spinning while, if that sensational text is to be believed, you
have been considering the lilies and sinning exceedingly. You are all at fault, all of
you, most grievously at fault.’
‘Yes, we have that in the confessions, Gertrude, my trusty love.
O felix
culpa!
Maximilian and Baudouin have fled the country to America and are giving
seminars respectively in ecclesiastical stage management and demonology. Tell me,
Gertrude, should I travel to Rome by air or by land and sea?’
‘By sea and land,’ says Gertrude. ‘Keep them waiting.’
‘Yes, the fleecy drift of the sky across the Channel will become me. I hope to
leave in about ten days’ time. The Infant of Prague is already in the bank —
Gertrude, are you there?’
‘I didn’t catch that,’ says Gertrude. ‘I dropped a hair-pin and
picked it up.’
Mildred and Walburga are absent now, having found it necessary to reorganize the
infirmary at the Abbey of Ynce for the ailing and ancient Abbot. Alexandra, already
seeing in her mind’s eye her own shape on the upper deck of the ship that takes
her from Dover to Ostend, and thence by train through the St Gothard the long journey to
Rome across the map of Europe, sits at her desk prettily writing to the Cardinal at
Rome. O rare Abbess of Crewe!
‘Your Very Reverend Eminence,
Your Eminence does me the honour to invite me to respond to the Congregational Committee
of Investigation into the case of Sister Felicity’s little thimble and
thimble-related matters …’
She has given the orders for the selection and orchestration of
the transcripts of her tape-recordings. She has gathered her nuns together before
Compline. ‘Remove the verses that I have uttered. They are proper to myself alone
and should not be cast before the public. Put “Poetry deleted”. Sedulously
expurgate all such trivial fond records and entitle the compilation
The Abbess of
Crewe
.’
Our revels now are ended. Be still, be watchful. She sails indeed on the fine day of her
desire into waters exceptionally smooth, and stands on the upper deck, straight as a
white ship’s funnel, marvelling how the wide sea billows from shore to shore like
that cornfield of sublimity which never should be reaped nor was ever sown, orient and
immortal wheat.
Copyright © Copyright Administration Ltd. 1974
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a
newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published as a New Directions Bibelot in 1995
Published by arrangement with Dame Muriel Spark, ber agent Georges
Borchardt, Inc.,
New York, and Penguin Books Ltd., London. The Abbess of Crewe was
originally published in the U.S.A. by The Viking Press, 1974.
Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to quote
material: The Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare and The Society of Authors as
their representative for material from “Miss/T.” by Walter de la Mare.
Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., A.P. Watt & Son, M. B. Yeats, Anne Yeats, and
the Estate of W. B. Yeats for material from “Nineteen Hundred and
Nineteen,” copyright 1928 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., copyright ©
Georgie Yeats, 1956; for “He Remembers Forgotten Beauty,” copyright 1906
by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., copyright 1934 by William Butler Yeats. Both
poems from Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats. New Directions Publishing and
Messrs Faber & Faber for “In Durance” from Personae by Ezra Pound,
copyright 1926 by Ezra Pound. Random House Inc., and Messrs Faber & Faber for
material from “Lay your sleeping head, my love” from Collected Shorter
Poems 1927-1957 by W.H. Auden. copyright 1940 by W.H.
have been considering the lilies and sinning exceedingly. You are all at fault, all of
you, most grievously at fault.’
‘Yes, we have that in the confessions, Gertrude, my trusty love.
O felix
culpa!
Maximilian and Baudouin have fled the country to America and are giving
seminars respectively in ecclesiastical stage management and demonology. Tell me,
Gertrude, should I travel to Rome by air or by land and sea?’
‘By sea and land,’ says Gertrude. ‘Keep them waiting.’
‘Yes, the fleecy drift of the sky across the Channel will become me. I hope to
leave in about ten days’ time. The Infant of Prague is already in the bank —
Gertrude, are you there?’
‘I didn’t catch that,’ says Gertrude. ‘I dropped a hair-pin and
picked it up.’
Mildred and Walburga are absent now, having found it necessary to reorganize the
infirmary at the Abbey of Ynce for the ailing and ancient Abbot. Alexandra, already
seeing in her mind’s eye her own shape on the upper deck of the ship that takes
her from Dover to Ostend, and thence by train through the St Gothard the long journey to
Rome across the map of Europe, sits at her desk prettily writing to the Cardinal at
Rome. O rare Abbess of Crewe!
‘Your Very Reverend Eminence,
Your Eminence does me the honour to invite me to respond to the Congregational Committee
of Investigation into the case of Sister Felicity’s little thimble and
thimble-related matters …’
She has given the orders for the selection and orchestration of
the transcripts of her tape-recordings. She has gathered her nuns together before
Compline. ‘Remove the verses that I have uttered. They are proper to myself alone
and should not be cast before the public. Put “Poetry deleted”. Sedulously
expurgate all such trivial fond records and entitle the compilation
The Abbess of
Crewe
.’
Our revels now are ended. Be still, be watchful. She sails indeed on the fine day of her
desire into waters exceptionally smooth, and stands on the upper deck, straight as a
white ship’s funnel, marvelling how the wide sea billows from shore to shore like
that cornfield of sublimity which never should be reaped nor was ever sown, orient and
immortal wheat.
Copyright © Copyright Administration Ltd. 1974
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a
newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published as a New Directions Bibelot in 1995
Published by arrangement with Dame Muriel Spark, ber agent Georges
Borchardt, Inc.,
New York, and Penguin Books Ltd., London. The Abbess of Crewe was
originally published in the U.S.A. by The Viking Press, 1974.
Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to quote
material: The Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare and The Society of Authors as
their representative for material from “Miss/T.” by Walter de la Mare.
Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., A.P. Watt & Son, M. B. Yeats, Anne Yeats, and
the Estate of W. B. Yeats for material from “Nineteen Hundred and
Nineteen,” copyright 1928 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., copyright ©
Georgie Yeats, 1956; for “He Remembers Forgotten Beauty,” copyright 1906
by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., copyright 1934 by William Butler Yeats. Both
poems from Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats. New Directions Publishing and
Messrs Faber & Faber for “In Durance” from Personae by Ezra Pound,
copyright 1926 by Ezra Pound. Random House Inc., and Messrs Faber & Faber for
material from “Lay your sleeping head, my love” from Collected Shorter
Poems 1927-1957 by W.H. Auden. copyright 1940 by W.H.
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