Now Gerard played the humble6 psaltery a little; but the monk touched that instrument divinely, and showed him most agreeably what a novice7 he was in music. He also illuminated8 finely, but could not write so beautifully as Gerard. Comparing their acquirements with the earnestness and simplicity9 of an age in which accomplishments10 implied a true natural bent11, Youth and Age soon became like brothers, and Gerard was pressed hard to stay that night. He consulted Denys, who assented12 with a rueful shrug13.
Gerard told his old new friend whither he was going, and described their late adventures, softening14 down the bolster15.
“Alack!” said the good old man, “I have been a great traveller in my day, but none molested16 me.” He then told him to avoid inns; they were always haunted by rogues17 and roysterers, whence his soul might take harm even did his body escape, and to manage each day's journey so as to lie at some peaceful monastery18; then suddenly breaking off and looking as sharp as a needle at Gerard, he asked him how long since he had been shriven? Gerard coloured up and replied feebly—
“Better than a fortnight.”
“And thou an exorcist! No wonder perils19 have overtaken thee. Come, thou must be assoiled out of hand.”
“Yes, father,” said Gerard, “and with all mine heart;” and was sinking down to his knees, with his hands joined, but the monk stopped him half fretfully—
“Not to me! not to me! not to me! I am as full of the world as thou or any be that lives in't. My whole soul it is in these wooden pipes, and sorry leathern stops, which shall perish—with them whose minds are fixed20 on such like vanities.”
“Dear father,” said Gerard, “they are for the use of the Church, and surely that sanctifies the pains and labour spent on them?”
“That is just what the devil has been whispering in mine ear this while,” said the monk, putting one hand behind his back and shaking his finger half threateningly, half playfully, at Gerard. “He was even so kind and thoughtful as to mind me that Solomon built the Lord a house with rare hangings, and that this in him was counted gracious and no sin. Oh! he can quote Scripture21 rarely. But I am not so simple a monk as you think, my lad,” cried the good father, with sudden defiance22, addressing not Gerard but—Vacancy. “This one toy finished, vigils, fasts, and prayers for me; prayers standing23, prayers lying on the chapel24 floor, and prayers in a right good tub of cold water.” He nudged Gerard and winked25 his eye knowingly. “Nothing he hates and dreads26 like seeing us monks27 at our orisons up to our chins in cold water. For corpus domat aqua. So now go confess thy little trumpery28 sins, pardonable in youth and secularity29, and leave me to mine, sweet to me as honey, and to be expiated30 in proportion.”
Gerard bowed his head, but could not help saying, “Where shall I find a confessor more holy and clement31?”
“In each of these cells,” replied the monk simply (they were now in the corridor) “there, go to Brother Anselm, yonder.”
Gerard followed the monk's direction, and made for a cell; but the doors were pretty close to one another, and it seems he mistook; for just as he was about to tap, he heard his old friend crying to him in an agitated32 whisper, “Nay33! nay! nay!” He turned, and there was the monk at his cell-door, in a strange state of anxiety, going up and down and beating the air double-handed, like a bottom sawyer. Gerard really thought the cell he was at must be inhabited by some dangerous wild beast, if not by that personage whose presence in the convent had been so distinctly proclaimed. He looked back inquiringly and went on to the next door. Then his old friend nodded his head rapidly, bursting in a moment into a comparatively blissful expression of face, and shot back into his den2. He took his hour-glass, turned it, and went to work on his regalles; and often he looked up, and said to himself, “Well-a-day, the sands how swift they run when the man is bent over earthly toys.”
Father Anselm was a venerable monk, with an ample head, and a face all dignity and love. Therefore Gerard in confessing to him, and replying to his gentle though searching questions, could not help thinking, “Here is a head!—Oh dear! oh dear! I wonder whether you will let me draw it when I have done confessing.” And so his own head got confused, and he forgot a crime or two. However, he did not lower the bolstering34 this time, nor was he so uncandid as to detract from the pagan character of the bolstered36.
The penance37 inflicted38 was this: he was to enter the convent church, and prostrating39 himself, kiss the lowest step of the altar three times; then kneeling on the floor, to say three paternosters and a credo: “this done, come back to me on the instant.”
Accordingly, his short mortification40 performed, Gerard returned, and found Father Anselm spreading plaster.
“After the soul the body,” said he; “know that I am the chirurgeon here, for want of a better. This is going on thy leg; to cool it, not to burn it; the saints forbid.”
During the operation the monastic leech41, who had naturally been interested by the Dusseldorf branch of Gerard's confession42, rather sided with Denys upon “bleeding.” “We Dominicans seldom let blood nowadays; the lay leeches43 say 'tis from timidity and want of skill; but, in sooth, we have long found that simples will cure most of the ills that can be cured at all. Besides, they never kill in capable hands; and other remedies slay44 like thunderbolts. As for the blood, the Vulgate saith expressly it is the life of a man.' And in medicine or law, as in divinity, to be wiser than the All-wise is to be a fool. Moreover, simples are mighty45. The little four-footed creature that kills the poisonous snake, if bitten herself, finds an herb powerful enough to quell46 that poison, though stronger and of swifter operation than any mortal malady47; and we, taught by her wisdom, and our own traditions, still search and try the virtues48 of those plants the good God hath strewed50 this earth with, some to feed men's bodies, some to heal them. Only in desperate ills we mix heavenly with earthly virtue49. We steep the hair or the bones of some dead saint in the medicine, and thus work marvellous cures.”
“Think you, father, it is along of the reliques? for Peter a Floris, a learned leech and no pagan, denies it stoutly51.”
