Chapter III

CO

]/IY drowsiness was partly explained on the f ollow- -LjJ- ing morning; for during the night the clouds had consolidated somewhat into a kind of breathless, motionless, overhead haze, and the brisk air of the previous day had settled down into itself like stagnant water. It promised to be one of those still, electric, ominous days that occasionally fall in spring as summer heats begin to develop. There might be thunder, or there might not.

We were all rather silent that morning; and I suppose we were all thinking of the same thing. At any rate, about eleven o'clock, Dick came out to me as I paced the garden. He took me by the arm.

" Look here," he said, " I'm thoroughly uncomfortable."

It was a relief to me to hear that some one else was suffering.

" What business is it of ours? " he went on, beginning to walk with me. " It's a real plot; and I'm not at all sure that it's fair."

" Where's the unfairness? "

" Besides, it's perfectly mad," he said, ignoring my question. " Why, he's not a Catholic. He's a romantic young ass who doesn't know anything."

" Where's the unfairness? " I repeated.

" It's playing with fire."

I summoned my resolution.

" Look here, Dick. You're a Catholic and a priest, herefore you believe, I imagine, that God has control details. You also believe that God acts through men. Very well, then; I ask you again, Where's the unfairness? "

He made a demurring sound as he walked in slow step with me, staring uneasily at the path. I went

, unflinching.

" And, as you say, he's not even a Catholic. Then ere's one more obstacle to all this coming to anything. I say again, isn't it simply stupendously unlikely? He's first got to be a Catholic; then he's got his homeduties — he's eldest son, you know. Then, even if he has something that may conceivably resemble a Vocation — and, after all, you know, that's extraordinarily unlikely; the only signs are some of the things he said to me; and, as you say, he's a romantic young ass — but even if he has a drawing towards this, there are all the exterior obstacles to be overcome. Then even if these are overcome, even if his desire comes to anything, and persists, he's got to be accepted. Then there's his Postulancy; do you know that at least half who get even as far as that, leave after a week? Then there's his Novitiate — that's a year; then there are the simple vows; and that's four years My good man, you're simply mad."

We walked in silence.

Then I made one more appeal to my own common sense and his own.

" Look here," I said. " It's we who are the romantic asses. Why on earth can't you take it simply? He wants to see St. Hugh's. And we're going over by motor to see it. What's the matter with that? "

" I didn't like the coincidence yesterday," he said slowly.

" My good man, you must confess that we made that coincidence extremely probable! Honestly, I don't see how he could have helped asking what the big building was. It's perfectly natural. Remember, at first he thought it a lunatic asylum. That's very much what most people continue to think it."

" Do you really think it was natural? "

" Dick, you're a fool. If it isn't natural, why then, I suppose it was supernatural — and isn't that good enough? What more do you want? Either it's the result of our machinations, in which case it won't come to anything; or else it's God's Providence, and in that case "

I pressed his arm suddenly; for through the garden-gate ten yards away came Algy, up from the village.

He looked very youthful and secular as he came towards us, in a flat cloth cap, short jacket, trousers, and brown boots. Anything less mystical and Contemplative I have never set eyes on. He was smoking a briar-pipe with a cheerful and brisk air.

" By George, I thought I was late," he said. " Is it eleven- thirty or twelve that we start? "

I told him twelve, as he turned to walk with us.

" How far's the place? "

" We shall get there about two. We're to lunch on way, Chris says." " Right. Is it a big place? " " It's the biggest cloister in the world." "Really?... You're ragging." " Indeed I'm not — it's a mile round." Good Lord! Why does nobody ever hear of it, i?"

" Well — Carthusians don't exactly advertise, you low."

He was silent a moment.

" I say; I'd no idea Mr. Dell had ever been tere."

" Oh, yes."

Then Algy stopped dead. " By George, I forgot. He asked me to go and see at half-past." He hurried into the house. I waited till the door had shut. " Well? " I said. " Doesn't that reassure you? " " Not at all. It's just that kind of man who does 50 in. They're nearly always about twenty, and ley're always cheerful."

