But in this ill-starred cathedral an inept precentor gave out, by way of liturgical canticles, a perfect menagerie of outlandish tunes, which, let loose on Sunday, seemed to scamper like marmosets up the pillars and under the roof. And the artless voices of the choir-boys were drilled to these musical monkey-tricks. At Chartres it was impossible to attend High Mass in the cathedral with any decent devotion.
The other services were not much better; indeed, Durtal was reduced to attending vespers at Notre Dame de la Brèche, in the lower town, a chapel where the priest, a friend of the Abbé Plomb, had introduced the use of Solesmes, and patiently trained a little choir composed of faithful working-men and pious boys.
The voices, especially the trebles, were not first-rate; but the priest, being a skilled musician, had contrived to train and soften them, and had, in fact, succeeded in getting the Benedictine art accepted in his church.
Unfortunately it was so ugly, so painfully adorned with images, that only by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in Notre Dame de la Brèche.
In the midst of this surge of reflections on his soul, on Paris, on the Eucharist, on music, on Chartres, Durtal was at last quite bewildered, not knowing where he was. Now and then, however, he recovered some tranquillity, and then he was astonished at himself, he could not understand himself.
"
Why regret Paris—why, indeed?" he would ask himself. "Was the life I led there unlike that I lead here? Were not the churches there—Notre Dame de Paris, to name but one—just as much to be execrated for sacrilegious bravuras as Notre Dame de Chartres? On the other hand, I never went out there to lounge in the tiresome streets; I saw nobody but the Abbé Gévresin and Madame Bavoil, and I see them still, and oftener, in this town. I have even gained a friend by the move, a learned and agreeable companion, in the Abbé Plomb. So why?"
And then one morning, unexpectedly, every thing was plain to him. He saw quite clearly that he was on the wrong track, and without even seeking for it he found the right one.
To discover the unknown source of his flaccid longing for he knew not what, and his inexplicable dissatisfaction, he had only to look back a little way and pause at La Trappe. He saw now everything had begun there. Having reached that culminating point of his retrospect, he could, as it were, stand on a height and command a view of the declining years since he had left the monastery; and now, gazing at that descending panorama of his life, he discerned this:—
That from the time of his return to Paris a craving for the cloister had been incessantly permeating his being; he had unremittingly cherished the dream of retiring from the world, of living peacefully as a recluse near to God.