Fish On Friday

My being present at the final examination of Sister Bridget’s First Communion Class was a mere formality. It was almost an impertinence. What Sister Bridget does not know about the art of First Communion instruction would about fill the vacancy in a ginger-ale bubble.

But the reverend pastor had been called away on business, and I, as his lieutenant, was deputed to go to Sister Bridget’s classroom, and declare officially the presence or absence of the use of reason on the part of twenty-two innocents whom she had been preparing for the Holy Table.

On my way from the presbytery to the schoolhouse, I reviewed quickly my canonical obligations. My duties, as far as I could determine them, were twofold: first, to look very important; and second, in the name of Giuseppe Sarto, D. D. (of childlike memory, who expired in the Vatican bearing the title of Pius the Tenth, and may be found at present in the nurseries of Heaven), to award the degree of T. T. (Tiny Theologian) to any six or seven year old dogmatist who could answer two questions on the Blessed Eucharist without falling into patent heresy.

I walked pompously across the schoolyard. I opened the door and strolled pontifically in. I marched, not without a flourish, down the first-floor corridor, came to the kindergarten classroom, knocked and demanded entrance in the name of the Holy See. Sister Bridget opened the door.

I shall not allow a description of Sister Bridget to delay my narrative. She is an incident, not an episode. She merely opens the door of my story I can only say hurriedly that what small fraction of her face the holy habit of her Order allows the world to look at is amazingly beautiful. I should hazard a guess that she is in her middle thirties; but the evidence is too slight to warrant my being certain. The youthful sparkle of her eyes and twinkle of her mouth are not enough. Too much of her head has been shrouded in linen and veiled in mystery; and, furthermore, these wimpled secrets of youth and age are too sacred for any idle conjecture.

But this much is certain, whether Sister Bridget be goose-girl or octogenarian, she blushes like a child when you arrive for the examination of her First Communion Class. She is far more nervous than any of her catechizable candidates. And she seems suddenly relieved of an infantile misapprehension when she finds that you have not brought the Sacred College of Cardinals trooping after you.

I gave her an academic bow. I walked in my doctor’s robes to the front of the room, and came to the pastor’s armchair which had been transported from the convent parlor for the occasion. I sat down. I achieved a solemn clearing of the throat. I leaned forward in my seat (by way of assuming an ex cathedra posture), rested my elbows on the desk, and, in lieu of a gavel, tapped in proper ecumenical fashion with my spectacles.

“Are they ready?” I said to Sister Bridget.

She stiffened apprehensively, as though the proceedings were to begin by my firing a gun; but recovered immediately, and replied, “Yes, I think they are ready.”

Then, reassuring herself, obviously by an aspiration sent Holy Ghostwards, she repeated, “Yes, I think they are quite ready”; and lowered her long eyelashes by way of indicating that though she had instructed them, it was really God who had given them the use of reason.

“Very well, children,” I said magnificently. “I have a few questions to ask you before you receive your First Holy Communion. Now think carefully . . . First question. What is the Blessed Sacrament?”

Their reply, uttered in swift and perfect unison, startled me. It was a dissyllabic shout, a moan, a song, a whisper, and a prayer.

“Jesus!” they cried.

“And whom are you going to receive in Holy Communion?”

“Jesus!” They thundered it again, reverently and lingering with even more meaning and emphasis.

The examination was finished. The degrees were awarded with a wave of my hand. We could now turn our thoughts to the theological implications of white slippers and stockings, blue jackets and Sunday boots, lily-colored veils and neckties, and a kiss for mummy and daddy when they met you after the great event in the church vestibule, and found your body so new and strange and sacred, and lifted you adoringly in their arms.

But Sister Bridget was to put a crimp in all this fine anticipation. She walked over to my chair with an air of misgiving. She was unmistakably struggling with a scruple.

“They’re all ready,” she whispered sadly, “all except This Little Thing.” And she pointed to a small feminine object sitting in the second row, black-haired, black-eyed, crimson-frocked, who was chewing her thumb and focusing her gaze on infinity.

“And what’s the matter with This Little Thing?” I said, looking with mingled surprise and concern in the direction of the entity indicated.

“She’s seven years old,” said Sister Bridget with a sigh, “and her parents wanted her to receive First Communion this spring, but she doesn’t seem to comprehend. I’m afraid she hasn’t quite reached the use of reason. And she lowered her long eyelashes again, to indicate that it was she this time, and not God, who was responsible.

I spoke a word of congratulation to the rest of the class, a word of comfort and hope to Sister Bridget, and dismissed them and her. They went off merrily, and could be heard scampering and laughing as they passed through the schoolyard. And she, belike, soft-footed and lonely, went to kneel unconsoled in the convent chapel where the bell was summoning her to evening prayer.

All alone in the deserted classroom, still chewing a thumb, still looking at some object beyond all distance and finding interest in some reality immeasurably far away, sat This Little Thing. I walked slowly up to it. I wanted to examine it closely, and see what it was, and why it couldn’t comprehend.

“How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“And what is your name?”

“Marjorie.”

And sensing that there must be some reason for being especially selected and catechized when all the rest had gone, and wondering if there were some mysterious blame attached to having seven for your age, and Marjorie for your name, she put her hand in mine, laid her head against my cassock, and two little coal-black eyes began their pretty business of manufacturing each a crystal tear. She was so repentant. She would ask my pardon if there were any fault connected with having an identity.

I could not refrain from studying that little head as it lay against my gown. I raised it reverently in my hands. It was tiny and oval, flawlessly structured and fragile as a cup. It was crowned with hair, black and lustrous and clean as oil. Twinlet pools of wonder indented it, restless even in their repose, eyes timorous and trustful and unfathomably innocent. It was clothed with skin as smooth and fresh as the fabric of rose petal. And all the while it drank in air and color and odor and sound, transmuted them into thought, and riddled silently the meaning of all that is or ever can be.

Pleasure and pain beat against this tender globe of mystery. Noises knocked in these dainty ears. Perfumes were snuffed into these pretty nostrils. Lights swam through these soft windows and disappeared. And yet somewhere in the chambers of this lovely citadel a spirit waited to receive them, stripped them of all dimensions, and grafted them into the substance of a living soul. This little head was somebody’s universe, peopling itself with realities, creating its own cosmos, outside the frail barriers of whose consciousness God Himself must plead for entrance and wait for existence. It housed the terror and loneliness of a human personality. I had not pity enough to comfort it. Its secret eluded the reaches of my tenderness and my love. I could only stand and look and marvel at its desolation, bounding it with my fingers and holding it like a ball.

“Who made you?”

“God.”

“Where is God?”

She pointed to the sky. And that, I could not deny, was an adequate and excellent answer.

It was the last week in May. But Sister Bridget kept, for purposes of Catechism instruction, a seasonal remembrance of all the feasts of the year in the form of pictures and symbols and pious objects scattered about the room. There was a very small Christmas crib standing in the corner. I took This Little Thing over to the toy manger. We could discuss our theology by means of an object lesson.

“Where is Our Lord?”

She pointed to a lamb sleeping at the foot of the crèche.

“Where is His Mother?”

She pointed to an angel hanging on a golden wire.

Ex ore infantium, perfecisti laudem ; but I am not sure that even Giuseppe Sarto, for all his leniency, would allow a skill at metaphors to do service for the Canonical use of reason. Poetic theology is very pretty, but we must have a little straight theology first. Only a little, but it must be straight. And our poetry afterwards.

I shall remember shudderingly until my dying day that I should never have asked my next question. May the Incarnate Word of God, the dust of whose foot-prints I am not worthy to kiss, forgive me.

“Whom do you receive in the Blessed Sacrament?”

“You!” said This Little Thing. And a ripple of white blasphemy went fluttering like fine lightning through the whole span of God’s universe. The Sacred Host in the tabernacle quivered in Its golden cup. And the angels, who see Eternal Beauty face to face, covered their eyes with their wings and moaned.

“And now I think we had better go home,” I said quietly.

I led her down the dark corridor and out through the schoolyard. I walked her safely past the traffic policeman. Her elder brother, who had been sent to fetch her, met us, luckily, on the street corner. I put This Little Thing in his safe keeping. He took her by the hand and led her home.

* * * * *

That night when This Little Thing lay in bed, somewhere about twelve o’clock, she turned in her sleep and awoke with a start. She awoke because she heard a noise inside her pillow. Something was throbbing very softly inside the pillow. Marjorie could hear it distinctly when she pressed her ear against the pillow-case. Tup-tupp. Tup-tupp. Was it something in the pillow or under it? Tup-tupp. Tup-tupp. Something mechanical or something alive? Tup-tupp. A clock? Tup-tupp. Tup-tupp. Maybe her Angora pussy-cat had got into bed with her and was hiding in the bedclothes!

Marjorie sat up in bed. She lifted the pillow and looked under it. She pressed it, squeezed it, punched it, shook it. Nothing wiggled. Nothing dropped out. No clock. No pussy-cat. The tup-tupping had ceased. But the problem remained: a noise in the dark uninterpreted, effect without cause in its most desperate form.

