The monks have turned it, if not into
an Eden, at least into a rich garden. There are vineyards, cornfields,
orchards, almost every fruit-tree flourishes there. The springs of
sweet waters are abundant. At a short way from the monastery is a large
village for the Spanish workmen whom the monks supervise in the labours
of the fields. For the Trappist life is not only a life of prayer, but a
life of diligent labour. When I became a novice I had not realised that.
I had imagined myself continually upon my knees. I found instead that I
was perpetually in the fields, in sun, and wind, and rain--that was in
the winter time--working like the labourers, and that often when we
went into the long, plain chapel to pray I was so tired--being only a
boy--that my eyes closed as I stood in my stall, and I could scarcely
hear the words of Mass or Benediction. But I had expected to be happy at
El-Largani, and I was happy. Labour is good for the body and better for
the soul. And the silence was not hard to bear. The Trappists have a
book of gestures, and are often allowed to converse by signs. We novices
were generally in little bands, and often, as we walked in the garden of
the monastery, we talked together gaily with our hands. Then the silence
is not perpetual. In the fields we often had to give directions to the
labourers. In the school, where we studied Theology, Latin, Greek, there
was heard the voice of the teacher. It is true that I have seen men
in the monastery day by day for twenty years with whom I have never
exchanged a word, but I have had permission to speak with monks. The
head of the monastery, the Reverend Pere, has the power to loose the
bonds of silence when he chooses, and to allow monks to walk and speak
with each other beyond the white walls that hem in the garden of the
monastery. Now and then we spoke, but I think most of us were not
unhappy in our silence. It became a habit. And then we were always
occupied. We had no time allowed us for sitting and being sad. Domini,
I don't want to tell you about the Trappists, their life--only about
myself, why I was as I was, how I came to change. For years I was not
unhappy at El-Largani. When my time of novitiate was over I took the
eternal vows without hesitation. Many novices go out again into the
world. It never occurred to me to do so. I scarcely ever felt a stirring
of worldly desire. I scarcely ever had one of those agonising struggles
which many people probably attri