Читать книгу In the Track of R. L. Stevenson and Elsewhere in Old France - John Alexander Sir Hammerton - Страница 16

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We were told to go round to the chief gateway, and there to summon the Brother Porter by ringing the bell. This we did, with something of that "quaking heart" to which Stevenson confesses in the same act, for the clamour of a bell that one rings in a great silent building seems fraught with news of an offence for which one stands to receive the penalty. Nor do your spirits rise when a little shutter in the door is opened, and a grizzly-whiskered face in a brown hood peers through demanding your business. All was well, however. The Brother Porter admitted us to the courtyard, and went to summon one of the novitiates who, as Guest Father, would do us the honours of the monastery. He was, as I should judge, a young man of five-and-twenty, who came to us through a door on the right of the entrance that admitted to the hospice. Wearing the white flannel habit of the monks, with a black scapular hanging loose and bulky below the neck, he was of medium stature, his shaven face pleasant and comely, and his dark eyes of that unusual brilliance which Stevenson noted as "the only morbid sign" he could detect in the appearance of the monks. Our host bowed ceremoniously in shaking hands with us, and immediately escorted us across the trim garden to the monastic buildings at the other side of the quadrangle.

During their period of novitiate, which lasts for three years, the monks have still the liberty to talk with strangers or with the lay brethren, but when their final vows are taken they are supposed to be inarticulate, except in performing the religious offices of each day. The Guest Father would in two years more be qualified for the silent life; meanwhile, he exercised his power of speech with so much grace that one felt truly sorry so excellent a talker should contemplate with cheerfulness the voluntary and useless atrophy of his divine gift. Very reverently he led us into the church, which is a plain but elegant building with a vaulted roof, the walls being whitewashed, and the woodwork, of which there is not too much, chastely carved. A number of good pictures are hung on the walls, and there is a series of statues of the saints on brackets, executed with some taste, and entirely free from the usual tawdry colouring of similar objects in French Catholic churches. The altar also is in welcome contrast to the common doll-show of the ordinary church, and although the oft-repeated references to the simplicity of the whole with which our excellent friend pointed out the various features of the place approached almost to affectation, one must bear ready witness to the apparent sincerity of these poor monks in their efforts towards a simpler circumstance of worship than the Roman Catholic Church in general practises.

Trappist Monks gathering roots for distilling

A Peep into the Library

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

The chapter-house is in keeping with the church in point of restraint in decoration, its beautifully panelled walls giving the apartment a genial touch of warmth by contrast with the cold white of its groined roof.

The library, which occupies a spacious room on the upper story of the north wing, is stocked with some twenty thousand volumes, chiefly in Latin and French, but including an excellent collection of works in Greek, religion and history being naturally the chief subjects represented. When we remember that many of the monks are men of no intellectual gifts and of small learning, being drawn largely from the peasant class and the military, we may doubt if the treasures of the library are in great request. The librarian, at least, must be a man of bookish tastes, since the collection is arranged in perfect order. Our guide assured us that the monastery possesses a copy of Travels with a Donkey, but he did not discover it for us.

The refectory is a large and bare chamber occupying the lower story of the east wing. Long narrow tables of plain wood stand around the room, and on these are laid the simple utensils of the meal. The monks sit on a rude bench, and for the greater part of the year they take but one meal in twenty-four hours; but during the summer months, when one might suppose their needs to be less, they, by special indulgence, go so far towards temporising with the flesh as to eat twice in one day.

R. L. S. was moved to a little disquisition on the subject of over-eating when he contemplated the dietetic restraint of the Trappist brethren. "Their meals are scanty, but even of these they eat sparingly," he writes; "and though each is allowed a small carafe of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves; our meals serve not only for support, but as a hearty and natural diversion from the labour of life. Yet, though excess may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, at the freshness of face and the cheerfulness of manner of all whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at Our Lady of the Snows. This, at least, was what was told me. But if they die easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour, and the only morbid sign that I could observe—an unusual brilliancy of the eye—was one that rather served to increase the general impression of vivacity and strength."

On the topmost floor of the east wing we were shown the dormitory, a long and, as I recall it, a somewhat low-roofed room, divided into numerous little cubicles, each enclosed on three sides, and screened from the passage by a curtain of red cloth. The couch consisted of a single mattress laid on boards, with the scantiest supply of bedclothes. Each of these little compartments bore in painted letters the monastic name of its occupant, and here every night, after the toils and vigils of the day, the brethren lay themselves down at eight o'clock in their ordinary habit of dress, being in this respect less fanatical than other fraternities of the same order, who sleep in their coffins, and even in unduly ready graves. "By two in the morning," says R. L. S., "the clapper goes upon the bell, and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter, till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is the day divided among different occupations. The man who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory all day long: every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon his feet, and occupied with manifold and changing business. I know many persons, worth several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their lives. Into how many houses would not the note of the monastery bell, dividing the day into manageable portions, bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body. We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish manner."