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. My heart is hard, but it is not beyond the power of omnipotence to touch and subdue it. An impression made on it this moment, a whisper sent to its recesses, is not less worthy of your mercy than an impression on inanimate matter, which only confounds my senses.”
The Superior interrupted me. He said, “Hold, those are not the words you should use. Your very faith is incredulous, and your prayer an ironical insult on the mercy it pretends to supplicate.”
“My father, put what words you please in my mouth, and I will repeat them—if I am not convinced, I am at least subdued.”
“You must ask pardon of the community for the offence your tacit repugnance to the life of God has caused them.” I did so. “You must express your gratitude to the community for the joy they have testified at this miraculous evidence of the truth of your vocation.” I did so. “You must also express your gratitude to God, for a visible interposition of supernatural power, not more to the vindication of his grace, than to the eternal honour of this house, which he has been pleased to irradiate and dignify by a miracle.” I hesitated a little.
I said, “My father, may I be permitted to utter this prayer internally?”
The Superior hesitated too; he thought it might not be well to push matters too far, and he said at length, “As you please.” I was still kneeling on the ground, close to the tree and the fountain. I now prostrated myself, with my face to the earth, and prayed internally and intensely, while they all stood around me; but the language of my prayer was very different from what they flattered themselves I was uttering. On rising from my knees, I was embraced by half the community. Some of them actually shed tears, the source of whose fountain was surely not in their hearts. Hypocritical joy insults only its dupe, but hypocritical grief degrades the professor. That whole day was passed in a kind of revelry. Exercises were abridged—the refections embellished with confectionary—everyone had permission to go from cell to cell, without an order from the Superior. Presents of chocolate, snuff, iced water, liqueurs, and (what was more acceptable and necessary than any of them) napkins and towels of the finest and whitest damask, circulated among all the members. The Superior was shut up half the day with two “discreet” brethren, as they are called (that is, men who are elected to take part with the Superior, on supposition of their utter, superannuated incapacity, as Pope Sixtus was elected for his (supposed) imbecillity), preparing an authenticated account of the miracle, to be dispatched to the principal convents in Spain. There was no need to distribute the intelligence through Madrid—they were in possession of it an hour after it happened—the malicious say “an hour before.”
I must confess the agitating exhilaration of this day, so unlike what I had ever witnessed before in a convent, produced an effect on me I cannot describe. I was caressed—made the hero of the “fête”—(a conventual fête has always something odd and unnatural in it)—almost deified. I gave myself up to the intoxication of the day—I did verily believe myself the favourite of the Deity for some hours. I said to myself a thousand flattering things. If this deception was criminal, I expiated my crime very soon. The next day everything was restored to its usual order, and I found that the community could pass from the extreme of disorder in a moment to the rigidity of their usual habits.
My conviction of this was certainly not diminished within the few following days. The oscillations of a convent vibrate within a very short interval. One day all is relaxation, another all is inexorable discipline. Some following days I received a striking proof of that foundation on which, in despite of a miracle, my repugnance to a monastic life rested. Someone, it was said, had committed a slight breach of monastic duty. The “slight breach” was fortunately committed by a distant relation of the Archbishop of Toledo, and consisted merely in his entering the church intoxicated (a rare vice in Spaniards), attempting to drag the matin preacher from the pulpit, and failing in that, getting astride as well as he could on
