En Route

Many months passed. Durtal continued his alternation 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 l'Abbé, what does this mean? Whenever my sensual obsessions are weaker, so also are my religious impressions."

"That means," said the priest, "that your adversary 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 yourself 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 Abbé Gévresin every week. He liked the patient discretion of the old priest, who let him talk when he was in a confidential humour, listened to him carefully, manifested no surprise at his frequent temptations and his falls. Only the abbé always returned to his first advice, insisted 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 speaking 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 attention, 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 speaking to Him.

He complained of these wanderings and distractions to the priest, who answered,—

"You are on the threshold of the probationary life; you cannot yet experience the sweet and familiar friendship of prayer. Do not sadden yourself because you cannot close behind you the gate of your senses. Watch and wait; pray badly if you can do nothing else, but pray all the same.

"Be very sure too that every one has experienced the troubles which distress you; above all, believe that we do not walk blindfold, 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 entirely loses itself in God.

"Saint Denys the Areopagite, Saint Bonaventure, Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bernard, Ruysbröck, Angela of Foligno, 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 exceptions; 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 know that before reaching the shores of Blessedness, 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 supposes 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 consequently 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 her repetitions and tediousness, 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 on adoration, and being unable to express herself further, she soars, describing circles like a frightened bird, wandering beyond herself, in cries of love."

"Yes, Monsieur l'Abbé, I recognize that Saint Teresa has explored deeper than any other the unknown 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 explored 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 consumed and lost at the feet of Christ. Ruysbröck 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 dictated 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 Mænad of purity. Christ loves her, holds long conversations with her; the words she has retained 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 supple; 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 abbé, 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 renunciation of all which comes from the sensible and the created.

"He wills that we should extinguish our imagination—so lethargize it that it can no longer form images—imprison our senses, annihilate our faculties. 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 overpass 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 Ruysbröck, treats of the spiritual marriage, of the influx of grace, and its gifts; but he first dared to describe minutely the 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 continually on his own steps; he walks straight forward, 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 life, praying one's best, and communicating, 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 exaltation described by Saint John disconcerts me."

The abbé smiled, but made no answer.

"But do you know that if it be so," replied Durtal, "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 assimilated 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 demands the most painful efforts on the part of those whom he deigns to initiate into the supremely adorable 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 visible, 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 comparisons from human acts, and to inflict on the Lord the shame of our words. We have to employ such terms as 'union,' 'marriage,' 'wedding feast'; but it is impossible to speak of the inexpressible, 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 abbé, "has treated of this 'Night obscure' which terrifies you; but she only speaks of it in a few lines. She calls it the 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 inflexible 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 complex, 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 contemplative outside the world, and at the same time a statesman, 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 abbé, with a smile, "is just their absolute balance, their entire common sense."

These conversations cheered Durtal; they planted on him seeds of reflection which sprang up when he was alone; they encouraged him to trust to the advice 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. Ah! those poor little black shawls, those miserable 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 shoulders shaking, their head in their hands.

The task of the day was over; those wearied of their life came to ask for mercy. Everywhere misfortune was kneeling, for the rich, the healthy, the happy hardly pray; all around in the church were women, widowed or old, without love, women deserted, 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.

So indifferent 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 communion 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 themselves His chosen, and did not doubt that when He entrusted to them under the form of bread the memorial of His suffering, He demanded of them in exchange that they should live in sorrow and humility. 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 abbé made such a point of my seeing the churches early or late; those are, in fact, the only times in which the soul 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, 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 that faith softened their sorrows, whose bitterness was dissipated in the explosions of hope, the stammering 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 thankfulness 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 hundreds of tapers pierced the air blue with incense 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 continually changing its tone, now fast, now slow, bringing 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 eleison" and the opening invocations. The Virgin came upon the scene to a dance measure like a ballet girl; but when certain of her attributes were paraded, and certain of her symbolical names declared, 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 Benediction took place immediately afterwards.

Then with raspings of the choir, a bass with a cold, and two boys who snivelled began their liturgical 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; lastly, that scrap, detached from the "Panga Lingua," the "Tantum ergo," humble and thoughtful, 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 antiphons and responses, after the "oremus," the priest ascended to the altar, his shoulders and hands enfolded in the white silk scarf, to take the monstrance, 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 fulness 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 foolish age."

Then at Notre Dame at least one hears curious 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 fingers, 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, as it was moreover given, but yet given, when there was no special ceremony at Notre Dame.

It was not arranged there as at St. Sulpice and the other churches where the "Tantum ergo" is almost always dressed up in foolish flourishes, tunes for military 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 curés 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 apparitions. "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 therefore not astonishing that pious crowds flock thither. But here at Notre Dame des Victoires has been no apparition; no Mélanie, no Bernadette, have seen and described the luminous appearance of a 'beautiful Lady.' There are no piscinas, no medical staff, no public cures, no mountain top, no grotto, nothing. One fine day in 1836 the curé of the parish, the Abbé Dufriche Des Genettes, declared that while he was celebrating mass Our Lady manifested to him her desire that the sanctuary should be specially 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 Abbé Gévresin, to whom he had already made the observation.

"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 conflagration, springing up from below, became terrible.

