permitted. What this recluse really was my story will hereafter disclose.

The general furniture of the convent appeared to be neat and clean, but of
coarse materials and rude construction, while its scantiness evinced
either the penury of the institution, or the denial which formed part of
the monastic discipline peculiar to the order of La Trappe. There might be
a third explanation of the ill-lighted bareness of the walls and floors,
together with the general aspect of privation and devotion, an explanation
which occurred to us subsequently--there might have been studied effect
and deception in their display before visiters.

We entered the refectory and the dormitory, neither of which bore any sign
of luxury, nor even of ordinary comfort. The needful repose of man seemed
scarcely provided for in the one, nor the "creature comforts" in the other.
Meat was forbidden, except when prescribed for the health of the inmates.
Vegetable broth, bread, and water, formed, we were told, the chief
resources of the culinary department of the convent; and, in the very act
of enjoying these, around the disconsolate-looking table, the superior was
accustomed to remind the brotherhood occasionally during the repast not to
indulge the appetite for food, so as to divert their thoughts for an
instant from heaven. This spiritual memento was introduced by the rap of a
stout oaken-stick upon the table; when instantly, every hand raised to the
mouth was arrested and held still where it was, until a second rap
permitted it to proceed in its carnal office, the interval being employed
in silent ejaculation to the Deity, or perhaps, with some, in "curses not
loud but deep" against the inexorable superior, who so compelled them to
mortify a not unnatural desire.

In the dormitory a similar mortification nightly awaited the unconscious
sleepers, although "upon uneasy pallets stretching them," in the