Part 59 (1/2)
”A weatherc.o.c.k is dead--you are alive.”
”Not at night, _ma mere_. At home in my bedroom I used to put out my candle every night by clapping the extinguisher upon it. Who is it puts the extinguisher upon me?”
The good sister almost wished it could be she.
But she replied gently, ”It is G.o.d who gives us sleep--we can't be always awake.”
”Then I am not responsible for my dreams anyhow?”
”I hope you don't have bad dreams,” said the nun, affrighted.
”Oh, I dream--what do I not dream? Sometimes I fly--oh, so high, and all the people look up at me, they marvel. But I laugh and kiss my hand to them down there.”
”Well, there's no harm in flying,” said the nun. ”The angels fly.”
”Oh, but I am not always an angel in my dreams. Is it G.o.d who sends these bad dreams, too?”
”No--that is the devil.”
”Then it is sometimes he who puts the extinguisher on?”
”That is when you have not said your prayers properly.”
Eileen opened wide eyes of protest. ”Oh, but, dear mother, I always say my prayers properly.”
”You think so? That is already a sin in you--the sin of spiritual pride.”
”But, _ma mere_, devil-dreams or angel-dreams--it is always the same in the morning. Every morning one finds oneself ready on the pillow, like a clock that has been wound up. One did not make the works.”
”But one can keep them clean.”
Eileen burst into a peal of laughter.
”_Qu'avez-vous donc?_” said the good creature in vexation.
”I thought of a clock was.h.i.+ng its face with its hands.”
”You are a naughty child--one cannot talk seriously to you.”
”Oh, dear mother, I am just as serious when I am laughing as when I am crying.”
”My child, we must never cultivate the mocking spirit. Leave me. I am vexed with you.”
As her first communion approached, however, all these simmerings of scepticism and revolt died down into the recommended _recueillement_. Her days of retreat, pa.s.sed in holy exercises, were an ecstasy of absorption into the divine, and the pious readings began to a.s.sume a truer complexion as the experiences of sister-souls, deep crying unto deep. Oh, how she yearned to take the vows, to leave the trivial distracting life of the outer world for the peace of self-sacrificial love!
As she sat in the chapel, all white muslin and white veil, her hair braided under a little cap, the new rosary of amethyst--a gift from home--at her side, her hands clasped, exalted by incense and flowers and the sweet voices of the choir, chanting Gounod's Canticle, ”_Le Ciel a visite la terre_,” she felt that never more would she let this celestial visitant go. When after the communion she pulled the last piece of veiling over her face, she felt that it was for ever between her and the crude world of sense; the ”Hymn of Thanksgiving” was the apt expression of her emotions.
But next time she came under these aesthetic, devotional influences--even as her own voice was soaring heavenward in the choir--she thought to herself, ”How delicious to have an emotion which you feel will last for ever and which you know won't!” And a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt flitted over her rapt features.