The storm continued all night with intervals of calm. A little before two
o'clock the bell was rung for matins. The clang of the metal must have been
heard clear and shrill far over the Double, even when the storm seemed to
be rending the black sails of the clouds asunder. The postulant fetched me,
as he had promised, and he led me through a labyrinth of passages to the
church. Although the building was almost in darkness, I could see that
it was in the Pointed style, and that it was marked by a cold elegance
befitting its special purpose. The nave was divided near the middle by a
Gothic screen of wood artistically carved, although the ornamental motive
had been kept in subjection. The half that adjoined the sanctuary was
somewhat higher than the other, and here the Trappist fathers had their
stalls. The brothers' stalls were in the lower part. I was led to a
place below the screen. The office had already commenced; the monotonous
plain-chant by deep-toned voices had reached me in the corridors. Perhaps
it was half an hour later when the chanting ceased. The lamps were darkened
in the stalls above the screen--in the lower part there was but one very
small light suspended from the vault--then the monks knelt each upon the
narrow piece of wood affixed to his stall for this purpose, and for half an
hour with heads bent down they prayed in silence, while the thunder groaned
outside, and the lightning flashed through the clerestory windows. To the
Trappists, who day after day, year after year, at the same hour had been
going through the same part of their unchanging discipline, heedless
whether the stars shone overhead or the lightning glittered, there was
nothing in all this to draw their minds from the circle of devotional
routine: I alone felt as if I was going down into my grave. The gray light
that was now making the ribs of the vaulting dimly visible was like the
dawn of eternity breaking through the brief night called Death, which is
not perhaps so dark as it seems. At three o'clock the chill and awful
silence was broken by the white-robed prior, who rose from his low posture