Читать книгу Glamorous Powers - Susan Howatch - Страница 33

Once again I found myself unable to do anything except sit on the edge of my bed. I had long since drawn up a timetable of work in which simple reading and prayer were interspersed with ‘lectio divina’ and meditation, but now I found that my will to maintain this admirable discipline had begun to flag. Hoping for comfort I turned to Dame Julian again but this time her joyful optimism had no message for me and halfway through one of my favourite passages I realized I was thinking not of her ‘showing’ but of Francis’ appalling ‘fairy-story’. Earlier I had protected myself by refusing to dwell upon it, but now, shaken by Francis’ remorseless exposure of the Achilles’ heel represented by my sexuality, I found my defences had been impaired. In desperation I thrust aside The Revelations of Dame Julian and sought to distract myself with the unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing.

But no distraction was forthcoming. Almost immediately I read: ‘Oftimes the devil feigneth quaint sounds in their ears, quaint lights and shining in their eyes, and wonderful smells in their noses; and all is but falsehood.’

Snapping the book shut I gave a convulsive shudder and dragged my way down to the chapel for Vespers.