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which the bell rang at half past three, alerting me to go down to the
church. A few nuns had already arrived before me, and the Mother
Superior, standing at the entrance to the choir, stopped me and
ordered me to kneel outside; meanwhile the rest of the community
arrived and the door was closed. At the end of the service, they all
left, I let them go past, and I got up in order to follow behind. From
that moment on I started to condemn myself to whatever they
wanted. No sooner had they forbidden me to go into the church than
I forbade myself to go to the refectory or to recreation. I considered
the position I was in from every angle, and I decided that my only
hope lay in their need of my talents and in my submission. I would
have been content with the kind of oblivion to which I had been
condemned for several days. A few visitors came, but I was only
allowed to see Monsieur Manouri. When I went into the parlour, I
found him in exactly the position I had been in when I received his
messenger, his head resting on his arms and his arms against the
grille. I recognized him, but I said nothing to him. He hardly dared
look at me or speak to me:
 Madame, he said, without moving,  I wrote to you, and you ve
read my letter.
 I received it, but I haven t read it.
 So you don t know...
 No, Monsieur, I know full well. I ve guessed what my fate is, and
I m resigned to it.
 How are they treating you?
 They re not giving me a moment s thought just now, but the past
shows me what the future has in store. My one consolation is that,
deprived of the hope that sustained me, I couldn t possibly suffer as
much as I ve suffered already, for I shall die. My wrongdoing is not
of the kind that can be forgiven in a nun. I don t ask God to soften
the hearts of those to whose discretion he has chosen to abandon me,
but I do ask him to grant me the strength to suffer, to save me from
despair, and to call me unto himself without delay.
 Madame, he said, crying,  I couldn t have done more for you
even if you d been my own sister...
The Nun 79
He is a kind-hearted man.
 Madame, he added,  if I can help you in any way, I am at your
service. I shall go and see the First President, who thinks highly of
me. I shall go and see the Vicars General and the Archbishop.
 Monsieur, go and see nobody. It s over.
 But what if we could get you moved to another convent?
 There are too many obstacles in the way.
 What obstacles?
 Obtaining permission, which would be difficult, and arranging a
new dowry or taking back the old one from this convent. And after
all that, what will I find in another convent? My stubborn heart,
ruthless Mothers Superior, nuns who will be no better than they are
here, the same duties, the same suffering. It is better that I should
end my days here, where they will be shorter.
 But, Madame, you have aroused the interest of many decent
people, and most of them are wealthy. Nobody will want to keep you
here if you re able to leave and take nothing away with you.
 So I believe.
 A nun who leaves or dies increases the well-being of the other
nuns who are left behind.
 But these decent people, these wealthy people, have forgotten all
about me now, and you ll find them very cool if they re asked to give
their own money to support me. Why do you expect it to be easier
for people in the world outside to help a nun with no vocation to
leave a convent than for pious people to help a nun with a genuine
vocation to enter a convent? Is it easy to find dowries for the latter?
Why, Monsieur, everybody has disappeared, and since I lost my case
nobody comes to see me any more!
 Madame, just leave all this with me; I shall be more successful
this time.
 I ask for nothing, I hope for nothing, I stand in the way of noth-
ing. My last hope has been shattered. If only I could convince myself
that God would change me and that, with all my hope of leaving
gone, my heart might be filled with all the qualities necessary for the
religious life... But that s impossible; this nun s habit has attached
itself to my skin and bones and irks me all the more. Oh! What fate is
mine! To be a nun for ever more, and to feel that I will only ever be a
bad nun. To spend my whole life banging my head against the bars
of my prison cell!
80 The Nun
At that point I started screaming. I tried to stifle it, but I could
not. Shocked by my emotions, Monsieur Manouri said to me:
 Madame, dare I ask you a question?
 Please do, Monsieur.
 Is there a hidden explanation for your violent pain?
 No, Monsieur, I hate the solitary life, I feel deep down that I hate
it and that I shall always hate it. I shall never be able to subject
myself to all the drudgery that fills a nun s waking hours: it is noth-
ing but an endless round of childish things which I despise. I would
have got used to it by now if I had been capable of getting used to it.
I ve tried a hundred times to deceive myself, to break my resistance,
but I simply cannot. I have envied, and asked God for, the blissful
stupidity of my companions, but I have not obtained it and he will [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]