of literary miniature, of mystic prose! "It is quite absurd to have forgotten that book, for it would have made me pass precious days, like those of old, in La Trappe. "Yes, it is strange," he thought, returning on his thoughts, and coming back to his first idea ; "France can count religious authors, more or less celebrated, but very few mystical writers, properly so-called, and it is just the same also in painting. The true Early Masters are Flemish, German or Italian, none are French, for our Burgundian School descended from the Flemish. "No, it cannot be denied, the genius of our race cannot easily follow and explain how God acts when He works in the central depths of the soul, which is the ovary of thought, the very source of conception; it is refractory at explaining, by the expressive power of words, the crash or the silence of grace; bursting forth in the domain which is wasted by sin, it is inapt at extracting from that secret world, works of psychology . like those of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, works of art, like those of Voragine or Sister Emmerich. "Besides that our field is scarcely arable, and our 220 EN ROUTE soil harsh, where shall we now find the labourer who sows and harrows it, who prepares not even a mystical harvest, but even any spiritual fruit, capa- ble of assuaging the hunger of the few who stray and are lost, and fall from inanition in the icy desert of our time? "He who should be the cultivator of that land, the farmer of souls, the priest, has not strength to clear the ground. "The seminary has made him arbitrary and puerile, life outside has made him lukewarm. Therefore it seems that God has withdrawn Him- self from him, and the proof of this is that He has taken away all ability from the priesthood. There are no priests now who have talent, either in the pulpit or in books; the laity have inherited that grace which was so common in the Church of the Middle Ages. Another example proves it still more, priests make so few conversions. In these days the being who pleases Heaven does without; them, the Saviour Himself strikes him down, han- dles him, works directly on him. "The ignorance of the clergy, their want of edu- cation, their unintelligence of their surroundings, their dislike for Mysticism, their incomprehension of art, have taken away all their influence on the aristocracy of souls. Their only action is now on the childish brains of bigots and pretenders; and this is no doubt providential; it is better so, for if the priest became the master, if he succeeded in raising and vivifying the wearisome tribe he man- ages, it would be like a waterspout of clerical stu- EN ROUTE 22 r pidity beating down on a country, would be the end of all literature and all art in France. "To save the Church there remains the monk, whom the priest detests, for the life of the cloister is a constant reproach to his own existence," con- tinued Durtal; "always supposing that my illusions are not again destroyed when I see a monastery . . . but no, I am lucky ; I have discovered in Paris one of those few abbes who is neither indifferent nor a pedant; why should I not, in an abbey, come into contact with authentic monks?" He lighted a cigarette, and looked at the land- scape from the carriage window; the train was passing through fields in front of which the tele- graph wires danced in puffs of steam; the land- scape was flat and uninteresting. Durtal fell back sulkily in his corner. "The arrival at the convent disturbs me," he murmured; "since there are no useless words to proffer, I shall confine myself to giving his letter to the Father Guestmaster; ah! and then all will arrange itself." He felt, in fact, a perfect calm, and was aston- ished at not finding in himself any disgust or fear, at being almost in high spirits: "Well, my good priest was right in declaring that I was creating monsters in advance;" and he thought of the Abbe Gevresin, was surprised that long as he had visited him, he knew nothing whatever of his antecedents, that he was no more intimate with him than on the very first day. "In fact, it only rested with me to question him discreetly, but the idea never en- 222 EN ROUTE tered my head: it is true that our intercourse has been strictly limited to matters of religion and art; this perpetual reserve does not create very thrilling friendships, but it institutes a sort of Jansenism oi the affections which is not without charm. "In any case that ecclesiastic is a holy man; he has not even that manner at once caressing and reserved of other priests. Apart from certain ges- tures, his habit of rolling his arms in his cincture, of wrapping his hands in his sleeves, of liking to walk backwards when in conversation; apart from his innocent mania of interlarding his phrases with Latin, he does not recall either the attitude or the unfashionable speech of his brethren. He loves mysticism and plain song; he is exceptional, and therefore he must have been also carefully chosen for me in heaven. "Ah well! we must be getting near," he sighed, looking at his watch ; "I am beginning to feel hun- gry; come, that is all right, we shall be at Saint Landry in a quarter of an hour." He strummed on the windows of the carriage, saw the fields and woods fly past, smoked a cig- arette or two, took his bag from the rack, at last arrived at the station and got out. Close to the tiny station he recognized the inn of which the abbe had told him. He found a good woman in the kitchen who said, "All right, sir, sit down, they will put the horse to while you break- fast." He fed himself on uneatable things ; they brought him a calf's head forgotten in a tub, some cutlets EN ROUTE 223 that were high, vegetables blackened with gravy from the stove. In his present mood he was amused at this in- famous meal, fell back upon a thin wine which rasped his throat, and resignedly drank coffee which left a sediment of peat at the bottom of the cup. Then he climbed into a jolting car driven by a young man, and the horse went off at a smart pace through the village and into the country. On the way he asked the driver for some infor- mation about La Trappe, but the peasant knew nothing. "I often go there," he said, "but never enter, the carriage stays at the gate, so you see I can tell you nothing." They went for an hour rapidly through the lanes, and the peasant saluted a roadmaker with his whip, and said to Durtal : "They say that the emmets eat their bellies." And as Durtal asked what he meant: "They are idle dogs, they lie all the summer on their bellies in the shade." And he said no more. Durtal thought of nothing; he digested and smoked, dizzy with the rumbling of the carriage. At the end of another hour they came into the heart of the forest. "Are we near ?" "Oh, not yet!" "Can we see La Trappe from a distance?" "Oh no, you must have your nose just over it to see it, it is quite in a bottom, at the end of a lane, 224 EN ROUTE like that," said the peasant, pointing to a grassy- lane into which they turned. "There is a fellow coming from the place," he said, pointing out a vagabond, who was crossing the copse at a great pace. And he explained to Durtal that every beggar had a right to food and even to lodging at La Trappe; they gave them the ordinary fare of the community in a room close to the brother porter's lodge, but did not let them into the convent. When Durtal asked him the opinion which the villagers round about had of the monks, the peasant was evidently afraid of compromising himself, for he answered: "Some say nothing about them." Durtal began to be rather weary, when suddenly as they turned out of a lane, he saw an immense building below him. "There is La Trappe !" said the peasant, gather- ing his reins for the descent. From the height where he was, Durtal looked over the roofs, and saw a large garden, with thickets, and in front of them a formidable cru- cifix. Then the vision disappeared, the carriage again went through the wood, descending by zig-zag roads where the foliage intercepted the view. They came at last, by long circuits, to an open place, at the end of which rose a wall with a large gate in the middle. The carriage stopped. "You have only to ring," said the peasant, show- EN ROUTE 225 ing Durtal an iron chain along the wall; and he added : "Shall I come for you again to-morrow ?" "No." "Then you remain here?" and the peasant looked at him with astonishment, turned about, and drove up the hill. Durtal remained as one crushed, his portmanteau at his f ^et, before the door ; his heart beat violently ; all his assurance, all his enthusiasm, had vanished, and he stammered : "What will happen to me within ?" And with a swift feeling of dread, there passed before him the terrible life of the Trappists; the body ill-nourished, exhausted from want of sleep, prostrate for hours on the pavement ; the soul trem- bling, squeezed like a sponge in the hand, drilled, examined, ransacked even to its smallest folds; and at the end of its failure of an existence, thrown like a wreck against this rude rock, into the silence of a prison, and the dreadful stillness of the tomb ! "My God, my God, have pity upon me !" said he, as he wiped his brow. Mechanically he looked around, as if he expected some help; the roads were deserted and the woods were empty ; no sound was heard in the country, or in the monastery. "At any rate I must make up my mind to ring," and, his limbs sinking under him, he pulled the chain. The sound of the bell, hard, rusty, grumbling, sounded on the "other side of the wall. 226 EN ROUTE "Get up and don't be a fool," he said to himself, as he heard the clatter of a pair of sabots behind the door. This opened, and a very old monk, clad in the brown cloth of the Capuchins, looked at him in- quiringly. "I come to make a retreat, and I wish to see Father Etienne." The monk bowed, took up the portmanteau, and made a sign to Durtal to follow him. He went with bent head and short steps across an orchard. They reached a grating, passed on the right of the vast building a sort of dilapidated chateau, flanked by two wings advancing on a court. The brother entered the wing close to the grat- ing. Durtal followed him along a corridor into which several grey doors opened; on one of these he read the word "Auditorium." The Trappist stopped before it, lifted the wooden latch, ushered Durtal into the room, and after some minutes he heard repeated calls on the bell. Durtal sat down and looked at this gloomy cham- ber, for the window was half closed by shutters. There was little furniture; the most important a dining-table with an old cover; in the comer, a "prie-Dieu" above which was nailed a figure of Saint Antony of Padua rocking the infant Jesus in his arms; a large crucifix on the other wall, and here and there were placed two high-backed chairs and four ordinary chairs. Durtal took from his pocket-book the letter of introduction to the father. "What sort of recep- EN ROUTE 227 tion will he give me?" he asked himself; "he at any rate can speak; well, we shall soon see," he said, as he heard steps. A monk in white with a black scapular whose two ends fell, one on his shoulders, the other on his breast, appeared ; he was young and smiling. He read the letter, then he took Durtal's hand, and led him in silent astonishment across the court to the other wing of the building, opened a door, dipped his finger in a holy-water stoup, and offered it to him. They were in a chapel. The monk invited Dur- tal by a sign to kneel on a step before the altar, and he prayed in a low voice; he then rose, returned slowly to the threshold, offered Durtal holy water again, still without opening his lips, and leading him by the hand they went the way they came to the Auditorium. There, he inquired after the health of the Abbe Gevresin, seized the portmanteau, and mounted an immense staircase falling into ruin. At the top of this staircase, which had only one story, there ex- tended a vast landing bounded at each of its ex- tremities by a door. Father Etienne entered that on the right, crossed a broad vestibule, and led Durtal into a room, which a ticket printed in large letters placed under the invocation of St. Benedict, and said, "I am sorry, sir, to be only able to put at your disposal this room, which is not very comfortable." "But it will do very well," said Durtal, "and the 228 EN ROUTE view is charming," he continued, approaching the window. "At least you will be in good air," said the monk, opening the casement. Below stretched the orchard through which Dur- tal had passed under the conduct of the brother porter. An enclosure full of apple trees stunted and clipped, silvered by lichens, and gilt by moss; then beyond the monastery, and above the walls, rose fields of clover intersected by a great white road, extending to the horizon, which was notched by the foliage of trees. "You will see, sir," Father Etienne went on, "if you need anything in this cell, and tell me quite simply, will you not ? for otherwise we should heap up regret for both of us, for you who have only to ask for what might be useful to you, for me who should only discover it later and be sorry for my forgetfulness." Durtal looked at him reassured by this frank greeting; he was a young priest, about thirty years old. His face bright, and finely cut, was streaked with red fibres on the cheeks; this monk wore a beard, and round his shaven head was a crown of brown hair. He spoke somewhat rapidly, and smiled, with his hands pushed into the large leathern belt round his waist. "I will come back directly, for I have some important work to finish," he said; "try to make yourself at home as much as possible, and if you have time glance over the rule which you have to follow in this monastery — it is written EN ROUTE 229 on one of these cards on the table; we will talk about it after you have mastered it, if you like." And he left Durtal alone. He soon made an inventory of the room; it was very high and extremely narrow like a gun-barrel, the door was at one end, the window at the other. At the bottom, in a corner, near the casement, was a little iron bed, and a small round table in chestnut wood. At the foot of the bed which stood along the wall was a prie-Dieu in faded rep, upon which was a crucifix, and a branch of dried fir be- low it; on the same side was a table of white wood covered with a towel, on which were placed an ewer, a basin, and a glass. On the opposite wall was a wardrobe, and by the fireplace, on the mantel- piece of which a crucifix was placed, was a table opposite the bed near the window; three straw chairs completed the furniture of this room. "I shall never have water enough to wash in," thought Durtal, gauging the miniature jug, which held about a pint; "since Father Etienne shows himself so obliging, I must ask him for a larger ration." He unpacked his portmanteau, undressed, put on flannel instead of his starched shirt, arranged his toilet things on the washing-stand, folded his linen in the wardrobe; then sat down, looked around the cell, and thought it sufficiently comfortable, and above all very clean. He then went towards the table on which were laid a ream of ruled paper, an ink-stand, and some pens; he was grateful for this attention of the monk, who knew no doubt by the Abbe Gevresin's letter that his business was 230 EN ROUTE writing, opened two volumes bound in leather and shut them again. The one was "The Introduction to the Devout Life," by Saint Francis de Sales, the other was "Manresa," or "The Spiritual Exercises" of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and he arranged his own books on the table. Then he took up, just as it came, one of the cards spread on the table and read : — "Exercises of the Community for ordinary days — from Easter to the Invention of the Cross in September. Rise. 2. Prime and Mass. 5.15. Work after the Chapter. End of work and leisure time. 9. Sext. II. Angelus and Dinner. 11.30. Siesta after Dinner. End of Siesta. 1.30. None and work, five minutes after waking. End of work and leisure. 4^30. Vespers followed by prayer. 5.15. Supper and leisure. 6. Compline. 7.25. Retire to rest. 8." He turned the card, and on the other side was a new horary, entitled: — "Winter Exercises, from the Invention of the Cross in September to Easter." The hour of rising was the same, but bed-time was an hour earlier; dinner was changed from 11.30 to 2; siesta and supper at 6 o'clock were sup- EN ROUTE 231 pressed; the canonical hours were the same, except vespers and compline, which were changed from 5.15 and 7.25 to 4.30 and 6.15. "It is not pleasant to drag oneself from bed in the middle of the night," sighed Durtal, "but I am inclined to think that the Retreatants are not sub- ject to this rule of wakefulness," and he took up another card. "This must be the one intended for me," he said, reading the head of the card : — Rules of Retreat from Easter to the Invention of the Cross in September. Let us look at these rules rather more closely. He examined the two tables, brought together, one for the morning, and one for the evening. Morning. 