“What knows Peter a Floris? And what know I? I take not on me to say we can command the saints, and will they nill they, can draw corporal virtue from their blest remains52. But I see that the patient drinking thus in faith is often bettered as by a charm. Doubtless faith in the recipient53 is for much in all these cures. But so 'twas ever. A sick woman, that all the Jewish leeches failed to cure, did but touch Christ's garment and was healed in a moment. Had she not touched that sacred piece of cloth she had never been healed. Had she without faith not touched it only, but worn it to her grave, I trow she had been none the better for't. But we do ill to search these things too curiously54. All we see around us calls for faith. Have then a little patience. We shall soon know all. Meantime, I, thy confessor for the nonce, do strictly55 forbid thee, on thy soul's health, to hearken learned lay folk on things religious. Arrogance56 is their bane; with it they shut heaven's open door in their own faces. Mind, I say, learned laics. Unlearned ones have often been my masters in humility57, and may be thine. Thy wound is cared for; in three days 'twill be but a scar. And now God speed thee, and the saints make thee as good and as happy as thou art thoughtful and gracious.” Gerard hoped there was no need to part yet, for he was to dine in the refectory. But Father Anselm told him, with a shade of regret just perceptible and no more, that he did not leave his cell this week, being himself in penitence58; and with this he took Gerard's head delicately in both hands, and kissed him on the brow, and almost before the cell door had closed on him, was back to his pious59 offices. Gerard went away chilled to the heart by the isolation60 of the monastic life, and saddened too. “Alas!” he thought, “here is a kind face I must never look to see again on earth; a kind voice gone from mine ear and my heart for ever. There is nothing but meeting and parting in this sorrowful world. Well-a-day! well-a-day!” This pensive61 mood was interrupted by a young monk who came for him and took him to the refectory; there he found several monks seated at a table, and Denys standing like a poker62, being examined as to the towns he should pass through: the friars then clubbed their knowledge, and marked out the route, noting all the religious houses on or near that road; and this they gave Gerard. Then supper, and after it the old monk carried Gerard to his cell, and they had an eager chat, and the friar incidentally revealed the cause of his pantomime in the corridor. “Ye had well-nigh fallen into Brother Jerome's clutches. Yon was his cell.”
“Is Father Jerome an ill man, then?”
“An ill man!” and the friar crossed himself; “a saint, an anchorite, the very pillar of this house! He had sent ye barefoot to Loretto. Nay, I forgot, y'are bound for Italy; the spiteful old saint upon earth, had sent ye to Canterbury or Compostella. But Jerome was born old and with a cowl; Anselm and I were boys once, and wicked beyond anything you can imagine” (Gerard wore a somewhat incredulous look): “this keeps us humble more or less, and makes us reasonably lenient63 to youth and hot blood.”
Then, at Gerard's earnest request, one more heavenly strain upon the psalterion, and so to bed, the troubled spirit calmed, and the sore heart soothed64.
I have described in full this day, marked only by contrast, a day that came like oil on waves after so many passions and perils—because it must stand in this narrative65 as the representative of many such days which now succeeded to it. For our travellers on their weary way experienced that which most of my readers will find in the longer journey of life, viz., that stirring events are not evenly distributed over the whole road, but come by fits and starts, and as it were, in clusters. To some extent this may be because they draw one another by links more or less subtle. But there is more in it than that. It happens so. Life is an intermittent66 fever. Now all narrators, whether of history or fiction, are compelled to slur67 these barren portions of time or else line trunks. The practice, however, tends to give the unguarded reader a wrong arithmetical impression, which there is a particular reason for avoiding in these pages as far as possible. I invite therefore your intelligence to my aid, and ask you to try and realize that, although there were no more vivid adventures for a long while, one day's march succeeded another; one monastery after another fed and lodged68 them gratis69 with a welcome always charitable, sometimes genial70; and though they met no enemy but winter and rough weather, antagonists71 not always contemptible72, yet they trudged73 over a much larger tract35 of territory than that, their passage through which I have described so minutely. And so the pair, Gerard bronzed in the face and travel-stained from head to foot, and Denys with his shoes in tatters, stiff and footsore both of them, drew near the Burgundian frontier.
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1
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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winnowing
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| v.扬( winnow的现在分词 )；辨别；选择；除去 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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6
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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7
novice
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| adj.新手的，生手的 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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12
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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bolster
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| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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16
molested
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| v.骚扰( molest的过去式和过去分词 )；干扰；调戏；猥亵 | |
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17
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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18
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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23
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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25
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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26
dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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trumpery
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| n.无价值的杂物；adj.（物品）中看不中用的 | |
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secularity
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| n.世俗主义，凡俗之心，烦恼 | |
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expiated
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| v.为（所犯罪过）接受惩罚，赎（罪）( expiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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34
bolstering
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| v.支持( bolster的现在分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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bolstered
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| v.支持( bolster的过去式和过去分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
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penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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38
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
prostrating
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| v.使俯伏，使拜倒( prostrate的现在分词 )；（指疾病、天气等）使某人无能为力 | |
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40
mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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41
leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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42
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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43
leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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44
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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45
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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quell
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| v.压制，平息，减轻 | |
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47
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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48
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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49
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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50
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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51
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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52
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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53
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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54
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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56
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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58
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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60
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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lenient
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| adj.宽大的，仁慈的 | |
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soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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slur
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| v.含糊地说；诋毁；连唱；n.诋毁；含糊的发音 | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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gratis
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| adj.免费的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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antagonists
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| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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