Part 2

"God be praised," said the good sister at the convent gate, "for having sent to us so early in the day an act of mercy to perform and a sadness to alleviate! It's a happy omen for the glorious feast of the Holy Virgin that we celebrate today! But how is it, my dear child, that you did not think to pull on the bell or to use the knocker? At no time would your sisters in Jesus Christ not have been ready to receive you. Well, there we are! Don't answer me just yet, you poor lost sheep! Fortify yourself with this beef broth that I warmed up in a hurry as soon as I saw you. Taste this full-bodied wine that will put the heat back in your stomach and help you move your sore limbs again. Let me see that you're better. Drink, drink down all of it, and now, before you get up, if you don't feel strong enough to yet, put this cloak on I've thrown over your shoulders. Put those little, oh so cold hands of yours in mine so that I can restore blood and life to them. Can you feel already the circulation coming back into your fingers as I breathe on them? Oh! You'll soon be yourself again!"

Beatrix, imbued with tender feeling, grasped the hands of the worthy nun, and pressed them several times to her lips.

"I am myself again," she said, "and I feel well enough to go to thank God for the favour he has done me by guiding my steps to this holy house. Only, so that I can include it in my prayers, can you please tell me where I am?"

"And where could you be," the keeper of the gate replied, "if it is not at the convent of Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns, since there is no other monastic building in this wilderness for more than five leagues around."

"Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns!" exclaimed Beatrix with a cry of joy followed immediately by marks of the deepest consternation: "Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns!" she repeated, letting her head fall onto her bosom. "May the Lord have mercy on me!"

"What's this, my daughter?" said the charitable angel of mercy. "Didn't you know? It's true that you seem to come from far away, for I have never seen a lady's clothing that looks like yours. But Our Lady of the Flowering Thorns does not limit her protection to those who live locally. You must know, if you have heard speak of her, that she is good to everyone."

"I know her, and I have served her," answered Beatrix, "but I come from far away, as you say, reverend mother, and you must not wonder that my eyes did not recognize at first this place of peace and blessing. And yet here is the church and the convent, and the thorn bushes where I gathered so many flowers. Even now they still flower! But I was so young when I left them! It was during the time," she continued, lifting her forehead to heaven with that determined look that imparts self-denial to Christian remorse, "it was during the time when Sister Beatrix was the custodian of the holy basilica. Do you remember that time, reverend mother?"

"How could I have forgotten it, my child, since Sister Beatrix has never stopped being the custodian of the holy basilica? She has stayed among us till today, and will remain for a long time, I hope, a subject of edification for the whole community, since, apart from the protection of the Holy Virgin, we know of no surer support under heaven."

"I'm not talking about her," Beatrix broke in, sighing bitterly, "I'm talking about another Beatrix who ended up living a sinful life, and who occupied the same post sixteen years ago."

"God will not punish you for those demented words," said the nun as she drew her to her breast. "The distress and the illness that have affected your mind, have troubled your memory with these sad visions. I have lived in this convent for more than sixteen years, and I have never known anyone in charge of looking after the holy basilica apart from Sister Beatrix. Being as you are determined to perform an act of worship for Our Lady, while I'm making a bed up for you, go, my sister, go to the foot of the tabernacle. You will find Beatrix there already, and you will recognize her easily, for divine goodness has allowed her not to lose in ageing a single one of her youthful graces. I'll come back for you presently and won't leave you then till you're completely well again."

Having spoken these words the keeper of the gate made her way back to the cloister. Beatrix stumbled as far as the steps leading up to the church, knelt down on the approach to them and banged her head against it. Then she grew a little bolder, got up, and, from pillar to pillar, went up to the grille where she once more fell upon her knees. Through the cloud that had darkened her vision she had discerned the sister custodian standing in front of the tabernacle.

Little by little the sister drew nearer to her as she made her daily inspection of the holy place, rekindling the flame in burnt-out candles, or replacing the garlands of the day before with new garlands. Beatrix could not believe her eyes. This sister was herself, not as age, vice and despair had made her, but as she must have been in the innocent days of her youth. Was it an illusion produced by remorse? Was it a divine punishment, a foretaste of those reserved for her by a celestial curse? Racked by doubt, she hid her head in her hands, and rested it motionless against the bars of the grille, stammering from quivering lips the most tender of her prayers from time gone by.

And yet the sister custodian kept on moving. Already the folds of her clothes had brushed against the bars. Beatrix, overcome with emotion, did not dare even to breathe.

