From a Nun's Diary

November 9 – It is my last night at home, so it is no wonder that sleep forsook me and would not seal my eyelids. My eyes stayed wide open while the moonlight poured into them, stealing into my room from a facing window.

The voices of the night birds drifted to my ears, stirring in me a feeling I am powerless to define — is it regret? Or anguish, or remorse, or what?... Tonight I have understood that there is a great sacrifice in this matter, a sacrifice I chose of my own full will on the day I opened my heart to my father — a Protestant, whose creed rejects monasticism — and told him of my desire to enter the monastic order and spend my life within the walls of the convent, driven by the idealism of young girls. How my poor father tried to turn me from this resolve, out of pity for my youth; but his attempts availed nothing, and no persuasion had any effect on me.

In the end he could do nothing but yield to my wish, saying: "Mary, if you cannot go on with what you have resolved, or if some day you should need the world... do not forget that I am waiting for you."

My father's words kept ringing in my ears with a continuous ring, and I could almost see them written on the walls of my room — yes, my room, on this last night... Tomorrow I shall have — or rather we shall have — a room of a new kind. Yes, we; for a nun must not say mine — there is no room for individual ownership in the convent... Everything must be common property for all who take refuge in the convent... And I think it will be hard to accustom my tongue to attaching the plural pronoun to every word — to say our convent, our prayers, our books, our food, and so on.

The only thing I can attribute to myself is my sins and my transgressions — and these are things I would not in the least mind sharing with others.

November 10 –

I entered the convent... and I felt a shudder of awe as I slipped in through the dread iron gate. I do not know the source of the awe that swept over me — I, who lived at the convent school all through my school years, and it was there that the idea of the monastic life first came to me.

But now the matter is quite different. I entered the convent first as a schoolgirl, drinking of its culture and then bidding it farewell forever. And now I enter it as a nun, offering up her youth in it as an offering on the altar of sacrifice.

Nor am I the only one of the schoolgirls whose resolve has settled on the monastic life: there is Madeleine, and there is Jane, and others besides.

We were brought in to the Mother Superior, who looked at us with a look wavering between tenderness and sorrow. She welcomed us with grave words, then asked one of the sisters to lead us to the quarters where we shall live while we are in the period of probation — the period in which we receive the principles of the monastic life, and during which we grow accustomed, by degrees, to the roughness of living, before we put on the black habit and swear the oath of fidelity... forever!!

November 12 –

Today a nun they call Mother Martha came to us and assigned to each of us the kind of daily work she must perform. My share was mopping the floor of the chapel — hard work, no doubt, especially as I am not used to such tasks, which I consider arduous for a pampered girl like me. But what cannot be avoided must be borne; so I began to mop, and weariness and exhaustion soon overtook me.

And memories of home came pouring over my mind... my father and my brothers, and the soft life they lead, and this rough life I chose of my own free will — what had I to do with it...?

December 15 –

Yesterday I was the cause of a disturbance of order during one of our religious lessons. While Jane — she too a nun on probation — was reading to us the rules of the order, she reached a passage pointing to the duty of a nun to keep away, as far as possible, from the world of men. At that moment I looked at Jane and smiled, and she smiled too, for my smile reminded us both of that old man who takes his seat every evening near the entrance of the convent, alone with his pipe and his newspaper, and with whom Jane never stops joking and chatting. The Mother Superior noticed these smiles we exchanged and looked at us in a way that stirred up laughter on our bench; and then Jane could no longer go on reading and stopped. The Mother motioned us to go out, and she had an account to settle with us, wavering between rebuke and reproach.

January 7 –

We were informed yesterday that the period of probation will last six months, during which we shall receive continuous religious instruction and keep up the prayers without pause; then a confirmation ceremony will be held for those who prove their complete readiness to continue

the life of the convent.

