It was a radiant morning of late May. The garden was brilliant with flowers, golden with sunshine, tender with shade, and quiet--quiet and peaceful, Domini! There was a wonderful peace in the garden that day, a peace that seemed full of safety, of enduring cheerfulness. The flowers looked as if they had hearts to understand it, and love it, the roses along the yellow wall of the house that clambered to the brown red tiles, the geraniums that grew in masses under the shining leaves of the orange trees, the--I felt as if that day I were in the Garden of Eden, and I remember that when I heard the carriage wheels I had a moment of selfish sadness. I thought: 'Why does anyone come to disturb my blessed peace, my blessed solitude?' Then I realised the egoism of my thought and that I was there with my duty. I got up, went into the kitchen and said to Francois, the servant, that someone had come and no doubt would stay to /dejeuner/. And, as I spoke, already I was thinking of the moment when I should hear the roll of wheels once more, the clang of the shutting gate, and know that the intruders upon the peace of the Trappists had gone back to the world, and that I could once more be alone in the little Eden I loved.
"Strangely, Domini, strangely, that day, of all the days of my life, I was most in love--it was like that, like being in love--with my monk's existence. The terrible feeling that had begun to ravage me had completely died away. I adored the peace in which my days were passed.
I looked at the flowers and compared my happiness with theirs. They blossomed, bloomed, faded, died in the garden. So would I wish to blossom, bloom, fade--when my time came--die in the garden--always in peace, always in safety, always isolated from the terrors of life, always under the tender watchful eye of--of--Domini, that day I was happy, as perhaps they are--perhaps--the saints in Paradise. I was happy because I felt no inclination to evil. I felt as if my joy lay entirely in being innocent. Oh, what an ecstasy such a feeling is! 'My will accord with Thy design--I love to live as Thou intendest me to live! Any other way of life would be to me a terror, would bring to me despair.'
"And I felt that--intensely I felt it at that moment in heart and soul. It was as if I had God's arms round me, caressing me as a father caresses his child."
He moved away a step or two in the sand, came back, and went on with an effort:
"Within a few minutes the porter of the monastery came through the archway of the arcade followed by a young man. As I looked up at him I was uncertain of his nationality. But I scarcely thought about it-- except in the first moment. For something else seized my attention-- the intense, active misery in the stranger's face. He looked ravaged, eaten by grief. I said he was young--perhaps twenty-six or twenty- seven. His face was rather dark-complexioned, with small, good features. He had thick brown hair, and his eyes shone with intelligence, with an intelligence that was almost painful--somehow.
His eyes always looked to me as if they were seeing too much, had always seen too much. There was a restlessness in the swiftness of their observation. One could not conceive of them closed in sleep. An activity that must surely be eternal blazed in them.
"The porter left the stranger in the archway. It was now my duty to attend to him. I welcomed him in French. He took off his hat. When he did that I felt sure he was an Englishman--by the look of him bareheaded--and I told him that I spoke English as well as French. He answered that he was at home in French, but that he was English. We talked English. His entrance into the garden had entirely destroyed my sense of its peace--even my own peace was disturbed at once by his appearance.
"I felt that I was in the presence of a misery that was like a devouring element. Before we had time for more than a very few halting words the bell was rung by Francois.
"'What's that for, Father?' the stranger said, with a start, which showed that his nerves were shattered.
"'It is time for your meal,' I answered.
"'One must eat!' he said. Then, as if conscious that he was behaving oddly, he added politely:
"'I know you entertain us too well here, and have sometimes been rewarded with coarse ingratitude. Where do I go?'
"I showed him into the parlour. There was no one there that day. He sat at the long table.
"'I am to eat alone?' he asked.
"'Yes; I will serve you.'
"Francois, always waited on the guests, but that day--mindful of the selfishness of my thoughts in the garden--I resolved to add to my duties. I therefore brought the soup, the lentils, the omelette, the oranges, poured out the wine, and urged the young man cordially to eat. When I did so he looked up at me. His eyes were extraordinarily expressive. It was as if I heard them say to me, 'Why, I like you!' and as if, just for a moment, his grief were lessened.
"In the empty parlour, long, clean, bare, with a crucifix on the wall and the name 'Saint Bernard' above the door, it was very quiet, very shady. The outer blinds of green wood were drawn over the window- spaces, shutting out the gold of the garden. But its murmuring tranquillity seemed to filter in, as if the flowers, the insects, the birds were aware of our presence and were trying to say to us, 'Are you happy as we are? Be happy as we are.'
"The stranger looked at the shady room, the open windows. He sighed.
"'How quiet it is here!' he said, almost as if to himself. 'How quiet it is!'
"'Yes,' I answered. 'Summer is beginning. For months now scarcely anyone will come to us here.'
"'Us?' he said, glancing at me with a sudden smile.
"'I meant to us who are monks, who live always here.'
"'May I--is it indiscreet to ask if you have been here long?'
"I told him.
"'More than nineteen years!' he said.
"'Yes.'
"'And always in this silence?'
"He sat as if listening, resting his head on his hand.
"'How extraordinary!' he said at last. 'How wonderful! Is it happiness?'