The excellent monks made
the most absurdly small charges for our board and lodging. Years
afterwards I spent a night in an Orthodox Monastery in Russia,
when I regretfully recalled the scrupulous cleanliness of La
Trappe. Never have I shared a couch with so many uninvited guests,
and never have I been so ruthlessly devoured as in that Russian
Monastery.
With June at Nyons, silkworm time arrived. Three old women,
celebrated for their skill in rearing silkworms, came down from
the mountains, and the magnanerie, as lofts devoted to silkworm
culture are called, was filled with huge trays fashioned with
reeds. The old women had a very strenuous fortnight or so, for
silkworms demand immense care and attention. The trays have to be
perpetually cleaned out, and all stale mulberry leaves removed,
for the quality and quantity of the silk depend on the most
scrupulous cleanliness. To preserve an even temperature, charcoal
fires were lighted in the magnanerie, until the little black
caterpillars, having transformed themselves into repulsive flabby
white worms, these worms became obsessed with the desire to
increase the world's supply of silk, and to gratify them, twigs
were placed in the trays for them to spin their cocoons on.
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