The Nun's Story Page #3

You will use it twice each week at night

while you are saying the Miserere.

Remember, it is essentially

a symbol of penance.

Too much is as bad as too little.

Don't forget you are only an instrument.

In yourself you are nothing,

until you are lifted up.

Tomorrow you will leave for the School

of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp.

Excuse me.

Your father's daughter. Excellent.

Excuse me.

Well.

Sister Pauline,

how long were you in the Congo?

Seven years.

You worked quite a lot with the lepers,

didn't you?

-Yes.

-Yes!

Well, that is the bacillus

which causes leprosy!

Thank you, Doctor.

I, too, have lost some of my quickness,

my memory...

from too much Congo sun.

Too much quinine.

If any of you think that the Congo

that you'll find today in 1930...

is anything like the Congo that we found

when we went there 20 years ago...

you will be mistaken.

There are now bicycle paths

through the brush.

Close that window, somebody,

will you? There.

I know you think it's hot.

Wait till you've had your share of malaria.

Don't be selfish, Sister Luke,

help your sisters.

She was brought up

looking through a microscope, you know...

whilst most of you

were playing with kaleidoscopes.

Sister Luke, would you help me with this?

That is the bacille de Koch

that causes tuberculosis.

-I thought it was the leprosy bacillus.

-They are very alike.

Both rod-shaped, both acid-fast...

both with a slight shadow

almost like an enclosing capsule.

But if you look very closely...

you'll see that the leprosy bacillus

is slightly fatter and longer.

Enter.

I'm in trouble, Reverend Mother.

It's Sister Pauline.

My conscience is not at peace because

of my unfriendly feelings towards her.

At the Mother House, we were told

to overcome feelings like this...

by trying to help the person.

For five months I've tried to help

Sister Pauline in the courses.

She needs help.

But she will not permit friendship...

and so I do not know what to do.

Sister Pauline has already come to me.

The feeling you describe is mutual.

She thinks you are full of pride.

She does not believe

that you can ever achieve humility.

I'm ashamed, My Mother,

for her and for me.

All this sounds very childish

when you tell it.

Her dislike, I believe, is based on fear.

She worries that she will

not be able to pass the examination.

Or if she does,

that she will be far below you in grade.

This could easily mean

that she could not return to the Congo.

You have been given a truly great

opportunity to make a sacrifice for God.

You asked what you might do?

Would you, Sister Luke...

be able to fail your examination

to show humility?

My Mother...

I would be willing if the Mother House

knows of this and approves.

Then it would be a humility with hooks,

as we say.

A humility that takes something back

for the sacrifice.

In this case, the satisfaction of knowing

that the Mother House knows.

-Courage needs witnesses.

-Yes.

Real humility, on the other hand...

passes unperceived

between God and the soul.

You have heard our phrase,

"Do good and disappear."

How do we know when we are humble?

When we can accept a real humiliation.

Such as this failure.

How can I know God wants this from me?

Go and ask Him.

But remember, you are weighing an

opportunity that may never come again.

Out of His eternal time...

God chooses His moment

to offer the most perfect alliance...

with each individual soul.

-Good morning, Sister Luke.

-Good morning, Doctor.

I promised I would call your father

immediately after the examination.

I shall defer to my eminent colleagues

for the first question.

Sister, the board would like

to hear from you...

in what parts of the tsetse fly

will the trypanosomes be found.

You may take your time

with this question, Sister.

We have been working on them

since the 1880s.

They will be found in the....

Perhaps you'd like the question repeated?

In the tsetse fly,

the trypanosomes will be found...

in the gut,

mouth parts, and salivary glands...

in all of which sites they multiply.

We would like to hear a rsum of the special clinical types of pernicious...

as differentiated

from chronic or latent malaria.

Cerebral, algid, bilious remittent fever,

blackwater fever...

and bronchopneumonic form.

I have good news.

All four of our sisters

have passed their examinations.

Sister Pauline will return to the Congo.

Sisters Timothy and Ellen...

will go to the Congo, too.

Sister Luke will leave tomorrow morning...

to join the nursing staff

of our mental sanatorium near Brussels.

Perhaps Reverend Mother feels

you are not yet ready for the Congo.

You must learn to accept with love

whatever comes to you.

It is essential in religious life.

You passed fourth in a class of 80.

Everything they do

is to be accepted as normal.

Sister Agnes, Sister Luke.

Good morning, Mother Christoph.

Our practical nurses

stand a four-hour shift.

Our sisters take unlimited duty,

sometimes from 8 to 10 hours.

These are the cells

for our most dangerous patients.

We try to approach

even our most dangerous cases...

with gentle and persuasive reasoning.

Sister Berthold, this is Sister Luke,

who is to be with us for a while.

-Sister Berthold.

-Sister Luke.

This one thinks

that she is the Archangel Gabriel.

So we call her that.

Good afternoon, Archangel.

She's a schizophrenic and very dangerous.

She has perfectly sane periods when

she talks intelligently about her farm.

A sister is forbidden to open the door

of any of these cells...

unless there is another sister with her.

Or a practical helper.

One ought to be able to get through

to someone like her.

-Hello.

-Hello, Archangel.

This is the room where we give

the treatment for the violent cases.

We keep them four to eight hours

in baths...

maintained at a constant temperature.

The sound that you hear are their heels...

beating up and down against the tubs.

Sister Marie is on duty.

She generally remains there

from eight to 10 hours at a time.

Sister Luke.

It isn't one of my pleasantest duties...

opening and reading

other people's letters, but...

sometimes it does allow me to help them.

As you see,

your father asks an angry question.

Why should you waste

all these months of your time here...

after your strenuous courses

in tropical medicine?

I must apologize for my father.

Your father's a very great man.

But I don't think he understands...

that the colonies are only for sisters

perfected in the religious life.

He asks what you could possibly learn

in this place.

When I'm permitted to write to him

I will tell him what I can learn here:

obedience.

Perhaps that's what Mother Emmanuel

had in mind.

That this would make

an excellent proving ground.

I shall try.

And I shall try with you...

since your soul is in my care

while you are here.

Thank you, Reverend Mother.

-Yes?

-I am so thirsty.

May I have a drink of water, please?

A terrible thirst.

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