Sacred Hearts Read Online Free PDF

more as a reflection of how fastidious she is with everything, from the painted finish on the gesso religious figures that the convent produces for sale to the pastoral care of her flock. Besides, God and fashion sit more easily together than those outside might imagine, and the sisters of Santa Caterina absorb the latest styles with the same appetite with which their choir voices explore the latest complexities of polyphony. In this way, while they may be cloistered, they are still true daughters of their fashionable, musical city.
    “So. Let us consider the young soul we are dealing with. Your thoughts first, Suora Zuana. How did you find her?”
    “Angry.”
    “Yes. Well, that much we could all hear. What else?”
    “Afraid. Sad. Outraged. There was a lot of spirit.”
    “Though little of it directed toward our Savior, I would assume.”
    “No. I think it safe to say she does not enter with a vocation.”
    “Ah, always the diplomat with words, Zuana.” She laughs, and one of the curls dances on her forehead. It is not surprising that she is admired by the young as well as the old, since her style combines elements of the benign elder sister along with those of the strict mother. “Did she have anything to say on the matter?”
    “She told me that the vows came from her mouth but not her heart.”
    “I see.” The abbess pauses. “Those were the actual words she used?”
    “Yes.”
    At Zuana’s side, Suora Umiliana sighs heavily, as if this is a burden she is already shouldering. “I feared as much during the ceremony. She was opening her mouth but I could barely hear any words.”
    “Well, if she was coerced, she gave no indication of it when I met her with her father. Had she been beaten, do you think, Zuana?”
    Zuana feels the body again, soft and heavy in her arms. There had been no sign of wounds, or none that the girl herself seemed aware of. “I …I am not sure, but I think not.”
    “Suora Umiliana. What were your impressions?”
    The novice mistress clasps her hands together, as if asking for help before she speaks. In contrast to the abbess, she is a well-padded woman whose wimple is fixed so tight it seems to have impacted into her features, squashing them ever more closely together, her cheeks like puff pastry and her mouth small and puckered, with a covering of wispy white hairs across her upper lip and chin. She must have been young once, but Zuana cannot remember a time when she looked any different. While she is a ferocious shepherd of her novice flock, few pass through her hands without gaining some sense of Christ’s majesty, and the older sisters who go to her looking for spiritual respite report that beneath her crumpled exterior she has a soul as smooth as an unpacked bolt of silk. There are times when Zuana has felt something akin to envy for the simplicity of her certainty, though in such a close community it does not do to dwell on what one does not have.
    “I agree with Suora Zuana. There is a great storm in her. When we undressed her after the ceremony her face was set like a black mask. I would not be surprised if her education has been directed more toward vanity than spirit.”
    “If that is so, it will come as a surprise to her family,” the abbess says, fielding the implied rebuke to her judgment gently. “They have an excellent name in Milan. One of the best.”
    “Also she didn’t sing—or even open her mouth—at Compline.”
    “Perhaps she is unfamiliar with the texts,” Zuana says softly. “Not everybody knows them when they arrive.”
    “Even those with no voice are able to read the words aloud,” Umiliana says tartly, in what may or may not be a reference to Zuana, who everyone knows arrived tone deaf and ignorant of everything but her remedies. “We were told that her singing was a marvel. Suora Benedicta has been beside herself, waiting for her to arrive.”
    “Indeed she has.” The abbess smiles. “Though our dear choir mistress is no stranger to