4. Rise at the Angelus bell. 4.30. Prayer and Meditation. 5.15. Prime and Mass. 6-7. Examination of Conscience. 7. Breakfast. 7.30. Way of the Cross. 8. Sext and None. 8.30. Second Meditation. 9. Spiritual Reading. II. Adoration and Examination. Tierce. 11.30. Angelus. Dinner. Recreation. ,12.15. Siesta. Absolute Silence. Evening. 1.30. End of Siesta. Rosary. 2. Vespers and Compline. 232 EN ROUTE 3. Third Meditation. 3.15. Spiritual Reading. 4.15. Matins and Lauds. 5.15. Reflections. Choir Vespers. 5.30. Examination and Prayer. 6. Supper and Recreation. 7. Litanies. Absolute Silence. 7.15. Assist at Compline. 7.30. Salve Regina. Angelus. 7.45. Private Examination. Retire to rest. "This at any rate is more practical — four o'clock in the morning is an almost possible hour, but I do not understand it, the canonical hours on this tablet do not agree with those of the monks, and then why these double Vespers and Compline? Lastly, these little points in which you are invited to medi- tate so many minutes, to read so many more, scarcely suit me. My mind is scarcely malleable enough to run in those channels — it is true that after all I am free to do as I please, for no one can verify what tricks I may play, can know, for in- stance, if I meditate. . . . "Ah, here is again a regulation at the back," he went on, as he turned the card, "the regulation for September, I need not trouble myself about it, it differs, moreover, little from the other; but here is a postscript which concerns both horaries." Note. I . Those who are not bound to say the Breviary will say the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. EN ROUTE 233 2. The Retreatants are requested to make their Confessions at an early date, in order to have their mind more free for meditation. 3. After each meditation an analogous chapter of the Imitation must be read. 4. The best time for confessions and the Way of "the Cross is from 6 — 9 in the morning, 2 — 5 in the afternoon, and in summer from 9 in the morning till S in the afternoon. 5. To read the table of notices. 6. It is well to be punctual at meals to keep no one waiting. 7. The Father Guestmaster alone is charged with providing for the wants of guests. 8. Guests may ask for books for the retreat, if they have none themselves. Confession ! He saw this word only in the whole series of rules. He must at once have recourse to it. He felt a cold shiver down his back ; and knew that he must speak to Father Etienne about it as soon as he returned. He had not long to wrestle with himself, for the monk entered almost at once and said : "Have you noticed anything you need, and the presence of which may be useful to you ?" "No, Father; yet if you could let me have a little more water." "Nothing is easier; I will send you up a large pitcher every morning." "Thank you . . . see, I have been studying the rules." 234 EN ROUTE "I will at once put you at ease," said the monk. "You are compelled to nothing but the strictest punctuality. You must follow the canonical offices to the letter. As to the exercises marked on the card, they are not of obligation; they may be use- ful, as they are laid down, for people who are very young and devoid of all initiative, but, as I think at least, they somewhat hamper others, and as a general rule we do not trouble the retreatants here, we let solitude act on them; it belongs to yourself to discriminate and distinguish the best mode of occupying your time holily. Therefore I will not impose on you any of the reading laid down on this card, and only take leave to get you to say the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. Have jou it?" "Here it is," said Durtal, holding out a bound book. "Your volume is charming," said Father Etienne, as he turned over the pages exquisitely printed in red and black. He paused at one of them, and read aloud the third lesson of Matins. "Is it not fine?" he cried. A sudden joy sprang up in his face; his eyes grew bright, his hands trembled on the cover. "Yes," he said, closing it, "read this office, here especially, for you know our true patroness, the true Abbot of the Trappists, is the Blessed Virgin!" After a silence he continued : "I have fixed a week as the duration of your retreat, in the letter I sent to the Abbe Gevresin, but I need not say that if you are not too weary here, you can stay as long as seems good to you." EN ROUTE 235 "I hope to be able to prolong my stay among you, but this must depend upon the way in which my body stands the struggle; my stomach is somewhat weak, and I am not without some fear; I shall, therefore, be much obliged to you if you will let me see the confessor as soon as possible." "Good ; you shall see him to-morrow. I will tell you the time this evening, after compline. As for the food, if you think it insufficient, I will see that you have an extra egg, but there ceases the discre- tion I can exercise, for the rule is precise, no fish, no flesh — ^vegetables, and I am bound to admit they are not first rate. "But you shall judge, and, indeed, as it is just upon supper-time, I will show you the room where you will dine in company with M. Bruno." And as they descended the staircase, the monk went on: "M. Bruno is a person who has re- nounced the world, and, without having taken the vows, lives enclosed. He is what our rule calls an oblate, he is a holy and learned man, whom you will certainly like; you can talk with him during the meal." "Ah !" said Durtal, "and before and after I must keep silence?" "Yes, unless you have anything to ask, in which case I shall be always at your service, ready to answer you. As for that question of silence, as for those of the hours of rising and going to bed, and the offices, the rule allows no modification, it must be observed to the letter." "Good," said Durtal, a little taken aback by the 236 EN ROUTE decided tone of the Father, "but I saw on my card a note directing me to consult a table of regula- tions, and I have not that table." "It hangs on the wall of the staircase, near your room; you can read it when your head is rested to-morrow. Will you go in?" he said, opening a door in the lower corridor, just opposite that of the auditorium. Durtal bowed to an old gentleman who came to meet him ; the monk introduced them and vanished. The dishes were on the table, two poached eggs, a bowl of rice, another of French beans, and a pot of honey. M. Bruno said grace, and proceeded to help Durtal. He gave him an egg. "This is a poor supper for a Parisian," he said, with a smile. "Ah, as long as there is an egg and wine it is bearable. I was afraid, I confess, that my only drink would be cold water." They talked as friends. The man was pleasant, and distinguished, with ascetic features, but with a bright smile, lighting up a grave face, yellow and wrinkled. He lent himself with perfect good grace to Dur- tal's inquiries, and told him, that after a tempestu- ous life, he felt that Grace had touched him, and he had retired from the world to expiate by years of austerities and silence his own sins and those of others. "And you have never grown tired of being here?" EN ROUTE 237 "Never, during the five years that I have spent in this cloister, time, cut up as it is at La Trappe, seems short." "You are present at all the exercises of the Com- munity ?" "Yes; I only replace manual labour by medita- tion in my cell; my position as oblate, however, dispenses me, if I so wish, from getting up at two o'clock to follow the night office, but it is a great joy to me to recite the magnificent Benedictine Psalter before daybreak — ^but you are listening to me, and eat nothing. Let me give you a little more rice." "No, thank you, but I will take, if you will allow me, a spoonful of honey. "The food is not bad," he said, "but I do not quite understand the same strange and identical taste in all the dishes; it smells, how shall I ex- press it? like burnt fat or suet." "That is the warm oil with which the vegetables are dressed, you will soon grow accustomed to it, in a couple of days you will cease to notice it." "But in what consists, precisely, the part of an oblate?" "His life is less austere, and more contemplative than that of a monk; he may travel if he will, and though he is not bound by vows, he shares in all the spiritual advantages of the order. "In old times the rule admitted those whom it styled 'familiars.' "Those were oblates who received the tonsure, wore a distinct costume, and pronounced the three 238 EN ROUTE greater vows; they led in fact a mitigated life, half layman, half monk. This rule, which still exists among the true Benedictines, has disappeared among the Trappists since the year 1293, the date at which it was suppressed by the Chapter General. "At the present time, in the Cistercian abbeys are only the fathers, the lay brothers, the oblates, when there are any, and the peasants employed in field labour." "The lay brothers, I suppose, are those whose heads are completely shaven, and who are clothed in a brown habit, like the monk who opened the door to me?" "Yes ; they do not sing office, and have only man- ual tasks." "By the way, the rule for retreat which I read in my room does not seem clear. As far as I recall it, it doubles certain offices, places Matins at four in the afternoon, and Vespers at two; in any case the horary is not the same as that of the Trappists; how am I to understand and reconcile them ?" "You have only to take into consideration the exercises set out on your card ; Father Etienne must, I think, have said so; that mould was only made for people who cannot occupy and guide themselves. That explains to you how, to prevent them from becoming idle, the priests' breviary has been in some degree taken to pieces, and their time has been dis- tributed in small slices, so that, for instance, they may be obliged to recite the psalms for Matins at hours when there is no psalm." EN ROUTE 239 Dinner was over; M. Bruno said grace, and said to Durtal : "You have twenty minutes free from now to Compline ; you can make acquaintance with the gar- den and woods." He bowed politely and went out. "I can smoke a cigarette," thought Durtal, when he was alone. He took his hat and left the room. Night was coming on. He passed through the great court, skirted a small building surmounted by a long chimney-stack, discovered by the smell that it was a chocolate factory, and entered an avenue of trees. The sky was so obscure that he could scarcely see the group of trees he entered, and not seeing anyone he rolled his cigarettes, and smoked them slowly, with enjoyment, consulting his watch from time to time by his cigar lights. He was astonished at the silence of the monas- tery; not a sound, however hushed, however dis- tant, save now and then a gentle rustle of boughs; he went to the side whence the noise came, and saw a piece of water, on which a swan was sailing, which came towards him. He saw its white plumage oscillate against the darkness which it displaced with a splash, when a bell sounded with slow strokes; "Ah," said he, look- ing again at his watch, "that is the hour of Com- pline." He went to the chapel, which was still empty; and he took occasion of the solitude to examine it at his ease. It was in the form of a truncated cross, a cross 240 EN ROUTE without a foot, rounded at the summit, holding out two square arms, with a door at either end. The upper part of the cross, below a cupola painted blue, formed a little circular apse, round which was a circle of stalls placed back against the wall; in the middle rose a great altar of white mar- ble, surmounted by wooden chandeliers, flanked on the left and right by candelabra also of wood, placed on marble shafts. The lower part of the altar was hollow, and closed in front by a glass, behind which appeared a shrine in Gothic style, which reflected in its copper gilt mirror the light of the lamps. The apse opened into a large porch, with three steps in front, on the arms of the cross, which were prolonged into a kind of vestibule serving at once as nave and side aisles to this stumpy church. The hollowed arms, at their extremities near the doors, held two very small chapels set back in niches painted blue, like the cupola, containing above two stone altars without ornament, two mediocre stat- ues, one of Saint Joseph, the other of Christ. Lastly, a fourth altar, dedicated to the Virgin, was situated in this vestibule opposite the steps leading to the apse, opposite therefore to the high altar. It was relieved against a window whose lights represented Saint Bernard in white on one hand, and Saint Benedict in black on the other, and it appeared to recede into the church, because of the two ranges of seats which stood on the left and right before the two other little chapels, leaving only room necessary to pass along the vestibule, or EN ROUTE 241 to go in a straight line from this altar of the Virgin in the apse, to the high altar. "This sanctuary is alarmingly ugly," said Durtal, who had sat down on a bench in front of the statue of Saint Joseph. "To judge by the few subjects carved along the walls, this edifice dates from the time of Louis XVI., an abominable date for a church." He was disturbed in these thoughts by the sound of bells, and at the same time all the doors were opened; one situated in the apse itself, on the left of the altar, gave passage to about half a score monks, wrapped in great white cowls, who spread out into the choir, and occupied the stalls on either side. Then, by the two doors of the vestibule, came a crowd of brown monks, who knelt at the benches on the two sides of Our Lady's altar. Durtal had some of them near him; but they bowed their heads, and joined their hands, he dared not observe them; moreover, the vestibule had be- come almost dark, the light was concentrated in the choir, where the lamps were kindled. He could make out the faces of the white monks in their stalls in the part of the apse he could see, and among them he recognized Father Etienne on: his knees near a short monk ; but another at the end of the stalls near the porch, almost opposite the altar, and in full light, attracted him. He was tall and strong, and looked like an Arab in his white burnous. Durtal could only see him in profile, and he distinguished a long grey beard, a 242 EN ROUTE shaven skull, surrounded by the monastic crown, a high forehead, and a nose like an eagle's beak. He had a grand appearance, \vith his imperious fea- tures, and his fine figure as it swayed under the cowl. "That is probably the abbot of La Trappe," thought Durtal, and he felt certain when this monk struck a little bell hidden under the desk before him, and directed the office. All the monks bowed to the altar; the abbot re- cited the opening prayers, then there was a pause, and, from the other side of the apse, which Durtal could not see, rose the frail voice of an old man, a voice which had returned to the clear tones of child- hood, but was just a little cracked, growing higher as it declaimed the antiphon : "Deus in adjutorium meum intende." And the other side of the choir, that on which were Father Etienne and the abbot, answered, scan- ning the syllables very slowly, with voices of bass pitch, — "Domine ad adjuvandum me festina." And all bowed their heads over the folios placed before them, and took up the words, — "Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto." And they lifted their heads while the other part of the Fathers pronounced the response, "Sicut erat in principio, etc." The office began. It was not chanted but declaimed, now rapid and now slow. The side of the choir which Durtal saw made all the vowels sharp and short letters; the EN ROUTE 243 other, on the contrary, altered them all into long letters and seemed to cap all the Os with a circum- flex accent. It might be said that one side had the pronunciation of the South, the other that of the North ; thus chanted, the office became strange, and ended by rocking like an incantation, and soothing the soul which fell asleep in the rolling of the verses, interrupted by the recurrent doxology like a refrain after the last verse of each of the psalms. "Ah well, I cannot understand it," thought Dur- tal, who had his Compline at his fingers' ends, "they are not singing the Roman office at all." The fact is that one of the psalms was wanting. He caught indeed, at one moment, the hymn of Saint Ambrose, the "Te lucis ante terminum," sung to a simple and rugged tune of the old plain chant, and yet the last stanza was not the same ; but he lost himself afresh, and waited for the "Short Lessons"' and the "Nunc Dimittis" which never came. "Yet Compline does not vary like Vespers," he thought; "I must ask Father Etienne the meaning of this to-morrow." Then his reflections were disturbed by a young white monk, who passed him, genuflected tc the altar, and lighted two tapers. Suddenly all rose, and with a great shout, the "Salve Regina" shook the arches. Durtal was affected as he listened to this admira- ble chant, which had