ch may be possible.
Give me my hat, Madame Bavoil. I will go and talk over Durtal with the
Abbe Plomb."

CHAPTER IX.

This discussion had been of use to Durtal; it took him out of the
generalities over which he had persistently mused since his arrival at
Chartres. The Abbe had, in fact, shown him his bearings, and pointed out
a navigable channel leading to a definite end, a haven familiar to all.
The monastery which had lingered in Durtal's fancy as a mere confused
picture, apart from time, without place or date, deriving nothing from
his memories of La Trappe but the sense of discipline, and on to which
he had at once engrafted the fancy of an abbey of a more literary and
artistic stamp, governed by a conciliatory rule, in a milder
atmosphere--that ideal retreat, half borrowed from reality and half the
fabric of a dream--was taking shape. By speaking of an Order that
existed, mentioning it by name and actually specifying a House under its
rule, the Abbe had given Durtal substantial food instead of the
argumentative wordiness of a mania; he had afforded him something better
to chew than the empty air on which he had fed so long.

The state of uncertainty and indecision he had been living in was at
end; his choice now lay between remaining at Chartres or retiring to
Solesmes; and at once, without delay, he set to work to read and
reconsider the works of Saint Benedict.

This rule, summed up more particularly in a series of paternal
injunctions and affectionate advice, was a marvel of gentleness and
tactfulness. Every craving of the soul was described, every misery of
the body foreseen. It knew so precisely how to ask much and yet not to
exact too much, that it had yielded without breaking, satisfied the
movements of different ages, and remained, in the nineteenth century
what it had been in mediaeval times.

Then how merciful, how wise it was when addressing itself to the feeble
and infirm. "The sick shall be served as though they were Christ in
person," says Saint Benedict; and his anxiety for his sons, his urgent
recommendations to the Superiors to love and visit the younger brethren,
to neglect nothing that may assuage their ills, reveals a maternal care
that is truly touching on the patriarch's part.

"Yes, yes," muttered Durtal, "but there are in this rule other articles
which seem less acceptable to miscreants of my stamp. This, for
instance: 'No man shall dare to give or to receive anything without