Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/47

Rh the eye of [sic] our instructor constantly upon us, shot out of our rooms at lightning speed, but in most cases the process was not so simple. There were friars of all stages of somnolency: some, of extremely nervous temperament, heard the alarm themselves and perhaps rushed upstairs for a cold bath; the majority were aroused by a vigorous tap of the wooden hammer at their door accompanied by the pious salutation, ‘Laudetur Jesus Christus,’ to which they sleepily responded ‘Amen’ (so, at least, the sound was piously interpreted, though in point of fact the response had many variations from the half awakened friars, from ‘Come in’ to much more profane expressions); some slept so profoundly that the knocker-up had to enter their rooms and shake them violently every morning. When the round was completed (all the bedrooms opening into a wide central corridor) the large bell sent a deafening clangour through the dormitories, and we quickly prepared for chapel.

A quarter of an hour was allowed for the purpose, but, as our toilet was simplicity itself, most of the friars who had got beyond the stage of primitive innocence continued their slumbers for five or ten minutes. We were directed by the constitutions to retain all our underclothing during the night, so nothing remained but to throw on the rough brown robe and gird it with the knotted cord; then towel in hand we raced to our common lavatory, for our simple cells of twelve feet square were not encumbered with washstands and