nothing in common with that which is bellowed at Paris in the churches. This, was at once flexible and ardent, sustained by such suppliant adoration, that it seemed to concentrate ^44 EN ROUTE in itself alone, the immemorial hope of humanity, and its eternal lamentation. Chanted without accompaniment, unsustained by the organ, by voices indififerent to themselves and blending in one only, masculine and deep, it rose with quiet boldness, sprang up with irresistible flight towards Our Lady, then made, as it were, a return upon itself, and its confidence was lessened; it advanced more tremblingly, but so different, so humble, that it felt itself forgiven, and dared then in passionate appeals to demand the undeserved pleasures of heaven. It was the absolute triumph of the neumes, those repetitions of notes on the same syllable, the same word,. which the Church invented to paint the ex- cess of that interior joy or sorrow which words cannot render; it was a rush, a going forth of the soul, escaping in the passionate voices, breathed forth by the bodies of the monks as they stood and trembled. Durtal followed in his prayer-book this work with so short a text, so long a chant; and as he listened to, and read it with recollection, this mag- nificent prayer seemed to decompose as a whole, and to represent three different states of the soul, to exhibit the triple phase of humanity, during its youth, its maturity, and its decline; it was, in a word, an essential summary of prayer for all ages. First, there was the canticle of exultation, the joyous welcome of a being yet little, stammering forth respectful caresses, petting with gentle words, and fondness of a child who seeks to coax his EN ROUTE 245; mother — this is the "Salve Regina, Mater miseri- cordias, vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve." Then the soul so candid, so simply happy, has grown, and knowing the wilful failings of thought, the repeated loss through sin, joins her hands, and asks, sobbing, for help. She adores no longer with a smile, but with tears ; it is "Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevse; ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lachrymarum valle." At last old age comes; the soul lies, tormented by the memory of counsels neg- lected, by regret for lost graces ; and having become weaker and more full of fears, is alarmed before her deliverance, before the destruction of that prison of the flesh which she feels at hand, and then she thinks of the eternal death of those whom the Judge condemns. On her knees she implores the Advo- catress of earth, the Consultrix of heaven ; it is the "Eia ergo Advocata nostra; illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte ; et Jesum, benedictum f ruc- tum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende." And to that essence of prayer composed by Peter of Compostella or Hermann Contract, Saint Ber- nard, in an excess of hyperdulia, added the three invocations at the end, "O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria," sealing the inimitable prose with a triple seal, by those three cries of love which recall the hymn to the affectionate adoration of its begin- ning. "This is unprecedented," thought Durtal, as the Trappists chanted these sweet and eager appeals; the neumes were prolonged on the Os, which passed through all the colours of the soul, through the 246 EN ROUTE whole register of sound; and these interjections summed up again, in the series of notes which clothed them, the inventory of the human soul, which now recapitulated the whole body of the hymn. And suddenly at the word "Maria," at the glori- ous cry of that name, the chant fell, the tapers were extinguished, the monks fell on their knees, a si- lence like death came upon the chapel. The bells rang slowly, and the Angelus unfolded under the arches the separated petals of its clear sounds. All, now prostrate, their faces buried in their hands, were praying, and this lasted long; then the sound of the little hand-bell was heard, everyone rose, genuflected to the altar, and in .silent file the monks disappeared through the door in the apse. "Ah! the true creator of plain music, the un- known author who cast into the brain of man the seed of plain chant, was the Holy Ghost," said Dur- tal, sick and dazzled, with tears in his eyes. M. Bruno, whom he had not noticed in the chapel, came and joined him. They crossed the court with- out speaking, and when they had entered the guest- house, M. Bruno lighted two candles, gave one to Durtal, and said gravely, "I wish you a good night, sir." Durtal went up the staircase behind him. They bowed again on the landing, and Durtal entered his cell. The wind blew under the door, and the room, scarcely lighted by the low flame of the candle, EN ROUTE 247 seemed to him gloomy, the high ceiling vanished in shadow, and rained down darkness. Durtal sat down by his bed, discouraged. And yet he was thrust forward by one of those impulses it is impossible to translate into words, in which it seems that the heart swells almost to burst- ing, and before his inability to get away and fly from self, Durtal ended by becoming a child again, by weeping without definite cause, simply from the ' need of relieving himself by tears. He sank down at the prie-Dieu, expecting he knew not what, which never came ; then before the crucifix which stretched its arms above him, he be- gan to speak to Him, and to say to Him in low tones : "Father, I have driven the swine from my being, but they have trampled on me, and covered me with mire, and the very stye is in ruins. Have pity on me, for I return from a distant land. Have mercy, Lord, on the swine-herd without a house. I have entered into Thy house; do not send me away, be to me a kindly host, wash me." "Ah," he said suddenly, "that reminds me that 1 have not seen Father Etienne, who was to tell me the hour at which the confessor would receive me to-morrow; he has no doubt forgotten to ask him; so much the better. At any rate it will put it off for a day ; my soul is So cramped that I have indeed need of rest." He undressed, sighing: "I must be up at half- past three to be in the chapel at four: I have no time to lose if I wish to sleep. If only I have no neuralgia to-morrow, and can wake before dawn!" CHAPTER II. He passed a most terrible night; it was so special, so dreadful, that he did not remember, in the whole of his existence, to have endured such anguish, undergone the like fears. It was an uninterrupted succession of sudden wakings and of nightmares. And these nightmares overpassed the limits of abomination that the most dangerous madness dreams. They developed themselves in the realm of lust; and they were so special, so new to him, that when he woke Durtal remained trembling, al- most crying out. It was not at all that involuntary and well known act, that vision which ceases just at the moment when the sleeper clasps an amorous form ; it was as and more complete than in nature, long and accom- plished, accompanied by all the preludes, all the details, all the sensations, and the orgasm took place with a singularly painful acuteness, an incredible spasm. A strange fact, which seemed to point the differ- ence between this state and the unconscious un- cleanness of night, was, beyond certain episodes and ■caresses which could only follow each other in real- ity, but were united at the same moment in the dream, the sensation clear and precise of a being, 2^ EN ROUTE 249 of a fluid form disappearing, with the sharp sound of a percussion cap, or the crack of a whip close by, on waking. This being was felt near him so dis- tinctly that the sheet, disarranged by the wind of the flight, was still in motion, and he looked at the empty place in terror. "Ah," thought Durtal, when he had lighted his candle, "this carries me back to the time when I used to visit Madame Chantelouve, and reminds me of the stories of the Succubus." He remained sitting up in bed, astonished, and looked with real uneasiness round the cell steeped in shadow. He looked at his watch, it was only eleven o'clock at night. "God," he said, "if the nights are always like this in monasteries !" He had recourse to bathing with cold water in order to recover himself, opened his window to change the air, and lay down again, thoroughly chilled. He hesitated to blow out his candle, uneasy at the darkness which seemed to him inhabited, full of ambushes and threats. He decided at last to extinguish it, and repeated the stanza he had al- ready heard sung that evening in chapel : Procul recedant somnia Et noctium phantasmata, Hostemque nostrum comprime, Ne poUuantur corpora. He ended by falling asleep and dreamt again of impurity, but he came to himself in time to break the charm, experiencing again the impression of a shadow evaporating before he could seize it in the 250 EN ROUTE sheets. He looked at his watch ; it was two o'clock. "If this goes on, I shall be broken down to-mor- row," he thought, but he succeeded somehow or other in dozing, and waking every ten minutes to wait for three o'clock. "If I fall asleep again, I shall not be able to wake at the moment I wish," he thought; "suppose I get up?" He sprang out of bed, dressed, prayed, reduced his thoughts to order. Real excesses would have exhausted him less than these sham freaks, but what seemed to him especially odious was the want of satisfaction left by the completed rape of these ghosts. Compared with their greedy tricks, the caresses of a woman only diffused a temperate pleasure, and ended in a feeble shock, but with this Succuba one remained in a fury at having clasped only the void, at having been the dupe of a lie, the plaything of an appear- ance, of which one could not remember the form or the features. It necessarily brought with it the desire of the flesh, the wish to clasp a real body, and Durtal began to think of Florence ; she at least quenched his desires, and did not leave him thus, panting and feverish, in quest of he knew not what, in an atmosphere where he was surrounded, spied upon by an unknown whom he could not discern, by a phantom he could not escape. Then Durtal shook himself, and would repulse the assault of these memories. "At any rate I will go and breathe the fresh air, and smoke a cigarette ; we will see afterwards." EN ROUTE 251 He descended the staircase, whose walls seemed not to keep their place, and danced in the light of his candle, threaded the corridors, blew out his light, placed the candlestick near the auditorium, and rushed out. It was pitch dark ; at the height of the first story a round window in the wall of the chapel cut a hole through the darkness like a red moon. Durtal took a few whiffs of a cigarette, and then made his way to the chapel. He turned the latch of the door gently; the vestibule into which he entered was dark, but the apse, though it was empty, was lighted by numerous lamps. He made a step, crossed himself, and fell back, for he had stumbled over a body; and he looked down at his feet. He had come upon a battle-field. On the ground human forms were lying, in the attitudes of combatants mowed down by grape shot, some flat on their faces, others on their knees, some leaning their hands on the ground as if stricken from behind, others extended with their fingers clenched on their breast, others again holding their heads or stretching out their arms. And from this group in their agony rose no groan, no complaint. Durtal was stupefied as he looked at this mas- sacre of monks, and suddenly stopped with open mouth. A shaft of light fell from a lamp which the Father Sacristan had just placed in the apse, and crossing the porch, it showed a monk on his knees before the altar dedicated to the Virgin. 252 EN ROUTE He was an old man of more than four-score years; motionless as a statue, his eyes fixed, lean- ing forward in such an access of adoration that the faces in ecstasy in the Early Masters seemed, compared with his, forced and cold. Yet his features were vulgar, his shaven skull, without a crown, tanned by many suns and rains, was brick-coloured, his eye was dim, covered with a film by age, his face was wrinkled, shrivelled, stained like an old log, hidden in a thicket of white hair, while his somewhat snub nose made the gen- eral effect of the face singularly common. But there went out, not from his eyes, nor his mouth, but from everywhere and nowhere, a kind of angelic look which was diffused over his head, and enveloped all his poor body, bowed in its heap of rags. In this old man the soul did not even give herself the trouble to reform and ennoble his features, she contented herself in annihilating them with her rays ; it was, as it were, the nimbus of the old saints not now remaining round the head, but extending over all the features, pale and almost invisible, bathing his whole being. He saw nothing and heard nothing; monks dragged themselves on their knees, came to warm themselves, and to take shelter near him, and he never moved, dumb and deaf, so rigid that you might have believed him dead, had not his lower lip stirred now and then, lifting in this movement his long beard. The dawn whitened the windows, and as the EN ROUTE 253 darkness was gradually dissipated, the other breth- ren were visible in turn to Durtal; all these men, wounded by divine love, prayed ardently, flashed out beyond themselves noiselessly before the altar. Some were quite young, on their knees, with their bodies upright; others, their eyeballs in ecstasy, were leaning back, and seated on their heels ; others again were making the way of the cross, and were often placed each opposite another face to face, and they looked without seeing, as with the eyes of the blind. And among these lay brethren, some fathers buried in their great white cowls lay prostrate and kissed the ground. "Oh to pray, pray like these monks !" cried Dur- tal within himself. He felt his unhappy soul grow slack within him ; in this atmosphere of sanctity he unbent himself, and sank down on the pavement, humbly asking pardon from Christ, for having soiled by his pres- ence the purity of this place. He prayed long, unsealing himself for the first time, recognizing his unworthiness and vileness so that he could not imagine how, in spite of His mercy, the Lord could tolerate him in the little circle of His elect; he examined himself, saw clear- ly, and avowed that he was inferior to the least of these lay brothers who perhaps could not even spell out a book, understood that the culture of the mind was naught and the culture of the soul was all, and little by little, without perceiving it, thinking only of stammering forth acts of gratitude, he dis- 254 EN ROUTE appeared from the chapel, his soul borne up by the souls of others, away, away from the world, far from his charnel-house, far from his body. In this chapel, the impulse had come at last, the going forth from self, till now refused, was at last permitted; he no longer strove with self as in the time when he escaped with so great difficulty from his prison-house, as at St. Severin or Notre Dame des Victoires. Then he again realized this chapel, where his animal part had alone remained, and he looked round him with astonishment; the greater part of the brethren had gone, one father remained pros^ trate before our Lady's altar; he quitted it in his turn, and went back to the apse, as the other fathers entered it. Durtal looked at them ; they were of all sizes and all kinds ; one fat and bald, with a long black beard and spectacles, some little fair and puffy men, some very old, bristling with skin like a wild boar, others very young, with a vague air of German dreami- ness, with their eyes under their glasses; and almost all except the very young had this feature in com- mon: a large belly, and cheeks with little red streaks. Suddenly through the open door in the apse itself appeared the tall monk who' had conducted the office the evening before. He threw back on his chasuble the woollen hood which covered his head, and assisted by two white monks went up to the high altar to say mass. And it was not one of those masses served as so EN ROUTE 255 many are cooked in Paris, but a mass slow, medi- tated, and profound, a mass where the priest takes long to consecrate, overwhelmed before the altar, and when he elevated the Host no little bell tinkled, but the bells of the monastery spread abroad their slow peal, brief dull strokes, almost plaintive, while the Trappists disappeared, crouched on all-fours, their heads hidden below their desks. When the mass ended it was nearly six o'clock. Durtal took the same way as the evening before, passed before the little chocolate factory, and saw through the windows the fathers wrapping up the tablets in lead paper, and in another room a tiny steam engine which a lay brother was directing. He reached the walk where he had smoked the cigarettes in the shade. So gloomy at night, it was now charming with its two rows of aged limes which rustled gently while the wind wafted to him their enervating scent. Seated