THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE NUN
 
 BOOKS BY RENE BAZIN 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 The Nun $1.00 
 
 (L'lsolcSe) 
 
 The Coming Harvest $1.25 
 
 (Le Bl< qui Lfeve) 
 
 Redemption $1.25 
 
 (De toute son Ame)
 
 THE NUN 
 
 (L'ISOLEE) 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 
 RENE BAZIN 
 
 OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY 
 
 FIFTH EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1 908
 
 Published March, 1908
 
 Contents 
 
 I. 
 
 THE EVENING IN JUNE... 
 
 H. 
 
 VOCATION 31 
 
 III. 
 
 VIA DOLOROSA 96 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE BEARERS OF PASCALE'S BURDEW 155 
 
 V. 
 
 PASCALS *9 2 
 
 627422
 
 THE NUN. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE EVENING IN JUNE. 
 
 "SISTER PASCALE, your eyes are red." 
 
 "Not that I've been crying. There's a chill 
 in the wind to-night." 
 
 "Yes, and there was hard work in the school 
 to-day. You will be killing yourself, Sister 
 Pascale." 
 
 A young, unsteady voice, with gaps in it caused 
 by physical fatigue, replied: 
 
 "They are such darlings, my little girls; and 
 yet, in a week, not one of them would think of 
 me again nor, perhaps, would any one in the 
 wide world." And the speaker laughed. 
 
 A murmur of words, hardly articulate, obvi- 
 ously often rehearsed, seemed to surround and 
 envelop the young Sister with their tenderness. 
 "Child! when will you be rational? You are 
 trying to get us to say how much we care for 
 you." 
 
 "Who would think this baby was twenty-three 
 to-day?"
 
 2 THE NUN 
 
 "Yes, this very day, the 16th of June, 1902." 
 
 " There, you see, we know all about your age!" 
 
 A pleasure in merely being together, in being 
 
 quiet, in loving one another apart, visited all 
 
 these hearts. And she who was hi authority, 
 
 raising her eyes beyond the enclosing courtyard, 
 
 and beyond the sky-line of distant houses, said: 
 
 "It is good to breathe. People are fond of 
 
 libelling the air of our smoky Lyons, but it does 
 
 really smell of the country; don't you think it 
 
 does?" 
 
 In a few moments' silence, all eyes were hf ted ; 
 the sick or weary breast breathed in that joy of 
 summer which the city had not quite absorbed 
 or destroyed. These souls, inspired to worship 
 and to the giving of thanks on behalf of the world, 
 offered their gratitude in silence. 
 
 They were five women five nuns, dressed in 
 blue homespun, white frontlet, and black veil, 
 within the enclosure of a school, where an alley, 
 paved with cement and sheltered by a roof, ran 
 the whole length of the playground. They kept 
 for the use of their own "Community" this nar- 
 row retreat, and their habit was to gather there 
 in their free time, when, as now, the school- 
 children were gone. They felt more ultimate 
 there and also better screened from the curious 
 eyes of neighbours ; for the left wing of the house, 
 towards the east, was nearly surrounded by build- 
 ings. Five women : and one only was not young. 
 She was called Sister Justine, and had held office 
 as Superior for five-and- twenty years: a woman 
 built for action, square, broad-hipped, with a
 
 THE NUN 3 
 
 large face, a kind, round nose, a skin paled by 
 habitual privation of fresh air, eyes brown and 
 full of cheerful life, eyelids that could open or close 
 indeed, but knew no other trick, and had never 
 given a subtle expression or a shade of meaning 
 to any glance of hers. A white hair or two 
 sprouted on her upper lip and on her chin: her 
 few wrinkles were deep within her flesh; a silver 
 lock of hair, now and then escaping from a frontlet 
 carelessly put on, showed her to be aged about 
 sixty years. 
 
 Had Sister Justine remained in her native 
 place with her parents, working people of Colmar, 
 she would have become what the peasants call 
 a " godmother," a housewife dominant in her own 
 home, and, not seldom, hi a neighbour's ; a man- 
 aging woman, somewhat feared, but always benef- 
 icent. But at twenty she had entered the 
 congregation of St. Hildegarde, which has its 
 Mother-House at Clermont-Ferrand, and since 
 then had returned once only to Alsace, on the eve 
 of the war of 1870. In her was evident the war- 
 like and frontier-guarding blood of her race. 
 Quick in decision, brief in speech, never rescinding 
 an order, clear in intelligence, ready in reply, more 
 courageous than the average of men, she had 
 never ceased to be the counsellor and the support 
 of a throng that constantly shifted and changed 
 about her. Children, parents, the random poor, 
 with weaknesses, grievances, and sufferings of 
 many kinds very secret as well as very common 
 had confidence in her strength, well aware of 
 her tenderness for those obscure and insignificant
 
 4 
 
 ones of the social world who recognised in her one 
 of themselves, yet a representative whose dignity 
 they shared. When they were at a loss for the 
 thing to be done, they were wont to say, "Let's 
 go to Sister Justine." 
 
 And they found her always ready to set out, 
 far more intent upon the remedy than curious 
 about the evil, never dismayed, and never use- 
 lessly given over to emotion. In her gown of 
 homespun blue, of which the sleeves were gener- 
 ally turned back, like those of a field-worker, in 
 her white frontlet and black veil, she would have 
 travelled round the world with a good will. But 
 her journey was the daily circle of the classes in 
 her school and of some poor houses in its neigh- 
 bourhood. She gave the lessons to the tall girls, 
 those who were in their last school year. Among 
 the nuns also she was the adviser, the prop, the 
 shelter. In the town she was summoned hither 
 and thither by those who did not so much as know 
 her. Her name was called upon in place of the 
 name of Providence, which was not invoked. And 
 in this rough work she did not wear out, so calm 
 was she as well as alert, going, going, on her strong, 
 short legs. " Never to belong to yourself," said 
 she; "that is the way never to be tired." 
 
 After Sister Justine the eldest of the Sisters 
 was not yet forty years old; and those who saw 
 her at a distance, or had a brief view of her, 
 thought her much younger. Slender and tall, 
 almost un wrinkled, her eyes often cast down, her 
 lips delicate and almost blue, so pale they were, 
 she bore something in her face and in her attitude
 
 THE NUN 5 
 
 that was haughty, virginal, and austere. She 
 resembled, with the addition of reality and life, 
 a woman-martyr figured in a stained-glass window, 
 rigid, upright, with one hand upon a sword, sym- 
 bol of her strength, of her death, and of her 
 honour. When she turned those eyes upon 
 another even if this were a child the impression 
 was not softened. The eyes of Sister Danielle, 
 exceedingly dark under lovely eyebrows, expressed 
 a soul full of self-diffidence, closely curbed, and so 
 exacting towards itself that is was thought to 
 be exacting towards others. But this woman had 
 tamed herself ; she went in fear, despite her blame- 
 less experience; she was a wise virgin anxiously 
 watching for any wind that might breathe upon 
 her lamp. 
 
 Almost tragic of aspect, she bore the traces of 
 the cost at which certain spirits overcome nature 
 by will. She had an ardent heart; and its en- 
 thusiasm now was manifest only hi the eagerness 
 of duty. Those who watched her knew her to be 
 capable of heroism, and sensitively bent on keeping 
 that capacity secret. To her the Superior had 
 entrusted the second class and the accounts of the 
 Community; but she might have been charged 
 with the cooking, or the washing, or another task 
 of any kind. She was chosen to accompany 
 Sister Justine when a ceremonial visit had to be 
 paid to the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, or to 
 the Abbe Le Suet, " Monsieur le Superieur" of 
 the Order. And as all she did was done with 
 scrupulous exactitude, Sister Danielle did not 
 escape the sisterly admiration of the observant
 
 6 THE NUN 
 
 and tender witnesses in whose company she lived. 
 She too watched, but her care was that she should 
 not be too dearly loved for fear of the love of self 
 that might ensue. Nor even in intimate inter- 
 course, in conversation on summer evenings, in the 
 courtyard and the playground, did she relax her 
 reserve ; she asked few questions, she smiled little. 
 
 When she was alone that is, when she was at 
 prayer this close spirit was unlocked, and the 
 fire therein took flight in flame, went up to God. 
 Danielle then let loose her love upon things visible 
 and invisible, upon the children of her religious 
 adoption, upon the miseries she knew and those 
 she knew not, in tears and cries and the clamour 
 of her prayer. And this was but a child of poor 
 people, born in a peasant family of day-labourers 
 in that country of Correse, where the chestnut 
 trees shade the soil from a southern sun. Over 
 the door of her cell, on the inner side, she had writ- 
 ten, Libenter et fortiter. The daily recitation of the 
 Office had taught the Sisters some little Latin. 
 
 A peasant also was the little Sister Leonide, 
 but of another province. She was the child of 
 the Lyons country side, of the district of Lozanne, 
 where large villages lift on vine-clad hills their 
 wide, tiled roofs like a heap of hollow shells. She 
 had laboured, she had dug, she had reaped, she 
 had gathered the vintage, putting all the strength 
 she had into her daily toil ; and now she prolonged, 
 in the religious dress, her lowly and almost entirely 
 manual labour, keeping the lamps in order, sweep- 
 ing out the class-rooms, and teaching the alphabet 
 on Sundays to the little pupils, the very young
 
 THE NUN 7 
 
 children whom the mothers of the district, bent 
 on a country excursion, on the streets, or on a 
 dance, brought to the Sisters of St. Hildegarde 
 for the day. She was short and swarthy, with 
 two red patches on her cheeks " kisses of the 
 kitchen range," she called them; and although 
 she was not yet thirty, all her teeth were gone. 
 Her disfigured and discoloured lips hardly used 
 any words but these : ' ' Yes, Sister " ; ' ' Of course 
 I will, Sister"; "Well, come in, little one"; "Sit 
 down, ma'am, I'll run and tell the Superior." 
 Entirely simple, afraid of nothing, obedient for 
 the sake of love, freely self-forgetful, she might 
 have written over her cell door, Ecce ancilla 
 Domini. But she had not thought of it. All 
 Lyons knew her; the tram-conductors some of 
 them used to take her by the arm to help her in 
 when she came with her basket full of potatoes 
 and carrots from the market on the Quai Saint 
 Antoine. "Up, little Mother, jump!" they said. 
 She would reply: "Only little Sister, as yet," 
 and they laughed. 
 
 The two other nuns came from a far different 
 environment; they were Sister Edwige, born at 
 Blois, daughter of a station-master in the Indre- 
 et-Loire country, and Sister Pascale, daughter 
 of a Lyons silk-weaver. These two were earnest 
 friends. The one concealed her preference by 
 reason of universal charity, the other showed it 
 by reason of weakness. To be near Sister Edwige, 
 to see her, and to hear her, was to be aware of all 
 that is uttered in the word Mercy. The eternal 
 compassion had its abode in her. Kindness with-
 
 8 THE NUN 
 
 out limit, without weariness, without distinction 
 of persons, went forth from her face and from her 
 hands. It was manifest in her grace of movement, 
 in the clear form of her cheek, in her limpid eyes 
 which proffered respect, admiration, devotion, 
 pity and always love; soft eyes, ignorant of de- 
 ceit, hatred, or so much as irony; eyes like the 
 eyes of a child to whom had been added the knowl- 
 edge of sorrow ; eyes so lovely, and of a tenderness 
 so chaste and wide, that the Sisters said, "Sister 
 Edwige's eyes give us God." 
 
 Hers was the primary class in the school, that 
 of the children six and seven years old. She had 
 the motherhood of a virginal spirit, and others 
 loved her; shy people, discouraged ones, unpromis- 
 ing ones, those who needed special protection 
 all, having once seen Sister Edwige, sought her. 
 She had very ready and accessible tears. She 
 looked as though she were reaping and gathering 
 love on behalf of the supernal mercy visible in her. 
 One might well have said to her: " Raise your 
 hand over us, and we shall be healed." Many had 
 stammered words of somewhat this meaning. 
 But at once her front was darkened, her rays 
 withdrawn, and the charm that brought her so 
 much love had vanished. She seldom left the 
 house, besides, having plenty of work in the 
 school. 
 
 Her personal distinction and her youth, as 
 much as her goodness, had gained her the heart 
 of the youngest of the Sisterhood, Pascale. Like 
 all very intelligent girls born in the labouring 
 classes of French towns, Sister Pascale had a taste
 
 THE NUN 9 
 
 for good manners, an aristocratic sense whereby she 
 perceived, in the street, in a conversation, in 
 the design of a piece of decoration everywhere, 
 the character of the elegant, of the appropriate, 
 of the distinctively French. She seldom made mis- 
 takes, and this critical taste had been entangled 
 with a great deal of envy in the days before her 
 entry into the Convent. She had been a pretty 
 girl in the world not a beautiful one, but a 
 pretty one, with partly cendre, partly tawny, fair 
 hair, light eyes with points of lively gold eyes 
 that brightened with every word, whether heard 
 or spoken, a rather short nose, firm, youthful 
 cheeks that were rounded when she laughed, very 
 red, fresh and mobile mouth. She was one of 
 those pale women who have been blooming once, 
 and would easily bloom again. She had no colour, 
 and there was always a slight darkness, beneath 
 her eyes. Her laugh was ready ; her figure slender 
 and flexible. Even under her heavy homespun 
 Sister Pascale looked as though she loved running 
 and would have used her pupils' skipping-rope had 
 there been no one to see. There was much of the 
 child in her, of the Southern French child, careless 
 of to-morrow as those are who have kept nothing 
 of yesterday; and she had been secured from all 
 peril by the example and traditions of her family, 
 people as steadfast as the Lyons rocks. The 
 Convent had not robbed her of her frank utterance, 
 her vivacity, and her exceeding sensibility. She 
 could not endure to see blood, nor to dress an 
 abscess, nor to hear an operation detailed. In 
 the novitiate her trainers had tried to cure the
 
 10 THE NUN 
 
 little town girl of these absurdities, but without 
 success. Her pleasures also seemed to them ex- 
 cessive her delight in a flower, in the light of a 
 lovely day, in a sunset, or in a beautiful child. 
 She much preferred those of her pupils who were 
 pretty, or who were well dressed, or, at least, better 
 dressed than the others ; and of this fault she was 
 wont to accuse herself. For frankness dwelt in 
 this soul which was on the way towards peace, but 
 did not yet possess it, and perhaps would never 
 possess it wholly. The Sisterhood loved her for 
 her youth, for her spirit, for her great sincerity, 
 and also for her weakness, and for the sake of the 
 help which, ingenuously and often, this little com- 
 panion in the sisterly life asked of their graver 
 years. 
 
 The five nuns of St. Hildegarde lived together 
 in a house noisy by day, silent at night-fall. All 
 were over-worked. The daily recitation of the 
 Office after evening school, the meditation and 
 Mass of every morning, the care of a certain num- 
 ber of pupils who took their mid-day meal within 
 the Convent, the correction of school exercises, 
 and then for the elder ones especially the in- 
 numerable affairs of the poorer quarter of the city 
 to which they ministered, and in which their good- 
 will was called upon to excess, to exhaustion 
 these things filled all the days, the months, the 
 years. Throughout this incessant occupation, in 
 this forgetfulness of self, and in this poverty, they 
 enjoyed the sweetness, little known outside con- 
 vent walls, that comes of companionship albeit 
 often silent with elect ones, beings entirely
 
 THE NUN 11 
 
 worthy of love, whose energies are all at the com- 
 mand of charity. They formed a group more 
 closely united than a family; none the less had 
 they gathered from dissimilar places and condi- 
 tions, and for causes that differed also: Sister 
 Justine urged by her faith and by her love of 
 action; Sister Danielle moved by her zeal for 
 spiritual perfection and drawn by the invisible; 
 Sister Edwige called by her love for the poor; Sis- 
 ter Leonide by her humility; Sister Pascale led 
 by her distrust of herself and by her desire that 
 among saints, and in face of their example, her 
 days might be counted in unassailable security. 
 
 There was among them a complete liberty; 
 they heard each other, without surprise, speak 
 according to individual temperament and under 
 the impulse of separate character. 
 
 On this evening in June they had returned 
 from the service of Benediction in the Church of 
 Saint Pontique. The apse of the church was but 
 a few steps from their door, on a place planted 
 with two rows of plane-trees. When they had 
 looked towards the open east, over the little wall 
 of the playground, as the Superior had done, three 
 of them began their walk up and down the court- 
 yard, Sister Danielle and Sister Leonide flanking 
 the stout Superior. 
 
 The other two did not at once leave the sight 
 before their eyes. It was not very beautiful ; but 
 Sister Edwige looked, with eyes made tender by 
 admiration, at the lower sky, at the tops of poplars 
 planted along the Rhone and visible between 
 distant houses, and she felt the sweetness which
 
 12 THE NUN 
 
 the sun's farewell imparts to all things for a 
 moment, penetrating them and rendering them 
 all glorious and translucent. The other nun, 
 Pascale, the youngest, turned her head slowly to 
 watch the fading of the sky-line of houses and the 
 coming, in the hollows of windows, of lights by 
 twos and threes, and the vague movement of life 
 within. On all hands rose the noise of labours 
 drawing to a close ; like the sound of the country, 
 this city clamour was composed of actions and 
 cries and calls, of footsteps on the pavements, 
 voices in the lanes, hammerings growing fewer and 
 longer between, the scream of a siren giving the 
 signal of departure on the river, resounding noises 
 of timber on the wharves all gradually absorbed 
 by the prodigious silence settling over the city 
 and seizing it by increasing and enlarging inter- 
 vals. Sister Pascale was thinking of things gone 
 by, and of the children scattered through the city 
 spaces. 
 
 Night came, with its deceptive peace; for 
 nothing had stopped but labour only: not pain, 
 nor poverty, nor hatred, nor vice. Only a few 
 sequestered and victorious spirits had peace. 
 
 ''Are you feeling the heat of this long day, Sister 
 Pascale?" asked Sister Edwige. "It was all but 
 unbearable in my class." And she added, with 
 a secret thrill of joy: "How gently it comes to 
 an end!" As she said it, she thought of the end 
 of her youth or of her life. 
 
 "No," replied the other; "I am thinking of my 
 father, who used to stop his loom at this time of 
 the evening."
 
 THE NUN 13 
 
 "Poor child! And how long ago did you lose 
 him?" 
 
 "Four weeks. He died on the sixteenth of 
 May." 
 
 The compassionate voice of Sister Edwige re- 
 sumed hastily: "Oh, I have not kept count, but 
 I have not forgotten my promise for a single day 
 not one. I only forgot the date." 
 
 Behind them, between them, a well-known 
 voice, more decided than theirs, interrupted: 
 "Come with the others, will you?" 
 
 It was Sister Danielle. 
 
 Sister Edwige and Sister Pascale with the same 
 movement turned and joined the three in their 
 exercise, walking back to the wall on the right, 
 then turning in their up and down walk so as to 
 face the Superior, Sister Leonide, and Sister 
 Danielle. The way was narrow, and did not allow 
 five to go abreast. 
 
 "We are talking," said Sister Justine, "of the 
 answers the children give us. Those who come 
 from the secular schools don't know a word of 
 catechism or of Scripture. And those who come 
 straight from home hardly know more." 
 
 "Would you believe it," cried Sister Leonide 
 with a laugh; "A new girl came a fortnight ago 
 into the little ones' class, and this is what she said. 
 I asked her what was the first man's name, and 
 she said 'Adam.' And the first woman's name? 
 'Ad le.' What did she do? What was her sin? 
 'Oh, I know, Sister, she sneaked an apple.'" 
 
 There were a few smiles, but only the little 
 peasant nun who told the story laughed out, with
 
 14 THE NUN 
 
 a laugh that rang across the court-yard and over 
 the wall. 
 
 "It is not such a very bad answer," said Sister 
 Justine. "If they blundered only over the name 
 of the first woman, there would not be much harm 
 done. But some are asked who is Christ, and say 
 they don't know there's harm enough there, and 
 fault enough." 
 
 " Whose fault?" asked a serious voice. 
 
 Two or three veils turned towards the speaker. 
 It was Sister Danielle. There was no reply, but 
 the name of Christ falling on the pure ground of 
 these hearts, rose again, and was rising higher as 
 they spoke or listened : 
 
 "Laetitia Bernier came this morning in a new 
 hat with feathers worth at least " 
 
 Sister Justine, not well versed in the fashions, 
 considered for a moment, and then, remembering 
 a ticket seen in a shop-window, finished her 
 sentence: "Worth at least four francs ninety- 
 five," said she. 
 
 "That's not dear for a hat," said Sister Leonide, 
 who knew a little of everything. 
 
 "And do you know, Sister Leonide," proceeded 
 Sister Justine, "that Laetitia's cousin, Ursula 
 Magre, is quite well again?" 
 
 "Yes, Mother; hi fact, I met her yesterday, in 
 Place Bellecour, and she didn't know me." 
 
 "She didn't see you?" 
 
 "Ah yes, she did. It's not nice in an old pupil. 
 But now she is not at her linen-workshop " 
 
 "She doesn't work there now?" 
 
 "No."
 
 THE NUN 15 
 
 "Where is she then?" 
 
 "Well, she is not with the Salvation Army 
 either." 
 
 Sister Le*omde coloured. She often brought 
 back with her, from her tasks in the town, tidings 
 that she did not impart to her companions, unless 
 as now she was taken unawares, with an 
 ensuing regret for having talked too much. No 
 one present pressed the point. One or two faces 
 wore a look of pity. But Edwige's face was calm. 
 She lifted to the skies, where the night was now 
 come, her wondering gaze; her lips moved, and 
 she seemed to be praying, with the stars for a 
 rosary. 
 
 Sister Pascale, her mobile face full of a tragic 
 indignation, noticed nothing except the refusal 
 of recognition and greeting to little Sister Leonide, 
 her old friend, and exclaimed : ' ' What a shame ! ' ' 
 
 The Superior turned her eyes on the weaver's 
 daughter. 
 
 "Yes," cried Pascale, "a shame. Not to know 
 the good Sister who taught one to read, whom 
 one has seen every day for four or five years it 
 is a kind of ingratitude I can hardly understand." 
 
 "But you will see it very often, little girl." 
 
 "Then I shall never get used to it. It has hurt 
 me before. Why when I cross the place in the 
 morning, going to church, I pass people I have 
 never seen till then, and they look at me as though 
 they hated me madly." 
 
 "That's true enough." 
 
 "Men of the town my town; working people, 
 like my people. And I think, 'Do you know
 
 16 THE NUN 
 
 what I am doing for you, wretches? I am making 
 mothers, making wives, making happiness for you, 
 and yet you don't love me!" 
 
 The stout Superior laughed as she saw, in the 
 twilight, the impassioned face of Pascale. 
 
 " There are so many reasons for ingratitude 
 good ones and bad ones." 
 
 " Oh ! good reasons for ingratitude ! ' ' 
 
 "Why, yes." 
 
 "It is not for ourselves that we are despised," 
 said the touching voice of Sister Edwige, "and 
 that is the sad thing." 
 
 As she never spoke save piously and wisely, the 
 four listened. The Sister stooped to put aside a 
 ball left on the cement of the playground floor, 
 and raising again her supple figure, continued with 
 the tone of conviction that came of her great 
 sincerity: 
 
 "To carry our Christ through the world; not 
 to let Him die within us; to lift Him up as hi a 
 monstrance not often; but to let Him shine 
 through, always, habitually our one Love." 
 
 She had told the story of her own life. She 
 added hi a lower tone: 
 
 "The rest is not our business. The rest does 
 not exist." 
 
 For a little while there was no sound in the 
 playground except the hum of the city, and the 
 whisper of the felt shoes of the nuns stirring the 
 dust of the pavement. 
 
 "And you, Sister Danielle, what is your ambi- 
 tion? Sister Edwige has told hers." 
 
 The nun thus questioned hesitated, because of
 
 THE NUN 17 
 
 the embarrassment she felt whenever she had 
 to appear, to speak, to arrest the attention of 
 others ; then she obeyed : 
 
 "I should wish to buy back souls, in secret. 
 It does one so much good, when one is suffering, 
 to think that one is bearing some of the burdens 
 of the over-burdened." 
 
 "Well, you'll certainly have your wish," said 
 the loud and laughing voice of the Alsatian; "we 
 have had, and we shall have, trials enough. And 
 you, Sister Le"onide?" 
 
 "Oh, as for me, whatever you like, so long as 
 I don't have to give orders." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because I shall never be able to do anything 
 but just what I have to do now." 
 
 "And you, Sister Pascale? Now, let us see 
 whether she really deserves that we should care 
 for her as we do." 
 
 "I am certainly not holy," said the young and 
 unsteady voice; "and I want you all I always 
 want you, that you may help me to become 
 better. That is my ambition." Sister Pascale 
 looked at them all, one by one, with the warmth 
 of her eyes, which was like the first warmth of 
 morning. 
 
 "But I want something besides," she added. 
 "I want our little girls. You know I don't love 
 them all alike that's the worst of it. But 
 whenever I see one even one of those I care less 
 about my heart melts." 
 
 "That is true," said Sister Edwige; "they are 
 life growing up, they are divine grace going by."
 
 18 THE NUN 
 
 Their words remained within the narrow group 
 they made as they walked. 
 
 Meanwhile, the huge town within which they 
 were lost had ceased to labour. Had they been 
 able to hear and see the life of but a single street, 
 close by their school, what a difference would they 
 have perceived between themselves and "the 
 world"! The men in the work-shop of Japomy 
 the tanner were insulting a foreman, who had 
 given, somewhat too abruptly, a perfectly just 
 order; women, gathered on doorsteps, were slan- 
 dering the owner and the owner's wife, according 
 to custom. The owner's wife, on her part, was re- 
 jecting a husband for her daughter, for the sole 
 reason sufficient to her mind that he was of less 
 fortune than the girl; vagrant and ragged appli- 
 cants were turned rudely away from the doors of 
 employment; wine-shop politicians -were fostering 
 their own popularity by preaching hatred of " peo- 
 ple who think they are our betters"; some jour- 
 neymen butchers, rich with their week's wages, 
 were taking an airing hi an open carriage; an in- 
 digent priest, neglected or forgotten in the hard 
 work of a poor parish, was speaking of his Arch- 
 bishop with scanty respect. Human pride in 
 many shapes everywhere held sway, fratricidal 
 pride, first sin of man, much older than lust, 
 much older than a lie, much older than the love 
 of gold. 
 
 The last pale light of the sky above the court- 
 yard and its two plane-trees was dead. Lights 
 shone in kitchens of multitudes of houses on many 
 levels of the steep city; fog lay over the river; the
 
 THE NUN 19 
 
 panting of the last machine in the factories had 
 ceased with the last puff of white steam. Great 
 draughts of air from the plateau of the Dombes 
 disturbed the stifling atmosphere, and spread cool- 
 ness hither and thither. Two of the Sisters, Edwige 
 and Pascale, folded their arms and hid their hands 
 in their blue sleeves. It was the season and the 
 hour of the flowering of the stars ; they clustered 
 so closely that the sand of the playground floor 
 caught minute reflections from their brightness, 
 and the roofs shone faintly. A bell rang within the 
 house and startled Sister Leonide. 
 
 "Who can be ringing?" she asked. 
 
 "You can see for yourself, my child," said Sister 
 Justine, tranquilly; "go and open the door." 
 
 The noise of bolts withdrawn was vaguely audi- 
 ble; then Leonide returned, a little disturbed by 
 the infraction of the rule she had been obliged to 
 commit. 
 
 "Mother, it is Ursula Magre, the old school- 
 girl- 
 
 "Yes, I know why, we were just talking 
 about her. What did she want? " 
 
 "She wanted to see you." 
 
 "You told her I would see her to-morrow?" 
 
 "No, Mother. I told her to come in. There is 
 a hurry about something. She looked she 
 looked anyhow . ' ' 
 
 "Looked what?" 
 
 "Funny no a good deal put out, with her 
 frizzy head of hair. She is in the parlour, Mother." 
 
 The old Superior tapped Sister Leonide twice 
 upon the cheek.
 
 20 THE NUN 
 
 " Think of not being able to keep the door, at 
 your age!" 
 
 There was no other reproof. She left the group 
 of nuns who continued their tranquil walk, and 
 the night heard nothing more than four young 
 voices, their quiet speech and their gentle laughter. 
 
 Sister Justine threaded the corridor, crossed the 
 house in darkness, and near the front door turned 
 to the left into a small room containing only chairs, 
 where she was accustomed to receive "relations." 
 On the mantelpiece a small petroleum lamp a 
 glass globe sheltering a little circlet of metal 
 gave light to the room. And in the unsteady light 
 which the four bare walls reflected, a tall fair- 
 haired girl, upright, her eyelids partly lowered, 
 splendid hair piled on the top of her head, greeted 
 the nun familiarly. 
 
 "How do you do, Mother?" 
 
 But she did not hold out her hand, nor did she 
 seek a kiss from the old head of the school of her 
 younger days. 
 
 "I have something pressing to tell you," con- 
 tinued Ursula, "and I feel it will you promise 
 to keep it secret?" 
 
 "I carry more than my own weight of secrets 
 about with me, my girl about half the secrets of 
 the district. You can go on. Or shall I help you? 
 Come now, you have not been to see me for five 
 years. You have had a reason. You have made 
 a slip, is that it?" 
 
 The tall girl, whose cheeks and short upturned 
 nose and uncovered neck looked rosy and trans- 
 parent hi the lamp light, drew herself up and put
 
 THE NUN 21 
 
 her two hands before her, palms outwards, as 
 though to keep that matter away; then she said: 
 
 "It's not about me, it's about your school. 
 I've got to tell you that the school is closed." 
 
 Sister Justine caught her by the arm, drew her 
 to the wall, compelled her to sit opposite the little 
 lamp, took a chair by her. 
 
 "What do you mean? Closed? the school?" 
 She was whiter than her frontlet, and her wrinkles 
 were suddenly ploughed deep. 
 
 "I know it, there's an order for you to leave 
 your school." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "You'll go, you'll have to go, in five or six 
 days." 
 
 "A month before the holidays?" 
 
 "So I suppose." 
 
 "Oh, my God! And my children, what is to 
 become of them?" 
 
 "That's just it. I thought I would let you 
 know." The nun bowed herself, bent in two. 
 Ursula had nothing at her side but a blue and 
 black bundle from which escaped the cry, "Oh, 
 my God, my God, how can I bear this?" 
 
 Ursula Magre, who was moved by sobs so near 
 her, had her own lip caught by a slight spasm of 
 pain. She breathed quickly under her mauve cot- 
 ton bodice ; she glanced awkwardly, now at the old 
 nun struck down by her news as by a bullet, now 
 at the light of the lamp beginning to smoke in its 
 glass globe. Sister Justine sat up, wiped her eyes on 
 her veil, then taking Ursula's two hands, she said : 
 
 "Look here, my child, we must be practical.
 
 22 THE NUN 
 
 We must not run away with our trouble. My 
 whole life is at stake. But you can't be sure; it 
 is just a rumour; we are not obliged to get an 
 authorisation, as the new schools are. Our 
 Mother-House has been authorised " 
 
 The girl made a movement which meant 
 "What do I know about that?" 
 
 "The Government said so. We had not to ask 
 permission. The Abbe Le Suet, our Superior, 
 positively read it out." 
 
 "I tell you, all the same, that you are to be 
 closed." 
 
 "And we have been here forty years. Do you 
 understand? Forty ! ' ' 
 
 "All the more reason, then." 
 
 "And how do you know this?" 
 
 Sister Justine let go Ursula's hands. The girl 
 seemed so certain of what she said ! The two wom- 
 en looked point-blank at one another, the elder 
 seeking to find out whether she were deceived, 
 the younger angry at the distrust which she read 
 in the Superior's eyes, and none the less angry 
 because she felt a certain degree of shame, albeit 
 in secret, before this old school-mistress who knew 
 so much of her own towns-people that she could 
 read them. Ursula Magre was too proud to con- 
 fess her embarrassment. She overcame it, and 
 with the audacity she had always shown of old in 
 confessing her own faults, without condescending 
 to ask for their forgiveness, she said : 
 
 "It is quite impossible for us to live as you do. 
 I am keeping house, you know He is a police 
 agent, and it's he who sent me "
 
 THE NUN 23 
 
 Sister Justine betrayed no surprise. She said 
 in a softened tone : 
 
 "Why did he not come instead of you? It is 
 not a pleasant errand." 
 
 "Well, it bothers him. He doesn't like busi- 
 ness. You know men are afraid, much more 
 afraid than we are. And then " 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "My coming to you from him was to do you a 
 good turn." 
 
 "How? Can he prevent this misfortune?" 
 
 "He certainly can't." 
 
 "Well then?" 
 
 Ursula paused a while. 
 
 "Listen to me, Mother," she said slowly. "I 
 shouldn't have come at all, if it had been only to 
 make you unhappy. One has no spite against 
 you, one hadn't anything unpleasant in one's 
 school days and it doesn't follow, even if one 
 isn't pious now-a-days " 
 
 "You never were." 
 
 "Even if one has forgotten a lot of things, one's 
 sorry enough to see you put about. That's why. 
 Do you mean to hold out?" 
 
 Sister Justine raised her shoulders. 
 
 "If I only could! If it were of any use!" 
 
 "You mustn't." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "He told me to tell you to give in. It's the law. 
 'If they make us come a lot of us,' he said, 'if 
 they make a rumpus,' he said, 'I won't answer for 
 anything. The Mother-House at Clermont-Fer- 
 rand may be shut up as well,' he said. 'But if
 
 24 THE NUN 
 
 they go quietly of their own accord, for one thing 
 they'll save their Mother-House, and for another 
 thing, Government may allow the nuns, after they 
 have been secularised, to go on teaching. Gov- 
 ernment will take notice of their good conduct.' 
 That's what he said, Mother." 
 
 She waited for a reply. There was none. 
 Sister Justine had at last fully understood that 
 the news was true. She was staring at the wall. 
 Her knees trembled beneath her heavy gown ; she 
 saw in thought her nuns going down the three 
 stone steps into the place, the children around 
 them in tears, the vacant class-rooms, and the 
 dusty cells. She heard not, but Ursula was 
 saying: 
 
 "Well, he says the best thing you could do 
 would be to go out at once to-morrow, or the 
 day after, without giving notice at all; just 
 quietly. The Mother-House " 
 
 Sister Justine stood up. Her face kept the deep 
 lines of pain that the news had marked there. But 
 now something else was mixed with her grief: the 
 anguish of a decision involving the destruction of 
 her school; the dread of that burden of office 
 which would make her the executioner; the ap- 
 prehension of that moment, drawing near,- when 
 she must tell the dreadful secret to her fond com- 
 panions now awaiting her, ignorant of all. 
 
 "What answer shall I take?" asked Ursula 
 Magre, hesitating. "What are you going to 
 do?" 
 
 The nun moved her head. "Be quiet," she 
 said with an effort. "Let me go and tell them."
 
 THE NUN 25 
 
 She crossed the little parlour and took the 
 lamp. She was sobbing, in spite of herself, under 
 the veil she had pulled down. Ursula followed 
 her, wishing that she might give her a kiss for the 
 sake of old times, but she dared not. She went 
 down the steps while the nun, holding up the 
 lamp for her, turned away her poor aged face 
 bathed hi tears. 
 
 The door was closed. The hand that held the 
 lamp sank down, and Sister Justine, alone, in the 
 shadows of the corridor, in the wind that came 
 warm down the staircase, wept. Her head was 
 bowed, and her tears fell upon the sandy stone 
 worn by the feet of children. She, so strong, so 
 well versed in the art of self-control, was unable to 
 possess herself again. She failed, she leant against 
 the wall. Oh! those Sisters, those dear and inno- 
 cent fellow-labourers of hers, a few yards away in 
 their peace, in their joy, and she was now to de- 
 stroy their lives. The sound of a sweet and fresh 
 treble voice she knew it was the voice of Edwige 
 reached her from without; she heard it in her 
 agony. Revived by the life that was near, or by a 
 grace sudden and direct, she put the lamp in its 
 place, blew out the flame, and groped her way to 
 the door that opened on the playground. 
 
 In the soft and airy night the Sisters were still 
 walking. They took the pleasure of rest from toil 
 and the pleasure of obedience, in their recreation. 
 Nothing had disturbed them ; no words, no fading 
 of the beauty of the hour, no slightest apprehen- 
 sion as to the absence of Sister Justine, for they 
 knew poer visitors had much to say. The sounds
 
 26 THE NUN 
 
 of the city were quiet. In the clearer air of night 
 more distant odours, such as the scent of country 
 hay, were perceptible. Sister Justine appeared, 
 her arms extended. 
 
 They all moved towards her: "Our Mother, 
 back again! You have been long away!" 
 
 But as they came nearer, notwithstanding the 
 uncertainty of the light of night, they thought, 
 they saw, that Sister Justine had the face of one 
 in grief, and that her open arms were not open 
 to enfold them, but that they signified the Cross. 
 
 "Oh! my girls, my daughters, my little chil- 
 dren! our hour of suffering has come!" 
 
 She joined her hands, and looking in the face of 
 Sister Pascale, who was nearest, she said: 
 
 "We shall be sent away within a week." 
 
 Her four companions came about her, the 
 smile of welcome hardly yet gone from their lips. 
 A moment was needed for the sinking of such 
 news into those hearts. But it reached at last and 
 explored the inmost capacity of suffering. Loving 
 much, these women had the more power to suffer. 
 There were no cries, but shudders, stifled words, 
 bowed heads, hands that sought each other, eye- 
 lids that closed so that they might shut in, if it 
 were possible, the first of many tears. 
 
 Then one voice of distress began : 
 
 "0 God, have pity on our little girls!" 
 
 It was the voice of Danielle. 
 
 Sister Edwige said: "Oh, the dear, beloved 
 house!" 
 
 Sister Pascale said: "\\Tiat will become of me 
 without you all?"
 
 THE NUN 27 
 
 Sister Leonide pulled her nickel watch from 
 her girdle, and walked quickly away. As she 
 moved down the playground, her companions, 
 raising their faces, began to ask questions : 
 
 "0 Mother, is it possible? They told us we 
 were in order. Is there no appeal? Who told 
 you? Oh, do tell us whether there is any hope 
 at all! Can we do anything? What ought we 
 to do?" 
 
 Sister Justine, unmoved outwardly amid their 
 dismay, turned her eyes from the sight of their 
 tears and of their young lips trembling like those 
 of aged women : 
 
 "My little children, we must pray hard. It is 
 the one thing, the divine thing. As to human 
 hope I shall write to-morrow 
 
 A bell interrupted her with the first of six slow 
 strokes. It was the bell of their rule, and Sister 
 Justine stopped in her phrase. The Sisters walked 
 in single line into the house, the youngest, Pascale, 
 at their head. The "great silence" had set in, 
 not to be broken until eight o'clock of the morning 
 of another day. 
 
 Ursula Magre was already far away. She 
 lived, with her protector, near the point of the 
 peninsula of Perrache, between the Saone and 
 the Rhone. She was going to give him an account 
 of her errand. She bit her red lips; she was not 
 grieved, but annoyed, at having had to take a 
 part in this eviction business, and at having to 
 witness at such close quarters the grief of her old
 
 28 THE NUN 
 
 school-mistress. Nothing should make her spend 
 such another quarter-of-an-hour as that at St. 
 Hildegarde's. Fargeat might go himself next 
 time. A man shouldn't make a woman do his 
 work. She was rehearsing what she would say to 
 him, word and gesture both. There was anger in 
 her swinging walk, and in the carriage of the rosy 
 face and golden head which, in the shop lights, 
 called up the gay, or insolent, or sinister, or 
 merely stupid eyes of admiring men. Some knew 
 her, many called to her, " Hallo, pretty girl!" 
 She walked in the middle of the street, pouting, 
 out of humour, and made no answer. A young 
 fellow with a sheaf of seringa, more than half 
 faded, on his arm, the last unsold of his wares, 
 cried to her, "Flowers, buy my flowers! A sou 
 for the lot!" Weary, unsteady as a drunkard, the 
 young man lurched towards her; coming close, 
 and aware of the scent of shop-perfumery that 
 came from her, his Lyons street-wit impelled him 
 to call, "You don't want flowers you're sweet 
 enough as you are!" She laughed cordially, she 
 felt herself to be looking well. Almost all her own 
 annoyance fell from her, with such little trace of 
 the grief of others as she had carried with her from 
 the convent. She went on by the bank of the 
 Rhone, under a million stars that scattered their 
 lights in the troubled waters. She went "home" 
 to her second-floor flat. When she entered the 
 kitchen a man in his shirt sleeves, leaning on the 
 window-sill, struck a match. He was a man of 
 thirty, with a rat face, glowing eyes, stiff mous- 
 tache and hair. He held up the candle he had
 
 THE NUN 29 
 
 lighted and looked at Ursula. His narrow face 
 took a little colour, and his intelligent, untrust- 
 worthy eyes, eyes that changed expression much 
 oftener than those of Ursula, sparkled with curi- 
 osity and enjoyment. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "I saw her." 
 
 "Did she turn you out?" 
 
 "That she didn't." 
 
 "I thought she would." 
 
 "I'm an old girl, remember." 
 
 "So you are; she let you in?" 
 
 "Yes, she did." 
 
 "When she heard they were going to shut up 
 her old shop, she began to abuse the Government, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "No, she didn't." 
 
 "Sheened, then?" 
 
 "Yes, poor old Sister. I didn't like it. I 
 thought one time she was going to faint " 
 
 "You mentioned the Mother-House?" 
 
 "Yes, as you told me." 
 
 "That's a good girl. And she just knocked 
 under? It's a good joke, the way that fetches 
 them 'Make the Mother-House safe.' You've 
 done the job. So she promised to clear out with- 
 out making a fuss, so as to save " 
 
 "She didn't promise anything at all." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 "And you gave me your dirty work to do 
 that's what you did. I won't do any more. 
 You can take it yourself." 
 
 He did not hear her. He was thinking.
 
 30 THE NUN 
 
 "Come," he said laughing, "don't be cross. 
 We've done the trick. That's all that's wanted. 
 She didn't turn you out, and she won't make a 
 fuss. The governor will be pleased. Give us 
 a kiss."
 
 II. 
 
 A VOCATION. 
 
 THE night had grown more moist, a night of 
 the ripening of fruits, and its wings were over the 
 cultivated lands. The blood of man and of 
 the plant was renewed in the darkness. And the 
 greater number of all creatures slept. In the 
 house of the Sisters of St. Hildegarde the night 
 lamp was not put out later than the customary 
 hour. With those saintly souls, self-abandon- 
 ment within the arms of Providence overcame 
 grief. One after another the Sisters slept. One 
 alone did not sleep, in an anguish that increased 
 in the solitude of night Pascale. Her childhood 
 returned upon her, and the better she remem- 
 bered her own brief yesterday, the more instant 
 was her terror. 
 
