“It must be closed again.”
“Will that be all?”
“No.”
“Give me your orders, very reverend Mother.”
“Fauvent, we have confidence in you.”
“I am here to do anything you wish.”
“And to hold your peace about everything!”
“Yes, reverend Mother.”
“When the vault is open—”
“I will close it again.”
“But before that—”
“What, reverend Mother?”
“Something must be lowered into it.”
A silence ensued.
The prioress, after a pout of the under lip which resembled hesitation, broke it.
“Father Fauvent!”
“Reverend Mother!”
“You know that a mother died this morning?”
“No.”
“Did you not hear the bell?”
“Nothing can be heard at the bottom of the garden.”
“Really?”
“I can hardly distinguish my own signal.”
“She died at daybreak.”
“And then, the wind did not blow in my direction this morning.”
“It was Mother Crucifixion.
A blessed woman.”
The prioress paused, moved her lips, as though in mental prayer, and resumed:—
“Three years ago, Madame de Bethune, a Jansenist, turned orthodox, merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion at prayer.”
“Ah! yes, now I hear the knell, reverend Mother.”
“The mothers have taken her to the dead-room, which opens on the church.”
“I know.”
“No other man than you can or must enter that chamber.
See to that.
A fine sight it would be, to see a man enter the dead-room!”
At that moment, nine o’clock struck.
“At nine o’clock in the morning and at all hours, praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar,” said the prioress.
“Amen,” said Fauchelevent. Fauchelevent mopped his forehead.
The prioress indulged in another little inward murmur, probably sacred, then raised her voice:—
“In her lifetime, Mother Crucifixion made converts; after her death, she will perform miracles.”
“She will!” replied Father Fauchelevent, falling into step, and striving not to flinch again.
“Father Fauvent, the community has been blessed in Mother Crucifixion.
No doubt, it is not granted to every one to die, like Cardinal de Berulle, while saying the holy mass, and to breathe forth their souls to God, while pronouncing these words: Hanc igitur oblationem. But without attaining to such happiness, Mother Crucifixion’s death was very precious.
She retained her consciousness to the very last moment.
She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels.
She gave us her last commands.
If you had a little more faith, and if you could have been in her cell, she would have cured your leg merely by touching it.
She smiled.
We felt that she was regaining her life in God.
There was something of paradise in that death.”