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Show Anting Alone Page 284 blank) for the following reason: (multiple choice, check one). She couldn't really recall the exact wording, but that was pretty close to the infuriating original. If anything, it was toned down a bit. She hadn't been able to decide whether she should scribble out a few of those beseeches and prostrates. She'd survived the wranglings and apologies and imprecations of her family and the older nuns and the chaplain. Hardest of all, she'd announced her intentions to her friend and cellmate Simone Stylite, who'd cried desertion one entire night. Polycarpana was intending to stay at the convent, in full habit, still a nun in every sense but the nominal, until the rightwing propaganda and nasty redbaiting notes arrived from the various congressmen and senators whom -she was on her way to importune today as a member of Network. So there would be at least a couple more months of head-cheese. There was no need for tearful goodbyes yet; but Simone had been enjoying herself that night, and Polycarpana had let her cry. But even all the tears had been easier to take than this letter of request. For the sake of her own self-respect Polycarpana had sat down one morning during adoration and had forced her mind to come up with some kind of doubt to give that groveling formletter the benefit of: yes, it had probably been composed and printed by the little old priests in the Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome, who spent their lives shrouded in gold lame, the crystal chandeliers and carved marble ceilings of the Italian Renaissance hanging perpetually over their heads; they probably knew no other language than grovelese. Besides, the language could have been further adulterated in the translation from the Latin. Perhaps they |
