Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes - Father Apollinaris

In which the narrator progresses through a wild and rocky landscape, approaching the remote Trappist monastery of Our Lady of the Snows with a mixture of awe and superstition, encountering there the kindly yet enigmatic Father Apollinaris, whose vow of silence and earnest devotion both disturb and charm him. Despite initial hesitation and the monastery’s solemn air, he is eventually welcomed inside, with his steadfast donkey and peculiar green sack in tow, marking a passage from the secular to the monastic realm.