Richard Holmes – Footsteps (страница 7)

Que t’as de belles files, Giroflé Girofla!

It served to remind him, he said, that the Trappists were after all “the dead in life—there was a chill reflection”. He could only bless God that he was “free to wander, free to hope, and free to love”. An interesting contradiction.

But then La Trappe is full of contradictions. They knew all about Stevenson when I passed through: a hundred years, they told me, is not so long in the eyes of eternity. Father Apollinaris’s line of birch trees still stood. There were the white blocks of the monastic buildings perched bleakly on the forested hillside, rows of square unrelieved windows, part-military and part-industrial in appearance, and a bell chiming a flat commanding note—what memories it stirred!—from the rugged church tower. Yes, they said, it was all rather like a power-station: so think of it as a spiritual generator, pumping out prayers.

The original buildings which Stevenson saw had been burnt down in 1912. His small guest wing for travellers and retreat-makers had been replaced by a brightly painted cafe-reception house astride the main drive, constructed like a Swiss chalet, with a self-service food bar and souvenir counter. Under the trees a score of cars were parked, transistors played, and families picnicked at fixed wooden tables. I walked through like a ghost, dazed with disappointment, and headed for the church, remembering now what my farmer at Luc had said: “Ah, La Trappe, they make an affaire of the holy life up there” though he had added with a Gallic shrug, “But good luck to them. We must all live in our own way, and le Bon Dieu has always liked a little money, as proof of good intentions.”

In the church a young monk, with a Cicero haircut and penetrating grey eyes, suddenly rose out of the sacred bookstall and gently tugged at my rucksack. English? On the trail of Stevenson? Sleeping rough? Ah yes, he had wanted to be a writer himself. That too was a vocation! Well, it was a happy chance that had brought me to La Trappe. A happy Providence. So now I must lay down my burden (he said this with a smile, the grey eyes suddenly teasing) and he would take me to visit the monastery. But first things first! And here he peered at me with what I took to be a frown, and I thought I was to be put through my catechism. Le Brun, who had doffed himself politely enough at the church porch, now shifted uneasily from hand to hand, ready for a sharp retort and a swift retreat. Protestant, lapsed Catholic, atheist, poetic agnostic …

“You are hungry, my friend,” Father Ambrose cut into my thought, “so come with me.” And he gave me another of those Trappist smiles.

I was whisked away without ceremony to the kitchens, and sat down at a huge wooden table. Behind me, a large electric dishwasher turned like a Buddhist prayer-wheel. All round, tiles gleamed and scoured pots bubbled on brand-new gas ranges. The kitchen monk in a pressed white apron considered me thoughtfully. “One must feed the corpse as well as the spirit,” he observed in a heavy Provencal accent, and grinned seraphically. He was as thin as a fence-pole, with the marks of asceticism like the marks of an axe over his long face and frame. He disappeared into an echoing pantry and came out with plate after plate balanced on his arm. I could not believe such a feast, and later listed it all in my diary: dish of olives, black and green; earthenware bowl of country pate with wooden scoop; whole pink ham on the bone, with carving knife; plate of melon slices; bowl of hot garlic sausage and mash; bowl of salad and radishes; board of goats’ cheeses; basket of different breads; canister of home-made butter; two jugs of wine, one white, one red. Spécialité de la maison, thin slices of fresh baguette spread very thickly with a heavy honey-coloured paste which turned out to be pounded chestnuts, marrons, and tasted out of this world. I was told simply: “Mangez, mais mangez, tout ce que vous voudrez!” And he was right; I had the hunger of the devil.

Much later I smoked my pipe and fell asleep in the monastery gardens, under a mulberry tree, wondering at the wisdom of monks. Father Ambrose woke me as his sandals came tapping along the terrace. “Better now?” was his only comment. I was taken on a tour of the buildings: long bare corridors of polished pinewood, a chapter-house full of afternoon sunlight and smelling of beeswax, a library like an academic college with a special history section including the complete works of Winston Churchill. Then a large bleak dormitory, with iron bedsteads in rows of cubicles, which brought back bad memories; and a shadowy choir-stall with, for me, the eternally ambiguous smell of incense.

