Читать книгу Types of Prose Narratives. A Text-Book for the Story Writer онлайн

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As the holy season of Lent drew nigh the Abbot Kenach felt a longing such as a bird of passage feels in the south when the first little silvery buds on the willow begin here to break their ruddy sheaths, and the bird thinks tomorrow it will be time to fly over seas to the land where it builds its nest in pleasant croft or under the shelter of homely eaves. And Kenach said, "Levabo oculos—I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help," for every year it was his custom to leave his abbey and fare through the woods to the hermitage on the mountainside, so that he might spend the forty days in fasting and prayer in the heart of solitude.

Now on the day which is called the Wednesday of Ashes he set out, but first he heard the mass of remembrance and led his monks to the altar steps, and knelt there in great humility to let the priest sign his forehead with a cross of ashes. And on the forehead of each of the monks the ashes were smeared in the form of a cross, and each time the priest made the sign he repeated the words, "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."