The Abbess’s Prayers
Sister Sebastienne enters the scriptorium and goes to her desk. A thought strikes her, an observation that somehow previously escaped her notice. After the Master’s death, the Abbess’s face took on the deep, anguished sadness of grief (that nevertheless remained entirely private). When, just a few weeks ago, the venerable Abbot of Cluny brought them the remains of the Master, the community breathed a collective—though unacknowledged—sigh of relief, tacitly reasoning that the Abbess must have known all along that the costly but plain white marble tomb would one day be filled. The bones were respectfully interred; a special mass was celebrated. The Abbot departed, and the Abbess began to spend her nights in the Oratory—kneeling always at the head of the tomb. Praying, presumably. Praying for the Master’s soul, as they all did at frequent intervals. But, Sister Sebastienne realizes, the Abbess has been marvelously altered since the Abbot’s visit. For a year and a half the Abbess was grave and sad, always in the lowest of spirits. She spent long hours in her cell, often through the night. Her face frequently bore the marks of weeping, her eyes the ravages of insomnia. But now—of a sudden—all is changed. The Abbess moves with a light, youthful step. Her voice has something new in it, something Sister Sebastienne never heard before. She glows with happiness, beyond her own usual unique radiance.
The sister opens Ovid to Phyllis, which she must prepare for her next lesson. She will work hard; she will prove to the Abbess that the games she plays with Brother Laudri inflict no torment on her spirit. She plays with fire, certainly, but easily, happily, chastely.
8.
Sister Sebastienne spends as much time studying her lover’s carmen—seeking to flush out his every allusion, pun and witticism—as she does studying Ovid. She notes down the phrases that have been floating in her thoughts, tantalizing little snippets of pleasure, scribing one couplet here, another there, without yet knowing the shape her own carmen will ultimately take. Custom and law guard our love, A chaste life justifies our games. This she writes after the Abbess’s talk with her, needing to be clear that for all its wild excitement, for all it makes her body burn, it is a game, of words and thoughts, exciting but erudite, flirtatious but without scandalous consequences.
It is really all just playing with the Heroides, she imagines saying to the Abbess. Playing so gleefully. So hungrily. One mind to another, speaking one body to another. Chastely.
It is not even anything she need mention at confession (which will soon be upon them, since they always communicate at the feast of Christ’s nativity).
So many heroines in Ovid, all longing and wanting and desiring—and in every case fruitlessly, if articulately. Laudri could not have found better inspiration for seducing her into the playful poetics of love.
9.
Daily the sisters perform the Offices, repeating each gesture and movement and vocalization perfectly again and again and again as God’s handmaids must. Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, Compline—always the same, always perfect, an anthem here, an antiphon there, each psalm in this way, the doxology in that, all of God’s brides moving in unison—rising to their feet at this time, falling to their knees at that, bowing their heads, making the sign of the cross, chanting, chanting, chanting modestly, correctly, adoringly, giving praise, giving thanks, giving reverence to their lord. Brides (though not all of them virgins) cloistered, suspended in time, waiting to be taken by their Bridegroom. Filing into the Oratory, then out, the black robes and the white, silent, orderly, perfect.