on a bench, he could see at a glance the whole front of the abbey. Before it was a long kitchen garden, with here and there some trees spread over the bluish basins and large balls of cabbages, and the old house, built in the monumental style of the seventeenth century, extended, solemn and immense, with eighteen win- dows in a row, and a pediment, in the span of which was placed a mighty clock. It was roofed with slate, and surmounted by a ring of small bells, and was reached by a flight of several steps. It reached a height of at least five stories, though it had in reality only a ground and 256 EN ROUTE a first floor, but to judge by the unexpected height of the windows, the rooms had to accommodate their ceilings to the vast altitude of the church; on the whole the building was striking and cold, more apt, since it had been converted into a convent, to shelter the disciples of Jansen than the sons of Saint Bernard. The weather was warm that morning; the sun was filtered through the moving sieve of foliage, and the daylight, thus screened, was changed to rose colour as it touched the white. Durtal, who was about to read his prayer-book, saw the pages grow- ing red, and by the law of complementary colours all the letters printed in black ink grew green. He was amused by these details, and with his back to the warmth, he brightened up in this aromatic breeze, rested in this bath of sunshine from his fatigues of the night, when at the end of the walk he saw some of the brothers. They walked in silence, some carrying under their arms great round loaves, others holding milk cans, or baskets full of hay and eggs; they passed before him, and bowed respectfully. All had a joyous and serious aspect. "Ah, good fellows," he thought, "for they helped me this morning, it is to them I owe it that I could keep silence no longer, and was able to pray, to have at last known the joy of supplication which at Paris was only a snare for me ! to them, and above all to Our Lady de I'Atre, who had pity on my poor soul." He sprang from his bench in an access of joy, went into the lateral walks, reached the piece of EN ROUTE 257 water he had partially seen the evening before; in front of it rose the huge cross he had seen at a dis- tance from the carriage, in the wood, before he reached La Trappe. It was placed opposite the monastery itself, and turned its back upon the pond ; it bore an eighteenth- century Christ, of natural size, in white marble; the pond also took the form of a cross such as is shown on the greater part of the plans of churches. This brown and liquid cross was spotted by duck- weed, which the swan displaced as he swam. He came towards Durtal, with extended beak, expecting, no doubt, a piece of bread. Not a sound arose in this deserted spot, save the rustle of dry leaves which Durtal brushed as he walked. The clock struck seven. He remembered that breakfast would be ready, and he walked quickly to the abbey. Father Etienne was waiting for him, shook hands, asked if he had slept well, then said : "What would you like ? I can only offer you milk and honey; I will send to-day to the nearest village and try to get you a little cheese, but you will have only a poor meal this morning." Durtal proposed to exchange the milk for wine, declaring that he should then do very well, and said, "In any case I should do ill to complain, for you are fasting." The monk smiled. "Just now," he said, "we are doing penance, on account of certain feasts of our order." And he explained that he only took food 258 EN ROUTE once a day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, after Nones. "And you have not even wine and eggs to keep up your strength!" Father Etienne smiled again. "One gets accus- tomed to it," he said. "What is this rule in com- parison with that adopted by Saint Bernard and his companions, when they went to till the valley of Clairvaux? Their meal consisted of oak leaves, salted, cooked in muddy water." And after a silence the Father continued : "No doubt the Trappist rule is hard, but it is mild if we carry our thoughts back to the rule of Saint Paco- mius in the East. Only think; whoever wished to join that order had to remain ten days and nights at the door of the convent, and had to endure spit- ting and insults; if he still desired to enter, he ful- filled a three years' novitiate, inhabited a hut where he could not stand up, nor lie at full length, ate only olives and cabbage, prayed twelve times in the morning, twelve times in the afternoon, twelve times in the night; the silence was perpetual, and his mortifications never ceased. To prepare him- self for this novitiate, and to learn to subdue his appetite. Saint Macarius thought of the plan of soaking his bread in a vessel with a very narrow neck, and only fed on the crumbs which he could take out with his fingers. When he was admitted into the monastery, he contented himself with gnaw- ing leaves of raw cabbage on Sunday. Ah! they could stand more than we. We, alas! have no longer souls nor bodies stout enough to bear such EN ROUTE 259 fasts; but do not let that stop your meal; make as good an one as you can. Ah, by the way," said the monk, "be in the auditorium at ten precisely, where the Father Prior will hear your confession." And he left the room. If Durtal had received a blow on his head with a mallet, he could not have been more overwhelmed. All the scaffolding of his joys, so rapidly run up, fell. This strange fact had occurred, in the im- pulse of joy he had felt since daybreak he had wholly forgotten that he had to confess. He had a moment of aberration. "But I am forgiven," he thought; "the proof is that state of happiness, such as I have never known, that truly wonderful ex- pansion of soul which I experienced in the chapel and in the wood." The idea that nothing had begun, that all was still to do, terrified him ; he had not the courage to swallow his bread, he drank a little wine, and rushed out of doors in a wind of panic. He went, wildly, with great strides. Confession ! The prior? Who was the prior? He sought in vain among the fathers whose faces he remembered the one who would hear him. "My God!" he said, all at once, "but I do not even know how a confession is made." He sought a deserted comer, where he could recollect himself a little. He was striding along without even knowing how he came there, along a walnut-tree walk with a wall on one side. There were some enormous trees, he hid himself behind the trunk of one of them, and sitting on the moss, 26o EN ROUTE turned over the leaves of his prayer-book, and read : "On arriving at the confessional, place yourself on your knees, make the sign of the cross, and ask the priest for his blessing, saying, 'Bless me. Father, for I have sinned;' then recite the Confiteor as far as mea culpa . . . and . . ." He stopped, and without any need of probing it his life sprang out in jets of filth. He shrank from it, there was so much, of every kind, that he was overwhelmed with despair. Then by an effort of his will he pulled himself together, endeavoured to control and bank up these torrents, to separate them so as to understand them, but one affluent rolled back all the others, ended by overwhelming them, and became the river itself. And this sin appeared at first ape-like and sly, at school where everyone tempted and corrupted others ; then there was all his greedy youth, dragged through tap-rooms, rolled in swine troughs, wallow- ing in the sinks of prostitution, and then an ignoble manhood. To his regular tasks had succeeded toll paid to his senses, and shameful memories assailed him in a crowd; he recalled to mind how he had sought after monstrous iniquities, his pursuit of artifices aggravating the malice of the act, and the accomplices and agents of his sins passed in file before him. Among all, at one time, there was a certain Mme. Chantelouve, a demoniacal adulteress who had drawn him headlong into frightful excesses, who had linked him to nameless crimes, sins against holy things, to sacrileges. EN ROUTE 261 "How can I tell all this to the monk?" thought Durtal, terrified by the remembrance; "how can I even express myself, so as to make him understand without defilement?" Tears rushed from his eyes. "My God, my God!" he sighed, "this is indeed too much." And in her turn Florence appeared with her little street-arab smile, and her childish haunches. "I can never tell the confessor all that was brewed in the perfumed shade of her vices," cried Durtal. "I can by no means make him face these torrents of pus. "Yet they say this has to be done ;" and he bowed under the weight of the foulness of this girl. "How shameful to have been riveted to her, how disgusting to have satisfied the abominable demands of her desires!" Behind this sewer extended others. He had traversed all the districts of sin which the prayer- book patiently enumerated. He had never con- fessed since his first communion, and with the piling up of years had come successive deposits of sins. He grew pale at the thought that he was about to detail to another man all his dirt, to acknowledge his most secret thoughts, to say to him what one dares not repeat to one's own self, lest one should despiae oneself too much. He sweated with anguish, then nausea at his be- ing, remorse for his life solaced him, and he gave himself up; regret for having lived so long in this cesspool was a very crucifixion to him; he wept long, doubting pardon, not even daring to ask it, so vile did he feel himself. 262 EN ROUTE At last he sprang up; the hour of expiation must be at hand, in fact his watch pointed to a quarter to ten. His agony as he thus wrought with him- self had lasted more than two hours. He hurriedly reached the main path which led to the monastery. He walked with his head down, forcing back his tears. He slackened his pace somewhat as he drew near the little pond; he lifted his eyes in supplication to the cross, and as he lowered them he met a look so moved, so compassionate, so gentle, that he stopped, and the look disappeared with the bow of a lay brother, who passed on his way. "He read my thoughts," said Durtal to himself. "Oh, this charitable monk has good reason to pity me, for indeed I suffer. Ah, Lord, that I might be like that humble brother!" he cried, remembering that he had seen that very morning the young tall lad, praying in the chapel with such fervour that he seemed to rise from the ground, before Our Lady. He arrived at the auditorium in a frightful state, and sank on a chair ; then, like a hunted animal that thinks itself discovered, he sprang up, and, dis- turbed by his fears, moved by a wind of disorder, he thought of flight, that he would pack his bag, and make for the train. He mastered himself, undecided and trembling, his ear on the watch, his heart beating with great strokes, and he heard the sound of distant steps. "My God," he said, waiting for the steps that drew; near, "what manner of monk is coming?" EN ROUTE 263 The steps were silent, and the dcx)r opened. Dur- tal in his alarm»dared not look at the confessor, in whom he recognized the tall Trappist, with the im- perious profile, whom he believed to be the abbot of the monastery. His breath was taken away, and he drew back without saying a word. Surprised at this silence, the prior said, — "You have asked to make your confession, sir?" And at a sign from Durtal, he pointed out the prie-Dieu placed against the wall, and himself knelt down, turning his back. Durtal braced himself, fell down at the prie-Dieu, and then completely lost his head. He had vaguely prepared how to enter on the matter, noted the points of his statement, classified his sins in some degree, and now remembered nothing. The monk rose, sat down on a straw chair, leant towards the penitent, his hand behind his ear to hear the better. He waited. Durtal wished rather to die than speak; he suc- ceeded, however, in mastering himself, and bridling his shame; he opened his lips, but no word came; he remained overwhelmed, his head in his hands, repressing the tears he felt ready to fall. The monk did not move. At last he made a desperate effort, stammered the beginning of the Confiteor, and said, "I have not confessed, since my childhood; since then I have led a shameful life, I have . . ." The words would not come. 264 EN ROUTE The Trappist remained silent, and did not assist him at all. "I have committed every kind of debauch, I have done everything . . . everything . . ." He choked, and the tears he had repressed flowed, he wept, his body was shaken, his face hidden in his hands. And as the prior, still bending over him, did not move, "But I cannot," he cried ; "I cannot." All that Hfe he could not bring out, stifled him> he sobbed in despair at the view of his sins, and crushed also at finding himself thus abandoned, without a word of kindness, without help. It seemed to him that all was giving way, that he was lost, repulsed even by Him who yet had directed him to this abbey. Then a hand was laid on his shoulder, while a gentle, low voice said, "Your soul is too tired for me to fatigue you with questions, come back at nine o'clock to-mor- row, we shall have time before us, we shall not then be hurried by any office; from now till then, think of the story of Calvary; the cross, which was made for the sins of the whole world, lay so heavily on the shoulders of the Saviour that His knees bent and He fell. A man of Cyrene passed by who helped the Lord to bear it. You, in detest- ing, in weeping for your sins, have alleviated and rendered lighter, if one may say so, the cross of the burthen of your sins, and having made it less heavy, have thus allowed Our Lord to Uft it. EN ROUTE 265 "He has recompensed you by the most astonish- ing of miracles, the miracle of having brought you here from so far ofif. Thank Him, then, with all your heart, and be not discomforted. You will say to-day for your penance, the Penitential Psalms, and the Litany of the Saints. I will give you my blessing." And the prior blessed him and went out. Durtal raised himself up after his tears; what he feared so much had happened; the monk who would take him in hand was impassive, almost dumb. "Alas!" he thought, "my abscesses are ripe, but it needs the cut of a lancet Jo open them." "After all," he went on, as he went upstairs to bathe his eyes in his cell, "this Trappist was com- passionate at last, not so much in what he said, as the tone in which he said it; then, to be just, he was perhaps confuted by my tears; the Abbe Gev- resin certainly did not tell Father Etienne that I was taking refuge in La Trappe in order to be con- verted, let us put ourselves in the place of a man living in God, far from the world, over whose head a shower bath is suddenly discharged. "Well, we shall see to-morrow"; and Durtal made haste to sponge his face, for it was nearly eleven o'clock and the office of Sext was about to begin. He went to the chapel, which was almost empty, for the brothers were working at that time in the chocolate factory, and in the fields. The fathers were in their places in the apse. The prior struck his bell, all signed themselves with a 266 EN ROUTE large cross, and on the left, where he could not see, for Durtal had taken the same place as in the morn- ing, near Saint Joseph's altar, a voice arose: "Ave Maria, grata plena, Dominus tecum." And the other part of the choir answered : "Et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus." There was a moment's pause, and the pure thin voice of the old Trappist sang as before the office of Compline the evening before : "Deus in adjutorium meum intende." And the liturgy continued its course, with its "Gloria Patri," etc., during which the monks bowed their foreheads on their books, and with its series of p^salms, accented in short tones on the one side, and long on the other. Durtal, as he knelt, allowed himself to be rocked by the psalmody, too tired to be able to pray him- self. Then, when Sext was ended, all the fathers medi- tated, and Durtal caught a look of pity from the prior, who turned a little towards his bench. He understood that the monk implored the Saviour for him, and perhaps asked God to show him the way in which he might conduct himself on the mor- row. Durtal rejoined M. Bruno in the court; they shook hands, and the oblate announced the pres- ence of a new guest. "A retreatant?" "No; a curate from the neighbourhood of Lyons, he has come to see the abbot, who is ill." EN ROUTE 267 "But I thought the abbot of Notre Dame de I'Atre was the tall monk who led the office?" "Oh no; that was the prior Father Maximin, you have not seen the abbot, and I doubt if you will see him, for I do not think he will leave his bed before you go." They reached the guest-house, and found Father Etienne making excuses to a short fat priest for the poor fare he could offer. He was a jovial priest, with strong features moulded in yellow fat. He joked with M. Bruno, whom he seemed to have known some time, on the sin of gluttony which must so often be committed at La Trappe, then tasted, pretending a chuckle of delight, the scent- less bouquet of the poor wine he poured out, and lastly, when he divided with a spoon the omelette which was the main dish of their dinner, he pre- tended to cut up a fowl, and to be delighted with the fine appearance of the flesh; saying to Durtal, "This is a barley-fed fowl, may I offer you a wing?" This kind of pleasantry exasperated Durtal, who had no wish to laugh that day; he therefore was satisfied to make a vague bow, wishing to himself that the end of dinner was at hand. The conversation continued between the priest and M. Bruno. After it had spread over various commonplaces, it took a more definite form, in regard to an invisi- ble otter which plundered the abbey ponds. 