Then, all at once, the mountains separate, the torrents disappear, and in the midst of a gorge rise battlements and spires.… It is the monastery. There it stands, guarded by these lofty sentinels, in this sombre amphitheatre, which would be desolation itself if God had not scattered there all the magical beauties of his creation.
There is not a village, not a cottage, not a wayfarer—nothing; there is La Chartreuse. No solitude can be compared to that!
On the summit of St. Bernard and of the Simplon monasteries destined for the relief of travellers present themselves to the passage of the nations. In the sandy deserts the most isolated convents find themselves in the road of the caravans; but here this road conducts to nothing—it is a silent gorge; it is the Valley of Contemplation; it is the greatest solitude that one can imagine.
And when from those heights one has seen the gradual approach of night; seen these masses of rock and of verdure enfolded in the vast shadows; and, at the summons of the monastery bell, has seen the last of the white robes descend from the mountain, he feels that it is one of those moments in a life which will never be forgotten. Then, after having stayed awhile to contemplate this scene, I rose and came to knock at this door, which has been to so many others as the gate of the tomb.… A Carthusian monk brought me to my cell, went his way in silence, and since then I have been left to my reflections.
There are, then, men who in the morning were in their homes, in the midst of their friends, in life, and stir, and the noise of the outer world.… They have climbed this mountain, they have sought this Desert, have knocked at this gate; it has closed upon them, … and for ever.
They have, as I, sat down at this table; they have gazed at the walls of their cell, and have said to themselves: “Behold henceforth my horizon.” Then they have heard the sound of these bells, the echo of these litanies, and they have said to themselves: “We shall henceforth hear no other voice.”
You see, one reads these things in the works of poets, one sees them represented in the drama; but one must find one’s self actually in a real cell, and one must sleep there, to conceive anything of the reality of a monastic life.
To awake here in the morning; to rise and eat, alone, the food which comes to you through a little wicket, like that of a prisoner; to meet, when one traverses the cloister, other shadows who salute you in silence; to go from the church to the cell, from the cell to the church, and to say to one’s self that it is always and always to be the same!
Always!… All through life; or rather, there is no more life, no more space, no more time. It is the beginning of eternity. One is on the threshold of the infinite, and it seems as if all this nature had only been created to give these men a beginning of eternal repose.
Always alone! The thought crushes one. No more to receive anything from without; to nourish one’s self with spiritualities alone; to meditate, contemplate, and pray. To pray always: … to pray for those who never pray themselves; to pray for those who have shattered your life, and who, may be, have led you hither; … to pray for those who have despoiled your monastery and outraged your habit—even for the impious ones who come to insult you in your very hospitality! And for all this one thing alone suffices: faith.