solitude without some moral resources.”
“Madame, I should be very glad, after hearing what you have said, if you yourself would be the guide of my destiny.”
“You speak like a man of the world,” she answered, “and are trying to flatter me, – a woman of sixty! My dear child,” she went on, “let me tell you that you are here among persons who believe strongly in God; who have all felt his hand, and have yielded themselves to him almost as though they were Trappists. Have you ever remarked the profound sense of safety in a true priest when he has given himself to the Lord, when he listens to his voice, and strives to make himself a docile instrument in the hand of Providence? He has no longer vanity or self-love, – nothing of all that which wounds continually the hearts of the world. His quietude is equal to that of the fatalist; his resignation does truly enable him to bear all. The true priest, such a one as the Abbe de Veze, lives like a child with its mother; for the Church, my dear Monsieur Godefroid, is a good mother. Well, a man can be a priest without the tonsure; all priests are not in orders. To vow one’s self to good, that is imitating a true priest; it is obedience to God. I am not preaching to you; I am not trying to convert you; I am explaining our lives to you.”
“Instruct me, madame,” said Godefroid, deeply impressed, “so that I may not fail in any of your rules.”
“That would be hard upon you; you will learn them by degrees. Never speak here of your misfortunes; they are slight compared to the catastrophes by which the lives of those you are now among were blasted.”
While speaking thus, Madame de la Chanterie drew her needle and set her stitches with unbroken regularity; but here she paused, raised her head, and looked at Godefroid. She saw him charmed by the penetrating sweetness of her voice, which possessed, let us say it here, an apostolic unction. The sick soul contemplated with admiration the truly extraordinary phenomenon presented by this woman, whose face was now resplendent. Rosy tints were spreading on the waxen cheeks, her eyes shone, the youthfulness of her soul changed the light wrinkles into gracious lines, and all about her solicited affection. Godefroid in that one moment measured the gulf that separated this woman from common sentiments. He saw her inaccessible on a peak to which religion had led her; and he was still too worldly not to be keenly piqued, and to long to plunge through the gulf and up to the summit on which she stood, and stand beside her. Giving himself up to this desire, he related to her all the mistakes of his life, and much that he could not tell at Mongenod’s, where his confidences had been confined to his actual situation.
“Poor child!”
That exclamation, falling now and then from Madame de la Chanterie’s lips as he went on, dropped like balm upon the heart of the sufferer.
“What can I substitute for so many hopes betrayed, so much affection wasted?” he asked, looking at his hostess, who had now grown thoughtful. “I came here,” he resumed, “to reflect and choose a course of action. I have lost my mother; will you replace her?”
“Will you,” she said, “show a son’s obedience?”
“Yes, if you will have the tenderness that commands it.”
“I will try,” she said.
Godefroid put out his hand to take that of his hostess, who gave it to him, guessing his intentions. He carried it respectfully to his lips. Madame de la Chanterie’s hand was exquisitely beautiful, – without a wrinkle; neither fat nor thin; white enough to be the envy of all young women, and shapely enough for the model of a sculptor. Godefroid had already admired those hands, conscious of their harmony with the spell of her voice, and the celestial blue of her glance.
“Wait a moment,” said Madame de la Chanterie, rising and going into her own room.
Godefroid was keenly excited; he did not know to what class of ideas her movement was to be attributed. His perplexity did not last long, for she presently returned with a book in her hand.
“Here, my dear child,” she said, “are the prescriptions of a great physician of souls. When the things of ordinary life have not given us the happiness we expected of them, we must seek for happiness in a higher life. Here is the key of a new world. Read night and morning a chapter of this book; but bring your full attention to bear upon what you read; study the words as you would a foreign language. At the end of a month you will be another man. It is now twenty years that I have read a chapter every day; and my three friends, Messieurs Nicolas, Alain, and Joseph, would no more fail in that practice than they would fail in getting up and going to bed. Do as they do for love of God, for love of me,” she said, with a divine serenity, an august confidence.
Godefroid turned over the book and read upon its back in gilt letters, IMITATION OF JESUS CHRIST. The simplicity of this old woman, her youthful candor, her certainty of doing a good deed, confounded the ex-dandy. Madame de la Chanterie’s face wore a rapturous expression, and her attitude was that of a woman who was offering a hundred thousand francs to a merchant on the verge of bankruptcy.
“I have used that volume,” she said, “for twenty-six years. God grant its touch may be contagious. Go now and buy me another copy; for this is the hour when persons come here who must not be seen.”
Godefroid bowed and went to his room, where he flung the book upon the table, exclaiming, —
“Poor, good woman! Well, so be it!”
V. THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS
The book, like all books frequently read, opened in a particular place. Godefroid sat down as if to put his ideas in order, for he had gone through more emotion during this one morning than he had often done in the agitated months of his life; but above all, his curiosity was keenly excited. Letting his eyes fall by chance, as people will when their souls are launched in meditation, they rested mechanically on the two open pages of the book; almost unconsciously he read the following heading: —
CHAPTER XII.
THE ROYAL WAY OF THE HOLY CROSS
He took up the book; a sentence of that noble chapter caught his eye like a flash of light: —
“He has walked before thee, bearing his cross; he died for thee, that thou mightest bear thy cross, and be glad to die upon it.
“Go where thou wilt, seek what thou wilt, never canst thou find a nobler, surer path than the royal way of the holy cross.
“Dispose and order all things according to thy desires and thine own judgment and still thou shalt find trials to suffer, whether thou wilt or no; and so the cross is there; be it pain of body or pain of mind.
“Sometimes God will seem to leave thee, sometimes men will harass thee. But, far worse, thou wilt find thyself a burden to thyself, and no remedy will deliver thee, no consolation comfort thee: until it pleases God to end thy trouble thou must bear it; for it is God’s will that we suffer without consolation, that we may go to him without one backward look, humble through tribulation.”
“What a strange book!” thought Godefroid, turning over the leaves. Then his eyes lighted on the following words: —
“When thou hast reached the height of finding all afflictions sweet, since they have made thee love the love of Jesus Christ, then know thyself happy; for thou hast found thy paradise in this world.”
Annoyed by this simplicity (the characteristic of strength), angry at being foiled by a book, he closed the volume; but even then he saw, in letters of gold on the green morocco cover, the words: —
SEEK
