Moppet

“After a wet and muddy day in London I've seen the trains pull into Charing Cross with snow piled on the roofs of the carriages, and felt a foot taller for joy that I was one of those fortunate who might step into a train and go down into a white countryside.”
― Enid Bagnold, A Diary Without Dates

“La chapelle de l’Assomption avait pour elle un attrait curieux. Elle demandait souvent qu’il lui fût premise d’aider la religieuse à décorer l’autel. Elle le faisait comme une profane, avec de mouvements vifs, le rire aux lèvres, la voix un peu trop haute, insensible à la grande Présence qui rendait la soeur si craintive et si respectueuse. Les jours du marché de la Madeleine, elle revenait à Auteuil, sa voiture remplie de fleurs; elle allait deposer les plus belles aux pieds de la Vierge. C’était un homage qu’en vraie Américaine elle voulait rendre à son sexe. Elle aimait le catholicisme parce que, disait-elle avec un sans-gêne d’hérétique, il possède une déesse et que, seul de toutes les religions chrétiennes, il a élevé des autels aux femmes.”
― Pierre De Coulevain, Eve victorieuse

“Far down the corridor a slim figure in white approaches, dwarfed by the smoky distance; her nun-like cap floating, her scarlet cape, the "cape of pride," slipped round her narrow shoulders.
How intent and silent They are!
I watched this one pass with a look half reverence, half envy. One should never aspire to know a Sister intimately. They are disappointing people; without candour, without imagination. Yet what a look of personality hangs about them....”
― Enid Bagnold, A Diary Without Dates

“When a man dies they fetch him with a stretcher, just as he came in; only he enters with a blanket over him, and a flag covers him as he goes out. When he came in he was one of a convoy, but every man who can stand rises to his feet as he goes out. Then they play him to his funeral, to a grass mound at the back of the hospital.”
― Enid Bagnold, A Diary Without Dates