The abbot, however, came at last, just as Don Juan was concluding an account of St. Bruno, the Founder of the Order, and Jack was sitting with his eyes stolidly fixed upon the liqueur decanter.
Yes, the abbot was all d'Alta had said; he was a man of fifty, tall, spare, straight as a dart, but unlike most of the other monks we saw, fair and fresh coloured.
I stood looking at him for some time, gazing into his fair open face, after he had taken my hand and released it. I wondered who it was he reminded me of, whose face he brought so vividly to my recollection. Yet striking as the likeness was to some one, I could not recall who that some one was.
"You must be hungry after your drive, gentlemen," he said, speaking very fair English, as indeed most educated people did in Aquazilia. "I have ordered déjeuner at once for you. While it is preparing would you like to see the monastery?"
St. Nivel and I at once expressed our pleasure at the prospect, and the abbot preceded us, walking with Don Juan, but stopping occasionally to turn and speak to us and point out some object of interest.
In this way we passed through the wonderful institution and saw the Trappists each in his little abode, a sort of cottage to himself in which he ate and slept, and worked alone. At stated hours all through the day and night, the hundreds of monks met in the church to recite the office.
Don Juan told us as we stood on the steps of the great corridor that he had spent a week there in retreat before his marriage, and kept the "Hours" with the community.
Pointing down the corridor which stretched before us, he said the sight which struck him most was to stand as we did, on a night in winter and hear the great bell ring for Matins.
"Then," said he, "all those doors of the little houses open, and from each comes out a monk with a lantern. They look like hundreds of fireflies all going towards the great Abbey church."
I think the abbot saw with that intuitive knowledge which belongs to a refined nature that St. Nivel was bored; he steered us back to the guest-room, where a most excellent lunch was awaiting us—soup, fish, a dish of cutlets and a sweet omelette, all excellent, and served with red and white wine-like nectar and coffee from the Trappists' estate on the hills.