Читать книгу There are Victories - Charles Yale Harrison - Страница 5
—(III)—
ОглавлениеOne Spring day Bishop Villeneuve of Montreal visited the Convent of the Sacred Heart. He was a middle-aged, tall, ascetic man who was dressed in a fine broadcloth cassock faced with rich satin. The Bishop moved with grace and aristocratic poise; the power and vastness of the Church was evidenced in his every movement. To the Mother Superior he said: “There is a little girl here—the daughter of a Mrs. Throop, a very devout woman. The child’s name is Courtney—Ruth Courtney.”
Later in the day Ruth was presented to His Grace. She lowered her eyes as she curtseyed; looking sedate and prim in her black frock and thin, starched, white collar. As the late afternoon sunlight flooded the somber reception room the Bishop said: “I see your mother quite often, my child. Are you well? Are you happy here? You should be, you know. What message shall I give her?”
“I—I am quite well, Your Grace.”
“Yes, yes,” the Bishop said in an abstracted manner as though he had not heard what the child had said. He had many responsibilities: churches, charities, property. This was a routine visit. He looked up suddenly and observed Ruth’s pallid beauty offset set by the mass of her luxuriant auburn hair.
——The girl is beautiful, too beautiful, the Bishop thought. It is sometimes a curse of God....
He leaned forward, patted her hand, remarking:
“You must pray to the Blessèd Virgin to guide you through life, to make your heart pure. Life is full of many temptations. Do you understand?” For a moment his voice was soft and then it changed and became hard and inflexible. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
That night in the dormitory, the figure of the Virgin Mary seemed less motherly, more distant and abstracted, like the Bishop who supervised many charities and was greatly concerned with God’s work here on earth. In the guttering candlelight it seemed as if the Mother of God herself looked at her with tight, compressed, practical lips—like the Bishop.
