by A. J. Cronin
At half-past six the bell rang again, and the Mass began, said by a small, bent priest, a very aged man, tremulous of hand and slow of foot, with a thin piping voice which creaked in its upper octaves. The Mass from necessity was unhurried, and it was followed by the thanksgiving; then, at eight, the community arose in silence, and passed out of the church for breakfast.
Clinging to her own kind, Lucy re-entered the Postulat, and, with the other postulants, of which there were five, followed Sister Joséphine to the refectory. It was a narrow room, with a long wooden table flanked on either side by benches – a bare and serious room; but already upon the table stood the breakfast seven meticulously appointed bowls holding a dark liquid, and beside each bowl, disposed with equal exactitude, a portion of bread. There was a significant pause; then, after the grace had been said, Sister Joséphine seated herself at the head of the table, and on either side of her the postulants ranged themselves.
Lucy sat down in the vacant place, and, with the others, began the meal in silence. She was faint from the long and unaccustomed fast, yet she seemed, strangely, to have little appetite. The dark liquid in the bowl was not coffee, but a form of coffee substitute, unredeemed by any trace of sugar, and it had an acrid bitterness. Nor was the wedge of loaf bread as she had known it; dry, coarse, and sulphurous, it had substance but no savour. Still, she knew the sacrifices demanded of her; and was ardently prepared to make them. Ardently, therefore, she ground her way through the meal, taking her conduct from the others: keeping her eyes downwards, maintaining an unbroken silence.
At quarter-past eight the repast was over, and immediately everyone rose.
‘You will wait,’ whispered Sister Joséphine to Lucy as the others filed out of the room; when they had gone, she added in a louder tone: ‘It is time now to acquire the duties.’
Lucy looked up agreeably.
‘I have done my room,’ she murmured to the other.
Sister Joséphine frowned.
‘No, no – not like that,’ she said in a grieved voice. ‘Not “ my” – never “my”. That is not your cell. You have it only by the charity of the Order and the goodness of God. Nothing is to you. Everything is “ours”. You must say always “our cell”.’
Lucy flushed.
‘I did not understand, sister,’ she explained in a low voice.
‘Do not reply!’ exclaimed Joséphine quickly. ‘Except for you to demand a question, silence always is the rule. And the rule must be obeyed.’ She paused, and mildly preened herself. ‘ More over, you must address your superior with all reverence. Your superior is above you by God. She must be to you like God. Understand always that lowliness must be acquired. It is the first thing.’
Lucy bit her lip and looked down. She had been perfectly innocent of all wrong – her remark, so simple, so entirely devoid of harm!
But Sister Joséphine went on, her manner free of all rancour, yet filled with an almost childish insistence.
‘To know how to pray is not everything, and religious life is not to spend hours before the tabernacle,’ she remonstrated. ‘There are lessons of humility to be acquired. Remember what our blessed Lord said: “You must become as a little child!” Yes, remember.’
Lucy listened obediently, restraining the impulse which had so suddenly risen within her to exclaim: ‘I mean no harm!’ Submissively she made no sound; and when Sister Joséphine, with a last survey, drew out her key and led the way out of the refectory, she followed with lowered head. They traversed the corridor to its end, and, passing through two doors which Sister Joséphine unlocked, paused before some cupboards.
‘Attend now, Lucy,’ said the mistress indulgently. ‘You are the handmaid of the Lord, and you must be agreeable to do the lowliest tasks. First, then, you will start to brush and to dean the petit pays.’
To brush and to clean? Still on edge, Lucy started. Surely she was mistaken? She had not come here to enact the part of servant: they had lay sisters, the peasant women of the country, who willingly attended to this class of work. When she could not pray she would sew, embroider, stitch the vestments to be used in the service of God: but this, surely –!
‘Pick up the brush and the tin and the sand,’ said the mistress, calmly unlocking and opening the cupboard door, ‘and come quickly. Already we have delayed.’
Lucy’s eye clouded confusedly. The brush and the tin and the sand! Yes, she had stooped and picked them up; they were in her hands now, and she was following Sister Joséphine to the unknown territory of the petit pays. What, she thought perplexedly, was this petit pays?
