Requiem for a Nun

REQUIEM FOR A NUN 331

too. But let Him tell me how. How? Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and still

tomorrow. How?

NANCY

Trust in Him.

TEMPLE

Trust in Him. Look what He has already done to me. Which is all right; maybe

I deserved it; at least I'm not the one to criticize or dictate to Him. But

look what He did to you. Yet you can still say that. Why? Why? Is it because

there isn't any thing else?

NANCY

I dont know. But you got to trust Him. Maybe that's your pay for the

suffering.

STEVENS

Whose suffering, and whose pay? Just each one's for his own?

NANCY

Everybody's. All suffering. All poor sinning man's.

STEVENS

The salvation of the world is in man's suffering. Is that it?

NANCY Yes, sir.

STEVENS How?

NANCY

I dont know. Maybe when folks are suffering, they will be too busy to get

into devilment, wont have time to worry and meddle one another.

TEMPLE

But why must it be suffering? He's omnipotent, or so they tell us. Why

couldn't He have invented something else? Or, if it's got to be suffering,

why cant it be just your own? Why cant you buy back your own sins with your

own agony? Why do you and my little baby both have to suffer just because I

decided to go to a baseball game eight years ago? Do you have to suffer

everybody else's anguish just to believe in God? What kind of God is it that

has to blackmail His customers with the whole world's grief and ruin?

NANCY

He dont want you to suffer. He dont like suffering neither. But He cant help

Himself. He's like a man that's got too many mules. All of a sudden one

morn-