Autobiography

8. Father’s Sorrow

When I was a child, but no longer childish, I saw my father cry. All those tears weigh upon my heart.

Very intelligent, he had made inventions and modifications of weapons used by our army. This was out of love for his country, for he intensely loved his native land and instilled this love of his in me, and also because he always strove to increase his family’s well-being out of love for me and my mother. The letters patent, the mentions in dispatches, the studies carried out by him—patient, perfect studies written at night. At last success, satisfaction, joy. And then—and then betrayal.

As is the custom in the army, every military discovery must be submitted to study by high-ranking artillery officers. Among these my father found his Judas. A small modification and corruption through a payment to the owner of the arms factory where Father had had the models made to be submitted to the Ministry were the trap. My father, of a lower rank and not wishing to resign from the army and sell his discovery to Belgium, France, or Austria, which had requested it, offering a tidy sum, found himself in a condition of inferiority.

Those were times, it must be recalled, when obscure protection defended people affiliated with special organizations. And my father was not one of them and did not ever want to have anything to do with such a bunch. So—he lost. The Ministry, the Generals, and the press spoke of him with words of praise. But the patent went to the other, the betrayer, and the profit as well.

But, as always, this betrayal money yielded accursed fruit. Glisenti, the one who gave false testimony for money, was stricken with paralysis and vegetated for years and years like a brute. The betrayer, an artillery officer, after having enjoyed the millions resulting from his treachery for a short time, died, firing a shot into his mouth with the usurped pistol; his wife and daughter experienced absolute indigence to the point of having to serve....

But why am I concerned about the misfortune of others? What still makes me suffer is the pain of my father.... And this would have been great in itself alone, and undeserved by that upright, hard-working, good man. But had it been the only pain, he would have borne it better and not worn himself out therein. However....

I regret always having to ring two bells, one with a robust, pleasing sound and the other on a shrill, painful note. But life is like that, and I must describe my life as it was in me and those around me.

My mother, after the death of her mother, had become really impossible. A bit of liver trouble and, after this improved, a great deal of the famous female malady—among those women, however, who can cultlivate it because of the goodness of others— of irritability had made her a torment, a family calamity. If she had had ten children, limited financial means, no domestic servants, and thus a need to roll up her sleeves from morning to night and drudge to keep her home in order, she would not have manifested hysteria, I assure you. There are unfortunates who really have nervous diseases and are to be pitied. But my mother was not one of these. And this is demonstrated by her having arrived at the most advanced age when all her relatives at that time died long ago. Only her self was ill with egotism, pride, and overbearance.

My grandmother, during the first ten years of married life, had curbed her daughter’s whims and soothed her son-in-law’s wounded heart, for she cared for him as a most loving mother. They were both good and loved one another. When she died, it was hell. My mother has never wanted and does not want observations from anyone. She is perfection and infallibility. Her word is law; her wish is a command.

My father, peace-loving, never reacted to such self-praise.... For the sake of peace, out of love for his wife, for whom he cared faithfully, perfectly, deserving quite a different recompense! And, in addition, he did not react out of—incapacity. My father was not overbearing or brutal. Someone more domineering than she was needed to tame my mother, one who could shake her a bit when necessary.... Once would have sufficed. But it is always that way! In the conjugal union, one is the tyrant, and the other is the victim. In my home the victim was Father.

This man without vices, hard-working, patient, healthy, handsome, and good, who had given wealth, a comfortable life, and surplus benefits to that little bit of a woman who was my mother, taking her out of teaching, where she would have had to drain herself throughout life, should have been adored and was instead tormented, doused with rudeness, stinging words, repulses....

The scenes began on account of relatives....

My father had two sisters and a brother. His brother and one sister lived in Bergamo and thus were less under Mother’s nose, but she nonetheless did not fail to speak of them with a contempt which was painful to Father. When Uncle Agostino would come, he, Father, and I would go out to be able to talk in peace. Mother would remain at home in a pique, consumed with rage.... The scene would follow. Even if I had seen Father give large bank notes to Uncle, I did not speak. I had well understood for some time that there were things to be said and things to be hushed up.... Prudence must have been infused into me with Baptism.

Father’s other sister, after having lived in Argentina for a number of years, had settled with her husband and a married daughter in Milan. I do not come down on anyone or present an apology for anyone. I thus state that Aunt Angela certainly had her defects. But who, except God, has no defects? Ah, no, I am mistaken! Except my mother? This aunt, on seeing Mother’s dictatorial behavior, dared to intervene in my favor. That was the beginning of hostilities. A continuing war which made Dad suffer; on account of his justice, he did not see that his sister was to blame for all the faults Mother attributed to her and was continually annoyed by all the spitefulness which uninterruptedly gushed from his wife towards his sister.

