Ragna. Anna Miller Costantini
punishment? Nothing to put that brazen girl to shame for her indecent conduct? She stands here in your presence and admits to having received the letters, and answered them, to having corrupted her companion, as she might say: 'I have said thirty Aves'! Oh Reverend Mother, you are too lenient! It is unjust!"
"So that is how you understand it, ma Mère? Has life taught you nothing?"
"Life has taught me that sin requires punishment," she rejoined grimly.
"Ma Mère, I see that I must open your eyes; those letters were not written to Ragna."
"Not written to her! Why she confessed that they were hers!"
"So she did, to save Astrid."
"Well, that only makes it worse, she has lied outrageously, and so has Astrid—and you let them go unpunished!"
"I consider that Ragna's lie is a good lie, ma Mère. A generous lie is better than a mean truth. I make a pretence of punishing her so that she may not know I understand; vicarious punishment, if suffered voluntarily, is good for the soul. As for Astrid, she is weak and foolish, she has been thoroughly frightened, and is not likely to fall again in the same direction—for the present at least. The sight of Ragna, bearing the blame that should be hers, will do more for her than any punishment you or I might inflict."
Mère Perpétua gazed at her Superior in amazement; though still disapproving, she had a dim perception of the other's greatness of soul, and the insight into human nature, that had made her, while still young in years, the Head of the Community.
"You may go, ma Mère, and after Benediction you will bring our two black sheep here."
So dismissed, Mère Perpétua took her departure, shaking her head.
The Superior remained alone, leaning her head on her hand. She thought of the many young lives under her care, of the many girls she had seen come and go. She thought of the many natures hopelessly warped by a mistaken or untimely severity, shut in upon themselves, black-frosted, as it were, in the very hour when they most need drawing out, training and guiding by a sympathetic hand. She loved Ragna, her whole heart was drawn to the girl in admiration for her generous assumption of the other's fault. "She is too ready to take up others' burdens," she thought; "God send that her own be not too heavy for her shoulders!"
The bell for Benediction interrupted her meditation. As she walked along the passages to the Chapel the same thought pursued her, and when from her carved stall she recognized Ragna's fair head, bowed among her fellows, she seemed to see the halo of future suffering about it.
Ragna bending over her prayer-book, was wondering what the punishment would be; and half defiantly she squared her shoulders to meet it. She thought of Astrid, divided between contemptuous pity, and real sympathy for the agonized fear displayed by the butterfly creature.
Astrid was sobbing her heart out, her face hid between her hands. She despised herself for her weakness, and reproached herself for letting Ragna take the blame. Later she would resent her friend's generosity, but just now she fairly grovelled in self-abasement; she took a morbid delight in mortifying herself in her own eyes, as formerly she had exulted in the thought of her sentimental superiority over her comrades.
The level rays of sunlight tinged with the glory of Saints, touched the rows of young heads, passing over some, distinguishing others, colouring with purple and crimson the tresses, dark and fair, of the kneeling girls, and the Chaplain holding aloft the Ostensory with its symbol of the Great Sacrifice, glowed in a mystic radiance. Then the light went, and the tapers on the altar twinkled like stars in the sudden twilight.
After the concluding hymns, Ragna and Astrid were again conducted to the Superior's sitting-room, to hear her decision. The Reverend Mother had chosen a good moment, for the service of Benediction had had its effect on the impressionable girlish natures. Ragna was softened, and Astrid had found moral courage enough to overcome her selfish fear.
The Reverend Mother at once saw the change and profited by it, so that almost without their knowing it, she had soon drawn a full confession from both girls. Astrid, once fairly started, and prone as ever to exaggeration, would have known no limits to her self-abasement, luxuriating in her confession of guilt, had she not been almost sternly controlled and restrained.
Ragna, though pleased and relieved by Astrid's assumption of the misdoing, was yet secretly disappointed in surrendering her role of self-immolated victim. She would not have owned it to herself, she did not even recognize the flat feeling of generous effort rendered useless, that chilled her. Quite unconsciously she had been admiring her action. How much self-sacrifice would there be in the world, if the self-made victim were not secretly upheld by the nobility of the pose—even if self be the sole admirer? There is, in every action, not the result of passionate impulse, a certain amount of play to the gallery, even though the gallery be only what is commonly known as conscience.
The Superior, being a wise woman, was neither too severe nor the reverse; she improved the occasion by giving the girls a lecture which they neither of them forgot, and dismissed them with a punishment sufficient to keep the matter in their minds for some time, while giving them no reason for considering themselves martyrs to discipline.
So the incident ended, and it had the effect of drawing the girls closer together, for Astrid, having vindicated her own self-respect, could appreciate Ragna's generosity and forgive it, while Ragna loved her friend the better for having assumed the role of protector to her, and could love her the more, not being obliged to despise her for cowardice.
CHAPTER III
So the time passed and the end of the second year came; Astrid was to remain at the Convent another twelve-month, but Ragna must return home.
With tears in her eyes she packed her boxes and took leave of the Sisters and her companions. She had begged in vain for another year—even six months, but her father was obdurate. He had made arrangements with a friend of his, a sea-captain, to fetch her in Paris and take her to Norway in his vessel. All was decided and Ragna must go.
She felt a strange shrinking from the journey and in later days came to regard as a premonition what was probably only reluctance to face the busy outside world after so many months of seclusion. Certain it is that with heavy heart and red eyes she left the Convent, and Captain Petersen was much concerned by the dolorous appearance of his charge.
"You look more like a virgin martyr being led to the stake than a pretty young lady just let out of her cage into the world!" he told her. "Bless my soul, if I wouldn't want to shake a loose leg after being mewed up so long!"
He was a stout, red-faced man with merry blue eyes, and a red fringe of beard round his face like a misplaced halo. There was nothing saintly about him, however, though he was a thoroughly good and honest man.
"Cheer up!" he adjured Ragna, "the sea-breezes will soon blow the cobwebs out of your brain and the colour into your cheeks—besides," he added with a jovial wink, "I've a surprise up my sleeve for you—a surprise most young ladies would give their eyes for!"
"What is it?" she asked for politeness' sake.
"It will keep! It will keep!" he answered delightedly.
He enlivened the long railway journey to the best of his ability, with a constant stream of jokes and stories at which he chuckled heartily in default of a more appreciative audience. He plied the girl with sweets and fruit, little flasks of wine and biscuits. He was so unfailing in his good-humoured and kindly attentions that she could not help but respond and presently was laughing with him as merrily as possible. He insisted on calling her "Fröken" pretending to stand in great awe of her long skirts, chignon and "young-ladyfied" manners. He teased her by constant references to his "surprise," but refused to tell her of what it consisted, so that her curiosity was thoroughly aroused and her eagerness to penetrate the mystery was only equalled by his pleasure at the success of his diplomacy.
So