THE NUN
Strange as it may sound, some of the happiest hours I have ever known have been spent within the precincts of a convent, while of the friendships which have been a joy in my life, none has made me prouder than that of Sister Annunciata. It may appear curious for a man-of-the-world to count a nun among his friends, but no one who has not been privileged to enjoy it, can understand the pure solace of conversing familiarly with a woman who, having renounced the world for what she deems a higher purpose of life, lives entirely apart from our every-day existence, and has no intercourse with it save through the ingenuous medium of young girls’ gossip. For Sister Annunciata belongs to one of the educational orders of sisterhood, and, though she has taken solemn vows for life, and may never go beyond the boundaries of the convent grounds, or again come in contact with the passions and ambitions inseparable from the struggle for life, she yet has a fruitful field of affection among the convent pupils, and thus she keeps her human sympathies in constant activity. Moreover, Sister Annunciata is the favourite of the convent, the beloved of all the girls, and though this naturally leads to certain jealousies, this very human trait of human nature makes an effective contrast with the general placidity of the place. The perfect faith in Divine grace, which is the ruling spirit of the convent, appears beautifully wonderful to one who moves amid the scepticism of the age, but how much more beautiful is it in conjunction with the humanity of these girls, their jealous love for their favourite nun, her impossible efforts not to show preference, and the striving of the other nuns to be equally loved? Though they have given up the large world, they have still their own little one. The beautiful natural craving for affection will not be renounced.
It was Sister Annunciata’s supremacy in the regard of her pupils that procured me her friendship, for, being on a visit with some friends in the neighbourhood of the convent, the young daughters of the house were eager to take me to see their “dear Sister Annunciata.” They were never tired of talking of her, and of the many virtues which endeared her to them, and they would not rest until I knew her too.
The idea of visiting a convent, and talking to a real live nun, was peculiarly fascinating to me, for my notions of convent life were vague and mysterious, and I regarded all nuns as uncanny creatures, living dismal lives in chilly cloisters. That they had renounced the world was sufficient, in my eyes, to invest them with a kind of unearthliness. Therefore, I approached the convent with a weird curiosity which I cannot describe.
The convent stands amid beautiful spacious grounds, composed of lovely gardens, groves, and grottoes, all picturesque and peaceful, with splendid views of sea and mountain around. As we entered the gates, and walked up the broad path leading to the grey stone building, the calm influence of the place began to work its spell upon me, and, as I saw here and there among the trees the black figures of the nuns, walking singly or in couples, suggestions of mediæval romance flitted across my mind. It was vacation time, all the pupils, save one or two, who were orphans, had gone to their homes, and the nuns were enjoying their hours of relaxation in the sunshine. There seemed to be a quiet happiness about the place, which quite upset my preconceived notions about nunneries.
The parlour in which we awaited the coming of Sister Annunciata, was severely simple in its furniture and adornment. But as soon as the Sister entered, I forgot the plainness of the room. I might have been sitting on the most luxurious couch, instead of a stiff horsehair chair, for all it mattered. She seemed to exhale a sweet cheerfulness, and the room was filled with a personality and a life that were entirely new to me. She greeted my girl-companions with warm affection, and joined in their girlish jokes, while she talked to me with an absolute frankness and simplicity I had never met before. She led us out into the grounds, and her merry laughter sounded strangely incongruous with her sombre garb, but as we walked along, I noticed that all the other nuns seemed anxious to show that they were quite happy. And, verily, they seemed so, as they walked among the flowers, or plucked the fruit, or read their books in shady spots, or basked in the sunshine, and talked or meditated. One of them, a good-natured, roundfaced nun, who had been gossiping gaily with my young friends, but had for a long time kept shyly aloof from me, suddenly came up to me and told me that they were all as happy as the days were long.
And it was a place to be happy in, I thought, as I stood in a beautiful grove, where the sunlight peeped through the trees and patched the grass with silver, near to a little sloping eminence whereon rested the chapel, in which the dead Sisters sleep eternally, while beyond some yellow cornfields reached away to the grey walls that marked the convent boundaries, and the further hazy blue sea appeared to carry the picture away into dreamland.
And here, I reflected, these women live away from the world we know, and they find happiness without a struggle, without—but Sister Annunciata is standing by me, and perhaps at this moment she is thinking of the old days before she gave up her life to religion. Yes, I have been talking to her of the outer world, and have named one that she knew long ago as a youth, and I tell her he is now a famous man. And the mention of her boy-playmate awakens old memories, and she tells me of her girlhood.
We are always apt—we worldly folk—to think that no woman becomes a nun, unless she has had some bitter disappointment in love, or seeks to do penance for wordly error, or to escape from sorrow or suffering. Sister Annunciata sought the religious life for none of these reasons. She had enjoyed a happy, careless girlhood, the world had offered her no trials; the pleasures of youth were open to her, as were the joys of happy womanhood. But her sensibilities were not yet awakened, she had never known what love meant, though she had been sought in marriage. So the ordinary social gaieties took but slight hold upon her, and life meant nothing to her but home affections and a passion for the arts.
