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 nervous
ness 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.
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