I learned something of the life of these two friends during that social evening. Born in the same city in the north of France, reared in the same schools, graduated at the same university, each fond of life and acquainted with its follies, each in turn stricken with an illness that threatened death, together they came out of the dark valley with their future consecrated to the work that now absorbs them, the friendship of their childhood increasing with their years and sustaining them in a remote land, where their vow of poverty seems almost like sarcasm, since circumstances deprives them of all luxuries.
"Do you never long for home? do you never regret your vow?" I asked.
"Never!" they answered; and I believed them. "These old people are as parents to us; these younger ones are as brothers and sisters; these children we love as dearly as though they were our own. What more can we ask?"
What more indeed! With the rain beating down upon your unsheltered heads, and the torrents threatening to engulf you; faint with journeyings; a-hungered often; weak with fastings; pallid with prayer,--what more _can_ you ask in the same line? say I.
Père Fidelis coughed a little, and was somewhat feverish. I could see that his life was not elastic; his strength was even then failing him.
"Père Amabilis is an artisan: he built this house, and it is small enough; but some day he will build a house for me but six feet long and _so_ broad," said Père Fidelis, shrugging his shoulders; whereat Père Amabilis, who looked like a German student with his long hair and spectacles, turned aside to wipe the moisture from the lenses, and said nothing, but laid his hand significantly upon the shoulder of his friend, as if imploring silence. Alas for him when those lips are silent for ever!
"O yes. The poor pictures at the Chapel of the Palms are ours, but we have not studied art. And then we are sometimes summoned to the farther side of the island, where we meet new faces. It is a great change."
For a year before the arrival of Père Amabilis, who was not sooner able to follow his friend, Père Fidelis was accustomed to go once a month to a confessional many miles away. That his absence might be as brief as possible, he was obliged to travel night and day. Sometimes he would reach the house of his confessor at midnight, when all were sleeping: thereupon would follow this singular colloquy in true native fashion. A rap at the door at midnight, the confessor waking from his sleep.