They were in a chapel. The monk invited Durtal by a sign to kneel on a step before the altar, and he prayed in a low voice; he then rose, returned slowly to the threshold, offered Durtal holy water again, still without opening his lips, and leading him by the hand they went the way they came to the Auditorium.
There, he inquired after the health of the Abbé Gévresin, seized the portmanteau, and mounted an immense staircase falling into ruin. At the top of this staircase, which had only one story, there extended a vast landing bounded at each of its extremities by a door.
Father Etienne entered that on the right, crossed a broad vestibule, and led Durtal into a room, which a ticket printed in large letters placed under the invocation of St. Benedict, and said, "I am sorry, sir, to be only able to put at your disposal this room, which is not very comfortable."
"But it will do very well," said Durtal, "and the view is charming," he continued, approaching the window.
"At least you will be in good air," said the monk, opening the casement.
Below stretched the orchard through which Durtal had passed under the conduct of the brother porter. An enclosure full of apple trees stunted and clipped, silvered by lichens, and gilt by moss; then beyond the monastery, and above the walls, rose fields of clover intersected by a great white road, extending to the horizon, which was notched by the foliage of trees.
"You will see, sir," Father Etienne went on, "if you need anything in this cell, and tell me quite simply, will you not? for otherwise we should heap up regret for both of us, for you who have only to ask for what might be useful to you, for me who should only discover it later and be sorry for my forgetfulness."
Durtal looked at him reassured by this frank greeting; he was a young priest, about thirty years old. His face bright, and finely cut, was streaked with red fibres on the cheeks; this monk wore a beard, and round his shaven head was a crown of brown hair. He spoke somewhat rapidly, and smiled, with his hands pushed into the large leathern belt round his waist. "I will come back directly, for I have some important work to finish," he said; "try to make yourself at home as much as possible, and if you have time glance over the rule which you have to follow in this monastery—it is written on one of these cards on the table; we will talk about it after you have mastered it, if you like."
And he left Durtal alone.
He soon made an inventory of the room; it was very high and extremely narrow like a gun-barrel, the door was at one end, the window at the other.