Florence seemed present, to Durtal's imagination, at his lodgings, in the churches, in the street, everywhere, 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 nerves, enfeebling the will, letting the awakened troop of vices loose in their gloomy moisture. Durtal blenched before the dread of long evenings and the abominable melancholy of days that never ended. 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 sunshine 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 solitude, 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 followed him in his course, sat before him in the Café, 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 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 himself that in thus acting he would be more pardonable, 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 Abbé Gévresin, 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 experienced 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 requiring 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 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 substitution of which I spoke to you; you will moreover experience it in yourself; the saints will enter into the lists to help you; they will take the overplus of the assaults which you cannot conquer; without even knowing your name, from their secluded 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 dragging him out of the mud in which he had stuck, and by their charity bringing him to the bank, excited 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 Procession, no odour of wax or incense, no sweeping by of robes of scarlet and cope of gold, all was deserted 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 immediate 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 suffering 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 anæsthetics which suppress corporal pain do not bring into debt those who use them? Who knows whether chloroform 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 terrible 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 consoling," 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 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, however, 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 childishness 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 delightful, but he only stayed there a few minutes, for there was not here, as at the Carmelites, an absolute solitude, a sombre peace; here there were always two or three Poor Clares trotting about the chapel, who looked at him while they were arranging the chairs, and seemed surprised at his presence.

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 accepted in principle the idea of a change of existence, 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 inevitable 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 reflux of different wishes alarms me, but how have 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 continuous 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 unseen 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 abbé 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 abbé 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 yourself 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 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."

"But ... but ..." thought Durtal, "we must at any rate come to an understanding; the abbé 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 for ever 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 downstairs, I have no pretension to become a saint, all that I desire is to attain the intermediate state, between 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 mystical 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 recognize the origin of the words, but her proofs do not seem to me always as easy to discern as she thinks.

"'If these expressions come 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 simply 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 memory, and often cannot be effaced.'

"'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 expressions 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, standing 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; witness Saint Teresa, who, resist as she would by humility, fell into ecstasy under the divine breath, 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 abbé 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 darkness 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 moves in an inaccessible sphere, in an unknown world very far off.

"I am certainly afraid that this terrible saint, a true man of the south, abuses metaphor, and is full of Spanish affectation.

"Moreover I am astonished at the abbé on another point. He, who is so gentle, shows a certain leaning to the dry bread of Mysticism; the effusions of Ruysbröck, of Saint Angela, of Saint Catherine of Genoa, touch him less than the arguments of 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 'Cité Mystique.'

"From the renown of this Spanish woman, I expected the breath of prophecy, wide outlooks, extraordinary 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 volumes, '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 continually 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 ruffles, 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 extravagant 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 mystery of the conception by three drops of blood which fell from the heart into the womb of Mary, and which the Holy Ghost used to form the child; lastly, she declares that Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel 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 abbé would say that we need not concern ourselves with these singularities and these errors, but that the 'Cité Mystique' is to be read in relation to the inner life of the Blessed Virgin. Yes, but then the book of M. Ollier, which treats of the same subject, seems to me curious and trustworthy in quite a different way."

Was the priest forcing the note, playing a part? Durtal asked himself this, when he saw how determined he was not to avoid the same questions during a certain time. He tried now and then, in order to see how the matter was, to turn the conversation, but the abbé 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 interested in this institution, and to ask him about it, and when once 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 abbé, "for even independently of the liturgy and of art, this chant, if I may believe Saint Justin, appeases the 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 audacious adulterations presented to you.

"None of the chants which are to some extent respected by choirs, the 'Tantum ergo,' for example, are now exact. It is given almost faithfully till the verse 'Præstet fides,' and then it runs off the rails, taking no account of the shades, which are, however, quite perceptible, that the Gregorian melody 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 no accompaniment, it must be chanted alone, without 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 default 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 abbé 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 Sacrament in the Rue Monsieur."

"And can anyone enter the convent and be present 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."

"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 completest privacy. The architect who built it had introduced 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, while 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 afflicting 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 eyelids 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 ornamented by a little medal of the Blessed Sacrament 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 monstrance 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 perhaps some thirty, of a tone so strange, a superterrestrial 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 unsexed tone, the child's voice, squeaking, rounded off at the end of the Franciscan nuns, but quite another thing.

At La Glacière 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 answered 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 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 abbé 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 Guéranger 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 understanding 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 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 poverty, chastity, remaining in the cloister, obedience, they make a further vow of separation and adoration 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 abbé after a pause, "that woman is stronger and braver than 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 annihilate herself to such an extent?"

"Oh," said the abbé, "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 Durtal, "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 themselves; are there not days in which their senses wake and cry aloud?"

"No doubt; in the cloistered life the age of twenty-nine is terrible to pass, then a passionate crisis arises; if a woman doubles that cape, and she almost 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 have loved so well then appears so far off 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 assault 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 l'abbé, these details are far from encouraging."

The priest shrugged his shoulders. "It is the poor reverse of a splendid stuff," he said, "wonderful 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 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, restrict 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 frequent 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, limited 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 confessor 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 favourites, there are many chances that he may be a man who knows nothing, and quite ignorant 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 hinders the energy of the abbess, who in such matters knows far better than he."

"And," said Durtal, who chose his words carefully, "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 denunciation of our neighbour, gives scope to jealousy, creates spying to satisfy hate, that is the real sin of the cloister. Well, I assure you that if two sisters became quite shameless they would be denounced at once."

"But I thought, Monsieur l'Abbé, that tale-bearing 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 contain pure mystics, real saints, they have in them also some nuns less advanced in the way of perfection, and who even still retain some faults...."

"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 Benedictine abbeys I have known, each nun was free to 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 certain 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 mortifications of another kind."

"There are harder ones, believe me, and I think they would suit you better. Would you like to imitate 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 of Lima treated herself no better, she bound a chain 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 nothing in comparison of those inflicted on herself by a Capuchin nun, the venerable Mother Pasidée 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 pebbles, 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 downwards in a chimney in which damp straw was lighted, but that is enough; indeed," said the abbé laughing, "if you had to choose, you would like best the mortifications which Benedict Labre imposed on himself."