Oh! Dick, you're hopeless," I said.

I don't know at all what Chris said to Algy during iat half-hour, but the boy did seem a trifle subdued we climbed into the motor a minute or two after twelve. I suppose that it was then that Chris fulfilled his promise of telling him something more about the Carthusians. Algy brought with him a small, green, faded book, and a few minutes after we started I leaned back from my place in front and asked the loan of it.

It proved to be an English translation of a French book by a Carthusian describing the contemplative life, entitled " The Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse "; it was bound in grey-blue paper, published by Messrs. Burns and Gates, and bore on its outside a medallion of a cross surmounting a globe surrounded by six stars, with the inscription, STAT BUM CRUX

VOLVITUR ORBIS.

Then I opened it and began to read.

I was really startled when at last I was tapped on the shoulder.

" Lunch," announced Chris.

I was just drawing near to the end of the book — I had been reading for over an hour as we slid and throbbed through the country lanes — and while the others got the things out I still walked up and down on the grass by the side of the road, finishing it to myself. It was an extraordinarily fascinating little book — fascinating from its naked simplicity. It did not tell me anything I did not know before; the printed words were rather as a grave, austere voice telling me platitudes of a startling originality....

Even as I ate, sitting on a stile, the book lay on the foot-rest by my side; and as soon as I had done I opened it once more.

" Look here." I said. " Just h'sten to this. Dionysius says "

Kindly put that away," said Chris. But just listen "

" We will not listen; we are out of doors. Look about you instead. You haven't said a word since we started."

I obeyed; but there was not much to look at. We had halted in a hollow this time, at the bottom of a deep pit. On either side the hills rose up; the horizon was not a quarter of a mile away in any direction, and everywhere were woods, breaking out into the young green of spring. But the clouds were gathering overhead; that ominous stillness lay over us as it had done all the morning.

Perhaps it still affected me; for I had still nothing to say. The other three talked in low voices; the chauffeur's head could be seen over the motor fifty yards away as he ate his meal. My head was still full of the book, of its praise of silence and solitude, of its extraordinarily confident claim that in these were to be found such experiences of the ultimate Reality as the noisy, superficial world knows nothing of. Again, as yesterday, only even more strongly, all things that I looked upon seemed little more than a painted scene. Yes; there was a carpet of bluebells flinging its fringe up to the hedge opposite, and stretching for unknown distance into the crowding woods; a chuckling little runnel of water was at my feet, and a fragment of paper hung there, below the lip, caught in the grasses; and here were three men, close to me, with faces and bodies and brains... and what did it all amount to? And presently we should see other men who...

" Where are we? " I said at last.

" We're about half a mile from West Grinstead."

We put the things together again presently, went back to the motor and climbed in. The others also seemed rather subdued. I glanced at Algy once or twice, but there was nothing particular to notice; he looked as he had this morning, very youthful and ordinary and well-dressed; he threw away his cigarette as he took his place.

I have looked at a map once or twice since that day, and perceive that we must have passed through a village; but all that I entirely forget. I only remember a little, new, yellow brick house with a fat man smoking a cigar in the garden in front. I have a terrible habit of conjecturing; and I remember that I became entirely absorbed in thoughts of the fat man, as we spun on towards the monastery. I gave him a fat wife and a daughter or two: I dubbed him retired grocer and Baptist; I even furnished his house for him, with a stuffed trout in the dining-room, and decided that he had just dined there heavily with a glass of port wine to end up with. And now he was smoking a fourpenny cigar in his own front garden, in a basket chair, and contemplating those who went by.

Well; that was his theory of life. He would say that he had earned it; and he would be considered by practically all the world to be right, And here, nearer every instant, was a company of men who had quite another theory... who believed that Pain had a function in life, that material comfort was the least of all small things, that reality lay in what was unseen, that silence and solitude led to an initiation of which the world knows nothing, that the " kingdom of heaven " suffers violence, and that the violent, not the acquiescent, nor the contented, nor the sitters in arm-chairs, take it by force. Which, then, was right? for it was difficult, in spite of the amazing eccentricities of Vocation, to think that both were. In fact, it might almost be said that one theory must be simply insane. Which?,..

