The Gray Nun

When I was a young man I once made a foreign journey, betaking myself to the royal court of X. on affairs of state. In those days politics would take strange turns, not of unmixed delight, and so it happened that my mission was prolonged well into the winter, and kept me at X. until the carnival season. But at this I did not repine, for to pass a winter in a beautiful climate and amid the fascinating society of a court seemed a welcome change to my enthusiastic, pleasure-loving young soul.

The reigning sovereign had a predilection for masked balls,--a traditionally favorite amusement at the palace, I was told--and accordingly several fancy dress festivities were enacted on the royal premises during the carnival. The first I was unable to participate in because of an inflamed eye, and therefore awaited the second with all the keener anticipation.

In the becoming costume of a Prussian officer in the army of Frederick the Great, and with the agreeable sensation of being specially well disguised beneath my mask and safe from recognition, I mingled in the gay throng of the dancers and enjoyed to the full the charm of the brilliant and delicious event. An exquisitely graceful little water-nix had conquered my heart. The champagne was bubbling in my blood, and in wild spirits I was pursuing the fleeing Undine into an adjacent apartment.

Suddenly I stopped as though spellbound, and found myself staring into a pair of dark eyes, black as night, which were rigidly fixed upon me. Standing aloof, in a corner of the room, I saw a nun. Her long gray garment reached to the ground, and lay about her very feet in folds like a train. Her arms hung straight down, the hands being concealed in the loose sleeves. White linen bands covered her head and chin, and rendered even her mouth invisible, while her forehead and the upper part of her face were protected by a black velvet mask. And the blackness of those eyes that penetrated me was so intense that scarcely were any whites discernible.

An indescribable emotion ran over me as I stood under the ban of an evil power, as it were, returning the look of that strange figure. I had forgotten Undine. Drawn by some invisible force, I approached the nun with mechanical footstep.

“Why, fair mask,” I accosted her with a bold laugh, “are you alone? Surely you know that for dancing and love two are needed!”

Briefly, like a Chinese idol, she nodded her head in assent; a thrill seemed to pass over her wonderfully slender shape; yet she did not budge.

I became more venturesome from a sudden feeling as of fire rushing through my veins.

“You may be vowed to seclusion, beautiful bride of Heaven, but to-day the convent walls have released you, to-day you are of the world and the flesh, to-day you are mine!”

Thus I cried aloud, forgetting in my excitement that I was in a country where my mother tongue was only spoken and understood at the German legation.

In a moment it occurred to me: Did the mask know German?

To my astonishment, she gave an immediate sign of intelligence by gliding, silently as a shadow, another step in my direction, and her biasing eyes appeared to kindle with merriment. Had she a veil over her eyes? It almost looked so and this extraordinary measure of precaution challenged me the more strongly to overcome her reluctance to being known.

“Do you understand me?” I asked.

She nodded in the same brief, jerky manner as before.

“Do you know me?”

Similarly she answered by negative motions of the head. I stepped up close to her with the question:

“But will you not know me and love me? Come into my arms, and let us dance!”

Then something happened that at the moment I found surprising and extremely startling, yet which I took for a mere carnival freak, while later on I could scarce review the occurrence with any degree of clearness.

The nun threw her arms about me abruptly and almost desperately, and whirled me into a frenzied dance. I felt no body between my arms, and did not hear the rustle of her dress; I only saw those enigmatic dark eyes, which glowed near, very near, my own. And in mad career, regardless of the musical time or of the tune played, my curious partner tore around the room with me faster and faster, and with ever increasing fury. Her arms gripped me tighter and tighter and I was threatened with complete loss of breath in the wild race. Of a sudden I received a violent blow, resembling an electric shock, from each of her hands on my shoulders, felt myself all at once liberated, and staggered faint against a pyramid of plants. Boisterous laughter sounded on my ear; some other masks had surrounded and seized me, exclaiming:

“Look at the fine gentleman! He is out of his mind, dancing about the room like a madman, quite alone!”

I opened my eyes and looked all around. What had become of my partner?

Not a sign of her was to be seen, although this other room was likewise very large, just then not well filled with people.

“Have I been dancing alone?” I gasped, tearing the mask off my burning face.

“Quite alone! Did you imagine it was with your sweetheart?” was the mocking, noisy reply.

I was deeply annoyed. “Nonsense!” I cried. “You are all in the conspiracy! Where has the nun gone? It was no lady at all, it was a man in disguise!”

They laughed still more, and some whispered behind fans that I must be drunk.

Strange sensations invaded me. Had a joke been played at my expense? Had a member of the German legation dressed in female clothes, and in the height of his whimsical caprice danced with me in that insane fashion? Were the guests in the secret, and were they amusing themselves--as the freedom of the carnival permitted--with teasing a foreigner? Yet surely the mysterious nun must be discoverable. My knees were trembling from a weakness I was unable to account for, but I collected myself, and while various thoughts coursed through my brain for a solution of this carnival prank, I hastened with feverish speed through rooms and galleries in quest of the nun. But in vain. I espied neither herself, nor met anyone who had seen her. The lackeys and doorkeepers assured me in perfect good faith that they had seen no nun of any sort.

