human
What would you like? I can only offer you milk and honey; I will send to-day to the nearest village and try to get you a little cheese, but you will have only a poor meal this morning.
gpt
In any case I should do ill to complain, for you are fasting.
human
Just now, he said,
gpt
And you have not even wine and eggs to keep up your strength!
human
One gets accustomed to it, he said.
gpt
What is this rule in comparison with that adopted by Saint Bernard and his companions, when they went to till the valley of Clairvaux? Their meal consisted of oak leaves, salted, cooked in muddy water.
human
No doubt the Trappist rule is hard, but it is mild if we carry our thoughts back to the rule of Saint Pacomius in the East. Only think; whoever wished to join that order had to remain ten days and nights at the door of the convent, and had to endure spitting and insults; if he still desired to enter, he fulfilled a three years' novitiate, inhabited a hut where he could not stand up, nor lie at full length, ate only olives and cabbage, prayed twelve times in the morning, twelve times in the afternoon, twelve times in the night; the silence was perpetual, and his mortifications never ceased. To prepare himself for this novitiate, and to learn to subdue his appetite, Saint Macarius thought of the plan of soaking his bread in a vessel with a very narrow neck, and only fed on the crumbs which he could take out with his fingers. When he was admitted into the monastery, he contented himself with gnawing leaves of raw cabbage on Sunday. Ah! they could stand more than we. We, alas! have no longer souls nor bodies stout enough to bear such fasts; but do not let that stop your meal; make as good an one as you can. Ah, by the way, said the monk,
gpt
But I am forgiven, he thought;