e _hotellerie_ of the monastery, and that my
duties there were to begin upon the morrow.

"Domini, I wonder if I can make you realise what that change meant to
a man who had lived as I had for so many years. The _hotellerie_ of
El-Largani is a long, low, one-storied building standing in a garden
full of palms and geraniums. It contains a kitchen, a number of little
rooms like cells for visitors, and two large parlours in which guests
are entertained at meals. In one they sit to eat the fruit, eggs, and
vegetables provided by the monastery, with wine. If after the meal they
wish to take coffee they pass into the second parlour. Visitors who
stay in the monastery are free to do much as they please, but they must
conform to certain rules. They rise at a certain hour, feed at fixed
times, and are obliged to go to their bedrooms at half-past seven in
the evening in winter, and at eight in summer. The monk in charge of the
_hotellerie_ has to see to their comfort. He looks after the kitchen, is
always in the parlour at some moment or another during meals. He visits
the bedrooms and takes care that the one servant keeps everything
spotlessly clean. He shows people round the garden. His duties, you see,
are light and social. He cannot go into the world, but he can mix with
the world that comes to him. It is his task, if not his pleasure, to be
cheerful, talkative, sympathetic, a good host, with a genial welcome for
all who come to La Trappe. After my years of labour, solitude, silence,
and prayer, I was abruptly put into this new life.

"Domini, to me it was like rushing out into the world. I was almost
dazed by the change. At first I was nervous, timid, awkward, and,
especially, tongue-tied. The habit of silence had taken such a hold upon
me that I could not throw it off. I dreaded the coming of visitors. I
did not know how to receive them, what to say to them. Fortunately, as
I thought, the tourist season was over, the summer was approaching. Very
few people came, and those only to eat a meal. I tried to be polite and
pleasant to them, and gradually I began to fall into the way of talking
without the difficulty I had experienced at first. In the beginning I
could not open my lips without feeling as if I were almost committing a
crime. But presently I was more natural, less taciturn. I even, now and
then, took some pleasure in speaking to a pleasant visitor. I grew
to love the garden with its flowers, its orange trees, its gro