Suddenly she flushed again – deeply and painfully – as the sister, arrested before a certain place, plainly indicated this to be the region of her duties. The petit pays. It was the euphemistic designation for the privies of the Postulat!
‘You see,’ said the mistress pleasantly, ‘you will clean and clean. Moisten the sand – so; and sprinkle – so; then rub carefully. No dust to be left, and no sand either. It is not agreeable. Nothing forgotten or left lying about.’
Stupidly, Lucy stared at the scene of her future labours; then, with a face still suffused by colour, she looked up for permission to speak.
‘Yes?’ said the mistress.
‘I must do this?’ said Lucy, in a low voice.
‘You are so directed,’ returned the other complacently. ‘ It is the will of God.’ Then she smiled her naïve and strangely empty smile, turned, and, with hands folded inside her sleeves, swept down the corridor.
‘The will of God!’ Lucy stood quite still; then slowly she went down on her knees and began to clean out the closets: moistening the sand – so; and sprinkling it – so; and cleansing with slow and careful strokes. Had she not already laboured sufficiently in her life at undignified and menial tasks? And this to her – her spirit exalted, burning with the love of God – was not merely menial; it was a degradation unutterable.
For a moment she worked on with a face curiously stiff; then, suddenly, a long sigh broke from her lips. She was wrong! Yes, of course she was wrong! She must do as she was instructed, submit unquestioningly to the rule. She did not see clearly now, but later she would understand. She was tired, confused by the strangeness of it all. But she had courage – courage and determination. ‘Blessed be Jesus! Blessed be His most Sacred Heart!’; then into herself she began the litany.
In silence she continued the task, and with an aching back worked on until noon. Then the bell which now controlled her rang out once more. She rose stiffly from her knees at the moment when Sister Joséphine appeared.
‘You have finished?’ enquired the sister pleasantly; it was a great concession for her to speak at all.
‘Yes,’ answered Lucy with extreme submission. Joséphine looked round, and as she gazed her small green eyes lost their amiability and clouded with displeasure.
‘It is not well done.’ she said abruptly; ‘I am not pleased.’
Lucy opened her lips to reply; then closed them firmly.
‘Regard this here,’ continued the sister, bending down sharply, and pointing to a few adherent grains of the moist sand, which had concealed themselves in a crevice of the wooden skirting. ‘ It is not perfect – and after what I have remarked!’ She picked out the sand with her finger-nail, and rose, holding it up like something obscene. Then, as she cast it finally into a convenient oblivion, she declared emphatically: ‘ The good God will not love you for that. Even if I am not here to observe. His eye is always upon you. Enough – you will understand again.’ And she turned away.
A grain of sand left unwittingly in a crack. To be rebuked for that. Was she dreaming?
Dumbly Lucy followed Sister Joséphine into the refectory, and stood waiting at the appointed place. Already the other postulants were there – returned from whatsoever their tasks might have been; but they neither spoke nor looked at her; and so her eyes fell downward too.
Grace over, they seated themselves; then a lay sister brought in a long enamelled platter, upon which reposed seven ra
w pickled herrings.
Sister Joséphine took the largest – an act of sacrifice, since they were so unpalatable – then one was given to each postulant, sent down on a coarse stoneware plate, with a portion of bread of the same size and quality as that served at breakfast. Lucy looked at the herring, lying limply in its own brine, soft and phosphorescent, so raw and oily that instantly it repelled her. She was hungry, but her gorge rose at the sight. This was not the sort of food she had been used to; nor, indeed, though she had prepared herself to face a hard and simple fare, the kind she had anticipated. Covertly, she observed that the others had begun to eat, and slowly, with an inward shudder, she took up her knife and fork. It was rank, repulsive – she could hardly tolerate it upon her tongue. To her, the sight, even, of the sodden flesh, sprayed, when suddenly she pierced the roe, by a milky exudate, was nauseating. Yet she forced herself to swallow it. If the others could it, then so, too, could she.
Looking up suddenly, Joséphine caught her eye, and, permitting herself to violate the silence, she observed encouragingly:
‘It is good; yes. When old Sister Adrienne has the gall, she demands always a pickled herring.’
