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Show 14 Sounds of grumbling and hoarse rebuke came from the sleeping quarters, and the priest winced. Hilde came back almost at a run. "He will be out soon," she told Father Johann. While he was waiting for Master Hermann, Father Johann watched me work. "Is your life hard, Albert?" he suddenly asked. "Very hard. Father," I answered truthfully. "Not like the old days, eh, Albert?" By the old days he meant my years at the Convent of St. Gervase, that ancient, crumbling building which was home to seven withered, elderly women. For eight years I lived there in perfect happiness. I had been taken to the convent the day I was born by Father Johann, who rode horseback holding me in one arm for the entire twenty-four mile trip. When he reached the convent, his arm was so stiff that the nuns had to pull on his wrist to straighten his elbow. "The good God doesn't shape men's arms to carry babes," Sister Agatha would say, laughing every time she told me the story. The others would join in the laughter, and each of them had some detail to add to the tale of how I came to them. I loved every one. They petted and spoiled me, pouring over me all the motherly devotion which brimmed in them in spite of their long years of cloistering. My first memories are of lying curled in Sister Clothilde's arms, watching tallow candles sputter on the altar as the nuns sang the Divine Praises in their cracked, chirping voices. The prioress, Mother Justina, could read a little. She taught me a few words from the holy scripts, and saw to it that I memorized |