Biography of George Sand | Page 8

country was not lacking in her
convent home. The pupils had divided themselves into three categories:
the diables, the good girls, who were the specially pious ones, and the
silly ones. Aurore took her place at once among the diables. The great
exploit of these convent girls consisted in descending into the cellars,
during recreation, and in sounding the walls, in order to "deliver the
victim." There was supposed to be an unfortunate victim imprisoned
and tortured by the good, kindhearted Sisters. Alas! all the diables
sworn to the task in the Couvent des Anglaises never succeeded in

finding the victim, so that she must be there still.
Very soon, though, a sudden change-took place in Aurore's soul. It
would have been strange had it been otherwise. With so extraordinarily
sensitive an organization, the new and totally different surroundings
could not fail to make an impression. The cloister, the cemetery, the
long services, the words of the ritual, murmured in the dimly-lighted
chapel, and the piety that seems to hover in the air in houses where
many prayers have been offered up-- all this acted on the young girl.
One evening in August, she had gone into the church, which was dimly
lighted by the sanctuary lamp. Through the open window came the
perfume of honeysuckle and the songs of the birds. There was a charm,
a mystery and a solemn calm about everything, such as she had never
before experienced. "I do not know what was taking place within me,"
she said, when describing this, later on, "but I breathed an atmosphere
that was indescribably delicious, and I seemed to be breathing it in my
very soul. Suddenly, I felt a shock through all my being, a dizziness
came over me, and I seemed to be enveloped in a white light. I thought
I heard a voice murmuring in my ear: `Tolle Lege.' I turned round, and
saw that I was quite alone. . . ."
Our modern psychiatres would say that she had had an hallucination of
hearing, together with olfactory trouble. I prefer saying that she had
received the visit of grace. Tears of joy bathed her face and she
remained there, sobbing for a long time.
The convent had therefore opened to Aurore another world of
sentiment, that of Christian emotion. Her soul was naturally religious,
and the dryness of a philosophical education had not been sufficient for
it. The convent had now brought her the aliment for which she had
instinctively longed. Later on, when her faith, which had never been
very enlightened, left her, the sentiment remained. This religiosity, of
Christian form, was essential to George Sand.
The convent also rendered her another eminent service. In the Histoire
de ma vie, George Sand retraces from memory the portraits of several
of the Sisters. She tells us of Madame Marie-Xavier, and of her despair
at having taken the vows; of Sister Anne-Joseph, who was as kind as an

angel and as silly as a goose; of the gentle Marie-Alicia, whose serene
soul looked out of her blue eyes, a mirror of purity, and of the mystical
Sister Helene, who had left home in spite of her family, in spite of the
supplications and the sobs of her mother and sisters, and who had
passed over the body of a child on her way to God. It is like this always.
The costumes are the same, the hands are clasped in the same manner,
the white bands and the faces look equally pale, but underneath this
apparent uniformity what contrasts! It is the inner life which marks the
differences so vigorously, and shows up the originality of each one.
Aurore gradually discovered the diversity of all these souls and the
beauty of each one. She thought of becoming a nun, but her confessor
did not advise this, and he was certainly wise. Her grandmother, who
had a philosopher's opinion of priests, blamed their fanaticism, and
took her little granddaughter away from the convent. Perhaps she felt
the need of affection for the few months she had still to live. At any
rate, she certainly had this affection. One of the first results of the
larger perspicacity which Aurore had acquired at the convent was to
make her understand her grandmother at last. She was able now to
grasp the complex nature of her relative and to see the delicacy hidden
under an appearance of great reserve. She knew now all that she owed
to her grandmother, but unfortunately it was one of those discoveries
which are made too late.
The eighteen months which Aurore now passed at Nohant, until the
death of her grandmother, are very important as regards her
psychological biography. She was seventeen years old, and a girl who
was eager to live and very emotional.