 Her childhood returned upon her, and the 
 close thereof the painful close. Five years Pas- 
 cale lived in a corner of the Croix Rousse, still 
 called by old people in the district the "Pierres 
 Plantees," nearly at the top of the Grande Cote, 
 a street peopled by weavers, by second-hand 
 dealers, butchers, grocers, bakers, whose little 
 shops were narrow and deep ; a street paved 
 with cobbles after the ancient manner, too steep 
 for any kind of carriage, and having notches cut 
 
 31
 
 32 THE NUN 
 
 in the asphalt of its sidewalks so that foot-pas- 
 sengers should not have too many falls. She was 
 the child of one of the working quarters, the old 
 habitation of silk-weavers that is divided by the 
 Saone from the church quarter Four vi ere, with 
 its sanctuary standing over the mists of two great 
 rivers. 
 
 Pascale had carried away, in the depths of her 
 golden eyes, the image of her former world. She 
 beheld again, with a precision of remembrance 
 that moved her, as the thing itself had moved 
 her, that morning of December the 8th, 1897, 
 when she had resolved to utter, for the first time, 
 the secret that weighed upon her heart. A tardy 
 dawn was breaking. Neither on that night had 
 Pascale slept. She had watched for the first pal- 
 ing of the high window-pane the one which, 
 seen from Pascale 's bed below, had only the sky 
 beyond; and she had thought: "A fog again! 
 All day long to see the sun only through a heap 
 of mist! And I did pray for a fine day." And 
 then the electric looms had begun their beat, 
 beat, for the day, up above the Mouvands' flat, 
 on the second floor, for the three floors were in- 
 habited by weavers, and for centuries floors, walls, 
 furniture, throughout the building, had shaken 
 all day long as though under the stress of a great 
 and incessant storm. Ah, silk enough had been 
 carried down that stair! Pieces enough of the 
 beautiful finished fabric had left those doors! 
 The shuttles had travelled many times round 
 the world. 
 
 The house, now newly fitted with machines,
 
 THE NUN 33 
 
 was beginning a day's work, when a voice from 
 the distant workshop called : 
 
 "Pascale, do you hear them? Since they had 
 to pay seventy francs to the Jonage Works for 
 electric power, they make noise enough, those 
 Rambauxi" 
 
 "That's true." 
 
 "Did you sleep well?" 
 
 "Not so well as usual." 
 
 "I did, splendidly. I'm very fit to begin my 
 day. Make haste and dress I'm ready." 
 
 And Pascale, rising in haste, felt that she was 
 shaken more profoundly than the building. 
 
 "I have to tell ny father, who loves me so, 
 that I am to be a nun, that I am to leave him 
 I must tell him, now, at once . " 
 
 She slipped on her woollen petticoat and stood 
 at the mirror-faced wardrobe, the only luxury of 
 her bedroom and only heritage from her mother, 
 and she unwound her hair. It was her chief 
 beauty, not because of its length, for it hardly 
 reached her waist, but for strength, vitality, 
 elastic abundance, and the flame of colour that 
 played here and there through its fairness; it 
 looked a very crown of youth, and its brightness 
 lighted the pale face of the city work-girl. The 
 slightest movement of her head made the lights 
 flow over those spreading tresses, which resem- 
 bled handfuls of Chinese or Japanese silk prepared 
 for the embroidering of golden birds flying, or 
 golden fish swimming, on the ground of some blue 
 screen. Often and often had she looked with de- 
 light on her own hair, this tender Pascale; it
 
 34 THE NUN 
 
 smiled at her. She had nursed, as she looked, 
 those thoughts of vanity that are, in their source, 
 neither more nor less than the desires of love. 
 But for some months past she had denied herself 
 such dreams, and on this morning she had no diffi- 
 culty in keeping them away. By the light of her 
 little night-lamp she saw her mirrored eyes, dull 
 and sleepless. "And what will they look like 
 when I have said all I have to say when I have 
 cried, as I shall cry?" she wondered. But it mat- 
 tered little. She made haste to fasten up her hair 
 and to dress herself. 
 
 Whence had this girl a convent vocation? In 
 the first place, from a rare self-knowledge. Her 
 mother, dead three years before, a working woman 
 with eyes full of prayer and of dreams, a face wide 
 at the brow and narrow at the chin, and a figure 
 bent, from her earliest years, over the loom, that 
 patient "hand" who was reluctant to undertake 
 intricate patterns because of the mental effort 
 they demanded her mother had bequeathed her 
 an anxious temperament, a heart sensitive to ex- 
 cess, a passionate love of children and much ti- 
 midity in regard to men. Pascale, less sheltered 
 than her mother by daily indoor labour, a pupil 
 of the Sisters until the age of thirteen, and after- 
 wards busy about the house, the kitchen, the 
 marketing, while her parents were at their weav- 
 ing, had noted how quickly her own nature was 
 moved by affectionate words, by the happy or 
 painful confidences of her friends, by the senti- 
 mental lessons of the few romances she had read, 
 by attentions, looks, signs of harmless admira-
 
 THE NUN 35 
 
 tion, of evil desires, by the tumult of feeling, like 
 the concourse in the street at eleven o'clock, agi- 
 tations of human emotion that touched her 
 nearly, embarrassed her, and flattered her. 
 
 She felt the shock and the trouble when she 
 went out to fetch the milk or the vegetables, when 
 she met, on the stairs, the insolent young men of 
 the Rambaux family, dwellers on the third floor, 
 who, in her honour only, stood aside and raised 
 their caps; and when the agents of M. Talier- 
 Decapy came to inspect the works, to place orders, 
 or to summon Mouvand to the owner's room. 
 She felt the attraction, she felt the fear. She 
 dreaded to appear, to be praised, to mix with the 
 crowd, to feel herself coveted, to breathe that 
 breath of passion from the street which all town- 
 dwellers must meet, but which beats so hotly on 
 the faces of the young and of the lovely. Her 
 thrills, her curiosity, her uneasiness revealed its 
 own frailty to her watchful heart. She was 
 alarmed, for this was a religious girl, who prized 
 her own chastity as a treasure. One day she 
 pronounced in her own secret counsels her own 
 sentence: "I believe I should be more easily 
 ruined than other girls. I ought to take refuge." 
 And this thought came and came again. 
 
 Pascale observed herself also on the point of 
 obedience. She knew herself uncertain, doubtful, 
 reluctant, slow to act, harassed by regrets when 
 she had acted even in trivial things; but full of 
 peace under the yoke of a reasonable obedience. 
 Her father's word, her mother's, or that of another 
 in whom she trusted "This is the right thing,
 
 36 THE NUN 
 
 this you should do" cleared the doubt and quiet- 
 ed the questioning. Then and not till then did 
 she set about the work before her. It might al- 
 ways be her lot to follow directions that she could 
 trust and love. She was one of a great multitude 
 of human souls that have neither greatness nor 
 strength except through their affections. Doubt- 
 less she might have married, and often by her as 
 by other girls that future had been faced. It was 
 the common lot a husband, a house, children. 
 But she had not been educated in the illusion that 
 marriage and happiness are one. She had seen 
 the fate of women otherwise. Daughter of a 
 mother early dead, sister of a little Blandine de- 
 stroyed by meningitis at ten years old, herself 
 delicate and subject to long-lasting winter coughs, 
 she could not think of marriage without remember- 
 ing the exhaustion of young women under frequent 
 child-birth, and under the concurrent necessity 
 of bread-winning for themselves and others ; with- 
 out remembering the still less fortunate among her 
 neighbours forsaken, beaten, bound for life to 
 idlers and to ruffians. 
 
 And even had she been sought in marriage by 
 a good man, an industrious weaver and son of 
 weavers as there were not a few in the Ooix 
 Rousse or by a clerk or little tradesman, would 
 the protection of her youth be effectual? "If I 
 don't grow bad," she thought, "I shall not be 
 very good. In that commonplace life, subject to 
 influences as I am, I may still have vague wishes 
 for something more perfect, but I shall not rise. 
 I should be much safer in a convent. I should
 
 THE NUN 37 
 
 have the safeguard of the nunnery walls, the safe- 
 guard of examples, of the rule, of regular obligatory 
 prayer. In the world I might be a bad woman 
 or a very ordinary one; in the convent I might 
 become a saintly soul. Is not that the one thing 
 for me?" 
 
 She had asked this question of a friend whose 
 counsel she valued. This was a woman whose 
 work in the silk-weaving industry was the spinning 
 of one thread with another the ''joining on" for 
 the continuing of a single piece of silk. For this 
 task she came once or twice a month, and it re- 
 quired exceeding cleanliness, skill, attention, and 
 practice. So many silken fibres to unite, so that 
 they should be, beyond all detection, continuous! 
 This widow Flachat, a discreet person of very 
 respectable poverty, used to come in the morning, 
 bringing the milk which she had bought in a trust- 
 worthy dairy, and set straight about her work. 
 Her face was bent over it and raised no more. 
 Into the milk she dipped her thumb and her index 
 finger, and with them twisted the two threads 
 that seemed to melt under her touch into one. 
 She took her food in the house, as the custom 
 is, and it was easy for Pascale, when her father 
 left the room, to consult the "tordeuse," who 
 had the art of listening as well as the art of her 
 own work. 
 
 "I am not surprised at what you tell me, my 
 little Pascale," she said, "and your mother would 
 have been glad to hear it. She liked church 
 services." 
 
 "Well,, but I don't," cried Pascale, laughing;
 
 38 THE NUN 
 
 "I get tired in church. I am not quite what you 
 think me, Madame Flachat." 
 
 "I know what I mean," continued the woman, 
 twisting her threads. "I mean that your mother 
 was like you, anxious to be better than the rest 
 of us, and bound to have trouble. I have been 
 through the world, my girl, and I can tell you that 
 it is not an easy place. Are you thinking of a 
 convent?" 
 
 "Yes, thinking but I don't exactly wish for 
 it." 
 
 "Like a marriage one is just wondering about." 
 
 "Something like that." 
 
 "Well, my dear, go on don't be in a hurry, 
 don't be anxious. If your heart is inclined that 
 way, let it go." 
 
 She spoke like wisdom itself, and Pascale thought 
 and thought again. 
 
 And then it was that in the pure, the doubtful, 
 the diffident soul of Pascale Mouvand arose the 
 wish for a cloistered life, wherein she believed 
 peace and security awaited her, that environment 
 of tenderness, without deceit, without betrayal, 
 of which the dream had been born with her. No 
 sudden illumination, no mystic ardour, no vapour 
 of incense, no dazzle of azure and gold, no miracu- 
 lous love of self-sacrifice led Pascale to the cloister, 
 but only the deliberate conviction that no other 
 way of life could so well develop what was good 
 in her and so well safeguard what was perilous. 
 She was afraid, she had seen the shelter, she sought 
 it. The thought of leaving her father gave her 
 pain, but this other thought overcame it : that the
 
 THE NUN 39 
 
 conditions of safety are not alike for all human 
 souls, but that they are imperious, that they are 
 not to be judged by the faithless, and that there 
 is no duty on earth that may stand against them. 
 A religious vocation was no startling thing to 
 befall this family. That old race of Lyons silk- 
 weavers was even as its last descendants, labori- 
 ous, scanty of speech, ardent at heart, capable of 
 long patience but also of terrible revolt, devout 
 and home-keeping. Despite so much effort to 
 glorify ignorance or hatred of religion in the poor, 
 it kept its place in the foremost rank of those 
 numerous families in the Croix Rousse, in the 
 Guillotiere, or in Saint-Irenee, who look to the 
 sanctuary of Fourviere for help, and to the Virgin 
 as a friend to them and to their town. The 
 Mouvands had taken part in the foundation of the 
 ancient charity of the Hospital Watchers, created 
 by the workmen of Lyons in 1767; and at the 
 beginning of the twentieth century, Adolphe 
 Mouvand held that he did himself honour by a 
 Sunday visit to the hospitals, where he shaved and 
 combed and brushed the poor patients as his 
 maternal great-great-uncle, Jean Marie Moncize- 
 rand, had done of old. He had brought up his 
 children he must now, alas! say his child in 
 the tradition of practical religion, to which he had 
 remained faithful. He would not refuse his con- 
 sent to Pascale's wish ; he would not long oppose 
 her. But as yet she had not told him. She had 
 left him, through pity, out of the struggle, out of 
 the doubt, out of the dismay that so troubled her. 
 For their characters were all unlike. He sus-
 
 40 THE NUN 
 
 pected nothing. And his surprise, his grief, per- 
 haps his anger, when he should know her secret 
 it was the apprehension of these that for many 
 nights, and for this night just past, had kept 
 Pascale awake. 
 
 When she had fastened her dress and pinned 
 up her hair, she threw over her shoulders a cape 
 of silky wool, entirely black, that had been her 
 mother's, brought the edges together at her throat 
 with a little metal bar set with false turquoises; 
 and, as she belonged to a generation that was 
 "prideful," as the weaver said, she drew on her 
 brown kid gloves. 
 
 Then she had so violent a beating of the heart 
 that she needed to lean against her bedstead, one 
 hand upon her breast. ' ' Oh, tell me what I ought 
 to say," she whispered. Slowly she opened her 
 door. The adjoining room, her father's, was 
 vacant. Pascale crossed it, turned at right angles, 
 and entered the large workshop of the weaver. 
 The Rambaux were at work above ; otherwise her 
 step on the old floor would have been audible. 
 Adolphe Mouvand was not at his usual place, on 
 the bench before the first loom, but at the end of 
 the workshop near the other machine which stood 
 dusty and motionless always, the old loom at 
 which his wife had worked. No one for three 
 years had been allowed to touch this relic. The 
 weaver placed his hand a small hand, expert at 
 holding the shuttle in the palm upon the wood, 
 polished with much usage. He looked at it all 
 the frame, the uprights, the cardboard still hang- 
 ing, on which was traced the last pattern woven
 
 THE NUN 41 
 
 by the dead. Mouvand had his face towards the 
 windows. The light, incomparably higher in tone 
 here than on the river levels of the city, struck out 
 the outline of the master-weaver's arched head 
 and square face, with its thick and strong grey 
 beard pushed forward by his habitual attitude at 
 work, with his chin turned in towards his breast. 
 He wore his black holiday clothes. Amongst his 
 hard, short hair some locks whiter than the rest 
 shone like silvery antique plush. He was deep in 
 thought and did not hear his child. But his down- 
 ward-sweeping eyes caught the sudden shadow on 
 the boards. And he saw Pascale, and all his soul 
 put work and the loom aside, and his eyebrows 
 gathered into a frown as though she had surprised 
 him in some fault. But this was but a momentary 
 effect of instinct. To his grave and weighty face 
 came joy; it lightened in his eyes, those laborious 
 eyes so long dimmed like the sky of the town; 
 made them larger; slightly rosied the parchment 
 of his cheek ; and showed, beneath his moustache, 
 the bold, ironic lips that had launched so many 
 cheerful words on the Lyons air, on holidays, or 
 in times of strike or of a lock-out, when he met 
 his friends in the wine-shop or played a game at 
 bowls on the heights of the Croix Rousse. In the 
 twinkling of an eye the face, the thought, and 
 the attitude of Adolphe Mouvand had changed. 
 And it was seldom indeed that he thus shone out 
 of the sequestered place of his reserve. It was 
 the image of Pascale that transformed him, the 
 beloved Pascale, coming to him dressed for the 
 street.
 
 42 THE NUN 
 
 "Well, Pretty," said he,, for he often called her 
 so. "You startled me." 
 
 He leant forward to look at her with his worn 
 eyes. 
 
 "But what a face! How pale you look! It's 
 not Ash Wednesday, little girl. It's our own 
 Virgin's holiday, and you and I shall eat fritters 
 together." 
 
 He kissed her on both cheeks with a smack. 
 
 "Shall you like it a little treat of fritters? 
 We'll buy them after Mass, at Bellefin's, where 
 they are good. I shall enjoy going out with you. 
 Say, shall you like it?" 
 
 She was embarrassed by his great good humour. 
 She kissed her father, and her words died in the 
 kiss her cruel words. 
 
 "Do you know what I was thinking of? I was 
 thinking of you," he said. "Yes, as I handled 
 your mother's loom, I said to myself that you 
 would never manage it. It's all right for me, and 
 it was all right for her. My old body and my old 
 machine are good companions. But you you 
 are not strong enough." 
 
 "I don't think I am." 
 
 "And then you have no fancy for it." 
 
 She smiled and said: 
 
 "Nor the time either." 
 
 But he grasped nothing yet, and followed his 
 own thought. 
 
 "You are right; your mother would not have 
 me teach you to weave the fine silks; so I said 
 to her, 'Then she shall not do common work 
 either,' and so we taught you none of it. And
 
 THE NUN 43 
 
 you were delicate and we spoilt you between us. 
 You learnt nothing at home but keeping house, 
 but that you did well, little girl." 
 
 He paused for a minute, as it were lapping her 
 in the tenderness of his thoughts: 
 
 "But listen now. Old men change their minds 
 sometimes. I mean to give in after all, and have 
 electric power in my workshop. We'll sell the 
 mother's loom, and you shall just be a kind of 
 overseer. Or you can try your hand at a little 
 easy work ribbons, if you like. We shall be 
 better off. What do you think? " 
 
 She answered, turning to the street, whence the 
 light was increasing: 
 
 "You are too kind to me. But come, or we 
 shall miss Mass." 
 
 They descended the staircase, which had win- 
 dows fitted with nothing but iron bars. It was 
 as windy there as in the street. 
 
 "Take care and cover your chest; these stairs 
 have killed some of us. And you, Pretty, you've 
 got to live." 
 
 She went down before him, holding her cape 
 close to her shoulders and her bust. She went 
 lightly in the fresh and animating air, and jumped 
 the three last stone steps, as though to show that 
 she was much alive and that her youth was not 
 failing her. Together the father and daughter 
 heard Mass at St. Bernard's, which is on the 
 heights of the Croix Rousse, and then, as the 
 father had said, they went down to the Rue 
 Tables Claudiennes, where was the shop and frying 
 kitchen, for the promised fritters. Mouvand ate
 
 44 THE NUN 
 
 his share in the street; Pascale asked for a paper 
 bag. 
 
 " That's our young ladies of the day, all over, 
 Bellefin," he cried, "they won't live in public." 
 
 The man within put his head out of his narrow 
 shop, with an expert old eye scanning Pascale. 
 
 "I haven't got one like her," he said. "You 
 are a lucky fellow to be cutting a dash in town with 
 a daughter of that kind. What 's her age?" 
 
 "More than eighteen," replied Pascale. 
 
 "And a voice! Say it again, it's like singing 
 and I'll put an extra fritter into this bag of yours." 
 
 "Eighteen, Monsieur Bellefin, eighteen, eigh- 
 teen!" 
 
 For the first time she laughed out. This 
 Bellefin was droll, and had a nice way of talking 
 to girls. She laughed, with her fresh lips apart, 
 smooth as the lining of a shell; and she repeated, 
 with her eyes on the old bonze in his hollow 
 niche, feeling that she was made free of the street 
 and of the morning, "Eighteen years old and 
 more ! Now, Monsieur Bellefin, give me my fritter 
 with extra sugar on it." 
 
 It was as though the two men stood listening 
 to a blackbird that one of them had been training, 
 or to a piping bullfinch performing at a competition : 
 "Aha, that's a note for you! It would have been 
 a pity not to take pains w r ith this little creature." 
 
 On their way back up the hill Adolphe Mouvand 
 felt that he had never before loved Pascale so 
 much, nor loved her so proudly. At the corner 
 of the Rue Tables Claudiennes, he said: 
 
 "There, go back home to your business; I
 
 THE NUN 45 
 
 have a good deal to do, so don't expect me to 
 dinner. But be sure to be up at the Fourviere 
 church at one o'clock, when the bell rings for the 
 men to go in." 
 
 They separated and spent the rest of the morn- 
 ing apart. Mouvand had always balanced his 
 accounts on the eighth of December, and this 
 implied several payments, two or three visits to 
 old weavers retired or invalided, and a dejeuner 
 at half past eleven with Constant Mury, a strong 
 socialist of the Croix Rousse, a stout old weaver 
 who presided over the bowling ground of the 
 Pierres Plante'es. Before one o'clock he was at 
 the Place de la Cathedrale at the foot of the hill 
 of Fourviere. The open space was black with a 
 solid crowd of men, stationary there, but still 
 moving at the openings of the Rue St. Jean, of the 
 Rue Antonine, and of the Rue de la Breche, 
 whence new comers poured in. There were none 
 but men in the gathering, five or six thousand. 
 Soon there would be a thousand more, and together 
 they would march up the zig-zag road to the 
 Holy Hill, to manifest in the sanctuary of their 
 city their civic faith. 
 
 The weaver greeted his mates here and there. 
 "I told Pascale the procession would be a good 
 one. What a crowd! The little girl must be 
 up at the church by now." He did not go with 
 the rest, having rheumatic pains in his back that 
 made the long march too hard for him, but went 
 up by the funicular railway to the high platform, 
 the place of refuge, the place near to Heaven, 
 where the basilica raises over the city her four
 
 46 THE NUN 
 
 tall towers, the crown of Lyons. He did not 
 know it then, but this hill was his Calvary. How 
 often do we go even so, carrying our joys with 
 hardly a tremor, in spite of chance, to the obscure 
 place where their unsuspected close awaits us! 
 This man's heart was more free than was usual 
 with him. He had unaccustomed leisure, and 
 had that morning been long away from the home 
 within which at times he had wept. His cheerful 
 humour had been increased by companionship at 
 Constant Mury's. As he paid his swo sous to the 
 man at the funicular, he said: 
 
 "Your lift doesn't cost much, but it's a little 
 way. Have you seen my girl ? ' ' 
 
 "I've seen a lot of girls, but I am not sure about 
 yours." 
 
 "A pretty one mine is," said Mouvand. "Fair 
 hair, and a fresh cheek not many quite like her. 
 And a whig in her hat!" 
 
 He was right about the hat. To please him on 
 the holiday, Pascale had put on her felt hat with 
 a grey whig in it. She was waiting for her father 
 hi front of the church. She walked quickly at his 
 side to the place where the head of the procession 
 would soon appear. From below, the bell the 
 bourdon of Saint Jean had rung the note that 
 signalled ' ' They are moving. ' ' And now the great 
 bell of the Fourviere mountain, that of the south- 
 east tower, pealed aloud to hail the foremost pil- 
 grims of the march. 
 
 They came up bare-headed, filling the whole 
 breadth of the street, almost every man reciting 
 the rosary. The road cast them out opposite
 
 THE NUN 47 
 
 the nave of the church, and there they turned 
 to the right, passing slowly with a loud noise of 
 prayers and footsteps through the cloister of the 
 old chapel, and thence into the modern basilica, 
 according to the order prescribed. It was all male 
 Lyons that had climbed the hill factory hands, 
 shopmen, clerks, the rich, the poor, gathered 
 without class or distinction. And the great 
 bell spread its deep voice over the sounds of 
 the city a triumphal wave, rolling above the 
 smoke, clearing the mist, reaching far ahead, 
 far back, many a mile, over the tableland 
 of the Dombes, across the plain of the Rhone, 
 along the hills beyond Ecully and Saint Foy. 
 Then suddenly the carillon of the tower on 
 the right, with its eleven brass notes, rang 
 out the tunes of the Virgin's hymns. The men 
 sang within the basilica, and outside. And 
 while this pilgrim army was on the march, all 
 the rocks of that great hill, all the stones of its 
 houses, all the bones of the living and of the 
 buried dead upon the heights vibrated to the 
 sound of the prayer that was spoken, was sung, 
 was tolled. 
 
 At the end of the church Pascale, who had 
 slipped in with the crowd at her father's side, 
 stood against the base of one of the white marble 
 piers of the nave. All the chairs had been re- 
 moved, and the sombre-coloured crowd of men, 
 filling the whole space, gave still greater brilliance 
 to the coloured decoration of walls and roof, the 
 mosaics, the glass, the gilding, the great light 
 shadow all alive with reflections that played and
 
 48 THE NUN 
 
 mingled together like the colours of an opal. A 
 hymn was sung. The cardinal entered and passed 
 before the ranks. A priest made a short speech. 
 The throng was moved with a common feeling 
 that was not all devotion ; it was also the sense of 
 power and of fraternity, of corporate union in 
 religious things, habitual to the forefathers of 
 these men their condition of daily life but to 
 these a matter of momentary experience. Fre- 
 quenters of a score of churches, accustomed to 
 meet by mere groups, used to the life of single 
 or solitary will, it was suddenly only, and briefly, 
 that they became consciously an army. And 
 hi that gathering each unit prayed his best; the 
 stranger was to him a brother ; neighbours forgot 
 then* differences; it was the acknowledgement 
 of a common hope, in a common humiliation, 
 before a common Father. And the prospect of a 
 common future suggested between these strangers 
 something of courtesy, something of respect, and 
 something of the tryst eternity. 
 
 Adolphe Mouvand was deep in the solid life of 
 the people of his city, was by heredity and envi- 
 ronment one of them, and he could not fail to 
 feel the expansion of happiness and pride; he 
 sang aloud, he listened, he held up his head ; and 
 his eyes, used to the daily sight of machines and 
 bare walls, beheld, wherever they glanced within 
 that church, the light of Paradise. He forgot to 
 look at Pascale. Like the rest, he knew nothing 
 of the symbolism of angels with open wings, of 
 peacocks with outspread tails, but he was well 
 aware that his city had added a new stanza to an
 
 THE NUN 49 
 
 old hymn, by raising to the Virgin a modern 
 church far superior, both in feeling and in art, to 
 such new churches as have no soul unborrowed 
 from the past. 
 
 The young girl on her part saw nothing, ab- 
 sorbed as she was by the thought that distressed 
 her. She had leaned her head against the marble 
 pier, and had closed her eyes ; she was hi trouble, 
 for the hour was near, and she was motionless, as 
 though for fear that a movement might bring the 
 hand of the clock to the dreadful moment. Calls 
 for help uttered themselves within her: "Oh, my 
 God! it breaks my heart to hurt him. Nothing 
 could take me from him but Thy own call. I know 
 I need Thy shelter and the cover of holy friend- 
 ships, for I have no will of my own but the will 
 to submit to those I care for. Help me, because 
 even now my cowardly spirit would escape! 
 Strengthen me, because he has so many rights 
 over me that I am ashamed to speak of my rights 
 over myself. And yet, if I married, should I not 
 have to leave him? Help me to speak, help him 
 to hear me!" 
 
 The crowd was now passing away. All those 
 near her had risen, had left the church and de- 
 scended the steps beyond the great bronze doors, 
 when Pascale slowly raised her hand and laid it 
 on her father's shoulder. 
 
 "Whenever you like, Pretty," said the weaver, 
 rousing himself. "I am ready." 
 
 He was turning to leave the place, but feeling 
 her detaining hand, he asked, "What do you 
 want to say to me?"
 
 50 THE NUN 
 
 And he leant his ear close to the mouth that 
 looked so pale. 
 
 "Father, I want to speak to you here because 
 God is close to us " 
 
 She was trying to break the news to him, but 
 her secret was too much for her strength; it over- 
 came, it spoke: 
 
 "Forgive me. I want to be a nun." 
 
 "A nun? What are you talking about?" 
 
 He saw that she had turned ashen pale, and 
 the words he had been about to speak were dumb 
 within him. 
 
 "Is it true? Do you mean it? " 
 
 She made a frightened sign of affirmation, as 
 though she dreaded that a more positive reply 
 might kill him. But to her great surprise Pascale 
 did not see him stagger, nor did she feel him grow 
 rigid in anger. He did but draw himself somewhat 
 towards the altar, and replied not to her but to 
 One who had spoken by her mouth. 
 
 "My God! is it possible? I never thought 
 a nun my girl!" 
 
 And as though her wish had already sounded 
 the very depths of his being the place where 
 will abides Mouvand said, with his eyes still on 
 the golden door on the altar: 
 
 "Is it for hospital work that you are to leave 
 me, Pascale?" 
 
 "No, father, I shall go to the Sisters of St. 
 Hildegarde." 
 
 "To teach children?" 
 
 The low voice answered: 
 
 "To save my soul."
 
 THE NUN 51 
 
 The two were silent for so long a time as the 
 saying of an Ave Maria might cover. Then Pas- 
 cale, raising her eyes, beheld that wonderful 
 thing, by her undreamed of the victory of a 
 great faith even at the moment of the falling of 
 the blow. All his saintly race, all his faithful 
 fathers, dead and saved, doubtless prayed for 
 the weaver. From his own eyes fell two tears, 
 and yet his face was not saddened. Nay, rather 
 joy grew there, and the soul looked out, content, 
 submissive. But a long moment passed before 
 he could speak again. Then he said, with his 
 face still turned to the altar: 
 
 "I will not grudge you to God, Pascale. You 
 shall go where you wish." 
 
 Then he took his daughter in one stout arm 
 he was a man of lively blood, unaccustomed to 
 much meditating and drew her out of the 
 church through the open doors of bronze, and 
 down the steps, the last of all the pilgrims, shel- 
 tering and holding to his heart this child promised 
 to God. It was a King going forth with a young 
 Queen. 
 
 When they were in the place she said : 
 
 "How kind you are! I was afraid to tell you." 
 
 He replied in his great voice: 
 
 "Silly! Afraid of me?" 
 
 "I couldn't sleep; I made up my mind to tell 
 you in the morning." 
 
 "Before Mass?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You did look funny. And how long have 
 you meant to be a nun?"
 
 52 THE NUN 
 
 "Two years and more." 
 
 "Is that why you got me to go to Vespers so 
 often?" 
 
 "Yes, that was it." 
 
 "And why you wouldn't go to the wedding of 
 the girl on the first floor?" 
 
 "Well, perhaps." 
 
 "And why you wouldn't let me buy you a 
 brooch for your birthday?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And I never guessed. How easy it is to hood- 
 wink a father! I used to say, 'Well, perhaps 
 there's someone in love with her.' You might 
 have had someone a good many in love with 
 you?" 
 
 She laughed. She knew that it was so. They 
 turned into the Rue Juge de Paix, which skirts 
 the town towards the west. 
 
 "If you had thought of marrying, Pretty, 
 you'd have had admirers enough. I think young 
 Rambaux would have had you?" 
 
 "7 wouldn't have had him" 
 
 "Well, he is not worth very much. He works, 
 but that's not everything. It doesn't make a 
 man altogether. I know others who had a fancy 
 for Pascale." 
 
 "You had, first of all," she said, thanking him 
 with a look. 
 
 Meanwhile the thought of parting, kept off for 
 a while, slipped into the weaver's mind with 
 many another. Sorrow entered into joy. But 
 the bitter graft did not at once take hold; and 
 the tree of happiness flourished.
 
 THE NUN 53 
 
 "All the same, I was very happy in living 
 together, Pascale. It was not quite the same 
 thing to you, may be? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, it was!" 
 
 "Since we lost your mother, it is quite likely 
 I've been out rather too often on Sundays." 
 
 "Oh no." 
 
 "Played bowls too much? Perhaps I should 
 have taken out my Pascale?" 
 
 "Well, I should have enjoyed it, but that 
 would not have changed my mind." 
 
 "What made you think of it first?" 
 
 She said, shaking her head: 
 
 "I felt myself to be veiy weak." 
 
 He understood nothing, being very little used 
 to look at things from within, and he merely 
 made a sign of assent. They were walking 
 between walls rusty or green with moss, the 
 walls of convents or of mission houses and alms- 
 houses, and the road turned and turned, but 
 silence was complete around them. Here and 
 there an overhanging bough of plane or elder 
 tree blessed the wayfarer. 
 
 Pascale, once more absorbed hi her perpetual 
 thought, but now at ease and even joyous, walked 
 some hundred paces without speaking ; and then, 
 feeling that her father had not quite understood 
 her, she added: 
 
 "You see, I want a rule, if I am really to be 
 good." 
 
 "You were good enough for me," said the 
 weaver, in a low voice. But he quickly added, 
 to correct the blasphemy: "I know there is An-
 
 54 THE NUN 
 
 other not so easily pleased. Pascale, I say it 
 again, I shall not stand against it. No, I promise 
 you that." 
 
 Both workman and child together were light 
 of heart, and their joy was devout, but it was 
 also hasty. They knew it to be eternal hi its 
 source, but transitory in their human hearts. 
 And both hoped to reach the country of the future 
 where it would be lasting; and they had no 
 shadow of doubt that they were acting according 
 to the order and the will that are divine. 
 
 "A nun " repeated Mouvand. "No, when 
 the time comes, I shall not stop her." 
 
 When the time comes here was grief revisiting 
 the father's heart. Pascale had not told him 
 when she must go. Her father had not asked her. 
 The stress of feeling had hidden the distress. He 
 tried to evade the question arising within him, 
 the question growing instant, soon to become 
 agonising " When will she go? When will she 
 leave me alone?" He said: 
 
 "I don't rightly recollect any nun in our family, 
 except only a great-grandaunt. But that was 
 so far back I heard of it when I was a child." 
 
 The Rue Juge de Paix and the Rue Quatre 
 Vents were reddened by the sunset. Near to its 
 final decline, the sun passed quickly through 
 the lurid mists, piercing them with outlets of 
 .crimson and gold over which the clouds again 
 gathered, to be again shot through. Pascale and 
 her father were now before the gateway of the 
 great cemetery of Loyasse, on the western sum- 
 mit and slope of the height. They were making
 
 THE NUN 55 
 
 their customary visit to a grave, for on each 
 eighth of December Adolphe Mouvand came 
 hither; and to-day he was urged by something 
 more than habit. The district of Saint Irenee, 
 close by, had been the cradle of his race. The 
 graves of the old weavers were there, or had been, 
 for the poor have none but temporary homes in 
 the burial-ground, and are turned away from 
 their graves when the rent is over-due, as they 
 were from their houses when they lived, from 
 their poor rooms, or from the workshops of their 
 masters. 
 
 Between two little pollard trees stood side by 
 side the crosses of the grandfather and the mother 
 of Pascale. By the principal avenue of leafless 
 sycamores the father and daughter reached the 
 limit of the plateau containing the Concessions 
 perpetuelles, the graves of private ownership that 
 would never be disturbed ; thence began the steep 
 incline, black above, fringed with white below. 
 For here lay the poor, adults in the upper part, 
 children at the foot, and the graves were covered 
 with black bead wreaths on the hill and white in 
 the valley. The man and the girl had brought 
 new wreaths for their dead, and they knelt, having 
 spread their handkerchiefs under their knees, and 
 their prayer was fervent and full of life and truth. 
 The face of the weaver grew tender, his beard 
 moved as though he spoke, he passed his hand 
 across his eyes to control his tears. Then he rose, 
 and with his knife began to trim the grave, over- 
 grown and neglected for lack of time to spare, and 
 because of the great distance. To Pascale kneel-
 
 56 THE NUN 
 
 ing alone it seemed that something of herself, of 
 her heart or her thought, something tender, was 
 finding a way through the wet grass and reaching 
 the ear of the dead woman, saying: " Mother, I 
 am going to the convent; I have come to tell 
 you. Give me your blessing. I am like you, I 
 feel so much. Don't be uneasy for me. I shall 
 have less to suffer where I am go'ng than you had 
 in your married life, Mother. I think perhaps it 
 was you who deserved that I should have this 
 better life. I shall pray for you, and that will be 
 my way of coming to you, for I shall hardly be 
 able to come up to Loyasse. You will know that 
 I am all right. I wish, Mother, you could have 
 seen me in my veil. You would havfc cried, though. 
 You would have understood, all the same. I give 
 you a kiss through the earth and the stones. I 
 am your child, and I thank you for all my child- 
 hood that has brought me to this." 
 
 She rose. Her father, who had begun to think 
 of home by the cross of his wife, closed the blade 
 of his knife, which snapped with a click, and said : 
 
 "You are very young, Pascale ; there's no hum-. 
 \Yhen do you think of beginning?" 
 
 They were now walking back along the avenue. 
 At first she answered nothing, in pity for him, 
 and next she took his arm so that her caress 
 might assure him of her love. 
 
 "You are very young," he said again. 
 
 A little further yet they walked, and leaving 
 Loyasse they followed the road that leads to the 
 right by the old fortifications. Mouvand was 
 waiting, in much trouble, for her reply. She felt
 
 THE NUN 57 
 
 that he was pressing her arm as though to say: 
 "Come, Pretty, out with it. I know, I under- 
 stand." 
 
 She said: "I should like to go in at Christmas 
 into the novitiate." 
 
 "At Christmas, Pascale! At Christmas I shall 
 be without you!" 
 
 Steadfast as he was, and gay, and not used to 
 complain or accuse, he was forced to stop; he 
 breathed hard, his eyes closed as though he had 
 made an effort too great for his strength. 
 
 "Oh!" cried Pascale, "don't make me cry; 
 I am such a weak creature, even when I see my 
 duty clearly enough; and if you let me see how 
 sorry you are, I might not go at all. And all the 
 while I am quite sure that God calls me." 
 
 Adolphe Mouvand was one to whom reverence 
 for the name of God gave strength against himself. 
 
 "You are right," he said at once, but slowly. 
 "I must be brave. It is a great blessing to us." 
 
 "How well you understand, father!" 
 
 "Yes a great favour. I try to do right with 
 my hospital work ; but this is better. Well, Pas- 
 cale, you must not sacrifice your youth to my age. 
 Go and live your right life, as our fathers lived 
 theirs they knew the way, Pascale!" 
 
 He had been so thoroughly trained in ideal and 
 habitual religion that the highest and most ideal 
 thoughts on duty, on conduct, on the aims of the 
 soul, were to him familiar. As he spoke the 
 weaver went "up the crest of the table-land, the 
 place once a fortress of the Romans, and still 
 bearing, on the west, traces of the long glacis and
 
 58 THE NUN 
 
 walls. Pascale had followed her father, and was 
 resting her hand on the stones of the parapet. 
 
 He stretched forth his arm. " There," he said, 
 "is Saint Irenee, where all the Mouvands came 
 from, and there is the town. But we can't quite 
 see our own place from here." 
 
 Before and below them in a deep fold of the 
 valley, the old working district of Saint Irenee, 
 coloured a soft, faded pink, thronged its houses 
 together, so closely that here and there two or 
 three looked as though they had been lifted 
 ever so little above the rest by the pressure. 
 Over them all floated the misty smoke. A steep, 
 wooded height rose beyond, and further than the 
 tree tops again were hills and more hills, vaguer 
 and vaguer in the fading light, following the rivers 
 into which their spurs were dipped. On that side, 
 very low down to the left, lay what Mouvand 
 called the ' l town. ' ' But it was the town and some- 
 thing more. Beyond the invisible Saone, where it 
 turned by the rocks of Fourviere and Saint Just, 
 lay the whole southern part of the huge city, the 
 peninsula of Perrache, the Rhone, the point of the 
 district of La Guillotiere, the district of La 
 Mouche; meadows mingled with building and 
 with scattered poplars; green country with no 
 limit except the dusky mist ; and the great river, 
 made of the Saone and the Rhone together, catch- 
 ing the light and then passing into the dimness, 
 on its journey to the south. 
 
 Pascale and her father looked down at the 
 town. It was veiled by a transparent fog, coloured 
 by the evening. Five hundred thousand human
 
 THE NUN 59 
 
 creatures were there. It was their breath, full 
 of their many sufferings, it was the smoke of their 
 hearths and of their machinery, it was the dust of 
 their use and their activity, that formed this cloud. 
 The tangled noises of the multitude rose with it. 
 Father and daughter, beholding this apparition 
 of their own city, were silent. The weaver thought 
 of his toil, of which the odour and the vibration 
 were about his fancy again, drawing him down to 
 his little private cell in the hive before him. It 
 was his; it was empty. He shook his head and 
 muttered in his beard : 
 
 "Not to-day. This is a holiday. And to- 
 morrow will be a holiday too, because of the little 
 girl a holiday for old Mouvand." 
 
 But that city fog enclosed cries and lamenta- 
 tions, the breath of the sick and the fever-stricken, 
 words of hatred, words of revolt, cries of despair. 
 And Pascale, who was going into the Convent 
 "to save her soul," but to save it by devoting it, 
 understood that mingling of human voices, opened 
 her breast to that tide of pain, filled her being, 
 filled her heart, as she thought: "Miseries are 
 there below such as I shall help. I shall teach the 
 children at any rate, and they will surely love me. 
 I shall be their mother always." And her heart 
 dilated and was so happy that she would have 
 stayed there long had not her father stirred his 
 great iron-bound boots. 
 
 "Come, Pretty, we have a long way to go." 
 
 They said no more, but the course of their 
 thoughts had changed. Pascale's vocation, now 
 certain, absorbed all her power of dreaming; the
 
 60 THE NUN 
 
 old weaver, an enthusiast, and a child despite his 
 years, little spoilt by life, was looking forward to 
 making a good use of the days before Pascale's 
 departure. He filled them in anticipation with 
 treats for Pascale, with excursions. For the first 
 time he thought with excitement of the coming 
 holidays. He was dazzled. 
 
 Pascale and her father followed the road of 
 the fortifications as far as the gate of St. Irene"e. 
 Night had now fully come ; the fog that had been 
 parted by the dying sun met again and closed his 
 tomb. It was heavy on men's shoulders. Mou- 
 vand, who was not fond of the open air at this 
 hour, when, as he said, "bad things fall on us," 
 proposed a supper at an inn he knew in the lower 
 part of Saint Irenee. They entered under the 
 great gateway, and sought the inn, its shelter and 
 warmth. 
 
 When they again left it, seven o'clock was 
 near. Restored after the fatigue of the day, 
 glad to have had more than usual intimacy in 
 their talk, pleased with the luxury of holiday 
 food, they went quickly down the steep streets 
 from Saint Irenee to the quays of the Saone. 
 They were midway on the foot-bridge that creaks 
 under the feet of wayfarers, when at the stroke 
 of seven all the bells of the city took flight. They 
 cried, "Light up!" And in a moment the lines 
 of gas lights multiplied. Above, below, aloft, in 
 the invisible facades of innumerable houses to 
 the right, to the left, new lines and curves of lights 
 sprang upon the night. They appeared with 
 strange quickness and caprice, breaking up the
 
 THE NUN 61 
 
 customary form of bridges, squares, and streets. 
 Windows, archways, doorways were traced in fire. 
 The quays sparkled, the heights of Fourviere were 
 enkindled; the belfry of the old church rose in 
 golden stars from the heart of the darkness; a 
 luminous cross, erect on the terrace of the basilica, 
 raised its arms over the city; the Archbishop's 
 house became a palace of fire; inscriptions came 
 out in lights on the hill-side: "Lyon a Marie" 
 "Maria Mater Dei" "Dieu protege la France." 
 Garlands, festoons, lamps in drinking glasses, 
 Venetian lanterns, candles stuck into the necks of 
 bottles, flickered in the wind of little by-streets, of 
 cross-roads and squares, telling those who might 
 have doubted that the slums were full of souls, 
 and the huge city of faith. Not Fourviere only, 
 but the whole of Lyons was illuminated. 
 
