When I finally got off in Bardstown, I was standing across road from a gas station. The street appeared to be empty, as if the town were asleep. But presently I saw a man in the gas station. l went over and asked where I could get someone to drive me to Gethsemani. So he put on his hat and started his car and we left town on a straight road through level country, full of empty fields. It was not the kind of landscape that belonged to Gethsemani, and I could not get my bearings until some low, jagged, wooded hills appeared ahead of us, to the left of the road, and we made a turn that took us into rolling, wooded land.
Then I saw that high familiar spire.
I rang the bell at the gate. It let fall a dull, unresonant note inside the empty court. My man got in his car and went away. Nobody came. I could hear somebody moving around inside the Gatehouse. I did not ring again. Presently, the window opened, and Brother Matthew looked out between the bars, with his clear eyes and greying beard.
“Hullo, Brother,” I said.
He recognized me, glanced at the suitcase and said: “This time have you come to stay?”
“Yes, Brother, if you’ll pray for me,” I said.
Brother nodded, and raised his hand to close the window.
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” he said, “praying for you.”
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, p.371.