We turned abruptly off the high road at a lodge, spun up a short kind of curved avenue, and halted at a gate resembling that of a college. Overhead, beyond the white stone edge, lay an indigo cloud, heavy with thunderous menace.

Then I perceived that we had arrived.

(n)

Chris drew down the bell-pull; there was a jangle within; and almost immediately we heard steps approaching. Then the wicket opened, and a tall, brown-faced young man in a brown stuff habit, girded with a M 161 leather belt, looked out. His face suddenly smiled tranquilly as he saw Chris, and he stepped back, motioning us to enter. Chris went first, then Algy, then Dick, then I.

• * You have come to see us again, then, Mr. Dell," said the young man, as we halted in the archway.

" Why, yes," smiled Chris; " and I have brought some friends. This is Mr. Banister — a Protestant — who wants to see what a Religious House is like. Can we see Father Johnson? "

"Oh! I think so."

Then we went across the court that leads towards the church.

We were all silent. For myself I never want to say a single word in these places; I am much too busy; but I looked once or twice at Algy; and saw in his face such a portentous gravity that I nearly laughed aloud. Even Dick wore an expression of stern stupidity, and I have no doubt that I did the same. Chris alone was perfectly natural. The Brother pointed out one or two things to us, the statue of St. Hugh over the west end of the church, and so forth; but we said nothing; and presently we came into the church itself, passing a great cat that sunned himself on the steps.

It is not a very beautiful church; it has not that austereness that one would expect; on the contrary, it is rather pretty, with its red lamps, its apse, its rows of polished stalls. Yet the knowledge that here it is that Carthusians praise God in community — the lay brothers in the ante-chapel, and the Fathers in the choir — the sight of the lanterns against the wall, the vast books from which they recite — the knowledge and the sight of all this tends to make one forget the rest. I expect I looked as solemn as the others. We said a prayer or two — while Algy stood severely upright beside us; and then we came out again.

We arrived, finally, in a strangely unattractive room on the first floor. It looked like a half -con verted " morning-room " — like a penitent in a ball-dress. There was a faded gilt cornice running round the high ceiling; there was a rather elaborate fire-place; the floor was waxed, and a tall window looked out on to a piece of land that was half garden, half meadow; a tall man in the white habit and a large straw hat was raking on the path beneath. There was very little furniture in the room — a round table, half a dozen chairs, a prie-dieu with a plaster head of St. Bruno; and a faded mat before the fire.

" Part of the old country-house," said Chris abruptly. " Beastly, isn't it? "

" The parlour," observed Dick.

Algy said nothing; he stood with his back to the fire-place, surveying.

Then the door suddenly opened, and a little man in white came in, closing it behind him.

Now I wish to describe this man carefully, because he made a very singular and wholly indefinable impression upon me. As he shook hands, first with Chris, and was then introduced to each of us, making us sit down, and listening to explanations, I was observing him violently.

He was small, not above five feet four; he was dressed in a greyish white of some woolly-looking material; his scapular was linked, front to back, at the height of his knees, by a broad band. His hands were hidden, as he sat, beneath his scapular that, like the tunic beneath, fell into stiff, ungraceful folds. His whole head and face were shaven to a bluish-black colour, and the rest of his complexion was almost colourless. His mouth was small and compressed; his nose was slightly hooked, and his ears projected a little. His voice was almost toneless, it said things without a touch of emotion; and he seemed rather tired. But he was not at all pathetic or picturesque. He wore ordinary black boots.

