M. Bruno said grace, and proceeded to help Durtal.
He gave him an egg.
"This is a poor supper for a Parisian," he said, with a smile.
"Ah, as long as there is an egg and wine it is bearable. I was afraid, I confess, that my only drink would be cold water."
They talked as friends.
The man was pleasant, and distinguished, with ascetic features, but with a bright smile, lighting up a grave face, yellow and wrinkled.
He lent himself with perfect good grace to Durtal's inquiries, and told him, that after a tempestuous life, he felt that Grace had touched him, and he had retired from the world to expiate by years of austerities and silence his own sins and those of others.
"And you have never grown tired of being here?"
"Never, during the five years that I have spent in this cloister, time, cut up as it is at La Trappe, seems short."
"You are present at all the exercises of the Community?"