 Pascale, delighted, Mouvand, very demonstra- 
 tive, took one street and then another, followed 
 random groups, left them, returned often to the 
 Saone, and went on still unsatisfied with seeing. 
 
 "How beautiful the illumination is this year!" 
 they said to one another. " Let's go now and 
 see whether the Bourbonnes have lighted up, and 
 the Boffards. When we go home, we'll see 
 whether the Seignemontes have any lamps out." 
 And lamps were everywhere. The distant hill 
 of the Croix Rousse seemed to be sprinkled with 
 sparks. La Guillotiere looked as phosphorescent 
 as the sea. "All the stars are on earth to-night," 
 said the weaver ; "it is a pretty holiday." In fact, 
 there were neither moon nor stars in the skies, but 
 only the cloud of fog and mist lighted from be-
 
 62 THE NUN 
 
 neath and tinted now by man, as before by the 
 sun. 
 
 Long wandered Adolphe Mouvand with Pascale 
 upon his arm in the innumerable multitude that 
 the illumination and the shops had called into the 
 streets. They exchanged words and thoughts, 
 having no secrets, and with an infinite sweetness. 
 Of some poor scanty past pleasures they spoke, 
 with recollections and allusions that had no 
 meaning but for themselves. But now and then, 
 at the close of this great day of the revelation of 
 the soul, a religious thought, an idea of sacrifice 
 and of Paradise, came to one or the other. They 
 were like two neighbour chapels whence rose the 
 notes of the self-same hymn. They loved each 
 other more than ever, and were not shy in telling 
 each other that dear truth. And when they 
 went home, late at night, father and daughter 
 could have wept for joy because of the grief which 
 together they had accepted and taken home. 
 
 On the following morning Adolphe Mouvand 
 drew near to Pascale, who was lighting the stove 
 for the warming of the coffee, and said, rubbing 
 his hands: 
 
 "I have an idea it's my turn." He struck his 
 pocket. "I had put some coins away not many. 
 I should be sorry to spend them without you. 
 What do you say to taking a journey?" 
 
 "Well where?" 
 
 "As far as Nimes, where our only living relatives 
 are the Prayous. You never saw them, but 
 you shall see them now. Three days' holiday, 
 Mouvand, my boy, like a gentleman!"
 
 THE NUN 63 
 
 "Just what I should love," said the happy 
 Pascale. ' ' A journey ! It will give me something 
 to talk about, later on, to my little girls." 
 
 He had but to write to the Prayous, and to 
 finish a piece of silk he had promised; and in the 
 morning, two days later, the weaver and his 
 daughter took the train for the South. 
 
 They set forth in fog; they reached Ntmes in 
 the splendour of a winter day, in the clear, thrill- 
 ing, living cold of the mistral wind. 
 
 "How keen it is!" said Mouvand, putting his 
 hand out of the carriage window. 
 
 "How bright it is!" said Pascale; "like the 
 summer light with us." 
 
 The castle of Tarascon, the castle of Beaucaire, 
 the Rhone between them, with the reflections of 
 each castled hill in the sunny river; then the walls 
 of old enclosures, built foursquare, looking like 
 fortresses, with their straight cypresses lances 
 planted hi the soil and keeping guard to the north ; 
 next, the first houses of Nimes, white in the sun- 
 all were mirrored in Pascale's golden eyes. As to 
 the weaver, he seldom glanced through the car- 
 riage windows; he smoked, looking continually 
 at his child two true pleasures. Father and 
 daughter had spoken little on the journey, but 
 each had felt that joy of another which brings 
 peace to the gentle heart. 
 
 At the Ntmes station, hardly were they on the 
 platform when a stout woman, black-haired and 
 swarthy, ran up to the weaver and noisily kissed 
 him. 
 
 "There you are! Why, it was a surprise! I
 
 64 THE NUN 
 
 never thought I should see you again, cousin. 
 And little Pascale, where is she? What, this great 
 girl? And to think I saw her when she was three! 
 Well, she is a brave lass!" 
 
 "And a pretty one, too/' said a voice behind 
 her. 
 
 Pascale smiled before she saw the speaker, and 
 smiled again when she perceived a tall young man 
 of slender figure, very pale, very young, with the 
 regular beauty of a statue in the upper part of 
 his face, but a prominent, coarse jaw. A short 
 moustache and curly beard partly concealed this 
 ominous lower part of a handsome face, and the 
 sinuous lips. The eyes were soft as velvet. The 
 man held out his hand. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he said, showing his teeth, 
 "will you excuse me? Here at Nimes, when we 
 admire a beautiful girl we have to let her know 
 it." 
 
 "There is no offence in that," said Pascale. 
 Flattered, she gave him her hand, while his mother 
 kissed the young girl, and seized her valise. 
 
 "Ah! the rogue, he's a judge. And only 
 twenty! Would you think it? This way we 
 live quite near. And what do you think of the 
 South?" 
 
 "Well, I think it is cold," said the weaver. 
 
 "Just a touch of the mistral, a touch of the 
 broom that sweeps our Rhone valley," said the 
 young man, who had taken his place at Pascale's 
 side and walked on with her, while behind came 
 the weaver in his horn-buttoned jacket and the 
 stout woman, bareheaded, with a scanty knot of
 
 THE NUN 65 
 
 hair and wide partings between her oily locks. 
 She had the muscles, the appearance, and the 
 bearing of a professional swimmer. She carried 
 the valise, of which every now and then Mouvand 
 offered to relieve her. Jules Prayou walked 
 empty-handed and showed Pascale the town; 
 the fine plane-trees now leafless of the Feu- 
 chere avenue, the esplanade and the Pradier 
 fountain, and the amphitheatre, which they 
 skirted. The wind was high; it swathed the 
 women's petticoats about their legs. 
 
 "It does push one," said Pascale. "It seems 
 to want to hurry me into your Rue de Montpellier." 
 
 "You shall see finer streets to-morrow," said 
 Jules Prayou; "this is only an old one. See! 
 here is the hospital." 
 
 He pointed out a monumental doorway fram- 
 ing bars through which were visible a further and 
 smaller barred gateway, and ancient buildings sur- 
 rounding a square. 
 
 "My late husband died here," said the widow 
 in a religious tone, from behind. 
 
 "Did he leave you comfortable, cousin?" asked 
 the weaver, whose sensibilities were not very 
 ready at call. 
 
 "Well, something; a little plot, some olive 
 trees. But that big fellow there is an expense, 
 Monsieur Mouvand." 
 
 "What does he do? No work?" 
 
 The woman answered in her Southern way with 
 a vivacious gesture, as though to signify that he 
 had a great variety of employments, all of un- 
 certain profit; she gathered together the five
 
 66 THE NUN 
 
 fingers of her left hand and then waved them 
 apart like little waves flowing away, stretching her 
 arm towards the horizon. 
 
 "But they say you are well off, old man," she 
 said familiarly. And with this affirmation, which 
 was but a furtive question, she gave him a sudden 
 and envious glance of quite astonishing sharpness. 
 He walked heavily, swinging his bent shoulders. 
 
 "That's a he, then," he said; "a fortune is not 
 to be made out of mere good work." 
 
 Meanwhile, Pascale, who was evidently more 
 taken by the attentions, the alertness, and the 
 brave manner of Jules Prayou than by the rough 
 advances of the weavers' sons of the Croix Rousse, 
 spoke to him as though she wished to thank him 
 for his confidence: 
 
 "The hospital? I had thoughts at one time of 
 being a Sister of Saint Vincent de Paul." 
 
 "What a strange idea!" 
 
 "Why?" she asked innocently. "It would be 
 a good thing to give one's life to the sick. It is 
 work well worth doing. But it wants more 
 strength than I have, and more courage. I have 
 such a horror of blood I cannot get over it." 
 
 "Ah, yes?" 
 
 "I can't bear to see a wound, nor even to hear 
 about it, without turning faint. Can you?" 
 
 A laugh was his answer. 
 
 She proceeded : ' ' That is why I chose a teaching 
 Order." 
 
 "Oh, then you are a kind of bigot, are you?" 
 
 Jules Prayou took two or three steps forward, 
 and turned to look at her, studying her with an
 
 THE NUN 67 
 
 insistence which she took for interest. Had she 
 been able to read his look, until that moment 
 ingratiating, she would have seen it suddenly turn 
 hard, like a stone stripped of its moss. For some 
 minutes he ceased to take any notice of Pascale, 
 and even walked on a little before her. They 
 were passing along the edge of the wide cattle 
 market, and Jules Prayou, recognising here and 
 there, about the market or at the neighbouring 
 windows, young butchers or drovers of his ac- 
 quaintance, of Provence or from the Cevennes, 
 greeted them with a wave of his thick and fleshy 
 hand. He called out words, besides, that Pascale 
 did not understand. It amused her to watch the 
 drama of head, eyebrows, eyelids, fingers, in this 
 young man, who seemed to know everybody. A 
 wide boulevard ran across the road. The wind 
 grew tempestuous. It raised the dust hi deep 
 wreaths and tossed it against the small trees 
 planted in the aisles of the avenue. But the 
 brilliance of the sky was untroubled, and looked 
 immutable. This was the South the sculpture 
 of desiccated earth under the blue. To the right 
 stood the Magne Tower, a golden and rosy prow 
 above the pine-garden of the fountain, steadfast 
 in the mistral wind. 
 
 They crossed the boulevard and reached the 
 Cadereau, the torrent that runs by Nimes, sepa- 
 rating the southern town from that other part 
 which rises by hillocks and hills towards the table- 
 land of the Cevennes. There lived the Prayous. 
 
 "A hundred steps more," said Jules, "and we 
 shall drink a glass of carthagene to lay the dust.
 
 68 THE NUN 
 
 Have you never tasted carthagene, Mademoiselle 
 Pascale?" 
 
 "I never have, indeed." 
 
 "It's the new wine the must, just as it comes 
 out of the wine-press, with a glass of brandy 
 thrown in. It's a treat wait and see." 
 
 "Oh, this is country," cried Pascale, "and 
 houses just an avenue of country houses. This 
 is where you live? It is very pretty." 
 
 "It is called Montauri, at your service." 
 
 The golden eyes welcomed with a youthful joy 
 the image of the charming hill covered with 
 orchards and olive trees, very slightly green, a 
 smoke of thin foliage scattered over the ground, 
 with white houses, near which stood erect the 
 dark shapes of cypress and stone pine. 
 
 The two couples followed the torrent for a few 
 moments, passed the tank for washing by the 
 roadside, and turning once to the right by a 
 bridge across the Cadereau, entered a single road, 
 a kind of sketch of a future suburb, crossed by 
 three little lanes, and climbing uphill between 
 wide cultivated lands full of olive trees. At two- 
 thirds of the length of the unfinished road, which 
 ended in a hedge, and just beyond the second 
 transverse lane, on the left, Jules Prayou pushed 
 open a door. 
 
 "Come in, Mademoiselle; come in, Monsieur 
 Mouvand. It is not a palace; but in ten years' 
 time, instead of this shed, I shall have my pretty 
 little country house on the hill." 
 
 "He seems full of enterprise," said the weaver 
 to the widow Prayou.
 
 THE NUN 69 
 
 "Like his father, and more. Perhaps a little 
 too much of that," she said in a low voice, showing 
 her cousin in. "What he says I have to swear 
 to." 
 
 "That's not so well." 
 
 She stopped him on the threshold. "And when 
 he is in a rage with me, it's a terror to the neigh- 
 bourhood. And strong too!" 
 
 She accompanied her last words with a grimace 
 of admiration; and the weaver entered the door 
 on the left of the passage separating the two rooms 
 of the cottage. On the table in the middle, which 
 was covered with a white oil-cloth bound with 
 black, were placed four claret glasses full of 
 carthagene. A provencal sideboard of light- 
 coloured wood, fitted with iron and containing the 
 plates and dishes, gave the place its character as a 
 dining-room for great occasions. The bed filled a 
 large space to the right of the window. 
 
 "Jules' place is at the end of the garden," 
 added the woman, showing through the window 
 a little house of two floors. "There he lives, like 
 a prince. He is to give you your lodging to- 
 night." 
 
 Tired with the journey, keen of appetite be- 
 cause of the cold, and pleased with the novelty 
 of Nimes, Adolphe Mouvand did honour to the 
 local popular drink, and to the dinner prepared 
 by the widow. Afterwards Pascale and her 
 father were conducted to the little building at the 
 end of the garden enclosure, where Jules Prayou 
 had his usual dwelling. The father slept on the 
 ground floor, next to a lumber room that served
 
 70 THE NUN 
 
 as a lobby, and the girl had the little garret above, 
 where the widow had arranged a bed. Jules 
 Prayou was to sleep, apparently, hi some corner of 
 the cottage in which his mother lived; they saw 
 no more of him until ten o'clock the next morning. 
 
 When she awoke, Pascale had the surprise of 
 a town girl who likes the country by a sense of 
 contrast and of privation, and who fancies that 
 she brings something of it into the town, after a 
 Sunday walk, when she carries a little scrap of 
 hawthorn or of lilac between her teeth. Through 
 her uncurtained window Pascale saw the heights 
 of Montauri, and in the foreground a wide piece 
 of waste land, upon which opened the yards and 
 gardens of the neighbours, a space of unequal 
 grass, interrupted by hollows that looked like 
 old chalk-pits, and sprinkled with unused stones 
 and clumps of thistle and other plants of hardy 
 stalks, discoloured by the whiter, on which women 
 dried their household cloths. The pasture be- 
 longed to the Prayous, being the remainder of the 
 land bought by the father, who had built upon it 
 three small houses, his own and those that flanked 
 it. Beyond, the pale olive orchards clouded the 
 hills, enclosed in low terrace walls, and distinct 
 among those clouds rose thin almond trees, tufts 
 of laurels, of pines, of pomegranate trees, of oaks 
 gathered about the country houses, with a general 
 air of southern carelessness. Nothing was very 
 straight or neat or orderly. 
 
 Above all and Pascale's fancy, easily charmed 
 by the sense of repose and sweetness, rested there 
 the lovely sky enveloped in light the cultivation
 
 THE NUN 71 
 
 garlanded with trees, and looked more limpid 
 than ever. She could see great distances, and 
 could distinguish the leafless branches which the 
 far hill turned to the warmer south. There was 
 gold and blue and fairness in the sunward sky, in 
 place of the lurid mists of that familiar smoke of 
 Lyons which was always so harsh to her lungs and 
 so cold to her heart. Yes, the light was brighter 
 to-day than yesterday. Pascale opened her win- 
 dow ; the mistral at last was still, but the air was 
 fresh. A flock of linnets, newcomers from the 
 north, fluttered from orchard to orchard, a gay 
 company full of small cries and flashing in the 
 golden sun. 
 
 It was such a holiday as Adolphe Mouvand had 
 longed for many a time. He was satisfied. The 
 little party went out somewhat late in the morning, 
 having waited for Jules, who came in late. The 
 young man was out, "with friends, about some 
 business," explained the widow. He came at 
 last, his felt hat pushed back, a sprig of mimosa 
 in his buttonhole, a red tie, and an airy greeting 
 for all. He said, apart to the weaver, who stood 
 in the street blinking in the brilliant sun with the 
 look of an old dazzled, bearded owl : 
 
 "I can't say I am sorry to have kept you wait- 
 ing, old man. I did a jolly bit of smuggling 
 business last night." 
 
 " Smuggling?" said Mouvand quietly. "That 
 is what I never did, my boy." 
 
 "Oh, but here ," replied Prayou; and his 
 
 sinuous lips parted in a smile that was silent, 
 quick, and contemptuous. Then, perceiving that
 
 72 THE NUN 
 
 the old fellow was waiting for some explana- 
 tion 
 
 "In this town," he said, "a, man who is not 
 afraid, who looks out for himself and has friends, 
 may make a fortune with alcohol. Well, Made- 
 moiselle, let us go on." 
 
 They saw everything that the usual excursionist 
 sees, and in the self-same way, without a pause, 
 without any means of associating a single historical 
 or artistic interest to what they saw, with the same 
 remarks: "Yes, that is beautiful. It's as good 
 as anything in Lyons," applied to the imitation 
 jewellery in the shops, to the Roman Maison 
 Carree, to the Law Courts, to the Pradier fountain, 
 to the Roman amphitheatre, and to the churches, 
 every one of which they entered to please Pascale. 
 She had a manner of her own in kneeling, simply, 
 naturally, without jerks, her reverent face to the 
 altar, while the widow Prayou made twists and 
 turns as she genuflected, and Jules remained 
 standing. Then she listened to his wordy ex- 
 planations. He was entirely ignorant, but he 
 talked better than any man of Lyons. He was 
 full of attentions, and the party had to enter a 
 shop of "souvenirs" to choose something for 
 Pascale a silver cross, picture postcards, an 
 album, a pair of scissors. "In a few days," re- 
 monstrated Pascale, in a low voice she did not 
 wish to remind her father of the approaching date 
 of their parting "I shall not be able to keep any- 
 thing except perhaps the scissors. The silver 
 cross is too pretty for me." 
 
 "Take it all the same," said Jules Prayou.
 
 THE NUN 73 
 
 "When I make money I don't often spend it on 
 crosses." 
 
 They were all dusty, tired, and in good spirits. 
 When they had dined late in the afternoon, in a 
 little restaurant outside the town on the first 
 slope of the Rhone hills, where Jules had an open 
 account they walked back to Montauri by stony 
 roads between walls that were overtopped now and 
 again by almond trees, pines, or cypresses, or even, 
 despite the wintry month, by climbing roses still 
 in flower. Pascale, the least weary of the four, 
 cried: " Never before have I breathed so easily. 
 It is four o'clock," she added, "and as bright as 
 Lyons at noon." At times they went hi through 
 open doorways or breaches in the walls to the 
 terraced enclosures of the cultivated lands little 
 properties of thirty olive trees, a couple of mul- 
 berry trees, a thirsty almond tree, and in the midst 
 the little country house peculiar to Nimes the 
 mazet whither it is the family custom to go out 
 on Sundays and rest in country shade. "We shall 
 have one of our own in time," said the widow; 
 "and a better one than those. A lot of stones, a 
 shed, a few olive trees, and a little soil slipping 
 away they call that a mazet, but we shall do 
 better with ours." 
 
 At the top of the hill of Montauri they met, at 
 the old gateway of a villa, the caretaker and his 
 wife, who knew the Prayous, and now invited 
 them to come through the garden and rest them- 
 selves. The owners being away, and their con- 
 sent by proxy being assumed, the party walked 
 through an avenue, and Pascale and Jules sat
 
 74 THE NUN 
 
 together on the low wall that supported the garden 
 terrace, rising from an olive orchard. Beyond, 
 the ground rose again, and further still, between 
 the beautiful lines of the descending hills, lay the 
 whole city of Nimes. 
 
 The town, which from this height looked flat, 
 was tenderly coloured, rosy, almost violet, among 
 its long and gentle hills, which clothed half of the 
 horizon as with the folds of soft draperies. And 
 the rose of the town and the green of the heights 
 were tints so tender in the last great light of the 
 sun that Pascale, unaccustomed to clear distances, 
 felt their loveliness, and thought, "Here is no 
 winter." 
 
 The colour of the plain too was full of harmonies 
 of violet-grey ploughed land, leafless woods, a 
 region unfolding towards the south, low slopes 
 that were mirrors for the sun and reflected his 
 light into the hollows of the Rhone; and, further 
 still, the sparkle of the w r aters of Aigues Mortes. 
 
 All these caresses of the light were of greater 
 power and of sweeter influence because of the fore- 
 ground foliage, through which they came like the 
 glances of appealing eyes veiled by their lashes. 
 Pascale, seated sideways on a wall, was receiving 
 into her heart, at this time of keen emotion, many 
 thoughts that had wandered in her world, but had 
 not yet harboured within her. Jules Prayou, his 
 feet swinging over the little orchard below, was 
 not studying the landscape; he was marking the 
 traces of the peasant's labour or the marauder's 
 trespass among the olives. Adolphe Mouvand 
 and the widow, not much moved by the beauty
 
 THE NUN 75 
 
 of the day, talked with the gardener about the 
 harvest. Pascale, fully understanding the invi- 
 tation to life and to joy implied in that view of the 
 sunny city, said within her heart: "I give them 
 all up, those delights, the thought of which dis- 
 turbs me, those delights I have not known and 
 shall never know. I am escaping them. I am 
 taking refuge in the peace that is unlike them, that 
 is better than they are, as I know at times when 
 my soul is perfectly pure. I give them up all 
 the ambitions and all the enjoyments of which 
 those streets are full, and all happiness that is not 
 mingled with self-sacrifice. How many mothers 
 of children are in those houses ; and their children 
 love them, and they are expecting their father 
 home, or he has just come in, and they hold up the 
 baby for a kiss. My children will not love me 
 quite so much. But I shall have a great, great 
 many, and God will make up for the fondness I 
 shall miss." Her fresh lips moved with prayer. 
 Jules Prayou ceased to stare about him; he 
 looked, and looked ardently, at the charming 
 face turned towards the city, and full of dreams 
 in the light. He looked at the delicate head 
 with its rays of fair hair against a background of 
 laurels, at the neck, somewhat long and very 
 white; at the drooping shoulders, over which 
 his mother had thrown a little shawl of white 
 wool, lifted regularly by each breath of the pure 
 air. He would much have liked to laugh with the 
 girl as he did with others, to have her attention, 
 to pay her court; but he guessed that Pascale 
 was at that moment very far from him in spirit,
 
 76 THE NUN 
 
 and he was seized with angry jealousy of the 
 thing that absorbed her. 
 
 "I say, cousin," he said, raising his voice, 
 "what a funny idea that is of yours going into 
 a convent." 
 
 "Why funny?" she said, still holding her face 
 to the light. "To me it is exceedingly serious." 
 
 "Well, but for a pretty girl like you!" 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, and her laughter opened like 
 a flower. "You think all nuns are plain, do you? 
 I assure you some of them are lovely. You don't 
 know much about such things, I suspect, cousin." 
 
 "Upon my word, one would think you were 
 afraid of men." 
 
 She turned to him, and felt at last the dubious 
 fire of the look that played upon her. She rose to 
 her feet. 
 
 "I am not bound to tell you why I am to be a 
 nun. My reasons are private, and no one's 
 business but my own." 
 
 For the second time she had occasion to note 
 the violence of what is called the southern tem- 
 perament, but is only human instinct uncontrolled 
 and unashamed. Jules Prayou flung her an in- 
 sult, and leapt from the wall into the olive-ground 
 at his feet. For some few minutes she watched 
 him amongst the trees, striding excitedly, his 
 hands in his pockets, turning on her now and 
 again a face pallid with anger. 
 
 Pascale called him, thinking this was some kind 
 of joke: 
 
 "Cousin! Comeback!" 
 
 "Why, why, where's he going?" cried his
 
 THE NUN 77 
 
 mother, running up. "You've been vexing him? 
 What about?" 
 
 "I vexing him? I told him that my reasons 
 for going into the convent were my business 
 that was all." 
 
 The woman shook her head; and as the slight 
 and active figure of her son passed out of sight 
 beyond a further wall, over which he vaulted with 
 little respect for the owner of the garden or for 
 the gardener, she said very gravely: 
 
 "Anyway, when he comes back, please be 
 careful; don't annoy him again, be nice to him." 
 
 "If I am not to scold him, then will you?" 
 
 "You don't know him. He might " 
 
 She did not finish her sentence, but suddenly 
 added : 
 
 "He is terrible." 
 
 The three walked down the road of Saint 
 Cesaire, hoping to meet Jules Prayou, who had 
 taken that direction across the orchards. But 
 they could not see him. After half an hour's 
 silence, and as they drew near the slaughter- 
 house buildings in the gathering twilight, Adolphe 
 Mouvand said, twisting his beard, and turning to 
 the widow: 
 
 "You are not training that boy of yours. He 
 is the master. Take care!" 
 
 The woman only laughed. 
 
 It was almost dark when they entered the 
 cottage at Montauri. It was less cold than on 
 the mistral evening, but Madame Prayou lighted 
 a fire in her room and fed it during the evening 
 with twigs of oak to which clung still their with-
 
 78 THE NUN 
 
 ered leaves, and of which she had a store under 
 a shed. As she cherished illusory ideas in regard 
 to the wealth of her guests, and as the absence 
 of her son freed her from her habitual uneasiness 
 under his watchful eyes, she grew expansive. 
 She talked over the family history with Adolphe 
 Mouvand, who liked this gossip of the past; she 
 became affectionate to Pascale, and even made 
 some demonstration of a tendency to piety. She 
 again and again recommended her " intentions" 
 to the prayer of the future novice. She also asked 
 her to boil the water for the "grog." And leaning 
 back idly in her chair she sighed, "It is nice to 
 have a little help." Pascale, believing that hi her 
 she had found something of that maternal ten- 
 derness of which she had so early been deprived, 
 allowed herself to be embraced and kissed, and 
 was moved, and proffered her own young, in- 
 genuous, and eager affection to this woman who 
 called her "my child," and used, as she spoke the 
 words, a warmth of voice, a naturally dramatic 
 mimicry hi which her whole southern body took 
 part in confederacy with her words, filling with 
 sweet gratitude this daughter of the more north- 
 ern Lyons. The last hours spent thus in home 
 life for Adolphe Mouvand could not further pro- 
 long his holiday made a stronger impression on 
 Pascale's mind, and even on her father's, than 
 the pleasant journey had done. "A good woman, 
 that," said the weaver at night, as he crossed to 
 his own bedroom. "She talks too fast for me; 
 she doesn't bring up her boy properly; but she's 
 a kind soul, this cousin of ours."
 
 THE NUN 79 
 
 On the following morning, half an hour before 
 their departure, Jules Prayou arrived, eager, 
 attentive, smiling as at their first meeting. He 
 begged Pascale, in a tone of jest, to forget and 
 forgive his hastiness of the previous evening; he 
 asked permission to kiss her; he volunteered to 
 carry the valise to the station ; he promised, with 
 a gesture towards the north, to visit his cousin 
 some day, wherever her religious superiors might 
 place her; and when the train drew away, and 
 she saw these two new-found relatives, who mul- 
 tiplied their au revoirs, waving their hands hands 
 full of language Pascale said to her father: 
 
 "I am glad we came." 
 
 He was so too; but what had made him glad 
 was that during those two days he had not heard 
 his own heart rehearsing constantly the hour, the 
 day, the moment. 
 
 The last ten days had come. By tacit consent 
 Pascale and her father spoke no more of their im- 
 minent separation. He had promised himself to 
 be brave "so as to gain merit," as he said in his 
 simple theology. She took pains to be sweet to 
 him so as to thank him. And she succeeded ; she 
 made herself doubly dear. For the weaver and 
 for his daughter those days were full of the joy 
 of companionship, a joy to which both gave utter- 
 ance, to which they recurred, willing to make it 
 stronger since it was to be short, and as the se- 
 cret underpain of separation grew more instant. 
 When father and daughter looked at one another 
 each perceived the ineffaceable date in the other's 
 eyes, and smiled "I. do not see it." Pascale was
 
 80 THE NUN 
 
 gay for his sake, and made him believe her. She 
 wished to leave him the memory of a Pascale who 
 had been happy to the end. One morning she had 
 laid out on the top of her chest of drawers the 
 two summer dresses she possessed, the one very 
 poor and much worn, a woollen dress in two 
 shades of grey, the other a cotton dress, almost 
 elegant, white with violet flowers, and ruffled at 
 the wrists and throat. Had she wished to look 
 at them again, to touch them, to give them 
 away? Her father who, since the visit to Nimes, 
 was wont often to leave his loom for a little chat 
 in her room or in the kitchen, came upon Pascale 
 as she was folding the sleeves, and doubling them 
 across the bodices, and gathering up the folds of 
 the skirts. He drew back for an instant. Pascale 
 saw, and said quickly, "It wants ironing, you see, 
 and I'm not clever at gauffering. I shall get the 
 workwoman to do it." He calculated; the work- 
 woman would take four or five days; he pressed 
 his lips together under his moustache, did not 
 say why he had come, and turned away. Innu- 
 merable farewells, perpetual farewells, dumb 
 farewells! They filled those hours for Pascale. 
 When she touched anything hi this little home, 
 she said inwardly, "I shall never touch it again." 
 She put her silver thimble away in a drawer, and 
 said, "I shall never use it again." She took her 
 father's arm as though for a mere walk in the 
 neighbouring districts of the city, and looked with 
 a passionate interest at the houses, the signs, the 
 little side-alleys towards the Rhone and the park 
 of the Tete d'Or. She took leave thus of many
 
 THE NUN 81 
 
 and many who did not know it. As she had not 
 announced her purpose, many dwellers in those 
 streets were surprised at her lingering looks, and 
 at her shaking hands with them when they were 
 but passing in a hurry, or as they stood on their 
 door-steps. "She has got time on her hands, 
 that Pascale Mouvand," they said. No, she was 
 detaining something of the youth with which she 
 must finally part. She could not say to them, 
 "You will not see me again. You stout milk- 
 woman, who used to think me a pretty child, and 
 told me so by filling my jug a little fuller than the 
 rest ; bustling, married neighbours, who compared 
 your own girlhood with mine ; poor invalid behind 
 that window, who always watched me pass until 
 the glass was dun with your breath; fountain, 
 where the little boys out of school make the water 
 squirt; people out walking on Sunday, who don't 
 know that next Sunday there will be a girl the 
 less; hearers of daily early Mass, who will never 
 have me near you again, farewell to all, good-bye! 
 Good-bye to the eyes, the voices, the hearts, the 
 words, the cries, my pleasures, my pains, my 
 trouble and my weakness. It is hard to leave 
 you all!" 
 
 She renewed her strength in the single-hearted 
 meditation wherein her resolution had first been 
 formed, and she renewed it also in the courage 
 of her father. For she knew that she could not 
 walk without an example, a rail to guide her 
 hand. The weaver had made of the matter as 
 it were a point of honour between himself and 
 his God. "We won't give way," he said, "I
 
 82 THE NUN 
 
 have principles; have I or have I not? Well, 
 I don't intend to flinch because I have to suffer 
 for my principles. Nor will I let my mates who 
 don't think as I do say that I am a bigot just as 
 long as it costs me no trouble. They shall see 
 whether or not I am one of the men of Saint 
 Irenee, from father to son Christians and first 
 class silk-weavers. And then if there were 
 nothing else I owe it to God for my sins. I gave 
 Him back my Pascale as I would my blood, drop 
 by drop." 
 
 And not for a moment had he flinched; he 
 had turned to all, and especially to his daughter, 
 that customary silent front which from time to 
 time was changed by an access of facile good 
 humour. If he wept within, there was nothing 
 to show it. Pascale sometimes thought, "His 
 nature is happier than mine." At any rate it 
 was more robust. 
 
 During the two last days they walked out 
 often, her hand on his arm, and they visited 
 some of their neighbours. The weather had 
 grown mild ; three hours of moist, warm sunshine 
 between the morning mist and the evening fog. 
 They gave no reason for those ceremonial visits, 
 and those on whom they called were somewhat 
 surprised; but why speak yet? That surprise 
 would not be for long. 
 
 On the evening before Pascale 's going, Adolphe 
 Mouvand and his daughter made their prayer 
 together. Pascale led, and her father made the 
 responses; and the man's voice was unsteady 
 because he had heard the child's, the voice that
 
 THE NUN 83 
 
 was to sound no more in his house. Their even- 
 ing kiss was long, their embrace was close. 
 
 The morning rose with an almost pure sky, the 
 Christmas morning. Neither had courage enough 
 for a first greeting. When he was ready, Aholphe 
 Mouvand opened the door on the staircase and 
 called, "Pascale." She came, carrying in her 
 hand a bag of brown cloth in which she had folded 
 six chemises and nightgowns and four pairs of 
 black stockings, all the outfit and all the dowry 
 wherewith she was to enter St. Hildegarde's. 
 When her father appeared, he made haste to go 
 down, for grief had caught his throat, and he could 
 not trust himself to stand on the threshold. Pas- 
 cale went down a step, pale and erect, but sudden- 
 ly, as though she had forgotten something, she 
 put her bag down and fled back into her room. 
 She had, however, forgotten nothing. She ran 
 into her little room, closed the door behind her, 
 looked one last time round the four bare and faded 
 walls, and one by one tenderly kissed them. Then 
 she went out quickly, having said farewell to all 
 her past. 
 
 Adolphe Mouvand was at the foot of the stairs. 
 He did not turn when he heard behind him a 
 woman's stifled weeping. Together, looking before 
 them, they set forth. Now and then the weaver 
 passed his hand over his beard fringed with frost. 
 The neighbours hardly noted how strangely grave 
 looked "those Mouvands," or the small care they 
 took of their footing on the hill on that frosty 
 morning. Soon they were two without a name, 
 two without a history, in the great city then
 
 84 THE NUN 
 
 awaking. They spoke few words, and those such 
 as express none of the tenderness they imply. 
 
 1 ' Not cold, are you? " "Take care of the gutter 
 it's frozen ! " And once the weaver said, ' ' We'll 
 take this way, it's rather longer round," and his 
 face was twisted with a grimace of pain con-- 
 trolled. They might not much delay, for Pascale 
 had promised to be, before eight o'clock, in the 
 parlour of a school the Sisters kept at La Guillo- 
 tiere. Twice again did Mouvand speak. As 
 they entered that quarter of the town he stopped 
 Pascale on the quay by the Rhone, and said to 
 her in his gruff voice, but in the tone of a child, 
 "Pascale, will you come back home again?" 
 
 She, with her eyes before her, whispered "No, 
 no," and went on. 
 
 Her father followed her. When he saw before 
 him the Place de 1'Abondance, open and empty 
 and so quickly to be crossed, he said again, Like 
 a beggar losing hope for alms, "Will you come 
 back home, Pascale?" She did not answer, per- 
 haps she did not hear. He had said to her the 
 night before, "I shall not see the Superior. I 
 shall take you just to the door as I used to do 
 when you were a child." 
 
 The school had a triangular facade to the street, 
 and bore a cross. Pascale rang quickly, so as to 
 make her act final. Then, hearing the tinkle of 
 the little worn bell as she stood on the step on the 
 level of her father standing on the pavement, she 
 turned to him, and wept bitterly on his neck. 
 
 "I do love you, father," she said. "I shall 
 love you as long as I live." She drew away, she
 
 THE NUN 85 
 
 looked at him with her ardent eyes that were 
 heavy with tears, as though to fix the image of 
 this dear one. With the action of a mother she 
 laid the large and hairy head upon her breast, 
 and slowly kissed the brow. The door was open. 
 A young portress had said gaily, "Why, it's our 
 new Sister," and then had stopped abruptly, 
 struck silent by pity. Pascale whispered closely, 
 while her father, bewildered, closed his eyes. 
 
 "I thank you for being so generous. I do love 
 you, father. Good-bye, good-bye." She smiled 
 to the Sister, went up two steps, and the door 
 shut between the father and the child. 
 
 Mouvand sat down on the step and wept with- 
 out control. 
 
 Two years went by while Pascale made her 
 novitiate at the Mother-House of Clermont-Fer- 
 rand. The weaver grew accustomed to the ab- 
 sence of his child, at any rate there was no one 
 in the district of the Croix Rousse who could say 
 that he had not become used to it. For a week 
 there was much talk of Pascale 's vocation and 
 departure; also of the weaver's taking an ap- 
 prentice. But the apprentice did not live in the 
 house. He came in the morning, and at whatever 
 hour this was, he never failed to see the great 
 shoulders of his master bent at the loom. Never 
 had Mouvand worked so hard. Never had he 
 grown old so fast ; his bass voice grew hollow, and 
 every wrinkle became a furrow. When the 
 neighbours jested with him about his little nun,
 
 86 THE NUN 
 
 he answered: "As there are girls for pleasure, 
 there have to be girls for prayer that's how I 
 look at it." 
 
 When he heard, at the end of December, 1899, 
 that Pascale was to be sent, as auxiliary teacher, 
 to the school in the Place Saint Pontique, he was 
 happy; for she might never have returned to 
 Lyons at all. He said to the apprentice, a beard- 
 less youth as pale as a lamp forgotten and left 
 alight in broad day: "I shall have a good Sunday, 
 Joannes, I am going to see my girl at Saint 
 Pontique." And he thought: "How pretty she 
 will be, just twenty, in her nun's dress." And he 
 was right. In the little white parlour, when he 
 had kissed her with all his heart, he looked at her. 
 He sat in his chair, and she in one opposite, and he 
 conned her, feature by feature. 
 
 "Your eyes are still like flowers, yellow, like 
 the middle part of a daisy." 
 
 She laughed as she used to do, or even in a 
 fresher and clearer voice, for teaching had not 
 yet worn it. 
 
 "But your hair is gone, and I liked it so. No 
 there is a little bit, just by your ear." 
 
 "It will come out so." 
 
 "It's golden. All the gold we had at home. 
 You ought to have left me a lock. But you are 
 rosier, your cheeks and your mouth too." 
 
 "Dad, we don't talk of things of that kind." 
 
 "It's only your father, Pascale, and it has been 
 two years." 
 
 Ah, the sweet first five minutes! After that 
 they tried to talk easily. She spoke to him about
 
 THE NUN 87 
 
 her companions, to him strangers ; about Clermont- 
 Ferrand, where he had never been; about the 
 method and course of teaching in the school, for 
 which he cared nothing. She good-naturedly 
 asked him questions about the old district, about 
 business. By this time many things had grown 
 dim in the mind of Pascale: many details were 
 quite effaced, many figures had vanished; the 
 little novelties about the house or the street she 
 had not seen them. Mouvand was well aware that 
 though she made some effort to imagine certain 
 new streets that he tried to describe, and the new 
 loom and the pattern of the new paper he had put 
 up "to make the room look warmer," she hardly 
 succeeded, and, besides that, it was her kindness 
 that was concerned, and not her life. He under- 
 stood that they had no share together in the 
 house, or the street, or the work; that the one 
 thing belonging to them both was past, and that 
 they would never have another holiday together 
 except on the yonder side of the grave. Mouvand 
 felt that his sacrifice was not yet complete. He 
 asked : 
 
 "Are you happy, Pascale?" 
 
 "Quite happy." 
 
 "As you used to be?" 
 
 She was loth to answer, "Much happier"; she 
 nodded. Yes, he knew she was happy, he hardly 
 understood how without him, far from him 
 but the fact was there. He arose, before the 
 allotted hour of recreation was over. He touched 
 caressingly with his finger the white frontlet that 
 covered the fair hair, and the black veil, and the
 
 88 THE NUN 
 
 hands of his child. He said, "I shall come 
 again. It's always on Sunday, isn't it, that I 
 can see you?" 
 
 But several months went by before he came 
 again. His friends, the bowl-players, noticed 
 that he had less power hi throwing and that his 
 bowl was often short. The wine that followed 
 the game hardly cheered him whom it used to 
 make joyful. He had not given up his visits to 
 Pascale, but they were few and brief. His 
 robust faith had grown yet stronger in solitude; 
 he was not melancholy, but he no longer loved 
 life. He said hi his prayers: "I am old, I am 
 common, I am quite alone and forsaken. It is 
 not possible for anyone to love me again, except 
 God only. God only! Glory! Alleluia! My 
 soul is half saved." Since his child had taken the 
 veil he always lifted his hat to nuns in the street, 
 but he avoided speaking to them, because of the 
 little girl of whom they too much reminded him. 
 He had grown very emotional. Probably he had 
 been so all his life, but if so, it was within, after 
 the manner of the strong, out of sight of the 
 effeminate and the curious. Now that he was 
 a weaker man, and unable to work more than 
 eight hours a day, his nerves had "got," as he 
 said, "the upper hand," and he felt himself to be 
 subject to sensibilities, which no one had before 
 suspected to be lurking in him. More regularly 
 than ever before he attended the meetings of the 
 Hospitallers, and on Sundays, with his brothers 
 of that Order, he went his round of the wards of 
 fever-beds to which he was appointed. He visited
 
 THE NUN 89 
 
 his patients, combed and cut their hair, and 
 shaved them, lifted them, talked with them, meet- 
 big, in the course of this ministration, men of his 
 mind and of his spirit. Formerly, he had visited 
 the sick and tended them in their own homes as 
 well, but this he could do no longer. 
 
 One morning towards the end of the summer, 
 as he was standing hi his white-pouched apron, 
 deftly shaving the cheeks of a patient, one of 
 the Hospital nursing Sisters passed the foot of the 
 bed and said to him: " Monsieur Mouvand, your 
 chief wants you in the next room." 
 
 She went on, with her light and noiseless foot. 
 Her white linen cap, frontlet, gorget and collar 
 vanished beyond a door and took with it a flash 
 of white light. 
 
 The weaver had laid his left hand, holding the 
 shaving cloth, upon the sick man's bed; his 
 other hand held the razor; he remained leaning 
 aside, his head forward like a dog pointing. It 
 was only after a full minute that he became 
 again conscious of what he was about to do, and 
 recovered himself. Then he made haste to 
 "finish his customer," put his shaving things into 
 his pouch again, and went out into the hall, 
 where the "conductor" of his division of Hos- 
 pitallers waited to ask a question. When he had 
 replied, he began to take off the apron of his 
 amateur calling. 
 
 "You look much worse than a great many of 
 our patients, Mouvand. You had better take a 
 little turn outside, it would pull you together," 
 said his chief.
 
 90 THE NUN 
 
 The weaver's head shook as it often did before 
 he spoke. Then he said : 
 
 "I shall not come again." 
 
 "Not till next time!" 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 "You feel worn out?" 
 
 "Yes, I feel about done. I'm out of it. Please 
 tell the other fellows I'm not fit for work. But 
 there's another reason I can't bear to see the 
 Sister the one who went through just now. 
 She is too much like my daughter Pascale. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 Nor did he enter the hospital again. Nor was 
 he seen again on Sundays except at church, and 
 on the Boulevard of the Croix Rousse at bowls. 
 His friends sometimes threw the little bowl to a 
 shorter distance, or, when his back was turned, 
 pushed his own nearer, so that he might have the 
 pleasure of winning. 
 
 In the spring of 1902 he was absorbed in an 
 important piece of work the weaving of a mag- 
 nificent white silk, for the manufacture of which 
 he had been chosen among several hundred work- 
 men, by the head of the famous Lyons house of 
 Talier-Decapy. He worked at this with extreme 
 care, washing his hands ten times a day. It was 
 a thick and supple silk, white as snow, sprinkled 
 with little wreaths of silver foliage. He had both 
 pleasure and pride in weaving this robe of light. 
 On the 16th of May, which is the eve of St. Pascal, 
 he came home from a visit to his child, and had 
 two delights hidden in his heart: he had found 
 Pascale looking well, and she had said to him,
 
 THE NUN 91 
 
 "I am coming round to see you, I am coming to 
 beg. The house at Clermont-Ferrand is full of 
 evicted Sisters, and cannot give us any help. So 
 we want some hundreds of francs for our own 
 bread until the end of the year." 
 
