He approached, “My brother, you are
alone.” “I wish to be so.” “But why?” “I am not obliged to announce my
reasons.” “True, but you may confide them to me.” “I have nothing to
confide.” “I know that,--I would not for the world intrude on your
confidence; reserve that for friends more honoured.” It struck me as
rather odd, that he should, in the same breath, ask for my
confidence,--declare that he was conscious I had nothing to intrust to
him,--and, lastly, request a reserve of my confidence for some more
favoured friend. I was silent, however, till he said, “But, my brother,
you are devoured with ennui.” I was silent still. “Would to God I could
find the means to dissipate it.” I said, looking on him calmly, “Are
those means to be found within the walls of a convent?” “Yes, my dear
brother,--yes, certainly,--the debate in which the convent is now
engaged about the proper hour for matins, which the Superior wants to
have restored to the original hour.” “What is the difference?” “_Full
five minutes._” “I confess the importance of the question.” “Oh! if you
once begin to feel it, there will be no end of your happiness in a
convent. There is something every moment to inquire, to be anxious
about, and to contend for. Interest yourself, my dear brother, in these
questions, and you will not have a moment’s ennui to complain of.” At
these words I fixed my eyes on him. I said calmly, but I believe
emphatically, “I have, then, only to excite in my own mind, spleen,
malignity, curiosity, every passion that your retreat should have
afforded me protection against, to render that retreat supportable. Pardon me, if I cannot, like you, beg of God permission to take his
enemy into compact against the corruption which I promote, while I
presume to pray against it.” He was silent, lifted up his hands, and
crossed himself; and I said to myself, “God forgive your hypocrisy,” as
he went into another walk, and repeated to his companions, “He is mad,
irrecoverably mad.” “But how, then?” said several voices. There was a
stifled whisper. I saw several heads bent together. I did not know what
they were meditating, nor did I care. I was walking alone,--it was a
delicious moon-light evening. I saw the moon-beams through the trees,
but the trees all looked to me like walls. Their trunks were as adamant,
and the interlaced branches seemed to twine themselves into folds that
said, “Beyond us there is no passing.” I sat down by the side of a
fountain,--there was a tall poplar over it,--I remember their situation
well. An elderly priest (who, I did not see, was detached by the party)
sat down beside me. He began some common-place observations on the
transiency of human existence. I shook my head, and he understood, by a
kind of tact not uncommon among Jesuits, that _it would not do_. He
shifted the subject, remarked on the beauty of the foliage, and the
limpid purity of the fountain. I assented. He added, “Oh that life were
pure as that stream!” I sighed, “Oh that life were verdant and fertile
to me as that tree!” “But, my son, may not fountains be dried up, and
trees be withered?” “Yes, my father,--yes,--the fountain of my life has
been dried up, and the green branch of my life has been blasted for
ever.” As I uttered these words, I could not suppress some tears. The
father seized on what he called the moment when God was breathing on my
soul. Our conversation was very long, and I listened to him with a kind
of reluctant and stubborn attention, because I had involuntarily been
compelled to observe, that he was the only person in the whole community
who had never harassed me by the slightest importunity either before my
profession or after; and when the worst things were said of me, never
seemed to attend; and when the worst things were predicted of me, shook
his head and said nothing. His character was unimpeached, and his
religious performances as exemplary and punctual as my own. With all
this I felt no confidence in him, or in any human being; but I listened
to him with patience, and my patience must have had no trivial trial,
for, at the end of an hour, (I did not perceive that our conference was
permitted quite beyond the usual hour of retirement), he continued
repeating, “My dear son, you will become reconciled to the conventual
life.” “My father, never, never,--unless this fountain is dried up, and
this tree withered, by to-morrow.” “My son, God has often performed
greater miracles for the salvation of a soul.”

“We parted, and I retired to my cell. I know not how he and the others
were employed, but, before matins, there was such a tumult in the
convent, that one would have thought Madrid was on fire. Boarders,
novices, and monks, ran about from cell to cell, up and down the
stair-case, through all the corridors, unrestrained and
unquestioned,--all order was at an end. No bell was rung, no commands
for restoring tranquillity issued; the voice of authority seemed to have
made peace for ever with the shouts of uproar. From my window I saw them
running through the garden in every direction, embracing each other,
ejaculating, praying, and counting their beads with hands tremulous, and
eyes uplifted in extacy. The hilarity of a convent has something in it
uncouth, unnatural, and even alarming. I suspected some mischief
immediately, but I said to myself, “The worst is over, they cannot make
me more than a monk.”--I was not long left in doubt. Many steps
approached my cell, numerous voices were repeating, “Hasten, dear
brother, hasten to the garden.” I was left no choice; they surrounded
and almost bore me to the garden. “The whole community were assembled there, the Superior among them not
attempting to suppress the confusion, but rather encouraging it. There
was a suffusion of joy in every countenance, and a kind of artificial
light in every eye, but the whole performance struck me as hollow and
hypocritical. I was led, or rather hurried to the spot where I had sat
and conversed so long the preceding evening. _The fountain was dried up,
and the tree was withered._ I stood speechless with astonishment, while
every voice around me repeated, “A miracle! a miracle!--God himself has
sealed your vocation with his own hand.” The Superior made a signal to
them to stop. He said to me in a calm voice, “My son, you are required
only to believe the evidence of your own eyes. Will you make infidels of
your very senses, sooner than believe God? Prostrate yourself, I adjure
you, before him this moment, and, by a public and solemn act of faith,
recognise that mercy that has not scrupled a miracle to invite you to
salvation.” I was amazed more than touched by what I saw and heard, but
I threw myself on my knees before them all, as I was directed. I clasped
my hands, and said aloud, “My God, if you have indeed vouchsafed this
miracle on my account, you will also doubtless enrich and illuminate me
with grace to apprehend and appreciate it. My mind is dark, but you can
illuminate it.