WEBVTT

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"It was my hatred that drew me
deeper into the church, Sister

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Ursula's third
installment began,

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the words cramped even more
tightly on exactly 25 pages.

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And this elicited my
now standard comments

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in the margin.

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As a writer of
opening sentences,

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Sister Ursula was without
peer among my students.

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[LAUGHTER]

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In the months following
her mother's death,

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an explanation had
occurred to Sister Ursula.

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Her father, most likely, had
booked passage to America

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in search of work.

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Such journeys, she
knew, were fraught

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with unimaginable
peril, and perhaps

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he now lay at the
bottom of the ocean.

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So it was that
she gradually came

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to accept the inevitability
of Sister Veronique's

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cruel prophesy.

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She would become one of
those whom she detested.

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Ironically, this
fate was hastened

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by the prophet's
own untimely death

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when she was kicked
by a horse, not

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in the head as Sister
Ursula had prayed,

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but in the chest, causing
severe internal hemorrhaging

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and creating an
opening in the stable.

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During her long
sojourn at the convent,

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Sister Ursula had learned to
prefer the company of animals

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to that of humans.

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And so, at the age of 16,
already a large, full woman,

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like her mother, she became
herself a bride of Christ.

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Sister Ursula's chronicle of
the years following her vows,

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largely a description of
her duties in the stable,

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featured several
brief recollections

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of a single weekend that she
had spent at home in the city

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during the Christmas
holiday of that first year

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she entered the convent school.

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During that holiday, she'd seen
very little of her mother--

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a relief, since sister
Ursula dreaded the heat

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of her mother's
embrace, the cloying

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stench of her whore's perfume.

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Rather, her beloved father took
her with him on his rounds,

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placing her on a
convenient bench

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outside the dark buildings
he entered, telling her

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how long he would
be, how high a number

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she would have to count
to before he would return.

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Only a few times did she
have to count higher.

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"Did you find work, father?"

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she asked each
time he reappeared.

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It seemed to Sister Ursula that
in buildings as large and dark

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as the ones that he entered
with so many other men

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entering and
exiting, there should

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have been work in one of
them, but there was not.

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Still, that they were
together was joy enough.

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Her father took her to the
wharf to see the boats,

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to a small carnival
where a man her father

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knew let her ride
a pony for free.

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And finally, on a bitter
cold picnic to the country,

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where they ate warm
bread and cheese.

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At the end of each
of these excursions,

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her father promised her
again that she would not

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have to remain much longer
in the convent school.

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That another Christmas would
find them all together.

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The installment ended
with Sister Ursula

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taking her final vows in the
same chapel that for years had

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been her refuge from the
taunts of the children

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for whom she would always
be the whore's child.

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There, at the very altar
of God, Sister Ursula,

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like a reluctant bride
in an arranged marriage,

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indulged her fantasy of rescue
right up to the last moment.

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When asked to proclaim
her irrevocable devotion

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to God and to the
one true church,

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she paused and turned
toward the side door

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of the chapel, the one
that she had always

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imagined her father
would throw open,

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and willed her father's shadow
to emerge from the blinding

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light and scatter these useless
women and hateful children

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before him.

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But the door remained shut.

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The chapel dark except
for the flickering

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of 100 candles, and so Sister
Ursula became a bride."

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