“The costume is one of which His Majesty does not approve,” I was informed in the cloak-room. “It is considered irreverent to appear at balls here in the spiritual garb of a nun or a monk, and therefore it is not done. It would certainly have been observed by us had any lady or gentleman transgressed against the prevailing usage.”

“Then perhaps I may have mistaken for a nun some other mask, who intended in her gray suit to represent Twilight or Care,” I excused myself hesitatingly, though I had an accurate eye for dresses, and could have registered a solemn oath that the mysterious unknown was even wearing especially authentic claustral attire. No one, however, could by any effort remember having noticed a costume anything like that described by me.

“Are there any secret passages to any of the rooms and galleries which are the scene of tonight’s festivities?” I asked a doorkeeper. He looked at me in surprise, and answered:

“All ways of communication were opened today because of the crowd of guests, but for safety’s sake guarded and watched more carefully than usual. Only the tapestried corridor running the length of the great colonnade to the royal apartments was left unguarded, since in that place there is no possibility of improper intrusion.”

A new idea flashed across me. The spot on which I had first set eyes on my nun was at the entrance to that corridor. Might not a member of the royal family have elected to make me, as a novice in this foreign court society, the subject of a merry jest? No doubt the nun was a man in disguise, and the young princes and dukes were probably capable of pouncing on the victim and dancing him to death.

My confusion was perhaps very diverting, and the secrecy of the few spectators of the joke, who were, of course, initiated, was quite praiseworthy.

They asserted not having seen a nun at all, and laughed at me for having rushed round the room alone, like a lunatic, Obviously there was no further room for doubt, this explanation and no other was valid. Why had I not thought of this before!

So I joined in the hilarity of the others and made the best of my discomfiture. In any case, the manner in which my partner had dismissed me betrayed a pair of powerful masculine fists! My shoulders, on which she had come down so vigorously ached as if they were broken, and I was still unable to conquer entirely a peculiar sensation of uneasiness. But while I was pursuing my investigations the clock struck twelve, the company unmasked, and gaily flocked toward the Supper rooms. I felt particularly entitled to refreshments, and in the course of my indulgence in the good things of my selection, my faintness--which was more astonishing to my robust, muscular young self than any carnival joke in the world could have been--passed off completely. I was as happy and lively as before, and enjoyed the remainder of the ball as much as I had the beginning. I tried to dismiss the episode from my mind. For a few days I felt a dull pain in my shoulders, which annoyed me at night also, and disturbed my sleep. The image of the nun haunted me, and the sombre, penetrating eyes were present to me in my very dreams. This vexed me, and I mentally abused the royal gentleman in every key who had pushed his joke rather too far.

A week passed, and the court chamberlain issued invitations for the third masked ball at the palace. I purchased a sailor’s dress, and on the evening of the ball tripped up the marble stairs in the best of spirits. It had in the meanwhile occurred to me that I had perhaps imbibed too much, and that the prince in nun’s clothing had perhaps observed my condition, and made me his victim for that reason. But I rejected that proposition. In the first place, I had not taken much to drink; certainly two or three glasses of champagne and lemonade were not worth mentioning when I remembered what quantities of alcohol I had frequently absorbed in my university days in Germany. I was a brave boon companion, and capable of consuming a great deal. So how should a few paltry little glasses make me so unsteady on my feet as to collapse in dancing a fast gallop? Absurd! I was sure enough of myself, and sufficiently well brought up in social customs, to know how much one may drink at a court ball. No--I was convinced that I had not been intoxicated, but on this occasion I resolved to exercise special caution, and to be strictly temperate, in the event of the disguised perpetrator of pranks again attempting to make the German stranger the butt of his impudence. This time he should meet his match; I would keep my head clear and my feet steady enough to venture a dance with him. The constantly suspicious attitude of my mind, to be sure, interfered with my pleasure very considerably. I was in a too observant mood to float on the topmost wave of enjoyment, and besides an extraordinary disquietude had seized upon me, a contraction about the heart that was quite new to me, such as sensitive people undergo before a storm or in anticipation of momentous changes of fortune. I wandered about restlessly. Numerous though the merry masks that flitted around me, that nun’s indescribable black eyes did not appear, and no effort was made to involve me again as the hero of another frolic. Time was dragging heavily. I glanced at my watch, and wished the supper hour might be near. The finger only pointed to half past eleven, so that I must still possess my soul in patience for half an hour. It was a lovely, mild, moonlight night; the doors to the tapestried passage and the colonnade had been thrown open, and I concluded to take a breath of the fragrant air and a rapid view of the illuminated town in its festive brilliancy of a carnival night.