Then there was a pause—and man, feeling himself more sheltered, behind a rampart of prayers, recollected himself, more assured, and borrowed innocent voices to address new supplications to God. After the chapter read by the officiant, the children of the choir chanted the short response "In manus tuus Domine, commendo spiritum meum," which rolled out, dividing in two parts, then doubled itself, and resolved at the last its two separate portions by a verse, and part of an antiphon.
And after that prayer there was still the canticle of Simeon, who, as soon as he had seen the Messiah, desired to die. This "Nunc dimittis," which the Church has incorporated in Compline to stimulate us at eventide to self-examination—for none can tell whether he shall wake on the morrow—was raised by the whole choir, which alternated with the responses of the organ.
In fact, to end this Office of a besieged town, to take its last dispositions and try to repose in shelter from a violent attack, the Church built up again a few prayers, and placed her parishes under the tutelage of the Virgin, to whom it chanted one of the four antiphons which follow, according to the Proper.
"At La Trappe Compline was evidently less solemn, less interesting than at St. Sulpice," concluded Durtal, "for the monastic breviary is, for a wonder, less complete for that Office than the Roman breviary. As for Sunday Vespers, I am curious to hear them."
And he heard them; but they hardly differed from the Vespers adopted by the Benedictine nuns of the Rue Monsieur; they were more massive, more grave, more Roman, if it may be said, for necessarily the voice of women drew them out into sharp points, made them like acute arches, as it were, in Gothic style, but the Gregorian tunes were the same.
On the other hand they resembled in nothing those at St. Sulpice, where the modern sauces spoilt the very essences of the plain chants. Only the Magnificat of La Trappe, abrupt, and with dry tone, was not so good as the majestic, the admirable Royal Magnificat chanted at Paris.
"These monks are astonishing with their superb voices," said Durtal to himself, and he smiled as they finished the antiphon of Our Lady, for he remembered that in the primitive Church the chanter was called "Fabarius cantor," "eater of beans," because he was obliged to eat that vegetable to strengthen his voice. Now, at La Trappe, dishes of beans were common; perhaps that was the secret of the ever young monastic voices.
He thought over the liturgy and plain chant while smoking cigarettes, in the walks, after Vespers.
He brought to mind the symbolism of those canonical hours which recalled every day to the Christian the shortness of life in summing up for him its image from infancy to death.
Recited soon after dawn, Prime was the figure of childhood; Tierce of youth; Sext the full vigour of age; None the approaches of old age, while Vespers were an allegory of decrepitude. They belonged, moreover, to the Nocturns, and were sung about six o'clock in the evening, at that hour when, at the time of the Equinoxes, the sun sets in the red cinder of the clouds. As for Compline, it resounds when night, the symbol of death, has come.