“Yes, it goes with me,” Michael agreed dubiously. “But if I drive it away it comes back in the middle of the night. I have all sorts of queer feelings. Sometimes I feel as if there wasn’t any me at all, and I’m surprized to see a letter come addressed to me. But when I see a letter I’ve written, I’m still more surprized. Do you have that feeling? Then often I feel as if all we were doing or saying at a certain moment had been done or said before. Then at other times I have to hold on to a tree or hurt myself with something just to prove I’m there. And then sometimes I think nothing is impossible for me. I feel absolutely great, as if I were Shakespeare. Do you ever have that feeling?” But Chator was either not sufficiently introspective so to resolve his moods, or else he was too simply set on his own naive religion for his personality to plunge haphazard into such spiritual currents uncharted. The pleasantest time of the monastic week was Sunday afternoon, when Dom Cuthbert, very lank and pontifical, would lean back in the deepest wicker chair of the library to listen to various Thoughts culled by the brethren from their week’s reading. The Thought he adjudged best was with a diamond pencil immortalized upon a window-pane, and the lucky discoverer derived as much satisfaction from the verdict as was compatible with Benedictine humility. Dom Cuthbert allowed Michael and Chator to share in these occasions, and he evidently enjoyed the variety of choice which displayed so nicely the characters of his flock. One afternoon Michael chose for his excerpt Don Quixote’s exclamation, “How these enchanters hate me, Sancho,” with Sancho’s reply, “O dismal and ill-minded enchanters.” The brethren laughed very loudly at this, for though they were English monks, and might have been considered eccentric by the Saxon world, their minds really ran on lines of sophisticated piety over platitudinous sleepers of thought. Michael blushed defiantly, and looked at Dom Cuthbert for comprehension. “Hark at the idealist’s complaint of disillusionment by the Prince of Darkness,” said Dom Cuthbert, smiling. “It’s not a complaint,” Michael contradicted. “It’s just a remark. That’s why I chose it. Besides, it gives me a satisfied feeling. Words often make me feel hungry.” The monks interrupted him with more laughter, and Michael, furiously self-conscious, left the library and went to sit alone in the stillest part of the hazel coppice.