on me, it still holds me wrapped in the mild gloom of its crypt; but I can now reason about it, I can scrutinize its details, I try to talk to it of art, and in these inquiries I have lost the unreasoning sense of its environment, the silent fascination of the whole.
"I am less conscious now of its soul than of its body. I tried to study archæology, that contemptible anatomy of building, and I have fallen humanly in love with its beauty; the spiritual aspect has vanished, to leave nothing behind but the earthly part. Alas! I was determined to see, and I have wrecked trust; it is the eternal allegory of Psyche over again!
"And besides—besides—is not the weariness that is crushing me to some extent the fault of the Abbé Gévresin? By compelling me to much repetition he has exhausted in me the soothing and, at the same time, subversive virtue of the Sacrament; and the most evident result of this treatment is that my soul has collapsed and has no spirit to reinvigorate it.
"No, no," he went on presently. "Here I am working back on my perennial presumption, my incessant round of cares; and once more I am unjust to the Abbé. But it is certainly no fault of his if frequent Communion makes me cold. I look for sensations; but the very first thing should be to convince myself that such cravings are contemptible, and next, to understand clearly that it is precisely because Communion is so frigid that it is the more meritorious and virtuous, yes, that is very easy to say; but where is the Catholic who prefers such coldness to a glow? The saints may, no doubt; but even they suffer under it! It is so natural to entreat God for a little joy, to look forward to an Union consummated by a loving word, a sign—a mere nothing that may show that He is present.
"Say what they may, we cannot help being pained by a dead absorption of that living bread! And it is very hard to admit that Our Lord is wise when He keeps us in ignorance of the ills from which it preserves us and the progress it enables us to make, since, but for that, we might be defenceless against the attacks of self-conceit and the assaults of vanity—helpless against ourselves.
"In short, whatever the reason, I am no better off at Chartres than in Paris," was his conclusion.
And when these reflections beset him, especially on Sundays, he regretted having accompanied the Abbé Gévresin into the country.
In Paris, in old days, he at any rate got through the hours at the services. He could attend Mass in the morning at the Benedictine chapel or at Saint Séverin, and go to Saint Sulpice for vespers or compline.
Here there was nothing; and yet where were there more promising conditions for the performance of Gregorian music than at Chartres?
Setting aside a few antiquated basses who could only bark, and whom it would be necessary to dismiss, there was a whole sheaf of rich young voices, a school of nearly a hundred boys who could have rolled out in clear, sweet tones the broad melodies of the old plain-song.