The Hardest Thing to Do by Penelope Wilcock

Author:Penelope Wilcock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2015-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

The

Nineteenth Day

On this day sleet fell, riding wildly on a cruel wind. Every man shivered, so cold to the bone that he could hardly get to sleep at night. The abbey crouched like an animal under a lowering sky. Even at midday the light got up to nothing better than a sullen dusk. In the robing room Father James couldn’t see to cut the cloth. Black against black just blurred into darkness. He left his task unfinished and went through to the scriptorium, where the desks under the windows were all taken, so he had asked permission to light a candle to be able to do work of any sort. Monastic silence, the cheerful quiet of a light heart, the eyes of the soul fixed steadily on Christ, somewhere lost its footing and slipped into a speechless despair, hanging on, waiting out this interminable winter. Easter light had come to feel like a forlorn hope that would never be realized—the season of the mausoleum.

Gusts of wind blew back the fire in the kitchen chimney, and the men worked in a room full of smoke. The bread didn’t cook through to the middle, and most of the brothers endured bellyache through most of the silent afternoon.

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