Then, again, on certain days of mystical
assignation he would launch into the endless muttering of the Rosary.

When, alone in his cell, with time to give to his love, he knelt upon
the floor, the whole of Mary's garden with its lofty flowers of chastity
blossomed around him. Between his fingers glided the Rosary's wreath of
_Aves_, intersected by _Paters_, like a garland of white roses mingled
with the lilies of the Annunciation, the blood-hued flowers of Calvary,
and the stars of the Coronation. He would slowly tread those fragrant
paths, pausing at each of the fifteen dizains of _Aves_, and dwelling on
its corresponding mystery; he was beside himself with joy, or grief, or
triumph, according as the mystery belonged to one or other of the three
series--the joyful, the sorrowful, or the glorious. What an incomparable
legend it was, the history of Mary, a complete human life, with all its
smiles and tears and triumph, which he lived over again from end to end
in a single moment! And first he entered into joy with the five glad
Mysteries, steeped in the serene calm of dawn. First the Archangel's
salutation, the fertilising ray gliding down from heaven, fraught with
the spotless union's adorable ecstasy; then the visit to Elizabeth on a
bright hope-laden morn, when the fruit of Mary's womb for the first time
stirred and thrilled her with the shock at which mothers blench; then
the birth in a stable at Bethlehem, and the long string of shepherds
coming to pay homage to her Divine Maternity; then the new-born babe
carried into the Temple on the arms of his mother who smiled, still
weary, but already happy at offering her child to God's justice, to
Simeon's embrace, to the desires of the world; and lastly, Jesus at a
later age revealing Himself before the doctors, in whose midst He is
found by His anxious mother, now proud and comforted.

But, after that tender radiant dawn, it seemed to Serge as if the sky
were suddenly overcast. His feet now trod on brambles, the beads of the
Rosary pricked his fingers; he cowered beneath the horror of the five
Sorrowful Mysteries: Mary, agonising in her Son in the garden of Olives,
suffering with Him from the scourging, feeling on her own brow the
wounds made by the crown of thorns, bearing the fearful weight of His
Cross, and dying at his feet on Calvary. Those inevitable sufferings,
that harrowing martyrdom of the queen he worshipped, and for whom
he would have shed his blood like Jesu