Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER VII.

THE CONVENT-THE MADHOUSE.

DURING a winter visit to one of the Canadian towns, an opportunity offered of my seeing the ceremony of the taking the black veil, by two novices in a neighbouring convent. I was awakened long before daylight, and, in due time, tramping through the deep snow on my way to the place. There had been a gale during the night, the low wooden houses by the road side were nearly covered to the roofs in the heavy drifts; at the corner of each street gusts of wind whirled round showers of sharp, keen poudré, each morsel of which wounded the face like the sting of a venomous fly, and chilled the very blood. The clouds were close and

murky, and the dreariest hour of the twenty-four,

that just before the dawn, was made even more

dismal by the cold glare of the new-fallen snow.

1

A large, white, irregular structure, stood on an open space in a remote part of the suburbs, surrounded by a high wall, with massive gates. Over the entrance were two dim lamps, their sickly flames hardly struggling against the wind for the little life and light they possessed; they, however, guided me, and, passing through a wicket door, I mounted the steps of the chapel, which lay within, to the right hand. On the altar seven tall tapers

were burning, and

round it many

a

brilliant light. The end of the other pers

stood was railed in, the other parts were in

where it

rative darkness. Near the door ten pa

or twelve spectators were standing; some of them were relations of the postulants, but they appeared not to be much interested in, or moved by, the ceremony.

On the right side of the chancel was a return nearly as large as the body of the chapel, separated from it by a grating of diagonal bars of wood, like the lattice-work of cottage windows. This return was appropriated to the devotions of the nuns, who were of a very austere order; they were never allowed beyond the walls, or to see or hear the people of the outer world, save through these bars. I got a place on the steps of the pulpit, nearly opposite

BRA

to the grating, and awaited patiently the solemn

scene.

When the hazy beam of the sun mingled itself with the light of the flaming tapers, the Bishop, in a robe stiff with gold, and covered with the insignia of his holy office, entered the chancel by the private door; two boys preceded him, swinging censers of burning incense, and chanting in a low, monotonous voice. Six priests followed in his train, their heads meekly bowed, their arms folded on their chests, and each in turn prostrating himself before the cross. High mass was then performed with all its imposing ceremony-distant, unseen choirs joining, from the interior of the convent. As the sound of the bell which announces the elevation of the host ceases, the folding doors within the grating of the return are thrown open, and the postulants enter with a measured step. They are clothed from head to foot in white, and chaplets of white roses are wreathed in their hair. Sixty nuns, two and two, follow in solemn procession, covered with black robes; each bears a lighted taper, and an open book of prayer in her hands. As they enter, they chant the hymn to the Virgin, and range themselves along the walls, thirty of a side; their

voices swelling like a moaning wind, and echoing sadly from the vaulted roof.

The two postulants advance up the centre of the return, near to the grating, bow to the host, and are exhorted by the Bishop; while he speaks they sink on their knees, and remain still. Four sisters carry in the veil, a pall of crape and velvet. While they bear it round, each nun bends to the ground as it passes; it is then placed near the postulants, and the priests perform a service like that of the burial of the dead. The thirty dark statues on either side give the responses in a fixed key, of intensely mournful intonation, unlike the voice of living woman. I almost fancy those sombre figures are but some piece of cunningly contrived machinery. But, under each black shroud, there throbs a human heart. School them as you may-crush every tender yearning the young bosom feels-break the elastic spirit-chase love, and hope, and happiness from the sacred temple of the mind, and haunt its deserted halls with superstition's ghosts-bury them in the convent's gloomy walls, where the dull round of life scarce rises above somnambulism-still, still under each black shroud will throb the human heart.

The postulants receive the sacrament, then, one

rises, advances close to the grating, and kneels down before a small open lattice; she throws aside her veil; and, looking calmly at the Host which the Bishop holds before her eyes, repeats the vows after his dictation, in a quiet, indifferent tone. Hers is a pale, sickly, vacant countenance; no experience of joy or sorrow has traced it with lines of thought. Of weak intellect, bred up from infancy within these walls, hers seems no change, no sacrifice; it is only like putting chains upon a corpse. Two of the dark sisters stand behind her; as the last vow is spoken the white veil is lifted from her head, and the black shroud thrown over her.

The second now comes forward: she is on her knees, her face uncovered. How white it is! white as the new-fallen snow outside. She is young, has seen perhaps, some one-and-twenty years, but they have treated her very roughly: where the seeds of woe were sown, the harvest of despair is plentiful-stamped on every feature. And the voice-I never can forget that voicethere was no faltering; it was high and clear as the sound of a silver bell; but oh, how desolate, as it spoke the farewell to the world! It is over-the symbol of her sacrifice covers her; she sinks down ;

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »