no male ever has learned to do very well—how to dissemble my most tempestuous or deepest feelings, when I wanted to, behind a mask of impassivity. That is to say, the mask would have been inscrutable to a male, but was transparent to any other female. Like every one of my sisters, I could tell when another was being happy or sad, forthright or guileful.
Furthermore, my attitudes had changed. I could now appreciate my feminine deftness of touch and aptitude for sympathy as much as I had formerly gloried in my masculine strength and coolheadedness. I could take as much pride in sewing a fine seam, or comforting a homesick younger sister, as I formerly had done when I singlehandedly slew that wild glutton. Where before I had seen things in terms of their substance and function, I now looked at things more keenly, noticing in them gradations of palpability, pattern, color, texture, even sounds. Where before a tree had been to me a solid object to be climbed, I now could discern its intricacies—rough bark below, supple and tender extremities, no two leaves of exactly the same shape or the same green, and the whole tree forever making some sound, from the merest whisper to the fiercest thrashing complaint. When the nuns of St. Pelagia’s chanted a canticle, any dullard male could have remarked that their voices were infinitely more dulcet than those of St. Damian’s monks—but my own hearing was now acute enough to detect the gentleness in Sister Ursula’s voice even when she was scolding, and to detect the rancor in Domina Aetherea’s even when she spoke most unctuously.
Perhaps it is because women, through all the generations since Eve, have mainly done close and delicate work that their girl-children by now are born with such refined senses and abilities. Or maybe it is the other way about: their inborn subtle talents make them excel at work of minute precision. I do not know. But I was then—and still am—very happy that I, like other females, had been endowed with those attributes of sensitiveness and discernment.
However, not then—and not since—did I ever lose or outgrow or slough off any of the less refined but still valuable faculties and proficiencies inherent in the male half of my nature. Because the independent boy-child part of me found the atmosphere inside St. Pelagia’s to be so oppressive and inhibiting, I contrived to spend as much time as possible outdoors, volunteering to take on those chores that the nuns and novices most disliked: the care of the cattle and swine, for instance.
I had another reason, a more personal and even more boyish reason, for spending time in the outbuildings and barnyard. For that same secret reason, I managed fairly frequently, after dark, to steal away from the nunnery grounds entirely. I was able to do that simply because it was inconceivable to our elders that a girl would play truant, especially in the dark, for all the girls and women considered the night the time when demons were oftenest abroad. Nevertheless, I always took the precaution of waiting until after Domina Aetherea had made her head count of all the nuns and novices retiring to their cells at nightfall, before I slipped out of my own cell and out of the building and out of the grounds.
What took me outdoors whenever I could go there—besides my getting away from the convent’s dour discipline, and besides my desire for an occasional all-over bath in the sparkling water of the cascades—was the need to care for and continue the training of my juika-bloth.
Here at St. Pelagia’s, as soon as I could, I had established myself as “that girl who does most of the dirty work outdoors.” Then, at my earliest opportunity, I sneaked out one night, ran all the way across the Balsan Hrinkhen to St. Damian’s, climbed unobserved into the pigeon loft, retrieved my bird and ran back to the convent. Part of the way, the juika-bloth seemed to enjoy being carried on my shoulder, jouncing lightly to my stride.
Furthermore, my attitudes had changed. I could now appreciate my feminine deftness of touch and aptitude for sympathy as much as I had formerly gloried in my masculine strength and coolheadedness. I could take as much pride in sewing a fine seam, or comforting a homesick younger sister, as I formerly had done when I singlehandedly slew that wild glutton. Where before I had seen things in terms of their substance and function, I now looked at things more keenly, noticing in them gradations of palpability, pattern, color, texture, even sounds. Where before a tree had been to me a solid object to be climbed, I now could discern its intricacies—rough bark below, supple and tender extremities, no two leaves of exactly the same shape or the same green, and the whole tree forever making some sound, from the merest whisper to the fiercest thrashing complaint. When the nuns of St. Pelagia’s chanted a canticle, any dullard male could have remarked that their voices were infinitely more dulcet than those of St. Damian’s monks—but my own hearing was now acute enough to detect the gentleness in Sister Ursula’s voice even when she was scolding, and to detect the rancor in Domina Aetherea’s even when she spoke most unctuously.
Perhaps it is because women, through all the generations since Eve, have mainly done close and delicate work that their girl-children by now are born with such refined senses and abilities. Or maybe it is the other way about: their inborn subtle talents make them excel at work of minute precision. I do not know. But I was then—and still am—very happy that I, like other females, had been endowed with those attributes of sensitiveness and discernment.
However, not then—and not since—did I ever lose or outgrow or slough off any of the less refined but still valuable faculties and proficiencies inherent in the male half of my nature. Because the independent boy-child part of me found the atmosphere inside St. Pelagia’s to be so oppressive and inhibiting, I contrived to spend as much time as possible outdoors, volunteering to take on those chores that the nuns and novices most disliked: the care of the cattle and swine, for instance.
I had another reason, a more personal and even more boyish reason, for spending time in the outbuildings and barnyard. For that same secret reason, I managed fairly frequently, after dark, to steal away from the nunnery grounds entirely. I was able to do that simply because it was inconceivable to our elders that a girl would play truant, especially in the dark, for all the girls and women considered the night the time when demons were oftenest abroad. Nevertheless, I always took the precaution of waiting until after Domina Aetherea had made her head count of all the nuns and novices retiring to their cells at nightfall, before I slipped out of my own cell and out of the building and out of the grounds.
What took me outdoors whenever I could go there—besides my getting away from the convent’s dour discipline, and besides my desire for an occasional all-over bath in the sparkling water of the cascades—was the need to care for and continue the training of my juika-bloth.
Here at St. Pelagia’s, as soon as I could, I had established myself as “that girl who does most of the dirty work outdoors.” Then, at my earliest opportunity, I sneaked out one night, ran all the way across the Balsan Hrinkhen to St. Damian’s, climbed unobserved into the pigeon loft, retrieved my bird and ran back to the convent. Part of the way, the juika-bloth seemed to enjoy being carried on my shoulder, jouncing lightly to my stride.
Similar Books
