When
we reached her austere room, she closed the door and pre-empted my
questions.
'Father,'
her voice was slow and decisive, 'I cannot offer you any explanation
of what you've just seen except that some strange... some terrible
things happened this afternoon in the nearby forest – none of them
witnessed by myself or any other nuns. Because of that I... we...
must show utmost caution...'
'Whose
hair was that?' I interrupted her.
The
abbess continued as if I hadn't said anything, '… about any
conclusions. I hope you'll...'
'Whose
hair was that?' I demanded again. The image of the nun's dead hand
wouldn't go from before my eyes. She paused.
'I
don't know. Some accounts, most absurd, have reached me, but they are
so unbelievable that I won't repeat them to you. All of what I've heard
is confused and none of it has come from sources worthy of any trust.'
She sounded as if the case was closed; I didn't like it.
'I
have every reason', she went on, 'to believe that sister Rosalie had
gone mad before she died.'
'You
mean before she was killed!'
'Father,'
her voice changed, 'I am exhausted. Please come again tomorrow. I
need rest now.' Just then a subdued shriek came from a distant room,
startling both of us. I looked at the abbess to observe her reaction,
but she regained
her
calm
as quickly as she'd lost it.
I noticed
now
she
was
very pale.
'I will come back
tomorrow morning', I said.
'Make
it afternoon',
she
rose from behind her desk,
'I'll
have plenty to see to before then.'
I crossed the threshold into the poorly-lit corridor and stalled
with a gasp – right in front of me stood a dark figure. 'I'll show
you out', it said and I recognised the voice of the nun I'd met in
sister Rosalie's cell.
Outside,
the carriage was still waiting, but the peasant didn't show any signs
of impatience. He must have been properly fed and paid, while I was
inside. Instead, he was all curiosity: 'Is it true, Father?' I was
just about to ask 'what?', when a piercing shout reached us from
within the convent, 'Diable!'
This
was no time to find out which of us knew less about the matter.
'Let's go', I commanded. When we were some distance away, it
came again – 'Diable!' The peasant lashed at the horses and we sped
up. Then we heard it one more time, faintly: 'Diable!' We were
going back down a different route, which was longer but smoother. There
was full moon and I kept looking at it, but drew no comfort from its indifferent light. How I wished both the
natural and man-made darkness could be flooded by sunshine now!
I
was lying sleepless in my bed that night. The events of the long
evening were taking their toll on my imagination. Why did the abbess
behave the way she did? What was she hiding and why? Why did she
decide that honesty wasn't the best policy, especially before a
priest? What if there was a grain of truth in what the peasant had
learnt? What if there were more than one grain? And if all of it was
fantasy, what made people's imagination come up with dark tales of
passion, weakness and death? I was tossing and turning. As I didn't
know any answers to all those questions, I decided to think of what I
knew: that our Lord Jesus Christ was born a man, died on the
cross and saved us – and with that peace-giving truth I finally
fell asleep.
If only my dream had been as reasonable as my faith! The
characters and images of the day stayed awake in my head, and now
all was out of my control: I was at a ball and the abbess was dancing in
a dazzling dress. A young man, an aristocrat of sorts, beckoned me. 'Isn't this what she wanted?', he asked as I followed him into a room with an extremely high ceiling and ornate
walls full of large paintings. There I saw the dying nun, she was young now and beautiful. She stood in the middle of the room, quietly singing an old song,
which I must have known but couldn't recognise. Her eyes were
peaceful, but there were tiny beads of sweat on her forehead, which
reflected the light from the ballroom. She raised her hand to wipe
them off – and the blood and scratches and were still there. I
turned around to ask who she really was, but the young man couldn't
give me an answer – he was not there.