Then, as if this were not enough, things degenerated further. What an inferno! I still wonder where Mother found such an ample measure of strength, justification, support, and venom to torment Father.... I think of Solomon when he says there are three things which drive man away from home: a smoky fireplace, a leaking roof, and a quarrelsome woman. Progress took care of the smoke and the water, and Father did not have to suffer from these two household—or, rather, housebuilding—annoyances. But as for the quarrelsome wife.... Poor Father! He was better than wise King Solomon, for he put up with her without fleeing, without losing his patience, but, rather, continuing to love her. While he suffered a great deal on her account.

Indeed, nothing wounds us more than seeing ourselves unappreciated by those closest to us on whom we have lavished a wealth of affection. Father lavished affection on his wife—but this wealth was used as an arm to wound him more. Sure of her power, of the excessive power she exercised over him, sure that the goodness and patience of her husband were perfect, sure of the perfection of love with which he loved her, instead of making these securities a single arm of good for herself, him, and me, she turned them into an instrument of moral devastation.

During the week, with Father away from home from 6 a.m. to 12 noon and from 2 p.m. to 7 in the evening, and frequently having conversations with friends after dinner, it was not so bad. It was certainly not an ideal way of life, but it was, in a word, bearable. But on Sunday...! Do you want to know what our Sunday was like, which Father valued so much as his holiday to be spent in the midst of the two of us, whom he adored? Well, here it is.

After Grandmother’s death I slept in my parents’ room until my tenth year. On Sunday morning Father would stay in bed a bit longer than usual, and I would slip out of my little bed and climb into his big one to receive my share of caresses.

Mother, who had already risen and was in the other room tormenting the maid, would discover us that way, in a happy state, with me in his arms, and feel the need to poison such happiness. All the slightest details were a pretext to begin her attack. Innocuous statements like “You slept well last night. Since today is a lovely day, you could go out too. Your color is fine today. Has the maid gotten over her cold? Shall we go to see Angelina [Father’s sister] today?” sufficed to start a scene. And on and on and on, in a malignant, cruel, unjust, savage crescendo. Reproaches, accusations, threats—a bit of everything. And nothing could hold back or put an end to that hateful Sunday scene.

I seem to be seeing myself standing upright in my long nightshirt on the double bed and begging for mercy in tears; Mother, after vilifying my father, that saintly man, with the falsest accusations, would threaten him with separation. In exasperation my father would say, “But I’ll shoot myself. I can’t stand this!” And then she would go off to another room, and I would remain in the arms of Father, who would weep and say, “Oh, Maria! Your mother no longer loves me. She no longer loves us....”

I have forgiven the one who transfixed my life so very much. But I have forgiven my pain, caused me out of pure wickedness. Yet these tears of my father, no—I cannot forgive them. I would be lying if I said I could forgive the one who made them flow. I forgive my frights as a child.... Do you know how much I feared Father would commit suicide? When he was late coming back home for some reason, I would immediately think he had taken his life.... My heart began to fall ill at that time.... I forgive my ruined holidays, after having fulfilled all my obligations as a student for six days, cherishing the vain hope of Sunday joy. I forgive the collapse of my hopes, of my dreams so loathe to die. I forgive her for destroying my serenity, my smile, from childhood on; I forgive her for having made me submerge my day from the first hours in weeping, dejection, and pessimism—I forgive all this; I forgive everything bad that was unjustly given to me and all the good, my good, that was selfishly taken from me. But not those tears. Not my father’s tears. They belong to me as the most precious of paternal relics and are enclosed in my heart, which was furrowed by them, like drops of molten lead, from childhood on, but they do not belong to me to the point that I can forgive them. Instead, from the enclosure where they live, from the scar their falling has left in me, they cry out; they cry out in a tearful voice, in a loving voice, in a prayerful voice, “Remember and be just.” I remember and am just.

I have gone on loving my mother because I have my father’s heart.... If I had had another heart, I don’t know if I could have loved her after seeing how she tormented that man. I have continued to love her out of a natural tendency, then, and as a duty.... Oh, how sad, to be loved as a duty! But I have loved my father for her sake and mine with love, with so much love.... You will see how we loved each other until the end....

I am outlining this subject because it is too painful for me. Since I have the impression that our dead are in contact with us, circling around us and watching over us, I feel my father’s arms around my body shaken by sobs and hear his voice saying, “Oh, Maria! Your mother doesn’t love us...!” It is a knifeblade twisting in my heart....

...That’s what my, our, holidays were like, and yet, as the tenacious optimists we were, throughout the week we stored up treasures of good grace and kindness in the hope that the following Sunday might be better than the preceding one, which had been so unhappy.... Illusions....

And then when the major celebrations came—both Father and I were keen on them: Christmas, Easter, St. Joseph’s, St. Anne’s (Mother’s saint’s day), my birthday, Father’s, the wedding anniversary—the fit customarily began before and tapered off once the holiday was over, ruining everything.

