it as it was fish, and that it was right to fast a little.

While he was talking the abbot kept a keen eye on me, and as my fine
dress made him feel certain that I had nothing to ask of him he spoke at
ease.

When dinner was over the chancellor bowed respectfully and went out. Soon
after the abbot took me over the monastery, including the library, which
contained a portrait of the Elector of Cologne in semi-ecclesiastical
costume. I told him that the portrait was a good though ugly likeness,
and drew out of my pocket the gold snuffbox the prince had given me,
telling him that it was a speaking likeness. He looked at it with
interest, and thought his highness had done well to be taken in the dress
of a grand-master. But I perceived that the elegance of the snuff-box did
no harm to the opinion the abbot had conceived of me. As for the library,
if I had been alone it would have made me weep. It contained nothing
under the size of folio, the newest books were a hundred years old, and
the subject-matter of all these huge books was solely theology and
controversy. There were Bibles, commentators, the Fathers, works on canon
law in German, volumes of annals, and Hoffman's dictionary.

"I suppose your monks have private libraries of their own," I said,
"which contain accounts of travels, with historical and scientific
works."

"Not at all," he replied; "my monks are honest folk, who are content to
do their duty, and to live in peace and sweet ignorance."

I do not know what happened to me at that moment, but a strange whim came
into my head--I would be a monk, too. I said nothing about it at the
moment, but I begged the abbot to take me to his private chamber.

"I wish to make a general confession of all my sins," said I, "that I may
obtain the benefit of absolution, and receive the Holy Eucharist on the
morrow."

He made no answer, but led the way to a pretty little room, and without
requiring me to kneel down said he was ready to hear me.

I sat down before him and for three consecutive hours I narrated
scandalous histories unnumerable, which, however, I told simply and not
spicily, since I felt ascetically disposed and obliged myself to speak
with a contrition I did not feel, for when I recounted my follies I was
very far from finding the remembrance of them disagreeable.

In spite of that, the serene or reverend abbot believed, at all events,
in my attrition, for he told me that since by the appointed means I had