Autobiography

3. The First Encounter

lf years old and very shy. I had become so by dint of being afraid to make mistakes and incur the maternal “woe.” I was healthy, but suffered much from the rigorous, humid climate of Milan. It would have been good to keep me home still, all the more because I was alone and thus—caused little trouble. But Mother, who dreamt of making me a Pico della Mirandola in a skirt, took me to school. To nursery school, of course, at the Ursuline Sisters on Lanzone Street, to be exact.

At nursery school I was—an eagle in comparison to those older than I. I should say so! I already knew how to read the whole alphabet and write vowels and consonants, not to mention the fact that I sounded like a lovebird when stammering some French full of r’s, which I liked so much then!

The sisters were very good and also—very beautiful. Don’t laugh. Now I admire the interior more than the covering and look only at a person’s gaze and soul, which flashes out from the glance, and I am satisfied if the soul and the gaze which mirrors it are beautiful. But as a little girl and even until I was twenty, I was a bit pagan and loved only beautiful things, beautiful people. I was quite original, don’t you think?

The sisters were very beautiful, and I thus loved them at once. Sister Blanche, the Superior, looked like an alabaster vase with a light of love burning inside. Sister Fulgenzia, my Sister, shone as brightly as the origin of her name suggested. And they were so, so good!

I went to nursery school quite willingly, then—except for the first day, though, for, in spite of her fearful “woes,” I loved and love my mother intensely and have always been a beggar at the door of her heart awaiting caresses.... So the first day I was forced to leave her I—raised Cain. I screamed, kicked, battled, bit, scratched—I generously distributed everything. Theresa, the mad wet nurse, was reviving in me with her frightful furies. But by the afternoon I had already grown fond of the good sisters and lovingly kissed them. The next day I returned to school serenely. It was a holiday for me to go there and find caresses, praise, prizes, and so many little girls to play with.

Play! With those who were almost my sisters! What joy! It is necessary to have been an only child and to have been kept as I was to understand what the curse of being an “only child” is. But let us leave aside this topic, which is not important to my story.

The sisters, then, were beautiful and good. But the school was ugly, dismal, old. Overwhelmed between the houses of old Milan and the Basilica of St. Ambrose, it had little light, a tiny greenish garden up to the stones, monastery cloisters, dark corridors, and a chapel—from the time of the catacombs. Even so I willingly went to school.

Among other things, my grandmother often accompanied me. What a holiday to walk with her, alone with her, who loved me so much and would leave me at school with a host of farewell kisses and the bonus of fruit or candy, offered in addition to the meal brought from home and—what made them even better for me— without Mother’s knowledge or prohibition. Poor Grandmother! I never betrayed her by telling Mother about her—acts of disobedience to her daughter’s orders! She, Grandmother, said nothing to me, but I instinctively grasped that if I had spoken, she would have been reproached, and I kept the secret. I learned very early to keep secrets, to reflect on what it is prudent not to mention!

At school I found God. Father and Grandmother spoke to me about Him, had me pray, and took me to church. But I found God’s face and his love at school. The first real and indelible encounter.

The good sisters, especially our Sister Fulgenzia, spoke to us about God with words suited to our little minds. They told us of “God’s wonderful works,” described the attributes of the divinity, and infused the holy fear of God into us. “God always sees us; God is always present; nothing is hidden from Him; He is everywhere.” How often I heard those words!

In our little workshop (the work was to learn to knit by making certain—hard, soiled cords which looked as though they had been used to ensnare a thousand stray dogs) we had little chairs with straw seats glued on and wooden backs terminating in two points resembling pine cones. I seem to be seeing them still! With my absolute faith in the Sister’s words, I firmly believed that God—was inside those two cones and asked His forgiveness for turning my back on Him.... The holy simplicity of childhood which draws a smile from Heaven and before which angels and patriarchs reverently bow. At least that’s what I think.

And the Guardian Angel? In the garden, so dismally tinged with green, there was a grotto containing, I believe, St. Michael the Archangel, since he was holding a sword in his hand. A gigantic angel for us, who were so small! And the Sister would take us before him and tell us that an angel like him, but even more handsome, was always at our side and that we had to be good or he would cover his face with his beautiful wings and weep....

But, more than these first due experiences of the supernatural, what made my heart throb more than anything else before the ineffable mystery of divine goodness was the figure of Christ laid to rest in the Chapel. It was under the main altar. It must have been a very old work of art and was of undoubted merit, for its realism was only too impressive. Just so and not otherwise must Christ have been when the pious hands of Joseph and Nicodemus unnailed Him from the cross to place Him in His Mother’s lap. Life-sized, it displayed the weary features of one who has died amidst a thousand spasms and, on the members left limp in the abandonment of death, all the wounds, lashes, piercings, and contusions of a torture victim, as the Lord was before the crucifixion.

Impressive, I say and repeat, and many of my companions would weep with fear when they took us there to see it and pray. I did not weep with fear, but trembled with compassion. I, who from then on could not bear to see anyone suffer, not even a chicken, and who repeated to myself that this poor body was Jesus’ and that our sins had so reduced Him. I do not know if it was in every respect right to impose certain meditations on creatures who had not yet reached the age of five; what I am sure of is that I, unlike the others weeping with fear of that corpse and, above all, with fear of God’s punishment for our sins, trembled with sorrow over Him alone and felt that it was love, his love for us, more than the crucifying Jews, which had so reduced Him, and I wished I could have consoled Him.... Overcoming my natural repugnance of that fearfully wounded body, I gazed and gazed at it and wished the urn were open so I could get close to Him, caress his head crowned with thorns, kiss Him as well, and make Him feel I loved Him. How often I wished I could place in that pierced hand the fine piece of candy covered with lumps, or the golden one, or the red or pale green one which my grandmother bought for me when taking me to school and which I liked so because they were good and also because they conveyed my grandmother’s love!

This will strike you as foolishness, Father. But remember my age then.... Later, much later, in the pierced hand of Jesus I placed the offering of my life, but, on careful consideration, I feel that—it would have cost me more then to give Him my candy than my life and suffering now.

Once back home, having already told everything to Grandmother, I would repeat my—science to Mother, Father, the serving woman, the soldier, and then go off to bed, thinking of Jesus, who was there alone and—sick, I would say. And this thought was so powerful that at times I would wake up at night in tears, and to Grandmother, who slept with me, or Mother, who would come running on hearing me cry, I would say that I saw Jesus, who was very ill and wept because He was alone. This made quite an impression on them, and they considered transferring me to another school which would be less—medieval lest I should grow sick from fear. No, I was sick with love.

The first contact had taken place, and Jesus and Mary would never be lost from sight, although, in certain periods, there was a blameworthy coldness on my part. But I never again turned away from Him in a proper sense—and from Him as sufferer, as Redeemer, as King of sorrow. I have never understood Jesus except in the crimson robe of His blood and have always been anxious to console Him by becoming like Him in sorrow voluntarily suffered out of love.

While my family was deciding about the choice of a new school, I suddenly came down with a very serious case of whooping cough. I had gone to school as usual, though aching all over. My family had long accustomed me not to pay attention to every ailment, and I am grateful to them for it. If they had not tempered me in virile fashion, how could I have withstood my life? I had, then, gone to school. But around midday I began to cough in such a way that there was no room for doubt about the cause, and a very high fever immediately manifested itself. I was quickly separated from my little companions and spent the remainder of the time—that is, until 5 p. m.—in the Superior’s office and in her arms. In her arms! Oh! I was willing to undergo all that illness in my breast provided I could remain in the arms of that Sister, who was so white and good. Apart from my grandmother and father, no one held me that way, and I had such a deep yearning to be cuddled!

I never went back to the Ursulines. The illness lasted for months and was overcome only in the summer by going to Tuscany on vacation.

In October 1904 I was enrolled at the Marcellines’ school.