 "Some hundreds of francs, forsooth! I can 
 only give you a little still, come all the same." 
 
 What a dream to cherish! Pascale again at 
 the Croix Rousse! Pascale going up the Grande 
 Cote, Pascale in the street below with her blue 
 gown and her veil! Pascale's voice in the room 
 from which it had so long kept away old age! 
 Pascale's eyes reflecting the things of the house 
 and her father's image, as when she used to come 
 behind him at his loom, and say, "Well, no 
 kissing this morning, Dad, I suppose?" 
 
 The second delight, which did but attend the 
 first, was in the weaver's heart as he walked home 
 along the Saone in the sweet weather, his hands 
 in his pockets, and felt the summer wind, fresh 
 only when it is high. And on the quay was a little 
 greenery, enough to give a factory workman a 
 sense of the country, and he enjoyed and loved 
 the foliage and the breeze. 
 
 Mouvand walked quickly that day. He was 
 heated when he sat down before his loom and 
 lifted the paper covering his silk. With more 
 spirit than usual his foot pressed the pedal, his 
 left hand pushed the leaf, and his right hand threw 
 the shuttle. He worked for more than an hour, 
 and the light was fine in the workshop. The 
 apprentice had stopped to rest three times. 
 Mouvand, excited by the beauty of the material
 
 92 THE NUN 
 
 in his hands and the splendour of the tissue in 
 his loom, sat intent with his shoulders bowed 
 and his rough head covered by the cap with 
 ears which he usually wore at work. The sound 
 of the bell did not stop him, nor did the entrance 
 of an employe of the factory, who was taking 
 an Italian client round the works. This visitor, 
 with a thin southern face and pointed beard, drew 
 near the weaver, looked at him closely for a 
 moment, studied his work, and touching his 
 shoulder, said: 
 
 "Excellent!" 
 
 Mouvand stopped the shuttle at the point 
 where the stretched threads of the "chain" made, 
 as it were, long rays from the woven light of 
 the lustrous silk. He even lifted a finger to 
 his cap. 
 
 "I have brought to your workshop, Monsieur 
 Mouvand," said the employe, "the greatest of 
 all exporters of Italian silk. Now, sir, you can 
 judge of the good work of our Lyons weavers; 
 and here is one of the best." 
 
 "And the last," said Mouvand in his gruff 
 voice. "No cheap silk, no ribbon in this work- 
 shop!" 
 
 The Italian was full of genuine admiration. 
 He touched the silk and smiled at it; he would 
 have liked to speak to it. 
 
 "You are an artist," he said, "and jou are 
 making a masterpiece. Is it for a ball-dress?" 
 
 The old weaver, well pleased to be so praised 
 in the presence of Joannes, his apprentice, but 
 still better pleased at an acknowledgment of his
 
 THE NUN 93 
 
 merit deserved by so many years of the past, lifted 
 his cap as he proclaimed: 
 
 "Court-dress for the Coronation of the King of 
 England." 
 
 The loud words resounded down the faded 
 walls and windows, embrowned with winter 
 smoke. It was the voice of the pride of ancestors, 
 creators of the Lyons industry; it was the voice 
 of all the emotion of a secluded and laborious 
 life, unenvious of the riches it produced. 
 
 When the two visitors were gone, Mouvand, in 
 the same high tone, addressed his apprentice who, 
 having closed the door, was taking, in good 
 spirits, his seat again. 
 
 "Take notice, Joannes. You are in the work- 
 shop of an artist. An artist; and I think I was 
 right, mind you, when I said the last one!" 
 
 He worked on till night, so as to finish the piece 
 if possible. The visit had greatly moved him, 
 and this was the third joy of the day. 
 
 On the following morning, at seven, when 
 Joannes entered the workshop, he found his 
 master seated at the loom, with his arms folded 
 on the silk, which was unfinished by about a quar- 
 ter of a yard. Adolphe Mouvand was dead. 
 
 Pascale's grief over this death did much to 
 shake her health, long tried by overwork and 
 by the lack of air and exercise. Her companions 
 abounded in attentions, services, tender words, 
 reverent and considerate silence. They were all 
 quick at guessing, all whether daughters of the
 
 94 THE NUN 
 
 farm, the workshop, or the office accustomed to 
 meditate on that Passion of the Master which is a 
 clue to all other griefs. Pascale found amongst 
 them the counsel and the support she needed. 
 She had her own battle to fight, but she had help 
 from her fellows. She was adored by the school- 
 children, who were quite aware of her weakness, 
 and read in the tender sweep of her eyelashes when 
 she answered their " Good morning," in the caress- 
 ing grasp of her hand, in the contraction of her 
 face when she heard of an accident or saw a wound, 
 the dominance of affection and of emotion in the 
 young heart of their teacher. The youngest ran 
 to her when they saw her in the courtyard or in the 
 passages ; some of them kissed her hands, clinging 
 to her motherly young skirt ; and during the long 
 play-time of holiday afternoons, when Sister 
 Pascale was in charge, the eldest girls stood by her 
 and entrusted her with avowals of all that most 
 nearly touched their hearts trials in regard to 
 dress and to lovers. She did not love to hear these 
 things, which threatened her with the unquiet 
 things of life. She answered, laughing: 
 
 "But why do you tell me, my dears? I have 
 no experience ; I can't tell you what I should have 
 done in your place, when I was a weaver's daugh- 
 ter in the Croix Rousse, for I don't know." What 
 she did love was the Office said at the end of the 
 day by the Sisters together, their quiet recreation, 
 their evening prayer: that peace which was still 
 vibrating with the life and feeling of the day, and 
 full of the consciousness of the watchful love of 
 those who cherished her a love in arms for her
 
 THE NUN 95 
 
 against the temptations or terrors of the night. 
 She loved the Great Silence of the Rule, which 
 lasted until morning Mass was over. What a 
 refreshing and renewing of the soul was there! 
 " Grace comes down in the Silence," said Pascale. 
 She was not mystical, but she had fervent im- 
 pulses of devotion, movements of a soul that 
 knows the way, and though it cannot follow it all 
 by continuous flight, can leap and flutter as well 
 as run, and does not go astray. She was very 
 punctual, even to scruple, in the observance of the 
 Rule. She loved the children she taught loving 
 the prettiest best, as at first and her love grew 
 with the sense of duty fulfilled. She beloved 
 by four saintly women might well be on the way 
 to become a saint like them. 
 
 Therefore the news that the community was 
 in danger troubled the very depths of Pascale's 
 being. All night long the past went by in the 
 young nun's heart; she travelled again her old 
 road, and she tried in vain, and in terror, to guess 
 at the future which was like the night, menacing, 
 pressing, perilous. She rose all undone with 
 weariness.
 
 III. 
 
 VIA DOLOROSA. 
 
 TUESDAY morning was wearing on. In the 
 bright light the school-children, prisoners, like 
 wasps in a hot-house, were beginning to grow 
 languid. Thirty little girls of six to eight years 
 old who were writing copies, with bent backs, 
 often lifted their eyes towards their mistress. 
 Pascale was dictating: 
 
 "A voice was heard in Rama. Rachael weep- 
 ing for her children and will not be comforted, 
 because they are not." 
 
 Poor tender voice, which the children heard, 
 for they were used to its weakness. 
 
 "Have you understood the dictation?" she 
 said. "Read it over to yourselves. I will make 
 the corrections later. Melie, come up to me." 
 
 A child rose, with a single impetus of her agile 
 body, and drew near to the teacher's desk. She 
 was red-haired, with hard and quick blue eyes, 
 wide mouth, sharp teeth, a little wolfish head 
 above a small figure clad in a grey woollen frock ; 
 the eldest pupil in the class (ten years old) and the 
 most inattentive. She stood on the step of the 
 mistress's desk, her bold eyes on the tired eyes 
 of Sister Pascale. The mistress faced the window, 
 and the child was in shadow. Most of the other 
 
 96
 
 THE NUN 97 
 
 pupils stopped to listen ; some few read over their 
 dictation. 
 
 In a low tone Sister Pascale said: 
 
 "My little girl, I am obliged to speak to you 
 again." 
 
 Melie made a grievously disrespectful movement 
 of the shoulders. 
 
 "What for? I did my writing, the same as 
 the others." 
 
 "That is not what I mean." 
 
 "I didn't talk." 
 
 "No, that's true." 
 
 "What is it then?"* 
 
 "You did not come to Mass the day before 
 yesterday." 
 
 The child frowned, looking askance at her 
 companions, who uplifted their noses and tittered 
 at seeing that Melie was in trouble again Melie 
 the idle, the unruly and perverse. 
 
 Melie had her mind's eye fixed afar upon the 
 hovel that was her dwelling, and she said nothing. 
 
 Sister Pascale leaned over her and said very 
 softly: 
 
 "Do you wish to make me unhappy, my 
 child?" 
 
 "That I don't." 
 
 And for a moment the little wild face fronted 
 the face of Pascale. The child was gloomy still, 
 and angry, but now because she was misunder- 
 stood, and because this Sister Pascale did not see 
 how much a turbulent child loved her and wanted 
 to kiss her before all the school. The ardent re- 
 proach of those childish eyes was perceptible
 
 98 THE NUN 
 
 enough to Pascale, whose own expression relaxed 
 somewhat as the child said: 
 
 "I'm going to tell you I won't tell anybody 
 else, though I couldn't come." 
 
 "Tell me why." 
 
 "Saturday evening, father and mother both 
 came in .all anyhow, I had to put them both to 
 bed. They made a noise all night long; so in 
 the morning I was asleep." 
 
 Pascale's hand lay, as though giving absolution, 
 on the rough head of Melie. The child lifted her- 
 self on tiptoe so as the better to meet that caress- 
 she, the beaten one, the worse than motherless, 
 the despised. 
 
 "Go then," said Sister Pascale and as she said 
 it, a thought from the once familiar life of the 
 streets struck her. "They won't be drinking 
 every Saturday I hope, will they? So you'll 
 come next Sunday, and the other Sundays?" 
 
 She stopped abruptly. What was she saying? 
 Next Sunday? the other Sundays? Two tears 
 hung on the lashes of her childish eyes. 
 
 Melie went back to her place, saying: "Sister 
 Pascale is unhappy. She couldn't smile." 
 
 The other children had not heard, but they had 
 looked. "What did she say? Crying, is she? 
 What is she crying for? Had you told a lie? 
 Is she unhappy? Why? Did she tell you?" 
 The little girls were restless hi the heat. Sister 
 Pascale was trying to resume her school-mistress 
 voice: "We will now correct the dictation ." 
 She was not released until the bell sounded for the 
 play-hour. Then she hurried to find the Superior,
 
 THE NUN 99 
 
 so as to hear something more of the fate of the 
 community. 
 
 " Sister Pascale," said Sister Justine, meeting 
 her in the corridor, "you will take charge of the 
 luncheon of the day-boarders. What a Lenten 
 face you have, my child ! Why, what a reed you 
 are!" 
 
 Pascale, during the play-hour, tried to join in 
 the games, as her duty was; to be gay and to 
 be obedient. But she felt within her a burden 
 of tears. Around her the little girls ran and 
 skipped with a hum of summer flies. The young 
 mistress played, and was beaten every time. She 
 caught sight, at intervals, of Sister Leonide, in a 
 hurry as usual, trotting, laughing with her tooth- 
 less mouth to the little girls who shouted to her 
 across the playground; or of Sister Edwige, who 
 was standing very .still and very good, in her blue 
 gown, in the recess of one of the windows, correct- 
 ing a sheaf of exercises. 
 
 At half past four the " parents' hour" the 
 four women met, the cook-Sister being in the 
 kitchen. They were together as the front door 
 closed upon the last child. 
 
 "Well?" said the anxious voice of Pascale. 
 "What have you settled, Mother? What is to 
 become of us? Have you any plans? What 
 have you done?" 
 
 The Superior, who delighted in these extra- 
 school moments of life "hi community," bowed 
 her large face with its deep wrinkles in turn to 
 the three in order of seniority. "Good day," 
 she said, "my children. School is over, and we
 
 100 THE NUN 
 
 can breathe again. What have I done? Well, 
 I have begun a letter." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Then I shall finish it, and I shall send it to 
 the post to-night by Sister Le"onide." 
 
 "And is that all?" 
 
 "I shall expect the answer of our Mother- 
 General, who will write by Thursday, I sup- 
 pose, either to our Superior, Canon Le Suet, or 
 to me." 
 
 ' ' And in the meantime ? ' ' 
 
 "The two days? We shall go on with the school 
 and with our prayers." 
 
 "But if ."' 
 
 Sister Pascale hesitated, but as she was privi- 
 leged and was permitted some of the freedom of 
 speech she had brought with her from the Croix 
 Rousse, she added: 
 
 "If none of us say anything, what then?" 
 
 The steady eyes of Sister Justine rested on the 
 face of the questioner: 
 
 "It is only then, my little Pascale, that we 
 shall have to depend upon ourselves." 
 
 Two days later, immediately after the mid- 
 day dinner, which was cooked in twenty minutes 
 and eaten in fifteen, Sister Justine and the nun 
 who on special occasions bore the part of her com- 
 panion lister Danielle crossed Saint Pontique 
 and the Perrache railway station, and on the south 
 road took the tramcar, for they were pressed for 
 time and had far to go. Seated together, they
 
 THE NUN 101 
 
 exchanged few words, covered by the noise of the 
 wheels and of the rattling windows. 
 
 "Do you think the Canon has received orders?" 
 
 "I should think so, since nothing has come to 
 me from Mother-General." 
 
 "He is sure to tell us to go to Clermont- 
 Ferrand." 
 
 "It is most likely." 
 
 "We shall have to ask him about the trains, 
 as we never travel and he does sometimes." 
 
 "Oh, Sister Leonide knows all about it. Fancy 
 asking Monsieur le Supe"rieur such things as that! 
 Sister Danielle, what are you thinking of?" 
 
 During some part of the journey they were 
 silent, both thinking of Clermont-Ferrand. As 
 the tramcar came in sight of the Pont de Tilsit, 
 Sister Danielle said in a whisper: 
 
 "I shall see there several Sisters with whom 
 I made my novitiate. I cannot help being glad 
 of that. And yet how can they give shelter in 
 the Mother-House to Sisters from every corner 
 of France where schools have been closed? If 
 our Order had missions in other countries mis- 
 sions to the heathen but as it is ." 
 
 They had crossed the Saone and reached their 
 destination the square and respectable house on 
 the Quai Fulchiron, where dwelt Canon Le Suet. 
 
 This was an ecclesiastic who, clad in his cas- 
 sock, looked as broad as he was tall and as thick 
 as he was broad. And yet he was not precisely 
 fat, and had considerable dignity in his bearing, 
 some sweetness, and much ease a well-mitigated 
 zeal. His life was above reproach, and his con-
 
 102 THE NUN 
 
 fidence in himself apparently unlimited. All the 
 priesthood of Lyons knew him. A priest of the 
 Concordat, as he essentially was, for him accord 
 with the State was the one thing needful. The 
 price of peace was never too great, peace being 
 beyond price ; and even the honour of the religion 
 in which he sincerely believed might conceivably 
 be given in order to secure it. He had deep-set 
 eyes, thin hair somewhat long, thick brows and 
 a face that sometimes turned white under a 
 breath of unuttered apprehension. Abbe Le 
 Suet was an adviser to whom many applied in 
 trouble, but from whom few received comfort. 
 Those who sought him had often to leave his 
 presence taking little provision with them on 
 their homeward journey except such phrases as 
 they might have read for themselves in the news- 
 papers: "The times are very difficult. But with 
 goodwill things may be settled goodwill on both 
 sides. The Catholic party is not entirely faultless. 
 You certainly have cause of complaint, and I feel 
 for you; but you should have foreseen this, and 
 done that, and thought of the other, etc., etc., in 
 good time; you understand me in good time." 
 But precisely what he advised, or would in good 
 time have advised, neither those who had known 
 him for years nor those who knew him little could 
 easily tell. He had always blamed his friends, he 
 had always had his fears. His function had been 
 that of a discreet drag upon the hasty. His way 
 was to advise no action whatever "for the pres- 
 ent." His mind worked most clearly and most 
 effectually among small local and ecclesiastical
 
 THE NUN 103 
 
 affairs strictly of the past. On those subjects 
 he was profuse. His memory was inexhaustible. 
 He remembered the " unfortunate" phrases that 
 had escaped former vicaires before the Council 
 that is, phrases of too "ultramontain" a char- 
 acter. No such phrases were recorded of any 
 speech of his. His almsgiving was normal. He 
 was supposed to be rich, but this word is alto- 
 gether relative when a French priest is in question. 
 Some of his colleagues were dazzled by the com- 
 fortable appointments of his waiting-room, inas- 
 much as the chairs were covered with blue rep, and 
 the walls hung with old prints of sacred subjects 
 after one or other of the Poussins, and the room 
 contained, moreover, a vase of artificial flowers 
 (under glass), the offering of some community of 
 nuns, and a cuckoo clock from the Black Forest. 
 The owner of all this luxury was wont to repeat 
 the sermons of his earlier years, touching them 
 to life by means of exceedingly modern instances. 
 He had been appointed Honorary Canon in 1885. 
 His chances of a bishopric had been spoken of, but 
 were spoken of no longer. He might have been a 
 candidate, not through vanity merely, but by the 
 conviction that he would have been a good " ad- 
 ministrator" a Bishop of business. He was, in 
 fact, a good layman, tonsured; he was orthodox, 
 of medium character, of mediocre intellect, always 
 incapable of falsehood, or treason, but now also 
 incapable of action, desiring peace in the midst 
 of war, a straggler playing the flute in the rear 
 of an army. 
 
 When Sister Justine rang the Canon's bell, the
 
 104 THE NUN 
 
 servant, the clean, the cool, the aged Zoe, who 
 looked somewhat like a police inspector, knew 
 her at once, and said drily: 
 
 "I hardly know whether Monsieur le Supe"rieur 
 can see you. I should be surprised, as he is leav- 
 ing this afternoon." 
 
 "For Paris?" asked Sister Justine. 
 
 "No, he is going to Vichy." 
 
 She returned after five minutes. 
 
 "Come in; but don't stay long." 
 
 She showed the Sisters, with a motion of her 
 shoulder, the door, which they had crossed more 
 than once before, and retreated to her kitchen. 
 
 Almost immediately the priest appeared, from 
 his own parlour, made no apology for receiving 
 the nuns in the waiting-room, and took his seat in 
 an armchair, saying: 
 
 "Let me hear what you wish to say." 
 
 Then he closed his eyes. 
 
 They had taken the two small chairs. The 
 priest, leaning forward with his elbows on his 
 knees, nodded slowly and made inarticulate 
 sounds in parentheses to the narrative of Sister 
 Justine, so as to prove to her that he was not 
 slumbering. 
 
 "What is to be done, Monsieur le Superieur?" 
 she asked, at the end of her report. "We are 
 warned that our school is to be closed on the 
 day after to-morrow. Are we to make any 
 resistance?" 
 
 "Certainly not," said the Canon, opening his 
 mouth and eyes at once, and speaking in a tone 
 of authority. "I am entirely opposed to any-
 
 THE NUN 105 
 
 thing of the kind. What about the Mother- 
 House? Would you get that closed too?" 
 
 "No, Monsieur le Superieur; we wish only to 
 record our right. If there is no show of violence, 
 if the convent is not attacked, how will the 
 people know that it is not by our own wish that 
 we are forsaking our work?" 
 
 The priest said: 
 
 "Do not let us provoke ' 
 
 "But, Monsieur le Superieur, they are robbing 
 us, they are turning us out of our own property, 
 they are tearing our children from us, they are 
 preventing our community life ' 
 
 "Excuse me, excuse me 
 
 "Well, our community life in Lyons, at any 
 rate. We are to leave the school in two days, and 
 to retire to the Mother-House." 
 
 "Who told you that?" 
 
 "Why, the police people. Where should we go 
 if not there?" 
 
 "It is quite impossible," said the priest, ad- 
 justing his glasses and looking at the two women 
 alternately. "It is quite out of the question for 
 you to be received at the Mother-House. It is 
 absolutely full." 
 
 The Sisters started. They said together: 
 
 "What, do you mean that we cannot go to 
 Clermont?" 
 
 "I am advised," replied the priest, "by a letter 
 from the Superior-General, who is in great dis- 
 tress I was going to write to tell you before I 
 left that there is no room." 
 
 "But then?"
 
 106 THE NUN 
 
 He lifted both hands, as though to say/ 'So it is." 
 
 "That means we must separate?" 
 
 He bowed. 
 
 "We must be secularised?" 
 
 He bowed again. 
 
 "Separate Sister Danielle, Sister Edwige, Sis- 
 ter Pascale?" 
 
 "My dear daughter 
 
 "Give up our work, our teaching, go back into 
 the world, lose all all? You have not settled 
 it? We may still telegraph to the Mother-House? 
 They might 
 
 ' ' I know what they might do, and it is very little 
 indeed," broke in the Canon. 
 
 He opened a drawer, and took between his 
 finger and thumb some coins wrapped in a piece 
 of newspaper. 
 
 "Very little indeed. The Mother-House is 
 poor, and three thousand nuns have now to be 
 supported without return. I have been asked 
 to hand to each of you forty francs. It is a little 
 send off. A good lady has also provided, I hear, 
 an outfit for the secularised Sisters. You will 
 call on her on leaving the school, and she will 
 supply you." 
 
 "And then where do we go?" 
 
 The Canon rose and made a melancholy grimace 
 because of the embarrassment of the interview. 
 
 "Wherever you may find a an opening. Cir- 
 cumstances have been too strong for us. I am 
 truly sorry that I in vain foretold what was to 
 happen. You must practise self-sacrifice. You 
 must bow to the storm, and let it go by."
 
 THE NUN 107 
 
 He was sincerely distressed at having to see 
 before him these two unhappy women, white as 
 their frontlets. Sister Justine paused for a mo- 
 ment, made up her mind not to resist him, and 
 stammered: " Good-bye, Monsieur le Supe"rieur; 
 we shall not forget your goodness. We beg you 
 to remember us in your prayers." 
 
 Both the Sisters bowed respectfully and crossed 
 his door again. At the street corner Sister 
 Danielle said, without halting, as they went: 
 
 "Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi" Her 
 voice was firm, but thrilling with energy and in- 
 dignation. She looked along the quay with its 
 houses, she looked at the mass of the city, and in 
 these she saw the world upon which she had just 
 been cast back, which she had abjured, the world, 
 which meant trouble, impurity, blasphemy, pride 
 of dress, all that made against the peace of the 
 spirit. Within her soul the virgin, the woman, 
 the peasant protested, but she controlled that 
 revolt, commanding all except the turbulent blood 
 that rushed from her beautiful face to her suffer- 
 ing heart. Sister Justine was busy with thoughts 
 about the thing to be done. Long, long ago she 
 had formed her judgment of men, and had forgiven 
 them beforehand whatever injustice, whatever un- 
 kindness, whatever insult, they might make her 
 endure. In the street, from the moment of her 
 first step, one resolution had been taken, and 
 another was in her thoughts. The only sign of 
 her distress was the greater than usual vigour and 
 assurance of her aspect. The old nun marched 
 quickly, eyes front, like a soldier.
 
 108 THE NUN 
 
 " Where are we going?" asked Danielle. 
 
 1 ' Why, to get advice, ' ' said the Superior with that 
 short laugh which mingled so much good humour 
 with her office and her authority. ' ' For, indeed, it 
 is hardly advice that we have just received." 
 
 "Our work is at an end," said Sister Danielle. 
 
 "But the Sisters are not at an end, dear child." 
 
 "And who now will advise us, Mother?" 
 
 "The saints. There are always saints, and now 
 there is no one else." 
 
 Her companion knew then that they were on 
 their way to the Abbe Monechal. At the end of 
 the Place Bellecour Sister Justine turned to the 
 left, and they walked to the foot of the heights 
 of the Croix Rousse. 
 
 This priest lived in the over-populated quarter 
 of the Torreaux, w r here, within smoky and leprous 
 walls, a great number of silk merchants and manu- 
 facturers had their offices. In a house of business, 
 with agents and workmen on the upper storeys, 
 and in poor rooms, once roughly repaired and since 
 then again stained and faded, he dwelt on a ground 
 floor well fitted for the very poor. It was also 
 well fitted for a priest, their friend. There was 
 an approach of three steps to the front door, no 
 bell, and the first room, unfurnished, with plas- 
 tered walls, gave access to another, smaller, an 
 alcove with no door, in which the priest set at 
 night his camp bed, folded up by day. The whole 
 of the mornings and a part of the afternoons he 
 devoted here to his visitors hunger, misery, 
 grievance, discontent, destitution, vice, virtue in 
 disguise, grief beyond consolation. The outer
 
 THE NUN 109 
 
 room served for those who awaited their turn ; in 
 the inner he received the confidences of his poor 
 clients. He had formed part of the body called 
 the higher clergy, but was now a free missionary, 
 himself in want by reason of that rare and splendid 
 cause of ruin charity. 
 
 Sister Justine and Sister Danielle were not kept 
 waiting; there was no one in the "drawing-room." 
 Within, they saw, bent over the deal table, the 
 weary Abbe asleep. On his two folded arms 
 rested the bowed forehead, and nothing was to 
 be seen but two cassock sleeves, a broad un- 
 tonsured head with short white hair, and a back 
 breathing quietly. The two nuns waited respect- 
 fully at a few steps' distance from the table. 
 Other visitors might have made, with pretended 
 inadvertence, a little noise. These two, by un- 
 spoken consent, stood silent, and inwardly prayed 
 for the man who was resting under his burden of 
 work, and who was lonelier than they. His lone- 
 liness seemed to them the hardest of his griefs. 
 But there are mysterious bells within souls that 
 live and are fervent. A part of the being that 
 never sleeps, the watcher of the ship at anchor, 
 now roused the crew. The priest raised his head, 
 looked up, passed his hand over his eyelids and 
 said, without embarrassment: "I beg your par- 
 don, Sisters. This does happen to me some- 
 times I am growing old." His memory had not 
 yet given him the names of his visitors. But a 
 moment later he recalled them, and with a slight 
 bow he said : 
 
 "Sister Justine, I think? Sister Danielle?
 
 110 THE NUN 
 
 Yes, pray sit down. On whose behalf are you 
 here, dear children?" 
 
 But they stood, their hands in their sleeves. 
 And in the convent dress, hi the convent attitude, 
 they almost resembled each other bearing as they 
 did the mark of the self-same trouble. They looked 
 like witnesses at the tribunal of God. 
 
 "We have a great misfortune to endure," said 
 Sister Justine, "and we have come to ask you how 
 we are to meet it." 
 
 Then she told the story of the last three days. 
 The Abbe Monechal listened intently, his eyes 
 lowered, his hands on the table. His bald brow 
 with its wrinkled protuberances, his large, uneven 
 nose; his wide jaw and hollow cheeks, the faded 
 mouth, deeply marked at the corners with the fold 
 of compassion, denoted at once the vigour and the 
 weariness of the man. He was not yet old, but he 
 was deeply worn. Hearing Sister Justine, he was 
 thinking: 
 
 "More suffering for the poor. How the impious 
 hate these friends of Christ! It is as His friends 
 that they are driven out." These were thoughts 
 habitual to his mind, and his face did not alter as 
 he listened. But when the Superior said, "We 
 have just been to see Canon Le Suet; he told us 
 the Mother-House could not take us in, so that we 
 must go back go into the world again 
 
 "Into the w r orld again!" cried the priest. His 
 eyes dilated, in the energy that never ages, shinir.g 
 with a pointed light, the lofty light that saves from 
 shipwreck. 
 
 "My poor children, I suffer with you. Your
 
 THE NUN 111 
 
 Community is to die, and your enemies are glad 
 of what your friends, as yet know nothing of. And 
 these perfect souls, these saints for there are 
 saints amongst you they were the work of cen- 
 turies of daily grace. And how long will it be 
 before the slow making of saints can begin and 
 can work on to that end again? It is easy to say 
 'Go back to the world,' but you have never really 
 lived in it; you are not fit for it; you have not 
 passed through the novitiate of worldly life. You 
 are not called; you are not ready." 
 
 They held down their sorrowful heads. " Yes," 
 he said again, "I am much afraid. Delicate flow- 
 ers are soon faded ; there will be some spoilt souls. 
 And amongst those who will remain, how many 
 will abate their early loftiness of life!" 
 
 He saw that Danielle was weeping. 
 
 "Forgive me, I ought not to make you cry. 
 What I have said will not, I trust, be true of you." 
 
 "What are we to do?" said Sister Justine, harp- 
 ing on her one note. 
 
 "You have no choice. You will be dispensed 
 from your vows of poverty and obedience. You 
 will have to live hi a middle state full of dangers. 
 You, Mother, will you not try to find shelter for 
 as many of your daughters as you can?" 
 
 "I have very young ones." 
 
 "I know. You must pray once for the old nuns 
 and twice for the young ones. You will pray 
 amongst the perpetual difficulties of the life be- 
 fore you. And that is a prevailing prayer. It 
 should be, if the sum of virtue is not to be lessened 
 hi France."
 
 112 THE NUN 
 
 He rose and paced the narrow room, his head 
 bent. 
 
 "And take notice, Sister Justine, that though 
 you are no longer Superior, you are none the less 
 responsible." 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur 1'Abbe." 
 
 "Will you promise to forsake none of them?" 
 
 "I love them all. But for the present moment, 
 Monsieur 1'Abbe?" 
 
 "For the present you must go with dignity, 
 as with dignity you will one day die." 
 
 "It is like death," whispered Sister Danielle. 
 
 "In the first place, you ought to hold your 
 usual prize-giving." 
 
 "And say good-bye to our little girls, to their 
 mothers, to the old girls, to everyone? I thought 
 so too. Ah, I am glad you agree." 
 
 She had resumed her old expression of burly 
 contentment. 
 
 "You are too weak to resist," added the priest, 
 "but at least let right and justice make a good 
 end, knowing that they will rise again. Do not 
 go of your own free will, but submit to force. 
 There need be neither blows nor outcries, but 
 there should be witnesses able to say some day, 
 'They did not forsake us; they were driven out; 
 they would be glad to come back; let us call 
 them!" He turned abruptly to the two women. 
 "You are penniless, are you not?" 
 
 "No, Monsieur PAbbe, we have each forty 
 francs which the Canon gave us, from the Com- 
 munity. They can do no more for us." 
 
 He paused, as though thinking something that
 
 THE NUN 113 
 
 he did not utter. Then he raised his hand, and 
 the Sisters knelt. 
 
 "I bless you/' said the priest. 
 
 They rose, bowed, and, the one following the 
 other, passed down the steps and out into the 
 street. 
 
 Ten minutes later the Abb6 Monechal went 
 out in his turn, and taking his shabby hat, shaggy 
 except where the brim was bare he habitually 
 lifted it to many very insignificant people he 
 walked towards the Saone. Following the Quai 
 Saint Vincent, at the foot of the Croix Rousse, he 
 passed the narrow gorge of the river with its high 
 banks, and climbed the steep avenue of the Cours 
 des Chartreux. 
 
 Almost at the summit, hi a plain house, the 
 remains of an ancient palace now half destroyed, 
 had lived M. Talier-Decapy since the now distant 
 day of the death of his wife; and there he lived 
 alone. He had withdrawn from his business some 
 months before; and he was dying. With him a 
 great commercial name, one of the most honour- 
 able in the silk-industry, would come to an end. 
 He was a hard-working man, absorbed by affairs 
 from his youth up, slow to form a decision, but 
 tenacious when he had put his hand to any task; 
 he had established either factories or agencies in 
 Persia, in India, in Japan, in the United States; 
 he followed closely the course of commerce 
 throughout the world, was well informed and 
 very sure of himself as to the few questions that 
 greatly interested him, and had trebled the con- 
 siderable capital of his inheritance. Having lived,
 
 114 THE NUN 
 
 besides, for seventy years on the interest of his 
 income solely, he had added another fortune to his 
 capital. He had no taste for expenditure, but he 
 was not miserly. He had no light sense of the re- 
 sponsibility of riches. And this had urged him to 
 say to his friend the Abbe" Monechal: "If you 
 should know that my end is near, tell me." 
 
 The priest had never doubted his affection nor 
 his fortitude. But the ascent to the old man's 
 house was made with pain, and slowly, for the 
 errand was a hard one. When he rang, it was 
 done hastily, without a pause for thought. The 
 footman admitted him without waiting for his 
 question : ' ' How is he ? " 
 
 "Very ill, Monsieur 1'Abbe*. His heart jumps 
 so. He still walks about, but he sleeps in his 
 chair." 
 
 "And there is not much sleeping to be done 
 there, I know that," said the priest, who was 
 obliged to pause at the foot of the stairs, for he 
 was one of those whom, little by little, grief de- 
 stroys. On the second floor the footman led him 
 into a large room lighted by four high windows, 
 two of which were open to the west and two to 
 the south. 
 
 "Why, it is the Abbe," said a yet unbroken 
 voice. 
 
 A little slender man, wrapped in a dressing 
 gown, lifted himself, with three careful efforts, 
 from his armchair by one of the southern win- 
 dows. M. Talier-Decapy was built for activity, 
 but something had come to pass to tame his 
 vivacity of movement.
 
 THE NUN 115 
 
 "Well, Monechal," he said, having recovered 
 his breath, "it is three months since you last came 
 to see me. And I am ill enough!" 
 
 "I have so many poor patients, my friend. 
 The rich ones have their comforts." 
 
 "But I have none, except perhaps this view 
 of Lyons. That, I confess, is pleasant for a help- 
 less man. Come and see." 
 
 He bowed, with a ceremony curiously hi con- 
 trast with his manner of addressing his friend in 
 the second person singular, and allowed the priest 
 to stand in the full light at the open window. 
 He meanwhile watched the eyes of his visitor as 
 they in turn watched the Saone and the storm- 
 cloud coming across the sky. 
 
 The priest's face wore a look that was deliberate 
 and very grave. 
 
 "In your eyes," said the sick man, "I can 
 see the whole city." 
 
 The other made no motion. 
 
 "I see the river hi your eyes; it is so bright 
 I am sure there are barges there, and the Scorpion 
 tugging them towards Vaise. There is the spire 
 of Saint Paul's, the two spires of Saint Nizier, the 
 dome of the Hotel Dieu, the innumerable roofs of 
 the Terreaux and of Bellecour. But how serious 
 you are, Monechal! What are you looking for?" 
 
 "I am trying to count the churches and the 
 Sacred Hosts that are keeping guard over Lyons. 
 Will you kneel with me?" 
 
 M. Talier-Decapy knew his friend too well to 
 be surprised ; he knelt. 
 
 For a minute there was no sound in the room.
 
 116 THE NUK 
 
 The priest rose first, and raised the old man, be- 
 fore whom he stood leaning against the window- 
 post. 
 
 "And so," he said, "you are no better?" 
 
 "The doctor would like me to think I am 
 better, and so I let him explain to me the many 
 symptoms of my recovery. But all the while I 
 know I am very ill." 
 
 "And you are right," said the priest, with 
 meaning. 
 
 The other had a sudden giddiness from the 
 shock, and for an instant he closed his eyes as 
 though the light hurt them. He showed that 
 the blow had told, though he did not wince, and 
 hardly grew paler. But his eyes fastened pas- 
 sionately on those of the priest, which did not 
 turn away, did not seek by any softening look to 
 mitigate those significant words, yet were troubled 
 and soon bright with tears. Of the two men the 
 most moved was the priest. "I promised to tell 
 you," he said at last ; " I am keeping my promise." 
 
 "Everyone else would have deceived me to the 
 end," answered the sick man. "Thank you. 
 And do you know whether it will be long?" 
 
 "Do what you would do if it were not for 
 long." 
 
 Then followed a passage of silent communica- 
 tion between the two men. The thought of death, 
 like the thought of their friendship, united them, 
 and filled the moments they were living through. 
 In at the window came the sound of the city, and 
 over the horizon a cloud like a sack of grain was 
 letting its rain fall through.
 
 THE NUN 117 
 
 M. Talier-Decapy lifted his bent shoulders and 
 took the hands of the priest. 
 
 "What ought I to do, my friend, with the 
 heavy fortune I am to leave behind?" And he 
 added, without sadness: "It was a fortune diffi- 
 cult to get, not easy to keep ; I should like to leave 
 it usefully. I shall not disinherit my cousins; I 
 want them to have a reasonable sum. But when 
 one comes to the pass I now am at, one thinks of 
 many things that might be done. Will you help 
 me?" 
 
 "No, not I," said the priest decisively. "But 
 if I have any advice to give you it is that you 
 should act according to your feeling for this city 
 of yours. Go through these streets, notice what 
 you see, remember it. And when you have drawn 
 up your list of legatees, I shall ask you to give a 
 thought to one poor woman." 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 "You know that the Sisters of the Place Saint 
 Pontique are to be evicted?" 
 
 "I did not know it." 
 
 "In a few days." 
 
 "Ah, Monechal, I am glad to be leaving this 
 world and to be on my way to a place of justice! 
 And you wish me to make a bequest to one of 
 the Sisters?" 
 
 "It would be well to the Superior; a small 
 sum. They are all poor, and they ought to be 
 poor. Their trial is to be a trial, but it must 
 not be too crushing. Will you go to them?" 
 
 "Yes, I promise. And will you see me again?" 
 
 The priest could not reply. He rose, and the
 
 118 THE NUN 
 
 two friends took leave of each other gravely, 
 the heart of each filled with an unuttered admira- 
 tion. Hardly had M. Monechal left him when the 
 manufacturer told his servant to telephone for the 
 carriage. Two hours later, much fatigued, having 
 driven through a great part of the city, and drawn 
 up a long list of legatees, M. Talier-pecapy drove 
 to the door of the school on the Place. Saint Pon- 
 tique. It was with difficulty that he held himself 
 erect. 
 
 Sister Justine received him in the little parlour 
 to the right of the front door. She came quickly, 
 with her own serene and active manner. He did 
 not know her; he had expected to see an anxious 
 woman in tears, and involuntarily he showed his 
 surprise. 
 
 "Are you not turned out of your convent, 
 Sister?" 
 
 "Ah! yes we are indeed." 
 
 "Is it to be soon?" 
 
 "At once." 
 
 "I should wish to have your address your 
 address after the eviction. I might have some- 
 thing to say to you, or some little help to give 
 you. I can but suppose that you will need some 
 help?" 
 
 "If you could tell me where we shall find a 
 shelter a week hence I should be glad," said 
 Sister Justine, with a laugh. "Not one of us 
 has any idea what is to become of her. Let me 
 have by post what you are pleased to give us 
 it will be sent after me." 
 
 "Unless hands are laid upon the money with
 
 THE NUN 119 
 
 all the rest. My poor Sister, let me tell you that 
 business does not seem to be your strong point." 
 
 "Well, hardly. But neither am I good at 
 making excuses for my defects," she replied. 
 
 M. Talier-De"capy noted in writing the family 
 name of Sister Justine, and when he was again in 
 his own room he added this to his list: "My heirs 
 will also find out the place of residence of Madame 
 Marie Mathis, in religion Sister Justine, late Su- 
 perior of the school in the Place Saint Pontique, 
 and will place at her disposal the sum of three 
 thousand francs, to be applied to the benefit of the 
 Sisterhood." 
 
 He did not know that he was indirectly giving 
 succour to the little Pascale Mouvand, the child 
 of the master-weaver who had so long worked for 
 him, and who had died at his loom while weaving 
 a court dress for the coronation of the English 
 King. 
 
 ****** 
 
 On the evening of the same day, in the room 
 in which they met when the weather prevented 
 their out-of-door recreation, the five nuns were 
 again together. They had taken chairs, and they 
 sat in a semicircle at the window, in a dusk, 
 that was now and then shattered by lightning. 
 And at every flash the gleam showed one or two 
 cf the gentle hands making the sign of the Cross 
 on frontlet and white breast. The Superior was 
 telling the story of the afternoon's two visits. 
 She announced the inevitable end of community 
 life, the necessity for each to go out into a world
 
 120 THE NUN 
 
 abjured five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years 
 ago, forty years ago, and to seek a shelter, labour, 
 daily bread. The four were motionless at the 
 close. There were no comments and no questions. 
 The rain rattled sharply as hail upon the window- 
 panes. After a long silence the Superior resumed : 
 
 "You will write, dear children, to ask your 
 families to receive you, at any rate until I may 
 have found situations for one or two as school- 
 teachers. No doubt it will take time." 
 
 Sister Danielle and Sister Edwige bent their 
 heads in assent. 
 
 "I have no family left," said Sister Le"onide. 
 
 "And I have only a cousin," said Sister Pas- 
 cale, "and she lives a long way off." 
 
 "I wished to speak to you about that matter," 
 said the Superior. "Stay here while the others 
 write their letters." 
 
 The Superior and Sister Pascale remained to- 
 gether. The fading day, the coming stars, as the 
 clouds dispersed, showed the white face and 
 white veil of Pascale, her hands folded on her 
 knee, her lips apart, as she caught her breath in 
 distress. 
 
 "My little Sister Pascale," said the old nun, 
 "it is for you that I am most anxious. You 
 are so young!" she added in her sad thoughts, 
 "and so lovely. You have distant cousins at 
 Nimes? Yes, but before I entrust you to them 
 you, my treasure, the most fragile of my treas- 
 ures I must know something of them. Are they 
 really good people ; shall you be safe in their house 
 if I let you go?"
 
 THE NUN 121 
 
 "But where else can I go, Mother? I have not 
 learnt any business." 
 
 She coloured. For when, a few moments ago, 
 she had heard that the breaking up of the com- 
 munity was not to be avoided, she had been 
 aware even in the keenness of her grief and in 
 the midst of her sorrowful sisters that the 
 thought of Nimes was much alive in her mind. 
 She had vividly recalled, in quick mental vision, 
 the house of the Prayous, the hill of Montauri, 
 the neighbouring city, and had remembered the 
 days in which she had received she, poor Pas- 
 cale those unaccustomed attentions, that nov- 
 elty of homage. Her youth, she felt, was stirred ; 
 well versed in the art of self-observation, alert in 
 marking the motions of her heart, the young 
 nun knew that a thought of pleasure was within 
 her; she knew that perilous was this pleasure. 
 And she had already yielded to its temptation 
 when she had made her vague and evasive answer. 
 
 ''You have not learnt a business," Sister 
 Justine proceeded, "and of all my children you 
 are the most delicate and least fitted for work. 
 Your lungs are weak. Until I can place you in 
 a school if I ever can a country life in the 
 South would be perfect for you. But tell me, 
 would you be spiritually safe?" 
 
 Sister Pascale did not meet the Mother's atten- 
 tive and anxious eyes. She glanced away at the 
 night sky. She was troubled, because the responsi- 
 bility for her own future was, by this question, laid 
 upon her acknowledged weakness. She answered : 
 
 "I don't think he would be dangerous for me.
 
