I Leap Over the Wall

by Monica Baldwin

  An interesting job was offered to me at the Ministry of Information. One had to hunt up facts and figures to be used in speeches for overseas propaganda. When, however, I-turned up at Malet Street for the interview, I was so overawed by the gigantic building, honeycombed with offices and passages down which important-looking people scurried incessantly to and fro, that I was in no condition to cope with the barrage of questions that came my way. As might have been expected, my curious ignorance of what had been happening between the wars proved too serious a handicap. I still remember the perplexed, incredulous expression on the interviewer’s face when he discovered that I’d never heard of P. G. Wodehouse, Mr. Gandhi, or Suzanne Lenglen.

  Another bleak remembrance is of the day when, half-stupefied by influenza and the freezing fog that seemed to penetrate the inmost back recesses of one’s soul, I presented myself with extreme diffidence at the Redbourne Hotel, then a war-time annexe of the B.B.C.

  Mr. Reginald Beckwith the playwright, a friend of my aunt’s, was doing special broadcasts for the B.B.C., and, being the kindest of men, had provided me with a letter of introduction. From this—since it contained a remarkable catalogue of my accomplishments—my optimist uncle and aunt hoped great things.

  Unfortunately, the brisk, elderly recruiting officer who put me through my paces appeared unimpressed. Specialized in Fourth-century History, did I? She was sorry, but at the moment, the B.B.C. were more interested in the Twentieth. What about languages? In these days, of course, everybody knew French, German and Italian: it seemed, however, that if my Greek, Russian, Turkish and Spanish were fairly fluent, she might perhaps find something for me as a—I believe ‘monitor’ was the word she used. It conveyed nothing to me.

  A few more searching questions revealed how destitute I was of the necessary qualifications, and I found myself being politely dismissed with a murmured promise that the B.B.C. would ‘let me know’.

  Once more I’d drawn a blank.

  Had Gay or Barbara been in town, I should have fled to them for counsel. As it was, I paid a call on the uncle who had initiated me in the mysteries of modern music when first I came forth into the world.

  Though kind, he was not particularly helpful. This, I think, was because he regarded me as what he himself would have called the lowest type of mutt … a new word which I hastened to add to my rapidly increasing vocabulary.

  As a result, after an hour or two of his companionship, I felt so mournful that I could have run round the city howling, like the dog in the psalms.

  Like most of my family, he had a very poor opinion of nuns. It was true, he knew little about them; but this in no way prevented him from criticizing their behaviour whenever he got the chance.

  Convents, he declared, were filled with herds of semi-demented spinsters whose repressed and abnormal existences induced a warped, unhealthy attitude towards life. The perpetual introspection which, he insisted, was their principal occupation could only bring about a frustrated, inhibited, even perverted state of mind.

  It was useless to argue with him; he despised me too much even to listen to what I said.

  However, I really couldn’t allow such statements to go unchallenged. So, now and again, I used to unwind my coils like a cobra and strike back.

  I explained to him that, on the subject of religious life, though quite possibly on no other in the world, I was qualified to speak. And he must forgive me if I told him that his outlook on the matter was prejudiced and absurd.

  Nuns and monks were not—as he seemed to think—unhinged old maids and desiccated bachelors who had shuffled off their responsibilities in order to live lives of soured virginity. If he wanted the right angle on the subject, he should read the lives and writings of the saints and mystics: Catherine of Siena, Francis of Assisi, Angela of Foligno, Bernard of Clairvaux…. Nobody who studied them could fail to see that, far from being either negative or diminished, the life lived by monks and nuns was one of intense and—in the case of the saints—even passionate love. Only, this love, instead of being ‘natural’ and human, was ‘supernatural’ and divine.

  My uncle was scandalized.

  As by now, however, I was in it up to the neck, I thought I might as well say everything I wanted to and have done with it.

