Sister Teresa — Chapter 41

London: T. Fisher Unwin, 8 July 1901, pages 234-236, 668 words

XLI

In the middle of the following year Mademoiselle Heilbron called to see her, and Teresa came into the parlour, and with ready smiles and simple glee she entered into conversation with her old friend.

'But may we not go into the garden?’

‘But, of course, certainly.’

A little embarrassed to know what to say to her, Louise talked to her about a new part in a new opera by a new composer.

‘I’ve brought the score with me. Would you like to see it? Shall I leave it?’

Teresa said that once she would have liked to see it, but now such things were far behind her, and with a merry laugh she spoke of herself as a broken spirit. And then, as if speaking out of some vague association of ideas, she spoke of her pupils — of one who really had an aptitude for the piano, and another who could really sing a little. She would like Louise to hear her, and Louise was not certain if she were speaking in bitterness or in jest, or if her present mind was her natural mind.

They walked a little way in silence, and then Louise said, —

'And you are quite happy now that you have put life aside, now that you have decided that there is nothing better for you to do in life than to teach the piano and solfège?’

‘Dear Louise, all things are of equal importance; it matters nothing whether we are teaching little children or doing the things that the world thinks glorious. The important thing to do is to live, and we do not begin to know life, taste life, until we put it aside. This sounds like a paradox, but it is a simple little truth. Life is the will of God, and to enter into the will of God we must forget ourselves, we must try to live outside ourselves in the general life.’

'But what is the will of God?’

‘What is your own breath, Louise? You cannot explain it, and yet it is yourself. And there are times when the will of God seems as near to us as our own breath.’

‘I think I know what you mean, but if I were to live here I should kill myself.’

‘When I was on the stage I often used to think of killing myself. I did not fear death at all, for life seemed so trivial, but now I do not want to die, I should like to live on and on. So long as we live in the will of God it does not seem to matter where we live, whether we live in this world or in heaven.’

They walked round the garden twice, carrying on the conversation as best they could. Louise remarked a nun reading her Office, and Teresa told her who she was. Louise affected an interest in the flowers, and Teresa told Louise she must hear her favourite pupil.

‘I really don’t think you will be disappointed, she has got a very pretty voice, and I have just taught her a song out of one of Handel’s operas.’

‘I remember a song of Handel’s that you used to sing beautifully. Do you ever sing it now?’

'No, I lost my voice last winter; a heavy cold took it all away,' and Teresa laughed just as she had laughed when she spoke of herself as a broken spirit, and Louise left the convent uncertain, thinking that perhaps it was this loss of her voice that had decided her to remain in the convent.

‘So this is the last stage,' she said as she drove back to London. And then Louise thought of her own life. She was now forty-five, she might go on singing for a few years — then she, too, would have to begin her packing up, and she wondered what her end would be.

THE END