"It's you, dear Beatrix," said the sister in a voice for the dulcet tones of which there is no word in any language known to man. "I don't need to see you to know who you are, for I hear your prayers now as I heard them then. I've been waiting for you for a long time, but, as I was sure you would return, I took your place the day you left me, so that no-one would know that you'd gone. You know now what they are, the pleasures and happiness whose picture so seduced you, and you will not go away again. You're here, between ourselves, for the duration and for all eternity. Come back with confidence to the position that you occupied among my daughters. You will find in your cell, the way to which you have not forgotten, the habit that you left there, and you will put on with it your primordial innocence, of which it is the emblem. I owed to your love a grace that was out of the ordinary and which I have obtained for your repentance. Farewell, sister custodian of Mary! Love Mary as she has loved you!"

It was indeed Mary, and when Beatrix, distraught, raised towards her eyes flooded with tears, when she stretched out to her her trembling arms making to her an act of thanksgiving broken by her sobs, she saw the Holy Virgin go up the steps of the altar, re-open the door to the tabernacle, and sit down again there in her heavenly glory under her golden halo and under her festoons of thorn flowers.

Beatrix did not go back down to the choir without emotion. She went back to see her companions whose faith she had betrayed, and who had aged, immune to reproach, in the practice of an austere duty. She slid among her sisters lowering her head, and ready to humble herself at the first shout to announce her fault. Her heart greatly troubled, she lent an attentive ear to their voices, and she heard nothing. As none of them had noticed her departure, none of them paid any heed to her return. She threw herself at the feet of the Holy Virgin, who had never looked so beautiful to her, and who seemed to be smiling. In the dreams of her illusory life, she had grasped nothing that came anywhere near such happiness.

The divine feast of Mary (I think I have already said that this took place on the Feast of the Assumption) was celebrated in a mixture of of contemplation and ecstasy, the finest moments of which far excelled past celebrations of the feastday by this community of virgins, without stain or blemish like their queen. Some had seen miraculous lights emanating from the tabernacle, others had heard songs of angels mixed in with their pious canticles, and had, out of respect, stopped their singing so as not to disturb the celestial harmony. It was said that there had been that day a feast in Paradise as there had been in the convent of the Flowering Thorns, and, due to a phenomenon foreign to that season, all the thorn bushes in the area had burst into flower again so that, outside as well as inside, there were only the scents of spring. It was because a soul had come back to the bosom of the Lord, shorn of all the defects and ignominious shortcomings of our human condition, and there is no feastday in heaven more agreeable to saints there.

Only one thing disturbed for a moment the innocent joy of this flock of virginal doves. A poor woman, sickly and ill, had been sitting in the morning on the threshold of the convent. The nun at the entrance had seen her and had partially relieved her suffering by making up for her a nice warm bed for her to rest her weary limbs in, weakened by privation, and, since then, she had looked for her in vain. This wretched creature had disappeared without a trace, but it was thought that Sister Beatrix might have seen her in the church where she had gone to pray.

"Have no fear, my sisters," said Beatrix, moved to tears by this tender concern on their part. "Have no fear," she went on, as she pressed the gatekeeper sister to her bosom, "I have seen that poor woman and I know what has become of her. She is well, my sisters, she is happy, happier than she deserves, and happier than any of you could have hoped for her to be."

This answer allayed all their fears, but it was noted because it was the first severe word to come from Beatrix's mouth.

After that, the whole of Beatrix's life went by like a single day, like that day in the future that is promised to the Lord's elect, without boredom, without regret, without fear, without any emotions, for sensitive hearts cannot wholly do without them, other than those of piety towards God and charity towards Man. She lived for a century without seeming to have aged, for only the soul's bad passions add years to the body. The life of the good is an eternal youth.

Beatrix died nevertheless, or rather calmly fell asleep in that ephemeral sleep of the tomb that separates time from eternity. The Church honoured her memory by crowning her with a posthumous glory. It made her a saint.

Bzovius, who has examined this story with that solemn critical spirit that canonical writers offer so many examples of, is quite convinced that she was worthy of this honour by reason of the tender fidelity she showed to Our Lady, for it is, he said, purity of love that makes saints, and I would affirm, not with much authority admittedly, but in the sincerity of my mind and heart, that, as long as the school of Luther and Voltaire cannot offer me a more poignant story than hers, I will agree with the opinion expressed by Bzovius.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Legend of Sister Beatrix, by Charles Nodier