The monks’ timetable had shifted little since Stevenson’s day. Prime began a little later, at three thirty in the morning; but the vegetarian fast was maintained from January till Eastertide. Prayer and hard physical work remained the staple of their lives. The cemetery stood behind a wall of the vegetable garden, a cluster of plain white crosses on a neat lawn, like a war grave in Passchendaele.

“And here at La Trappe,” said Father Ambrose as we stood again upon the terrace, “the summer visitors soon depart. We are alone again with Our Lady. Her snows fall from November until April. Sometimes we are cut off for days. Cut off from everything … except from God. And sometimes it is so… But you must pray for us. Pray for us on your road. You will do that, my friend, I think? And come back again, we will be here. Your rucksack is a light one.”

Father Ambrose smiled and turned rapidly away, slipping his hands into the long white sleeves of his habit and stepping off into silence. The sound of his sandals retreated along the stone-flagged terrace. I was left strangely confounded, perplexed; this was not what I had expected. In a sense I felt they had found me out.

2

Stevenson’s reactions to the Trappists were greatly complicated by the presence of two other visitors in the guest wing, a local Catholic priest and a retired soldier. The priest had walked over from his country parish at Mende for four days’ solitude and prayer; the ancien militaire de guerre, a short, grizzled and somewhat peppery personage in his fifties, had come to La Trappe as a visitor—like Stevenson—and remained to study as a novice. Neither had the simplicity or the wisdom of the monks; they were “bitter and narrow and upright” in their beliefs, “like the worst of Scotsmen”, reflected Stevenson. But it was only in the morning that they discovered that a Protestant heretic was in their midst: “My kindly and admiring expressions as to the monastic life around us, and a certain Jesuitical slipperiness of speech,” observed Stevenson slily, “which I had permitted myself in my strange quarters, had probably deceived them, and it was only by a point-blank question that the truth came out.” There was an immediate explosion. “Et vous prétendez mourir dans cette espèce de croyance?” burst out the priest.

Clergyman and army officer now attempted to convert Stevenson with righteous fervour. They took it for granted that he was secretly ashamed of his faith as a Protestant; disdained all theological discussion, brushed aside Stevenson’s appeal to family loyalties, and crudely urged the horrors of hell-fire. He must go to the Prior of La Trappe and declare his intention to convert; there was not a moment to lose; he must instantly become a Catholic. The atmosphere became quite embarrassing. “For me who was in a frame of mind bordering on the effusively fraternal, the situation thus created was painful and a little humiliating.” He escaped on a long walk round the monastery grounds, but on returning for lunch was again attacked by the proselytising pair. This time they began to mock him for his stubbornness and ignorance, and unwisely referred to his beliefs as those of a “sect”—for they thought “it would be doing it too much honour to call it a religion”. His attempts at explanation were received with “a kind of ecclesiastical titter”. Finally Stevenson’s temper—which could be formidable: he had once broken a bottle of wine against a wall in a Paris cafe during an argument with the management—began to get the better of him. Trembling with emotion and going rather white, he leant across the table to the parish priest: “I shall continue to answer your questions with all politeness; but I must ask you not to laugh. Your laughter seems to me misplaced; and you forget that I am describing the faith of my mother.” An awkward silence fell, and the priest, remarked Stevenson, “was sadly discountenanced”.

However, dignity was restored, the ancien militaire de guerre—no doubt recognising another kind of fighter—made soothing noises, and the cure hastily assured him that he had no other feeling but interest in Stevenson’s soul. The incident was closed, and they parted on friendly terms. But Stevenson was probably taught something after all: for here he was hotly defending a religion, the Presbyterianism of his childhood, in which he had supposed he had no formal belief whatsoever. It led him to reflect, towards the end of his journey, on the mysterious nature of belief itself, on its profound roots in the heart and the sense of identity; and the degree to which formal creeds were inadequate to contain and express one’s deepest moral convictions.