Fantastic Metropolis

The sister can’t find the words to answer. She’s only glad that the Abbess hasn’t rebuked her with a query as to whether her choice may not have something to do with Ovid’s being so much easier to read than Juvenal.

“His elegiac couplets are moving and beautiful, all the same,” the Abbess says. “So, let us begin with Penelope. Read the whole of it aloud first, and then give me a translation.”

The recitation makes such demands on her concentration that Sister Sebastienne forgets everything but the lesson, even her lover’s couplets. The Abbess corrects her only after she has finished the entire translation, then calls her attention to the text’s interesting figures, until the bell rings calling them to Sext.

The Abbess and the sisters rise and walk in a slow, silent file to the Oratory to perform the Office. As they chant, Sister Sebastienne realizes she is ravenously hungry. The office for Sext is short, but seems interminable. Finally they go to the refectory for the midday meal of lentils, leeks, coarse brown bread, and one of the Master’s drier, denser sermons. Afterwards, Sister Sebastienne returns to the scriptorium, knowing that the Abbess, who has other duties, will return only after Nones, to work with a group of novices and boarders struggling to learn Latin grammar. The sister is happy, confident that it will be an afternoon of clandestine, personal pleasure. Laudri’s eighty-nine verses—and not Ovid—will be her text. Laudri may be no Master Abélard, and she may be no Lady Héloïse, but the pair of them are close enough, she thinks, to play the moon to their betters’ sun.

5.

An hour before Lauds Sister Philippa cries out in her sleep, waking everyone in the dormitory, including herself.

In the Abbess’s absence, the Prioress lights a candle to investigate.

“Oh! ” Sister Philippa gasps, her worn, knobby hand fluttering at her breast. “I had such a dream, such a dream that I’m sure I’m meant to tell it! ”

Many of the younger sisters would rather go back to sleep, but they dutifully sit up to listen.

“In the dream,” Sister Philippa says, her thin, reedy voice trembling and quavery, “we were at Vespers, singing the Magnificat. As we finished, and were turning to file out, I caught sight of a cloud of light hanging above the Master’s tomb. Startled, and feeling an urgent need to make everyone else see it, too, I said loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘Sisters, sisters, do you see the cloud of light hovering above the Master’s tomb? ’ And lo, even as I spoke, the cloud resolved into perfect clarity the image of a robe’s sleeve rising up, out of the tomb, and of a hand rising up from the sleeve falling away from it, thrusting high a shining silver crucifix. I knew all of you saw what I saw, for up and down the line there were gasps and whispers, and many of us fell to our knees in startled, holy awe. And lo, a form sat up, out of the tomb, then stood in the air above it. And lo, sisters, I recognized, without doubt, our Master himself, wearing that stern aspect that we who came with the Abbess to the Paraclete saw when he first visited us here, more severe in its expectations and austerity than has ever been seen even in the Abbot of Cîteaux himself. And the figure opened his mouth and a terrible howling and wailing proceeded from it, causing a great wind to spring up in the Oratory, sweeping and seizing our habits, even scouring the walls and and ceiling, such that all the candles in the Oratory were extinguished. ‘Hear me,’ the figure thundered at us. ‘Sisters, hear me! ’ Those who were still standing fell to their knees and bent low their necks. ‘It is written,’ the figure said. ‘It is written that women must keep silent! It is written that the devil prowls about, ravening like a hungry lion, seeking to devour us. Guard yourselves strictly, you handmaids of Christ, that the uncleanness in your hearts does not invite devils into holy places. Cleanse your hearts and pray without ceasing! I exhort you, I implore you, I command you, sisters! God watches! God knows all! And God will not be mocked! ’ And so saying, the figure became again a cloud of light, which, as a blinding whirlwind, rose high in the air above the altar, where it was sucked into the cross itself. As there was great confusion in my mind, I remained on my knees, too stunned to take in the wondrous sign that had been granted us. But suddenly I came to myself, and realized that all of you, my sisters, had risen to your feet and were moving past me, out of the Oratory. I knew that we must not do this, that it would be disobedient for us not to stay there and pray. So I cried out to the Abbess, who stood to one side, as she sometimes does, watching us as we file out, ‘My lady, this must not be! The sign is clear: we must pray without ceasing! ’ And the Abbess looked at me, and raised her fingers to her lips, indicating to me that by speaking out I had disobeyed the rule. It was then that I awoke.”