like a dead man in his shroud, and began to chant in another tone and
measure from what had gone before. It had in it the sadness of the wind
that I heard moaning in the pine-tops on the moor before the storm broke.
The voice was strong and clear, but so solemn that it was almost unearthly;
and it seemed in some strange way to mingle with the purity of the cold
dawn that comes when all the passions of the world are still, but which
makes the leaves tremble at the crime and trouble of another day.

When the prior stood up, the brothers left to begin their manual labour,
each one in his allotted place. The fathers remained in their stalls until
after the four o'clock mass, and then they, too, fell to work until six
o'clock--the hour of prime. I soon followed the brothers, although not so
far as the fields, the cheese-rooms, and farm-buildings. I returned to my
room; but as I had to pass on the upper side of the screen on leaving the
church, I looked at the two rows of white figures standing in their stalls.
It may have been the effect of the mingled daylight and lamplight: whatever
the reason, I thought during those few seconds that I had never before seen
such a collection of strange and startling faces. They were those of sombre
men who had walked through hell like Dante, and who bore upon their calm
and corpse-like features the deep-cut traces of the flame and horror.

I took up my old place by the window, and watched in the twilight of
morning an aged brother, with frock hitched up above his naked ankles and
his feet in great _sabots_, fetch sack after sack of what I supposed to be
bran, and carry it away on his shoulders. He passed close to me, and looked
at me with an expression which I interpreted to mean: 'You must be a
lunatic to stare at me instead of going to bed--you, who have Monseigneur's
soft bed, and are at liberty to sleep.' But no word passed between us. At
length I did go to bed again, and slept.