  So I suggested that, as a starting point, we’d take it that he admitted God to be a living person. Very well, then. Suppose that it were possible—as the saints and mystics declared it was—to get into conscious, vital contact with him; as surely and certainly (though, of course, in an entirely different way) as with somebody at the opposite end of a telephone.

  Well, God being who and what he was (among other things ‘the Man Who Made the World’, as Chesterton somewhere calls him), wouldn’t this business of getting into touch—this setting up of a personal, intimate relation with such a being—be the most stupendous, ineffable adventure within the possibility of human experience? And wouldn’t those prepared to undertake the conditions imposed before success could be hoped for in this transcendent experiment, be a thousand times justified in doing so and in living the kind of life that would most help them to the attainment of their end?

  What was more—and I pointed out that whether or no he believed it, made not the smallest difference to the objective reality of the fact—if people in the world had any idea of what that which the mystics describe as a life of union with God could really mean—well, the queues of people begging for admittance outside convent doors would stretch for miles.

  As I might have foreseen, this burst of eloquence produced not the slightest effect upon my uncle.

  There was a short, slightly embarrassing pause. Then he gave one of those little patronizing laughs that can be so supremely aggravating.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I’ve got too much common sense to take that kind of nonsense seriously. But I’m quite ready to believe that you believe it. Do help yourself to another cup of tea!’

  (2)

  My aunt and uncle being the kind of people who had always, so to speak, dwelt in marble halls, it was useless to ask their opinion as to where inexpensive lodgings could be sought.

  It was, in the end, my uncle’s secretary who told me of a periodical called Dalton’s Weekly in which long lists of every possible kind of lodgings were to be found.

  Armed with this, I set out for the Marylebone Public Library—always my haven of refuge in times of tribulation—borrowed the largest street map of London that was to be had and sat down with it spread out on the table before me to plan, like Napoleon, my campaign of the next few days.

  As I had no idea how to find my way round London and knew little about the personal character of the various localities, I had nothing to guide me in my choice. I therefore picked out the addresses nearest the various jobs suggested by the indefatigable directors of Labour at Sardinia Street and set out with the list tucked under my wing to explore.

  One of the small things to which I’d found it hardest to grow accustomed when I left the convent was the business of balancing myself in high-heeled shoes.

  The kind worn by nuns are square-toed, flat-heeled and deliberately clumping, so it was months before I felt really at home in the elegant things my sister had helped me to buy. Which helps to explain how I came to twist my ankle rather viciously soon after my return to Portland Place.

  A limp and a dropsical-looking ankle was not going to be exactly an asset in the surfeit of walking and talking that was to fill the next few days. Remembering, however, what I’d been taught in the convent about suppressing one’s ‘natural reactions’, I fought down the despondent mood induced by fog and influenza and set out to try my luck.

  A job as assistant librarian at Guildhall had been suggested by Sardinia Street. This appealed to my historical imagination. As, however, I felt doubtful whether, with my peculiar limitations, I could secure so exalted a post, I tried, as I limped along Cheapside to my interview, to enlist the sympathies of the Saints of Paradise. It struck me that such holy do
ctors as Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome, who had spent every available moment in writing or studying books, might well take some interest in my affairs. Omnes sancti doctores, orate pro nobis. I invoked them passionately.

  The head librarian, a large, kind, impressive person who rather overawed me, drew up a chair to the blazing fire in his comfortable room. To my relief, he had no trace of the slick, new-world manner which always so petrified me. Eyeing me thoughtfully, he began to talk.

  And here I may mention that one of the things which has impressed me about the men I’ve seen since I left my cloister is their genius for comfort. I could say quite a lot about this, but at the moment it will be enough to remark that physical well-being seems far more essential to them than to us. Men just will not put up with the things that women take quite simply in their stride. In fact, men strike me as being—if I may so express it without seeming offensive—more ‘bodily’ in every way. This may very well explain why nuns are far more numerous than monks and why statistics show that the percentage of women-mystics so far exceeds that of men.

