Chains : $b lesser novels and storiesDreiser, Theodore
General
Chains : $b lesser novels and stories
Dreiser, Theodore
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
And then once more, in due time, and with the memory of these things
clinging fast to her, she was sent forth into the world, not quite as
poorly-armed as before, perhaps, but still with the limited equipment
which her own innate disposition and comprehension compelled.
After many serious and presumably wise injunctions as to the snares
and pitfalls of this world, and accompanied by a black-habited nun,
who took her direct to one of those moral and religious families whose
strict adherence to the tenets of this particular faith was held to
provide an ideal example, she was left to her own devices and the type
of work she had previously followed, the nuns themselves being hard put
to it to discover anything above the most menial forms of employment
for their various charges. Theirs was a type of schooling and training
which did not rise above a theory of morality requiring not so much
skill as faith and blind obedience.
And again, here, as in the institution itself, the idea of a faith, a
religion, a benign power above that of man and seeking his welfare,
surrounded her as the very air itself or as an aura, although she
personally was by no means ready to accept it, never having given it
serious thought.
Everywhere here, as in the institution itself, were little images or
colored pictures of saints, their brows circled by stars or crowns,
their hands holding sceptres or lilies, their bodies arrayed in
graceful and soothing robes of white, blue, pink and gold. Their faces
were serene, their eyes benignly contemplative, yet to Madeleine they
were still images only, pretty and graceful, even comforting, but at so
great variance to life as she knew it as to be little more than pretty
pictures.
In the great church which they attended, and to which they persuaded
her to accompany them, were more of these same candle-lit pictures of
saints, images and altars starred with candles, many or few, at which
she was wont to stare in wonder and awe. The vestments of the priest
and the acolytes, the white-and-gold and red-and-gold of the chasuble
and the stole and the cope, the gold and silver crosses, chalices
and winecups, overawed her inexperienced and somewhat impressionable
mind without convincing it of the immanence of superior forces whose
significance or import she could in nowise guess. God, God, God—she
heard of Him and the passion and death of the self-sacrificing Lord
Jesus.
And here, as there, the silence, the order, the cleanliness and
regularity, as well as simplicity, were the things which most invested
her reason and offered the greatest contrasts to her old life.
She had not known or sensed the significance of these things before.
Now, day by day, like the dripping of water, the ticking of time, they
made an impression, however slight. Routine, routine, routine, and the
habit and order and color of a vast and autocratic religion, made their
lasting impression upon her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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