



Produced by Michael Wooff





The Legend of Sister Beatrix

Charles Nodier (1780-1844)


Not far from the highest peak in the Jura, but descending a
little down its <DW72> facing west, one could still see, going
on for half a century ago, a mass of ruins that had belonged
to the church and the convent of Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns.
It is at one end of a deep and narrow gorge, much more sheltered
to the north, which produces each year, thanks to its favourable
aspect, the rarest flowers of that region.  Half a league from
there, from the opposite end of the gorge, the debris of an
ancient manor house is visible which has itself disappeared
like the house of God.  We only know that it used to be lived
in by a family renowned for its feats of arms and that the last
of the noble knights to bear its name died in winning back the
tomb of Jesus Christ for Christians without an heir to propagate
his line.  His inconsolable widow would not abandon a place so
conducive to the upkeep of her melancholy, but the rumour of
her piety spread far and wide as did her works of charity and
a glorious tradition has perpetuated her memory for future
generations of Christians.  The people, who have forgotten all
her other names, still call her THE SAINT.

On one of those days when winter, coming to an end, suddenly
relaxes its rigour under the influence of a temperate sky, THE
SAINT was walking, as usual, down the long driveway leading to
her castle, her mind given over to pious meditations.  She came
in this way to the thorny bushes that still mark its end, and
saw, with no little surprise, that one of these shrubs had
taken on already all its springtime finery. She hastened to
get nearer to it in order to assure herself that this semblance
was not produced by a remnant of snow that had failed to melt,
and, delighted to see it crowned, in effect, by an innumerable
multitude of beautiful little white stars with rays of crimson,
she carefully detached a branch to hang it in her oratory before
a picture of the Virgin Mary she had held in great reverence
since childhood, and went back joyfully to take to her this
innocent offering.  Whether this modest tribute really pleased
the divine mother of Jesus or whether a special pleasure, which
it is difficult to define, is reserved for the least outpouring
of a tender heart to the object of its affection, never had the
soul of the chatelaine been as open to more ineffable emotions
than those she felt that mild evening.  She promised herself,
with a joy that was ingenuous, to go back every day to the bush
in bloom in order to daily bring back a fresh garland.  We may
well believe that she was faithful to that promise.

One day, however, when her care for the poor and sick had kept
her busy longer than usual, it was in vain that she hurried to
reach her wild flowerbed.  Night got there before her, and it is
said that she started to regret having let herself be taken over
quite so much by this solitary place, when a clarity calm and
pure, like that which comes to us with daylight, suddenly showed
her all her flowering thorns.  She stopped walking for a moment,
struck by the thought that this light might emanate from a camp
fire made by bandits, for it was impossible to imagine it having
been produced by myriads of glow-worms, hatched before their time.
The year was not far gone enough for the warm and peaceful nights
of summer.  Nevertheless, her self-imposed obligation came to mind
and gave her courage.  She walked lightly, holding her breath,
towards the bush with the white flowers, seized in a trembling hand
a branch which seemed to fall of itself between her fingers, so
little resistance it offered to her, and went back to her manor
house without daring to look behind her.

For the whole of the subsequent night, the saintly lady pondered
this phenomenon without being able to explain it, and, as she was
determined to solve this mystery, no sooner than the following day,
at the same time in the evening, she went back to the bushes with a
faithful servant and her old personal chaplain.  The gentle light
shone there as it had the day before, and seemed, as they drew
near to it, to grow brighter and more radiant.  They stopped then
and knelt down, as it seemed to them this light was coming down
from heaven.  After they had done this, the good priest got up by
himself and took a few respectful steps towards the flowering
thorns singing a hymn of the church and brushed them aside easily
for they opened like a veil.  The spectacle that offered itself
to their sight at that moment inspired such admiration in them
that they stayed for a long time without moving, totally filled
with joy and gratitude.  It was an image of the Virgin Mary,
simply carved in common wood, brought to life by colours given
to it by a brush that was rudimentary and wearing clothes that
gave a naive idea of luxury, but it was from her that emanated
the wondrous splendour that illumined these precincts.  "Hail
Mary, full of grace," said the chaplain, who had now prostrated
himself, at last, and, to judge by the harmonious murmur which
promptly arose through all the woods thereabouts after he had
uttered these words, one could have thought them taken up by a
choir of angels.  He then solemnly proceeded to recite those
admirable litanies in which faith has, unknowingly, spoken the
language of the most elevated poetry, and, following on from
new acts of worship, he picked the statue up so as to take it
to the castle, where it was to find a sanctuary worthy of it,
while the lady and the servant, hands joined together and with
heads slightly bowed, slowly came after, merging their prayers
with his.

