ic whitewashed cell, most beautifully clean, containing a very
small bed, one chair, a gas-jet, a prie-Dieu, a real human skull, and
nothing else whatever. We went to dinner in a great arched refectory,
where a monk, perched up in a high pulpit, read us Thomas a Kempis in a
droning monotone. Complete silence was observed. At La Trappe no meat
or butter is ever used, but we were given a most excellent dinner of
vegetable soup, fish, omelets, and artichokes dressed with oil,
accompanied by the monks' admirable home-grown wine. There were quite a
number of visitors making "retreats," and I had hard work keeping the
muscles of my face steady, as they made pantomimic signs to the
lay-brothers who waited on us, for more omelet or more wine. After
dinner the "Frere Hospitalier," a jolly, rotund little lay-brother, who
wore a black stole over his brown habit as a sign that he was allowed
to talk, drew me on one side in the garden. As I was a heretic (he put
it more politely) and had the day to myself, would I do him a favour?
He was hard put to it to find enough fish for all these guests; would I
catch him some trout in the streams in the forest? I asked for nothing
better, but I had no trout-rod with me. He produced a rod, SUCH a
trout-rod! A long bamboo with a piece of string tied to it! To fish for
trout with a worm was contrary to every tradition in which I had been
reared, but adaptability is a great thing, so with two turns of a spade
I got enough worms for the afternoon, and started off. The Foret
d'Aiguebelle is not a forest in our acceptation of the term, but an
endless series of little bare rocky hills, dotted with pines, and
fragrant with tufts of wild lavender, thyme and rosemary. It was
intersected with two rushing, beautifully clear streams. I cannot
conceive where all the water comes from in that arid land. In sun-baked
Nyons, water could be got anywhere by driving a tunnel into the parched
hillsides, when sooner or later an abundant spring would be tapped.
These French trout were either ridiculously unsophisticated, or else
very weary of life: they simply asked to be caught. I got quite a heavy
basket, to the great joy of the "Frere Hospitalier," and I got far more
next day. Though we had to rise at five, we got no breakfast till
eight, and a very curious breakfast it was. Every guest had a yard of
bread, and two saucers placed in front of him; one containing honey,
the other shelled walnuts. We dipped the walnuts