  One would not, of course, dare to suggest that men are more selfish than women; but it does rather look as though they were less inclined to cut loose from what ‘flatters the senses’ than women, who step out with comparative ease into those draughty, uncomfortable regions in which the highest spiritual adventures normally take place.

  However, we must return to Guildhall.

  The job sounded ideal. And indeed, had I but understood more about the intricacies of the Dewey system, I believe it would have been mine. As it was, this—to me—new and quite incomprehensible method of classification was quite beyond me. I was therefore told kindly that if no one with higher qualifications applied within the next few days, the head librarian would Let Me Know. The interview was at an end.

  As I followed him to be shown the charred ruins of the ancient building, yet another invocation from the Litany of the Saints soared up to heaven. The blitz scars were recent: the wreckage terrible. Brought up in the convent to an almost excessive reverence for things ancient, I looked upon the havoc wrought with indignation smouldering in my heart. Ut inimicos nostrae—I adjusted the words to present needs—humiliare digneris, Te rogamus audi nos. Apparently my reactions to the spectacle were much the same as those of the men who had composed that Litany more than fifteen hundred years before, perhaps with similar provocation. Genseric—Attila—Hitler—their mentality seems to have been very much the same.

  I wandered about Holborn, staggered by the immensity of the desolation. In my tidy, well-ordered religious life, such a spectacle would have been quite inconceivable. Whole areas had been entirely flattened. Hideous bomb-craters yawned amid grey heaps of rubble and twisted metal. Here and there stood a smoke-scorched, partially shattered house whose sides, roof or front had been completely ripped away. I was appalled.

  Just in case the Guildhall job should, after all, materialize, I decided to explore the surrounding neighbourhood and discover what were my chances of a lodging.

  I tried twenty-two addresses. Having no previous experience to tell me what lodgings ought to look like, I took it for granted that what I saw was the usual thing. They were all dreadful, and abominably expensive; worse, almost every inquiry elicited the brief and unamiable answer that they were full up; and the door was shut in my face. By the end of the afternoon I was feeling so weary and dreary that I could have sat on a doorstep and wept.

  And it was at this point that a wave of something not very unlike the revolt that precedes despair began slowly to creep over me. Loneliness and fatigue were beginning to break down my defences. But there was more to it than that. The temptation—if that is the proper word for it—was to give way to a savage feeling of resentment against the Powers That Be for having cast my lot where it had fallen. Why, oh, why had I not been given a place among the ranks of the Fortunate Women—the comfortable ones of this earth—rich, elegant, capable, influential, with a family, home, friends, possessions, achievements; a car to take me anywhere I wanted, and, in the background, a large, pleasant, important and reasonably companionable husband to come between me and the wind?

  Why had things so turned out as to end in the failure of my mighty effort to follow the way of life that I had once so honestly believed it my duty to embrace? And now, here I was—simply one of ten million or so unwanted elderly spinsters: dull, hard up, dressed in other people’s clothes, without background, belongings or home and debarred by my queer limitations from refashioning my life into any pleasant or profitable shape.

  What was it all for? What was the use of anything? Why had one been born into such a world of frustration and despair?

  It was not the first assault I had experienced from that particular quarter. And my heart failed me as I realized the interior struggle I should now have to face.

  (3)

  This depressing account of my attack of gloom has been dragged in to introduce something I want to say about a state of mind experienced by most of those who undertake the adventure of Religious Life.

  It is known as Spiritual Desolation.

  Like influenza, you are not absolutely bound to get it. Some people only have mild attacks; others suffer so acutely that they all but pass out. Mild or severe, however, the experience is universally acknowledged to be among the most gruelling of the spiritual life.

  Generally speaking, this is more or less what happens.