I do not need to say that the wonderful image was placed in an
elegant niche, that it was surrounded by odorous candles, bathed
in perfumes, laden with a rich crown, and acknowledged, till half
way through the night, by the hymns of the faithful.  But, in the
morning, it could no longer be found and all the Christians who,
by gaining her, had been filled with such pure happiness, were
much alarmed.  What secret sin could have brought down this disgrace
on the manor house of THE SAINT?  Why had the Virgin Mary left it?
What new resting place had she chosen?  We may doubtless guess.
The blessed mother of Jesus preferred the modest shadow of her
favourite bushes to the dazzle of an earthly dwelling.  She had
gone back, in the midst of the coolness of the woods, to taste
the peace of solitude and the sweet exhalations of the flowers.
All the people who lived in the castle went there at dusk and
found her there, even more resplendent than she had been the
previous night.  They fell on their knees in respectful silence.

"Potent queen of angels!" said the chatelaine.  "This is the abode
you prefer.  Your will be done."

And indeed, not long afterwards, a shrine embellished by all the
adornments that an inspired architect could lavish on it in those
centuries of feeling and imagination rose around that venerated
image.  The great and good of the earth wanted to enrich it with
their gifts.  Kings endowed it with a tabernacle of pure gold.
The fame of Our Lady's miracles spread far and wide throughout
the Christian world and summoned to the valley a multitude of
pious women who dwelt there according to a monastic rule.  The
saintly widow, more touched than ever by the light of grace,
could not refuse the title of mother superior of this convent.
She died there full of days after a life of good works, good
examples and sacrifices which rose up like a perfume from the
foot of Our Lady's altars.

Such was, according to the handwritten records of the province,
the origin of the church and convent of Our Lady of the Flowering
Thorns.

Two centuries had passed since the death of THE SAINT, and a young
virgin in her extended family was still, according to custom, the
sister custodian of the holy tabernacle, which means that she took
care of it, and that it was her job to open the tabernacle on feast
days when the miraculous image was shown to the faithful.  She it
was who had the care of maintaining the ever new elegance of Our
Lady's ornaments, of removing the dust from them and the harmful
insects, of picking, to compose her crown or to adorn her altar,
the most gracious flowers in the garden in their growth and the
most chaste in their colour, forming chains, garlands and bouquets
that attracted in their turn, through the great stained glass window
open to the rising sun, a multitude of purple and azure butterflies,
aerial flowers indicative of solitude.  Among these tributes the
flowering thorn was always given preference when in season, and,
imitated in lieu of all the others with an art that the good nuns
had stolen the secret of from nature, it rested on the breast of
the beautiful Madonna as a thick clump knotted with a silver ribbon.
The butterflies themselves might have slipped up sometimes, but they
did not dare to dwell on these celestial flowers which were not made
for them.

The sister custodian at that time was called Beatrix.  Eighteen
years old at most, she had scarcely been told how pretty she was,
for she had entered Our Lady's house when she was only fifteen,
as pure and unspoilt as her flowers.

There is a happy or disastrous age at which a young girl's heart
understands that it was created to love, and Beatrix had reached
it.  But this need, initially vague and anxious, had only made
her duties more dear to her.  Unable to explain then the secret
motions that agitated her so much, she had taken them to be the
symptoms of a pious fervour which accuses itself of not being
ardent enough, and which feels obliged to love enthusiastically
and to the point of madness.  The unknown object of these loving
tendencies eluded her lack of experience, and among the objects
that occupied the senses of her ingenuous heart, if we can put
it like that, Our Lady alone seemed to her worthy of that deep
adoration for which life itself could scarcely suffice.  This
cult of every passing moment had become the one thing her mind
dwelt on, the one thing that charmed her solitude.  It filled
even her dreams with mysterious languors and ineffable acts of
worship.  She was often to be seen stretched out in front of
the tabernacle, breathing out to her divine patron prayers that
were interspersed with sobs, or wetting the space around the
altar with her tears, and the celestial Virgin smiled no doubt,
from the top of her eternal throne, at that happy and tender
mistake on the part of the innocent, for the Holy Virgin loved
Beatrix and liked to be loved by her.  Besides, she had perhaps
discerned in Beatrix's heart that she always would be loved by
her.

