"Evidently; excepting, perhaps, some dispensations depending on the Abbot's favour. I can tell you this much: that in some other Benedictine Houses that I have visited the general system is that the oblate shall follow as much of the rule as he is able for."
"Still, he is, I suppose, free to come and go—his actions are free?"
"When once he has taken the oath of obedience to his
Superior, and, after his term of probation, has adopted the monastic habit, he is as much a monk as the rest, and consequently can do nothing without the Father Superior's leave."
"The deuce!" muttered Durtal. "Of course, if the ridiculous metaphor so familiar to the world were accurate, if the cloister were rightly compared to a tomb, the condition of the oblate would also be tomb-like, only its walls would be less air-tight, and the stone, a little tilted, would admit a ray of daylight."
"If you like!" said the Abbé, laughing.
As they walked, they had reached the Bishop's palace.
They went into the forecourt, and saw the Abbé Gévresin making his way to the gardens; they joined him, and the old priest asked them to go with him to the kitchen garden, where, to oblige his housekeeper, he was to inspect the seeds she had sown.
"Aye, and I too promised long ago to look at the vegetables," exclaimed Durtal.
They went down the ancient paths and reached the orchard on the slope; and as soon as Madame Bavoil caught sight of them she grounded arms, so to speak, setting her foot in gardener fashion on the spade she had stuck into the soil.