human
Wait, here is the rosary which I am pleased to offer you. Allow me to add to it a medal of Saint Benedict.
gpt
Do you know the meaning of these signs?
human
Yes; I read it once in a pamphlet of Dom Guéranger.
gpt
Good. And, by-the-bye, when do you communicate?
human
To-morrow.
gpt
To-morrow; it is impossible!
human
Why impossible?
gpt
Because there will be only a single mass to-morrow, that of five o'clock, and at that the rule prevents your communicating alone. Father Benedict, who usually says an earlier mass, went away this morning and will not return for two days. There is some mistake.
human
But the prior positively declared to me that I should communicate to-morrow! exclaimed Durtal.
gpt
Not all the fathers here, then, are priests?
human
No, in fact, as to priests, there is the abbot who is ill, the prior who will offer the sacrifice to-morrow at five o'clock, Father Benedict of whom I spoke to you, and another whom you have not seen and who is travelling. And then, if it had been possible, I also should have approached the Holy Table.
gpt
Then, if the fathers are not all ordained, what difference is there between those who have obtained the priesthood and the simple lay brothers?
human
Education--to be a father a man must have studied, must know Latin, and in a word must not be what the lay brothers are, peasants or workmen. In any case I shall see the prior, and as to the communion to-morrow, I will let you know, after the office. But it is tiresome; it is a pity you could not have come up this morning, with us.
gpt
It is just as I thought, he said,
human
Oh!
gpt
Ah, no, I have confessed to a monk, and I wished to receive the communion from a monk! he exclaimed.
human
It would have been better to wait till Father Benedict returned--but what can I do? I can hardly explain to the prior how repugnant this unknown priest is to me, and how terribly painful it would be to me, after having gone through so much, to end by being thus reconciled in a cloister.