Show THE ELIXIR OF THE REVEREND FATHER nt t It GAUCHER FRO FROM I THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE ALPHONE Drink this my neighbor and tell me what you think of it And drop by drop rop with the minute care of a lapidary counting countin pearls the curate of Graveson poured me out two fingers of a green gilded warm sparkling sparkling ing liqueur that tilled filled my whole stomach wi with h sunshine j J That is the elixir of Father Gaucher the joy and the health of our Provence T. T said the worthy man with an all air of triumph They make it at the monastery monastery monastery mon mon- astery of the two leagues from your mill Isn't that worth all the in the World Word And if you J knew how amusing is the story of this elixir Well then listen II Then quite artlessly without any suggestion suggestion suggestion sug sug- of malice in this room dining-room of the presbytery so clean and so calm with its road of the cross in small pictures pictures pictures pic pic- tures and its pretty bright curtains starched like surplices th the abbot began j ja a slightly skeptical and irreverent little story in the style of Erasmus or of d' d c Twenty years ago the c. c or rather the White Fathers as our c call can them had fallen into great poverty If you had seen their house at that time it would have grieved 11 you The great wall the tower were falling in ruins All around the JO v the grass-filled grass cloister the little columns 11 were breaking the stone saints crum crumbling crumbl- crumbl crumbl- crumbl crumbling bl i J t ing in their niches Not a window in place not a sound door In the courts i in the chapels the wind from the Rhone blew as it does in extinguish extinguish- aay i dOi j i s. s t. t r 1 ing the wax-candles wax breaking the lead leadin f in the windows driving the water from the fonts But the saddest of all was the monastery tower bell-tower silent as as' an ani em empty pty dove-cote dove and the fathers for lack of money to buy a bell were to sound matins with the clacking of almond- almond wood fI Poor White Fathers I see them still r in the procession on Corpus Corpus' Christi Day t defiling sadly in their patched cloaks I pale thin nourished by citrons and t watermelons and behind them then my lord the abbot who went along with bowed head quite ashamed to show in the sunshine sunshine sunshine sun sun- shine his crozier with the gilding worn off and his worm-eaten worm white wool mitre The ladies of the fraternity wept with pity in the ranks and the big standard standard standard stand stand- ard and bearers chuckled at one another in ina ins s a low voice as they poin pointed ted to the poor poors s monks The starl go thin when they go in flocks The fact act is that the unfortunate un nn- un- un unfortunate fortunate White Fathers had themselves 4 come to the point of a asking king themselves rr if if it would not be better to take their i flight through the world and for each oneto one oneto i. i to seek a pasture for himself r fiN Now ow one day when this grave question ques- ques t. t tion was being debated by the chapter some one announced to the prior that t f Brother Gaucher asked to be heard in the ther r council You ought to know for your youri r i guidance that this Brother Gaucher was the herd cow-herd of the monastery that is tOI to say that he passed his days in roaming from arcade to arcade in the cloister driving driving- before him two consumptive cows who searched for grass in the cracks of the pavement Brought up until he her het t r was twelve years old by a foolish old woman of the country of Baux Haux who was wast t 4 called Aunt Begon then received by the bythe the monks the unhappy herd cow-herd lad never been able to learn any thing except how to drive his cows and to recite his pater- pater I t I i i l. l i l i noster even then he said it in Provencal for he had a thick skull and a mind as sharp as a lead dagger A fervent Christian Christian Christian Christ Christ- ian moreover although a little visionary taking comfort in his shirt hair-shirt and disciplining disciplining disciplining dis dis- himself with a vigorous conviction conviction conviction con con- and such arms fI When they saw him enter the chapter hall simple and doltish saluting the assembly with one lc leg g drawn back the prior the canons the tre treasurer everybody began to laugh It was always the effect produced by this face with its goatee and rather foolish eyes wherever it arrived hence Brother Gaucher was not disturbed II M My y reverend sirs said he in a good- good natured tone twisting his rosary of olive olive- stones it is quite right to say that empty casks resound the most Just fancy that by the dint of digging into my poor head already ady so so hollow I believe believe believe be be- lieve that I have found the means of getting getting getting get get- ting you all out of trouble fI This is how it is You are all well