Musings from the Heart — "A Little Tale in Effusions" — 6 — Sister Madeleine

— Sister Madeleine —

With the fresh morning, its steps trembling over the shadows of night,

with the bells of the street sweepers,

with the women carrying their tins of yogurt, in their loose, trailing skirts,

she would appear at the school, hurrying like the phantoms of longing, light as a straying dream.

And the school would still be yawning to the tones of the boarding-section bells, its door locked with a bolt as heavy as the pounding of her heart as she entered.

No sooner was it flung wide open before her than she bounded across it,

as though rousing her lazy age-mates with this wondrous energy, the like of which her school had never known before.

But she herself knew that what kindled it was her appointment — one she could never once break — with the nun, "Sœur Madeleine," her favorite nun, on every morning of bright Thursday.

That young nun, Palestinian by origin, with the warm accent, the deep voice, and the sweet, merry glance which she would try to make stern and scarcely ever succeed;

that nun with the firm gait, resembling — like no one else's — the walk of queens with glittering crowns, of whom she had read so often in history and in legend;

that nun who knew no sound reason for this early coming, but who knew that this girl — stubborn to the point of haughtiness, pious in character to the point of obsession — was of a rare weave; she did not know exactly whether she approved of it or found it strange... but in the depths of her truthful soul, which had never learned evasion, she felt a warm response to it, as though it were admiration for this thing she had never touched before...

And our girl stands there, in the sprawling playground, beneath that great peach tree whose branches spread like proud palm fronds.

She stands waiting, thinking. She glimpses life renewing itself with the day in every corner of the institute, and feels her own being renewed as it never was before. And she breathes in life with that brimming air, filling her two weak lungs, and feels as though this fragrance were carrying health to her —

this dewy, daring fragrance, which alone is strong enough to enter the nun's room, where it sees her kneeling there before the Crucified One, praying, begging forgiveness, gazing at him with her faithful eyes — humble, trembling looks... begging forgiveness.

Trembling? Begging forgiveness?! And why the one, and why the other?!

Whoever begs forgiveness has doubtless sinned. But this nun of ours could not commit any offense — God forbid that sin should ever tread her spotless ground.

She works the whole day long, and no small part of the night; she works with unbroken diligence — because the Mother Superior, on account of her personal competence, entrusts her with more than one responsibility — and so she knows no weariness, and no faintness of soul ever creeps into her.

All this without her knowing that she is laboring to destroy herself, and that for all that labor she receives not a single word of encouragement, nor a sign of thanks.

Why, then, does she stand before her Crucified One in this abject posture?

If only she could tell her that; if only the chance would come to her, for one hour, to tell her that she was not created to be a nun, cropping her smooth jet-black hair to sit all day — or most of it — at the yellow piano in that narrow room with its single high window, giving lesson after lesson to those dull-witted little girls, patient... and repeating...

If only she could tell her that she was created to be an enchantress, seated at a magnificent piano, in a palace of ancient build, on moonlit evenings, soaring with her quiet, poetic world into airs of immortal melodies, her jet-black hair falling loose over her shoulders, swaying with the plaintive playing.

She would be truer to God in that free state, where her soul carries her away, than she is now... earning her merit by these heavy, coarse sackcloth robes, which — no doubt — she struggles with herself to endure through the scorching days of high summer.

With such sad, resentful musings our girl would wait for the hour when the nun came out to the yard, every Thursday — for it was her turn on watch — until she appeared at the top of the stairs, running, as though she were a cloud of streaming light pouring down upon the earth in majesty and splendor.

And she would be the first of the pupils to say good morning, and the first to walk at Sister Madeleine's side, toying with the chain of the cross that hung from her waist, with a visible nervousness she could hide only beneath that jumble of chatter which she knew not where she found, nor how she could stoop to it.

All this while the nun remained content, her features radiant, despite the childish troubles she had to face in the course of her watch...

And the girl kept laboring to wrest smiles from those stern lips; and how she wished, despite that scorching blaze, that she could gather her whole self into sweet, delighting speech, to drive tedium away from the nun and send happiness into her exile's heart; and how she longed to be able to tell her, for instance, that she loved her like her own mother — sacred as her mother was to her — and that she wished her a happier lot than her present one, and a more settled peace. But how could she say this, or

anything of what lay open in her secret heart, when this unbending virgin had vowed all her hours — save those in which she worked... vowed them to Christ alone.

This innocent, forgiving Christ, who had become for her a harsh rival: she would look at him in the classroom, in the reception hall, in the corridor, on the playground, and in the chapel — look at him with open defiance, as though between her and him there lay some old estrangement and grudge.

And in a blazing fit she would take to committing errors on purpose, and affecting a reckless temper — she, the very soul of meekness and contented character — all so as to stand before the nun as one gloating and insistent, sparing no effort to vex her and to waste her time in barren argument.

And in one of those recesses of the school year that fall at a fixed season annually — a few numbered days for spiritual exercises, in which the nuns multiply their prayers, schooling the wayward soul to submission for the sake of good and fruitful works, and curbing the pull of temptation toward even the smallest worldly delights...

our girl had at last, after long effort, finished persuading her conservative parents that she must remain at the school night and day, because she wished to become acquainted with things she did not know — and things she could, in any case, turn to profit.

And there, in the first row of the close-set benches stretching in a long, broad line across the great courtyard, our girl would sit facing Sister Madeleine, listening to her homilies in mute absorption; and whenever the nun addressed a question to her — as she very often did — or singled her out with an admonition, a gesture, or a glance... she would feel as if her world were spinning her round in one swift, whispering turn, to set her down before some particular thing whose essence she could not grasp, nor the source of its whispering...

Is it "Utopia"? Or is it the soul's dissolving in the wine of human perfection?!

She does not know!!

And everything grows confused within her; a burning tear mingles with her answer, which scarcely comes clear, so that it is heard like the muttering of a hoarse whisper...

And she strains to hide it — above all from the nun, who, it seems to her, has begun to mock her... and she cannot.

And her clouded looks collide with the looks of the nun — all gentleness and strength... and radiant smile — and she slips away from before her, for all the world like a fugitive.

And she takes to climbing the long staircase with the fury of a pupil who has failed — climbing it in exhausted bounds, her breath coming fast upon itself, wrapped in a scorching pride...

And there, in the boarding section, she would roam the convent room by room and corridor by corridor; and in every dormitory, refectory, or common room she would stop before the Crucified One, to see him in a new posture, and to look at him with looks of bitter mockery and dewy hope at once.

And hope mingles with mockery, and the two tug violently, insistently, at that smooth young soul which events had never scratched and afflictions never stormed.

And she props the small head between the two small hands, and fancies she has triumphed over... herself, when her fit of mute weeping is done.

But before she goes down to the courtyard to take her place among the pupils, she feels her hands carrying a portable wooden ladder — out of the dark corridor — to set it in the great hall at the feet of the Crucified One; and she climbs upon it and gazes up at the bowed head crowned with its wreath of thorns, as though gazing at the overflowing smile scattered upon the points of those thorns — the smile of Sister Madeleine — and then she feels no more sting, and no more rancor, but only something brimming over from her soul to flood the universe with its radiance, its bounty, and its warmth.

And she feels her two hands lifting down the crucified Lord to smother him with kisses.

Are they the kisses of faith? Are they the kisses of certainty? No — neither the one nor the other.

It is only the soul, at the very beginning of its forming, quivering with the tremor of knowledge at the hands of a kindred soul — without design, and without intent.