The Nun (Oxford World's Classics) by Denis Diderot

Author:Denis Diderot [Diderot, Denis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: classics, Renaissance, Literary Criticism, Fiction
ISBN: 0192804308
Google: z5Hd-IDi69cC
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 2005-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

Monsieur B...’s diagnosis proved accurate. The fever abated, quelled finally by heavy sweating, and my recovery was no longer in doubt. I did indeed recover, but I had to convalesce for a very long time.

It was said that in that convent I would suffer in every possible way. There had been something spiteful in my illness. Sister Ursule had hardly left my side. As I regained my health and strength, she began to lose hers; her digestion was upset; in the afternoons she was laid low by bouts of fainting, which sometimes lasted a quarter of an hour. Whenever she fainted, she looked as if she had died, her eyes became lifeless, her forehead was covered in a cold sweat, forming drops which ran down her cheeks; her limp arms hung, motionless, by her sides; the only way to give her a little relief was to undo and loosen her clothing. When she came round after fainting, her first instinct was to look for me at her side, where she always found me; and sometimes, when she still had a little feeling and was not entirely unconscious, she even ran her hand around her, without opening her eyes. The significance of this gesture was so clear that those nuns who had reached out to touch her hand as it groped around, but whom she clearly did not recognize since her hand simply fell motionless, said to me: ‘Sister Suzanne, it’s you she wants, come closer...’ I threw myself at her knees and drew her hand to my forehead, where it rested until she came round. When she regained consciousness, she said to me: ‘So, Sister Suzanne, I’m the one who’s going to depart this world and you’re going to stay; I shall be the first to see her again, and I shall talk to her about you, and she’ll be in tears as she listens (if tears can be bitter, they can also be sweet); and if there is love up there, then why shouldn’t there be crying?’ Then she leant her head on my shoulder, wept copiously, and went on: ‘Farewell, Sister Suzanne, adieu, my friend. Who will share your suffering when I am gone? Who... Oh! My dear friend, how I pity you! I’m going, I can feel it, I’m going. If you were happy, I’d be so sorry to die!’

Her condition terrified me; I spoke to the Mother Superior. I wanted her to be moved to the infirmary and excused from the services and the other arduous duties in the convent, and I wanted a doctor to be called, but the reply always came that there was nothing wrong with her and that her fainting fits would pass of their own accord; and dear Sister Ursule wanted nothing more than to fulfil her duties and to participate in the communal life of the convent. One day, after matins, which she had attended, she failed to reappear. I thought she must be very ill. As soon as the morning office was over, I rushed to her room.

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