But the interior of the monastery with its chill, gloomy cloisters, its solemn and silent inmates, conveyed at once a deep impression of solitude and isolation. When we sat down to supper at the bare wooden tables on the evening of our arrival—my first community meal—widely separated from each other, eating in profound silence, and with a most depressing gravity, I felt that my monastic career would be a short one. A young friend had entered their novitiate the previous year and had ignominiously taken flight two days after his arrival: I found myself warmly sympathising with him.
However, since we were not to receive the monastic garb for a week or more, we were allowed a good deal of liberty, and my depression gradually wore off. It happened, too, that I was already acquainted with three of the friars, and soon became attached to the community. The first friar whom we had met, a lay-brother, rather increased our trouble: he was already far advanced in religious mania and ascetical consumption, and did, in fact, die a year afterwards in the local asylum. The second we met, also a lay-brother, did not help to remove the unfavourable impression. His jovial and effusive disposition only accentuated his curious deformity of structure: his hands and bare toes diverged conspicuously from the central axis, one shoulder largely preponderated over its fellow, his nose was a pronounced specimen of the Socratic type, and a touch of rheumatism imparted a
