The Beautiful Mystery

Ecce homo.

The words were familiar to Gamache, but he couldn’t call them up.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s what Pontius Pilate said to the mob,” said Frère Sébastien. “He brought Jesus out, bleeding, to show them.”

“Show them what? What does it mean?” Gamache repeated, looking from Dominican to Gilbertine and back again.

“Ecce homo,” said the abbot. “He is man.”

*   *   *

It was almost nine in the evening, late by monastery standards, and Frère Sébastien left the three men and walked toward the cells. Frère Antoine waited a minute, for the Dominican to disappear, then after a brief bow to the abbot, he also left.

“Things have changed,” observed Gamache.

Instead of denying that there was ever a problem, Dom Philippe simply nodded and watched the younger man stride off toward the door at the far end of the chapel.

“He’ll make a wonderful choirmaster. Perhaps even better than Mathieu.” The abbot’s eyes returned to Gamache. “Frère Antoine loves the chants, but he loves God more.”

The Chief nodded. Yes. That was at the heart of this mystery, he thought. Not hate. But love.

“And the prior?” asked Gamache as he walked the abbot to his rooms. “What did he love more?”

“The music.” The answer was swift and unequivocal. “But it isn’t quite that simple.” The abbot smiled. “As you might have noticed, few things here are actually simple.”

Gamache also smiled. He had noticed.

They were in the long corridor leading to the abbot’s office and cell. Where at first it had seemed perfectly straight from one end to the other, now he thought he noticed a very slight curve. Dom Clément might have drawn a straight line, but his builders had erred, ever so slightly. As anyone who’d built a bookcase, or tried to follow a detailed map, knew, an infinitesimal error at the beginning can become a massive mistake later on.

Even the corridors here, he reflected, weren’t as simple, as straight, as they appeared.

“For Mathieu there was no separation between the music and his faith. They were one and the same,” said the abbot. His pace had slowed and now they were barely moving down the darkened hallway. “The music magnified his faith. Took it to levels of near ecstasy.”

“Levels few achieve?”

The abbot was quiet.

“Levels you’ve never achieved?” Gamache pushed.

“I’m more the slow and steady type,” said the abbot, looking straight ahead as they walked the slightly flawed path. “Not given to soaring.”

“But neither do you fall?”

“We can all fall,” said the abbot.

“But perhaps not as hard and not as fast and not as far as someone who spends his life on the ascent.”

Again the abbot lapsed into silence.

“You obviously adore the Gregorian chants,” said Gamache. “But unlike the prior, you separate them from your faith?”

The abbot nodded. “I hadn’t thought about it until this happened, but yes, I do. If the music was somehow taken away tomorrow. If I could no longer sing, or listen to the chants, my love of God would be unchanged.”

“Not so with Frère Mathieu?”

“I wonder.”

“Who was his confessor?”

“I was. Until recently.”

“Who was his new confessor?”

“Frère Antoine.”

Now their slow progress stopped completely.

“Can you tell me what Frère Mathieu said, in his confessions to you? Before he switched confessors?”

“You know I can’t.”

“Even though the prior is dead?”

The abbot studied Gamache. “Surely you know the answer to that. Has any priest ever agreed to break the seal of the confessional for you?”

Gamache shook his head. “No, mon père. But I’ll never give up hope.”

That brought a smile to the abbot’s face.

“When did the prior switch to Frère Antoine?”

“About six months ago.” The abbot looked resigned. “I wasn’t completely honest with you.” He looked directly into Gamache’s eyes. “I’m sorry. Mathieu and I did have a disagreement about the chants, and that grew into an argument about the direction of the monastery and the community.”

“He wanted another recording, and for Saint-Gilbert to be more open to the outside world.”