 122 THE NUN 
 
 He will remember that I am perhaps he is 
 married by now. As for my aunt, she was really 
 like a mother to me." 
 
 The rain fell afresh. There was a sound of 
 running water in the deserted place. 
 
 "Then you will write to Nimes," said Sister 
 Justine, and the two women rose. 
 
 On the morrow, which was the 20th of June, 
 and a Friday, the Sisters were definitely informed 
 of the day which was to be their last together, 
 and of the treatment they were to receive. Ursula 
 Magre had sent the required report to the chief 
 of police, who was satisfied that with a little 
 diplomacy he would be spared the unpleasant 
 necessity of violence against women, with the 
 spectacle of shattered doors, of forcible entry into 
 bolted cells, with the noise, the protests, the whole 
 display of house-breaking, which the spectators 
 are apt to take ill. A timely word on behalf of 
 the Mother-House had made all smooth. A 
 commissaire called on the Superior. He was a 
 jovial-looking man, who at the first glance seemed 
 more than good-natured familiar, and on ac- 
 quaintance proved to be so. He took the tone 
 appropriate to his character, and as he thought, to 
 the occasion. Sister Justine received him, stand- 
 ing in the corridor, a few steps within the door. 
 
 "My poor lady," he said, "my business is not 
 always a joke for me " 
 
 "Mine never is to me," interrupted the Su- 
 perior. "You have come to expel me?"
 
 THE NUN 123 
 
 "No, Madame. Compose yourself, and let us 
 have our talk without losing our tempers. I have 
 called with the order for closing the school and for 
 vacating the premises 
 
 "Which are our own property." 
 
 "That is not my business. They have to be 
 vacated. I am not an unkind man, and I am 
 willing that you should choose your own day, but 
 on condition that there shall be no disturbance, 
 no kind of demonstration whatever. The matter 
 is in your own hands." 
 
 "I know it is." 
 
 "Then we understand each other?" 
 
 Deeply humiliated, her hands idle at her side, 
 very careful of her words, so that she might in 
 no way compromise that dear house at Clermont, 
 in which the race of saintly women might yet be 
 suffered to survive, yet keeping her eyes level and 
 abating none of the dignity of her defeat by any 
 word or tone of entreaty or of fear, Sister Justine 
 informed the police emissary of her resolution. 
 She desired a delay of a week in order to prepare 
 for departure. She desired to hold the prizer 
 giving as usual. She wished that last gathering 
 to be on Friday, the weekly day of the Passion. 
 She asked that a police agent should lay hands 
 upon her shoulders, as on those of an arrested 
 criminal. She would leave on the evening of 
 the same day. On her part she engaged not to 
 spread the tidings of the expulsion, and not to 
 allow the hour of departure to be known to any 
 but the Sisters themselves. 
 
 The man made a show of quarrelling with the
 
 124 THE NUN 
 
 terms, but finally agreed. He had obtained 
 precisely what he had been sent to secure. 
 
 The week that followed was much like the last 
 week of all other scholastic years. When the 
 mistresses announced to the classes that the 
 prize-giving would take place on the unusual date 
 of the 27th there was much surprise. On the 
 morrow the parents protested. Some of them 
 threatened to take away their girls if the holidays 
 were to be made so intolerably long; a few sus- 
 pected or understood, and the clamour subsided. 
 Within the school the examinations proceeded, 
 the lists were made, and the Sisters were up late at 
 work on the correction of exercises. They tried 
 to talk of the "fete," as they used to do. Sister 
 Pascale and Sister Edwige had orders to make the 
 garlands of green box wherewith the schoolroom 
 had always been hung. Until the last moment, 
 order and tradition governed the life of the 
 convent. A young girl of the district helped 
 them hi this last labour Louise Casale, an 
 ironer, obliged by anaemia to forego the labour 
 and the atmosphere of the ironing-room. She 
 had not been a pupil of the convent, but had 
 been educated at a lay-school in total ignorance 
 of all religion, hi spite of which the thing they 
 had not taught her had strongly attracted her 
 heart, so that for many months past she had 
 watched for opportunities of speaking to the 
 Sisters, of offering them such small sendees as 
 she had to give, and of showing them her ingenu- 
 ous sympathy. When bringing linen to the house 
 she had made acquaintance, one by one, with all
 
 THE NUN 125 
 
 the five; and having heard that the prize-giving 
 was near, she asked permission to help in the 
 11 decorations." 
 
 "I know a garden," she said, with her southern 
 accent, " where there is a great deal of box to 
 spare. The gardener is a friend of mine only 
 just a friend, mind you. Though I have been 
 brought up in the laique, I am an honest girl all 
 the same." 
 
 "You have the eyes of one, Louise," Sister 
 Justine had answered her. "No one will ever 
 make a mistake about that. Shall I show you 
 how I believe in you? I am going to lend you 
 Sister Leonide for half a day." 
 
 Louise Casale clapped her hands. 
 
 "Just half a day. You will cut the box to- 
 gether, and perhaps you will find another friend 
 of yours who will carry it home." 
 
 She had returned to the convent with a barrow 
 full of "green," and now in the largest room 
 which was a play-room in bad weather and a 
 theatre once a year, when the Shrove Tuesday 
 play was acted by the little girls three women, 
 standing in drifts and piles of leaves, tied the sprigs 
 in bunches to long ropes for festoons and wreaths. 
 They carried the box about in their gowns held up 
 by the hems. They were Sister Edwige, Sister 
 Pascale, and Louise Casale. This girl, tall, brown, 
 well built and broad of shoulder, lacked nothing 
 for the bloom of beauty except a richer flow of 
 blood, and of this nothing but her work had robbed 
 her. Her thin cheeks, of extreme pallor, and her 
 narrow nose looked too small for her wide white
 
 126 THE NUN 
 
 brows and her great eyes, over-long, and dwelling 
 in perpetual shadow. 
 
 It was the eve of the exhibition-day. Louise 
 and the Sisters fastened paper roses at intervals 
 on the garlands, from the stock used already in 
 ten successive years. They required a consider- 
 able distance hi order to be recognised as flowers, 
 even of paper. 
 
 "Here are at least twenty metres," said Louise. 
 "Two metres more, and we have done. What 
 time is it?" 
 
 "Half past five," said Sister Pascale. "My 
 hands are all green. I am glad we have not to 
 put up the wreaths till the morning." She added 
 in another tone, "It will be pretty, won't it?" 
 
 There was no answer. A noise of wheels out- 
 side mingled with the rustling of the foliage 
 within. Then Louise spoke to her in a resolute 
 low voice: 
 
 "Sister Pascale, please tell me don't keep me 
 in the dark." 
 
 "What am I to tell you?" 
 
 "Why, that you are going. You are going, are 
 you not? Something has happened? Am I 
 right? Have I guessed?" 
 
 They were close to one another, like two rope- 
 spinners meeting. They had ceased working. 
 Even Sister Edwige caught the words. She did 
 not look round, but her hands too paused. Sister 
 Pascale could not answer. But she looked at the 
 girl whom chance, and something more, had 
 brought to her side in that supreme hour. And 
 hardly had their eyes met when the two young
 
 THE NUN 127 
 
 creatures opened their arms and gathered each 
 other heart against heart, weeping. O mournful 
 and hopeless friendship! Strangers a while ago, 
 met from afar, they would have loved one another, 
 but they were to part forever. 
 
 " Forgive me, Sister Pascale," said Louise, "I 
 am sorry. I like you so!" 
 
 Sister Pascale took from the fold of her dress a 
 few last sprigs of box, but she seemed to see 
 nothing more of her wreath-making; her little 
 fingers mechanically smoothed the leaves as 
 though they had been millinery feathers that she 
 was putting into shape. Her breast heaved, and 
 her head sank. Louise, taller than she, bent close 
 to the black veil and whispered : 
 
 "I am not really pious, as you are, but I love 
 coming here. I have thought about ever so 
 many things. And only six months ago I didn't 
 know you; I used to talk against the Sisters I 
 did. And now when I think of getting mar- 
 ried . Did you ever think about getting 
 married before you were a Sister?" 
 
 "Why, yes," said Pascale, "like all girls." 
 
 "Well, sometimes I think I should like the kind 
 of marriage that one would never be sorry for 
 afterwards. Sometimes I think I should not 
 always." 
 
 "Ah! that is not an easy matter." 
 
 "You don't understand. I mean a marriage 
 like yours, that one would never be sorry for in 
 one's own real soul." 
 
 "Oh, my little girl," said Pascale; "what a 
 time to tell me such a thing!"
 
 128 THE NUN 
 
 "Yes," said Louise. "What a time! I ought 
 to have kept my silliness to myself. Well, it's 
 all over. When you are gone I shall go back and 
 be just like all the others." 
 
 Sister Edwige had turned. A stout figure, 
 active and short-legged, had entered. 
 
 "Come, my children, in two minutes you must 
 wind up. It's recreation time. I am not turning 
 you out, Louise. Why! what is the matter? 
 What is this tragic look about?" 
 
 Louise scattered on the floor the box she had 
 carried in her skirt. 
 
 "I am going," she said. "Good-bye, Sisters." 
 
 "Does she know?" asked Sister Justine; and 
 Sister Edwige answered, "Yes." 
 
 The Superior called down the passage, hoping 
 that her voice would overtake the girl : 
 
 "Say nothing, Louise, say nothing, for our 
 sakes." 
 
 An uncertain answer was sent back, broken by 
 the echoes, and unintelligible. 
 
 "Come to recreation, my children," commanded 
 the Superior. 
 
 Sister Edwige and Sister Pascale let go the 
 wreath they had fastened off, and said with one 
 voice : 
 
 "It is the last recreation." 
 
 And seeing that Sister Justine was already on 
 her way to the terrace, they followed her, keeping 
 together, holding each other by the hand a thing 
 they had never done before and walked thus to 
 the end of the alley, where the other three awaited 
 them.
 
 THE NUN 129 
 
 Again they were ranged, three on one side, two 
 on the other, and the two were Edwige and 
 Pascale. But to-night they did not keep under 
 the shed; they walked in the court-yard. The 
 law, the rule of their vocation called and con- 
 trolled them. As lovers return to the scene of 
 their loves, and tread again their own vestiges 
 and walk in the paths of the beloved past, these 
 women spent the last hours of their liberty in 
 the place where their children had lived with 
 them a full and happy life their children to 
 whom they had devoted themselves, who had 
 been the cause and end of their self-sacrifice, as 
 they were now the innocent cause of their trouble. 
 After recreation, they knew, there would be prayer 
 in church, and no silent meeting to follow, for on 
 this night they must be busy preparing for the 
 morrow's journey. 
 
 The sun, very low, illumined the dust of the 
 air, and there was not the least particle or atom 
 that did not carry light in the golden atmosphere. 
 A summer day like so many of its fellows was com- 
 ing to an end amid the labour, the sweat, the pain 
 of the city. Workmen were still at their post, 
 employers in their offices, at their tables, at their 
 telephones. And meanwhile, a loss immeasurable 
 was about to befall them; for five women were 
 together for the last time amongst them. When 
 these were dispersed and gone, innumerable lives 
 would be made poorer, would be altered, would be 
 lowered. One kind of riches, less honoured than 
 another in the world, had come to an end. A 
 grief, pitied by few, had locked hi a last clasp of
 
 130 THE NUN 
 
 farewell five human creatures of whom the world 
 was not worthy. 
 
 Sister Leonide had let her fire go out, and 
 would never light it again. All alike controlled 
 their grief. Sister Justine, her face drawn, was 
 resolute to keep up the old tone of motherly 
 jollity that had put heart into her nuns and into 
 a thousand women in trouble. Sister Danielle 
 endured her crucifixion, clinging with all her will 
 to her cross of sacrifice, never cruel to her until 
 to-day. Within her heart she repressed a tempest 
 of indignation and revolt. She ordered words 
 of peace to her lips; she set a smile there, like a 
 knot of ribbon on the cross of a sword. Sister 
 Edwige had lost her serenity, and looked much 
 older ; in one night her beautiful eyes, her delicate 
 cheeks, had gathered a setting of slight wrinkles. 
 Sister Leonide kept her customary air, cheerful 
 and alert ; her nickel watch, like a great onion, had 
 slipped below her waist-belt, and she consulted 
 it as though her office as time-keeper was the chief 
 thing in her mind. Sister Pascale stood in tears, 
 looking at each of her companions. To-morrow 
 Sister Danielle and Sister Edwige would be gone 
 to their relations, far away and far apart. To- 
 morrow Sister Leonide would set off for the village, 
 where, at the last hour, a position as assistant 
 teacher in a free school had been found for her. 
 To-morrow she, the Lyons girl, would have left 
 her city for Nimes, and the roof of her aunt. 
 
 The five women paced the court-yard between 
 one wall and another. 
 
 "My children," said Sister Justine, "you must
 
 THE NUN 131 
 
 think, as I do, of the generations of little girls 
 we have known here. We have watched them at 
 play where we are standing." 
 
 They trod the dust trampled by those little feet. 
 One cast her eyes upon the sand, with its intricate 
 and innumerable foot-marks; another looked at 
 the schoolroom windows; another followed with 
 her eyes the flight of a flock of sparrows that came 
 to take their customary possession of the place 
 towards night-fall. They thought of the little 
 daughters of working men for whose benefit all had 
 been done the stones built up into walls, the 
 roof-tiles set, the ground levelled, the cement 
 floor laid, and their own lives spent; half of one 
 life, a little less of another, the greater part of a 
 third. Soft voices, sweet looks, deep-reaching 
 words, dear confidences, faults and falsehoods re- 
 proved, ardours and passions that alarmed these 
 watchful mistresses, fervours that delighted them 
 all, all those childhoods were remembered. 
 
 "We must pray for them all every day, every 
 day as long as we live; that will be our perpetual 
 presence in this dear place. Promise ! " 
 
 Bowed heads replied. Sister Justine held in 
 leash the emotions of these four younger women. 
 Her soldier blood, aware of the moment for com- 
 mand and the moment for relaxation of discipline, 
 told her that there was no danger of coldness or 
 forgetfulness among these daughters of her heart, 
 but that she had now rather to harden them 
 against too painful a tenderness towards their 
 lost children. 
 
 "To-morrow, Sister Leonide," she said, "re-
 
 132 THE NUN 
 
 veille at five minutes to five. We shall begin the 
 day of trial by hearing Mass. After that you will 
 nail up the wreaths. I want the children to keep 
 a pleasant recollection of their last term. Let 
 them see cheerful things about us, as it will be 
 difficult for us to show them cheerful faces. At 
 ten minutes to nine you will put the parents and 
 the children in their places. You, Sister Pascale, 
 will have charge of the little girls; you, Sister 
 Edwige, of the grown-ups." 
 
 "And when do we go?" 
 
 "I shall give you the time." 
 
 "By what street? Are we to go together? 
 Where are we to turn, Mother?" 
 
 The sun went down. Sister Leonide pulled up 
 her watch, anxious that the evening should not 
 overtake her with her task unfinished. They 
 were silent; and a single thought that had not 
 been far from each now took possession of them 
 all. They had not yet suffered the utmost. The 
 moment, the brief moment of real parting had 
 come, for to-morrow no one must weep ; to-night 
 they might be weak and weep. The five women 
 stopped in the corner of the court-yard, to the 
 east. They drew together. Hardly, from any 
 window of an overlooking house, could the little 
 group of blue homespun gowns and black veils 
 be perceived in the twilight. nd if they were 
 seen, what mattered it? The Superior held out 
 her arms. 
 
 "Come," she said, "my children, and let me 
 kiss you. And now if you have any last requests 
 to make, the time is short."
 
 THE NUN 133 
 
 The four nuns, successively in the order of their 
 age, came to her heart and took the kiss of peace. 
 Their Mother having kissed them on either cheek, 
 traced on their brows the sign of the Cross. All 
 her tenderness, human and religious, was hi her 
 action. When she took into her arms the youngest 
 of her daughters Pascale she held her, unable 
 to let her go, or to say any more than those weep- 
 ing words: 
 
 "0 dearest! dearest!" 
 
 Then she turned towards the house, and 
 Sister Leonide followed her; for the last time the 
 night bell was to be rung. The three others 
 lingered. The grave, the wise Danielle took by 
 the arm the youngest of the Sisters. 
 
 "I loved you dearly, dearly. I shall love 
 you in my prayers. I should never have told 
 you, if the end of our life together had not 
 come. Good-bye, little Pascale. Keep yourself 
 for God." 
 
 She pressed the arm of the young Sister, who 
 was weeping, and who answered in broken phrases: 
 
 "And I I always had a great affection, a great 
 admiration I shall never hear your name without 
 finding it a support to my weakness. I shall never 
 think of you without feeling a better woman 
 because of the example 
 
 But already the slender figure had withdrawn; 
 that soul of sacrifice denied itself a useless emo- 
 tion; she went away, leaving the young Sister, 
 whom another joined. This was one who was 
 not quite able to restrain her tears, one of less 
 iron courage, one who had never ceased, for two
 
 134 THE NUN 
 
 and a half years past, to show Pascale how much 
 she loved her. 
 
 "If we are not too poor, and I should ever be 
 able to call you near me, I will send for you," 
 said Sister Edwige. 
 
 "You are uneasy about me?" 
 
 "Ah, yes, I am uneasy," said Edwige's touching 
 voice. 
 
 "Don't be too anxious. I shall be all right 
 I hope, I hope 
 
 "Not as you are here." 
 
 "But where should I ever be as I am here? I 
 am very unhappy. I had all my peace at Saint 
 Hildegarde's because I always said to myself, 
 'It is for life!' And now, and now 
 
 The bell rang, and the two young figures, 
 drooping, passed into the house, apart, speaking no 
 more to one another, their feet effacing the foot- 
 steps of their children. 
 
 The night came, and she who for five-and- 
 twenty years had directed the Sisters, the classes, 
 the children, the former pupils, and the many 
 clients of the school and the convent, withdrew to 
 her cell a servant's garret, furnished with a small 
 bed, two chairs, and a black table. At more than 
 sixty years of age she was to leave no doubt for 
 ever the scene of her long and willing sacrifice. 
 Before she unpinned her veil, she stood before her 
 plaster crucifix and examined herself. 
 
 "Have I allowed the Rule of our Order to grow 
 lax, to grow stale? Have I lessened the time of 
 prayer? Lengthened the time of leisure? Broken 
 without strict necessity the evening and the morn-
 
 THE NUN 135 
 
 ing silence? No, I believe in my conscience, I 
 have done none of these things. Have I held the 
 balance of my soul level amongst my Sisters, and 
 amongst my children? My God, I remember the 
 dead I have loved, I know the living I love. And 
 surely I have felt attractions and affections, and 
 particular sympathies. But where this personal 
 love was not, Thou, Lord, hast put charity into 
 my heart in its place. I think I was not unjust. 
 I have been disgusted by hypocrisies, by dirt, by 
 evil odours, by the insistent claims of poverty; 
 perhaps I have shown my loathing. 
 
 "Have I safeguarded the virgins entrusted to 
 my fostering care, and to the shelter of this Order? 
 Well, there is Sister Leonide, who runs about the 
 town at her work. There is Sister Danielle, who 
 has often visited with me the houses of the poor. 
 These two might walk through fire unsinged. 
 The other two have known here nothing of the 
 world except the children, and the wind that blows 
 in at the doors. Their eyes are frank, their gaiety 
 is innocent and young. Even Sister Danielle is 
 a joyous creature, and if she does not speak of 
 her joy, she cherishes it in silence. Even Pascale, 
 who is steadfast only because she is propped and 
 stayed by others, has had a free spirit and a light 
 heart. She has been happy, I think, until these 
 last days. Many of my daughters have kept the 
 absolute sinlessness of their baptism, and carried 
 it to the grave. As for me, I am old, I have never 
 been afraid of plain speaking, and I have had the 
 grace to forget nearly all the evil I have seen, in 
 the hard work of trying to put it right. My
 
 136 THE NUN 
 
 Sisters have had the safety of this enclosure, of 
 perpetual occupation, of their fatigue with tire- 
 some children, of the Rule, of their prayers, of 
 my constant maternal presence ; above all, of the 
 continual sense of Thy Presence, my God. 
 
 "Have I failed in my duty as a teacher? I 
 have had my pride my vanity in the examina- 
 tions. I have been keen about certificates, and 
 well-written pages, and exercises without a 
 mistake, and correct answers. It is possible that 
 my little girls thought these things more important 
 than they are. There was nothing important but 
 Thou alone. It is of Thee they will have need, hi 
 their homes, in their griefs, and in their death. 
 Ah, I fear I did not show plainly that I was first 
 of all a teacher of divine things. My little girls 
 have so much need of Thee. They die so young 
 often of the second child ; and after they have left 
 school they seldom hear a word to lift them up or 
 strengthen their souls. They have so much good- 
 will, such a secret sense of honour, so much love 
 of God hidden away it comes out now and then, 
 they remember their home here, and all they were 
 taught that was good; they are loyal at heart. 
 What, what will become of me? If I am to 
 teach, I shall certainly have less human vanity 
 about it. I entreat Thy pardon. It is so difficult 
 not to have preferences for people. I shall try 
 to do better." 
 
 She interrupted her simple prayer. 
 
 "Twenty-five years," she said. "I thought 
 I should die here. I have examined myself. I 
 have found human weakness, but my God has
 
 THE NUN 137 
 
 not been offended. This is only a trial, and I 
 accept it." 
 
 At a few minutes before nine, Sister Pascale 
 and Sister Edwige, standing on ladders, hammer 
 in hand, were fastening up the long green wreaths, 
 giving symmetry to arches and festoons, replacing 
 fallen paper roses. The last nail driven in, they 
 came down. Three little girls of some twelve 
 years old two poor, spare figures and one fat 
 were sent to open the doors. And at once began 
 the sound of shuffling feet and of voices in every 
 tone of excitement: "Don't push so!" "Take 
 care of your dress you are tearing it." "Where 
 is the hurry what are you crowding for?" 
 "What a lot of wreaths! And such nice box 
 I should never have the patience." "What 
 about the prizes? Are you going to have one? 
 Well, not a very big one?" "Go up, there's 
 your place. Don't you see Sister Pascale? She 
 beckoned to you." 
 
 Sister Pascale stood on the right of the platform 
 with the prizes books, bound in red, blue, and 
 gold on a table at her side. The older girls 
 were to be on the left. Families and friends sat 
 together, and all talked. Mothers, grandmothers, 
 grown-up sisters, aunts, great-aunts, neighbours, 
 and even notwithstanding that is was Friday 
 two or three men filled the seats within a few 
 minutes. The school-children left their family 
 groups, and the sound of kisses was audible among 
 other noises, and wishes of "Good luck!" But 
 among the crowd some were attentive and obser- 
 vant; a rumour had reached them. "They say
 
 138 THE NUN 
 
 something has happened. Have you heard any- 
 thing about the school?" "Why, no." "It 
 would be a pity." "Just look at Sister Pascale 's 
 face there, at the end, where the little ones are 
 sitting." "She got quite red. Who was it 
 spoke to her?" "The little Burel girl no, 
 Aurelia Dubrugeot, and she brought her a pres- 
 ent." "What was it a cushion?" "No, some- 
 thing that opened ; it looks like a valise." "Is it 
 true, Mere Chupin, that the Sisters are going?" 
 "No, my good man; they say so, just to get up a 
 feeling against the Government." "All the same, 
 Sister Pascale looks very unhappy. Poor little 
 Sister Pascale! There's a soft heart for you!" 
 "Look, now she has put the valise in a corner with 
 a cover over it. Aurelia is crying. If you ask me, 
 I don't believe the Sisters are going to be turned 
 out at all. What should they be turned out for?" 
 The man who had spoken, Goubaud by name, 
 kept a wooden face, with bent brows, and a hand 
 twisting his beard. He looked steadily towards 
 the corner to the right, where Sister Pascale was 
 ranging thirty little heads, dark and fair, and 
 drawing her hands from the clasp of the children 
 trying to kiss them. 
 
 "Don't go, don't go away, Sister, little Sister." 
 The golden eyes, the tender eyes of Pascale 
 were wet with tears. It was true that Aurelia 
 had brought a box a card-board box covered 
 with American cloth, for which her family had 
 no use. Another, a pale child of six, who had 
 one blind, blank eye, and one as blue as heaven, 
 came up with her two hands concealing some-
 
 THE NUN 139 
 
 thing precious. She called louder than the rest, 
 "Here, Sister Pascale, I brought this for you. I 
 took it off the mantelpiece." Sister Pascale put 
 out her hand, and the beaming child laid in it a 
 pink shell with many spikes. "It's for you, 
 because I like you." She too knew of the parting 
 at hand; she too had heard. Others laughed. 
 Goubaud said to those about him: "We shall 
 know in a moment. There's the Superior. She, 
 at any rate, doesn't look unhappy. But she never 
 does, and looks don't count. She is the stout 
 one." 
 
 "She hasn't got stout by taking care of her- 
 self," said his neighbour, who missed his meaning. 
 "It's not fat, Pere Goubaud, it's her age." The 
 speaker was sixty, but she had "kept her figure," 
 inasmuch as she was as flat as a board and 
 looked like a weasel. "Why, there's none of the 
 clergy on the platform. That never happened 
 before." 
 
 There was no priest. Sister Justine, with a 
 mighty effort, mounted that eminence. The 
 audience coughed, and some chairs scraped. 
 Sister Danielle, pale, and looking like Justice 
 appearing among men, entered and sat straight 
 against the wall; the Superior, much eclipsed 
 by the tables and the prizes, raised her hand to 
 speak; Sister Pascale quelled the last two or 
 three little girls clinging to her skirt; Sister 
 Edwige, slender, sad, graceful, obviously a lady 
 hi spite of her self-abasements, moved up from 
 her work of arranging places, took her stand to 
 the left of the platform, and pulled from her
 
 140 THE NUN 
 
 pocket a paper covered with admirable copper- 
 plate writing the prize-list, a single copy. Sister 
 Leonide was probably nailing up boxes or closing 
 doors, and was not to be seen. 
 
 "I wish to explain to the parents of pupils," 
 said Sister Justine, whose authoritative voice 
 imposed silence, "that it is not by our own wish 
 that we have changed the date of breaking-up. 
 The exhibition to-day will not be as formal as 
 usual. We shall have no singing. We are very 
 sorry to have to send home your children so soon ; 
 but we were requested to do so, on account of 
 circumstances- 
 There was an interruption. Some irrepressible 
 voices called, "They are evicting you. You may 
 as well tell us." 
 
 "Be quiet, Goubaud, can't you?" 
 
 "Of course they are not going at all." 
 
 "I tell you they are." 
 
 "Do listen to the Sister; she can't speak with 
 the noise." 
 
 "You are an ignorant man, and no mistake!" 
 
 Sister Justine imposed silence again. 
 
 "No noise!" she cried. "All who are our 
 friends will listen quietly to the reading of the 
 prize-list, and will then go home. As for us, I am 
 glad to think that we have done our best to 
 serve you." 
 
 "That you have, Sister." 
 
 "Then you are really going?" 
 
 "No, can't you understand?" 
 
 "Hush! Silence!" 
 
 Children were crying aloud.
 
 THE NUN 141 
 
 "Read the prize-list, Sister Edwige," said the 
 Superior. 
 
 They were as silent as though called upon to 
 listen to soft music. The music was the voice of 
 Edwige reading out the names. And they were 
 silent also as the prize-winners, by threes and 
 fours, rose and went forward to receive a book, 
 or a green paper wreath, and left little trails of 
 excitement behind them in the crowd. 
 
 This lasted until half-past eleven. Then the 
 deafening noise of talk and movement arose again 
 into the atmosphere, now close and heavy with 
 the odours of poverty. The people were going; 
 they had paid their last visit to the school; the 
 district was gathering back its little girls. No 
 doubt these people did not forget the Sisters ; but 
 the haste of departure, the crowd, the desire for 
 fresh air, the attraction of the street, the thought 
 of the wine-shop, the mere example of the rest 
 all these poor trivial motives, with the addition of 
 their shyness and their awkward lack of all in- 
 itiative, left very few indeed to take leave of the 
 school-mistresses where they stood close to the 
 platform, in a little group of the children that were 
 the most affectionate, the vainest of their prizes, 
 or the most forlorn and friendless of the school. 
 
 "Good-bye au revoir Sister Justine, Sister 
 Danielle, Sister Edwige, Sister Pascale." 
 
 The nuns bent to kiss the children, pressed 
 the hands of the few mothers, made vague replies 
 to embarrassing questions. And soon they were 
 alone. Mechanically they had retreated to the 
 wall, and it propped their weary figures; they
 
 142 THE NUN 
 
 stood there motionless with idle hands, released 
 from the necessity of the ceremonial smile, and 
 watching the backs of fathers, mothers, relatives, 
 and little girls of all sizes, going away for ever: 
 their friends going away, the clients of their char- 
 ity, who had needed them, to whom they had 
 ministered their only treasure, their only riches. 
 They knew many of those backs by the clothes 
 that the wearers never changed. Each Sister felt 
 the cruel price at which human gratitude is won; 
 so much patience, so much self-forgetfulness, so 
 much persevering effort, in the differing cases of 
 so many children, to buy a kiss, a softened manner, 
 a friendly thought, from but one of those who 
 were going by threes and fours along the school 
 corridor and out of a door they would never cross 
 again. There, before their eyes, their work was 
 falling to pieces. 
 
 A slight caress drew Pascale from that sorrow- 
 ful vision. Close to the platform the young par- 
 entless child who had one dead eye was still stand- 
 ing. There had been no one to beckon her out, 
 and she lurked near those who had been kind to 
 her. Guessing them to be unhappy, seeing them 
 silent and motionless, she stroked with her little 
 fingers the hanging hand of Pascale. 
 
 "It is Marie," said the young Sister. "If I 
 could only take her with me!" 
 
 The child was clasped in the arms of them all, 
 and then she went alone, with the noise of her 
 wooden shoes, looking back at intervals, as though 
 to say, "I can see you still." The door closed 
 behind her, and she was the last.
 
 THE NUN 143 
 
 "The time is very near," said Sister Justine. 
 
 They listened for the coming of the police. 
 Sister Danielle, deeply troubled, had run to the 
 parlour, to the surprise of her companions, and 
 looking through the window which opened on 
 the place, cried to the others: 
 
 " There is hardly anyone outside now they 
 are gone home to dinner." 
 
 "The nuns had been at a loss how to pass the 
 last hour or two hours remaining to them, for all 
 their tasks were finished and their duties fulfilled. 
 Danielle's last word reminded them that they had 
 taken nothing but coffee that day. 
 
 "We cannot afford to lunch in town," said 
 Sister Justine. 
 
 "Have we anything in the house, Sister Leon- 
 ide? Where are you, Sister?" 
 
 The portress appeared. 
 
 "We have some bread, Mother, and a half- 
 bottle of wine." 
 
 "We will take our last meal here then," said 
 the Superior, and she made once more the gesture 
 habitual to her, half opening her arms to marshal 
 these daughters of hers. Sister Leonide had 
 already left the room, in order to set the table in 
 the little refectory leading out of the long hall, 
 where these poor nuns were accustomed during 
 the winter and often during the summer as well 
 to feed children who lived at a distance or were 
 in want. Now, seated about the round table, 
 the Sisters ate their bread and drank a little wine 
 and water. They were more at ease, and were 
 able to speak without allusion to what was about
 
 144 THE NUN 
 
 to befall them. All was virtually over for them, 
 since they had suffered the separation from their 
 girls and their girls' mothers. When the meal 
 was finished they sat on, except Sister Le'onide, 
 who began to clear the table. At that moment 
 there was the sound of the bell. Sister Justine 
 rose, very pale, and gave the order to the others 
 to follow her. She threaded the corridor, and 
 with a firm hand opened the door of the school 
 and convent. 
 
 Two men saluted, the one by lifting his bowler 
 hat with a bow, having an obvious desire to bear 
 himself correctly; the other by a mere nod of a 
 bilious and sinister head. These were the com- 
 missary of the police and his clerk. Sister Justine 
 drew back. 
 
 "You will allow me to come in?" asked the 
 commissary, upright in his frock-coat. He entered 
 without awaiting her answer, pushing one shoul- 
 der forward, on account of the vast amplitude of 
 his bust. He did not wish to come to an explana- 
 tion at the door, where passers-by might be at- 
 tracted, for a group or two were gathering. His 
 clerk slipped in behind him. 
 
 "You are now in the house belonging to two 
 Sisters of Clermont-Ferrand," said the Superior. 
 "You have come to take their property from 
 them." 
 
 "As I told you before, that is not my business." 
 
 "In their name, sir, I protest." 
 
 "But you will cut your protest short, I hope," 
 said the man, who had done the same work before. 
 Sister Justine silenced him with a gesture.
 
 THE NUN 145 
 
 "I shall not make a speech," she said, "but 
 I shall tell you, and you may repeat it, that you 
 are doing three illegal acts ; one, in the destruction 
 of my school, which was a school for the poor; 
 another, in the seizure of our property; and a 
 third in expelling us from the place where we have 
 a right to live. And now you can carry out the 
 eviction." 
 
 The commissary expressed annoyance. 
 
 "I would rather you did not compel me to 
 make this absurd pretence of violence." 
 
 "I would rather you made it. I shall not yield 
 without it." 
 
 "As you like." 
 
 Sister Justine turned her head. 
 
 "Are you there, Sisters? Where is Sister Leon- 
 ide again?" She called her, and Sister Le"onide 
 ran down the corridor, breathless, arranging her 
 veil and her sleeves as she went. 
 
 "What were you doing?" asked the Superior. 
 
 "Mother, I was sweeping out the classroom." 
 
 She took her place by Sister Pascale. 
 
 "Do what you have to do," said the Superior 
 to the representative of the law. With a little 
 genuine shyness he laid his hand on the black 
 veil covering the shoulder of Sister Justine, and 
 with that hand upon her she went down the 
 steps, her daughters following. 
 
 A group of people, who had suspected or had 
 heard more than the rest, lingered at a distance 
 from the convent door, near the church. They 
 were not more than thirty, parents and children. 
 The presence of the police had also caught the
 
 146 THE NUN 
 
 attention of some few passers-by. When the five 
 Sisters appeared there was a movement of intense 
 surprise. No one had quite expected that sight, 
 or had expected to see it at that moment. A 
 woman's voice was raised: 
 
 "Vivent les Sceurs!" 
 
 Then every living creature within reach began 
 to run. Police agents appeared, to right, to left, 
 at the corners of the streets. 
 
 "Take your hand away now," commanded 
 the Superior. 
 
 The commissary obeyed the order, and went 
 up the steps again. From the threshold he 
 glanced at the gathering crowd, heard the signal 
 of a whistle, and cried out : 
 
 "No disturbance! I shall arrest the first 
 person who attempts to make a demonstration. 
 And you, nuns, out with you!" 
 
 He went in, closed the door in which was the 
 little window wherethrough Sister Leonide was 
 wont to parley with visitors before admitting 
 them, and thence he looked on. The five women 
 in their blue gowns were in the midst of a small 
 crowd; their hands were sought; they heard 
 eager voices: "Come to us, come to us!" 
 
 Sister Justine made a path with her resolute 
 hands. "Let us pass, good friends," she said. 
 A voice cried "Vive la liberte!" but found no 
 echo to the ambiguous words. The police agents 
 were rough with the women, and rated her who 
 had acclaimed the Sisters. 
 
 "Thank you, Louise Casale, thank you, my 
 little girl," said the Superior, recognising her.
 
 THE NUN 147 
 
 A few men near a tree were hooting "Down with 
 the priests!" Sister Justine moved on. Close 
 behind her walked Danielle, her eyes on a level 
 with the men's, her hands folded, a storm within. 
 Then came Sister Edwige, blushing very red at 
 the embarrassment of this public appearance; 
 her eyes were down, and she caught her hands 
 shyly away from the kisses and tears of the chil- 
 dren. Sister Pascale followed, smiling at friends 
 she spied, excited and a little frightened; and at 
 her side, holding her arm, Sister Leonide, as calm 
 as though she had been about her marketing. 
 The group crossed the place, and the police, seeing 
 that something like a crowd was gathering, and 
 that a demonstration threatened in the wide 
 street leading to the station, charged the women 
 and children and scattered them. A brigadier 
 called to Sister Justine: " Divide! Three of you 
 by the Cours Charlemagne. Two this way. You 
 can meet later on." He pushed Pascale and 
 Leonide towards the quay. There were no 
 more attempts at protestation. One or two 
 women and children evaded the bar of the police 
 and caught up the three nuns on the way to 
 Perrache. A few distant voices cheered them; 
 counter cheers replied. Then silence showed that 
 the triumph of ' ' law " was complete. A few of the 
 poorest women were weeping as they went home. 
 
 The Community met again half-an-hour later 
 at the door of an old house in the Rue de la 
 Charite. 
 
 " Madame Bormenat which floor?" asked 
 Sister Justine.
 
 148 THE NUN 
 
 Directed to the second storey, the Sisters 
 awaited there the coming of a maid, who evi- 
 dently expected them. 
 
 "Come in," she said, "poor dear Sisters. 
 Madame will be here in a moment." 
 
 As she spoke, she pushed open a tall oak door 
 turning on copper hinges, and led into a long 
 room panelled with oak. Horse-hair-covered 
 chairs stood, regularly spaced apart, down both 
 walls; two high windows, looking into a court- 
 yard, let in two long lines of light. It was an 
 old-fashioned Lyons dining-room. 
 
 The five Sisters stood together midway. They 
 might have taken the austere-looking place for 
 a richer kind of convent. Through the opposite 
 door now entered an old lady of middle height, 
 slender, shortsighted, and much resembling the 
 elder wax heads in a hair-dresser's window; so 
 smooth were her bands of hair, so regular her 
 small features, touched with a still lively pink, 
 and un wrinkled, so equal and steady her smile. 
 
 "Good morning, my poor Sisters! You have 
 come to the wardrobe of secularised nuns? Were 
 you very roughly treated in your expulsion?" 
 
 "No, Madame," replied Sister Justine; "but 
 all the same, our lives are destroyed. That is the 
 violence we feel." 
 
 "A martyrdom, Sisters." 
 
 "Yes, indeed, a martyrdom." 
 
 "Now, let us see your heights," said Madame 
 Bormenat without further preparation. "One 
 tall" measuring Sister Danielle with her eye 
 "four medium. This is Sister Pascale, is it not?
 
 THE NUN 149 
 
 My poor little Sister, you have a very slight figure, 
 I should think. I happen to have the mourning 
 costume of a young girl, a friend of ours." She 
 played the shopwoman with the ease and quiet of 
 a lady. Opening two closets in the panels, whence 
 an odor of naphthaline escaped, she unhooked, 
 and laid upon the nearer chairs, five skirts, five 
 bodices, five black mantles, recalling the fashions 
 of the last three years, more or less; a slight at- 
 tempt had been made to retouch the sleeves and 
 collars. 
 
 None of the Sisters had as yet begun to disrobe. 
 They looked at these secular garments and re- 
 membered the moving ceremony of their religious 
 "clothing" on the long-anticipated day when 
 they had received that pure raiment, every part 
 of which is a symbol, the sign of a spiritual grace, 
 and blessed by a separate liturgical prayer. Now 
 they were to put off the dear and sacred dress. 
 
 Sister Justine, with a turn of her eyes, with a 
 motion of her chin, sent each of the four to her 
 place, and their pale faces expressed the pain of 
 this last obedience. They raised their hands to 
 unpin their veils and frontlets, and to unfasten 
 the homespun dresses, which fell to their feet. 
 In the place of four nuns, whose aspect, as they 
 threaded the streets, had been met with a sign of 
 respect or a look of hatred, stood four despoiled 
 women in high-necked chemises and gray woollen 
 petticoats, with their hair white, brown, and 
 golden cut straight along the back of the neck, 
 like that of sixteenth-century pages, and hanging 
 from the head old or young somewhat in the
 
 150 THE NUN 
 
 shape of a bell. The maid, who had done the 
 same office before more than once, went from one 
 to the other, measuring a skirt, trying on a bodice, 
 putting in a stitch, opening a seam, moving a 
 hook, and in a quarter of an hour the lamentable 
 transformation was complete. By means of 
 hairpins and black ribbon, the unmanageable 
 short hair had been put up, and had been hidden 
 under shabby mourning or half-mourning hats. 
 Sister Justine, her shoulders covered, in spite of 
 the season, with a cloak, stood looking at her four 
 daughters as they came one by one before the 
 long mirror: Sister Danielle, in her distress like a 
 newly made widow; Sister Edwige very shy and 
 deeply humiliated; Sister Leonide saying, "I 
 look like a second-hand clothes dealer. I am cer- 
 tainly pretty ugly, but then I've not seen myself 
 in a glass for a very long time perhaps that's 
 why I notice it so." And even there she laughed. 
 Sister Pascale allowed the maid to fasten her 
 hair, while Madame Bormenat with her own hands 
 tried to tie up the thin white locks of the Superior, 
 who, inattentive to her own case, silent and full of 
 thoughts she could not express, fixed her sad eyes 
 upon the mutilated but still lovely hair of the 
 child of Adolphe Mouvand. Did she foresee how 
 it would look anon, when it would be grown again, 
 when its exquisite straw-colour would be gilded 
 by the sun in a ruffling wind? Did she even now 
 admire, with a pang, in a lady's street costume 
 this child of her heart? Sister Pascale returned 
 her look with an affectionate smile that seemed to 
 say: "What a figure they are making of your little
 
 THE NUN 151 
 
 girl! I don't look as miserable as Sister Danielle, 
 but I am the most unhappy of all at heart ; I am 
 the feeble one, and you all propped me up." 
 Had Sister Justine lost heart, that she was unable 
 to bear the sting of that poor smile? She sprang 
 from the hands that were busy at her gray head, 
 and, with one thin wisp of hair tied by black 
 string on the top and another fallen on her ear, 
 she went, her face drawn by grief, to : the young 
 girl. 
 
 "My little Sister," she said, "wear that quiet 
 black dress as long as you possibly can." Doubt- 
 less her painful thoughts continued, for she 
 added: "Why did I ever consent to be parted 
 from you? . . . But come, my child, put on 
 your hat. We are the last." 
 
 There remained a black straw hat, decorated 
 with a little wreath of muslin daisies that were 
 crumpled and bent upon their stalks, and a black 
 tulle bonnet composed of ruches, flattened and 
 rusty. 
 
 "Here, Sister Pascale," said the Superior, 
 "the bonnet is for you." Sister Pascale at once 
 took up the dingy mass. 
 
 "Why, Madame," said Madame Bormenat, 
 "you are not going to wear a hat with flowers? 
 It would be ridiculous!" 
 