No sound, but rather a thrill of appreciation, ran through the other postulants, who, despite their air of introspection, hung, nevertheless, upon the lightest gesture of the mistress. And now each vied with her neighbour, or so it seemed to Lucy, in the effort to win the appreciation of Joséphine, until at length upon each plate only the backbone of the fish remained, so scraped and polished that it glistened. At this the platter was once more slowly passed around the table, and the skeletons departed thereon; then each, revealing the double purpose of the bread, rubbed her plate until it shone.
After a pause, the plates so cleansed were handed to the head of the table, and each received a sufficient portion of bread pudding, brought silently by the same lay sister. Yet in spite of the burnishing, the plate retained its odour – to eat that pudding was to taste again the acridity of the herring.
The pudding finished – and it was forbidden to ask for more – the plates were polished as before, and the last scrap of bread consumed. There came a pause; Sister Joséphine looked round and rose. Grace once more; then dinner was over.
With the mistress at the head, they filed in single order to the church, where a chapter from the Imitation was read aloud; then they filed out of the church into the garden – not the vast open sweep of garden, but a small, separate enclosure reserved exclusively to themselves. A deeper hush hung for a moment in the air, then Joséphine raised her finger, and instantly the veil of silence was rent: six voices speaking at once – bursting with the suppression of long hours. ‘Deo gratias’ was the cry – and it came like a high hurrah – it was recreation!
Lucy started at this sudden magpie chatter, but Joséphine smiled at her reassuringly.
‘Come,’ she said after a moment, ‘it is permitted. Now you shall make friends.’ She turned towards the five others who, ranged in a little group, ceased the clacking of their tongues to gaze at Lucy ingenuously.
‘Marguerite – Emilie – Thérèse,’ said the mistress, enunciating clearly and indicating the nearest three. Young women they were, all of medium height, and to Lucy of a strangely similar appearance – each with dark hair, darker eyes, and a pleasant sallow face now parted in a smile of greeting. ‘They are cousins, these, of a good Brussels family,’ remarked the sister, pursing her lips. ‘And here’ – she pointed to the other two – ‘Gabrielle and Wilhelmine.’
Gabrielle – tall, superior – inclined her head and murmured a word in greeting but Wilhelmine – a stolid, thick-set woman, with a peasant’s face – stood squatly, with an open mouth, gazing obtusely.
‘Wilhelmine is deaf, but with a good dot,’ said Joséphine gaily; ‘a Flamande from Steinbach. Recently from her father’s farm she has come – many, many cows, and cream.’ She nodded her head towards the other’s bulk: ‘Plenty cream – yes, it is significant.’
‘Réclame!’ said Thérèse, roguishly – she had caught the sister’s gesture; ‘une bonne affiche pour la ferme.’ And at the words there was a sudden bubbling of laughter.
The Flamande blinked her deep-set eyes, threw out her stubby chin, and grinned.
‘I hear!’ she bellowed, in her deep voice. ‘ But take care! I am not yet slaughtered.’
It was a great divertissement, which caused a fresh burst of hilarity, in which Joséphine herself joined. Then the group pressed round Lucy, smiling, chattering – overwhelming her with their voluble and incomprehensible prattle. However, in a moment she had relief, for Sister Joséphine began to speak, and judging by her quick and fluent gestures, it seemed an animated description of some adventure. Quite a thrilling adventure it appeared. From time to time eyes were turned on Lucy, heads nodded, little murmurs of approval emitted. The word ‘douane’ was repeated, and again repeated; then suddenly it dawned on her that Joséphine was relating her triumph at the Customs. The incident of that poor battered trunk passing the douane without fee was moving the entire convent to excitement, and a thrilling gratification.
‘Truly it is gentil,’ said Emilie, ‘truly gentil of the father of Sister Claire.’
Following the story there was a pause, but it was a short one; irrelevantly, Wilheimine gave her deep laugh, and tossed her head like a frisky cow.
‘I must run,’ she said playfully. ‘Oh! how I must run!’
Swinging round with another laugh, she began to run down the path towards the arbour, kicking up her heels and sawing her arms from side to side.
‘Catch her up!’ cried out Joséphine gaily. ‘ Catch her for market!’
There was another ripple of laughter, a little chorus of badinage; then, with quite a girlish frolic of innocence, Thérèse, Emilie, Marguerite, followed more languidly by Gabrielle, started off in pursuit of the stout Flamande. With a lingering smile, the mistress followed their lively gambols; then she turned to Lucy.