There was moonlight coming in through the window, and that intensifies matters when matters are mysterious. A little downy owl in the orchard hooted and seemed to say, “I know!” The midnight air in the garden, heated and abandoned by yesterday’s sun, came to its ultimate cooling point. The garden grew hot and stuffy and signaled for aid to a squadron of winds scattered on the lake. They marshalled themselves into a breeze and blew.

There was a great fuss in the tree-tops, and a rush of sounds like the spraying of many hoses. The flower-beds reveled in their cool refreshment. Poppies spin-wheeled on their stems, primroses shivered with delight, caladiums wagged their long ears in approval. The wind struck the house broadside. In every crevice and cranny from cellar to shingles it went “whee!”, like the squashing of a giant accordion with none of the stops released. Window-frames rattled their glass. Lattices jiggled like skeletons. Everything shakeable shook. And the tassel of a curtain string, pretending to be a rat, sneaked along the window-sill, leapt into the air, and hung suspended by a long squirming tail.

By this time Marjorie was thoroughly awake. Her eyelids were heavy, but her ears were terribly open. Her sense of touch became acute in the darkness, ready to recoil at the feel of anything warm and hairy or of anything tinny and cold. She wanted to scream. There was every reason for screaming. Indeed, there was no reason for not screaming. And yet somehow she could not scream, even though she knew it meant waking daddy, who was sleeping in the next room, and who would be glad to come and comfort her. Something inside her kept telling her not to. A little thought seemed to come from nowhere and lodge in her head, and kept saving, “I’d rather you wouldn’t scream. I think it would be much nicer to lie down again and listen. Nothing can harm you. And it’s better not to be afraid.” Marjorie had no notion where that little thought came from. It was a new kind of little thought. But it seemed to be quiet and kind, and so terribly sure of itself, that she thought it best to obey.

And so it happened that a small dark head went back again to the pillow to explore once more with courage and confidence. She smoothed back her hair with her hand. Tup-tupp. Tup-tupp. She found it again, the curious little noise, cupping her ear on the flat surface of the pillow cover.

Tup-tupp, tup-tupp . It really wasn’t a dreadful sound anyhow. There was something soft and musical and velvety about it, even though you didn’t know where it came from. It was much nicer than a clock. It was much slower than the purring of a pussy-cat, and much sweeter. Tup-tupp. Funny how intimate it was. It seemed to be coming right out of the pillow, crawling into your ear. You found a little bit of it in your throat. It was getting right inside you. You began to like it. It was a friendly little tup-tupp. You seemed to be breathing it, swallowing it. You had swallowed it. It was rolling in your blood, tingling in your feet. It was down in your stomach. And yet some of it had got into your head. You could feel it when you pressed your temples with your hands.

But after much turning and twisting and exploring there was one place where you managed to locate it exactly. If you should draw a line with your finger, beginning with your left eye and down your cheek and across your throat, and keep on going a little way down your breast, and then stop, — you would come to the seat of the mischief precisely. Right under the pocket in your nightdress. Not in the pocket, as you thought first of all, but right under the spot where the pocket rested when you lay on your back and smoothed your nightgown straight down in front.

That? But that was your heart! That little noise was you. You were alive! That’s why something went on ticking inside you. Fancy not knowing you were alive! Fancy not remembering you had a heart! Now weren’t you glad you had not screamed? Now weren’t you happy because you had solved that dreadful mystery all by yourself?

It was funny being alive. It was funny realizing you were somebody. Somehow or other you liked being yourself for the first time, and it was pleasant to lie there with your head on the pillow listening to yourself live. It was so new and so interesting. Except that it was such a lonely business. With nobody to enjoy it but yourself. And nobody to talk to about it. In fact, nobody paying attention to it but you. Mummy and daddy didn’t know, for they were sound asleep. Nobody in the whole world knew, for it was midnight and everyone was sound asleep. Everyone but you. You were the only one in the whole world who was awake. And nobody in the whole world knew you were awake but yourself . . . You were just keeping yourself all to yourself in the darkness. Just lying there and living inside yourself where nobody could ever reach you. So terribly surprised. And so terribly happy. And yet so terribly unhappy. And so terribly alone . . .

And a little heart continued to go tup-tupp, tup tupp. But eventually nobody heard it. Nobody at all. And the moon kept sending in its second-hand light through the window. But some hours later the cock crew. And the sun came over the hill to do a decent job at brightening up things.

* * * * *

A little mind is like a little bird. It requires time and patience to coax it out of the nest. But once aware of its wings and sure of its balance, it will not be long in exploring and possessing the open sky.

