ELEANOR CLARK
673
as gardener, evidently thinking the Lord would guide his shovel and
hoe, since having grown up with plenty of hirelings around for that
sort of thing, he didn't know one tool or plant from another. He was
so sweet and kind, the nuns watching from their windows must have
smiled behind their hands and either given him a few lessons or
found him some other drudgery.
Next we hear of him sending home to family financial guard–
ians in Paris for a rather huge sum with which to buy a certain
mountain of holy connotation outside Jerusalem, at the request of an
appropriate institution wanting to be established there. Such was the
viscount's anonymity in his rags and tatters , one would have to
marvel at his unworldliness if he ever honestly thought he would be
just Brother Alberic or later Brother Charles ofjesus, with letters ar–
riving for him all the time on the most elegant crested and mono–
grammed stationery.
In pursuing his belated studies for the priesthood he was more
or less ordered to Rome but got away in a couple of months . Noth–
ing pleased him there, which may or may not figure in Rome's delay
in furthering his cause now. He can't have failed to notice that the
city's more conspicuous brands of Christian reverence were not at all
up his alley, and besides, the French have usually not liked Rome
much unless they were conquering it. Furthermore , it is far truer of
Rome than of most places that to appreciate it you really need to ap–
preciate life, and Brother Charles was at his nadir for that. Life was
a trial that must be undergone in order to merit the light everlasting,
but he yearned for the end of the trial. After pulling through what
was taken to be incipient tuberculosis, at the monastery at Akbes, he
wrote that he had not had the good luck to succumb; after a cholera
epidemic, being spared meant for him being unworthy, as also in
connection with a nearby massacre of Christians, mostly Arme–
nians, by the Turks. He was still alive; alas , it had not yet been his
turn ; he had not been chosen.
A subsequent wonder, to minds unversed in such matters, may
be that the Trappists seem never to have resented his leaving the or–
der, and his is reported to be a name ofworldwide veneration among
Trappists now. As for his own motives in becoming a priest instead
of a monk, and a priest in spots of his own choosing, it is hard to
avoid a passing thought of the silver spoon that that mouth was born
to . It would be replaced by the most wretched utensils, serving the
poorest, most tasteless, and inadequate food . What would not be re–
linquished was that the person in question would somehow go on call-
