I
Vespers were drawing to a close. A young nun, Sister Helene, who had
just finished her novitiate and taken the veil, stood in a dark recess,
viewed from whence, the old church, with its round columns, seemed to
fade away into the mysterious darkness under the cupola. She watched the
black outlines of the "Sisters in Jesus" kneeling in the middle of the
nave, the gilded "iconostasis" or church-screen with its blackened
pictures set in frames sparkling with precious stones, its wax-tapers
and lamps burning softly in the heavy incense-laden air. Each time that
the deacon passed, waving his censer, they seemed to burn more brightly.
But Sister Helene was lost in contemplation of a painting which had just
been finished by the nun who shared her cell. The figure of the Holy
Virgin seemed to stand out from the dark background; her large eyes were
sadly fixed on the heads bent in devotion; the flickering flame seemed
to cast light and shadow alternately on the divine features. It seemed
sometimes to Helene that the sorrowful eyes of the Mother of God glowed
with a misty light. Helene was not praying. Rapt in a self-forgetful
reverie, her soul soared higher than the arches of the church; she had
not heard the broken voice of the old priest, which sounded like a sob,
any more than she heard the beatings of her own heart; she took no
account of the flight of time till she felt a hand touch her arm.
"Are you going to stay there till morning?" a little misshapen old woman
asked her with a discontented air.
"It is a real sin in you younger ones to stay so, absent-minded, without
even making the sign of the cross. See! the wax-tapers have burnt out.
You have been thinking long enough in your self-conceit, 'Here I am
alone, and all the others have gone.'"
"Pardon, Sister Seraphine," murmured the nun.
"Very well! God will pardon you. Go now, I am closing the church. But
make the sign of the cross; that will not break your arm, and then an
obeisance. God be with you. All the same, it is a sin in you young ones.
Ah, if they would only give us another abbess."
Helene turned once more to look at the church-screen.
The church was now plunged in silence and darkness; the old nun hobbled
before the altar, then disappeared behind the columns. Here and there
were visible the little flames of the lamps which are never put out. A
bunch of keys fell on the flag-stones, sounding like the clash of
chains. Sister Seraphine had dropped them.
Once more she watched the young nun's figure as it vanished in the
darkness.
"One of the intellectuals!" grumbled the old woman.
"Are we not then all equal before God, those who know as well as those
who are ignorant. To speak seven languages, is to multiply one's sins
sevenfold. Jesus did not seek for His apostles among the learned, but
among fishermen. It is better then to be ignorant. If we had another
Superior, Mother Anempodista for instance, she would not have hesitated
to give you her blessing and send you to wash the dishes or knead the
dough. We are one community; service and trouble, all ought to be
shared. It is not French that the Apostle Peter will speak at the gate
of Paradise; he will not be afraid to strike you on the forehead with
his key and to say, 'Be off, blue-stocking, to the eternal fire; go and
talk French to the devils.' No, there is something seriously wrong with
these young ones. The Evil One hovers about them trying to entangle
them. Certainly it was better under Mother Anempodista; in her time the
blue-stockings would not have given themselves airs over the others."
Still hobbling as she went, the old woman closed the church and went in
the darkness to the clock tower where she had lived for about forty
years. From the time of her first arrival at the convent and entrance on
her novitiate, she had been entrusted with the duty of the portress and
remained in that post. There under the bells, in a tiny cell like a
niche in a wall, Sister Seraphine grew old and suffered, became bent and
looked forward to die the death of the righteous. She lived
half-forgotten there, the little old woman, but content. Above her
boomed the great bells of the convent, close by her ear tinkled the bell
of the main entrance when a visitor called. Sometimes, when gusts of
wind roared in the bell-tower, Sister Seraphine would cross herself,
murmuring, "Holy saints have mercy! How excited the Evil One is! Whose
soul is he coming to seek? Can it be Sister Elizabeth's? To-day a fine
aroma of coffee came from her cell. What a temptation!"
Sister Seraphine's cell was occupied almost entirely by a bed of rough
planks; a mattress, a white pillow, a sheepskin coverlet constituted all
her luxuries. On the narrow sill of the little window--almost a
loop-hole--were placed a piece of bread, some black radishes, salt and
kvass; high up in a corner a lamp burned before the icon.
On entering she made the sign of the cross and lay down on her pallet,
but suddenly the gate-bell rang wildly. In a moment she was on her feet.
"I am coming! I hear! I hear! The lunatics to ring like that!" she
grumbled, taking down the great key from the wall; "here is fine music."
She descended, shivering, and opened with difficulty the large gate
which grated on its hinges.
"Well, what makes you ring like that? We are not deaf," she said to a
huge footman wrapped in his fur-lined livery. "Where have you come from
and from whom?" she asked, seeing a closed carriage standing a little
way off.
"Let me pass first, little old woman; I shall find my way quite well."
"Answer first; to whom are you going?"
"To the Lady Abbess, old crow of a portress! It is Madame the wife of
General Khlobestovsky who sends me; don't you recognize me? Take your
eyes out of your pocket."
"Yes, if one had time to study your face! You have all the same faces,
as like each other as the curbstones of pavements. It is a sin to have
to do with you. Wait till I call Sister Anastasia; she will go to our
Mother. Have you a letter? Give it me. A pretty word--'crow of a
portress.' You think yourself somebody because you are covered with
clothes belonging to your master. Wait! Wait! when the hour of your
death strikes, you will remember that 'crow of a portress,' and you will
repent. But God is good; He will pardon you; because you lack brains.
Consider at any rate, great booby, where you are. 'A crow' ... the
idiot!"