“Madame, I should be very glad, after hearing what you have said, if you yourself would be the guide of my destiny.”
“You speak like a man of the world,” she answered, “and are trying to flatter me,—a woman of sixty! My dear child,” she went on, “let me tell you that you are here among persons who believe strongly in God; who have all felt his hand, and have yielded themselves to him almost as though they were Trappists. Have you ever remarked the profound sense of safety in a true priest when he has given himself to the Lord, when he listens to his voice, and strives to make himself a docile instrument in the hand of Providence? He has no longer vanity or self-love,—nothing of all that which wounds continually the hearts of the world. His quietude is equal to that of the fatalist; his resignation does truly enable him to bear all. The true priest, such a one as the Abbe de Veze, lives like a child with its mother; for the Church, my dear Monsieur Godefroid, is a good mother. Well, a man can be a priest without the tonsure; all priests are not in orders. To vow one’s self to good, that is imitating a true priest; it is obedience to God. I am not preaching to you; I am not trying to convert you; I am explaining our lives to you.”
“Instruct me, madame,” said Godefroid, deeply impressed, “so that I may not fail in any of your rules.”
“That would be hard upon you; you will learn them by degrees. Never speak here of your misfortunes; they are slight compared to the catastrophes by which the lives of those you are now among were blasted.”
While speaking thus, Madame de la Chanterie drew her needle and set her stitches with unbroken regularity; but here she paused, raised her head, and looked at Godefroid. She saw him charmed by the penetrating sweetness of her voice, which possessed, let us say it here, an apostolic unction. The sick soul contemplated with admiration the truly extraordinary phenomenon presented by this woman, whose face was now resplendent. Rosy tints were spreading on the waxen cheeks, her eyes shone, the youthfulness of her soul changed the light wrinkles into gracious lines, and all about her solicited affection. Godefroid in that one moment measured the gulf that separated this woman from common sentiments. He saw her inaccessible on a peak to which religion had led her; and he was still too worldly not to be keenly piqued, and to long to plunge through the gulf and up to the summit on which she stood, and stand beside her. Giving himself up to this desire, he related to her all the mistakes of his life, and much that he could not tell at Mongenod’s, where his confidences had been confined to his actual situation.
“Poor child!”
That exclamation, falling now and then from Madame de la Chanterie’s lips as he went on, dropped like balm upon the heart of the sufferer.
“What can I substitute for so many hopes betrayed, so much affection wasted?” he asked, looking at his hostess, who had now grown thoughtful. “I came here,” he resumed, “to reflect and choose a course of action. I have lost my mother; will you replace her?”
“Will you,” she said, “show a son’s obedience?”
“Yes, if you will have the tenderness that commands it.”