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"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 having confessed or approached the Sacraments, your will will be respected there, and no monk will attempt to sound it without your authority.
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 guest-house 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 Tuesday.
Durtal rejoined M. Bruno in the court; they shook hands, and the oblate announced the presence of a new guest. "A retreatant?" "No; a curate from the neighbourhood of Lyons, he has come to see the abbot, who is ill." "But I thought the abbot of Notre Dame de l'Atre was the tall monk who led the office?"
"Let us speak on the health question, then;" and the abbé 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."
Then they told him that a retreatant would communicate and he answered 'Just so, I shall communicate him. And then M. Bruno took the opportunity of also approaching the Sacrament, for he loves to receive our Saviour from the hands of Dom Anselm."
And as Durtal thanked both of them for their kind attentions, "It is a pleasure to receive a retreatant such as you," cried Father Etienne, "nothing repulses you, and you are so exact that you are about before the hour: you rendered my task of overseer easy. If all were as little exacting and as pliable."
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