To analyse in words a psychological impression is always difficult, but with this man it appears impossible; for there seemed to be no atmosphere about him at all. Yet there was one sensation that I remember distinctly, of a negative character. It was that, as I looked at the others in his presence, the three seemed strangely shrunken and mean. It was as if we were all plebeians in the presence of a prince — coarse, ill-bred, empty-headed bourgeois. Yet there was not in his air anything remarkable. It was we who were remarkably small and rather coarse, not he that was remarkably great or ethereal. He seemed the normal man, we the abnormal. He did not bring with him a spiritual aroma such as I had expected;

he did not say searching or suggestive or oracular sentences. He told us small facts as to the number of monks at present in the house — there were about a hundred fathers, I think he said; he told us about the room we were sitting in, and the date of the foundation of the house — all in that same rather insignificant but perfectly steady voice. Looking back on him now, I think I should say that he was a man simply and entirely uninterested in the things that interest the world; and perfectly secretive about things that interested him. Things other than his own business had no personal relation to him at all. It was nothing at all to him that this parlour resembled a fifth-rate morning-room, nor that four strangers from the world sat there eyeing and listening to him. I could see that, if he had permitted himself to be so, he would have been bored. As it was, he took it all in the day's work; yet, so far as he had any inclination at all, it was for a return to his cell as soon as might be.

Here too, then, I began to construct an atmosphere for him; but it was chiefly of this negative description. The small things that make up the life of the rest of us — conversations, sights, books, railway trains, business, plans for the future — these things simply were not for him. About him lay silence, behind him lay — well, his personal history — (he had once been an Anglican clergyman) — in front of him lay a future which was precisely the same as the present — days and nights following one another like shadows on a lighted wall, until they ceased and he died....

Chris stood up suddenly.

" Well, father, we mustn't keep you. May the Brother show us one of the cells? Mr. Banister is anxious to see one."

The priest stood up too. A rumble of thunder sounded from far away.

" Certainly," he said. " I will send him to you directly."

He put out his hand. " Fortunately you will be under cover," he said. " I think there will be a storm."

" Pray for us, father," said Chris,

" I will do so," said the priest. Then he took a hand of each of us, made a little bow and went out.

We passed out too presently, led again by the brown-clad Brother, all in silence, down the stairs, and then along one of the sides of the huge cloister.

It is so huge that the mind simply does not take it in. One appears to be passing down a low, white, vaulted tunnel running to a vanishing point in front, pierced by wide windows looking on to a stretch of turf and bushes. There were doors on the left-hand, with names and Latin texts inscribed over them. Once or twice we caught sight of a grave white figure in the distance; but the silence was profound. There might have been no world in existence,

We stopped at last at a door. This door was pierced by a shuttered hatch; and over it were written the words —

IN OAELO QUIES.

The Brother unlocked it, and we went in.

We found ourselves in a small, paved vestibule, perhaps twelve yards long and three across; at the further end, on the left, rose up a flight of stairs. We went past these stairs and turned to the right into a room of which one wall was wanting, opening straight and flat on to a small garden about twice the size of the vestibule, walled high all around, Half this garden contained cabbages, and the other half was turf with a path bisecting it;

" The workshop," said the Brother briefly. " And if a monk wants fresh air he can always dig in this garden."

He proceeded to explain the plan of the cell, telling us that they were all alike. Each was an oblong, of which the ground-floor consisted of that we had seen — vestibule, workshop, and garden; the first-floor had two rooms built over the workshop; these we should see immediately. In wet weather the monk could walk up and down his vestibule. At no point in the cell or the garden could he be overlooked by anybody; the seclusion was complete.

We said nothing at all — there was nothing to say; and in silence again we followed the Brother up the stairs and into the first of the two rooms. This had a window looking into the garden, a small image of Our Lady stood on a shelf opposite the door, and there was nothing else at all in the room. The floor was bare wood, the walls and ceiling were whitewashed.

" Once," said the Brother, " each monk used to cook his own food, and used this room for that. Now it is found more convenient to have the food cooked in the kitchen and pushed in through the hatch downstairs. This next is the room where the monk practically lives."

