They ascended to the first floor. An immense corridor, furnished like a stable with wooden boxes, extended before them, closed at each end by a door.
"This is our lodging," said the monk, as he stopped before one of these cases. Cards were placed on them, affixing the name of each monk, and the first bore a ticket with this inscription: "The Father Abbot."
Durtal felt the bed against one of the two walls.
It was as rough as a carding comb, and as biting as a file. It was composed of a simple quilted paillasse extended on a plank; no sheets, but a prison coverlet of grey wool, a sack of straw instead of pillows.
"God! it is very hard," said Durtal, and the monk laughed.
"Our habits soften the roughness of this straw mattress," he said; "for our rule does not allow us to undress, we may only take off our shoes, therefore we sleep entirely clad, our head wrapped in our hood."
"And it must be cold in this corridor swept by all the winds," added Durtal.
"No doubt the winter is rough here, but it is not that season which alarms us; we live pretty well, even without fire in time of frost, but the summer—! If you knew what it is to wake in habits still steeped in sweat, not dried since the evening before, it is terrible!
"Then, though because of the great heat we have often hardly slept, we must before dawn jump out of bed, and begin at once the great night office, the Vigils, which last at least two hours. Even after twenty years of Trappist life, one cannot but suffer at that getting up; in chapel you fight against sleep which crushes you, you sleep while you hear a verse chanted, you strive to keep awake, in order to be able to chant another, and fall asleep again.
"One ought to be able to turn the key on thought, and one is incapable of it.