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Updated: May 24, 2025
The monastery which had lingered in Durtal's fancy as a mere confused picture, apart from time, without place or date, deriving nothing from his memories of La Trappe but the sense of discipline, and on to which he had at once engrafted the fancy of an abbey of a more literary and artistic stamp, governed by a conciliatory rule, in a milder atmosphere that ideal retreat, half borrowed from reality and half the fabric of a dream was taking shape.
Enormous, freckled with blotches of orange, and terminating in milk-white nails cut to the quick, the fingers were covered with huge rings, the sets of which formed a phalanx. Seeing Durtal's gaze fixed on his fingers, he smiled. "You examine my valuables, monsieur. They are of three metals, gold, platinum, and silver. This ring bears a scorpion, the sign under which I was born.
Chantelouve entered, the lines of her figure advantageously displayed by a wrapper of white swanskin, which gave off a fragrance of frangipane. She pressed Durtal's hand and sat down facing him, and he perceived under the wrap her indigo silk stockings in little patent leather bootines with straps across the insteps. They talked about the weather.
"You will sleep tonight," she said, sadly, alluding to Durtal's former complaints of sleeplessness on her account. He begged her to sit down and warm herself, but she said she was not cold. "Why, in spite of the warmth of the room you were cold as ice!" "Oh, I am always that way. Winter and summer my flesh is chilly." He thought that in August this frigid body might be agreeable, but now!
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 abbé let go Durtal's arm, and took both his hands.
"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 declare 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, recovered himself at last.
One Fraternity clings scrupulously to the letter; the other, on the contrary, draws inspiration from the Spirit of the Saint. "Before goading myself along this road I must consult the Abbé Plomb," was Durtal's conclusion. He went to call on the priest; but he was absent for some days.
"The Bishop and Vice Inquisitor declare him in contempt and pronounce against him the sentence of excommunication, which is soon made public. They decide in addition that the hearing shall be continued next day " A ring of the doorbell interrupted Durtal's perusal of his notes. Des Hermies entered. "I have just seen Carhaix. He is ill," he said. "That so? What seems to be the matter?"
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.
His beard, which had not been shaved for several days, grew in grey clumps on his hollow cheeks, but his poor features were radiant with an affectionate, affable smile. To Durtal's questions he replied, "It is nothing. Des Hermies gives me permission to get up tomorrow. But what a frightful medicine!" and he showed Durtal a potion of which he had to take a teaspoonful every hour.
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