 "Less ridiculous than you think," said Sister 
 Justine, putting resolutely on her bare white 
 head the little round hat with the drooping 
 daisies. She would assuredly be an absurd figure 
 in the street ; what cared she? She had her usual 
 simple and easy manner, her usual unembarrassed
 
 152 THE NUN 
 
 tone, as she returned her own thanks and those of 
 her community to the lady presiding over the 
 " wardrobe of laicised nuns" an acknowledged 
 private charitable institution. The aged lady 
 bowed in reply with a reserved, compassionate 
 smile, and watched the five women the five de- 
 poetised women as they went down the stair. 
 They went, no longer guarded, no longer defended 
 against the world, by the veil, the hair-concealing 
 linen, the rosary, signs in all men's sight of their 
 consecration. Two of them carried, rolled up in 
 bundles, their religious dress Sister Leonide 
 and Sister Danielle. The others were too uncer- 
 tain of their journeys so to burden themselves; 
 they left their religious habit with Madame 
 Bormenat. 
 
 They left the house, they spoke to each other 
 no more. They asked at the station for the 
 third-class waiting room. A corner there was 
 vacant, and they found places on two benches, 
 sitting as much together as they could. The 
 Superior had Sister Pascale on one hand and Sister 
 Leonide on the other. The two others faced them 
 the two unequal groups of so many past evenings 
 in the playground. 
 
 "My dearest ones," said the Superior, "let us 
 end with what will be all our strength when we 
 are apart. We will say the rosary, and our 
 prayer shall not cease until I am alone." 
 
 They sought their beads in the pockets of their 
 lay dresses. The murmur of the Pater, the Ave, 
 and the Gloria was hardly audible in the station 
 sounds the whistle of an engine, the roll of a
 
 THE NUN 1S8 
 
 train, the opening of doors, and the hurrying feet 
 of travellers. No one noticed the women, ill and 
 awkwardly dressed in mourning, leaning together 
 as though one of them were busily telling the 
 story of a recent death. It was so in truth. Bene- 
 dicta tu in mulieribus it was Sister Danielle who 
 said the first part of the prayers, and the others 
 made the responses. Now and then one of them 
 hid her tears with her hand and fell out of the 
 ranks of prayer, to join again in a little while. 
 
 At intervals a porter came to the door to call 
 the names of the stations for which a train was 
 about to leave. The Sisters trembled, but it was 
 not yet their hour. The names of Macon, Mar- 
 seilles, Amberieu, were for them the fatal names, 
 and they had not been spoken. There was a little 
 time yet. The man was somewhat like the mes- 
 senger of execution to prisoners under the Terror. 
 He went back to the platform, and the prayers 
 were resumed. Sister Pascale led the second ro- 
 sary, and her frail voice had so weary and so tragic 
 a tone that the others all inwardly offered their 
 prayers for that dear one. Or a pro nobis pecca- 
 toribus nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Thus in the 
 noisy and dusty waiting-room the Sisters of Saint 
 Hildegarde prayed their last prayer together on 
 earth. ... A porter cried, " Train for Ma- 
 con." And two of the five stood up, Sister Dan- 
 ielle and Sister Edwige. For a moment they hesi- 
 tated should that prayer break off so that their 
 farewells might be spoken? Not so; Sister Jus- 
 tine took up the response with authoritative em- 
 phasis: Sancta Maria, Mater Dei and they
 
 154 THE NUN 
 
 understood that this was to be the one word 
 worthy of such a parting. 
 
 The two who were going bowed to the three 
 who remained. Sister Pascale closed her eyes, 
 the eyes that were to look no more on those two 
 pale faces. A few minutes, and in the midst of 
 another prayer, she too rose, bowed, and went 
 out in tears. Two voices behind her faltered but 
 did not stop. Anon came the train for Geneva, 
 and Sister Leonide went out alone. The Superior 
 was left; she ended the Ave, and then sat silent 
 while her companions journeyed away into the 
 unknown.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE BEARERS OF PASCALE'S BURDEN: 
 JUSTINE. 
 
 A KEEN autumn wind was blowing across the 
 glacis of fortifications, the chilly fields, a pro- 
 vincial town with its factories piled close to the 
 forts, its noisy streets. Evening was closing 
 round, and it was already dark within doors. A 
 few minutes earlier a sunset light had illumined 
 the lion, cut in the rock, of the citadel of Belfort. 
 
 In the servants' quarters of a large, unpre- 
 tentious house that had no garden, but was am- 
 ply and solidly built, and was the dwelling of the 
 General Commandant, an old butler prepared the 
 silver for the dinner-table. Over his black clothes 
 he had knotted an apron, and as he turned a 
 severe eye upon the rows of spoons and forks, a 
 little footman with a yellow, shaven head attended 
 him with respect and fear. At another side table, 
 an irreverent orderly, in shirt sleeves and yellow 
 waistcoat, proud of his waist and his fair mous- 
 tache, was arranging the dessert. 
 
 "Five and twenty," said the old man to the 
 apprentice footman "a large dinner-party. The 
 Baron is entertaining the superior officers. You 
 are not to take your gloves off once." 
 
 "No, Monsieur Francis." 
 
 155
 
 156 THE NUN 
 
 "You are not to hand the dishes, of course- 
 not for a long time to come. You'll only have 
 to take away the plates. But you can watch 
 me as a lesson." 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Francis." 
 
 "He's pretty strict, you know the Baron." 
 
 "Strict!" cried the orderly with a laugh. 
 "Strict! Why, he's afraid of everybody. He's 
 afraid of us." 
 
 "He's not afraid of me," said the butler qui- 
 etly. "Let me go on telling the boy what he 
 has to do. You haven't to answer for him, and 
 I have." 
 
 The door of the entrance-hall was opened. 
 The orderly looked over his shoulder. "There's 
 that German woman. I say, don't leave that 
 door open I am catching cold." 
 
 The woman did not heed him. She was un- 
 fastening the woollen wrap that had been tied 
 over her black bonnet and her face reddened by 
 the cold. Behind her a young man, painfully thin 
 and pale, whose nervous suffering was shown in 
 the spasms of his delicate features, answered the 
 orderly angrily: 
 
 "Hold your tongue, Moriot. She is ten times 
 more French than you are. Never these are 
 my orders never again dare to insult this lady, 
 or I shall tell the Commandant." 
 
 The soldier had turned back to his work, and 
 was patting into shape the mossy lining of a 
 dessert dish. He said no more, but expressed his 
 small alarm at this threat by a movement of 
 his eyebrows and of his smart moustache. The
 
 THE NUN 157 
 
 young man, seized by what it had been agreed 
 to call a fit of asthma, had thrown himself upon 
 the woman's arm, clinging to it with violence; 
 after three or four dry little coughs, he passed 
 a few haggard moments in the grasp of terror; 
 evil, horrible evil, was upon him, his open mouth 
 drew in no air, his lungs were vacant, close to 
 his beating heart. The old woman, accustomed 
 to the care of his disease, held up his head ten- 
 derly with her two hands. "Come, my little 
 Guy, it's nothing. You will be all right in a min- 
 ute.' ' The fit passed off : a little air went whistling 
 into the boy's chest, terror left the eyes, the mouth 
 closed and smiled a little. "I'm better," he said. 
 "It's gone. But wait ." 
 
 The door into the billiard-room opened at that 
 moment, and, framed against the lights within, 
 appeared the elegant figure of a woman still 
 young in shape and in movement. 
 
 "Is that you, Madame Justine? Is that you, 
 Guy? I was getting anxious. How is it you are 
 so late?" asked Madame de Roinnet. She would 
 not confess a fear that was not of the late hour 
 only. But she had heard the cough. "Where 
 did you walk?" 
 
 "On the glacis of the Barres fort, as we gener- 
 ally do," answered the old woman. "It was 
 almost warm, the sun was out, but all of a sudden 
 the wind got up, and we made haste home. Per- 
 haps we walked a little too fast." 
 
 Madame de Roinnet paid small attention. 
 Question, answer, the whole situation, were but 
 a part of that tragedy of her maternity which
 
 158 THE NUN 
 
 she and all about her were resolved to ignore. 
 She saw her son standing in the middle of the room 
 between his companion, "Madame Justine," and 
 the butler ; she saw that he had his breath again, 
 but she heard how hard he drew it still. 
 
 "You had better go to your room, Guy, and 
 get warm. Go, my dear. Madame Justine, will 
 you come this way? I want to speak to you." 
 
 The two women went into the billiard-room, 
 the one in evening dress, the other in a plain 
 black gown, worn without any affectation of 
 singularity such a dress as is usual with elderly 
 ladies whose appearance is neither fashionable 
 nor conspicuously unfashionable. 
 
 "Madame Justine," said Madame de Roinnet, 
 holding on one side her pretty head with its 
 fair hair turning grey and delicately waved, its 
 still firm cheeks and youthful blue eyes; "Mad- 
 ame Justine, I have not had a place laid for 
 Guy at table to-night." She meant "Nor for 
 you either." Justine understood, and answered 
 a little sadly: "The poor boy will be rather disap- 
 pointed. He said just now that he was looking 
 forward as for me, you know, Madame, I 
 don't care a bit. I am even better pleased. 
 Where are we to dine?" 
 
 "Of course not in the servants' hall; shall it 
 be in the linen room? Only there is a difficulty 
 about the waiting. Francis cannot leave the 
 dining-room, nor can the orderly very well; and 
 Matilda " 
 
 "Oh, is that all, Madame? There is no one 
 to wait upon us?"
 
 THE NUN 159 
 
 " Well no, I am afraid not." 
 
 "I can very well wait on Monsieur Guy and 
 myself. In our convent we were quite used I 
 dined every day at the same table as our cook. 
 It was Sister Leonide " 
 
 Madame de Roinnet went towards a group of 
 candles in a sconce, and held her face turned away, 
 as close to the lights as though she sought to dry 
 with that flame the tears hanging on her eyelashes 
 which she would not wipe away. She went on 
 with her inspection, taking her train in one hand, 
 drawing up her graceful figure. "I am obliged to 
 you," she said, "for helping me as you always do. 
 Life is sometimes so difficult." She went her way 
 into the dining-room. 
 
 At the same hour at the Military Club, an officer 
 of nervous physique, with signs of race in face 
 and figure, erect in his uniform, thin-faced, grey- 
 eyed, with hair tufted on his temples, his profile 
 resembling some relief of a mediaeval Italian war- 
 rior traced upon the pommel of a sabre, rose from 
 his place, where he had sat looking through the 
 evening papers, and approached a table where 
 another officer was seated, and, saluting, ad- 
 dressed him. The man to whom he spoke went 
 on with his occupation, which was the sinking 
 of a slice of lemon in his glass of punch. He, 
 too, was tall, with more solid features and 
 with darker eyes, which added emphasis to his 
 words: a man of firmer and steadier type than 
 the other. 
 
 "I shall be happy to be with you shortly," 
 he said. " Madame la Baronne de Roinnet is
 
 160 THE NUN 
 
 well, I hope? I caught a glimpse of her this 
 afternoon. And your son, how is he?" 
 
 The Commandant made an evasive gesture: 
 
 "Oh, as for him 
 
 "By the by, I wanted to ask you: have you 
 still in your house that person 
 
 "The governess, Colonel? The companion 
 and attendant on my son? You mean, do you 
 not, Madame Justine?" 
 
 "Exactly. I am told that Madame Justine 
 comes from a convent?" 
 
 With a little shake of body and head, the 
 movement of a man whom the foil has touched at 
 fencing, the Commandant replied : 
 
 "Yes, sir, she does." 
 
 "She was the Superior of a Sisterhood?" 
 
 "She has since been laicised." 
 
 "Obviously; and she teaches your children?" 
 
 "No, sir; I have had the honour of explaining 
 to you that she walks out with my son Guy, 
 whose health is very far from satisfactory. Mad- 
 ame de Roinnet sometimes sends the little girl 
 out with her too." 
 
 "And she gives the children instruction on 
 those occasions most probably?" 
 
 The Commandant coloured. All the muscles 
 of his thin face grew tense, and revealed yet 
 more sharply the nervousness of his race. 
 
 "If I thought that, sir- 
 He faltered; he felt that he was on the point 
 of disavowing his wife, his own hidden religious 
 faith, the principles of his whole life, and the 
 traditions of his family. All the de Roinnets
 
 THE NUN 161 
 
 of the past were at his ear: "Stop! what were 
 you about to say?" 
 
 "If I thought that, sir," he resumed, evading, 
 "I should tell you so." 
 
 "That is well. I spoke in your own interests. 
 You are ambitious, and quite right too. It is 
 only fair to warn you of what might be to your 
 disadvantage." 
 
 The two officers parted with a salute. Ten 
 minutes later M. de Roinnet reached his house 
 and met his wife in the corridor. 
 
 "Marie," he said, "I should like to speak to 
 you." 
 
 "What is it? I am rather in a hurry." 
 
 "I hope you are not giving Madame Justine 
 a place at the dinner to-night. We must not for- 
 get that, after all, there are certain differences of 
 position, of breeding, of manners ." 
 
 He lunched and dined daily at the same table 
 as the former Superior of the convent and school 
 of Saint Pontique. Madame de Roinnet said 
 nothing as he pursued: 
 
 "If you included her in this dinner party, the 
 discomfort would be for her, and the embarrass- 
 ment, as well as for 
 
 His wife answered with a vague and judicious 
 smile; "I thought Guy was hardly strong enough 
 to-night, and he is not dining with us ; so Madame 
 Justine is keeping him company. It is all settled. " 
 
 That Madame Justine was only barely tolerated 
 in this household was very evident to herself. 
 The fact had been made clear to her from the first 
 day of her arrival, in the preceding August, by the
 
 162 THE NUN 
 
 daily acts, words, or silences of all about her. 
 After three weeks spent in Lyons in a vain search 
 for employment, she had had the brief hope of an 
 appointment to a school which the Catholics of 
 that city were labouring to establish upon the 
 rums of the schools destroyed by law ; she had been 
 judged too old for the position. Such appoint- 
 ments were, of course, much less numerous than 
 the members of Religious Orders expelled from 
 their convents or dispossessed of their schools, and 
 hi either case in search of the means of livelihood. 
 Of the five women who had dwelt together, fully 
 employed, in the house of the Place Saint Pontique, 
 only one had found work as a teacher. This was 
 the portress, Sister Leonide. Then the Superior, 
 having spent the forty francs which formed her 
 whole fortune as an ex-nun, had accepted a place 
 as "governess and companion" in the household 
 of Madame de Roinnet. She was rather a nurse 
 than a companion. 
 
 Her business and she did not consider it in 
 any degree beneath her dignity was chiefly to 
 walk out, whenever the weather permitted, with 
 the son of the house, the poor boy incurably con- 
 sumptive, and ill in mind as well as in body, who 
 needed frequent comforting and close nursing. 
 She had to amuse him, with as little conversation 
 as possible, to choose pleasant walks, to find 
 sheltered seats, to avoid acquaintances, for talking 
 brought on his shattering cough, to take charge 
 of the plaid and goloshes, to betray no anxiety of 
 her own, to make no manifestation of her pity 
 when the attacks of his disease were violent, to
 
 THE NUN 163 
 
 put aside all fears of contagion for herself, to make 
 the dying boy look forward to next spring, next 
 summer, other summers and springs; it was a 
 mission for a mother rather than for an alien. 
 Madame de Roinnet had attempted it, but her 
 tenderness was too demonstrative; she found it 
 too difficult to master her grief, to keep back her 
 tears. Moreover, the work prevented all her 
 social obligations, and she had duties to the Com- 
 mandant, to his career, and to her little girl, who, 
 the doctors warned her, must not be much in the 
 company of her brother. After she had relin- 
 quished the task, ten servants in succession had 
 failed in it, for night-nursing and watching were 
 necessary, as well as perpetual attention by day, 
 and Madame Justine had been called in. 
 
 She endured fatigue; she had the necessary 
 patience and also the habit of authority equally 
 indispensable; she succeeded in gaining the 
 affection of the young man who was little more 
 than a gloomy and embittered child, nay, suc- 
 ceeded only too well, for she became the one 
 support, the one resource, and the invalid was 
 excited and angry if ever his nurse was not at 
 hand, not ready in case of an attack, and he 
 as he said cruelly enough "all alone." But 
 the cook and the maids lost no opportunity of 
 making Madame Justine feel herself isolated in 
 the house she, a woman already old and yet 
 dependent, of most distinguished character, of 
 ordinary education, a member of the lower class 
 by early association, by no means a lady, yet in 
 the habit of addressing simply as " Monsieur" the
 
 164 THE NUN 
 
 master they had to call " Monsieur le Baron." 
 She was an Alsatian, besides, and the orderly 
 a doubtful soldier and more doubtful servant, 
 who disliked the clear-seeing eye of the old Superior 
 spread the rumour, readily believed in barracks, 
 that the Commandant employed a German spy 
 as governess for his children. Madame de Roinnet 
 took her part, having opposed the dismissal of the 
 "companion," several times threatened when the 
 drawing-room talk in the garrison ran to this 
 effect: "You know that Madame Justine they 
 have at the Commandant's? Well, my dear, she 
 is an ex-nun a secularised Sister. She was 
 actually the Superior in a convent!" But Guy's 
 mother had almost too hard a task in the refuta- 
 tion of so many unkind suspicions, so many cruel 
 whispers. She was too unhappy a woman, con- 
 vinced as she was at heart of the hopeless state 
 of her son, and involved in troubles of money, to 
 possess energy enough for the protection of 
 Madame Justine against those who would have 
 had her expelled. The nurse's real champion was 
 her nursling. Almost every day the more violent 
 attacks of his disease were upon him ; he struggled 
 out of his chair, stifled, his face full of the terror of 
 the loss of breath, his thin arms outstretched, his 
 hands clutching. The father turned aside, unable 
 to endure the sight, or hurried away, or cried to 
 the unfortunate boy, in the nervous anger of 
 despair: "What, again? Stop, stop, stop in- 
 stantly. Stop, I tell you, or leave the room!" 
 The mother ran to the rescue. But it was on 
 Madame Justine's breast that the boy cast himself
 
 THE NUN 165 
 
 until the racking cough was over, and on her 
 shoulder that his head rested, bathed in the sweat 
 of the struggle. As the weeks went by M. de 
 Roinnet saw how little hope there was that 
 another would fill her place, or that Guy could 
 bear the separation. And this, too, irritated him ; 
 his ambition of standing well with his superiors 
 was hampered by this domestic difficulty. 
 
 Madame Justine would have lived, with as 
 much ease as she asked of fortune, in the midst 
 of these small enmities, had she been free from 
 graver anxieties. In her few and uncertain 
 moments of leisure she wrote to "her daughters," 
 and many times every day her thoughts visited 
 those corners of France where, far apart from 
 one another, lived the four whom she so grievously 
 missed. 
 
 It was for the youngest only that she was 
 anxious. To the letters in August and September 
 Pascale had answered briefly that she had been 
 kindly received at Nimes; they treated her with 
 an affection that was touching and even embar- 
 rassing, inasmuch as they allowed her to do very 
 little of the work of the house ; they considered her 
 health to be delicate, and Jules Prayou took her 
 out a great deal and had tried to persuade her to 
 go to the sham bull-fights and even to the theatre. 
 She held back, not wishing to be an expensive 
 guest with relatives who were poorer than she had 
 thought them, and who were yet generous to her. 
 "Just think, Mother," she wrote, "at Beaucaire, 
 where they have a fair on the 22nd of July, 
 Jules spent for me more than thirty francs, what
 
 166 THE NUN 
 
 with the journey, and treats and presents! And 
 you know I have not a penny of my own. I could 
 not stop him. And then afterwards he did the 
 same at Aries. Nobody knows that I was ever 
 in a convent. People think I am here for my 
 health; and, in fact, I am taking care of myself. 
 The heat and the restful life have done wonders 
 for my lungs. I am quite brown, but my hair, 
 which is growing fast, is as light as ever. People 
 stare at me because of my hair. Things come into 
 my mind things I never thought of in the con- 
 vent, where we five did not own a looking-glass 
 amongst us. Mother, it is not my chest that 
 troubles me most, it is the heart inside, now you 
 are not there to take care of it." 
 
 Sister Justine wrote recommending more pru- 
 dence and a closer watchfulness. Her letters to 
 Pascale were increasingly affectionate. But no 
 letter from Nimes had come since the end of 
 September. It was now the 15th of October. 
 Danielle and Edwige wrote: " Neither has she 
 answered our last letters." 
 
 What was befalling that distant one? 
 agonising question! Madame Justine carried it 
 with her hi the long hours on duty with her in- 
 valid. Her mind was full of misgivings, full of 
 plans. She had no more rest from her anxieties 
 now than she had formerly from the little school- 
 children or the poor of Lyons. At times, as she 
 looked across the bare land to the far horizon and 
 the distant frontier, the thought of her own 
 native country recurred to her: "Within reach 
 of this place there are relatives of mine living.
 
 THE NUN 167 
 
 They would take me in if I wished it ; they have 
 written to tell me so. There is my sister, married 
 to a vine-cultivator who owns a very good vine- 
 yard, near Saint Leonard. There is my brother, 
 who has land of his own at the gates of Colmar, 
 where I was born. I might go back; the Kreis- 
 director would give me the necessary authorisa- 
 tion for the asking. I should have nothing to do 
 but to grow old there and die in peace." 
 
 But the thought was against her desire, against 
 her heart. What she listened to was the voice 
 within: "I shall go through the trial and trouble 
 of France. I belong to France, and hi France my 
 four daughters are scattered." 
 
 LEONIDE. 
 
 Winter was over for dwellers in the plains, and 
 the wheat, sprouting green, was tempting the 
 mating partridges to nest-building. But snow 
 was on the hills, yielding a little each afternoon 
 on the heights of Bugey, where dwelt the former 
 portress of Saint Pontique; each night the frost 
 returned and stiffened again the old snow, now 
 trampled and full of holes. The village was built 
 on a steep south-western slope below a fir-forest 
 which the peasants pillaged, and the lightning had 
 seared, and the torrents shattered. Where there 
 was not forest, there were rocky fields, ravines, 
 land partly washed away by water, and houses 
 sheltering where they found a footing. Far below, 
 in the valley, were meadows set with hedges, al- 
 most as regular as dominoes. And so far was it 
 from the high village to those cultivated lands,
 
 168 THE NUN 
 
 that the cries of the men below goading their oxen 
 at the plough troubled the silence on the heights 
 less than did the whirr of the grasshopper. 
 
 Here, in a free school newly built, Leonide had 
 held an appointment as assistant since the July 
 preceding. A rich woman, who had given the 
 land for the school and who bore one half of its 
 charges the inhabitants of the mountain-side 
 supplying the rest had summoned the portress- 
 cook from Lyons. After a short interview the 
 patroness concluded: 
 
 "Well, my little Sister, I think you will suit 
 me." 
 
 "I am glad of that, Madame." 
 
 "Then I shall decide to engage you. I like you." 
 
 "Ah! if you had seen Sister Pascale you 
 would have engaged her! Or else Sister Edwige, 
 or- 
 
 "But I have engaged you, you know, and I 
 think I shall not regret it. By the way, you will 
 have a room to the north, I must tell you." 
 
 "It is all the same to me." 
 
 "And the people here are not precisely re- 
 ligious." 
 
 "I can't say they were exactly that at Lyons, 
 either." 
 
 "I only see one little fault in you, Sister." 
 
 "You might see plenty if you looked, Madame." 
 
 ' ' Well, but I mean that you have lost your teeth. 
 It does not look well 
 
 Leonide laughed with all her heart. 
 
 "I shall buy some then, Madame. In a fort- 
 night I shall have the whole set."
 
 THE NUN 169 
 
 She went to a dentist before leaving Bourgen- 
 Bresse, and arrived at her new home hardly prettier 
 but much younger of aspect than she had been. 
 
 "You would not know me again," she wrote 
 to her Superior, "if you were to meet me on these 
 steep roads, with my handsome new skirt and my 
 hat, and all my teeth ; you would only know "who 
 it was when I ran to hug you, Mother." 
 
 The ardent little school-mistress had no longer 
 the luck of Lyons and Saint Pontique. She ran 
 about, she taught, she talked, she catechised, but 
 without the old cheering success. All the sum- 
 mer, all the autumn, all the winter, in dust, mud, 
 and long-lasting snow, she trudged through all her 
 free hours and her holidays, from house to house 
 of parents and guardians. Many of the guardians 
 were hostile, few of the parents had the ordinary 
 good humour of the city or the valleys. This 
 hard-living mountain-population was full of dis- 
 content, was suspicious even in the presence of 
 self-devotion in which it hardly believed was 
 unresponsive, quick-witted in buying and selling, 
 armed against things invisible. The better part 
 of these people was no more than a kind of half- 
 aroused indifference and the remains of a faith 
 ancient and remote. "How they must have been 
 neglected!" thought Leonide. "On their very 
 death-beds they hardly remember to look up- 
 wards. They are not always kind to me. But they 
 shall not resist me for ever ; I shall use the strongest 
 means I know I will love them, I do love them." 
 
 She had walked so much, on paths so steep, 
 and through snow so persistent, that at the be-
 
 170 THE NUN 
 
 ginning of March she had fallen seriously ill with 
 double pneumonia. But her robust constitution 
 had won the battle with disease; and, very pale, 
 very thin, she sat in a wicker arm-chair, covered 
 with black woollen wraps, her feet on a hot-water 
 bottle, in the large first-floor room above the class- 
 room of the school. The children had left. 
 Evening had turned the long white walls ash-grey, 
 the red cotton bed-curtains made a dark spot in 
 the pale room. The clanking of wooden shoes 
 outside was audible, and within, the loud ticking 
 of the alarum clock. A woman came up the stairs 
 and entered. 
 
 "How are you this evening, Leonide? " she asked. 
 
 From the midst of the shawls the invalid an- 
 swered: " Better and better." 
 
 Her voice was weak, but her eyes were bright 
 in the twilight. With the lively gratitude of the 
 solitary sick for a visit from outside, Leonide 
 looked up at the head mistress, a slender young 
 woman with a long face, a pretty complexion, and 
 short-sighted eyes narrowed by the perpetual 
 effort of "accommodation." She kept her chilly 
 hands in her apron pockets and sat down on the 
 other side of the fireplace. 
 
 "The little girls were asking about you again," 
 she said. ' ' You see, they don't forget you. What 
 I came about was to ask whether you don't want 
 to go to bed again. I'll help you." 
 
 "Thank you; but let me sit up in the dark, 
 just another hour." 
 
 "It's exceedingly cold outside." 
 
 "But I'm really coming to life again in here,"
 
 THE NUN 171 
 
 said Leonide, freeing her chin. "Do you know 
 what I was thinking about? First of all I thought 
 how very near I was to going home " 
 
 Seeing the astonishment of her companion, she 
 smiled slowly and pointed her fingers upwards. 
 
 "I mean my home aloft," she said. "But it's 
 put off. Then I was thinking of the kind of life I 
 led for ten years with my Sisters. Does it bore 
 you to hear me talk about it?" 
 
 ' ' Why, no, of course not," said the young woman 
 rather languidly. She held her long thin hands to- 
 wards the fire with a patience already half wearied. 
 
 "I can tell you I didn't waste my time hi those 
 days. You say I wear myself out here ; but there 
 I was always on my feet: sweeping, cleaning, 
 cooking, answering the door, washing I had a lot 
 of work. I was a kind of convent general-servant ; 
 and yet, mind you, the others always treated me 
 as their sister one of themselves." 
 
 "Yes, I understand." 
 
 "It's a better kind of friendship than any 
 friendship out in, the world." 
 
 "Well, it's different, anyway." 
 
 "That it is." 
 
 "Sadder, I should think." 
 
 "Sadder, do you say? You should have seen 
 the good spirits we were in. I'm still like that. 
 Sadder Sister Justine, Sister Edwige, Sister 
 Pascale! Do you mean what you say? " 
 
 "Well, I do. I can't understand being happy 
 shut up in a house and having to stay there." 
 
 A whole-hearted laugh, a peasant's laugh without 
 the noise of health, astonished the head-mistress.
 
 172 THE NUN 
 
 "Are you happy, Mademoiselle? " asked Leonide. 
 
 "Why, yes fairly." 
 
 "Yet you can't go out of the village because of 
 the snow. You have to stay hi to teach your 
 class and to take care of me." 
 
 There was a silence between those two sep- 
 arated women. Then the mistress rose, put her 
 hands into her pockets again, and said: 
 
 "I am going to cook our dinner. In half an 
 hour I shall come back and help you into bed." 
 
 Leonide remained alone. In spite of her 
 wrappings she felt the frost that was seizing the 
 earth, the trees, the walls and roof. She leant 
 her head and her shoulders against the back of 
 her chair, and, with the precise perception of one 
 half-released from the world, she measured the 
 greatness of her solitude. At the beginning of 
 her work in that place, when her hard walks to 
 the outlying hamlets and farms had been over, 
 she had slept soundly at night, overcome with 
 fatigue, with no thought of to-morrow except that 
 of the duty to be done. But in this sad hour she 
 judged her efforts to be, at least for the time, hi 
 vain. Was there any good will towards her and 
 her mission in all these houses closed against the 
 cold of that bleak country? Was there anyone 
 who really knew, or cared to know, why she had 
 come thither, why she was staying, why she would 
 never wish to change, to "better herself," to mar- 
 ry, or even to complain? No, not even the good 
 girl who directed the school, and who was hoping 
 to make a little money and to get away to escape, 
 by marriage or promotion, the hardship of this
 
 THE NUN 173 
 
 confinement on a mountain height. All doors, all 
 hearts, were closed. The alarum was ticking the 
 flight of futile and vacant minutes. Through the 
 window the sick woman saw the tops of the dark 
 and serried fir-woods, her eyes receiving their 
 image though her thoughts did not dwell upon 
 them. The ragged mists rolled over those dreary 
 heights. Untroubled in her grief, trying to smile 
 again her patient smile, Le"onide whispered: 
 
 "I accept my failures, my loneliness, my illness, 
 all things, Lord, for the sake of my Sisters, but 
 particularly for the little one." 
 
 She had heard vaguely that Sister Justine was 
 not easy about Pascale. They had told her no 
 more why should they? She had never made 
 a part of the " Council" of the Community. But 
 in Madame Justine's brief letters she had guessed 
 a burden of sadness. And thus, in her desolate 
 and disheartened and disenchanted hour, she 
 consciously took the trial home to her faithful and 
 fervent heart: "I accept my poor failures, as 
 Thou wilt, Lord, for my Sisters, and particularly 
 for the little girl." 
 
 The formidable night enwrapped the mountain, 
 the forest, the hill- village ; and in a little house 
 that one fir-tree might have covered with its 
 shadow, a poor creature was in treaty with the 
 Eternal for the safety of a soul in distress. 
 
 EDWIGE. 
 
 Early summer, the warm season when all green 
 things are not yet out, when the young leaves 
 seem verily to give out light the luminous sum-
 
 174 THE NUN 
 
 mer of the end of May was sweet upon the waters 
 of the Loire. By the riverside, in the valley, 
 stood the narrow house of the keeper of a level- 
 crossing. It was built at a few yards' distance 
 from the line of the Paris and Nantes railway, 
 close to a road which came from the hills on the 
 north, crossed the valley, the fields, and the rail, 
 and further on passed over the Loire by an arched 
 bridge. Peasants' carts, traders' carriages, mo- 
 tors on their way to the country-houses of the 
 south, came to the crossing at any hour of the day 
 or night. The guard had to close and open the 
 gates, and to stand outside the door when the 
 trains went by. The task was not exacting or 
 fatiguing, but it needed punctuality and the habit 
 of light sleep. It needed also no little courage, 
 for the house of the level-crossing-guard was far 
 from all other habitation; few were the farms in 
 these low valleys on account of the frequent 
 floods. 
 
 It was three o'clock hi the afternoon. An old 
 woman, meanly dressed, but with her hair care- 
 fully arranged in wavy bands, was crouching 
 over a garden-bed near the house, by the railway 
 side. She was pulling up weeds from the sandy 
 ground. Her movements were exceedingly slow, 
 yet they seemed too much for her strength; for, 
 at every quarter of a yard of weeding, she stopped 
 and rested, with her eyes upon the four lines of 
 flying steel that went converging to the far hori- 
 zon, where they seemed to meet like the fastened 
 threads of a loom. The fields on either side of the 
 railway had their young crops stirred in the light
 
 THE NUN 175 
 
 by the gentle wind. Between rows of poplars 
 there were gleams in the distance: a little water 
 and a little sand, like silver and gold. 
 
 The woman resumed her work, broke off 
 again, and watched the line. At half-past three 
 she called: 
 
 "Here comes 717." 
 
 No one replied for a few moments, and she 
 was crouching at her task again when a much 
 younger woman opened the door and appeared 
 upright at the threshold. 
 
 It was Edwige, lovelier than in the days of 
 the school at Saint Pontique, inasmuch as her 
 chestnut hair was visible and her beautiful eyes 
 reflected a wider sky. But now her look of 
 heavenly mercifulness rested only on one heed- 
 less old woman, on the garden, and the fields. 
 She wore a light bodice and a dark skirt, as do 
 so many country women, and, by way of protec- 
 tion against the sun, a white cambric summer hat 
 of English fashion, a relic of better days in her 
 father's house. When the goods-train reached 
 the crossing, she unrolled and lifted the red 
 flag in her hand. For two minutes the earth 
 shook, the willows had their foliage stirred, birds 
 went up, the lowing of cattle and sounds of in- 
 visible life in the fields arose amid the rattle of 
 iron wheels; and, as the last truck passed by, a 
 little shower of sand fell on the vegetables and the 
 five gooseberry bushes of the roadside garden. 
 
 The old woman with the waved hair had not 
 looked round. Edwige stood for a moment 
 turned to the distant East with its gleam of
 
 176 THE NUN 
 
 waters. In her face and in all her aspect was 
 legible the characteristic message of her love. 
 She went back into the little house, and, as 
 silence again settled on the place, drew up to the 
 table again the chair from which she had lately 
 risen, and took her knitting. At her elbow a book 
 of Hours lay open; now and again Edwige read 
 a passage, and meditated upon it as her fingers 
 moved. 
 
 Here she dwelt, and the woman was her mother. 
 When a station-master of the railway company 
 in question leaves a widow, as hi this case, she 
 has a right to the holding of a station book-stall, 
 if such a place be vacant. The mother of Edwige, 
 a contentious and irritable woman, was insistent 
 in her claim, but there were several senior widows, 
 and there was no vacancy. After a time of great 
 poverty, at first alone and then with her daughter, 
 in a village of the Blaisois, she had accepted the 
 post of barrier-guard. She would not have been 
 unhappy had the thought of a "fall in life" not 
 harassed her. 
 
 On account of her rheumatism she left the 
 level-crossing and the signal to her daughter, 
 whom, however, she helped by her keen ear and 
 her little sleep. By night and day she watched 
 the clock and cried "Time!" when a train was due 
 and the road-gates were open, or ' ' Someone at the 
 crossing!" when the gates were closed. 
 
 Edwige felt herself under an obligation to 
 remain with a mother whose livelihood depended 
 upon her. She accepted the duty with her whole 
 will in the spirit of self-sacrifice so familiar to her
 
 THE NUN 177 
 
 thoughts and practice, but never proclaimed. 
 She too was a widow, but one who held her peace. 
 She was never found in tears. Her peculiar 
 tenderness seemed to brood upon the present 
 passing day. But the day brought two distresses 
 to be added to her profound and perpetual sor- 
 row. One was in the morning, and one in the 
 afternoon. Her heart was torn ; her mother never 
 knew it. 
 
 The late hour was drawing near. Several times 
 Edwige had looked at the clock: four o'clock, 
 five minutes past, ten minutes. And after each 
 questioning glance her eyes had turned to the 
 grass-bordered road on her right. Another min- 
 ute or two and her mother's voice called: " Ed- 
 wige! quick there they are! and the express is 
 in sight!" She ran to the gates, her tender face 
 pale and drawn. Thirty children, boys and girls, 
 going home from school, were at the level-crossing, 
 crying, " Mademoiselle! Quick, Mademoiselle!" 
 The boys lifted their caps to her, the girls held up 
 their hands with the fingers out as in class. It 
 was a clamour of fresh voices and a flash of bright 
 eyes. 
 
 She opened the gate that barred the road, for 
 there was time, and the children ran across, little 
 ones hurried by their elders ; the gates were closed 
 again, and they were gone. Soon the company of 
 little figures was dim upon the distant road like 
 a flock of sheep in a cloud of dust. 
 
 Edwige, with a beating heart, saw the passing 
 by of the childhood she so longed to cherish. 
 Turning with her useless love back into the house,
 
 178 THE NUN 
 
 she thought of Lyons, next of Nimes, and then 
 of God. 
 
 DANIELLE. 
 
 The sun is about to rise, and it is hot already. 
 On all the southward slopes of the hills of La 
 Correze a mist goes up from the grass, the foliage, 
 the copses heavy with dew. It is the hour when 
 the cattle must be driven afield. Midway on the 
 hill-side, nearer to Uzerche than to Brive, a farm 
 awakes. It is a long, old building, and stands be- 
 tween the fields of maize, of oats, and of potatoes, 
 and the chestnut woods the cultivated fields 
 thrusting their wedges into the domain of the 
 forest. Lower down are enclosures of clover, 
 pastures, and a torrent in the valley; and another 
 hill rises beyond, also with pastures below, with 
 crops above, with great trees higher still, and with 
 a summit of bare rocks. The valley is deep, and 
 the sound of its torrent does not reach the solitary 
 heights. 
 
 Before the farm-house a young man harnessed 
 his horse to a light carriage, which his wife 
 aiding he then loaded with half-a-dozen little 
 pigs. This done, the man and woman climbed to 
 their seats. 
 
 " Good-bye, for the present, grandfather," 
 cried the man. " Don't expect us before night." 
 
 The words were called in the Limousin dialect, 
 with a sharp note and a singing inflection, and 
 they still rang against the tiled roof and the win- 
 dow panes when the travellers had swung round to 
 the back of the farm and begun the descent.
 
 THE NUN 179 
 
 A door opened at the far wing of the building, 
 and a cow walked forth, stretching her neck and 
 snuffing the moist grass, then another cow and 
 then another seven and behind the last came 
 the woman who drove them. She was dressed like 
 a beggar, and her feet were hi wooden shoes ; but 
 under the winged cap of that province her face 
 kept its grave and spiritual beauty. She held, 
 trailing, a long stick cut from a tree and still 
 wearing a few leaves. When she raised her eyes, 
 she looked across at the opposite height. 
 
 "Oh, that's you, Danielle; none too soon. 
 In my time the cow-woman was up the hill before 
 
 sunrise." 
 
 "The cows would not be milked," replied 
 Danielle. She added, turning towards the house : 
 
 "Good morning, grandfather. Did you sleep 
 well?" 
 
 "You know I didn't. I never do. It's a silly 
 question to ask every morning." 
 
 The speaker was an old man whose head, in a 
 blue cotton cap, and hairy neck showing in the 
 opening of his shirt, were seen at a narrow window. 
 His rancorous face with its dry, hard wrinkles 
 had little life except in the glances of crimson- 
 lidded eyes. He resumed : 
 
 "They are off, those two. You saw them?" 
 
 "They are going down the hill now." 
 
 "You don't mind being alone. But I can tell 
 you I do." 
 
 "Poor grandfatherl" 
 
 "Don't keep saying 'poor grandfather.' It's 
 all on account of you that I'm in the state I am.
 
 180 THE NUN 
 
 Since you came home from your convent they 
 leave me alone. I am just like a lot of old clothes, 
 chucked into a corner. Nobody as much as 
 thinks of looking at me." 
 
 "But don't I take care of you?" 
 
 "Your brother did, before you came. And he 
 used to take me to the fairs. I used to have a 
 drink with him. He didn't take his wife. Now 
 that you do her work and he can drive her about, 
 I've got to sit here. You can't say that's not 
 true." 
 
 She said nothing. 
 
 "Before you came we all got on better. He 
 used to give me money for my tobacco. Some- 
 times he brought me a hat or a coat. Now I 
 get nothing. I don't know when he means to 
 buy me another pair of shoes, and mine are 
 done for. He just says, 'We've got to keep 
 Danielle. 7 Well, then, what I say is, you shouldn't 
 have come." 
 
 "Where should I have gone?" 
 
 "Couldn't you find a place?" 
 
 "I tried. I could hear of nothing." 
 
 "Couldn't you marry, then?" 
 
 "Ah, grandfather!" 
 
 "What I say is, you shouldn't have come. 
 It's very hard upon us." 
 
 "But you said I might: you called me home." 
 
 "I was wrong, then. I thought you would 
 bring back the money." 
 
 "What money?" 
 
 "The three hundred francs I paid for your 
 clothes when you went."
 
 THE NUN 181 
 
 She walked away hastily, calling, "Good- 
 bve, grandfather. The cows are a long way 
 up." 
 
 The reproaches of the old man followed her until 
 she reached a space of silence. She walked up a 
 tree-bordered road, the natural corridor of the 
 forest, a wide path trodden by men and cattle, 
 and barred, at two hundred yards' distance from 
 the farm, by a couple of tall trees. The place 
 looked like a nave with shattered roof, and sug- 
 gested the recesses of chapels full of shadow. 
 Danielle walked in the middle track, light, erect, 
 and grave. The corn-coloured cattle went on 
 before, wrinkling their hides and swinging their 
 tails under the irritation of the flies. They passed 
 in single file into the wood, crushing the young 
 grass and stirring the branches. 
 
 How much altered had Danielle found her old 
 home! Father and mother were dead years ago. 
 The grandfather had grown so old and was so 
 changed that his grandchild hardly knew him 
 again. He was worn, he was unable to work, he 
 was soured by sleeplessness, and yet more by his 
 regrets at an act of his own; he had divided, by 
 deed of gift, his possessions between his sons 
 the father of Pierre, now master of the farm, and 
 Jacques, who lived nine miles away down the 
 valley. His lamentations over his confined, de- 
 pendent, hampered, and tedious life never ceased 
 for a day or even an hour. His grandson did not 
 lend an ear to them, nor did that grandson's wife, 
 for these two had ceased to fear him. But in 
 Danielle he had a patient victim. On her he
 
 182 THE NUN 
 
 emptied the budget of his complaints and his 
 reproaches. He would willingly have sent her 
 away in the hope of regaining the little presents 
 which he had been used to receive from the master, 
 and which were now economised on the pretext 
 that Danielle was expensive. Now he charged her 
 with laziness, albeit she was the first to rise and 
 the last to rest in that household; and now he 
 returned to the subject of his own privations. 
 He could not see her without a diseased and 
 unreasonable irritation. Nothing soothed him, 
 though Danielle pleaded, met him with patience, 
 and redoubled her attentions to his peevish per- 
 son. He was well aware that the master and his 
 wife, who had been willing to take into the house 
 for a few weeks this homeless nun, thought with 
 him ; her visit was too long ; and what if Danielle 
 should ask them some day for her part in the in- 
 heritance, voluntarily renounced by her when she 
 entered the religious life? The apprehension was 
 a vain one, but it alarmed those watchful and 
 calculating souls. 
 
