All his anticipations had returned; it was the absolution and not the communion which had worked. When with the confessor he had very clearly perceived the presence of the Redeemer; all his being had, in a manner, been injected with divine effluvia, and the Eucharist had only brought him suffocation and trouble.
It seemed that the effects of the two Sacraments had changed places the one with the other; they had worked the wrong way with him; Christ had been perceptible to his soul before and not afterwards.
"But it is easy enough to see," he reflected, "that the great question for me is to have an absolute certainty of my forgiveness! By a special favour, Jesus has ratified my faith in the healing power of Penance. Why should He have done more?"
"And then, what bounties would He reserve for His saints? After all I am astonishing. It is too much that I should wish to be treated as He certainly treats Brother Anacletus and Brother Simeon."
"I have obtained more than I deserve. And what an answer I had, this very morning? Yes, indeed, but why should such advances end suddenly in this recoil?"
And making his way towards the abbey to eat his bread and cheese, he said to himself: "My error towards God is to be always arguing, when I ought to adore stupidly as these monks here do. Ah! to be able to keep silence, silence to one's self, that is indeed a grace!"
He reached the refectory, which, as a rule, he had to himself, M. Bruno never coming to the meal at seven o'clock in the morning. He was beginning to cut himself a piece of bread, when the father guest-master appeared.
He had a whetstone and some knives in his hand, and smiling at Durtal, he said: "I am going to polish the knives of the monastery, for they want it badly." And he placed them on a table in a small room attached to the refectory.
"Well, are you satisfied?" he said, on coming back.
"Certainly—but, what happened this morning, how is it I was communicated by the abbot of La Trappe, when I should have been by the curate who dines with me?"