268 EN ROUTE "But, no doubt," said the curate, "you have found its lair?" "Never; it is easy to see in the lain grass the paths it traverses to get to the water, but we always lose its traces at the same spot. We have watched for days with Father Etienne, but it has never shown itself." The abbe explained various traps which might be set with advantage. Durtal thought of the otter- hunt which Balzac tells so pleasantly at the begin- ning of his "Paysans," when the dinner came to an end. The curate said grace, and said to M. Bruno, "Suppose we take a turn; the fresh air will do in- stead of the coffee, which they forget to give us." Durtal returned to his cell. He felt himself emptied, injured, cheated, re- duced to a state of fibre, a state of pulp. His body, crushed by the nightmares of the night, enervated by the scene of the morning, needed entire rest, and if his soul had not still that infatuation which had broken it in tears at the monk's feet, it was sad and restless, and it also asked for silence, repose, and sleep. "T.et us see," said Durtal, "I must not give way, let me bestir myself." He read the Penitential Psalms and the Litanies of the Saints; then he hesitated between two vol- umes of Saint Bonaventure and Saint Angela. He decided on the Blessed Angela. She had sinned and had been converted, and she seemed less far from him, more intelligible, more helpful EN ROUTE 269 than the Seraphic Doctor, than a Saint who had always remained pure, sheltered from falls. For she too had been a carnal sinner; she too had reached the Saviour from afar. A married woman, she lived in adultery and shame ; lovers succeeded one another, and when she had exhausted them she threw them aside like husks. Suddenly grace rose in her and made her soul break forth; she went to confession, not dar- ing to avow the more awful of her sins, and she communicated, thus grafting sacrilege upon her other faults. She lived, day and night tortured by remorse, and finally prayed to Saint Francis of Assisi to help her; and the next night the saint appeared to her. "My sister," he said, "if you had called on me soon- er, I should have granted your prayer before this." The next day she went to church, heard a priest preaching, understood she must address herself to him, and laid all before him in a full confession. Then began the trials of an appalling life of purification. In blow after blow she lost her mother, her husband, her children; she went through such violent temptations to impurity that she was obliged to seize on lighted coals and cau- terize the plague of her senses with fire. During two years the demon sifted her. She parted her goods among the poor, assumed the habit of the Third Order of Saint Francis gathered in the sick and infirm, and begged for them in the streets. One day a feeling of sickness came over her 270 EN ROUTE before a leper whose sores were stinking. To pun- ish herself she drank the water in which she had washed the sores; she was overcome with nausea; and punished herself yet more by forcing herself to swallow a scab which had not gone down with the water and remained dry in her throat. For years she dressed ulcers and meditated on the Passion of Christ. Then her novitiate of sor- rows drew to a close and a radiant day of visions dawned on her. Jesus treated her as a spoilt child, called her, "My sweetest, my well-beloved daugh- ter;" He dispensed her from the necessity of eat^ ing, and nourished her only with Sacred Species; He called her, drew her, absorbed her in uncreated light, and by anticipating her inheritance enabled her to understand, in life the joys of heaven. And she was so simple and timid that she feared in spite of all, for the memory of her sins alarmed her. She could not believe herself forgiven, and said to Christ: "Ah, if I could but put myself in an iron collar and drag myself to the market-place to proclaim my shame." And He consoled her: "Be easy. My daughter, My sufferings have atoned for your sins;" and as she reproached herself for having lived in opulence and having delighted in clothes and jewels. He ad- dressed her, smiling : "To buy your riches, I have wanted for everything; you required a great num- ber of clothes, and I had but one garment of which the soldiers stripped Me, for which they drew lotsj My nakedness was the expiation of your vanity in ornaments." EN ROUTE 271 And all her conversations with Christ were in this tone. He passed His time in comforting this humble creature whom His benefits overwhelmed; and this has made her the most loving of the saints ! her work is a succession of spiritual outpourings and caresses, her book is such a living hearth that beside it the volumes of other mystics seem but dull coal. "Ah," said Durtal to himself, in turning over these pages, "it was indeed the Christ of Saint Francis, the God of mercy who spoke to this Fran- ciscan!" and he went on: "That ought to give me courage, for Angela of Foligno was as great a sin- ner as I am, but all her sins were remitted! Yes, but then what a soul she had, while mine is good for nothing; instead of loving, I reason; neverthe- less it is right to remember that the conditions of the Blessed Angela were more favourable than mine. Living in the thirteenth century she had a shorter journey to make to approach God, for since the Middle Ages, each century takes us further from Him! she lived in a time full of miracles, which overflowed with Saints. For me, I live in Paris in an age when miracles are rare and Saints scarcely abound. And once away from here, what a vista is before me of falling away, of soaking myself in stew of infamy in a bath of the sins of great cities." "By the way" ... he looked at his watch and started ; it was two o'clock — "I have missed the of- fice of Nones," he said; "I must simplify my com- 272 EN ROUTE plicated horary, or I shall never know where I am ;" and at once he traced in a few lines : "Morning. Rise at 3 o'clock, or rather at 3.30. Breakfast at 7 — Sext at 11, dinner at 11.30 — Nones at 1.30 — ^Vespers at 5.15 — Supper at 6, and Com- pline at 7.25." "There, at least that is clear and easy to remem- ber — if only Father Etienne have not noticed my absence from chapel!" He left his room. "Ah, here is the famous rule," he said to himself, on seeing a framed table hung on the landing. He approached and read: — "Rule for Visitors." It was composed of numerous paragraphs, and opened as follows : — "Those whom Divine Providence has guided to this monastery are requested to note the follow- ing:— "They will at all times avoid meeting the religious and lay brothers, and will not go near their places of work. "They are forbidden to leave the cloister for the farm or the neighbourhood of the monastery." Then came a series of instructions which he had already seen on the printed horary. Durtal skipped several paragraphs, and read again : — "Visitors are requested not to write anything on the doors, not to strike matches on the wall, and not to spill water on the floor. EN ROUTE 273 "They are not allowed to visit each other's rooms or to speak to one another. "Smoking is not allowed in the house." "Nor indeed outside," thought Durtal. "But I want a cigarette badly" ; and he went down. In the corridor he ran against Father Etienne, who immediately observed that he had not seen him in his place during the office. Durtal excused him- self as well as he could. The monk said no more, but Durtal understood that he was observed, and that undef his childlike aspect the guest-master would, where discipline was concerned, hold him in an iron grip. He was confirmed in this impres- sion when at Vespers he noticed that the monk's first glance on entering the chapel was at him, but that day he felt so sore and broken that he cared but little. This sudden change of existence, and of the manner in which he had been accustomed to spend his time, astounded him, and since the crisis of the morning he had been in a kind of tor- por which took from him all power of recovery. He drifted to the end of the day, no longer think- ing of anything, sleeping as he stood, and when the evening came he fell on his bed a mere inert mass. CHAPTER III. He woke with a bound at eleven o'clock, with an impression of someone looking at him in his sleep. Lighting a match, he ascertained the time, and see- ing no one, fell back in bed again, and slept at a stretch till four o'clock. Then he dressed himself in haste and ran to the church. The vestibule, which had been dark on the pre- vious evening, was lit up that morning, for an old monk was celebrating mass at the altar of St. Jo- seph. He was bald and infirm, with a white beard waving from side to side in long threads with every gust of wind. A lay brother was assisting him, a small man with black hair and a shaven head, like a ball painted blue; he looked like a bandit, with his beard in dis- order and his worn-out robe of felt. And the eyes of this bandit were gentle and startled like those of a little boy. He served the priest with an almost timid respect and a suppressed joy which was touching to see. Others, kneeling on the flagstones, prayed with concentrated attention or read their mass. Durtal noticed the old man of eighty, immovable with out- stretched face and closed eyes; and the youth whose look of pity had helped him near the pond, was following the office in his prayer-book with atten- 274 EN ROUTE 275 tive meditation. He looked about twenty years old, tall and strong; his face, with an air of fatigue, was at once masculine and tender, with emaciated features, and a light beard which fell over his habit in a point. Durtal gave way to his emotions in this chapel, where everyone did a little to help him, and think- ing of the confession he was about to make, he im- plored the Saviour to help him, and prayed that the monk would completely explore his soul. And he felt himself less dismayed, more master of himself, and firmer. He collected and pulled himself together, feeling a melancholy confusion, but he had no longer the sense of desolation which had overcome him the evening before. He set his mind on the idea that he would not abandon him- self, that he would help himself with all his might, and that in any case he could not collect himself better. These reflections were interrupted by the de- parture of the old Trappist, who had finished of- fering the sacrifice, and by the entry of the prior, who went up in the rotunda between two white fathers to say mass at the high altar. Durtal was absorbed in his prayer-book, but he ceased reading when the priest had consumed the Species, for all rose, and he was amazed at a sight of which he had never dreamed, a communion of monks. They advanced in single file, silent and with downcast eyes, and when the first arrived before the altar, he turned round to embrace the comrade who 2/6 EN ROUTE followed; he in turn took in his arms the religious who followed him, and so on to the last. All, be- fore receiviqg the Eucharist, exchanged the kiss of peace, then they knelt, communicated, and came back in single file, turning into the rotunda behind the altar. And the return was unexpected; with the white fathers at the head of the line, they made their way very slowly with closed eyes and joined hands. The faces seemed to be somewhat altered ; they were differently lit from within; it seemed that the soul, driven by the power of the Sacrament against the sides of the body, filtered through the pores and lit up the skin with a special light of joy, with that kind of brightness which pours from white souls, and makes way like a rose-coloured vapour along the cheeks, and shines, as if concentrated, on the brow. Watching the mechanical and hesitating gait of these monks, it seemed as if their bodies were no more than automata moving from habit, and that the souls, being elsewhere, gave no heed to them. Durtal recognized the old lay brother, bent so much that his face disappeared in his beard which pressed against his chest, and his two great knotty hands trembled as he clasped them ; he also noticed the tall young brother, his features seeming drawn on a dissolved surface, gliding with short steps, his eyes closed. By a fatal chance he thought upon himself. He was the only one who did not communicate, for he saw M. Bruno coming last from behind the altar EN ROUTE 277 and returning to his place with folded arms. This exclusion brought home to him clearly how dif- ferent he was, and how far apart, from those around him! All were admitted, and he alone re- mained outside. His unworthiness was more ap- parent, and he grew sad at being put aside, looked on, as he deserved to be, as a stranger, separated like the goat of the Scriptures, penned, far from the sheep, on the left of Christ. These reflections were of use to him, for they relieved him of the terror of confession which was again coming over him. This act seemed to him so natural and just, in his necessary humiliation and unavoidable suffering, that a desire came over him to accomplish it at once, so that he might ap- pear in this chapel purified and washed, and with at least some resemblance to the others. When the mass was over, he made his way to- wards his cell to get a tablet of chocolate. At the top of the stairs M. Bruno, with a large apron round him, was getting ready to clean the steps. Durtal looked on him with surprise. The oblate smiled and shook hands with him. "This is an excellent task for the soul," he said, showing his broom; "it recalls modest sentiments which one is too inclined to forget after living in the world." And he began sweeping vigorously, and collect- ing into a pan the dust which like pepper filled every crevice in the floor. Durtal carried his tablet into the garden. "Let 278 EN ROUTE us consider," he said to himself as he nibbled it; "supposing I took another walk and tried an un- known part of the wood?" And he felt no wish to do so. "No, placed as I am, I would rather haunt the same spot and not leave the places to which I am accustomed ; I am already so little under control, and so easily disturbed, that I do not wish to risk anything by curiosity to see new places." And he went down to the cross pond. He went along the banks, and having reached the end, was astonished to find, a few steps farther, a stream spotted with green pellicules, hollowing its way be- tween two hedges which fenced in the monastery. The fields stretched out beyond, and the roofs of a large farmhouse were visible in the trees, and all round the horizon on hills were forests which seemed to stop the way before the sky. "I imagined the grounds were larger," he said to himself, retracing his steps ; and having reached the end of the cross pond, he gazed on the huge wooden crucifix reared in the air which was reflected in that black mirror. It sank down, seen from be- hind, trembling in the small waves stirred up by the breeze, and seemed to fall whirling round in that stretch of ink. And as the body of the marble Christ was hidden by the wood, only the two white arms which hung below the tree could be seen, twisted in the blackness of the water. Seated on the grass, Durtal gazed on the hazy image of the recumbent cross, and thinking of his soul, which, like the pond, was tanned and stained by a bed of dead leaves and a dunghill of sins, he EN ROUTE 279 pitied the Saviour whom he was about to invite to bathe Himself there, for it would no longer be the Martyr of Golgotha to whom at all events death came on a hill, His head high, by daylight, in the open air! but it would be by an increase of out- rages, the abominable plunging of the crudfied body, the head low, by night, into a depth of mud. "Ah! it would be time to spare Him, in filtering and clarifying me," he cried to himself. And the swan, till then motionless in an arm of the pond, swept over the lamentable image in advancing, and whitened the moving mourning of the waters with its peaceful reflection. And Durtal thought of the absolution which he would perhaps obtain, and he reopened his prayer- book and numbered his faults; and, slowly, as on the day before, he tapped, in hie innermost being a fountain of tears. "I must control myself," he said, trembling at the idea that he would sufifocate again and be un- able to speak; and he resolved to begin his confes- sion at the other end; first going