 Danielle accepted the suspicion, the misjudg- 
 ment, the insult of her home. She did not even 
 wonder that, violently reproached as she had 
 been for her departure, she should be rebuked for 
 her return. Here, as in the school of Saint Pon- 
 tique, she was the silent ascetic whose treasure 
 was in the daily cross. She awaited the hour, if 
 such an hour should ever come, when she, like 
 Sister Leonide, might recover in some school apart 
 of that vocation that had been so shattered in the 
 destruction of the convent life.
 
 THE NUN 183 
 
 Since their separation, Danielle had heard of- 
 tener than the two others from the old Superior. 
 She was still the counsellor, the trusted one. 
 She knew as well as Sister Justine herself how it 
 was with Leonide and with Edwige. The letters 
 which the postman brought at irregular intervals 
 to the farm were for Danielle an event, a hope, a 
 comfort, but also a cause of keenest griefs. For 
 amid the news, the recollections, the affectionate 
 words, that linked her with one comrade in the 
 mountains of the Ain, and with another in the 
 valley of the Loire, there was often a passage of 
 reference to her who dwelt at Nimes. And 
 Danielle, always alarmed for that most beloved 
 soul, was anxious, was sorrowful, was fired with 
 the longing to bear the burden of the youngest 
 Sister. 
 
 Ah, cruel letters! She kept them hidden in 
 a little wooden box under the mattress of the 
 miserable bed where she lay in the stable a 
 drover's bed, above the mangers of the cattle 
 and the horses. Cruel letters she knew their 
 phrases by heart, and pondered them with so 
 keen a compassion that she had no tears left of 
 pity for herself. Dominant love was in her heart ; 
 a prevailing resolve that the Kingdom of Heaven 
 should suffer violence on behalf of Pascale. And 
 to-day for a letter had come on the night preced- 
 ing among the high pastures where she kept the 
 cows in solitude, in the sun, in the wind, and in the 
 rain, Danielle prayed, offering her life to God for 
 that Sister whom she was never again to behold 
 on earth.
 
 184 THE NUN 
 
 "August 12th, 1902. 
 
 " And what shall I tell you now of our youngest 
 one? I wish I could write something cheering 
 about that darling of us all, but I cannot. Five 
 days ago came a letter of so worldly a tone that I 
 am more uneasy than ever. Pascale is full of 
 self-congratulation as to the manner in which they 
 treat her at Nimes. It is evident that she is 
 flattered, that she is indulged and amused, and 
 that her sensibility the weakness we used to try 
 to cure her of is worked upon by these people hi 
 order to persuade her to accept pleasures not 
 suitable for such as she. She is grateful to them, 
 and bound by her gratitude, with what poor 
 reason you shall judge. She writes, 'You must 
 not be angry, Mother; you must not scold me. 
 It is impossible to refuse when I see how it would 
 hurt them. They are most kind to me, although 
 I see clearly, by many signs, that they are poorer 
 than I thought them. The dress I am wearing 
 the one that was given to me at Lyons was too 
 hot they insisted on buying for me. Everything 
 I use they have given me. My aunt never opposes 
 her son when he says that he has planned a walk 
 or an excursion for her and me ; and how could I 
 hold back? They give me very little work to do, 
 as they say I am still too weak. Indeed I am, 
 if anything, thinner, in spite of the rest. I still 
 cough a little in the mornings. If I were sure 
 that you were pleased with me, that you did not 
 disapprove, I should be almost quiet in my mind. 
 Quite quiet, quite at peace, I shall never be but 
 at your side. 7
 
 THE NUN 185 
 
 "These words of our Pascale will make you 
 as anxious as they have made me. I know 
 little of her surroundings but I feel certain that 
 they are bad for her. I guess many things she 
 does not say. I hope she will say them soon, for 
 I have written her my questions. No one here 
 knows anything of my grief; I think no one 
 would understand it. My poor consumptive 
 boy, whose nurse and companion I am, says to 
 me sometimes: 'What are you thinking about?' 
 And I want to answer: 'About my poor children, 
 who are all so far from me!' Adieu, adieu! 
 
 "P.S. M. Talier-De"capy is dead. That good 
 man, with whom I spoke only once in my life, 
 has left me a legacy. A letter from his lawyer 
 told me of this. I have three thousand francs 
 in the bank. So if you should be in want, let 
 me know." 
 
 "October 18th. 
 
 "I have had no letter from Pascale since the 
 end of September. I am terribly anxious. Can 
 she be ill? She was in weak health. I hardly 
 dare ask any other question about her. I have 
 written two letters since her last, the second 
 one very urgent, both very affectionate. No 
 answer. I wrote though rather reluctantly 
 to her aunt Prayou. She has made no reply. 
 I cannot rest in this state of doubt I am too 
 unhappy. You must advise me. This is what 
 I have done so far: Do you remember a girl 
 called Louise Casale, who was friendly to our 
 school? Her family were Nimes people. She
 
 186 THE NUN 
 
 was an anaemic girl, and had been to the lay 
 school, and she used to come to see us. She 
 was not ignorant of the world, but quite good 
 and innocent at heart. I asked this Louise to 
 help me. 'Try to think/ I wrote to her, 'of 
 some relation of yours at Nimes, or some friend, 
 someone to be trusted, who can find out and 
 tell me what has happened to my child, whether 
 for good or ill.' I am still waiting. And I am 
 sorry, I accuse myself, I often cry bitterly, for 
 having, at a time of hard trouble, allowed this 
 poor little Pascale to leave me ; I ought to have 
 kept her, at any cost of hard work, of poverty, 
 of cold, of death itself. I should have saved 
 her. Where is she now? Pray for us both, 
 Danielle." 
 
 11 November 3rd. 
 
 "My Sister Danielle, Our darling whom we 
 all loved, who had nothing against her but the 
 weakness of her gentle heart, who had taken 
 refuge amongst us, whom we are no longer able 
 to protect I cannot write the words without 
 tears. Sister Danielle, she has allowed herself 
 to be deceived; she has thought herself in love; 
 she has fallen from God. I cannot doubt it. 
 I learnt it yesterday from a relative of Louise 
 Casale, a widow Madame Rioul, who lives at 
 Montauri. This woman knew nothing of the 
 history of our child, but she perceived the tempta- 
 tion and the persuasion. It was always so easy 
 to persuade Pascale; she yielded so readily to a 
 kind word; she thought their love was good and
 
 THE NUN 187 
 
 innocent. They flattered her, amused her, bound 
 her by their attentions and their presents, until 
 she was at their mercy. They were each other's 
 accomplices, these people, mother and son. They 
 are suspected and feared where they live. Not 
 only is the mother unable to restrain the worst 
 actions of her son, she has served her own vile 
 interests. She knew that in this girl, whom she 
 allowed to be corrupted, she would have an unpaid 
 servant compelled to stay in the house. Pascale 
 fallen, my Danielle! Pascale, almost a saint, 
 given over to brute beasts! How she will suffer! 
 Far more than those would who were not called 
 to a consecrated life. All day long I have thought 
 I heard her cry for help. Is it true, is it true that 
 she is lost?" 
 
 "November 8th. 
 
 "You say 'Go to her, speak to her, take her 
 away.' Do you suppose I did not immediately 
 think of that? Should I be her mother if I did 
 not think of it? The widow, Madame Rioul, 
 tried gently to speak to Pascale, and was repulsed. 
 But she is not I. When I first heard the dreadful 
 news, six days ago, I tried to get away. I went 
 to Madame de Roinnet in her room to ask for leave. 
 Of course, I could not give her my reasons. She 
 was much distressed. She said : ' If you leave us, 
 even for .one day, I cannot answer for the conse- 
 quences. You have been here only three months 
 and you want a holiday already! M. de Roinnet 
 will take advantage of your going to discharge you 
 altogether, and what will become of us without
 
 188 THE NUN 
 
 you?' I was going to say: 'All the same, I 
 must go/ when Guy rushed in; he had been 
 listening. He had a terrible attack. I was 
 obliged to attend to him only. So then I took 
 advice of a confessor. He said: 'Do not give 
 up a clear and certain duty of charity for a mission 
 too likely to fail. The hour is not yet come 
 when you will be heard by her whom you go to 
 seek. When she is able to come to you, you will 
 hear her cries and her tears. Wait!' So I am 
 waiting, but I can hardly live in such torment of 
 mind. My thoughts are not here; they are all 
 with her who is unworthy." 
 
 11 November 22nd. 
 
 "I have another letter from Nimes, but not 
 from Pascale. But first of all, forgive me. I 
 used too hard a word. Unworthy she may be. 
 But you have thought, as I have, of all the things 
 that lighten her sin. She did not seek evil, she 
 was thrown into it. Iniquitous laws cast her 
 into the peril from which she had fled. She has 
 been the poor quarry that dogs and huntsmen 
 drive from its cover to the guns. 
 
 "She is guilty, but the Judge who cannot be 
 deceived will surely not punish her. She had a 
 credulous heart, she was easily touched, she was 
 a most grateful creature. And by these sweet 
 characters they have caught her, and keep her 
 captive! She had no mother; no doubt she 
 thought she had found a real home, a real family, 
 at Nimes. She went there in obedience to me, 
 her Superior. The gentle Pascale had to defend
 
 THE NUN 189 
 
 herself against a man well versed in the art of 
 overcoming women, a handsome man, I am told, 
 a cunning one, cruel under an attractive surface, 
 and a cleverer talker than anyone in Lyons. And 
 she was young, and they lived in the same house. 
 "I will not repeat to you the details that have 
 been told me. You can guess them. It is only 
 the story of a common seduction. You visited 
 with me the unhappy ones of the Lyons streets. 
 The frightful thing is that this is Pascale, and that 
 we cannot help her." 
 
 "Sunday, January 18th, 1903. 
 
 "They tell me that she hardly ever speaks, 
 that she is gloomy and angry, she who was so 
 joyous. No one in the Montauri district knows 
 what a blessed calling was hers, or what a blessed 
 creature she was. Jules Prayou has taken care 
 that no one shall know. The indifferent, the im- 
 pious even, would think such a fall too cruel a 
 scandal. I hear that Pascale is closely watched, 
 closely kept, and hardly ever leaves the house; 
 the time of excursions and fairs and walks and 
 presents is long gone by." 
 
 "February. 
 
 "Our child is more helpless than ever. Prayou 
 has left her for other women. She is his mother's 
 servant, and does all the work of the house, earning 
 only contempt, unpitied and silent. She has not 
 given her confidence to anyone, and no one sees 
 her cry. If she would only speak, and call me!
 
 190 THE NUN 
 
 Has she not suffered enough to make her call me 
 yet, or has she suffered too much? Who can tell 
 me?" 
 
 "Friday, March 27th. 
 
 "The neighbours say that the man often insults 
 her and beats her. And yet the time has not yet 
 come. Madame Rioul met her four days ago in 
 the street and said to her, 'You look ill.' Pascale 
 answered: 'If I do, whose business is it?' The 
 widow said : ' It is the business of those who wish 
 you well, as I do, Madame Pascale, and as Sister 
 Justine does.' Pascale was pale, and turned her 
 head away. She said: 'I don't know what vou 
 mean." ! 
 
 Other fragments of letters during the spring 
 and early summer had brought to Danielle a 
 renewal of sorrow. Then, suddenly, at the end 
 of July, a desperate word had come from Justine. 
 The night before that serene sunrise on the 
 forest of Correze, Danielle had received these 
 hurried lines: 
 
 "I am leaving for Nirnes. My child has not 
 called me, but I know now that she has been 
 brought to the lowest of all disgrace. She is a 
 slave, she is his property. I must set her free. 
 For two days, Danielle, think of nothing, pray 
 for nothing, else. JUSTINE." 
 
 In the forest, following her cows, walks Danielle. 
 It has not been necessary to bid her think of 
 nothing else. No other thought, no other image,
 
 THE NUN 191 
 
 goes up with her into the solitude of the mountain. 
 The path grows steep, it passes between rocks 
 overturned, the trees grow fewer, and the oldest 
 lift up heads ruined by storms. Danielle, all 
 alone with God, walks with her arms out in the 
 form of a cross, praying like Joan of Domremy, 
 like Germaine, like Genevieve. Now and then a 
 square rock between two chestnut trees, standing 
 in the sunrise, has the aspect of an altar.
 
 V. 
 
 PASCALE. 
 
 IT was nine o'clock, and the night was hot; 
 hotter still the dusty breath of the city of Nimes. 
 The soil gave back the heat of the day; and the 
 odour of the gutters, of the cellars, of the houses, 
 of the manure dropped by the carts and crushed 
 by their wheels, of the melon peel and other refuse 
 of fruit lying about the doors all rose together 
 into the weary air. On the hills beyond, a western 
 breeze carried scents of lavender, of rosemary, of 
 mint, and of foliage and thirsty plants. In the 
 streets there was hardly air enough to stir the stale 
 and heavy odours, but when a little motion came 
 all who felt it were glad to be out of doors. The 
 people of Nimes those whom the hot weather 
 had not driven out of town walked to and fro, 
 drank hi the cafes, the wine-shops, and the inns, 
 strolled round the fountains, and sat wherever 
 they found a bench. 
 
 At the head of the wide Cours de la Republique, 
 where lie the fountain gardens, the working-men 
 and shop-people passed and repassed slowly, chat- 
 ting, well pleased, their work over. There was a 
 good deal of laughter. Many girls paraded a 
 fancied beauty. Love intrigues, jokes, small slan- 
 ders, filled all these minds and made all the talk. 
 
 192
 
 THE NUN 193 
 
 No grave thought came by ; one might easily count 
 the faces that looked even slightly serious. Many 
 children were led up and down in the evening air. 
 Soldiers were loitering or going back to barracks. 
 Aloft, beyond the street and above the pine-wood, 
 the Magne tower stood up like a lighthouse, vague 
 and extinct in the night. 
 
 A woman stood motionless near the row of 
 nettle trees, and leant against a gas-lamp. The 
 shadow of the base of the gas-jet fell over her, 
 wavering. Her trade was to be guessed by the 
 signs of her youth, her solitude, and her taking no 
 part in the movement around her. She had her 
 back to the fluctuating crowd. She knew that 
 those who wanted her would come to her. But 
 from time to time her eyes turned askance towards 
 one group among the townspeople. This group 
 was formed by a young man, slender, young, well 
 dressed, wearing a straw hat and a scarf-pin ; by 
 a younger man, with a long, southern body and 
 short legs, and by two women. The man walked 
 to and fro in the lights, narrowing his eyes now and 
 then to make out the thin form of the solitary 
 girl under the lamp-post. He talked continu- 
 ously, with his customary gesticulation and re- 
 curring laughter. At times his eyes and hers 
 met sidelong, and the brief exchange of glances 
 made the woman rigid again. She was afraid. 
 
 This was her third night on that pavement. 
 She was a thing to be used, with no right of 
 complaint. As the man bade her, she waited 
 in the street, the butt of the contemptuous jokes 
 of the passers by, or the object of their random
 
 194 THE NUN 
 
 desires; she had no will, no choice, no name. 
 When the shadow flickered from her bare head, 
 it might be seen that she had beautiful fair hair, 
 thick but short, so that it made a small flat knot 
 behind. 
 
 A man lounging on a seat at a couple of yards' 
 distance caught sight of her, looked again, and 
 stood up. He lurched towards her, and she drew 
 away, slipping behind the lamp-post. The man 
 came on with his arms out, steadying himself. 
 He wore the dress of the drovers of the Cevennes, 
 who bring their herds and flocks to the market at 
 Nimes. His square, coarse face, framed in short 
 whiskers, wore a fixed laugh, and between his fat, 
 earthen-coloured cheeks showed the edges of strong 
 teeth. The girl would have eluded him, but 
 for the young man watching; she was afraid. 
 Even so, as she drew back out of the uncertain 
 shadow into the light beyond, she was more 
 easily seen: she was sweet, she was delicate, she 
 was ashamed, she was afraid. For fear that the 
 drover might take her hands, she thrust them 
 into the pockets of her blue apron. This scene of 
 misery, of sensible and conscious shame, came to 
 pass in the open street amid the voices, the dust, 
 the indifference, or the curiosity of the strolling 
 crowd. The man groped, came against the lamp- 
 post, grasped it, drew up his great stature, and 
 with his free hand seized the woman and dragged 
 her to him to kiss her. She struggled, uttering a 
 momentary cry. There was some laughter among 
 the crowd because here was a harlot who would 
 not be kissed. Someone cried, "Hold on!" A
 
 THE NUN 195 
 
 police agent looked on from a distance. A 
 drunkard rather rough with a wanton it was 
 common, it was normal. There was nothing for 
 the police to do. From a group that had stopped 
 the young man in the straw hat stepped hastily, 
 and came close to the woman. 
 
 "Come," he said in a low voice, "take him 
 home; or must I make you?" 
 
 She looked with terror in the speaker's face. 
 She still struggled feebly against the drover, who 
 held her now by the wrists. 
 
 "You won't do as I tell you?" whispered the 
 young man, who was twirling his watch, with the 
 chain twisting round his ringers, "We'll settle 
 that by and bye. Take him home now, and be 
 quick!" 
 
 Suddenly she succeeded in getting her wrists 
 free by a wrench, turned, and ran towards the 
 Cadereau. A few cheers followed her, but she 
 had not run twenty paces when the drover 
 caught her by the arm. Together they turned 
 off the Cours de la Republique into one of the side 
 streets of the workmen's quarter. The young 
 man, who had also turned to follow, came back ; 
 and one of the two women walking with him 
 watched the fragile and captive figure as it passed 
 out of sight, and said to him with a laugh: 
 
 "You've got trouble at home, I see." 
 
 "Yes, I've had it for a day or two. It's not 
 going to last, though. I shall take care of 
 that." And he struck his fist into his own left 
 hand. 
 
 The hot night dried still further the dry streets,
 
 196 THE NUN 
 
 the people came and went, seeking the open ways 
 and hoping for a wandering breeze. 
 
 It was five o'clock, and the summer morn- 
 ing was limpid. The door of the Prayous' cot- 
 tage, on the waste land, opened to give egress to 
 the feeble figure of a woman who leant against the 
 door-post as though she had turned faint in the 
 fresh air. But there was no wind, and the day 
 would soon be burning. The woman wore her 
 last night's dress, but on her shoulders was a 
 little shawl that fell loose on either side. Pale 
 she was and thin, and in her face was no pleasure 
 at the beauty of the summer morning; her eyes 
 were entirely sad. She pushed before her a wheel- 
 barrow loaded with a great pile of linen under a 
 sheet. As she paused to shut the door behind her, 
 her eyes ranged over all the windows of the neigh- 
 bouring houses. All the women, all the people 
 behind those windows, laughed at her, she thought. 
 They were tenants of the Prayous; they used to 
 bow to her Madame Rioul, Madame Lantosque, 
 Madame Cabeirol, and the rest, and their hus- 
 bands, their brothers, their lovers ; and the Mayols 
 the husband, the wife, the sister, who lived 
 opposite; they all laughed at her now; they 
 knew things about her. They had seen her 
 going down all those months. They must have 
 heard her cry out in the night, when Jules Prayou 
 came home at two o'clock and beat her; when he 
 ran after her up the stairs ; when she opened the 
 window screaming for help. No doubt they were
 
 THE NUN 197 
 
 watching her now from behind some shutter. 
 That widow Rioul, who went out working by the 
 day who was respectable, and boasted of it, she 
 was old. But the tailor's wife in the same house, 
 she had been talked about, pretty things were said 
 of her. She read cheap novels all day, and one 
 could see it in her face. As to the Cabeirols, the 
 little tramway employe and his wife, who had 
 taken the house to the left, what had they to say 
 about her? People who had not paid a penny 
 of rent for six months! They might be quiet, 
 at any rate, and not show how they despised 
 her. Ah! if she had someone to protect her 
 to protect her? She needed to be loved. But 
 there was no one now to love Pascale. 
 
 She took up her burden, crossed the waste 
 land, and reached the road leading down to the 
 torrent. The neighbours had not yet unclosed 
 their shutters. One man only was watering his 
 garden. Beyond the bridge, on the quay, very 
 few shops were open: a wine-shop or two, and 
 here or there a provision shop for the country 
 people. No one was yet at the public washing- 
 tank, roofed with tiles, by the bridge. So much 
 the better. She unloaded her barrow, rolled up 
 her sleeves, knelt at the nearest place by the 
 long basin, and turned the tap by means of 
 which the rushing stream kept those useful waters 
 flowing. A woman passed down the road in a 
 little clanking cart full of milk cans; she did not 
 turn her head towards the tank, and took no 
 notice of the girl who was beginning to wash the 
 household linen of Madame Prayou. A long train
 
 198 THE NUN 
 
 of dust followed the cart. Pascale dipped her 
 linen, soaped it, beat it with the wooden beater, 
 but was obviously unable to work long; after 
 five painful minutes she stopped, closed her eyes, 
 and hung crouching on her heels, with her arms 
 on the cement edging the tank, and her fingers 
 in the running water. The sun began to burn on 
 the tiled roof; the shadows of the houses by the 
 waterside grew shorter and became filled with 
 reflected light. 
 
 Little was left of the aspect of that Pascale 
 who thirteen months before had journeyed to 
 Nimes in search of what she needed protection. 
 Her credulity, her imprudence, a pleasant re- 
 membrance still sounding in her heart of youth, 
 had brought her to these two enemies. They had 
 made haste to corrupt her, and with how many 
 accomplices! The loss of the example of her 
 companions ; the loss of that religious Rule which 
 not only directed the will but practised it, so that 
 by the deliberate election of every hour of the day 
 it grew hi force and dominance over self ; the loss 
 of the tender, the pure, the intelligent love of her 
 Sisters; grief for the destruction of the life she 
 had chosen and of the work that made life worth 
 while all these things served the purpose of 
 Jules Prayou. He had received her with respect 
 and reserve; he had kept the secret of her past 
 which she wished to mourn over alone as another 
 woman would guard the memory of disappointed 
 love; he had taken her part against the preju- 
 dice of the grudging neighbours, slow to admit a 
 stranger; and he had given her unused to pos-
 
 THE NUN 199 
 
 sess anything presents that to her, poor girl, 
 seemed noble. By degrees, yet soon enough, she 
 had been undone. Brief was her error, but it 
 could not be effaced. On the morrow the sense 
 of the irreparable grasped her ; it had never again 
 let her go. It came with the first remorse; it 
 turned repentance to despair. It was now all- 
 dominant. 
 
 "How did I fall?" she said throughout the 
 miserable days. " Unhappy Pascale! To have 
 been what I have been, to be what I am. To 
 have had that mother, that dear father, the 
 companionship of saints ! To have been honoured, 
 respected, cherished, and now to have to avoid 
 the eyes of all chaste women! To have been an 
 elect one, to be a traitress! Well did I know a 
 girl of eighteen my own weakness. My call to 
 the life of the cloister was only distrust of myself, 
 with which He whom I can no longer name had 
 been good enough to mingle a little love of divine 
 things. All is over and done, all is wrecked. The 
 only future I hoped for is barred. Even if better 
 things came again, and the convents were opened, 
 and the nuns went back, there would never, 
 never, never be any place for me. Who would 
 let me teach little girls how to be good and to 
 resist temptation? I am down, and I shall never 
 rise. I am the condemned one for ever, for ever; 
 I am the lost one." 
 
 Soon, too, she had tasted the bitterness of the 
 full knowledge of the plot against her. Brief 
 had been the illusion of love; she was hated, 
 not loved. And she knew that mother and son
 
 200 THE NUN 
 
 had worked together for her fall. She was the 
 mother's servant, and hi a more terrible sense 
 the slave of the son. When the time was ripe 
 he would use his power over her beauty and her 
 youth to the utmost, to the last, to the lowest. 
 He was a needy man, and she was to make money 
 for him. She attempted a last resistance. She 
 wished to kill herself, but she was a lost soul and 
 in mortal fear of the grave. That at least must 
 be put off. Could she fly from the hateful house? 
 Jules Prayou had taken means to hold her. 
 
 Of all she said, of all she did, he was apprised. 
 Pascale felt herself surrounded by a network of 
 treason. Her master was a man to be feared, 
 and many did fear him. This young man, 
 without avowable means of life, without reputa- 
 tion, and without work, had innumerable ac- 
 complices, had surrounded himself with con- 
 nivances. He held the district not only the 
 suburb of Montauri, but the neighbourhood of 
 the slaughter-houses, and all the region of the 
 cattle and sheep market. Though he took no 
 open part hi politics, several political agents 
 paid him a covert court. They said: "It is 
 not a good thing to have Prayou against us." 
 At election time he was flush of money. The 
 very police agents who had been charged to 
 keep a watch on him had entered into treaty 
 with him the man of whom all crime was sus- 
 pected and no crime known. With him they 
 could enter into doubtful wine-shops where he 
 was all-powerful, could drink without payment, 
 and Jules Prayou helped them in inquisitions
 
 THE NUN 201 
 
 they could not entirely evade. At this price he 
 purchased liberty from surveillance for himself. 
 Smugglers of alcohol made use of his experience 
 and of his knowledge of men and places ; poachers 
 found him an expert middle-man. The owners 
 of olive-orchards knew that for a fee to him they 
 would be tolerably well guaranteed against thieves ; 
 at any rate, the whole of their crop would not dis- 
 appear. When the tall young fellow with the 
 soft dark eyes walked through the district all 
 saluted him on the way, and many hats, even, were 
 raised. He answered with a word or with a sweep 
 of the eyelid, according to the importance of the 
 case. Women looked at him. Newspaper-sellers 
 left the pavement to him; the gypsies, who kept 
 their tribe close, gave him welcome to their camp ; 
 wandering musicians and all kinds of beggars, 
 true and false alike, tried to get his favour. 
 And all these people kept him informed. They 
 said: "I saw your girl at the fountain garden. 
 
 I saw her on the Saint Cesaire road." Nor did 
 Pascale ever go out without leave or without a 
 time fixed for her return. 
 
 She was indeed the slave, longing to revolt, 
 but held in deadly fear. She had grown so pallid 
 and was so wasted that the neighbours said, 
 
 II What a face! She won't last long at this rate." 
 She never saw Prayou but a nervous trembling 
 seized her; at times it did not leave her for hours. 
 She had her cough; she often felt feverish; she 
 had frequent painful languor in her limbs. Her 
 faltering blood left her helpless against her tyrant. 
 
 But immeasurably more dreadful was the dis-
 
 202 THE NUN 
 
 tress of her soul, for here was indeed despair. 
 She fought away her memories ten times, twenty 
 times, a hundred times ; they returned: at day- 
 break, at dusk, at the mid-day bells, in those 
 moments of respite that would formerly have 
 been filled with peace. At the suggestion of a 
 face or the sound of a voice the idea came in spite 
 of her: 
 
 "Getting-up time Sister Leonide is pulling 
 the bell. The Angelus we are going across to 
 the church. Now it is the meditation. The 
 sun is setting the little girls are gone. Edwige, 
 my beloved! Sister Danielle! And you on whom 
 we all depended our Mother, Justine! Oh, the 
 horror! Oh, the profanation! I never will see 
 you again. Keep away from my pit, you holy 
 ones, keep away!" 
 
 All was gone, all was lost liberty, the light 
 heart, even the beauty and brightness of those 
 eyes, those golden eyes, where the look of youth 
 was quenched. All had changed except some- 
 thing of her love of children. She had been so 
 fond of them, their confidence, their kisses. 
 
 What a weight of grief she must put aside so 
 that she might work to-day. Work, for what? 
 for whom? 
 
 The morning was wearing on; all the shops 
 were open; the nets were hung out before their 
 doors to keep off the flies. Pascale made another 
 effort, raised her head, and resumed her washing 
 of the linen she had left steeping in the tank. 
 A black figure coming from the bridge darkened 
 the sunshine for a moment and passed on. It was
 
 THE NUN 203 
 
 the widow Rioul with her air of ladylike poverty. 
 She went out early for her work in two households, 
 and was also accustomed to hear daily mass at 
 St. Paul's. She had not seen Pascale, it seemed. 
 In any case, she went her way, the edge of her 
 black dress already white with dust. Since the 
 day, now some months ago, when she had vent- 
 ured to warn Pascale, "I advise you to be care- 
 ful, Mademoiselle; people are talking about you," 
 and had been repulsed, the old woman had not 
 spoken to her. She crossed the open space 
 beyond the tank and disappeared into the streets. 
 The cigalas were many and noisy. The woman 
 at her washing unfastened the neck of her blue 
 bodice, for the heat. She heard voices coming 
 down the hill from Montauri, young voices that 
 she knew, and she named the speakers to herself 
 as they drew near: Marie Lantosque, a tenant of 
 the Prayous ; Madame Mayol, who lived opposite ; 
 and her sister, a young girl who was about to be 
 married. The three women crossed the bridge, 
 and as they passed the tank they turned to Pascale 
 without stopping: "Good morning," they cried, 
 in patois, "Good morning, Madame Pascau! It 
 will be hot enough in another hour." 
 
 They were laughing together, and Pascale fol- 
 lowed them with her eyes, wringing her linen with 
 her two weary hands. "They spoke to me," she 
 thought, "they don't want to show too clearly how 
 they despise me. But what are they thinking 
 about me all the time? Madame Lantosque 
 seemed to be mocking me, I thought." 
 
 She suffered as she invented a conversation
 
 204 THE NUN 
 
 among the three. She had so lost reasonable 
 control that she began to fight with her work, 
 beating the linen in a bitter and helpless rage. 
 For a time anger gave her strength. To have 
 done to have done with it all that was her 
 impotent desire. And as she worked, exhausting 
 herself, a child, a light, a joy, came under the 
 shadow of the roof. It was little Delphine 
 Cabeirol, whom they called Finette, a girl of ten, 
 gay, spirited, with sombre, long hair and lovely 
 eyes, green as olives, and full of childish surprise. 
 Why had she come? She went leaping down the 
 passage where the places are set for the women 
 to kneel at their work, holding a little parcel in her 
 hand ; suddenly, seeing the neighbour, the woman 
 to whom her mother had forbidden her to speak, 
 she stopped. She was embarrassed, and began to 
 unknot her bundle quietly, keeping her head down. 
 Madame Pascale was so busy beating and soap- 
 ing and dipping that perhaps she had not seen 
 her. No, she had paused in her labour; and the 
 eyes that should have been so soft dwelt upon her. 
 Madame Pascale withdrew her hands from the 
 water, and let them rest on her wet apron. She 
 knelt, her thin figure slightly towards Delphine, 
 but did not smile as women do when they want 
 a kiss from a child; nevertheless, in her sad face 
 was an urgent invitation. Both were so quiet that 
 the humming mosquitoes made more noise than 
 they. Pascale looked timorous, as though she 
 might frighten the girl away as one watches a 
 bird. And it was Delphine who spoke first when 
 she saw tears coming into the eyes she met. Her
 
 THE NUN 205 
 
 little things were before her, and a large lump 
 of soap. She was rather a Provencale than a 
 Nimoise, and she used the gentle, old-fashioned 
 Provencale salutation as she said: 
 
 "Good morning, Madame Pascale. I have 
 brought these things for my mother, and she is 
 coming too." She bowed her clear, pale face, 
 which rose again like the ivory key of a piano, and 
 was about to go. 
 
 "Tell me, Delphine, have you had leave to 
 speak to me this morning?" 
 
 "No," said the child, over her shoulder. 
 
 "Then you saw I was unhappy, and that was 
 why you said 'Good morning,' was it?" 
 
 Delphine looked "yes." 
 
 "I guessed that was why. I know little girls 
 I used to know them so well. You are quite right 
 if you think I am unhappy. I am very unhappy." 
 
 The beautiful large olive-coloured eyes were 
 veiled with feeling. 
 
 "Everyone is very wicked to me, Delphine. 
 Will you be kind, little Delphine?" 
 
 The child twisted her hands uneasily, and again 
 looked what she did not speak. "What do you 
 want me to do? It makes me unhappy too to 
 see you so dreadfully sad, and I don't under- 
 stand . If you want me to do something I can 
 do without being too disobedient I will be a 
 little disobedient if you like." 
 
 "I only want you to come and kiss me, little 
 Delphine. No, no. I don't mean that. Give 
 me your hand, just your hand, will you? It 
 would do me good. Nobody loves me."
 
 206 THE NUN 
 
 The child smiled. Was that all? She came, 
 with her two hands out, to be kissed. But before 
 she reached Pascale, she halted, listened, skipped 
 on her light feet, and fled. 
 
 "There's mother/' she said, and in three 
 bounds she was at the other end of the passage, 
 then on the sunny road. Pascale heard some 
 rapid words in dialect between Delphine, who 
 was defending herself, and her mother, who was 
 chiding; and Madame Cabeirol entered. She 
 shifted her child's things so that she should be 
 further away from "that creature." Neverthe- 
 less, she said as the others had done, "Good 
 morning, Madame Pascale," but spoke the words 
 hurriedly and low, so that Pascale did not hear 
 them. She was a Provencale of the small, dry, 
 thin and vivid type. She felt herself, as a married 
 woman, much superior to Pascale. She disap- 
 proved of the disorderly life of the Prayous, and 
 their extravagant expenditure, with an entirely 
 human disapproval, unconnected with religion. 
 But she made no show of it, being a tenant of the 
 Prayous, and a tenant much in arrears with the 
 rent. She would have cut the neighbourhood long 
 since, she said, if the times had not been so bad 
 with Cabeirol. Even so, she would have to go 
 some day soon, on account of her girl, who was 
 sharp and forward, and who would soon under- 
 stand what was going on. Meantime, until her 
 husband got a better place with the tramway 
 company, she must put up with it, but it would be 
 pleasant to have more respectable neighbours. 
 She knelt down and began to rub, to beat, and
 
 THE NUN 207 
 
 to soap, as Pascale was doing. And Pascale, 
 angry at the child's flight, took no notice of her. 
 She had straightened her own dress with a hasty 
 hand. This woman must indeed despise her, to 
 forbid a child of ten to speak to her. "Cruel, 
 cruel! Why should one woman so insult another? 
 one woman so fortunate as she," thought Pascale, 
 "and another so unhappy as I. If she could see 
 something beyond the life I am leading, if she 
 could see my heart, and the infinite disgust, and 
 the loathing what am I thinking of? If she 
 knew what I really am, what I was, she would 
 despise me more than she does a hundred times. 
 She would hold my head under that water and 
 drown me, and put an end to me." 
 
 The two women worked. The sun, reflected 
 from the bright white road and from the water 
 in the basin, lighted their worn faces from below. 
 Madame Cabeirol's was lined by poverty, faded 
 by years of hard life, ill nourished. Pascale's 
 showed the clear signs of disease; there was an 
 ominous transparence in her white cheek, in the 
 delicate ears that might have been those of an 
 alabaster statue, and in her hands that looked so 
 slender in the running water. 
 
 A few people passed by. The noise of the 
 streets went on ; mothers were heard calling their 
 children into the shade. 
 
 Pascale's arms grew lax. She coughed, with a 
 little dry cough, as though her chest lacked 
 strength for a greater effort. Then suddenly she 
 fell back on her heels, her breast rising, her 
 nostrils blue and dilated, her eyes fixed and full
 
 208 THE NUN 
 
 of anguish. In a few moments she leaned her 
 shoulder against the wall at her side. Madame 
 Cabeirol finished her wringing of Delphine's little 
 nightgowns, because it is not good manners to take 
 any notice of people, if they are not one's own 
 relations, at such times as these. After a while, 
 however, she glanced at Pascale, for the fit had 
 passed and the girl was setting to work again, 
 gathering the clothes she had washed, to take 
 them away for drying. Then pity spoke ; for her 
 neighbour was obviously exhausted. The woman 
 was impulsive, and it vexed her to see even 
 those she disliked suffer beyond a certain degree 
 of pain. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "are you not ill, Madame Pas- 
 cale?" 
 
 Pascale replied: "What does it matter to 
 you? Ill or not, I've got to go on." 
 
 Madame Cabeirol's compassion was proof against 
 the hard answer, and she said : 
 
 "I might help you to put your things to dry. 
 I have very little to do this morning as it happens. 
 I've done already." 
 
 She showed her heap of clean linen. 
 
 "I am not used to being helped," said Pascale, 
 "but if you have time to waste you can do as you 
 like." 
 
 Madame Cabeirol left her place, and began to 
 pile the chemises and shirts, handkerchiefs, towels 
 and petticoats that Pascale had washed. Rather 
 stupefied than touched, Pascale watched her, 
 wondering why she did it. She stood idle it 
 was enough labour to draw her breath. The
 
 THE NUN 209 
 
 silence at last irritated Madame Cabeirol's nerves, 
 and she said snappishly : 
 
 " All the same, your being in trouble is no reason 
 for treating people as though they were dogs, is it? " 
 
 "Trouble?" said Pascale, turning her eyes on 
 her neighbour's face. "What do you know about 
 my trouble?" 
 
 "Do you suppose I can't guess it pretty well? 
 A young thing like you shouldn't look so unhappy 
 as you do." 
 
 Pascale kept the hard aspect she had, but she 
 seemed to listen. It was the first time anyone 
 had had compassion upon her since the day on 
 which she had come beneath the roof of Jules 
 Prayou. Four old laundry-women by profession, 
 all talking, came in at that moment and took their 
 customary places. 
 
 "At your age," continued Madame Cabeirol, 
 coming close, with her dark, quick, vivacious head 
 close to the fair abandoned young head of Pascale. 
 "At your age, and with your looks you've got 
 some good looks left, you know ought you to let 
 them treat you as they do?" 
 
 "You heard, then, last night, or the other 
 nights?" 
 
 "Suppose I did. He beat you, didn't he?" 
 
 "Yes, he beat me." 
 
 "You know it's not nice it's a bad business 
 what he makes you do, I mean. I may not 
 be exactly religious, and I allow that a woman 
 has a right to do what she chooses with her own 
 body. But all the same, if you were married to 
 him, he would have to treat you better."
 
 210 THE NUN 
 
 Pascale recoiled. 
 
 " Married to someone else, then, Madame 
 Pascale. Not to him if you don't like him. 
 Don't get angry. You would get some one easily 
 enough. Now, look at me 
 
 Pascale seized her arm. " Never to him, never 
 to any other, never!" 
 
 "Not married already, are you?" 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 "Well, then?" 
 
 Pascale made an effort, took up some of the 
 linen, and said: 
 
 ' ' Don't mind me. I can't get rid of my trouble. 
 I brought it on myself, and when one does that, 
 one has to suffer, that's all. One has to die, 
 anyway. Yes, help me to put out my things to 
 dry, if you will be so kind. It's all you can do 
 for me." 
 
 The woman stood up, saying under her breath: 
 
 "I should run away wouldn't I run? if 
 Cabeirol so much as lifted a hand 
 
 The two women went out together, each carry- 
 ing an armful of white linen, and on the rounded 
 top of the long, low wall that skirts the stream 
 they spread it to the sun. All white things in that 
 light the whitewash of the walls, even the white 
 pebbles in the water, seemed to flame and shine. 
 Dust rose here and there apparently without any 
 wind. A wild impulse seemed to carry it upwards. 
 All things that live for light were full of their joy 
 flies of all sorts and sizes, innumerable cigalas 
 and grass-hoppers by the stream-side. Eleven 
 o'clock had struck some time since. A few chil-
 
 THE NUN 211 
 
 dren were straggling up the hill towards Montauri, 
 and, more slowly after them, men and women 
 weary with their hot morning in the work-rooms. 
 
 Down the hill came one woman, a stranger. 
 She walked from Montauri towards the city. 
 She wore a clumsy and shabby black woollen 
 dress, heavy, horribly hot. In spite of the heat, 
 and in spite of the sweat that bathed her face, 
 she had a little black veil. As she came near the 
 bridge she met Madame Cabeirol, now empty- 
 handed. 
 
 "Will you give me some information I want, 
 dear lady?" asked the stranger. 
 
 "At your service," replied the thin Provengale, 
 peering through the veil. 
 
 "You may know a woman named Pascale 
 Mouvand?" 
 
 "Mouvand? I can't say. People round here 
 would be more likely to call her Pascale Prayou," 
 said the woman, with a laugh. 
 
 The other did not laugh. She said: "That is 
 the person I am in search of. I have just come 
 from the house where she lives. They told me 
 she was washing at the tank. Is that true?" 
 
 "There she is," said Madame Cabeirol, pointing 
 to the women at work. "That is the one, just 
 stooping now to pick up some more of her things. 
 Shall I call her?" 
 
 "Oh, no ; oh, no! Wait a little." 
 
 The Provenale was surprised at the emotion 
 caused by those simple words. The stranger 
 grasped at her own throat as though she could 
 hardly get her breath, trying the while to make
 
 212 T H E N U N 
 
 out the figure she sought, at some twenty yards' dis- 
 tance, under the tiled roof. But she shook her head. 
 
 "My eyes," she said, "are not very good to- 
 day. I can't see her. Will you tell her that one 
 of her friends is here and wants her? I shall wait 
 behind this wall, by the bridge." 
 
 She walked on into the secluded space formed 
 by the parapets of the torrent and the bridge, 
 and by the wall enclosing the washing-place, 
 while Madame Cabeirol went in. Two minutes 
 had hardly passed. The noise of the beating 
 of the linen went on steadily, and the women 
 were chattering without a pause; through all 
 sang the fresh and clear voice of the running 
 water. In the great vast sunshine waited the 
 stranger in black, hearing nothing, conscious of 
 but one thought, one name, one image, one 
 appeal, and all was gathered up in one prayer 
 "Ave Maria." It was never finished. She whom 
 she sought and desired came out, and seeing the 
 stranger, whose veil still left her face recognisable, 
 knowing her, knowing her one friend, her mother, 
 cried out like a child in terror. Her eyes dilated 
 with a look of anguish. She fell back against the 
 wall, her hands flat against its face. 
 
 "You, you!" she panted; and the old woman, 
 with infinite and immeasurable love, called her, 
 very low, very low, by the old name : 
 
 "Sister Pascale?" 
 
 She drew near to the lost one, she held forth 
 those familiar arms. But Pascale pushed her off 
 and hid her head in her hands. 
 
 "No, don't come near me. Go away, go away ! "
 
 THE NUN 213 
 
 "Pascale, I know you are unhappy. I have 
 come to take you away." 
 
 "Don't speak to me. Go away. You don't 
 know, you don't know what I am." 
 
 " I do know. You are my Pascale." 
 
 "I am not. I am another creature. I am 
 something else. You can't take me back. I am 
 damned, I am cursed. Go away!" 
 
 She was crushing her bare face, her bare arms, 
 against the wall. 
 
 Sister Justine touched her shoulder. 
 
 "I want you to come, in the sacred name of 
 the Mercy that has sent me." 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 "I shall take you by force." 
 
 "No no." 
 