For my part, now that I have tasted convent life, I find the matter not so easy as I used to imagine; but I am not accustomed to going back on anything I have professed. So I shall strive until I conquer in myself the spirit of rebellion, even if it costs me dearly — and may God come to my aid with help from Him.

January 21 –

Today I learned from one of the nuns that we must give up even the most trifling things and possessions we own, so that every tie between our old life and the new may be cut off. What I heard troubled me, for no reason but that I cherish two things: the first, my literary books; the second, the watch my mother gave me before her death as a precious keepsake from her. I think it more fitting to give the watch to my father to keep, for it is the dearest relic of the dearest of women.

February 2 –

The Superior called me this morning and asked me to give up composing poetry. I could not utter a word; I only closed my lids over two tears that swam in my eyes. Ah, if only this Mother could understand me, and understand my soul's need for a pen to express the stirrings within me. In the Mother's request — or rather, more exactly, in her command — there is cruelty, and what cruelty; but there is no use in argument, for the Superior's orders are above discussion.

Farewell, then, daughters of my thoughts; and farewell, my dear pen.

February 27 –

All through the past week I devoted myself to reading the Holy Book and to searching out the lofty meanings that lie behind the parables which the good Teacher of mankind gave us. A few passages proved too hard for me to understand, and it occurred to me to seek help from the priest who lives in a monastery near our convent; but at first I hesitated, out of shyness and awe. Then I took pity on myself, lest I remain in my error. I also refrained from putting the question to one of the nuns, because they are usually given to interpreting the Gospel in a rigid way that does not accord with the spirit of simplicity and ease which God intended for us — they understand religion as a cutting-off from the simplest of desires.

At last I overcame my shyness and went to the priest, who received me with a cheerfulness and a kindliness that encouraged me to lay the matter before him. He listened to me calmly, then rose and brought his black-covered Holy Book and went on reading and explaining in a gracious manner, from which I came away with this wisdom: love God with all your heart, and do what you see to be right and true. Nor do I deny that I left him feeling a peace of soul I had missed in the days before.

March 15 –

I confess that I am tired; this struggle between flesh and spirit is violent and deadly. I need someone to take my hand and encourage me to endure. The confirmation ceremony has drawn near, and the few days to come must decide my fate... and the fate of this struggle...

Mercy, my Lord — I am frightened. This life

which I have imposed upon myself demands of me a great sacrifice, of which I would not be sparing, were it not for this human nature that binds it to the world of matter with the ties of passions and inclinations and instincts. I look into the faces of the nuns and see a mask of calm — yes, a mask beneath which lie hidden lines and traces drawn by the hand of long deprivation and long repression — and I feel pity for them, and for myself.

O God, in retreat there is a weakness I will not accept; so take my hand, that I may set out on the path I have chosen, even if it costs me what remains of my nerves.

April 4 –

This is Holy Week — a week of fasting and prayer, of withdrawal from the world, of unbroken worship, deep meditation, and full understanding of the message of redemption. I kneel for long hours and never raise my eyes but they meet a statue of the Crucified hanging upon the wood of redemption; and I gaze at it long in meditation and thought, and then, without knowing it, I fall to comparing the Crucified and myself. He accepted death to save us all, and I accepted the monastic life to save my soul alone — what merit, then, is mine...?

Sacrifice is the element of redemption and the essence of generosity — how then shall I give my soul rest without toil? Let my soul burn, then, in the fire of sacrifice, so long as its smoke lifts me up to the wide spaces and the heights.

April 11 –

Only now have I felt peace welling up in my depths, and only now has victory over the wildness of human nature been granted me. Holy Week was truly the turning point in my life. Here is the image of the Crucified, meeting my eyes forever with its majesty, its loftiness, its self-giving for the sake of the highest ideals;

and here is His gracious face, appearing to me encouraging, tender, and gentle. So I fold my heart around the nobility of my purpose and the generosity of the goal I have chosen for myself, and I look upon my present state with an eye that almost sees rays of light glittering among the folds of the black habit.