When I read the Gospel, among the many miracles of Jesus I pause in admiration at the healing of lunatics. More than lepers cleansed, blind people healed, and the dead raised to life! This is a miracle! For if all misfortunes are truly such, this calamity of being wicked and torturing those living with one is the greatest misfortune. It is leprosy eating away at the soul, blindness which blinds, deafness making one deaf to the heart’s voices, death to goodness, a crime against oneself and one’s neighbor, an offense against God.

A wicked person is worse than a natural calamity from which we cannot be delivered because it is willed by eternal laws, but precisely because it is willed by eternal laws, its crises are notably spaced out over time. We are thus resigned to the misfortunes which come to us from nature and from the inexorable course of events among peoples. Perhaps this derives from the fact that, being decreed in eternity by the Eternal and forming part of our existence as living persons on the earth, they are rendered bearable by a special grace of God. I have seen life spring up again in towns devastated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; amidst the ruins and lava I have seen flowers blossom again, birds build their nests, women rock cradles with lullabies, men come back singing from work, and hope and love rise anew like the phoenix from the ashes of disaster.

But the despair a human being brings to other beings like himself who, on account of ties of blood or affection, cannot and do not want to rebel is tremendous. The fruit of a heart enslaved by the demon of selfishness, overbearance, and pride yields a bitterness accompanying one like gall throughout life. A bitterness and a special vision strengthening the faculty to see behind the deceitful scenes of social conventions. The pain coming to us from a being who lives to torment, a prey as he is to his own sick—if not outright blameworthy—self, renders everything in the heart barren. Along his way hopes die, dreams collapse, and all works of goodness melt away. A steamroller for surrounding humanity, a heart that is not good flattens and crushes everything in the dust and mire—intelligence, health, affections—and even injures faith in hearts which come to doubt God Himself, who does not intervene to put an end to so much evil.

Woe to whoever discovers—and at a young age—the power of human wickedness. The bitter desperation provoked in us by the knowledge of how much evil our fellow man can do to his neighbors is such that without heavenly aid we could not bear it and would be fatally led to complete disgust over everything and everyone. Fortunately, God intervenes, and then the soul, though remaining wounded, does not die. But health dies, the intellect, sometimes, and joy, always.

In my father all three died, and I cannot forgive this. I was an orphan with respect to my father’s soul, his intelligence, at age twelve; what survived for me was a body that had returned to childhood—and am I to forget this? No, I cannot. If he had had only the affliction of seeing himself betrayed by a stranger, my father would not have died psychologically so soon. It was the hours in the family, corrosive as acid, filing away like an emery stick, which destroyed him. No, I cannot forget. It would not even be just.

My mother has been a widow for nearly eight years and she still cannot resign herself. But why? Why this torment goading and torturing her? It is not the anxiety of love, Father. It is remorse.

When death takes a loved one from us, the reactions provoked in hearts are quite different. A majestic sorrow, placid in spite of its vehemence, if our pain is not tinged with any remorse. An anxious, agitated sorrow reproaching others—God, first of all—for what has happened (for the reproach is really in us, against ourselves) when we have much to regret concerning the deceased. Oh, how sweet it is to be able to look towards heaven and say to one who is above, in God, “I never made you weep!”

I said, “I cannot forgive.” You know what I mean by forgive. We have already reached agreement on that. Forgive for me means ‘to forget the evil received’.

Out of love for God, I have now come to forget the evil which I have received because that evil has bounced me into the arms of Jesus like a ball violently flung to the ground and has thus become a good for me. But I cannot—I have no right—forget the evil my father received. And, in not forgetting it, I do not forgive it. All I can do is not reprove the one who did it and disregard her having been responsible, continuing to respect her as if she had been a perfect companion for the husband God granted her, and that’s all. I can’t manage any more. And I don’t want to out of veneration for my father.

Thirty-one years passed from 1904 to 1935. What a long time! And for all that time my father suffered on this account. With his heart trampled upon, his feelings wounded, his affection scorned, his health destroyed, his intelligence damaged, his dignity as a man mortified until the final hour....

Ah, what a sum of filial sorrow I have weighing on my heart! Only by setting it upon the shoulders of Jesus, my divine Cyrenean, am I able to drag along this mountain of wormwood which has always crushed my sensibility as a daughter and squeezed tears of blood from my fibers.

In this illness, which is so tormenting, long, and demoralizing, you see that I am serene.... But what you do not know—for then you did not even know I existed—is my agonizing pain, which nearly drove me mad, when my Father died.... But what you do not see—for no one aside from God and my angel sees it—is my constant longing for Father, my missing Father, my calling Father, my thinking of Father....

When I think of how and what he suffered, it is as if the sting did not torment my flesh, but penetrated into my heart. And when I, in turn, am trampled upon—you know how—there are two names I invoke: “Jesus-Father.” My two loves, my two comforts, my two magnets: on their account, Good is easy for me, and Death, which will open the way for me to join them, sweet….