g it some _y_. But
at any rate, this Vauclaire, or Valclear, was well named: for here, if
anywhere, is Paradise, and if anyone knew how and where to build and
brew liqueurs, it was those good old monks, who followed their Master
with _entrain_ in that Cana miracle, and in many other things, I fancy,
but aesthetically shirked to say to any mountain: 'Be thou removed.'

* * * * *

The general hue of the vale is a deep cerulean, resembling that blue of
the robes of Albertinelli's Madonnas; so, at least, it strikes the eye
on a clear forenoon of spring or summer. The monastery consists of an
oblong space, or garth, around three sides of which stand sixteen small
houses, with regular intervals between, all identical, the cells of the
fathers; between the oblong space and the cells come the cloisters, with
only one opening to the exterior; in the western part of the oblong is
a little square of earth under a large cypress-shade, within which, as
in a home of peace, it sleeps: and there, straight and slanting, stand
little plain black crosses over graves....

To the west of the quadrangle is the church, with the hostelry, and an
asphalted court with some trees and a fountain; and beyond, the
entrance-gate.

All this stands on a hill of gentle slope, green as grass; and it is
backed close against a steep mountain-side, of which the tree-trunks are
conjectural, for I never saw any, the trees resembling rather one
continuous leafy tree-top, run out high and far over the extent of the
mountain.

* * * * *

I was there four months, till something drove me away. I do not know
what had become of the fathers and brothers, for I only found five, four
of whom I took in two journeys in the motor beyond the church of Saint
Martial d'Artenset, and left them there; and the fifth remained three
weeks with me, for I would not disturb him in his prayer. He was a
bearded brother of forty years or thereabouts, who knelt in his cell
robed and hooded in all his phantom white: for in no way different from
whatever is most phantom, visionary and eerie must a procession of these
people have seemed by gloaming, or dark night This particular brother
knelt, I say, in his small chaste room, glaring upward at his Christ,
who hung long-armed in a little recess between the side of three narrow
bookshelves and a projection of the wall; and under the Christ a gilt
and blue Madonna; the books