Sarah Dunant - Sacred Hearts

The room sits stunned.

She starts to jump and dance, as if trying to get her weight off her feet, and the wail turns into a howl as if she is being tortured, while her skirts reach up as far as her thighs. If this is a thing of wonder, it certainly does not appear to be that way for the girl herself. There is surely no ecstasy here. Only panic, terror—and hysteria.

The abbess gets to her first. “What have you done? Novice Serafina, what is this?”

And Serafina turns on her, pushing her hands almost into the abbess’s face and yelling, “It’s Him! It’s Him! She told me He would come!”

“Who told you?”

Now she waves her hands in the direction of the novice mistress, spraying flecks of blood over the heads of the nuns. “See,” she says, “see, Suora Umiliana? I prayed and He came. Christ’s wounds. But oh, oh, loving Jesus, why does it hurt so much? Oooh! Aaah!”

Behind her a few of the other novices are moaning now, as much in fear as in wonder. Suora Umiliana stands transfixed. Inside her, there is a great falling away. She has waited so long for this moment. Yet she is not tasting ecstasy, either. Far from it. She has spent too long in the company of volatile young women not to recognize hysteria when she sees it. This is not God’s work. The novice is suffering from some other ailment.

She is not so proud that she cannot admit it—but even as she is pushing her way toward the girl, something else happens. As Serafina jitters and twirls, howling like a stuck pig, there is a loud clatter as an object drops from the inside of her habit and skitters across the stone floor.

The nuns closest to the girl see it immediately. But it takes the abbess’s picking it up and holding it aloft for its true significance to become apparent to all present: a small shining knife, with what can only be streaks of blood on the blade.

“My herb knife!” Zuana’s voice now rises above the throng. “It is my herb knife. It disappeared weeks ago from the dispensary, when I was ill. She must have taken it then.”

After this no one can say or do anything, because the place is in such uproar. In the middle of it all the girl whirls and howls, shaking her hands in the face of anyone who comes near her so that the blood spatters around the room, until eventually she is restrained by the abbess and the watch sister and a few others of the braver nuns. She continues to spit and struggle as they pin her to the ground. Then, equally as suddenly, she gives way, her body going totally limp and curling in upon itself until she looks more like a pile of rags than a person. “Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry,” she moans, over and over again. “Oh, oh, I am so hungry. Please, please can I eat now? Please, someone, help me.”

On the orders of the abbess she is picked up by the watch sister and carried from the room under the supervision of the dispensary mistress. “Take her to the infirmary and put restraints on her. Come back when you can.”

As Zuana leaves she sees Suora Umiliana dropping to her knees where she stands, her head in her hands.

IN THE INFIRMARY they pick the nearest bed by the door.

Clementia is beside herself with excitement. “Oh, the angel has come! The angel has come! Welcome, poor thing. She is so small now. Oh, no, no, don’t put her in that bed. They all die there.”

No one is listening to her. The girl puts up no fight as the restraints go on. It is as if she is utterly exhausted, almost unconscious. The watch sister stands staring down at her. “I always knew she would come to no good, “ she says grimly. “Still, imagine Suora Umiliana being so fooled.”

“You can go now,” Zuana says. “I will give her something to make sure she sleeps and join you when I can.”

The watch sister, who spends much of her life bored rigid while the convent sleeps, scuttles back to the drama in the chapter room.

Zuana waits until the door closes then leans over the cot. “You did well,” she whispers.

The girl opens her eyes. “Oh, my hands are burning so.”

“I know. But you must lie quietly now. I will bring you something for them later.”

The door opens. Augustina with her blunt face and blunt hands stands waiting. “I am called for?”

“Yes, you are to sit with the novice. Let no one come close to her and be careful. She is very ill indeed.”

But as she starts to rise, the girl pulls at her.

“Suora Zuana.” Her voice is so small that Zuana has to bend her head to her lips to catch the words. “I …I am scared.”

“I know.” She smiles. “But it will be all right.”

By the time she straightens up, her face is grim again.

BACK IN CHAPTER, the convent is on its knees.

“Bring us to safe harbor from the tempest we are traveling through. For while we are not worthy of Your grace, we strive to be Your true and humble servants.”

From the side of her eye, the abbess spots Zuana in the doorway and brings the prayers to a close. She motions for them all to rise and sit again.

“Dear, dear sisters, we have been subject to a dreadful storm—for which, as your abbess, I must hold myself responsible. Ah, Suora Zuana. Tell us, please. How is the girl?”

“She is restrained.”

“Good. Did you have a chance to examine her?”

“Only enough to know that she has wounded herself severely and is pitifully thin and undernourished.”

“Which may have contributed to her madness.” The abbess bows her head for a moment, as if asking now for help outside herself. “However”—she looks up again—“it is perhaps worth remembering that this sad young woman was, well, most erratic in her behavior when she first entered.”

In the fourth row Suora Umiliana sits, pale, eyes on the floor. The room falls quiet. She starts to stand. “Madonna Abbess, I—”

“Suora Umiliana.” The abbess’s voice cuts across her gently. “You will, I know, be feeling this pain more acutely than the rest of us, for you have spent so much of your time and blessed instruction on her behalf. How much more important it is, then, that we ask for God’s understanding on this before we offer up any blame. And if there is blame, it will fall on my shoulders, for I am the abbess. Please, please, dear sister, sit and rest yourself.”

This kindness silences Umiliana faster than any rebuke. It also leaves the floor to Chiara. She lifts herself up, resting her hands on the lion’s heads of the chair. It is a familiar, almost comforting gesture that everyone knows well, which is all to the good, because they are in great need of comfort now.

“You will know, I think, that even before the distressing events of today I have been concerned about the welfare of the convent. We are living in turbulent times. There is change and debate everywhere, and it is not a surprise if some of this anxiety finds its way inside these walls, with disagreements and confusions as to how we should be conducting our lives as nuns. In many cities, others are asking the same questions—and some are being forced to make changes under grave duress.” The abbess sighs. “These past few weeks I have spent many nights in prayer, asking for God’s advice in this, my great task of caring for His flock. And He has taken pity on my distress and come to my aid. He has helped me to understand much. And perhaps the most important thing He has helped me to see is how some of the burden we have been laboring under has come from the presence of this young woman.”

She pauses. The room is utterly still, waiting on her words.

“Dear sisters, I would ask you to consider this now, as He revealed it to me. How since the novice Serafina arrived with us all those months ago, her fury, her disobedience, the fame and glory that came with her voice, her tremendous sudden piety, her illness, her secret confession with its dramatic penance, her exaggerated fasting nigh unto starvation, and now this—this exhibition of fraud and madness—all this behavior has taken its toll on the peace and comfort of Santa Caterina. While we have done our best to absorb and contain her—in particular the work of Suora Zuana in the dispensary, Suora Benedicta in the choir, and the selfless care and discipline of Suora Umiliana—despite all our efforts, this young woman has grown more rather than less distressed. It is perhaps not a surprise.