About that time there occurred an event that raised the veil
under which Beatrix's secret had remained so long hidden to
herself.  A young lord in those parts, having been attacked by
murderous footpads, was left in the forest for dead, and, though
he had only preserved at most the feeble semblance of a life
about to be extinguished, the convent servants transported him
to their infirmary.  As the daughters of chatelaines at that
time were, from their earliest years, in receipt of formulas
and recipes with respect to the healing art, Beatrix was sent
by her sisters to the bedside of the dying man to help him.
She put into practice all she had learned of that useful body
of knowledge, but she counted more on the intercession of the
miraculous Virgin Mary, and her long and laborious vigils,
divided between the cares of a sick nurse and the prayers
of a servant of Mary, obtained for her all the success she had
hoped for.  Raymond re-opened his eyes to the light and, in
doing so, recognized his benefactress.  He had already seen
her occasionally in the very castle she had been born in.

"What's this?" he cried.  "Is it you, Beatrix?  Is it you
I loved so much in my childhood years and that the too soon
forgotten acknowledgement of that love by your father and
mine had permitted me to hope for as a wife?  What grievous
twist of fate has let me see you again, chained by the links
of a life which is not made for you, and cut off, without
any going back, from that brilliant world that you were the
principal ornament of?  If you yourself chose this state of
solitude and abnegation, Beatrix, I swear to you, you have my
word, that it was because you did not yet know your own heart.
The commitment that you made in your then ignorance of those
feelings that are natural to all that breathes, is null and
void before God as it is before men.  You have carelessly
betrayed your destiny as a wife, as a lover, and as a mother!
You condemned yourself, you poor, dear child, to long days
of boredom, bitterness, disgust that no pleasure henceforth
will be able to assuage the long sadness of!  It is however
so sweet to love, so sweet to be loved, so sweet to live
again through what one loves in the objects that one loves!
The pure joys of affection add to life twofold, threefold,
fourfold.  What tenderness there is in having a friend who
worships you, who enhances each moment with ever new causes
for pleasure, who only lives to cherish you or please you.
The innocent caresses of pretty children, so fresh, gracious,
happy to be alive, and that a barbarous whim would then have
sent into oblivion!  This is what you have lost!  This is
what you would have lost, Beatrix, if blind obstinacy keeps
you in the abyss you have plunged in!  No," he continued even
more exaltedly, "you will not be ignorant of the plans of
your God and mine, who has only brought us back together
that we may be forever reunited!  You will willingly submit
yourself to the vows of a love that begs to enlighten you!
You will be Raymond's wife as you are his sister and his
beloved!  Do not turn away from him your eyes full of tears!
Do not pull back your hand that trembles in his!  Tell him
that you are willing to follow him and never to leave him
again!"

Beatrix did not answer.  She could not put into words what
she felt.  She escaped from Raymond's weakened arms and
went away troubled, trembling and distraught to fall at
the feet of the Virgin, her consolation and her support.
She wept as she had previously, but now it was no longer
with an aimless and obscure emotion, but with a feeling
stronger than piety, stronger than shame, stronger, alas,
than that holy Virgin whose aid she called upon in vain,
and her tears, this time, were hot and bitter.  Many days
in a row she was seen, prostrate and a supplicant, and
no-one was surprised because all of them in the convent
knew of her passionate devotion to Our Lady of the Flowering
Thorns.  She spent the rest of her time in the sick room
of the wounded man whose recovery now no longer depended
on assiduous nursing.

One night when the church was closed, when all the nuns
had gone back to their cells, when everything, including
prayer, was silent, Beatrix went slowly into the choir
stalls, put her lamp down on the altar, opened the door
of the tabernacle with a trembling hand, turned away with
a shiver, lowering her eyes, as if she were afraid that
the queen of the angels would strike her down with a look
and threw herself on her knees.  She wanted to speak and
the words died on her lips or were strangled by her sobs.
She drew her veil and her hands to her brow.  She tried
to compose herself and calm down.  She made one final
effort.  She managed to tear from her heart a few mixed
up sounds, without knowing if she was uttering a prayer
or a blasphemy.

"Oh celestial benefactress of my youth!" she said.  "You
that I have so long loved alone, and who will always remain
the sovereign of my soul, whatever the unworthy sharing I
involve you in!  Mary!  Heavenly Mary!  Why have you forsaken
me?  Why have you allowed your Beatrix to fall prey to the
awful passions of hell?  You know I have not given in without
a struggle to the passion that devours me!  Today the die is
cast, Mary, and cast forever!  I shall serve you no longer,
for I am no longer worthy to serve you.  I shall go far away
to hide from you the eternal regret my sin fills me with,
the eternal bereavement of my innocence which you are unable
to restore to me.  Let me still now worship you!  Have mercy
on the tears I shed and which at least prove how remote I
have been from the cowardly betrayals of my senses!  Welcome
the last of my tributes as you have welcomed all the others!
If zeal for your altars is worth some gratitude on your part,
send death to this wretch who implores you for it before she
leaves you!"

Having spoken these words, Beatrix got up, and, with fear
and trembling, approached the image of the Holy Virgin.  She
adorned it with new flowers, seized those that she had just
replaced, and, ashamed for the first time in her life of the
pious use she made of them that she no longer had the right
to, she pressed them to her heart, in a scapular that had
been blessed, so as never to part with them.  After that she
gazed one last time at the tabernacle, cried out in terror
and fled.

The following night a coach whisked away at high speed from
the convent the handsome wounded knight and a young nun in
breach of her vows who accompanied him.

The first year that succeeded this event was almost entirely
given over to the exaltation of a love requited.  The world
itself for Beatrix was a new experience of pleasures that
were inexhaustible.  Love multiplied around her all the means
of seduction able to perpetuate her error and encompass her
loss.  She only emerged from voluptuous dreams in order to
awake amid the joy of banquets, among entertainments devised
by strolling players and the concerts of minstrels.  Her
life was one long crazy feast in which the serious voice
of reflexion, stifled by an orgy's clamours, could only
have struggled to make itself heard.  And yet she had not
quite forgotten Mary.  More than once, as she prepared to
dress, her scapular had opened at the touch of her fingers.
More than once she had let drop on the withered posy of
the Virgin a gaze and a tear.  Prayer had come more than
once to her lips, like a hidden flame lurking under ash
and embers, but it had been extinguished there by the
kisses of her abductor, and, even in her ecstasy, a voice
still told her that a prayer might have saved her!

It was not long before she felt the only lasting love is that
which is purified by religion, that only the love of Our Lord
and Mary gives the lie to the ups and downs of our emotions.
Alone among our affections, it seems to grow and get stronger
with time, while other loves burn so brightly and are spent so
quickly in our hearts of ash.  Nevertheless she loved Raymond
as much as she could love anyone, but a day came when she saw
that Raymond no longer loved her.  That day made her foresee
the even more atrocious day when she would be quite abandoned
by the man for whom she herself had abandoned the honours of
the altar, and that dreaded day also came.  Beatrix now found
herself, alas, with no-one to turn to on earth or in heaven.
She sought in vain to console herself with memories and to
take refuge in hopes.  The flowers in the scapular had withered
like those of her happiness.  The well spring of her tears and
her prayer had dried up.  The fate that Beatrix had made for
herself had been realised.  The unfortunate woman accepted her
damnation.  The higher the fall on the path to virtue, the more
ignominious it is, the more irreparable it is, and Beatrix had
fallen from on high.  At first her opprobrium frightened her,
and then she ended up by getting used to it, the spring in her
soul having broken.  Fifteen years went by like this, and for
fifteen years the guardian angel that baptism had granted to her
cradle, the angel with the heart of a brother who had loved her
so much, covered his eyes with his wings and wept.

Oh!  How many treasures those fleeting years carried away with
them!  Innocence, modesty, youth, beauty, love, those roses in
life that only flower once, and, in addition, conscience that
compensates for all other losses!  The jewels that had formerly
adorned her, the impious tributes that debauchery pays to crime,
provided her, for a time, with a resource too apt to dwindle.
She was left alone, abandoned, an object of contempt for others
as for herself, given over to the insolent disdain of vice, and
hateful to virtue, a repellent example of shame and misery that
mothers showed their children to turn them away from sin!  She
wearied of being a burden to pity, of only getting alms that a
pious repugnance often nailed to the hands of charity, of only
being helped on one side by people whose brows blushed to give
her a piece of bread.  One day she wrapped herself in her rags,
which had been when new luxurious clothes.  She decided to ask
for her daily bread or a bed for the night from those who had
not known her!  She flattered herself that she could hide her
infamy behind her wretchedness.  She set out, the poor beggar,
possessing nothing but the flowers that she had formerly taken
from the Virgin's bouquet, falling now, one by one, into dust
under her dried up lips!

Beatrix was still young, but shame and hunger had left on her
brow the imprint of those hideous marks that reveal premature
ageing.  When her pale and mute face timidly begged help from
passers-by, when her white and delicate hand opened jerkily to
receive their gifts, there were none who did not feel that her
life must have been very different at some stage.  Those who
were the most indifferent to her halted before her with a harsh
look that seemed to say: Oh my daughter!  How was it you fell
from what you were?  And yet her own look could no longer reply
to them, for it had been a long time now since she had been able
to weep.  She walked on and on, on and on: her journey seemed as
though it would only ever end with her death.  One particular day
she had been climbing since sun-up, at a bare mountain's back, a
rough and rugged path, without a single house in sight to assuage
her weariness.  All she had eaten were some flavourless roots
torn from cracks in the rocks.  Her shoes, worn to shreds, had
just come away from her bloodied feet.  She felt herself faint
with fatigue and need when, night having come, she was all of
a sudden struck by the appearance of a long line of lights that
were indicative of a large building.  Towards these lights she
made her way with all the strength left to her, but, at the chime
of a silvery bell, the sound of which awoke in her heart a strange
and vague memory, all the lights went out at once, and all that
now remained around her were silence and night.  She nevertheless
took a few more steps with outstretched arms, and her trembling
hands rested on a closed door.  She leaned against it for a moment
as if to catch her breath and tried to hold onto it so as not to
fall.  Her debilitated fingers let her down.  They gave way under
the weight of her body.  "Oh holy Mary!" she cried.  "Why did I
leave you?"  And the unhappy Beatrix passed out on the threshold.

May the wrath of heaven go easy on the guilty!  Nights like this
expiate a whole lifetime of sin!  The keen coolness of the morning
had scarcely begun to bring back to life in her a blurred and
painful sense of her own identity, when she perceived that she
was not alone.  A woman knelt at her side was raising her head
carefully, and staring at her with anxious curiosity, waiting for
her to come round completely.

"God be praised," said the good sister at the convent gate, "for
having sent to us so early in the day an act of mercy to perform
and a sadness to alleviate!  It's a happy omen for the glorious
feast of the Holy Virgin that we celebrate today!  But how is it,
my dear child, that you did not think to pull on the bell or to
use the knocker?  At no time would your sisters in Jesus Christ
not have been ready to receive you.  Well, there we are!  Don't
answer me just yet, you poor lost sheep!  Fortify yourself with
this beef broth that I warmed up in a hurry as soon as I saw you.
Taste this full-bodied wine that will put the heat back in your
stomach and help you move your sore limbs again.  Let me see that
you're better.  Drink, drink down all of it, and now, before you
get up, if you don't feel strong enough to yet, put this cloak
on I've thrown over your shoulders.  Put those little, oh so cold
hands of yours in mine so that I can restore blood and life to
them.  Can you feel already the circulation coming back into your
fingers as I breathe on them?  Oh!  You'll soon be yourself again!"

Beatrix, imbued with tender feeling, grasped the hands of the
worthy nun, and pressed them several times to her lips.

"I am myself again," she said, "and I feel well enough to go to
thank God for the favour he has done me by guiding my steps to
this holy house.  Only, so that I can include it in my prayers,
can you please tell me where I am?"

"And where could you be," the keeper of the gate replied, "if it
is not at the convent of Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns, since
there is no other monastic building in this wilderness for more
than five leagues around."

"Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns!" exclaimed Beatrix with a cry
of joy followed immediately by marks of the deepest consternation:
"Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns!" she repeated, letting her head
fall onto her bosom.  "May the Lord have mercy on me!"

"What's this, my daughter?" said the charitable angel of mercy.
"Didn't you know?  It's true that you seem to come from far away,
for I have never seen a lady's clothing that looks like yours.  But
Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns does not limit her protection to
those who live locally.  You must know, if you have heard speak of
her, that she is good to everyone."

"I know her, and I have served her," answered Beatrix, "but I come
from far away, as you say, reverend mother, and you must not wonder
that my eyes did not recognize at first this place of peace and
blessing.  And yet here is the church and the convent, and the thorn
bushes where I gathered so many flowers.  Even now they still flower!
But I was so young when I left them!  It was during the time," she
continued, lifting her forehead to heaven with that determined look
that imparts self-denial to Christian remorse, "it was during the
time when Sister Beatrix was the custodian of the holy basilica.  Do
you remember that time, reverend mother?"

"How could I have forgotten it, my child, since Sister Beatrix has
never stopped being the custodian of the holy basilica?  She has
stayed among us till today, and will remain for a long time, I hope,
a subject of edification for the whole community, since, apart from
the protection of the Holy Virgin, we know of no surer support under
heaven."

"I'm not talking about her," Beatrix broke in, sighing bitterly, "I'm
talking about another Beatrix who ended up living a sinful life, and
who occupied the same post sixteen years ago."

"God will not punish you for those demented words," said the nun as
she drew her to her breast.  "The distress and the illness that have
affected your mind, have troubled your memory with these sad visions.
I have lived in this convent for more than sixteen years, and I have
never known anyone in charge of looking after the holy basilica apart
from Sister Beatrix.  Being as you are determined to perform an act
of worship for Our Lady, while I'm making a bed up for you, go, my
sister, go to the foot of the tabernacle.  You will find Beatrix there
already, and you will recognize her easily, for divine goodness has
allowed her not to lose in ageing a single one of her youthful graces.
I'll come back for you presently and won't leave you then till you're
completely well again."

Having spoken these words the keeper of the gate made her way back to
the cloister.  Beatrix stumbled as far as the steps leading up to the
church, knelt down on the approach to them and banged her head against
it.  Then she grew a little bolder, got up, and, from pillar to pillar,
went up to the grille where she once more fell upon her knees.  Through
the cloud that had darkened her vision she had discerned the sister
custodian standing in front of the tabernacle.

Little by little the sister drew nearer to her as she made her daily
inspection of the holy place, rekindling the flame in burnt-out candles,
or replacing the garlands of the day before with new garlands.  Beatrix
could not believe her eyes.  This sister was herself, not as age, vice
and despair had made her, but as she must have been in the innocent days
of her youth.  Was it an illusion produced by remorse?  Was it a divine
punishment, a foretaste of those reserved for her by a celestial curse?
Racked by doubt, she hid her head in her hands, and rested it motionless
against the bars of the grille, stammering from quivering lips the most
tender of her prayers from time gone by.

And yet the sister custodian kept on moving.  Already the folds of her
clothes had brushed against the bars.  Beatrix, overcome with emotion,
did not dare even to breathe.

"It's you, dear Beatrix," said the sister in a voice for the dulcet
tones of which there is no word in any language known to man.  "I don't
need to see you to know who you are, for I hear your prayers now as I
heard them then.  I've been waiting for you for a long time, but, as I
was sure you would return, I took your place the day you left me, so
that no-one would know that you'd gone.  You know now what they are,
the pleasures and happiness whose picture so seduced you, and you will
not go away again.  You're here, between ourselves, for the duration
and for all eternity.  Come back with confidence to the position that
you occupied among my daughters.  You will find in your cell, the way
to which you have not forgotten, the habit that you left there, and
you will put on with it your primordial innocence, of which it is the
emblem.  I owed to your love a grace that was out of the ordinary and
which I have obtained for your repentance.  Farewell, sister custodian
of Mary!  Love Mary as she has loved you!"

It was indeed Mary, and when Beatrix, distraught, raised towards her
eyes flooded with tears, when she stretched out to her her trembling
arms making to her an act of thanksgiving broken by her sobs, she saw
the Holy Virgin go up the steps of the altar, re-open the door to the
tabernacle, and sit down again there in her heavenly glory under her
golden halo and under her festoons of thorn flowers.

Beatrix did not go back down to the choir without emotion.  She went
back to see her companions whose faith she had betrayed, and who had
aged, immune to reproach, in the practice of an austere duty.  She
slid among her sisters lowering her head, and ready to humble herself
at the first shout to announce her fault.  Her heart greatly troubled,
she lent an attentive ear to their voices, and she heard nothing.  As
none of them had noticed her departure, none of them paid any heed to
her return.  She threw herself at the feet of the Holy Virgin, who
had never looked so beautiful to her, and who seemed to be smiling.
In the dreams of her illusory life, she had grasped nothing that came
anywhere near such happiness.

The divine feast of Mary (I think I have already said that this took
place on the Feast of the Assumption) was celebrated in a mixture of
of contemplation and ecstasy, the finest moments of which far excelled
past celebrations of the feastday by this community of virgins, without
stain or blemish like their queen.  Some had seen miraculous lights
emanating from the tabernacle, others had heard songs of angels mixed
in with their pious canticles, and had, out of respect, stopped their
singing so as not to disturb the celestial harmony.  It was said that
there had been that day a feast in Paradise as there had been in the
convent of the Flowering Thorns, and, due to a phenomenon foreign to
that season, all the thorn bushes in the area had burst into flower
again so that, outside as well as inside, there were only the scents
of spring.  It was because a soul had come back to the bosom of the
Lord, shorn of all the defects and ignominious shortcomings of our
human condition, and there is no feastday in heaven more agreeable
to saints there.

Only one thing disturbed for a moment the innocent joy of this flock
of virginal doves.  A poor woman, sickly and ill, had been sitting
in the morning on the threshold of the convent.  The nun at the
entrance had seen her and had partially relieved her suffering by
making up for her a nice warm bed for her to rest her weary limbs
in, weakened by privation, and, since then, she had looked for her
in vain.  This wretched creature had disappeared without a trace,
but it was thought that Sister Beatrix might have seen her in the
church where she had gone to pray.

"Have no fear, my sisters," said Beatrix, moved to tears by this
tender concern on their part.  "Have no fear," she went on, as
she pressed the gatekeeper sister to her bosom, "I have seen that
poor woman and I know what has become of her.  She is well, my
sisters, she is happy, happier than she deserves, and happier
than any of you could have hoped for her to be."

This answer allayed all their fears, but it was noted because
it was the first severe word to come from Beatrix's mouth.

After that, the whole of Beatrix's life went by like a single
day, like that day in the future that is promised to the Lord's
elect, without boredom, without regret, without fear, without
any emotions, for sensitive hearts cannot wholly do without them,
other than those of piety towards God and charity towards Man.
She lived for a century without seeming to have aged, for only
the soul's bad passions add years to the body.  The life of the
good is an eternal youth.

Beatrix died nevertheless, or rather calmly fell asleep in that
ephemeral sleep of the tomb that separates time from eternity.
The Church honoured her memory by crowning her with a posthumous
glory.  It made her a saint.

Bzovius, who has examined this story with that solemn critical
spirit that canonical writers offer so many examples of, is
quite convinced that she was worthy of this honour by reason
of the tender fidelity she showed to Our Lady, for it is, he
said, purity of love that makes saints, and I would affirm, not
with much authority admittedly, but in the sincerity of my mind
and heart, that, as long as the school of Luther and Voltaire
cannot offer me a more poignant story than hers, I will agree
with the opinion expressed by Bzovius.






















End of Project Gutenberg's The Legend of Sister Beatrix, by Charles Nodier

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