Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2

orata.-Vol.

er lips parted as she breathed, with a perceptible desire for refreshment in the breath. She held a piece of needlework in her heavy white hands; the needle had been thrust through the linen, but the stitch had remained unfinished, and one pointed finger pressed the doubled edge against the other, lest the material should slip before she made up her mind to draw the needle through. Deep in the garden under the balcony the late

s they wheeled just beyond the wall, with steady wings wide-stretched, up and down; and each one, turning at full speed, struck upwards again and was out of sight in an i

y sadness in a certain interval that came back almost with every stave. But the voice itself was beautiful beyond all comparison with ordinary voices, full of deep and touching vibrations and far harmonic

difference that it is a keener pleasure to him or her that sings than gesture or speech can possibly be. Music, and especially singing, are a physical as well as an intellectual expression, a pleasure of the body as well as a 'delectation' of the soul. To sing nat

sunset sky, and the regular features grew white and straight and square against the deepening shadows within the narrow room. The deep voice trembled a little, and the shoulders had a short, shivering movement under the heavy folds of the dark veil, as the sensation of a pre

hear, and sang on, leaning back in her chair and g

love, dark-

sa

ar

the doorway and speaking to

e sweetly col

f leek, a

Saint

ently. "What follies are you sing

for she was too short and stout, but she had that calm air of assured superiority which takes the place of stateliness, and which seems to belong especially to those who occupy important positions in the Church. Her large features, though too heavy, were imposing in their excessive pallor, while the broad, dark brown shadows all around a

hair, and Maria remained standing b

st not sing in your cell," said th

er veil a little, but she

d in a constrained voice. "I di

deaf. At least, you do not sing as though you were. I will not hav

death," sug

peace of the sisters with your singing. You know the rule, and you

d

? Suppose that the Cardinal had been visiting me, as was quite

inal has often

le who say 'Uncle Priest.' I have told you that a hundred times at

good voice," observed Maria, s

on. The devil is everywhere, my daughter, and makes use of our best gifts as a means of temptation. The Cardinal c

ng. It is about death

Do not argue with me. There is a

f anything else. A long silence followed. Maria was not timid, but she had been accustomed from her childhood to look upon her aunt as an immensely superior person, moving in a higher sphere, and five years spent in the convent as novice and nun had rather increased than diminished the feeling of awe which the abbess

nse the mercy of Heaven, vicariously, so to say, and with a certain royally suppressed surprise that Heaven should be merciful. On the whole, considering the circumstances, she admitted that Maria Addolorata had accepted the veil with sufficient outward grace, though without any vocation, and she took it for granted that with such opportunities the girl must slowl

oal, respectively, of existence and action; to whom the letter of the law is the arbitrary expression of a despotic power, which, somehow, must be looked upon as merciful; who answer all questions concerning God's logic with the tremendous assertion of God's will; whose God is a magnified man, and whose devil is a malignant animal, second only to God in understanding, while extreme from God in disposition. There are good men and women who, to use a natural but not flippant simile, take it for granted that the soul is cast into the troubled waters of life without the power to swim, or even the possibility of learning to float, dependent upon the bare chance that some one may throw it the life-buoy of ritual religion as its only conceivable means of sal

an attack upon the conventual system of the cloistered orders, which system was itself a consequence of spiritual, intellectual and political history, and has a prime right to be judged upon the evidence of its causes, and not by the shortcomings of its results in changed times. What has been said mer

bited by religious communities. It is made up of the cold exhalations from stone walls and paved floors in which there is always some dampness, of the acrid smell of the heavy, leathern, wadded curtains which shut off the main drafts of air, as the swinging doors do in a mine, of a faint but perceptible suggestio

embering her aunt's presence, and with the effort to be silent came the strong wish to be free, to be over there upon those purple hills at evening, to look beyond and watch the sun sinking into the distant sea, to breathe her fill of th

