The days drifted by; the little boat crossed thrice a day from castle to monastery, bringing the physician, bringing books, food, fruit, wine; the rain came often, sheets of white water sweeping over the lake, and blotting the burg and the hills and the forests from sight; the sunshine came more rarely, but when it came it lit up the amphitheatre of the Glöckner group to a supreme splendour, of solemn darkness of massed pines, of snow-peaks shrouded in the clouds. So the month wore away; he was in no haste to recover entirely; he could pay the monks for his maintenance, and so felt free to stay, not being allowed to know that his food came from the castle as his books did. The simple priests were conquered and captivated by him; he played grand Sistine masses for them, and canticles which he had listened to in Nôtre Dame. Herr Joachim marvelled to see him so passive and easily satisfied; for he perceived that his patient could not be by nature either very tranquil or quickly content; but the doctor thought that perhaps the severe nervous shock of the descent on the Umbal might have shakened and weakened him, and knew that the pure Alpine air, the harmless pursuits, and the early hours were the best tonics and restoratives in the pharmacy of Nature. Therefore he could consistently encourage him to stay, as his own wishes moved him to do; for to the professor the companionship and discussion of a scholarly and cultivated man were rarities, and he had conceived an affectionate interest in one whose life he had in some measure saved; for without skilled care the crevasse of the Iselthal might have been fatal to a mountaineer who had successfully climbed the highest peaks of the Andes.
'No doubt if I passed a year here,' thought Sabran, 'I should rebel and grow sick with longing for the old unrest, the old tumult, the old intoxication—no doubt; but just now it is very welcome: it makes me comprehend why De Rancy created La Trappe, why so many soldiers and princes and riotous livers were glad to go out into a Paraclete amongst the hills with S. Bruno or S. Bernard.'
He said something of the sort to Herr Joachim, who nodded consent; but added: 'Only they took a great belief with them, and a great penitence, the recluses of that time; in ours men mistake satiety for sorrow, and so when their tired vices have had time to grow again, like nettles that have been gnawed to the root but can spring up with fresh power to sting, then, as their penitence was nothing but fatigue, they get quickly impatient to go out and become beasts again. All the difference between our times and S. Bruno's lies there; they believed in sin, we do not. I say, "we," I mean the voluptuaries and idlers of your world.'
'Perhaps not,' answered Sabran, a little gloomily. 'But we do believe in dishonour.'
'Do you?' said the doctor, with some irony. 'Oh, I suppose you do. You may seduce Gretchen: you must not forsake Faustine; you must not lie to a man: you may lie to a woman. You must not steal: you may beggar your friend at baccara. I confess I have never understood the confusion of your unwritten laws on ethics and etiquette.'
Sabran laughed, but he did not take up the argument; and the doctor thought that he seemed becoming a little morose; since his escape from the tedium of confinement at Pregratten, confinement intolerable to a man of strength and spirit, he had always found his patient of great equability of temper, and of a good-humour and docility that had seemed as charming as they were invariable.
When he was recovered enough to make movement and change harmless to him, there came to him a note in the fine and miniature writing of the Princess Ottilie, bidding him come over to the castle at his pleasure, and especially inviting him, in her niece's name, to the noon-day breakfast at the castle on the following day, if his strength allowed.
He sat a quarter of an hour or more with the note on his knee, looking out at the light green willow foliage as it drooped above the deeper green of the lake.
'Our ladies are not used to refusals,' said the doctor, seeing his hesitation.
'I should be a churl to refuse,' said Sabran, with some little effort, which the doctor attributed to a remembered mortification, and so hastened to say: