He had not long to wrestle with himself, for the monk entered almost at once and said,
"Have you noticed anything you need, and the presence of which may be useful to you?"
"No, Father; yet if you could let me have a little more water."
"Nothing is easier; I will send you up a large pitcher every morning."
"Thank you ... see, I have been studying the rules."
"I will at once put you at ease," said the monk. "You are compelled to nothing but the strictest punctuality. You must follow the canonical offices to the letter. As to the exercises marked on the card, they are not of obligation; they may be useful, as they are laid down, for people who are very young and devoid of all initiative, but, as I think at least, they somewhat hamper others, and as a general rule we do not trouble the retreatants here, we let solitude act on them; it belongs to yourself to discriminate and distinguish the best mode of occupying your time holily. Therefore I will not impose on you any of the reading laid down on this card, and only take leave to get you to say the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. Have you it?"
"Here it is," said Durtal, holding out a bound book.
"Your volume is charming," said Father Etienne, as he turned over the pages exquisitely printed in red and black. He paused at one of them, and read aloud the third lesson of Matins.
"Is it not fine?" he cried. A sudden joy sprang up in his face; his eyes grew bright, his hands trembled on the cover. "Yes," he said, closing it, "read this office, here especially, for you know our true patroness, the true Abbot of the Trappists, is the Blessed Virgin!"
After a silence he continued: "I have fixed a week as the duration of your retreat, in the letter I sent to the Abbé Gévresin, but I need not say that if you are not too weary here, you can stay as long as seems good to you."