Free Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen Page A

with intensity, “I have been boring you, haven’t I.” She angrily goes to the wooden card catalog and squints at her own handwriting there until the novices get up and hurry out.
    “Sister, I’m sorry. I had no intention—”
    Sister Marguerite interrupts the postulant by nastily smiling and saying, “We all have intentions, Mariette. Even if we don’t understand them. And you, my dear sweet child, are a flirt.”
     
    Mass of Saint Teresa of Avila, Virgin.
     
    She uses hot pads as she heaves a sloshing tin washtub along a kitchen aisle to the table where Sister Hermance is stacking the saucers and milk bowls from Mixt. “We have no more soap,” Sister Hermance whispers.
    Mariette does not speak. She is peering down at the gray waltz of steam and the air bubbles quivering up from the scorched tin bottom. She looks left and ascertains that Sister Hermance is licking a spoon of pastry batter as she counts the soup bowls in the dish cupboard.
    Mariette prays for sorrow and contrition as she turns up her black sleeves and pauses. She then sinks her hands into the penance of hot water, pressing them down to the tin until her palms scald. She winces with pain as she prays.
    Sister Hermance heavily nudges into her as she gathers up Mariette’s reddened hands. “Enough,” she says. She tenderly blows on Mariette’s palms like a nursemaid and softly pets them with a stick of butter. “Were you thinking of the souls in purgatory?”
    Mariette turns away from her. “I just wanted to hurt.”
     
    Mass of Saint Ursula and Companions, Virgins, Martyrs.
     
    Wrens are cheeping wildly and flying from branch to branch in the junipers.
     
    Winter is still just a hint of purple and gold in the hilltop maples. High above them there is a faint sickle moon and twilight skies of indigo blue fading to beryl and green at the treeline.
     
    Sister Dominique strolls in the garth at collation. She hears words from The Imitation of Christ . Wisps of smoke unwrap from the stovepipe. She rolls pebbles in her hand.
     
    Workhorses noisily slurp water from a tank and simultaneously pause. Ears twitching, a pregnant mare raises her nose and sniffs the wind in two directions. Her tail flicks and the horses drink again.
     
    Sister Monique. Sister Saint-Léon. Sister Emmanuelle. Walking in the Gethsemani garden. Wincing and smiling at talk of infants.
     
    Star. Another there. And there.
     
    Compline and dismissal.
     
    Mariette gets into her nightgown and kneels on the floor to hastily pen another letter, her hand moving with great speed and urgency across the page.
    21 October 1906
     
    Either they think that I have been false and dissembling and too good to be true, or they think that I have been so blessed by Our Lord that I am hardly human, that Christ has rewarded this postulant with perfect bliss .
    Well, it is not always so for me. The hardness and loneliness of our sisterhood possess me when I am least prepared to chase the ill-feelings from me with prayer. Weeks have passed since I have experienced the sweetness of Christ in Holy Communion. Every joy and consolation of the Church has disappeared like jewels dropped from my hand into snow. Temptations that never troubled me in the world have now been bestowed on me by Satan in this holiest of places. Sins from my past rise up to haunt me and remind me of my pettiness and weakness so that it seems God could have only utter hatred and contempt for me .
    My soul has become a black house furnished in sorrow and pity. I have been dreaming, it seems, a twelve-year dream which has left me tired and weary. What has happened to me, Père Marriott? Where are the holy graces and consolations that brought me into religious life? And where is Jesus? He comes no more when I call to him. I seek him in vain; he answers my questions no more. I shall always love him, of course, but I fear that I shall never again dwell in his love, and I know that I cannot live without him .
     
    She puts down her