Work this day--work on a rich silver salt cellar for the Abbot to give to a bishop. As he worked in his stone room with his hammers and gravers it was coming across him with a breath of mockery--it was coming with a breath of mockery like a wind from a foggy sea--“Above and below the salt at a bishop’s table. Above and below the salt--Christ’s table. Nicodemus above the salt--blind Bartimeus and the woman of Samaria below?” He shook off phantasy. The Abbot was his spiritual father whom he had undertaken to obey, not criticise. True monk must obey and not question,--not question, not doubt, not compare, not judge. He must kill Imagination, wagging so. Oh, Truth and Beauty--Truth and Beauty--Truth and Beauty! The sun on Gethsemane. The sun on the Blessed among women sitting on her doorstep, behind her the sound of the carpenters working. Sext. The chanting, and the windows ruby and emerald, sapphire and amethyst glass, the glowing patterns, the rows of small figures. The dark vault of the church and the shafts of gold dust. The cool, the sense of suspension. The great picture burning forth--the Blessed among women! For long now the picture had taken his heart. She was so glorious--she was so sure--she was an ardent flame mounting with a golden passion upward! And yet she was tender, compassionate. None might doubt that, looking at her lips and the light and shadow, the modelling, beneath the eyes. She was so tall--did she turn her head, so and so would be the exquisite long line of the throat. Almost at times he thought she turned her head. She was alive--splendidly so, with glory. “Blessed among women--Blessed among women--hold me more fully--take me with you into heaven--take me--!” Afternoon and work still. The sun going down. Vespers. The Magnificat. The red-gold light on the picture, uncertain, making her to seem to move. So would she stand in the round. “Blessed among women--Blessed among women, I am here, thy child and lover! Make me whole--take me with thee. Speak, speak to me!” Night. He did not sleep in the dormitory. There were six cells of privilege, established when Abbot Reginald of old had made certain alterations. Brother Oswald who was writing the Chronicle of Silver Cross, Brothers Peter and Allen who illuminated the great Psalter, Brother Timothy who had been longest monk of Silver Cross and was growing like a child, Brother Norbert who was the Abbot’s kinsman had the five, and Brother Richard who made wealthy things in gold and silver the sixth. So was not the Rule, but in many things nowadays abbots modified Rule. Compline. Night in his cell. “Ah, if the noble and rich visions were but more real! Ah, if I had the power to move and make move! Ah, if the picture would become Herself--for me, for me!” CHAPTER IV