Free Glorious Ones by Francine Prose Page B

had fallen silent.
    “ ‘She has been a good nun for many years,’ she began, as if apologizing for her sister’s behavior. ‘For that reason, our abbess does not wish to put her in an asylum. But she is too much for us, in the city, and we are hoping that the mountain air will do her good. That is why I am taking her to Perugia.”
    “ ‘A sad case,’ I nodded sympathetically, and the pretty nun again bowed her head. But I continued to stare at her, thinking how typically inhuman of the church it was to send such a delicate young thing on such a frightful mission.
    “Suddenly, the old nun began to scream again.
    “ ‘Stop leering at that girl!’ she yelled, glaring at me. Then, as her hard, bright eyes seemed to widen with recognition, she stared into my face and screamed even harder.
    “ ‘As your mother,’ she cried, ‘I command you to stop leering at that girl!’
    “Needless to say, Francesco, I was somewhat embarrassed. ‘Whatever you say, Mother Superior,’ I whispered, thinking to humor her private delusions of authority and grandeur.
    “ ‘I’m not any Mother Superior!’ shrieked the nun. ‘I am your real mother, your physical mother, who bore your ungrateful body twenty-five years ago!’
    “Of course, I realized that even a crazy woman could easily have guessed my age. Still, I was anxious to hear what she had to say. There is some brave, daring strain in me which has always hungered after thrills of that sort, even if they must come at the expense of an uncomfortable scene.
    “ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked her.
    “ ‘Twenty-five years ago,’ she began, straight out like that, ‘I had a lover who looked exactly like you. Two eggs from the same chicken could not have appeared more similar.’
    “She had stopped shrieking, and her voice was quiet and controlled. ‘I was still a girl,’ she continued, ‘younger than this young one beside me. When my parents learned about the love affair there was a scandal, and they arranged to have my lover exiled to a distant province. Nine months later, when I gave birth to you, I was packed off to a convent—a terrible place, where we were forced to sleep in cold, stone coffins, lined with moss. And you were sent to be raised by my married sister and her husband. Now do you believe that I am your mother?”
    “ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘You could have told that story to anyone. There is not a shred of proof anywhere.’
    “ ‘Well tell me, then,’ she continued. ‘Do you look anything like the man you assume to be your father?’
    “ ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But such things are extremely common.’
    “ ‘Tell me this, then,’ she went on, her voice growing slightly louder. ‘Have you never had the feeling that your mother and father were not your real parents?’
    “ ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘All children have such fancies at one time or another.’
    “ ‘Then why do you refuse to admit that I am your real mother?!’ she demanded.
    “ ‘Because it is not the truth,’ I answered, trying to stay calm.
    “ ‘It is the truth!!’ she screamed. ‘I am your mother! Why will you not acknowledge me? Do you want me to tell you how you felt inside my womb? Do you want me to describe the pains, the blood that flowed at your birth, the sac of water bursting inside me? Do you want to know how you nearly ripped me apart, how you strained and tore my body in the labor? What must I do to make you believe me?!’
    “ ‘There is no way,’ I said. And, though I was the most courageous young man in all Europe, I trembled a little beneath the force of her rage.
    “ ‘I have an idea!’ she cried. ‘Let us take off our clothes, right here in the carriage, and compare scars and birthmarks until we find one that matches!’
    “At that point, the younger nun became terribly alarmed, and again tried to soothe her companion. But the madwoman would have none of it.
    “ ‘All right then!’ she shrieked, in a final burst of fury. ‘If you will