On the morning after her delectable, dialectical nightmare, Marjorie came to school as usual. As usual she sat in the second row, and proceeded, as soon as class had begun, to establish a far-away look in her eyes. She chewed her thumb as usual. And when Sister Bridget undertook, by additions and subtractions of oranges, peaches, apples, and bananas, to get a fruity hold on the unpalatable science of mathematics, This Little Thing paid her, as usual, the tribute of a complete and absorbed inattention.

It was not until a day or two had passed that Sister Bridget became aware that inside that tiny, oval and rebellious head thought was happening a little differently. There was more wonder and less bewilderment in This Little Thing’s expression. And several times during Catechism lesson two small cherry lips fluttered, and were on the verge of asking a question.

It helped matters considerably when it was learned that the reverend pastor, during his visit to the city, had been seized with a splendid attack of sciatica (an old complaint of his), and was obliged to go to the hospital to have his aches analyzed. This delayed by a fortnight the First Communion reception, for the reverend pastor (in his arrogance) considers any First Communion invalid which he is not there to administer; and it gave Sister Bridget and me ample time to discover This Little Thing’s new potentialities and to prime her hopefully once more on the fine points of penny theology. And now that she had a problem to settle — and though I have embellished her little heart experience in the telling, it is, without my interpretation and adornment, not too unlike her childish recital of it to me — it was less difficult to focus her small thoughts with sufficient accuracy on the meaning of the Bread of Life. For the problem of physical loneliness is precisely that for which the Blessed Sacrament was instituted. And the mystery of Love in the Sacred Host does not cloud or conceal the intimacy of Love therein, not even for the minds of children. Indeed, I wonder if they do not appreciate best of all the companionship of Love that melts in your mouth and flows in your veins, of Love that is near as nourishment and familiar as food.

And so when ten little boys and twelve little girls knelt at the altar rails on a bright June morning, This Little Thing was among them. The boys went first, manly and brave, small and silent, clean and young, each with a white band on his arm, a squeak in his new shoes, and a terrible surety and hunger in his eyes. I had hoped that it would be my privilege to give Holy Communion to these children. Having seen them safely through the perils of their final examination, I felt it was no more than right that I should say their First Communion Mass and welcome them to the Holy Sacrament. I suggested the idea to the reverend pastor with great tact. But he ridiculed and rejected it, and gave me such a withering and belittling look, you’d think I had asked him to ordain me to the priesthood for the occasion. Of course, I always have to excuse the reverend pastor on the score of his sufferings and his painful sciatica; but I think an equally painful but less egotistical form of sciatica would win him quite as much merit in Heaven.

After the boys came the girls, as fresh and light as lilies, all airy and white and hostlike as their mothers could make them. They drifted and dropped like doves on the altar steps: twelve little substances swathed in snow. As the golden ciborium passed and paused at each open mouth, I wonder if the ghost of Giuseppe Sarto stood behind them and counted them and added their ages and chuckled? Take them all together and they would not make one respectably old lady.

During the service This Little Thing behaved admirably. I stood and watched her from the rear of the church. Of course, I could not judge accurately from a back view of her head what was happening on the front of it; but certainly her movements and her posture, from where I could observe them, gave every indication of complete recollection. She took her place in the procession to the altar with great grace and dignity. And on the way back, in humble adoration, she covered her face with her hands. This last gesture was not according to Bridgetine instructions (one was supposed to fold one’s hands in front of one’s breast); but it was so obviously sincere and natural and made such an edifying picture for the lookers-on, I am sure it did not fail to gain a Bridgetine indulgence after the ceremony.

It was after the ceremony that This Little Thing had a complete reversal to form, and made it quite clear that though she had learned to think all by herself, she had no intention, not even on her First Communion morning, of allowing the mere use of reason to interfere with her individuality. She was to continue to be, as heretofore, a very decided personality, unique, precious and altogether unpredictable.

It was the custom of the girl First Communicants, after their Mass, to go to the school classroom for one last word with Sister Bridget while they were having their veils and rose-wreaths removed. Sister Bridget always managed a tear or two at this occasion (for there is always a sense of sadness attending the completion of any task, however agreeable), supplemented by a kiss, a holy picture, and a plea for prayers in behalf of those dreadfully desperate and indefinite desires all nuns possess in the form of “very special intentions.”

But This Little Thing would not take off her veil. Nor her wreath of roses. She wanted first to say something to Sister Bridget. She wanted to say something to her alone. All alone. When the others had gone. It was a secret. She wanted to whisper it. And the door must be closed. And nobody else must be there.