erhaps, and then the being reproved for it-the whole varied by meals of coarse food, and periodical stations in her seat in the choir. The day! The very sun seemed imprisoned in his corner of the garden wall, dragging slowly at his chain, in a short half-circle, from morning till evening, like a watch-dog tied up in a yard beside his kennel. The night was better. Sometimes she could see the moon-rays through the cracks of the balcony door, as she lay in her bed. She could see them against the darkness, and the ends of them were

mere sight of whom false witnesses would shrivel up and die, like jelly-fish in the sun. She not only approved of the convent life, but she liked it. She was at liberty to do a thousand things which were not permitted to the nuns, but she had not the slightest inclination to do

he tomb with the accompaniment of a lifelong funeral service? Why should not God be as well pleased with suicide as with self-burial? Why should not death all at once, by the sudden dash of cleanly steel, be as noble and acceptable a sacrifice as death by sordid degrees of orderly suffering, systematic starvation, and rigidly regulated misery? Was not life, life-and blood, blood-whether dra

vested in death. God was to be pleased with items, and the sum of them. Item, a sleepless night. Item, a bad cold, caught by kneeling on the damp stones. Item, a dish of sweets refused on a feast-day. Item, the resolution not to laugh when a fly settled

ering, of one woman's whole life, almost from the beginning, and quite to the end, with the total annihilation of all its human possibilities, of love

anopy, as abbess of the Subiaco Carmelites. If there had been another sister, less fair, more religiously disposed, that sister would have been chosen in Maria's stead. But there was no other; and t

much, but which said only 'Miserere'; eyes that had looked on love, and that fixed themselves now only on the Cross; cheeks blanched with grief and hollowed as the marble of an ancient fountain by often flowing tears; hearts that had given all, and had been beaten and bruised and rejected. The convent was for them; the life was a life for

aggregated pain, and offer up their sacrifice all at once? And why should it not be right? Did God delight in pain and suffering f

gain, which was beyond her comprehension. At

od how we die?" she asked, scarce

veral seconds before she answered. Her face did not relax, however, nor w

"Do you think that God was not pleased by the sufferings of t

ia, quickly. "But why should we not all

aimed the abbess. "What ar

o accept it. Why would it be less complete if we were led to the altar as soon as we have finished our novitiate and quickly killed? It would be the sa

knee, as she leaned far forward in her seat, with an expression of surprise and

aria?" she aske

but a preparation for death. Why need the preparation be so long? Why should the death be so slow? Why should it be right to kill ours

gs to you and blinds you to the truth, my child. Penance and p

ed Maria, sadly. "That is it-

bbess. "I have done penance and prayed prayers

aking the sign of the horns with her fingers, to wa

e horns with your fingers. It is a heathen superstition, as I have often

the strong habit of submission returnin

should be thankful that during our brief stay on earth this sanctuary has fallen to our lot, and this possibility of a holy life. We must take every advantage of it, thanking Heaven if our stay be long enough for us to repent of our s

on of suicide as a means of grace, and her own attempt at eloquence, she grew rapidly warm, in spite of the comparatively cool draft which was pa

a young girl who had perhaps never heard of Shakespeare and who certainly knew nothing of Hamlet, the question of all q

Him and worship Him, and pray for sinners on earth? And they sing and pray gladly, because they are blessed and do not suffer, as we do. Why should God want us, poor little nuns, to live half dead, and to praise Him with voices that crack with the cold in winter, and to kneel till we faint with the heat in summer, and to wear out our bodies with fasting and prayer and penance, till it is all we can do to crawl to our places in the choir? Not I-I am young and strong still-nor you, perhaps, for you are strong stil

g before Maria, one hand resting on

s, or both! It is the evil one's own doing! Forgive her, good God! She does

tled by the abbess's terrified eyes and excited tone. But she was naturally a far more daring w

st to cry 'blasphemy!'" she s

herself with religious terror. With almost violent hands she d

e cried. "Pray on your knees that this possess

rayed aloud, long, fervently, almost wildly, appealing to God for protection against a bodily tempting