over the minor sins, keeping the great ones for the end so as to finish with the avowal of his carnal misdeeds : "if I succumb then I can explain myself in two words. My God! may the prior only not remain silent as he did yesterday, may he only absolve me !" He shook off his sadness, left the pond, and re- turning to the lime avenue, he interested himself in a closer inspection of the trees. They raised huge trunks, covered with reddish-brown stone- crop, silvered grey by mosses; and several that 28o EN ROUTE morning were wrapped as in a mantle trimmed with pearls, gossamer threads studded with drops of dew. He sat down on a bench, but fearing a shower, for it looked threatening, he retired to his cell. He felt no desire to read ; he was eager for, while yet he dreaded, the arrival of nine o'clock, to have done with, to get rid of the weight upon his soul, and he prayed mechanically, without knowing what he mumbled, always thinking on this confession, full of alarm and harassed with fears. He went down a little before the time, and when he entered the auditorium his heart failed him. In spite of himself, his eyes were fixed upon the prie-Dieu, where he had suffered so cruelly. To think that he had to put himself on that hurdle again, to stretch himself on that rack of torture! He tried to collect himself, to compose himself — and he drew himself up quickly; he heard the footsteps of the monk. The door opened, and, for the first time, Durtal dared to look the prior in the face ; it seemed to be hardly the same man, nor the face, he had noticed from a distance; the pro- file was so haughty, and the full face so sweet; the eye dulled the proud energy of the features, an eye familiar and deep, when at the same time there was a quiet joy and a sad pity. "Come," he said, "do not be disturbed, you are about to speak to our Saviour alone, who knows all your faults." And he knelt down and prayed for some time and came, as on the day before, to sit EN ROUTE 281 l>y the prie-Dieu; he bent towards Durtal and lis- tened. Somewhat reassured, the penitent began with- out too great anguish. He accused himself of faults common to all men, want of charity towards his neighbour, evil speaking, hate, rash judgment, abuse, lies, vanity, anger, etc. The monk interrupted him for a moment, "You said, just now, I think, that in your youth you contracted debts: have you paid them?" And on an affirmative sign from Durtal, he said, "Good," and went on: "Have you belonged to any secret society? have you fought a duel ? — I am obliged to ask these ques- tions for they are reserved cases." "No? — Good" — and he was silent. "Before God, I accuse myself of everything," resumed Durtal; "as I confessed to you, yesterday, since my first communion I have given up every- thing; prayers, mass, everything; I have denied God, I have blasphemed, I had entirely lost faith." And Durtal stopped. He was reaching the sins of the flesh. His voice fell. "Here I do not know how to explain myself," he said, keeping back his tears. "Let us see," the monk said gently; "you told me yesterday that you had committed all those acts which are comprised in the sin of lust." "Yes, father;" and trembling, he added, "Must I go into the details?" "No, it is useless. I will confine myself to ask- 282 EN ROUTE ing you, for it alters the nature of the sin, whether in your case there have been any private sins, or any sins committed between persons of the same sex?" "Not since I left school." "Have you committed adultery ?" "Yes." "Am I to understand that in your relations with women, you have committed every possible ex- cess?" Durtal made an affirmative sign. "That is sufficient." And the monk was silent. Durtal choked with disgust; the avowal of these horrors was a terrible effort to him ; yet crushed as he was by shame, he was beginning to breathe, when suddenly he plunged his head again in his hands. The remembrance of the sacrilege in which Madame Chantelouve had made him share, came back to him. Hesitatingly he confessed that he had from curiosity assisted at a black mass, and that after- wards, without wishing it, he had defiled a Host which that woman, saturated with Satanism, con- cealed about her. The prior listened without moving. "Did you continue your visits to that woman?" "No; that had given me a horror of her." The Trappist reflected and said, "That is all?" "I think I have confessed everything," replied Durtal. EN ROUTE 283 The confessor was silent for some minutes, and then in a pensive voice, he murmured, "I am struck, even more than yesterday, by the astonishing miracle which Heaven has worked in you. "You were sick, so sick that what Martha said of the body of Lazarus might truly have been said of your soul, 'lam fcetet!' And Christ has, in some manner, raised you. Only do not deceive yourself, the conversion of a sinner is not his cure, but only his convalescence ; and this convalescence sometimes lasts for several years and is often long. "It is expedient that you should determine from this moment to fortify yourself against any falling back, and to do all in your power for recovery. The preventive treatment consists of prayer, the sacrament of penance, and holy communion. "Prayer ? — you know it, for without much prayer you could not have decided to come here after the troubled life you had led." "Ah ! but I prayed so badly !" "It does not matter, as your wish was to pray well! Confession? — It was painful to you; it will be less so now that you no longer have to avow the accumulated sins of years. The communion troubles me more; for it is to be feared that when you have triumphed over the flesh the Demon should await you there, and endeavour to draw you away, for he knows well that, without this divine gov- ernment, no healing is possible. You will there- fore have to give this matter all your attention." The monk reflected a minute, and then went on, 284 EN ROUTE "The holy Eucharist . . . you will have more need of it than others, for you will be more unhappy than less cultured and simpler beings. You will be tortured by the imagination. It has made you sin much; and, by a just recompense, it will make you suffer much; it will be the badly closed door of your soul by which the Demon will enter and spread himself in you. Watch over this, and pray fervently that the Saviour may help you. Tell me, have you a rosary?" "No, father." "I feel," said the monk, "that the tone in which you said 'No' shows a certain hostility to the ro- sary." "I admit that this mechanical manner of saying prayers wearies me a little ; I do not know why, but it seems to me that at the end of some seconds I can no longer think of what I am saying; I should mock, and should certainly end by stammering out something stupid." "You have known," quietly answered the prior, "some fathers of families. Their children stam- mer forth caresses, and tell them no matter what, and yet they are delighted to listen! Why should not our Lord, who is a good Father, love to hear His children when they drawl, or even when they talk nonsense?" And after a pause he went on, "I scent the devil's artifice in what you say, for the highest graces are attached to this crown of prayers. The most Blessed Virgin herself revealed to the saints this means of prayer; she declared EN ROUTE 28s she delighted in it; that should be enough to make us love it. "Do it, then, for her who has powerfully assisted in your conversion, who has interceded with her Son to save you. Remember, also, that God wished that all graces should come to us through her. St. Bernard expressly declares 'Totum nos habere voluit per Mariam.' " The monk paused anew, and added, "However, the rosary enrages fools, and that is a sure sign. You will for a penance recite ten every day for a month." He ceased, and then went on again, slowly, "All of us, alas! retain that scar of original sin which is the inclination towards evil; each man encourages it more or less; as for you, since you grew up, the scar has been always open, but as you hate the wound God will close it. "So I will say nothing of your past, as your re- pentance and your firm resolve to sin no more ef- face it. To-morrow, you will receive the pledge of reconciliation, you will communicate; after so many years the Lord will set out on the way to your soul and will rest there; approach Him with great humility, and prepare yourself from this mo- ment, by prayer, for this mysterious meeting of hearts which His goodness desires. Now say your act of contrition and I will give you holy absolu- tion." The monk raised his arms, and the sleeves of his white cowl rose above him like two wings. With uplifted eyes he uttered the imperious formula 286 EN ROUTE which breaks the bonds, and the three words, "Ego te absolvo," spoken more distinctly and slowly, fell upon Durtal, who trembled from head to foot. He almost sank to the ground, incapable of collecting himself or understanding himself, only feeling, in the clearest manner, that Christ Himself was pres- ent, near him in that place, and finding no word of thanks, he wept, ravished and bowed down under the great sign of the cross with which the monk enveloped him. He seemed to be waking from a dream as the prior said to him, "Rejoice, your life is dead; it is buried in a clois- ter, and in a cloister it will be born again; it is a good omen; have confidence in our Lord and go in peace." And the father added, pressing his hand, "Do not be afraid of disturbing me, I am entirely at your service, not only for confession, but for interviews and for any advice which may be of use to you; you quite understand me?" They left the auditorium together; the monk bowed to him in the corridor and disappeared. Durtal hesitated whether to meditate in his cell or in the church, when M. Bruno met him. Approach- ing Durtal he said, "Well, that is a fine weight the less on your stomach !" And as Durtal looked at him in astonishment he laughed. "Do you think that an old sinner like me could not tell from a thousand nothings, if only from EN ROUTE 287 the way your poor eyes are now shining, that you had not been reconciled when you landed here? Now I have just met the reverend father return- ing to the cloister, and I find you coming out of the auditorium; there is no need to be particularly sly to guess that the great wash has just taken place." "But," said Durtal, "you could not have seen the prior with me, for he had left before you came in, and he might have been performing some other duty." "No, for he was not in his scapular; he had his cowl on. And as he never puts on that robe ex- cept to go to church or at confessions, I was quite certain that he came from the auditorium, as there is no office at this hour. I may also point out that as the Trappists do not come to confession in this room, two persons only could have been with him, you or I." "You may say as much," replied Durtal, laugh- ing. Father Etienne met them in the midst of all this, and Durtal asked him for a rosary. "But I have not one," exclaimed the monk. "I have several," said M. Bruno, "and shall be most happy to offer you one. You will allow me, father? . . ." The monk acquiesced by a sign. "Then if you will come with me," replied the ob- late, addressing Durtal, "I will hand it you with- out delay." They went upstairs together, and Durtal then' 288 EN ROUTE learnt that M. Bruno lived in a room at the bot- tom di a small corridor, not far from his own. His cell was very simply furnished with old- middle-class furniture, a bed, a mahogany bureau, a large bookcase full of ascetic books, an earthen- ware stove and some arm-chairs. These articles were evidently the property of the oblate, for they were nothing like the furniture of La Trappe. "Pray be seated," said M. Bruno, indicating an arm-chair; and they conversed. Having first discussed the Sacrament of Pen- ance, the talk came round to the subject of Father Maximin, and Durtal admitted the high bearing of the prior had terrified him at first. M. Bruno laughed. "Yes," he said, "he produces that effect on those who never come near him, but when one associates with him, one finds that he is only strict for himself, for no one is more indul- gent to others. In every acceptation of the term he is a true and holy monk; besides, he has great judgment. . . ." And as Durtal spoke to him of the other ceno- bites, and wondered that there were some quite young men among them, M. Bruno replied, "It is a mistake to suppose that most Trappists have lived in the world. The idea, so widespread, that people take refuge in La Trappe after long sorrows or disorderly lives is absolutely false; be- sides to be able to stand the weakening rule of the cloister it is necessary to begin young, and not to come in worn out with every kind of abuse. "It is also necessary to avoid confounding mis- EN ROUTE 289 anthropy with the monastic vocation; it is not hypochondria, but the divine call, which leads to La Trappe. There is a special grace, which makes all young men who have never lived in the world long to bury themselves in silence and therein suf- fer the hardest privations; and they are happy as I hope you will be; and yet their life is still more rigorous than you would think; take the lay broth- ers, for example. "Think of their giving themselves up to the most painful labour, and that they have not, like the fathers, the consolation of singing and assisting at all the offices; remember that even their reward, the communion, is not very often conceded to them. "Now think of the winter here. The cold is frightful; in these decayed buildings nothing shuts properly, and the wind sweeps the house from top to bottom ; they freeze without fires, they sleep upon pallets, and they cannot help or encourage each other, for they hardly know each other, as all con- versation is forbidden. "Think, also, that these poor people never hear a kindly word, a word which would soothe and comfort them. They work from dawn till night, and the master never thanks them for their zeal, never tells the good workman that he is pleased. "Consider, also, that in summer when men are hired from the neighbouring villages to reap the harvest, these rest when the sun scorches the fields ; they sit in their shirt sleeves under the shade of the ricks, and drink, if they are thirsty, and eat; and the lay brother in his heavy clothes looks at 290 EN ROUTE them and goes on with his work, and neither eats nor drinks. Ah! men must have well-tempered souls to stand such a life." "But surely there must be some off days," said Durtal, "when the rule is relaxed?" "Never; there is not even, as in some very strict orders — the Carmelites, to take one instance — an hour of recreation, when the religious may talk and laugh. Here, the silence is eternal." "Even when they are together in the refectory?" "Then they read the Conferences of Cassien, the 'Holy Ladder' of Climacus, the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, or some other oious book." "And on Sunday?" "On Sunday they rise an hour earlier; but on the whole it is their best day, for they can follow all the offices and pass their whole time in church." "Humility and self-denial carried to such an ex- tent are superhuman !" cried Durtal. "But they are surely given a sufficient quantity of strong nourish- ment to enable them to give themselves up from morning till evening to exhausting work in the fields?" M. Bruno smiled. "They simply get vegetables which are not even as good as those which are served to us, and, by way of wine, they quench their thirst with a sour and insipid liquid, which leaves half a glass full of sediment. They get a pint each, and if they are ihirsty they can add water." "And how often do they eat?" "That depends. From the 14th September to EN ROUTE 291 Lent they only eat once a day, at half-past two — and during Lent this meal is put of? till four o'clock. From Easter to the 14th September, when the Cis- tercian fast is less strict, dinner is at about half-past eleven, and to this may be added a light meal in the evening." "It is frightful ! to work for months on one meal a day, two hours after noon, after being up since two o'clock in the morning; having had no dinner the evening before." "It is sometimes necessary to relax the rule a little, and when a monk fails from weakness he is not refused a morsel of bread. "It would be well," continued M. Bruno, pen- sively, "to relax still further the grasp of these observances, for this question of food is becoming a veritable stumbling-block in recruiting for La Trappe; souls which delight in these cloisters are forced to fly them, because their bodies cannot stand the rule." ^ "And the fathers lead the same life as the lay brothers?" '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 i8th 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 constitutions, voted by this as- 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 ccenent." 