A Peep into the Library
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
The chapter-house is in keeping with the church in point of restraint in decoration, its beautifully panelled walls giving the apartment a genial touch of warmth by contrast with the cold white of its groined roof.
The library, which occupies a spacious room on the upper story of the north wing, is stocked with some twenty thousand volumes, chiefly in Latin and French, but including an excellent collection of works in Greek, religion and history being naturally the chief subjects represented. When we remember that many of the monks are men of no intellectual gifts and of small learning, being drawn largely from the peasant class and the military, we may doubt if the treasures of the library are in great request. The librarian, at least, must be a man of bookish tastes, since the collection is arranged in perfect order. Our guide assured us that the monastery possesses a copy of Travels with a Donkey, but he did not discover it for us.
The refectory is a large and bare chamber occupying the lower story of the east wing. Long narrow tables of plain wood stand around the room, and on these are laid the simple utensils of the meal. The monks sit on a rude bench, and for the greater part of the year they take but one meal in twenty-four hours; but during the summer months, when one might suppose their needs to be less, they, by special indulgence, go so far towards temporising with the flesh as to eat twice in one day.
R. L. S. was moved to a little disquisition on the subject of over-eating when he contemplated the dietetic restraint of the Trappist brethren. "Their meals are scanty, but even of these they eat sparingly," he writes; "and though each is allowed a small carafe of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves; our meals serve not only for support, but as a hearty and natural diversion from the labour of life. Yet, though excess may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, at the freshness of face and the cheerfulness of manner of all whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at Our Lady of the Snows. This, at least, was what was told me. But if they die easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour, and the only morbid sign that I could observe—an unusual brilliancy of the eye—was one that rather served to increase the general impression of vivacity and strength."
On the topmost floor of the east wing we were shown the dormitory, a long and, as I recall it, a somewhat low-roofed room, divided into numerous little cubicles, each enclosed on three sides, and screened from the passage by a curtain of red cloth. The couch consisted of a single mattress laid on boards, with the scantiest supply of bedclothes. Each of these little compartments bore in painted letters the monastic name of its occupant, and here every night, after the toils and vigils of the day, the brethren lay themselves down at eight o'clock in their ordinary habit of dress, being in this respect less fanatical than other fraternities of the same order, who sleep in their coffins, and even in unduly ready graves. "By two in the morning," says R. L. S., "the clapper goes upon the bell, and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter, till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is the day divided among different occupations. The man who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory all day long: every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon his feet, and occupied with manifold and changing business. I know many persons, worth several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their lives. Into how many houses would not the note of the monastery bell, dividing the day into manageable portions, bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body. We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish manner."
XIII.
On our way back to the hospice we learned with regret that Father Apollinaris, "so good and so simple," had been dead five years, and the right of the monastery to the title of Our Lady of the Snows was clearly established by the information that in the winter months it is buried for weeks on end, and our young friend of the shiny eyes shivered as he spoke of the neige énorme, which he is doomed to see every winter that he lives.