  As a rule, one is first attracted to prayer by the joy and sweetness that one finds in it. (People who never pray will obviously think that this is nonsense. Well, they are mistaken. It is a fact that there is no happiness on earth which can be compared to the happiness that is to be found in prayer. How, indeed, should it be otherwise if prayer is what the saints declare it to be—conscious contact with a Being whose very nature is Love?) And the first months or even years in the Noviceship are often spent in a state which is the spiritual equivalent for being in love. As a result, nothing is hard; one is carried along by a kind of romantic enthusiasm which makes of Religious Life an earthly paradise.

  And then—often suddenly and for no apparent reason—the sunshine vanishes. Instead of the warmth and colour that have hitherto permeated everything, a dreadful depressing greyness—a dyspepsia of the soul—blights every detail of one’s life like a bleak east wind. The almost rapturous sense of God’s love and of his presence which made of each hard thing simply an opportunity to prove one’s love, gives place to a feeling of terrifying solitude in which one becomes dismally aware only of the stark realities of life. The entire spiritual world seems meaningless and unreal; even one’s own most vivid spiritual experiences fade out like half-forgotten dreams. One becomes keenly, sometimes agonizingly aware of everything prosaic: heat, cold, stuffy rooms, the acute discomfort of one’s open chilblains: excessive weariness, the irritation of the heavy, uncomfortable garments that one is obliged to wear: other people’s maddening ‘little ways’; the ‘sinking feeling’ and depression that are inseparable from fasting: the appalling monotony of the rule-imposed routine….

  Worse, one’s condition is often aggravated by odd, inexplicable stupidities of hand and mind. One drops, spills, breaks, upsets and loses things: forgets one’s duties; does one’s work badly and finds oneself in awkward situations that lead to humiliation and reproof. Bitterest of all, one is beset by horrible temptations to see in Religious Life the most fantastic of all delusions and oneself as a pathetic fool for having undertaken it.

  Normally one would turn to prayer as an escape from all these tribulations. But to those in the grip of real spiritual desolation, the hours of prayer are perhaps the hardest of the whole depressing day. One spends them in a dreary struggle against distractions, temptations and often over-powering sleep.

  A novice who consults her Mistress about this melancholy state of things will be told that she should rejoice at these signs that God is now Treating Her As A Strong Soul instead of as a Babe Who Must Be Fed On Milk. It will be explained
to her that souls aiming at union with God must be prepared to undergo at his hands the process of purification which will ‘detach them from the idolatries of all that is not him’.

  Well, all this, of course, is quite true. But it is hardly calculated to encourage anyone in the throes of their first real taste of Desolation. Strong souls might be braced: but the average type—especially those who tend to be irritated by time-worn clichés—come forth feeling considerably worse than when they went in. Usually, by the time one has lashed oneself up to the point of revealing one’s deplorable condition to one’s Superior, one has reached such a pitch of gibbering misery as to be incapable of response to any further stimulus. And to be told that ‘Un moine triste est un triste moine’, or that, ‘It is the God of consolations and not the consolations of God that a true religious should seek’ or that ‘Ten minutes’ prayer in Desolation is worth a hundred in Consolation’ merely makes one’s hackles rise.

  And when, on the top of all the rest, it is pointed out that to moan because all consolation in prayer has been withdrawn proves one to be a Spiritual Glutton … well, really, I ask you!

  Souls in this state often go through real agonies. Having nothing to distract them from their wretchedness only intensifies the suffering. If one could only get away for a week-end or seek refuge in different companionship. But that, of course, is unthinkable. So one just drags along with the harness always galling in the same spot until such time as God sees fit to deliver one. Sometimes the trial lasts for long periods. St. Teresa is reported to have endured it for over twenty years. It appears to be the process by which souls normally advance in spiritual living: a blaze of light, followed by a long dark tunnel, at the end of which—provided always that one perseveres with the necessary courage—light is again vouchsafed. One then enters upon a new phase of the adventure, on a higher plane, fitted for new experiences. Then comes another spell of darkness and suffering, followed by an interval of light. And so the process of purification goes on.