292 EN ROUTE "Absolutely — they set the example; they all swal- low the same pittance, and sleep in the same dormi- tory on similar beds; there is complete equality. Only, the fathers have the advantage of singing the office and obtaining more frequent com- munions." "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 orphan- age of the order. There you have an extraordi- nary soul, a true saint, who already lives absorbed in God. We will talk of him at greater length an- other day, for it is time we went down; the hour of Sext 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 com- municate?" "To-morrow." "To-morrow; it is impossible!" EN ROUTE 293 "Why impossible?" "Because there will be only a single mass to-mor- row, that of five o'clock, and at that the rule pre- vents your communicating alone. Father Benedict, who usually says an earlier mass, 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 Dur- tal. "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-mor- row 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 pray- ing God not to delay his re-entry into grace any longer. After Sext, the oblate came to rejoin him. "It 294 EN ROUTE 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 mass 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 passage, 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 hav- ing gone through so much, to end by being thus reconciled in a cloister." And he complained to God, telHng Him that all the joy he might have felt in being purified and clean at last, was now spoilt by this disappoint- ment. 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 swallow- ing a warm potato soup made with hot oil, which EN ROUTE 295 from its appearance might have been mistaken for vaseHne ; 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 com- munion — 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 God 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, and 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 296 EN ROUTE by a monk. Christ has forgiven me, that is much. Why should He do more by taking note of my pref- erences 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 grass and began. He had not reached the second bead, when mis- understanding 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 mass 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 pray- ers on end; no one could do such a task without EN ROUTE 297 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 repug- nance 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 ecclesiasti- cal language 'ten' means ten beads; no doubt . . . but I remember very well that after he pronounced 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, idle- ness, 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, 298 EN ROUTE it is really too easy! — that alone proves that I de- ceive myself when I try to persuade myself that the prior only ordered me to pick out ten beads!" "Then a Pater, ten Aves, and a Gloria are noth- ing ; it is not heavy as a penance 1" And then he answered himself, "But it is much for you, for you cannot even attempt so much with- out wandering." He was turning on himself without advancing a step. "I have never felt such hesitation," he said, try- ing to pull himself together; "I am not stupid and yet I am fighting against my good sense, for it is not a matter of doubt, I know it, I ought to say ten Aves and not one more !" He remained nonplussed, almost frightened at his condition which was new to him. And, to get out of the difficulty, to silence him- self, he thought of a new idea to conciliate both parties, which seemed most concise and which pre- sented at least a provisional solution. "In any case," he reflected, "I cannot communi- cate to-morrow if I do not complete my penance to- day ; in the doubt, the wisest course is to yoke my- self to the ten rosaries; later I shall see; if neces- sary I shall be able to consult the prior. It is true that he will think me an idiot if I speak to him of these rosaries! so I shall not be able to ask him that!" "But then, you see, you admit yourself, it can only be ten beads!" EN ROUTE 299 He was furious with himself, and for silence's sake rushed upon the rosary. He might well shut his eyes, and try to collect himself, it was impossible for him at the end of the second ten to follow his prayers; he hesitated, for- getting the large beads of the Paters, losing his way in the small beads of the Aves, stamping on the ground. To check himself, he thought of transporting himself in imagination at each dose, into one of the chapels of the Virgin which he loved to attend in Paris, at Notre Dame des Victoires, at St. Sul- pice, at St. Severin; but these Virgins were not numerous enough for him to dedicate each set of ten to them, so he evoked the Madonnas of the early masters, and, absorbed before their images, he turned the windlass of his prayers, not under- standing what he mumbled, but praying the Mother of the Saviour to accept his paternosters, as she would receive the lost smoke of a censer forgotten before the altar. "I cannot force myself any more," he said. He left this toil worried and crushed and wanting to take breath; there were still three rosaries to ex- haust. And as soon as he had stopped, the question of the Eucharist, which had been dropped, came up again. "Better not to communicate than to communi- cate badly;" and it was impossible that after such debates and with such prejudices he could properly approach the Holy Table. 300 EN ROUTE "Yes, but then what shall I do? In reality, was it not monstrous of me to dispute the monk's or- ders, to wish to carry them out in my own way, to take them up at my convenience! If this goes on, I shall sin so much to-day that I shall have to confess again," he said. To break through this feeling, he threw himself again upon his wheel, but then stupefied himself completely ; the device he had tried to keep himself before the Virgin at least was used up. When he wished to abstract himself and to bring up a recol- lection of Memling, he could not succeed, and his lip-prayers, wearying him, distressed him. "My soul is worn out," he thought, "I should do well to let it rest, while I stay quiet." He wandered round the pond, not knowing what to do next. "Suppose I go to my cell !" He went there, tried to become absorbed in the Little Office of the Vir- gin, and did not grasp a single word of the phrases he was reading. He went down and began to prowl about the park again. "This is enough to drive me mad," he cried — and mournfully he exclaimed, "I ought to be happy, to pray in peace and prepare myself for to-morrow's act, yet never have I been so restless, so upset, so far from God! "But I must finish this penance !" Despair seized him, and he was on the point of letting all go; he mortified himself again, and compelled himself to tell the beads. He finished by despatching them; he was at the EN ROUTE 301 end of his powers. And he immediately found a new means of torture. He reproached himself with having moaned the prayers negligently, without having even seriously tried to follow their meaning. And he was on the point of beginning the rosary over again, but in the face of the evident folly of this suggestion he pulled himself up, refused to listen, and then he worried himself again. "It is none the less true that you have not lit- erally fulfilled the task assigned you by the con- fessor, for your conscience reproaches you for your want of reflection and your wandering." "But I am half dead!" he exclaimed. "I cannot go through the exercises again in this condition!" — and once again he ended, by giving a casting vote, and finding a new weakness. By saying over another ten, thoughtfully pro- nouncing the prayers with care, he might make up for all the beads of the rosary which he had mumbled without understanding them. And he tried to turn the crank, but as soon as he had got out the Pater, he wandered ; he was ob- stinate in wishing to grind out the Aves, but then his mind gave way and became thoroughly dis- tracted. He stopped, thinking, "What is the use of it? Besides, would one set of ten, however well said, be equal to five hundred prayers that have missed fire ? And then why one set of ten and not two; why not three? It is absurd!" He grew angry, "After all," he concluded. 302 EN ROUTE "these repetitions are absurd; Christ positively de- clared that we should not use vain repetitions in our prayers. Then what is the object of this wheel of Aves? "If I dwell upon such ideas, if I cavil at the in- junctions of the monk, I am lost," said he suddenly ; and by an effort of will, he stifled the revolt which was rumbling in him. He took refuge in his cell ; the hours lengthened interminably; he killed the time by recapitulating all the same objections with all the same answers. It was a repetition of which he was himself ashamed. "So much is certain, that I am the victim of an aberration," he said. "I do not speak of the Eu- charist; there my thoughts may not be exact, but at least they are not maddening, while as for this question of parternosters !" He confused himself so much that he felt ham- mered like an anvil between these two opposing ideas, and finally sank drowsily on a chair. Thus he passed the time till the hour of vespers and supper. After this meal he returned to the park. And then the slumbering dispute revived and all came back. A furious battle was raging within him. He remained there, immovable, astounded, listening to himself, when a rapid footstep ap- proached and M. Bruno said to him, "Take care, you are possessed by the devil!" And as Durtal, stupefied, did not answer, "Yes," he said, "God sometimes allows me in- EN ROUTE 303 tuitions, and I am certain at this moment that the devil is working in you. Let us see, what is wrong with you?" "I ... I do not know myself ;" and Durtal told him of the extraordinary conflict about the rosary which had been raging in him since the morning. "But this is madness," exclaimed the oblate; "it is ten beads the prior ordered you to tell; ten ro- saries would be impossible." "I know it . . . and yet I doubt still." "Always the same tactics," said M. Bruno ; "con- triving to render disgusting the thing you ought to do. Yes, the devil wished to make the rosary odious to you by crushing you with it. And what is there besides ? You do not wish to communicate to-morrow ?" "True," repHed Durtal. "I thought as much, when I was watching you at supper. Ah! well, after conversions the Evil One is at work; and it is nothing, believe me, he was harder on me than that." He slipped his arm under Durtal's, and leading him to the auditorium, begged him to wait, and disappeared. Some minutes afterwards, the prior entered. "Well," said he, "M. Bruno tells me that you are suffering. What is it, exactly?" "It is so stupid that I am ashamed to explain myself." "You will never astonish a monk," said the prior, smiling. 'Well, I know precisely, I am certain that you 304 EN ROUTE gave me ten beads of the rosary to recite every day for a month, and, sinpe this morning, I have been arguing with myself against all common sense, to convince myself that my daily penance is to be the rosary ten times." "Hand me your rosary," said the monk, "and look at these ten beads ; well, that is all I prescribed for you, and all you have to recite. So you have told all the beads ten times to-day?" Durtal signified assent. "And naturally you were perplexed, you lost all patience, and ended up by rambling." And seeing Durtal's pitiful smile, "Well, listen to me," declared the father, in an energetic tone, "I absolutely forbid you for the fu- ture to begin a prayer again ; it has been badly said ; so much the worse, go on, do not repeat it. "I need not ask you if the idea of abstaining from communion occurred to you, for that comes of itself; it is there that the enemy directs all his efforts. Do not listen to the devil's voice which would keep you away; whatever happens you will communicate to-morrow. You should have no scruple, for I command you to receive the Sacra- ment; I take it all upon myself. "And now another question ; what sort of nights have you?" Durtal told him of the awful night of his ar- rival at La Trappe, and of the feeling of being spied upon which had awakened him the day before. "We have long known these manifestations, they are without imminent danger; do not therefore let EN ROUTE 305 them trouble you. At the same time, if they con- tinue you will let me know, and we will not neglect attending to them." And the Trappist left quietly, while Durtal re- mained thinking. "I never doubted that those phenomena were Satanic," he thought, "but I did not understand these attacks upon the soul, this charge at full speed against my reason which remains untouched, and yet is overcome; that is remarkable; if only this lesson may be useful to me so that I may not be un- horsed on the first alarm !" He went up to his cell again and a great peace fell upon him. All had died down at the voice of the monk ; he now only felt surprise at having been off the rails for hours; he understood now that he had been assailed unawares and that the struggle had not been with himself. He said his prayers and lay down. And, sud- denly, the assault began again by new tactics he had not guessed at. "No doubt I shall communicate to-morrow," he said to himself; "but . . . but ... am I prepared for such an act? I ought to have collected my thoughts in the day-time, I ought to have thanked the Lord for having absolved me, and I have lost my time in nonsense." "Why did I not say that just now to Father Maximin ; how is it I did not think of it ? Then I ought to have confessed again. And this priest who will give me the communion, this priest!" The horror which he felt for this man increased 306 EN ROUTE suddenly and became so vehement that he was as- tonished. "Ah, but there I am again knocked about by the enemy," he said, and he went on: "All that shall not prevent me from receiving the Heavenly Bread to-morrow, for I have quite decided; only how frightful it is that the Spirit of Malice should be allowed to oppress and harass me without respite while I have no sign from Heaven which does not interfere, and I know nothing. "Ah ! Lord, if I were only certain this communion would please Thee ! Give me a sign, show me that I may ally myself with Thee without remorse; let the impossible take place so that, to-morrow, it may be a monk and not this priest. . . ." And he stopped himself, astonished at his bold- ness, asking himself how he dared ask for, and indi- cate a sign. "It is idiotic!" he exclaimed; "in the first place, no one has a right to claim such favours from God ; and then, as He will not grant my prayer, what shall I have gained? I shall infer from the re- fusal that my communion will be worth nothing!" And he prayed the Lord to forget his wish, ex- cused himself for having formed it, and wished to convince himself that He should not take it into ac- count, and, helped by the agitations of the day, he ended by falling asleep as he prayed. CHAPTER IV. When he left his cell he said to himself, "This morning I shall communicate," and these words, which should have thrilled him through and through, woke no zeal in him. He remained dull, tired and caring for nothing, feeling cold in the depth of his being. Nevertheless a fear stimulated him when he was outside. "I do not know," he said to himself, "when I must leave my seat and go to kneel before the priest; I know that the congregation should communicate after the celebrant; but at what mo- ment exactly ought I to move? It is indeed an- other misfortune that I should have to go up, alone, towards this Table which so disturbs me; other- wise I shall only have to follow the others and at least be sure of not doing an)rthing improperly." He scrutinized the chapel as he went in, looking round for M. Bruno who, had he been by his side, might have kept ofif his scruples, but the oblate could not be found. Durtal sat down, disabled, dreaming of the sign he had asked for the evening before, endeavouring to throw off the recollection, thinking of it all the same. He wished to examine himself and collect him- self, and he was praying Heaven to forgive him his 307 3o8 EN ROUTE mental vacillations when M. Bruno came in, and went to kneel before the statue of the Virgin. Almost at the same minute a brother, who had a beard like seaweed growing from a face like a pear, took up to the altar of St. Joseph a small rustic table on which he placed a basin, a towel, two vases and a napkin. Before these preparations, which recalled the im- minence of the Sacrifice, Durtal stiffened himself and succeeded by an effort in keeping back his anx- ieties and overthrowing his troubles, and escaping from himself he ardently implored Our Lady to in- tervene so that he might, for this hour at least, without wandering, pray in peace. And when he had finished his prayer he lifted his eyes and looked with a start at the priest who was advancing, preceded by a lay brother, to cele- brate mass. This was not the curate whom he knew, but an- other, younger, very tall, with a majestic air, with cheeks pale and