While putting his things in order he thought of the inutility of decorated rooms. He had spent all his money at Paris in buying ornaments and books, for till now he had detested bare walls.
But now, considering the blank walls of this room, he admitted to himself that he had done better between these four white-washed walls than in his room at Paris, hung with stuffs.
Suddenly he recognized that La Trappe had weaned him from his preferences, had in a few days completely upset him. "The power of such an environment!" he said to himself, a little alarmed at feeling how he was transformed. And he thought in buckling his portmanteau, "I must however, go and find Father Etienne, for I must settle my account; I cannot be altogether a debtor to these good people."
He went along the corridors, and ended by meeting the father in the court.
He was a little confused how to open the question; at the first words the guest-master smiled.
"The rule of Saint Benedict is formal," he said; "we must receive our guests as we receive our Lord Jesus Himself, that is to tell you that we cannot exchange our poor care for money."
And when Durtal insisted, embarrassed,
"If it does not suit you to have partaken of our meagre pittance without paying, do as you please; only the sum which you may give will be distributed in coins of ten or twenty sous, to the poor who come each morning, often from a great distance, to knock at our monastery gate."
Durtal bowed and handed the money, which he had ready in his pocket, to the father, but he inquired if he might not have a word with Father Maximin before his departure.
"Certainly; moreover, Father prior would not have let you go without shaking hands with you. I will go and make certain if he be free. Wait for me in the refectory." And the monk disappeared, and came back a few minutes afterwards, preceded by the prior.