We followed him through a second door, and stood looking, while he explained. On our right was a window, also overlooking the garden, and before it stood a wooden table and chair. On our left was a curious wooden construction, resembling three low stalls in a s table; That nearest us held a prie-dieu and a seat opposite it; that in the middle held a low bed; the third in the further corner of the room was empty.

The thunder burst in long peal after peal as we came in, flinging its echoes everywhere in the great stone buildings about us.

" He says the Little Office of Our Lady there," said the Brother, raising his voice a little, and pointing to the prie-dieu; " all say it at the same time, each in his cell — in fact all the office that is not said in church is said there — in the middle division he sleeps; and in the third he washes and so forth, and keeps his things. He dines here, at the table, and washes up the plates afterwards."

" What about the food? " asked Dick in a sepulchral voice.

" Oh! the food is excellent and well cooked. Dinner is three or four courses, without meat, and a bottle of wine each day. Supper is the bread and wine left over from dinner."

" And that's all? "

" That's all," smiled the Brother.

We stood looking and reflecting.

For myself I must confess that the faint sense of horror of which I had at first been aware, was rapidly passing. All seemed so snug and compact and well-ordered. Certainly it was slavery of a kind, in which every duty must be done in a particular way and at certain fixed hours, yet there was in it a sense of freedom too that is indescribable. The lust of possession, the complications of intercourse, the distractions of arranging and moving, provision for the future — all these things, that occupy the rest of us for nine-tenths of our waking hours, were entirely absent. The world is simply gone; there remain only the flesh and the devil. And it was in this room, exactly, among precisely these surroundings that the conflict goes on, in dead silence and seclusion — until death.

Yet I said nothing; again there was nothing to say; but I felt rather more at my ease as I went down the stairs again presently after the Brother, and came out into the cloister.

Here however a significant thing happened.

As the Brother stepped out before us into the cloister he suddenly recoiled and made a little gesture, and I who was next to him saw, before stepping backwards, that a kind of procession was approaching. Then I too stepped back and waited, and so we all stood in silence.

Then across the door there passed a figure, hooded and clothed all in white, pacing slowly with hands hidden. As he saw us he raised his hands an instant to his hood in salutation. Then he was gone, and another came, and another, and another. Two of them were in black — one of them, a postulant I suppose, was in wide black cloak and biretta, with a young, Spanish-looking face* For the rest, for there were ten or twelve in all, I should say — there was no common characteristic except that of colourless tranquillity — some were fat faces, even gross, ill-shaven, some lean and fierce — and so they went past, in Indian file, each walking four or five paces from his fellows in front and behind, all close to the wall. Yet the pause, the silence, the slight salutation, the hush in which we stood, made the little ceremony extraordinarily impressive, It was like a procession of Princes, so stately and so reverent was it. There was " no beauty in them, that we should desire them," yet there was that unmistakable stamp of Royalty.... So they passed, accompanied by the rolling of the passing storm, Beyond them the rods of rain, lit by an emerging sun, flashed incessantly in the cloister-garth.

On the way back to the entrance, passing again through the cloisters, down which, at the dead of night, pass the ghostly white figures each lighting himself with a lantern to church, we looked into the chapter-house, where, above the altar and at the opposite end, are painted terrible frescoes, streaming with blood, representing the company of Carthusian fathers suffering at Tyburn under much-married Henry

Tudor. It was odd to think that these white, grave figures looked each day at such pictures, showing them what discipline could do, and what they too must be ready to bear if the call should come* *.. Yet was it not possible that the conquests silently wrought out in this seclusion were at least as supreme as those on noisy Tyburn? I thought of the little red-streaked scourges....

At the entrance once more we shook hands with the Brother, after writing our names in the little book in the lodge. He stood waiting while the chauffeur wound up the handle of the motor; and as we moved off he nodded and smiled at us pleasantly. The rain too was over, and a great fresh joyousness rose from the soaked earth.

As we passed out at the gate I turned to Algy; and for the first time noticed how white his face looked.

" Well? " I said cheerfully.

He compressed his lips an instant — then he opened them suddenly.

" I think it is just... just damnable."