shaven, and a bald head. Durtal was watching him solemnly marching to- wards the altar with his eyes cast down when he suddenly noticed a violet flame light up his fingers. "He wears an episcopal ring, he is a bishop," thought Durtal, who leant forward to see the colour of the vestment underneath the chasuble and alb. It was white. "Then it is a monk," he said, astounded; and, mechanically, he turned towards the statue of the Virgin, summoning the oblate by a hasty glance, who came to sit beside him. EN ROUTE 309 "Who is he?" "Dom Anselm, the abbot of the monastery." "He who was ill?" "Yes, he will give us communion." Durtal fell upon his knees, suffocated, almost trembling : he was not dreaming ! Heaven was an- swering him by the sign on which he had fixed. He ought to abase himself before God, to be overwhelmed at His feet, to spread himself in a passion of gratitude ; he knew and wished it ! And without knowing how, he was exercising himself in seeking natural causes which might account for the substitution of a monk for the priest. No doubt it was very simple; for on the whole, before admitting a kind of miracle . . . "anyhow, I will keep an open mind, for after the ceremony I wish to clear the matter up." And he repelled the insinuations which crept into him. Well! what interest could there be in the motive of this change ? There clearly must be a mo- tive, but it was only a consequence, an accessory, the important point was the supernatural will which had produced it. "In any case you have obtained more than you asked, you have even a better than the simple monk you wished for, you have the abbot of La Trappe himself!" And he cried: "Oh, to believe, to believe like these poor lay brothers, not to be endowed with a soul which is blown about by every wind ; to have the faith of a child, an immova- ble faith, a faith which cannot be rooted up! Ah, Father, Father, bury it, rivet it in me!" And such was his enthusiasm that he came out 310 EN ROUTE of himself; all around him seemed to disappear and he cried, stammering, to Christ : "Lord, go not far from me. Let Thy pity curb Thy justice; be unjust, forgive me ; receive Thy poor bedesman for communion, the poor in spirit!" M. Bruno touched his arm, and with a glance in- vited him to accompany him. They went up to the altar and knelt upon the flagstones; then, when the priest had blessed them, they knelt closer on the single step, and the lay brother handed them a nap- kin, for there was no bar or cloth. And the abbot of La Trappe gave them the com- munion. They returned to their places. Durtal was in a state of absolute torpor; the Sacrament had, in a manner, anaesthetized his mind ; he fell on his knees at his bench, incapable even of unravelling what might be moving within him, unable to rally and pull himself together. And all of a sudden the impression came over him that he was suffocating and wanted air; the mass was finished; he rushed out and ran to his walk ; there he wished to take an account of himself and he found nothing. And in front of the cross pond, in whose waters the Qirist was drowning, there came over him an infinite melancholy, a vast sadness. It was a true syncope of the soul; it lost con- sciousness; and when it came to itself, he was as- tonished that he had not felt an unknown transport of joy; then he dwelt on a troublesome recollec- tion, on the all too human side of the deglutition EN ROUTE 311 of a God ; the Host had stuck against his palate, and he had had to seek it with his tongue and roll it about like a pancake in order to swallow it. Ah! it was still too material! he only wanted a fluid, a perfume, a fire, a breath ! And he tried to explain to himself the treatment that the Saviour made him follow. All his anticipations had returned; it was the absolution and not the communion which had worked. When with the confessor he had very clearly perceived the presence of the Redeemer; all his being had, in a manner, been injected with divine effluvia, and the Eucharist had only brought him suffocation and trouble. It seemed that the effects of the two Sacraments had changed places the one with the other; they had worked the wrong way with him; Christ had been perceptible to his soul before and not after- wards. "But it is easy enough to see," he reflected, "that the great question for me is to have an absolute cer- tainty of my forgiveness! By a special favour, Jesus has ratified my faith in the healing power of Penance. Why should He have done more?" "And then, what bounties would He reserve for His saints? After all I am astonishing. It is too much that I should wish to be treated as He cer- tainly treats Brother Anacletus and Brother Simeon." "I have obtained more than I deserve. And what an answer I had, this very morning ! Yes, indeed, 312 EN ROUTE but why should such advances end suddenly in this recoil?" And making his way towards the abbey to eat his bread and cheese, he said to himself: "My er- ror towards God is to be always arguing, when I ought to adore stupidly as these monks here do. Ah ! to be able to keep silence, silence to one's self, that is indeed a grace !" He reached the refectory, which, as a rule, he had to himself, M. Bruno never coming to the meal at seven o'clock in the morning. He was beginning to cut himself a piece of bread, when the father guest-master appeared. He had a whetstone and some knives in his hand, and smiling at Durtal, he said: "I am going to polish the knives of the monastery, for they want it badly." And he placed them on a table in a small room attached to the refectory. "Well, are you satisfied?" he said, on coming back. "Certainly — ^but, what happened this morning, how is it I was communicated by the abbot of La Trappe, when I should have been by the curate who dines with me ?" "Ah !" exclaimed the monk, "I was as much sur- prised as you. On waking, the Father Abbot sud- denly declared that he must say mass this morning. He got up in spite of the observations of the prior, who as a doctor, forbade him to leave his bed. Neither I, nor any one else, knows what took him. Then they told him that a retreatant would com- municate and he answered 'Just so, I shall com- EN ROUTE 313 municate him.' And then M. Bruno took the op- portunity of also approaching the Sacrament, for he loves to receive our Saviour from the hands of Dom Anselm." "And this arrangement also satisfied the curate," the monk went on, smiling; "for he left La Trappe at an earlier hour this morning and has been able to say his mass in a parish where he was expected. ... By the way, he told me to make his excuses to you for not having been able to bid you good- bye." Durtal bowed. "There is no doubt about it," he thought; "God wished to give me an unmistakable answer." "And your health?" "It is good, father; I am astounded; my diges- tion has never been so good as it is here; to say nothing of the fact that the neuralgia, which I feared so much, has spared me." "That shows that Heaven protects you." "Yes, indeed. But now that I remember it, I Jiave long wished to ask you this — how are your offices arranged? They do not correspond with those printed in my prayer-book." "No, they differ from yours, which belong to the Roman ritual. At the same time, the Vespers are almost similar, except sometimes the lessons, and then what may put you out is that ours are often preceded by the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin. As a general rule we have a psalm less in the office, and the lessons are nearly always short. "Except," Father Etienne went on, smiling, "in 314 EN ROUTE Compline, the very one you recite. Thus you may have noticed we know nothing of 'In manus tuas, Domine,' which is one of the few short lessons sung in parish churches. "We have also a special Proper of Saints; we celebrate the commemoration of the Blessed of our order which you will not find in your books. In fact we follow the letter of the monastic breviary of Saint Benedict." Durtal had finished his breakfast. He rose, fear- ing to trouble the father by his questions. One word of the monk, however, was troubling his brain, that relating to the prior as a doctor ; and before going out he spoke of this again to Father Etienne. "No — the Reverend Father Maximin is not a doctor, but he understands simples very well, and he has a small pharmacy which is enough as long as no one is seriously ill." "And in that case?" "In that case the practitioner can be called in from one of the nearest towns, but no one is ever so ill as that; or else the end is approaching and the doctor's visit would be useless . . ." "So on the whole the prior looks after soul and body at La Trappe." The monk signified assent. Durtal went out. He hoped to get rid of his suffocation by a long walk. He took a road which he had not been along before, and came out on a glade where stood the ruins of an ancient convent, some bits of wall, EN ROUTE 315 truncated columns and capitals in the Roman style; unhappily these remains were in a deplorable con- dition, rough, covered with moss and riddled with holes like pumice stones. He went on and came to the end of a long walk, at the top of which was a pond five or six times as large as the small one in the form of a cross, which he frequented. The walk was planted with old oaks on each side, and in the middle, near a wooden bench, stood a cast-iron statue of the Virgin. He groaned as he looked at it. The crime of the church followed him once more; even in this little chapel so full of divine compassion, all the statues came from the religious bazaars of Paris or Lyons. He took his position below, near the pond whose banks were bordered by reeds surrounded by tufts of osiers; and he amused himself by examining the colours of these shrubs, with their smooth green leaves and stalks of citron yellow, or blood red, noticing the curling water which began to foam with a gust of wind. And the martins skimmed it, touching it with the tips of their wings from which drops of water fell like pearls of quicksilver. And the birds rose whirling above and giving out their cries of weet, weet, weet, while the dragon-flies shone brightly in the air which they slashed with blue flames. "Peaceful refuge!" thought Durtal; "I ought to have come to rest here before." He sat down on a bed of moss and interested himself in the noiseless and active life of the waters. Now the splash and 3i6 EN ROUTE flash of the turn of a leaping carp; now great spiders skating on the surface, making little circles and driving one against another, stopping, going back and making new rounds ; then, near him on the ground, Durtal noticed jumping, green grasshop- pers with vermilion bellies, or, scaling the oaks, colonies of queer insects on whose backs a devil's head was painted in red lead on a black ground. And above all that, if he raised his eyes, there was the silent upturned sea of heaven, a blue sea crested with surging white clouds like waves; and at the same time this firmament moved in the water where it billowed under a bluish gray glass. Durtal felt himself expand as he smoked ciga- rettes; the melancholy which had oppressed him since the dawn began to melt away, and joy crept into him as he felt his soul was washed in the pool of the Sacraments and dried in the air of a clois- ter. And he was at once happy and uneasy ; happy, for the meeting he had had with the father guest- master, had removed all the doubts he had enter- tained as to the supernatural side to the sudden change of a priest for a monk to communicate him; happy, also, to know that not only had Christ not repulsed him in spite of all the disorders of his life, but that He was encouraging him and giving him pledges, ratifying the signs of His favours by perceptible acts. And nevertheless he was uneasy, for he knew himself to be barren, and felt that it was necessary for him to be grateful for this good- ness by a struggle with himself and an entirely new EN ROUTE 317 existence differing completely from that he had hitherto led. "Well, we shall see !" and he went off to the office of Sext almost calmed, and thence to dinner, where he found M. Bruno. "We will go for a walk to-day," said the oblate, rubbing his hands. Durtal looked at him with astonishment. "Yes, indeed, I thought that after a communion a little air outside the walls would do you good, and I proposed to the Reverend Father Abbot to free you from the rule for to-day, if the offer is not disagreeable to you." "I gladly accept, and thank you sincerely for your kind attention," said Durtal. They dined off a soup made with oil in which a stick of cabbage and some peas were swimming; it was not bad, but the bread made at La Trappe re- minded him, when stale, of the bread in the siege of Paris, and made the soup turn sour. Then they tasted an egg with sorrel and some rice steeped in milk. "If it suits you," said the oblate, "we will begin by paying a visit to Dom Anselm, who has ex- pressed a wish to know you." And M. Bruno led Durtal through a labyrinth of passages and staircases to a small cell where the abbot was. He was dressed like the fathers in a white robe and a black scapular; only at the end of a violet cord he bore on his breast an abbot's cross of ivory, in the centre of which, under a round glass, some relics were inserted. 3i8 EN ROUTE 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 affirma- tive 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 my- self, unless, indeed, I am obliged to keep my room. EN ROUTE 319 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 Dur- tal 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 com- mon energy to say his mass this morning; but let us see, we will first of all visit the grounds of La Trappe which you can hardly have been over com- pletely, then we will leave the enclosure and push on to the farm." They started, skirting the remains of the an- cient abbey, and as they walked, turning by the piece of water near which Durtal had been seated in the morning, M. Bruno entered into explana- tions about the ruins. "This monastery was founded in 1127 by St. Bernard, who installed the Blessed Humbert as ab- bot, 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 die 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 320 EN ROUTE 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 Reun. "Pierre, called Monoculus, or the one-eyed, was a saint thirsting for austerities and sufferings. He was assailed 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 VIL, venerated him so much that, on seeing the empty eyelid, he wished to kiss it. Mo- noculus 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 I'Atre. Under the rule of abbots in commendam it declined, and it was dying with only six religious to look after it when EN ROUTE 321 the Revolution suppressed it. The church was then pulled down and afterwards replaced by the ro- tunda 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 I'Atre the Cistercian nursery you see. "Such, in few words, is the history of the con- vent," said the oblate. "As for the ruins they are buried underground, and no doubt precious frag- ments might be discovered, but for want of money and men no excavations have been made. "In addition to the broken columns and the capi- tals we passed, 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 pos- sibly 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 322 EN ROUTE 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 springboard 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 with- out 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 space 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 Illu- mination 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 in- finity of stages; which are degrees according to EN ROUTE 323 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 God 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 God. "Long," pursued the oblate, "I have placed my desires beyond the horizon, yet I progress little; I am scarcely disengaged from the life of Purifica- tion, scarcely . . ." "And you do not fear — how shall I say — ma- terial infirmities, for if at last you succeed in attain- ing 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 constitu- tion and brings incurable troubles." The oblate smiled. "In the first place I should, no doubt, fail.to attain to the last degree of initia- tion, the extreme point of mysticism; then, sup- ,324 EN ROUTE posing I attain it, what would corporal accidents be in the face of such results ? "Let me also assure 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 constitute 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, Mar- ;garet of the Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Gorar- desca of Pisa, and above all Saint Joseph of Cuper- tino, 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 de- clares expressly : it must not be imagined that any- one, 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 de- cide this; for the Church, miracles themselves are ■only secondary proofs, for she knows that the Spirit