He dared not pray
alone now, when most he needed prayer; but he moved forward with dignity
towards the convent-chapel to lead the vesper devotions of his brethren.
Outwardly he was calm and rigid as a statue; but as he commenced the
service, his utterance had a terrible meaning and earnestness that were
felt even by the most drowsy and leaden of his flock. It is singular
how the dumb, imprisoned soul, locked within the walls of the body,
sometimes gives such a piercing power to the tones of the voice during
the access of a great agony. The effect is entirely involuntary, and
often against the most strenuous opposition of the will; but one
sometimes hears another reading or repeating words with an intense
vitality, a living force, which tells of some inward anguish or conflict
of which the language itself gives no expression.
Never were the long-drawn intonations of the chants and prayers of the
Church pervaded by a more terrible, wild fervor than the Superior that
night breathed into them. They seemed to wail, to supplicate, to combat,
to menace, to sink in despairing pauses of helpless anguish, and anon to
rise in stormy agonies of passionate importunity; and the monks quailed
and trembled, they scarce knew why, with forebodings of coming wrath and
judgment.
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