‘It is good for the heart to be gay,’ she declared brightly. ‘To be as the little children – that is how we must be.’ Here she broke off, observing Lucy’s numb and wondering face. ‘ You must not be too grave, too silent here,’ she remonstrated, and, indicating the furrow on Lucy’s forehead, she added: ‘That must be wiped out. A good religious is always joyous. At the recreation one must laugh! Remember – here we are the little children of Jesus.’
‘It is difficult to laugh to order,’ said Lucy doubtfully, her eyes puckered by a strange perplexity; she had come here to pray and not to laugh – ‘especially,’ she added with great diffidence, ‘especially to laugh at nothing.’
‘No, no!’ cried out Joséphine. ‘You must not indulge. You must do against yourself.’ Then suddenly she pressed her palms together, and threw up her eyes in a caricature of extreme piety. ‘This does not make a good religious!’
Lucy coloured, and there was a silence, broken occasionally by little trills of laughter from outside the arbour.
The sister observed her curiously; then she said kindly:
‘In time you will become as they. It will be more easy when you can converse. And look – now I will give you something precious.’ She smiled, and withdrew her hand with slow solemnity from the pocket of her habit. ‘Here is the key of Paradise.’ It was, indeed, a key, attached to a small leather thong on which was stamped the word Postulat. ‘All postulants have this,’ explained Joséphine more seriously, ‘for all doors are locked. Now, when you make your duties, you can unlock yourself these doors. It is always in the left pocket. You comprehend?’
‘Yes, sister’; and Lucy accepted the key.
But did she comprehend? Where had she seen a key like this before? She felt stupid, strangely confused. To force herself to smile, to keep always the ‘key in the left pocket’ to serve God by picking a grain of sand from a crack in the floor of a water-closet – was this what she had expected? When she had surrendered herself so utterly to God, should not the pettiness of life be forgotten,
abandoned, before the majesty of that sublime passion? Quickly she drew herself up, suppressing those unjust and quite unwarrantable thoughts. She would learn. Later she would understand.
The bell rang for the end of the recreation, and at its first note instantly those merry-making voices were stilled. Ranging themselves seriously once more in a long line, they re-entered the Postulat for spiritual reading.
The afternoon passed in slow progressive harmony: the bell methodical, the obedience implicit. To sit down and to rise up to enter the church and to leave it; to kneel for prayer, and then to cease to kneel; to meditate, then not to meditate – during the long, still hours these quiet actions were performed like a ritual. And ardently she set herself to follow that ritual. Always since her conversion she had liked long periods of solitude in which to develop that mysterious sense of her relationship to God. But now she would make the community life her own. For the love of God she would do it.
At Benediction the blaze of candles upon the altar glittered towards her – white tongues of flame – and amongst this glitter, held by the gilded monstrance, was the source of all her comfort – her consolation – a vision too shining to be endured. Here she felt assuagement come to her. Jesus was here for her – the Christ who had been crucified for her. With lowered head she abased herself. Who was she, indeed, to have dared for a moment criticise the rule? At peace, she came out of the church.
She swallowed her supper, a mess of unsweetened semolina, like an eager acceptance of a penance. No sacrifice was too great.
‘I must remind you,’ whispered Joséphine lightly, as they went up the stairs after night prayers, ‘after church your veil – it was not neatly folded in its little box.’
But tomorrow it would be folded – no sacrifice was too great.
At half-past eight she was in her cell – alone. A long sigh escaped her, a sigh filled with a thrill of relief. To have accomplished this day successfully, to have endured its strangeness and its tribulation, induced a reaction of overwhelming ease. It was all so new to her and so difficult, and the day itself had been interminable. Yes, she acknowledge now the difficulties; but she would overcome them. Never in her life had she admitted defeat. She would not do so now. She could hold on. For a moment she gazed out of her window into the hidden darkness: it was raining gently, and the soft dampness touched her cheek, and for that moment she was uplifted, so fresh and free it seemed beyond – outside. Then she undressed wearily and got into bed. In the pallor of her face her eyes looked big and dark. She blew out the candle, and lay down.