Eventually, when all these stipulations had been satisfied, the little whisper was whispered. And Sister Bridget was amused. Very amused. Because it was a very funny secret. And a very unusual request.

“All right, darling,” said Sister Bridget, “I’ll be glad to listen. There! . . . Now I can hear it. . . . Hmmmm! . . . Yes, indeed . . . It’s beating away as happy as can be . . . And we know why it’s beating so happy today, don’t we? . . . What’s that? . . . Do I what? . . . Do I hear two hearts beating inside you? . . . No, darling . . . Of course not . . . Oh, you mean Our Lord’s Heart too? . . . No, darling . . . Because Our Lord’s Heart is concealed in the Blessed Sacrament and when He is hidden like that we don’t see or hear Him at all . . . We just believe in Him and love Him and know that He is there because He has told us . . . And that’s all we want is His word for it . . . So now you had better take off your veil and . . . ”

But Sister Bridget had listened a second too long. “Oh,” she cried as a slow cold chill ran through her blood, followed by a quick wave of hot excitement. Was she imagining something? Of course she was. But how could she be imagining it? As clear and definite as the striking of two bells or the patter of two footsteps she heard inside that small bosom against which she pressed her ear, the beating of two hearts. Nonsense! But there was no mistaking it! Both kept a distinct and regular rhythm. One was a light and delicate throb, the other was heavy and labored. There were two heart-beats unmistakably. They did not even keep time with each other.

Sister Bridget’s hands grew cold. Perspiration came out on her forehead and moistened the white band of her wimple. Her long eyelashes fluttered half in ecstasy, half in terror. She dropped upon her knees. And covered her face with her hands.

When This Little Thing had gone, Sister Bridget went quickly out of the school, ran across the convent yard, hurried through the door and up the stairs and along the corridor in frantic haste, and into her cell. She closed the door and threw herself on the bed. And buried her face in the pillow.

Why did she not go to the chapel? She kept asking herself this question, but she dared not go to the chapel. This was too terrible to pray about. She had no notion of how to thank God for this. It was so new and weird and unexpected. Maybe it was an illusion of the Devil. But how could the Devil have any power over a little body on its First Communion morning?

Sister Bridget reviewed her faults and her sins; her distractions at prayer; her moments of impatience; her moments of frivolity. Could a miracle be compatible with all this infidelity and perversity?

Now she would have to readjust her whole life and her whole psychology. The beautiful world of Faith where God was trusted and served for His own sake was now forever closed to her. No more Communion classes to prepare in the way she used to, a child among children, unspoiled by favors and seeking no reward save God’s unspoken pleasure. She had asked her Father in Heaven for no sign. But a sign had been granted. Everything would be different from now on. She would always feel queer and self-conscious and unnatural.

No one must be told of what had happened. And yet the other nuns would be sure to notice a change in her. The Sacred Heart had beat in her ear. Clearly and unmistakably. But what a price to pay in the future! There might be a trial and investigations and canonical inquests. Maybe there would be more miracles and more revelations. Notoriety. And doubt. And fear. And obligations multiplied. And no peace. Sister Bridget clenched her hands and bit her fingers and wept unrestrainedly. She kept muttering short ejaculations. She was trying to be grateful. She was trying to be worthy of what had happened. And yet she was trying not to wish that it had not happened at all . . .

It was some hours later in the morning, shortly before the bell for dinner, that Sister Bridget, lying weary and exhausted on her cot, with her handkerchief rumpled in her hand and her eyes fixed on the wall, became conscious of a strange noise throbbing in her ear. When she raised her head from the pillow it disappeared. When she pressed her ear tightly against the pillow it revived again. She opened her eyes in astonishment. And suddenly her expression changed. “Oh,” she exclaimed. And the world turned over and came up right again.

Oh! So that was it! And Sister Bridget, listening enchantedly to a thumping pillow, made, like Newton when he heard enchantedly the thump of a falling apple, a great discovery. She discovered the law of pectoral acoustics. It is based, so the scientists say, on the simpler law of “pillow acoustics” (discovered by Miss Marjorie X., T. T., U. of R., act. 7), and will be formulated in the text-books this way: If you press your ear very tightly against a slightly hollow object you will hear your heart-beat. If it be the heart area of a living object, you will hear its heart-beat, as well as your own.

Sister Bridget arose. And dried her eyes. And bathed her face in warm water. And then in cool water. And put on a fresh linen coif. And arranged her dress with the proper creases. And her veil with religious precision. And went quietly down to dinner, with a chastened spirit, and a wise appetite.