"And on Sunday?"
"On Sunday they rise an hour earlier; but on the whole it is their best day, for they can follow all the offices and pass their whole time in church."
"Humility and self-denial carried to such an extent are superhuman!" cried Durtal. "But they are surely given a sufficient quantity of strong nourishment to enable them to give themselves up from morning till evening to exhausting work in the fields?"
M. Bruno smiled.
"They simply get vegetables which are not even as good as those which are served to us, and, by way of wine, they quench their thirst with a sour and insipid liquid, which leaves half a glass full of sediment. They get a pint each, and if they are thirsty they can add water."
"And how often do they eat?"
"That depends. From the 14th September to Lent they only eat once a day, at half-past two—and during Lent this meal is put off till four o'clock. From Easter to the 14th September, when the Cistercian fast is less strict, dinner is at about half-past eleven, and to this may be added a light meal in the evening."
"It is frightful! to work for months on one meal a day, two hours after noon, after being up since two o'clock in the morning; having had no dinner the evening before."
"It is sometimes necessary to relax the rule a little, and when a monk fails from weakness he is not refused a morsel of bread.
"It would be well," continued M. Bruno, pensively, "to relax still further the grasp of these observances, for this question of food is becoming a veritable stumbling-block in recruiting for La Trappe; souls which delight in these cloisters are forced to fly them, because their bodies cannot stand the rule."[1]