acquainted with Aunt Begon that good woman who kept me when I was little God rest her sou soul the old scamp She used to sing very bad songs aft after r drink I will tell you then my reverend fathers that Aunt Begon during her lifetime knew the mountain herbs as well as and better than an old Corsican blackbird Indeed towards the end of her days she had compounded an incomparable elixir by mixing five or six kinds o of simples that we used to gather together in the little Alps It is many years ears since that but I think that with the aid of St. St Augustine and the permission of our father ather abbot I mi might ht be able by careful search to find again the composition of this mysterious elixir Then we shall have nothing more to do but put it into bottles and sell it a little dear a thing which would permit the community to I i i enrich itself gradually as our Trappist brothers and those of the Grand Chartreuse Chartreuse Chartreuse Chart Chart- reuse have done He did not have time to finish The prior had risen to fall on his neck The canons seized him by the hands The treasurer even more moved than the others kissed respectfully the badly frayed edge of his cowl Then each one returned to his desk to deliberate and in 1 full session the chapter decided that they would confide the cows to Brother so that Brother Gaucher might devote himself entirely to the manufacture manufacture manufacture man man- of his elixir How did the good brother succeed in recovering Aunt Begon's Began's recipe At Atthe Atthe Atthe the price of what efforts at the price of what vigils history does not tell Only it is certain that at the end of six months the elixir of the White Fathers was already very popular In all an Corn Com tat and all an the country of Aries Arles there was not a farm not a grange that did not have in the depths of its larder between the bottles of mulled wine and jars of little olives a small brown earthenware flask stamped with the arms of Provence with an ecstatic monk on a silver label Thanks to the popularity of its elixir the house of the grew very rapidly They rebuilt the tower the prior had a new mitre the church pretty painted windows and in the fine lacelike lacelike lacelike lace- lace like carving car of the bell tower a whole company of bells large bells large and small alighted one beautiful Easter morning ringing and chiming altogether As As for Brother Gaucher this poor lay-brother lay whose rustic ways were wont to enliven all the chapter he was was no nomore nomore nomore more spoken of in the monastery They knew him henceforth only as the Reverend Reverend Reverend Rev Rev- Father Gaucher a man of brains and great knowledge who lived entirely isolated from the trivial and ous occupations of the cloister and who vho ho shut himself up every day in his distillery distillery distillery distil distil- lery while thirty monks scoured the mountain to seek odorous herbs for him This distillery where no one one not not even the prior prior had had the right to enter was anold an anold anold old abandoned chapel at the extreme end of the canons canon's garden The simplicity of the good fathers had invested it with something mysterious and formidable and if by chance a petty monk bold and curious climbing up the clinging vines came to the rose window over the portal he clambered down again very quickly terrified at having seen Father Gaucher with his beard like a necromancers necromancer's leaning over his furnaces his hydrometer in his hand and all around retorts of pink sandstone gigantic alembics crystal spirals a whole fantastic equipment that flamed as if bewitched in the red light of the windows At At nightfall when the last Angelus was sounding the door of this place of mystery would be cautiously opened and the reverend monk would betake himself himself himself him him- self to church for the evening service You should have seen what a reception he had as he crossed the monastery The brothers formed a hedge along his path They said Hush he lie has the secret The treasurer followed him and spoke to him with bowed head In the midst of this adulation the father would go along mopping his brow his three-cornered three hat with broad edges set on the back of his head like a nimbus looking around aroundhim hin him with an air of complacency at the great courts planted with orange trees at the blue roofs where the new weathercocks weathercocks weathercocks weather weather- cocks turned and in the cloister shining white between elegant little flowered columns columns' the canons newly dressed defiling two by two with reposeful faces It It is to me that they owe all that V the reverend father would say to hi himself self 1 and each time this thought caused gusts of pride to arise within him The poor man was well punished for forit it it You are going to see how H z G. G R. R M. M t CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK Lle L j le |