But one day she saw a strong man suddenly smitten with paralysis, and she realised all at once the littleness of life, and how it should be used, such as it is, as a preparation for a greater. Then all her religious tendencies developed, and she bethought her how to make her life most useful while she was striving for Divine grace. To devote herself entirely to prayer, as many sisterhoods do, seemed to her selfish, and so, while she elected to renounce the world for the sake of her own soul, she felt that she could use such gifts and knowledge as she possessed for the instruction of the youth of her own sex, who sought the educational influence of the convent. Therefore, with the enthusiasm of a lofty purpose she entered upon her novitiate, and then, after two years, as no one questioned her vocation for the religious life, she took the final irrevocable vows that severed her from home and from the world. Her life as a novice had been made smooth for her, and all had endeavoured to show her the alluring side of the religious life, and strengthen her in the sense of duty that impelled her to adopt it. But no one warned her of the arduous life of self-suppression that was before her: no one told her that she was actually more fitted for the world than the cloister; that the sensibilities still dormant in her might some day awaken, when too late to be warmed with the human sympathy that they needed, and then be frozen in her heart, after much pain. So when I knew Sister Annunciata she had lived “unspotted from the world” some ten years or so, and had brought herself seemingly into a spirit of sublime submissiveness.
But had she not suffered terrible affliction of the soul during those years? For her spirit was proud and sensitive, and in small and narrow communities there are small and narrow jealousies, and authority is sometimes tyrannical. But Sister Annunciata is a woman of iron will and indomitable self-command, while she makes the light of faith the only beacon of her life. Therefore she has schooled herself to accept every cross with equanimity, while the natural cheerfulness of her disposition enables her to seem content and happy, as well as to inspire happiness in others.
Many were the talks I had with Sister Annunciata as we wandered over the grassy slopes and through the groves and gardens of the convent; and though the unusual circumstances may have appealed strongly to my imagination, certainly converse with woman never filled me with deeper and keener interest. Her vivacious and sympathetic personality and her renunciation of the world seemed so utterly at variance. She would evince the liveliest interest in worldly affairs, and encourage me to tell her of the men and women who are doing the work of the world, of my own personal friends, of my own feelings, of my mundane interests, and she would discuss all these with me, on sufferance as it were, and then remind herself every now and then, by religious allusions, that her life was utterly apart from mine.
She would love me to talk of poetry and romance, and, somehow or other, we would generally drift thence to religious mysticisms and the problems of life and death, which she would always solve with the logic of faith, and beg me not to try and prove her wrong. Talking to her was not like talking to other women; she could draw my soul out as by some enchantment, and the poetry of the place and its surroundings seemed to weave a spell about me. In her presence my ordinary life seemed so far away, and I suppose she was quite a woman, but to me she appeared always a kind of dream-woman. I never could quite associate her with her surroundings, and yet I could never imagine her anywhere else. It was so incongruous to think of her bright mind being shut away from society, yet she seemed to belong to that grey stone building and the wooded slopes with the sea beyond.
But Sister Annunciata is so different from all the other nuns. Her mental capacity is so much greater that she is not bound by the narrow prejudices of the others, which accounts for her greater sway over the minds and affections of her pupils. But then, perhaps, her Sisters are happier than she is, for all her cheerfulness and her laughter; not that she would ever own that she was not happy, though perhaps she would allow you to use the term “content” in preference. Content she is by reason of her will, and peace she has by reason of her faith and the place; but happiness is not the result of volition, it is an expression of the soul acted upon from without. But Sister Annunciata cannot be happy so easily as the other Sisters, for her soul, being larger and more active, requires more to make it happy; while the Reverend Mother, who has been half a century “in religion,” is as happy as she can imagine it possible to be, so long as she can pray to her heart’s content, and tell her beads in the sunshine. She can conceive no one reading any poetry but that which piously sings the praises of the Saints, and would probably cast up her eyes in horror did she know that Sister Annunciata had ever read Shelley.
“I don’t care to know what they do in the world,” said the old nun to me, when I marvelled that she knew nothing of the worldly events of the day, “we are much happier as we are.” And, after all, it is only habit that makes us crave for news. If I lived far away from the busy hum of men, amid such peace and beauty, I think I should soon grow accustomed to eat my breakfast without the accompaniment of a morning paper. It is possible to school oneself to anything, at least, so I have learnt from my visits to that convent and my friendship with Sister Annunciata, though doubtless a great deal of purposeless self-sacrifice is endured for mistaken enthusiasm.
I wonder if Sister Annunciata would have been happier had she not renounced the world, but pursued a sphere of usefulness outside the convent. Perhaps not, after all. Anyhow, her beloved pupils would not have been so happy, for she is their idol. And maybe when, in the little convent chapel, she pours out her virgin soul in solemn organ strains, or when she communes alone with Nature in those sweet, silent groves, and sends her dreams of higher life across the lovely landscape, she knows more peace than could ever have been hers amid the fever and fret of the toiling world of men.