 Pascale ran out into the road. But the old 
 woman caught her, seized her by the wrist, drew 
 her to her breast, held her there, and when she 
 felt the fair head stuggled no more, but lay hidden 
 on her shoulder, she said: 
 
 "Pascale, all our Sisters have prayed for you. 
 Sister Danielle has suffered." 
 
 She stopped for an answer, and could hear stifled 
 words more painful to listen to than cries, and 
 more heart-piercing: 
 
 "I can't, I can't be saved." 
 
 "Pascale, Sister Leonide is working for you." 
 
 Pascale spoke no more, but tried to wrench 
 herself from those maternal arms. Desperately 
 Justine pleaded again: 
 
 "Pascale, your own Sister Edwige is undergoing 
 a martyrdom for you. She offers it for you. It is
 
 214 THE NUN 
 
 she who urged me to come. You must not with- 
 stand her; let her save you." 
 
 Pascale, half-hidden in the old Sister's cloak, 
 ceased to strain against her arms. 
 
 "Take me away, then," she whispered at last. 
 
 Sister Edwige had won. The absent ones 
 were there. Pascale raised her head, as though 
 regaining her hold on life after delirium, put her 
 hand to her disordered hair, glancing furtively 
 between her fingers to see if anyone were looking. 
 There were witnesses: workmen, shopmen from 
 the quay, the women from the tank, and all 
 watched with keen curiosity these two one of 
 them a stranger, who had seemed to be quarrelling 
 with the girl, and then had followed that close 
 embrace. 
 
 "Oh," said Pascale, "how difficult it will be 
 to get away! and all the linen out there, and 
 Madame Cabeirol who will ask where I am going, 
 and the others 
 
 She was pulling down her sleeves mechanically. 
 Sister Justine straightened her old cloak. 
 
 "Come, child," she repeated, "come!" 
 
 They left the place. Sister Justine had Pas- 
 cale's arm under hers. Pascale was now weep- 
 ing, in spite of herself people were looking at 
 her. They were saying: "What is the matter 
 with her? Why is she going? Who is the old 
 woman?" 
 
 "Come quicker," said Justine. 
 
 The groups parted to let them pass, and their 
 feet were on the pavement of the road when 
 Pascale heard a man running.
 
 THE NUN 215 
 
 'There he is," she panted; "it is all over; I 
 am lost. Run away, Mother, run away!" 
 
 The old name of mother had broken from her 
 heart. Sister Justine turned and placed Pascale 
 behind her. 
 
 " Don't, don't," said Pascale, "go no nearer. 
 He might kill you." 
 
 Jules Prayou, by an authoritative gesture, 
 called up the spectators. They came running, as 
 though bidden by him to a show. He wore his 
 insolent air, his hard look, his false composure. 
 His jaw was twisted with anger. He went close 
 to Pascale, taking no notice of the old woman who 
 covered her. 
 
 "Go home!" he ordered. "You were running 
 away, were you? You shall see what comes of 
 that. Go home, do you hear me?" 
 
 He pointed the way. Sister Justine pressed 
 forward, her large courageous face defying him. 
 
 "Go home yourself!" she said. 
 
 "And why, pray?" 
 
 "Because I am taking her away." 
 
 Prayou scanned her. 
 
 "You are, old woman? And who may you 
 be?" 
 
 "I am her mother." 
 
 "That is not true; she has no mother." 
 
 "I hold that place. And you, then, what are 
 you?" 
 
 "I am her lover." 
 
 "Go, get yourself another mistress, then; this 
 one is going." 
 
 "You thief, I'll stop you!" cried the man.
 
 216 THE NUN 
 
 "Go for the police!" shouted Sister Justine. 
 "Help us, all good people!" 
 
 Heads appeared at the windows. A group 
 of masons who were lunching in a tavern ran out 
 eating their bread. They saw a shabby woman, 
 much embarrassed by her clothes, out of breath, 
 flushed, opposing foot to foot the great Prayou, 
 the king of the suburb. They saw him put her 
 aside with a single turn of his hand and catch by 
 the arms, close under the shoulders, the ashen-pale 
 and shuddering Pascale, who was straining her 
 head back, recoiling from him. They were inclined, 
 somewhat timidly, to take the woman's part. 
 
 "Come, don't hurt the girl, Monsieur Prayou," 
 said someone. "Let the woman speak. Don't 
 hold the girl in that way, or she may faint. She 
 is free, after all, like the rest of us." 
 
 "Free, is she? Who said that?" cried Prayou, 
 turning his head to search the crowd with his eyes, 
 but keeping his hold. 
 
 The crowd was willing to hear. The old stranger, 
 parted from Pascale, tried in vain to reach her 
 again. 
 
 "You see that old thief who has been to my 
 house," said Prayou's dominant voice, "and who 
 has come down here to get this girl. Go and fetch 
 the police that's just what I want you to do. 
 Pascale will say whether she wants to stay with 
 me or not. Answer, Pascale!" 
 
 He dug with his ringers between the muscles 
 of her arms. She pulled back, with her look 
 of terror, but said nothing. The crowd repeated 
 louder, "Let her go, then, let her go!"
 
 THE NUN 217 
 
 "You do want to stay? Say so!" repeated the 
 man over the convulsed face of Pascale. "A 
 girl who is my own relative, whom I took in when 
 she had not a penny, whom I have kept ever 
 since come, tell them you want to stay," he 
 said again. 
 
 The pale lips answered at last: 
 
 " No, I don 't . I want to go with Sister Justine . ' ' 
 
 A cry rose from the crowd: "Poor girl, poor 
 girl! Hear what she says!" 
 
 Sister Justine strove to speak. The crowd was 
 divided in opinion. "He is right." "No, no. 
 The girl has a right to go!" Women were crying 
 out, raising clenched fists. Then Prayou, lifting 
 his lofty head, cried louder than the clamour: 
 
 "I'll have you to know the whole story. You 
 see that old woman. She is out of her convent; 
 she was a nun, and Pascale was another. The 
 Government set this girl free, and the old woman 
 wants to force her back to a nunnery. Now, 
 friends, her nunnery is in my house, and I mean 
 to take her home." 
 
 He stooped, took Pascale under the knees and 
 round the waist, and carried her off like a sack, 
 for she had lost consciousness. The crowd parted 
 for him, and closed again around Sister Justine. 
 
 "Settle that woman's business!" he cried to 
 them, over his shoulder. 
 
 Followed by one or two women, he strode to- 
 wards Montauri, up the road that led home. 
 Behind him he heard the noise of the crowd that 
 was hustling the woman in mourning, assailing 
 her with the name of thief and ex-nun, pushing
 
 218 THE NUN 
 
 her towards the street, and remembering some 
 of them the denunciations of convents which 
 they had heard at anti-clerical meetings; these 
 insulted, in the person of the stranger, her re- 
 ligious past. 
 
 Jules Prayou went home with his burden, 
 pushed open the door, traversed the corridor, 
 the feet and the skirt of Pascale grazing the wall 
 as he went. 
 
 "What are you carrying? What, Pascale? 
 Has she had an accident? What's the matter?" 
 
 His mother was still screaming after him when 
 he was at the other side of the court, under his 
 own roof, in the little building that looked on the 
 waste land. He was tottering and exhausted. 
 His foot struck the second of the two doorsteps, 
 and he was nearly thrown down. Exasperated, 
 alone, without witnesses, he lifted with a last effort 
 of his strength the body of the girl and hurled it 
 violently against the wall where the stairs began. 
 Her head and her bosom struck the wall, then the 
 helpless figure fell upon the boards, heaped upon 
 the lowest stair, the feet on the threshold. 
 
 She was conscious, but she had not screamed; 
 she groaned once, and then made no more sound, 
 and moved no more. Her face was in the shadow, 
 turned to the wall. A thread of blood crept from 
 her mouth. Prayou stooped to look, and called 
 to his mother, who came running from her room. 
 
 "Well, it's an accident. She was going up 
 stairs and she fell." 
 
 "You helped her to that accident, you brute!" 
 
 "Suppose I did! She was running away, do
 
 THE NUN 219 
 
 you hear? I caught her. I am not sorry that 
 she should know what comes of provoking me. 
 Leave both our doors open, and don't you meddle 
 and take that girl's part, mother, I warn you." 
 
 He looked askance, narrowing his eyes, and 
 turned in his hands the hat he had picked up. 
 
 "The old nun can go and call the police, and 
 welcome. Let her. The police have not sent 
 those women apart to bring them together again. " 
 
 "All the same, you've given her a. bad beating, 
 Jules," ventured the widow, one of whose eyes 
 was swollen. "She doesn't move." 
 
 ' ' The good-for-nothing ! She was running away ! 
 A woman who has been fed a whole year in this 
 house!" 
 
 "But look how white she is!" 
 
 "When she has paid me what she owes me, I 
 shall let her go; not before." 
 
 "Suppose she shouldn't come to again?" 
 
 "Don't give us any sentiment, old mother," 
 he returned, pushing her roughly away. Out- 
 side, in the courtyard, in the narrow shadow of 
 his house, he gave orders to the woman, who, 
 suddenly grown "reasonable," made haste to 
 answer to his directions: "Yes, my boy; I shall 
 see to that; I shall take care; I shall go; that 
 shall be done." When he left her, he took care 
 to walk down the hill without hurry, so that he 
 might be seen to be afraid of no one, but to take 
 his own time, and to go where he pleased, more 
 than ever the king of the district. He crossed the 
 bridge over the Cadereau, and entered the town. 
 As soon as his back was turned, all the population
 
 220 THE NUN 
 
 of Montauri ran to his cottage men, women, and 
 children, who had all been watching. They had 
 seen him carrying home Pascale. What had be- 
 come of her? Had he killed her outright? ' ' I am 
 going to see," said one. "So am I make haste," 
 called another. And one averred that Prayou was 
 gone for the police, and one, for a doctor. 
 
 They tried to get in by Madame Prayou's door, 
 but she sent them away; they turned the flank 
 of the house, therefore, and came by the waste 
 land behind into Jules Prayou's own abode. They 
 were excited and angry. Madame Cabeirol, look- 
 ing like a little Greek fury, was the first, and then 
 came Madame Lantosque, who still held the wood- 
 en spoon with which she had been stirring the 
 soup at home; then Madame Mayol, then two 
 old women, one of them with a crutch. In the 
 passage-room there were only a table and a box, 
 and there at the foot of the stairs lay the motion- 
 less figure. The women gathered to look at her. 
 Some other passion than curiosity was in their 
 faces. 
 
 "Come and see! Do you think she is bleeding? 
 Yes, there's some blood I am sure there is. 
 She has been wounded." 
 
 "Better lift her, poor thing." 
 
 "Lift her, do you say? Do you mean to say 
 you pity her?" 
 
 "That I do. I think she moved. How white 
 her hand is as white as lather." 
 
 "Well, then, go and lift her yourself. I won't 
 touch her. A nun out of her convent I call it 
 disgusting."
 
 THE NUN 221 
 
 "I shall not touch her either." "Nor I." 
 "Nor I." Men were among the speakers. 
 
 "She has only got what she deserved." 
 
 The shrill voice of Madame Cabeirol screamed: 
 "She is a horrid woman! And she gave herself 
 the airs of a lady! When I think that just now 
 I was helping her with the linen ! Well, bleed, my 
 girl, or die if you like. I know now what you are, 
 the lowest of the low. Oh, yes, you can hear me. 
 You are just pretending not to understand, but 
 you understand well enough. You are a disgrace ! ' ' 
 
 "A shame to the whole of Montauri," cried a 
 workman tragically; he had left his luncheon. 
 And the wretched man, who found it hard to 
 pay his rent, pushed forward to the foot of the 
 stair, close to the poor ghastly figure. "You 
 won't find me handing over money to you again, 
 you wretch!" he shouted. And, as though the 
 man's insult had been a signal, all Pascale's 
 neighbours thronged into the passage. All spoke 
 at once, some to revile her, some to say merely: 
 "Leave her alone, don't torment the woman." 
 Protector, defender, there was none. Some lifted 
 her arm and let it fall again to see whether she 
 were conscious; others pushed her with a foot; 
 others merely stared at her in their contempt. 
 Jealousies, obscure rancours, human stupidity in- 
 capable of withstanding an example, had a part in 
 this cruelty; but the chief motive at work in the 
 hearts of these people was doubtless vengeance 
 for the betrayal of a divine ideal. 
 
 The place was still thronged when a voice cried : 
 "Here's Prayou back again!" It was not so, but
 
 222 THE NUN 
 
 the crowd dissolved. Those who had been tim- 
 orously compassionate were the last to go, and 
 they moved away backwards. It was then that 
 a child came springing up the steps, placed her 
 hand against the doorpost, thrust a little dark 
 head within, and peered round towards the foot 
 of the stair. It was Delphine Cabeirol, to whom 
 the outcast had spoken in the morning. 
 
 "You filthy thing, you!" she cried in her fresh, 
 childish voice. 
 
 Then Pascale lifted her head with difficulty, and 
 turned her face to the light. The child fled. 
 
 Pascale lay back again upon the stair and 
 wept. Long she wept alone. 
 
 The sun that day was declining when some one 
 cautiously drew near. It was Prayou's mother, 
 and she was uneasy, and came to look. She 
 raised the fallen figure, and propped it with her 
 two hands against the shoulders. 
 
 "Come, come, Pascale," she said; "no non- 
 sense." 
 
 But when she met those eyes she was afraid. 
 She withdrew her hands. 
 
 "Don't you want to go to your room?" 
 
 The pallid face, stained with blood and tears, 
 remained rigid. But Pascale looked at the 
 woman, with the wild and profound look of a 
 hunted and wounded animal, and her eyes moved, 
 following the motions of her enemy. The woman 
 was aware that she had before her something 
 terrible, a creature brought to despair, on the 
 yonder side of revolt, no pleader for compassion, 
 a creature whom extremity of misfortune has
 
 THE NUN 223 
 
 turned into a judge, and who condemns in si- 
 lence, and has God beyond. 
 
 "You don't want me to touch you? As you 
 like. I'm off. You see what you get by going 
 against him. A nice state he has put you into! 
 And he's still in a rage. What did you want to 
 run away for? You a girl we've kept, who has 
 wanted for nothing." 
 
 She took on a coaxing manner. 
 
 " Listen to me, now. I'll undertake to speak 
 to him shall I? I know he's violent, but once 
 it's over, it's over. Come, your old Cousin 
 Prayou will take your part, if you'll just promise 
 not to do it again." 
 
 The bleeding lips articulated: "I shall not 
 stay!" 
 
 " Where will you go then? Not into the town 
 you know well enough he has forbidden that." 
 
 Pascale struggled to her feet. With her hand 
 against the wall she stumbled to the back door. 
 The woman followed, repeating: 
 
 "Where are you going? I want to know 
 where?" 
 
 Pascale pointed to the far corner of the waste 
 ground. 
 
 "Ah! you are going that way, are you? You 
 have not had enough, I suppose? Do as you like. 
 I'm going in. It's hot enough to kill one out 
 of doors." 
 
 But she did not go in until she had seen Pascale 
 stop at the far end of the open space. Pascale 
 went slowly in the stifling heat among the stones 
 and the dusty tufts of dry grass. She held one
 
 224 THE NUN 
 
 hand to her fair hair, at the place where her head 
 had struck the staircase. She made for the 
 shade, far from the Prayous' house. There were 
 old broken walls on that side, holding hi the soil 
 of the nearest olive-grounds. She sat down, with 
 no purpose or thought except that she would rest 
 awhile at the end of her chain. All the houses 
 had closed their doors and windows to the west, 
 against the late hot sun, and Pascale was feeling 
 a little relief because there were some fifty yards 
 between her and these people, all of whom had 
 made her suffer, when a woman coming from the 
 city entered the space of waste land. Pascale 
 knew her. She was the widow Rioul, in her black 
 dress, with her smooth white hair, her air of dignity 
 and quiet, and her knitting the black stockings 
 always on her needles, the ball of worsted in her 
 pocket. She stopped close to Pascale, as a neigh- 
 bour might, for a chat. Pascale, sitting bent over 
 her knees, did not accost her, but she had to 
 
 answer. 
 
 u 
 
 Listen, Madame Pascale, I want to speak to 
 you." 
 
 "It's a long while since you spoke to me at 
 all. Leave me alone." 
 
 "I did not speak because you would not let 
 me. But I loved you, my child. It was I who 
 told Sister Justine about you. It was I who 
 called her. It was I who showed her this morning 
 the way to Montauri, and who got her away from 
 the wretched people down by the tank. They 
 soon let her go when they saw me taking her part. 
 I saw her safe to the station. I have come with
 
 THE NUN 225 
 
 a message from her. She is at Lyons and she 
 expects you there." 
 
 The widow whispered, as though the olive trees 
 could hear her. 
 
 "I promised her," she said, "that you would 
 go to-night." 
 
 Pascale slowly shook her head, but did not 
 raise it. 
 
 "I tried this morning. I am lost, you see, 
 quite lost." 
 
 "I know that his friends are everywhere; but 
 I have friends about too. Promise to do what I 
 ask, and I will save you, Madame Pascale." 
 
 Gently, seeing that Pascale was listening, she 
 unfolded her plan. She knew in the country 
 near by, beyond the Saint Cesaire road on the 
 slope opposite the Puech du Teil, a small proprietor 
 who lived on his farm all the year round. She 
 had given him notice. At night she would take 
 Pascale across the orchards, where they would 
 meet no one, to the farm. Starting from the 
 Nimes station would be out of the question. 
 Pascale would be hidden and guarded at the farm. 
 She was expected there. Then, at daybreak, 
 Cosse, the farmer, would take her across to the 
 station of Caveirac, or perhaps to some place still 
 more distant. 
 
 "At what time will the train be at Caveirac?" 
 asked Pascale. 
 
 The widow, happy to find that her plan was ac- 
 cepted, said warmly: 
 
 "Thank you, thank you for your confidence. 
 Thank you for being willing to live. How happy
 
 226 THE NUN 
 
 your sisters will be! Listen now to the end; 
 but I must be quick, for I believe that some one is 
 watching us, whether Prayou or one of his spies. 
 As soon as it is dark I shall be at the far end of the 
 olive orchard, near the Saint Cesaire road, on this 
 side, in the enclosure where hiding is easy ; I will 
 take you through the openings in the orchard 
 walls. And now you must have a little food." 
 
 "In his house?" asked Pascale. 
 
 "In his mother's house, yes." 
 
 "I shall not go back there." 
 
 "Ah! you will go because you will need some 
 strength; I cannot take you to my own room; 
 something would be suspected." 
 
 "I won't go; I won't go back." 
 
 "Madame Pascale, if I ask you to go back and 
 to eat their bread as a sacrifice 
 
 The old woman went on her way, to all ap- 
 pearance absorbed in her knitting. But the words 
 she had used were such as had once been pow- 
 erful over the soul of Pascale, and they still had 
 power. 
 
 The evening followed the burning day. The 
 waste ground was as hot as an oven from which 
 the red charcoal has just been withdrawn. The 
 glow was gone from the country. Nothing caught 
 the light except the stone pines on the high hill, 
 and they held sheaves of rays from the west. 
 Pascale stood up. 
 
 When she entered the kitchen, Madame Prayou, 
 surprised, paused in her peeling and slicing of 
 onions. 
 
 "What have you come for?" she asked.
 
 THE NUN 227 
 
 "Give me a towel, I want to wash." 
 
 "In here?" 
 
 "Yes, in here." 
 
 "All right, you can." 
 
 "And let me have some bread as well. I have 
 eaten nothing since morning." 
 
 "Now you are talking sense. You have come 
 round, I am glad to see." 
 
 Pascale said no more. When she had washed 
 away the traces of blood, of tears, and of dust 
 from her face, and had fastened up her hair, 
 shaken loose by the fall, she stood by the window 
 that opened on the road of Montauri, and watched 
 the woman, who was cutting a piece of bread. 
 She loathed that bread. But she said to herself:, 
 "I promised, I will keep my word." The mother 
 of Jules Prayou doubtless had some sense of the 
 significance of this daily action, on this one day. 
 She cut the bread and held it at arm's length, and 
 saw that Pascale, having taken it, did not eat it, 
 but held it awhile in her hand. At last, leaning 
 against the window-sill, she raised the bread to 
 her mouth and ate. 
 
 The widow looked on; puzzled by the novel 
 land of submissiveness in her servant, she began 
 a monologue in which protestations of solicitude 
 for the girl's health were mingled with a few 
 adroit questions regarding the work to be done 
 in the house on the morrow, on the following 
 day, ten days later. Pascale heard not a word. 
 She ate, feeling no hunger. She was thinking 
 of the hour when she must go, of the widow 
 Rioul who might turn traitress, of the road, the
 
 228 THE NUN 
 
 meeting-place to be found, of her own battered 
 body that could hardly stand. 
 
 Suddenly her shoulders shrank against the 
 wall; her eyes wore again their look of terror. 
 Some one was coming up the street, and her im- 
 pulse was to hide. But by effort of will she re- 
 mained at the window, and ate what bread was 
 left, so that Prayou might see her eat it. 
 
 He saw her, with the silent smile of a man who 
 never doubted of success, but whose success had 
 been unexpectedly complete. He did not speak 
 to Pascale; but, seeing his mother busy over the 
 supper, he said to her: 
 
 " Don't expect me this evening, mother. There's 
 a bull-fight at Aries to-morrow, and I am off to- 
 night with two friends of mine 
 
 With his orator's or actor's gesture he swept 
 his hand towards the foot of the hill, where loitered 
 a couple of men. Pascale looked straight before 
 her, but she felt, she felt Jules Prayou's hatred 
 heavy upon her. 
 
 "That's right, my boy," said the mother. 
 "Good-bye till to-morrow night. I shall take 
 care of Pascale." 
 
 The man went out. 
 
 It was then that Pascale looked at him. She 
 followed him with her eyes. She noticed that he 
 had his every-day clothes, the blue suit, old and 
 stained, that he had worn in the morning. 
 
 From her place the widow had not ceased to 
 watch Pascale. Seeing her quiet, seeing her eyes 
 upon the man as he went, she thought: "I 
 was a fool to be anxious. She has eaten our
 
 THE NUN 229 
 
 bread in his presence. There will be no more 
 trouble." 
 
 She was wrong. Pascale's voluntary humilia- 
 tion had begun the work of her deliverance. 
 
 Slowly came the darkness. Fragments of the 
 rays of day, the smouldering of light, filled the 
 evening air. The smallest details of the distant 
 houses of Montauri were still visible, for the equal 
 light came from all quarters of an untroubled 
 sky; and the world was full of witnesses. People 
 were out in the gardens. All along the street there 
 were voices, and those of women and children 
 pierced the still evening, arrow-sharp. The men 
 were drinking in the wine-shops. Farther off, 
 on the side where stood the slaughter-houses, 
 sounded intermittently the flute of a butcher boy 
 who was practising for a public ball; the harlots 
 of the town were to dance to his music at night. 
 
 Towards nine o'clock Pascale leaned out again. 
 She saw the olive trees, in spite of the transparence 
 of the night, massed together hi the dusk, like 
 smoke or rolling clouds. 
 
 "I am going to bed," she said, and rose. 
 
 The widow, dozing, roused herself and replied: 
 "Yes, be quick; you should have gone before." 
 
 Pascale began, involuntarily, to walk with a 
 stealthy silence. She crossed the courtyard, hid 
 herself for a few moments in the passage, then 
 opened the back door and stood alone, afraid of 
 what she was about to do, in the pearly night that 
 covered the hill. The way across the waste was 
 all unsheltered. She skirted it, keeping by the 
 garden walls, and when she reached the upper end,
 
 230 THE NUN 
 
 across which ran a terrace, she climbed it by means 
 of broken stones, and stood among the trees. 
 Hiding for a moment behind a stem she looked 
 back and saw that she had not been followed. 
 Profoundly peaceful was the summer night; the 
 butcher's little flute had ceased ; the sky was thick 
 with stars. Pascale went up by a row of trees, 
 then turned to her left. The whole olive country 
 before her looked like a vague blue sea set with 
 innumerable islands. And from island to island 
 went Pascale, crossing quickly, as quickly as 
 she could in her weakness, shaping her course 
 towards the orchard corner where the widow 
 Rioul was to await her. She reached an en- 
 closing wall, and here, afraid to call, afraid of the 
 sound of her feet among dry leaves, she paused, 
 she went to and fro in search of an outlet. At 
 last she found a foothold on the branch of a 
 dead tree, raised herself, looked over, and there, 
 straight and thin as the figure of a saint in a church, 
 stood the widow among the trees. 
 
 ' l Come qui ck, " said the woman . ' ' Thirty steps 
 or so to your right you will find a way through." 
 
 When Pascale had grasped her friend's hand 
 she grew braver. Together they made their 
 way across the wide orchard down hill, and then 
 across another, up hill, and stood on the crest of 
 the second wave of the billowing country. Here 
 they came upon the cross-roads. The old high 
 road to Saint Cesaire was divided at this point 
 by the wedge of a thick wood, and thence formed 
 two curving ways sweeping apart, widely diver- 
 gent. The wood was enclosed by walls, and at
 
 THE NUN 231 
 
 the point of the wedge stood two black cypresses, 
 the only tall trees on the whole hill-top ; they alone 
 pierced the stars. It was a solitary place, for the 
 little houses the orchard cottages peculiar to the 
 neighbourhood, the mazets were never inhabited 
 except on Sundays. The widow, finding the 
 breach she knew of in the orchard wall, put her 
 head cautiously through, and listened. Then she 
 returned to fetch Pascale. 
 
 " There is no danger," she said. "You have 
 nothing more to fear, you are saved. The farm 
 is close by." 
 
 Nothing stirred as they turned the corner 
 where stood the cypresses, and took a steep path 
 leading them to a gate of rusty iron bars, by 
 which hung the handle of a bell. 
 
 "We must not ring," said the widow, "I can 
 get in." She unfastened the gate and pushed it 
 open. Pascale found herself in an enclosure, 
 with olive trees in the foreground, and further 
 down a pasture that reached to the bottom of 
 the little valley. Opposite rose the hill called 
 the Puech du Teil. The farmhouse was at hand, 
 and the widow knocked at its door. There was 
 no reply ; but soon the two women standing close 
 together could hear a sour voice chiding in patois: 
 
 "Promised, have you? Then you had no busi- 
 ness to promise. You ought to have told me. 
 I don't want a woman of that kind in my house. 
 Not to speak of the danger." 
 
 "Be quiet, Louise," replied a man, "I am not 
 going to leave our old friend standing outside; 
 nor the other, either."
 
 232 THE NUN 
 
 A dragging footstep came to the door; the 
 bolt was drawn, and an old, bent man with a 
 fine face baked and rebaked by seventy southern 
 summers drew back to let the women pass in. 
 They paused on the threshold. 
 
 "Go in, Madame Pascale," said the widow: 
 "I am leaving you with good people." 
 
 " Leaving me?" faltered Pascale. 
 
 "I must." 
 
 "I beg you, I beg you to stay with me. Oh, 
 the night will be so long! I am afraid, I am 
 dreadfully afraid ! " 
 
 Pascale put her arms about the neck of this 
 one friend, the only creature who had loved her 
 in the time now at last at an end. "Stay with 
 me. You can go back to-morrow, when we leave. " 
 
 But she heard the quiet voice in her ear: "It 
 is for your sake I am going back. There would 
 be too much wondering at my absence all night. 
 Something might be suspected. Let me go; do 
 this it is one more sacrifice " 
 
 The two women kissed each other. Pascale 
 went in alone. The door was closed and the bolt 
 was shot. 
 
 "Compose yourself, Madame Pascale," said the 
 old man. "Why, you are as white as a ghost. 
 There's nothing to be afraid of. You're among 
 friends. Among friends, isn't she, Louise? And 
 in the morning, by the first light, we'll be off 
 together to the station at Caveirac." 
 
 Pascale had walked into the middle of a wide 
 hall lighted by a small petroleum lamp at the 
 further end on the chimney-piece. A few chairs,
 
 THE NUN 233 
 
 a table, and an old cupboard were all the furniture. 
 Working clothes hung on the walls, with tools, 
 whips, and harness. 
 
 "As long as a woman isn't married," said the 
 old man, "she's got a right to run away; that's 
 how I look at it. You sit down and make yourself 
 comfortable. A little glass of carthagene would 
 do you no harm. Will you have one?" 
 
 But Pascale walked no further. She was 
 aware of the anger and contempt of a woman 
 seated by the fireplace, out of the circle of lamp 
 light. Louise, much younger than her husband, 
 had hard black eyes, and they wore a look that 
 bade the stranger begone. Yet she had not 
 spoken. Cosse, much embarrassed, went on with 
 his monologue, set chairs, opened the cupboard, 
 and fumbled inside. There was a clatter of 
 glasses. He went to the table. "We are good 
 people, Madame Pascale, good people, who are 
 not going to leave you in trouble. There's a 
 right and there's a wrong, that's how I look at it. 
 I say, Louise, where have you put " 
 
 He stopped, startled. 
 
 Some one had lifted the latch and had driven 
 hard against the door. The bolt held. The 
 farmer and his wife stood close together; Pascale 
 listened, ceasing to breathe. So suddenly deep 
 was the silence that the cigalas were audible, 
 chirping in the night. 
 
 "He is there," then said Pascale. "My poor 
 people, it's all over." 
 
 The door was shaken a second time with 
 violence, and the voice of Prayou called, "Open,
 
 234 THE NUN 
 
 old Cosse, or I shall batter it in. Pascale is in 
 your house." 
 
 "Don't go," breathed the farmer's wife; "don't 
 go, Cosse ; don't go and get yourself killed on her 
 account. He doesn't want you, he wants her." 
 And to Pascale she said, "Go, then, go; why 
 don't you go?" 
 
 Pascale was shrunk, she looked quite small; 
 her eyes, her whole soul, were on the door the 
 door upon which her fate was knocking. 
 
 "Coming, coming," cried the old man. 
 
 He put aside his wife's detaining hands, he 
 hobbled to the wall on which hung the tools and 
 harness. Pascale followed him with her eyes. 
 A storm was within her. The instinctive love 
 of life strove there, and her youth, and her 
 strength, though it had failed under so much 
 agony. The old man went before her. He 
 grasped from the wall the handle of a pick-axe, 
 but he had not yet freed it from the pile of clothes 
 hanging from the same hook, when Pascale 
 stopped him. 
 
 "Leave it alone, I am going. He would hurt 
 you," she said. 
 
 "And what about you?" 
 
 She answered: "He can do me no more harm 
 no more harm now." 
 
 "Are you going to open that door?" asked the 
 voice. 
 
 The old man made another effort to go forward, 
 but Pascale barred the way. Standing before him 
 she made her resolution known. 
 
 "God orders me to go in your place. I have
 
 THE NUN 235 
 
 sinned against Him, and now He is going to 
 forgive me." 
 
 Next she was running to the door, and as she 
 ran she threw over her head, unconsciously 
 preparing for the night air outside, the shawl 
 she had carried on her arm. She undid the bolt. 
 The couple within saw a square of glimmering 
 blue night; they saw a man seizing Pascale and 
 hauling her out; then the square of blue again, 
 the night, their olive trees. And they heard the 
 feet of Prayou and of Pascale hurrying up the 
 path. The man had seized her by the waist. 
 She struggled; at moments she lost her footing, 
 at moments he carried her. So they came to the 
 iron-barred gate. There he relaxed his grip. 
 
 ' ' Now let us have it out, Sister! and take care 
 take care of your skin!" 
 
 She turned on the path and ran. 
 
 "What, again!" he cried. 
 
 She had no strength but the strength of terror. 
 She ran up the narrow path leading to the high 
 road, and the stones rolled and gave way under 
 her feet, and brambles caught her gown. One 
 only hope she had to reach the place where the 
 road divided ; there might chance to be passers-by. 
 And she felt by some instinct that the man would 
 stab her less readily if she kept the left of the 
 path, somewhat out of the easiest reach of his 
 right hand. He ran, trotting without effort or 
 huny, keeping up with the girl who strained and 
 stumbled as she fled. Twice he overtook her, 
 lifting his hand as though the stroke would be 
 then. But he held that murderous hand ; he saw
 
 236 THE NUN 
 
 that she still had a little breath, and he knew that 
 she still could scream. He let her run. 
 
 "Will you come home with me?" 
 
 "Never, never!" 
 
 "Will you come home? If you won't I shall 
 kill you." 
 
 The second time he waited for no reply. She 
 knew that he was feeling in his pocket. She knew 
 then, she knew that she was lost, and she could 
 not scream. They were now near the top of 
 the hill, and the road lay across their path. 
 With a last effort Pascale reached the crest and 
 the two cypresses, and looked, looked in vain for 
 a figure of man or woman in sight. There was 
 none. Prayou had let her gain a little distance 
 in advance of him, and now she heard him behind 
 her running at last in earnest. He was coming 
 up, and coming up on the left. Before he reached 
 her she sobbed. Raising her hands over the dis- 
 tant city, she whispered her last broken words : 
 
 "Miserere mei, Deus." 
 
 Between her shoulders the knife struck and 
 pierced her through, pierced her to the breast. 
 
 Carried down by the violence of the stroke, the 
 body rolled to the orchard wall, to the place where 
 the road turned downhill towards Nimes, and 
 near to the little wood that split the way. 
 
 Prayou leapt, wrenched out the knife, let fall 
 the head with the eyes still rolling in their sockets, 
 ran on the road that followed the line of the hill- 
 summit, vaulted over a wall, sprang from terrace 
 to terrace down the slope, and vanished into the 
 solitary country beyond.
 
 THE NUN 237 
 
 Pascale was already dead. She lay on her 
 back, with the rush of her blood beneath her. 
 It flowed into the furrows made by old storms 
 and floods in the now dry soil. No longer smooth 
 was your tender mouth, poor girl; your golden 
 eyes saw not through the pupils that were wide 
 towards the innumerable stars. The shawl of 
 white wool, drawn over those brows and one pale 
 cheek, had some semblance of the veil. The two 
 cypresses kept watch like tapers in a sanctuary. 
 
 At break of day a milkman's cart, coming from 
 the country, reached the summit of the hill. 
 The horse, aware of the scent of death, shied and 
 turned; a boy leapt out on the road to catch 
 the reins. It was then that he saw the body of 
 Pascale. 
 
 At the same moment there was a cry, for his 
 sister, now also afoot, was running to the place 
 where lay the dead. Together they raised the 
 shoulders from the ground, and then they saw the 
 blood, and it was fresh. 
 
 "Don't touch her, because of the police," said 
 the young man. "No one must touch a body 
 before they come. I'll fetch them. Stay you 
 here, Marie, and keep guard." 
 
 It was four o'clock. The girl sat by the mur- 
 dered head; she was afraid. There was a morning 
 cold in the air. At short intervals she rose, 
 fancying that she heard steps behind the walls. 
 Then she composed herself and thought of the 
 young dead, and looked with pity upon that pallid 
 face. This girl was of her own age; she knew 
 nothing of the stranger, except only her misfort-
 
 238 THE NUN 
 
 une. She looked at the face and at the hair, of 
 a colour so rare and so beautiful, and her com- 
 passion grew, and a tender friendliness crept into 
 her heart. Of old many had felt the same for 
 the living Pascale. 
 
 As time went on, the girl on her watch brought 
 forth her rosary. "I don't know," she thought, 
 " whether this poor thing was of my religion or 
 not ; and she may very likely have been a woman 
 of the town. It does not matter now ; I will pray 
 for her." 
 
 The early broad flood of day opened upon the 
 hill of Montauri and upon the long succession of 
 its neighbour hills. It touched the hands, the 
 chin, the cheek of Pascale. But the fair eye- 
 lashes moved not, and the open eyes were glassy 
 towards the sky from which the stars were 
 gone. 
 
 At about that time the procureur of the Repub- 
 lic, having received notice from the mayor's office, 
 whither the milkman had first betaken himself, 
 hastened to the cab-stand on the boulevard 
 Amiral Courbet, and gave orders that he should be 
 driven "to the scene of the crime." Agents of 
 police, the commissary, and a doctor were already 
 on the road. And in that carriage the body of 
 Pascale was brought to Nimes. It was received 
 at the hospital on the Montpellier road, the place 
 where Pascale in former years had spoken of her 
 own sensitiveness: "I cannot bear to look at a 
 wound or even to hear about it." The gates 
 were opened wide. The carriage stopped, and two 
 men bore the body between them beyond the
 
 THE NUN 239 
 
 principal building into a low amphitheatre that 
 served as a dissecting-room. 
 
 The news of the murder had now roused the 
 city. The magistrates had drawn up the war- 
 rants against the fugitive. Information was at 
 hand it abounded and superabounded. The in- 
 habitants of the western district were ready to 
 tell all they knew to the journalists, the police, the 
 porters at the hospital: "I knew her; so did I, 
 and I; she was a near neighbour," and so forth. 
 
 During the afternoon all the dwellers at Mon- 
 tauri had passed through the large hall in which 
 Pascale now lay; many had wept, many had 
 knelt; all had felt the pity of the living for the 
 past sorrows of the dead; and some had re- 
 proached themselves in silence for their insults 
 against one in grief; she was in grief no more, 
 but she could no longer forgive them. Two 
 women, one leaning on the other, entered that 
 death chamber the widow Rioul and Sister 
 Justine. The old Superior, summoned by tele- 
 gram, had come from Lyons, and on the way from 
 the station she had hardly heard the story told 
 by her friend. "My child is dead," she wept; 
 "my little girl, my Pascale!" She saw nothing, 
 nor did she hear the shop-keepers at their doors, 
 who said: "Look, do you remember? That is 
 the Mother, the nun!" She opened her arms at 
 the door, as she had opened them not many hours 
 before to the lost one, and then she turned, she 
 faltered, she hid her face against the charitable 
 breast at her side. Before them lay the body of 
 Pascale, stretched upon one of three sloping
 
 240 THE NUN 
 
 tables. A sheet was spread upon it up to the 
 breast, leaving uncovered the neck that had been 
 so slender and smooth, and was now livid and 
 falling into hollows like sand when the sea has 
 ebbed. The hair was scattered. And there was 
 no taper near, no flower, not a spray of the box 
 blessed with holy water that is put about the 
 dead ; not a sign that any creature had ever loved 
 Pascale. Only, at the head of the room was the 
 sign of our common hope, the image of Christ upon 
 His cross. And above the head of the table where 
 she lay, a large black-board, placed there long ago, 
 bore the inscription: "We have been what you 
 are ; and what we are now, you, too, shall be." 
 
 The poor maternal heart felt such a pang that 
 Justine for a moment could not look. But, 
 gathering her courage again, she went up to the 
 hard bed of her child, and on the frozen forehead 
 laid the kiss of peace. Then she knelt at the head, 
 and the widow knelt at the feet. There was no 
 sound except that of the attendants walking im- 
 patiently outside, waiting, because closing time 
 had come. 
 
 When Sister Justine rose to her feet, she searched 
 in her pocket and drew thence the large rosary, 
 the sacred rosary that hangs at the girdle of a nun. 
 She joined Pascale 's hands, she bound them to- 
 gether with the chain of beads, the "Our Father" 
 and "Hail Mary" of so many prayers. 
 
 "Sister! what are you doing?" whispered the 
 widow. "Not your rosary surely you do not 
 mean 
 
 "She lost hers," answered Justine. And she
 
 THE NUN 241 
 
 folded the little fingers of Pascale into the position 
 so familiar to them in the days of her purity. 
 Pascale fingered the beads as though she prayed 
 again. 
 
 When this was done, Justine stood awhile, and 
 her eyes lingered on the face she should see no 
 more. 
 
 "You are like the world," she said to her 
 friend, "you are hard. But I know that half of 
 her sin does not lie with her, but with those who 
 drove her from my arms. I know that what 
 share was hers she expiated, and that she volun- 
 tarily accepted death. My child returned to God 
 when she heard me speak the name of Edwige." 
 
 Two days more did Sister Justine remain in 
 the town, sent from administration to adminis- 
 tration, from the police to the prefect and from 
 the prefect to the mayor, all in authority in the 
 disposal of the dead. She pleaded passionately 
 for her desire; a few of the citizens were inter- 
 ested in her efforts and helped her. Finally she 
 gained her cause. She had leave to take her 
 child to the old cemetery of the weavers of 
 Saint Irenee, where lay the Mouvands of the 
 Croix Rousse. 
 
 On the evening of the fourth day the gates 
 of the burial ground of Loyasse were opened for 
 the passing in of the hearse of the poor. It went 
 down beyond the end of the sycamore avenue, to 
 the place where the graves are close together, 
 about a small fort, long disused, whence can be
 
 242 THE NUN 
 
 seen so many hills and so many villages upon 
 their slopes. It was still light. Four women fol- 
 lowed Pascale to her grave. For one day they 
 had clothed themselves again in the dress and the 
 veil of their vows. They had gathered in haste 
 from the utmost ends of France, and on the mor- 
 row they would be gone thither again. They were 
 Sister Justine, Sister Danielle, Sister Edwige, and 
 Sister Leonide. The silk merchant's little treas- 
 ure, the legacy left to their indigence, had bought 
 the ground, had bought the cross hard by, had 
 paid for the journey of the mourners, and no 
 more. Absolute poverty, the poverty that means 
 perpetual separation, was before them all. They 
 knew it, but their thoughts were not for them- 
 selves. Elect souls, their thoughts were thoughts 
 of lore. Of her they thought, for her they prayed, 
 whose face, whose eyes, whose tenderness, whose 
 appeal, were never to pass from their memories 
 on earth. 
 
 And they prayed for the children of their old 
 school, scattered now, and assuredly loved no 
 more as they had once been loved; for their old 
 district and its well-remembered poor, its weak 
 ones, its angry ones, its unhappy ones, for all 
 the sufferings that it was so keen a suffering to 
 be cut off from helping. And they prayed for 
 those who, willing all the evil or not, whether 
 cruel, or only ignorant of heavenly and divine 
 and charitable things, had brought about disaster 
 and had reached their ends. 
 
 The priest finished his service and withdrew, the 
 grave-diggers lowered the coffin, and the earth was
 
 THE NUN 243 
 
 cast upon her who had been Pascale. The Sisters 
 lingered. Once again they were "in community," 
 and thus in obedience they awaited orders. It 
 was only at the word of the Superior that they 
 took leave of the grave and of Loyasse. They 
 might then be seen, close together, on the road to 
 Saint Ire'ne'e, a little huddled group ; they talked 
 fast, trying to say many things in the brief time 
 that was theirs. And the joy of being again 
 together overflowed in spite of the restraining 
 pain. 
 
 On the hill they paused to look once more on 
 the huge city before them; then, at the corner 
 of a solitary lane, they kissed each other, without 
 tears, for this grief was only for themselves, and 
 went their divided ways: two ways, then three, 
 then four. They drew apart and passed into the 
 crowd, and offered to God, on behalf of their dead 
 Pascale, the pang of another and a final parting. 
 
 THE END.
 
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