Autobiography

16. In Calabria

We arrived in Reggio Calabria on October 10, 1920. We had stopped in Rome, Naples, and Caserta for a few days.

In Reggio, in my cousins’ vast hotels, I found much to distract me from the burning pain in my heart. We lived in the Villa Hotel. An immense shantytown (the city was just starting to rise again from the 1908 earthquake) spread out over a huge estate. There was a citrus grove, an almond grove, an orchard, fields of beans, artichokes, fennels, peas, and so on, and gardens galore. In addition, lovelier than all else, a promenade which led along the orange grove to a refreshment booth set upon the spur of a hill that slid down amidst a throng of prickly pears. It was a wonderful place. It dominated the Straits and mountains of Calabria completely. The city spread out at our feet.

It was my favorite place. I would go there with my dog and a book, pretending to read. But all I did was look at the sea, over which warships often passed, in addition to merchant steamships, and I thought of Mario. Perhaps he was on those ships and did not know that his beloved was invoking him with all her heart from that height.

When he had been torn from me, what had he done? What had he thought? Had he imagined that it was all a plot by Mother and that I had been utterly prevented from speaking and acting, as if bound and gagged by highwaymen, or did he regard me as a lunatic, a wicked person, someone who broke her word? These questions nagged at my heart and mind, day and night, as many woodworms gnaw at a piece of wood until causing it to crumble.

You may wonder, “But couldn’t you write even then? At a hotel so many things can be done more freely than in a house.”

Yes, I could have written. I could have done so many things! Even rebel, saying, “I am of age and do as I think best and what it is legitimate to do, for it is something honest.” But—and on this basis decide whether I have or have not been an obedient and respectful daughter—I was unable to disobey and offend my mother. I did my duty even then. I carried out my sacrifice even then. Among other things, I was so shattered that I vegetated without energy. I lived only the inner life intensely.

Within there was a whole working of memories, thoughts, regrets. Quite different, though, from the ones which had exploded after that ill-omened January 5, 1914, the origin of all the thorns which came later. For if my mother had not then dashed our legitimate desire, I would have been married for some time; Roberto, who was not bound to military service (the only son of a widowed mother), would not have enlisted as a volunteer and would not have died; I would have been in Bari with him; Mario would not have fallen in love with me; I would not have had all those moral sufferings, the heart trouble, the spinal lesion.... Now I suffered greatly, but it was a pain free from every fever of sense, a holy pain, devoid of any rebellious impulse.

The first pain had detached me from God and from the Law of God, throwing me into the dust. The second great, even greater pain, which reopened all the wounds time had healed—and reopened them through the action of the same maternal hand, which, unchanging over the years, destroyed my joy for the sake of her convenience—took me entirely back to God and joined me to Him.

I had no other affection left in the world capable of satiating my soul. Father—was increasingly a child dominated by Mother. Mother was my enemy. I no longer had Mario. The Sisters had rejected me. Other good friends had been thrown out of the house. There was nothing, no one else.

Only God remained to act as my father, mother, husband, friend, and master. I wept at his feet, spoke to Him, sought consolation from Him, and humbly asked Him to take me by the hand and lead me along the way which was most pleasing to Him, for I was lost and understood that on my own I could never find the way destined for me by his Will.

In a short time my mother, with her authoritarian manner, had attracted the antipathies of everyone: servants, clients, and her own relatives. Her cousins—for they are my mother’s first cousins— had told her several times in no uncertain terms that that was no way to act with her husband, her daughter, and the employees. Imagine! My mother has never wanted criticism from anyone. Whoever offers it becomes a very fierce enemy for her. There had already been scuffles, then, and we had not even been there for two months....

At the end of November there was a—sharper one than usual, and as a result my other cousin wanted me with him at the other hotel.

It is necessary to know that many of the disputes had originated from the fact that my cousins—Giuseppe, Amelide, Emma, and Normanna—did not share Mother’s way of thinking and acting in regard to me. Then the other cousins, Battista and Clotilde, had wanted me with them. I was with Mother for fewer hours, and she had fewer occasions to exercise her absolute sovereignty. It was thus hoped that there would be fewer disputes in this connection.

So around eight in the morning I would go down to the other hotel, towards the sea, and come back up to the villa hotel at eight in the evening or later. In this way, except for the night hours, I was distant.

I was sorry for my father. But he had found many pastimes in Reggio and was also happier. Another regret was that I wasno longer able to stroll through the estate and go to my well-loved refreshment stand, from which I could see so much sky and sea and be isolated amidst flowering plants and the singing of birds. I was sorry, finally, because I was no longer surrounded by my restless, dear little cousins, aged three to six, three fidgety creatures who had grown quite fond of me. But one cannot have everything at once.

With Clotilde, the one who had accompanied me to Monza, I got along very well. I really got on well with everyone, for I know how to adapt to the ideas of others. Accustomed to living with Mother, I found living with others easy in all other places. I spent twenty months of serenity.

I took care of Memmo—a dear lad aged ten, the only child left—helping him to study.... I felt as though I had gone back to 1913, when I tended to Mario’s studies. I went out with Memmo for lovely sallies in a carriage or on foot. I kept Clotilde company, worked with her—she was very good at embroidery and lace—and read. Clotilde had a fine collection of books. She is a highly cultured woman and thus knows how to select the best, in books as well, for style and plot.

I told you that the good Lord has availed Himself of every means to instruct me in his law and bear me to Himself: by a special gift, from childhood on He preserved me from certain forms of curiosity which the conversation of adults could have whetted in me (as I previously related to you); later, at the hospital, he gave me such perfect balance that in my wounded patients I never saw man, but always poor sick children; by means of creatures and events He took me back to the beautiful faith of my early youth, after the fierce storm occurring between the ages of sixteen and twenty. So, now, making use of books, and especially one book, he finished the work of attracting me to Himself.

I told you that, unfortunately, I had never been able to find a priest whom I judged to be a spiritual director. I had found confessors, but not directors. Therefore, after leaving school, I had been left alone for guidance. There were no more spiritual exercises, sermons, or anything else. But Jesus, though seemingly absent, was present and afforded me opportunities to improve my state.

In that time of sadness during the winter of 1920-1921, as, feeling all my dearest bonds to be broken, I drew closer and closer to my God, still a bit shyly, for I did not know to what point one may show daring in the way of love and confidence, my Master gave me a powerful push through a book. Don’t be scandalized, Father. It was a book on the Index, Fogazzaro’s The Saint.

My cousin had the Archbishop’s permission to read everything. I did not have it then. I have had it for years now. But I use it very little. Then I did not and thus should not have read that book, which I knew was on the Index. In my still-weak religiosity, though, I did not have so many scruples and read it along with all the other works in the collection.

I liked the others more or less. But I liked them as real novels—that is, beautiful stories read to pass the time which, once read, are over and done with. The Saint, however, left an indelible mark on my heart. And a good one.

I won’t go into the reason for its being condemned to the Index. Those are matters which do not concern me. The high-level authorities that condemned it must have had their proper reason. Even now I ask myself what this reason may be, and I have asked many priests; I have always been left, though, without an explanation which satisfied me. But as for me—and I have heard the same from others—this book did me much good.

It sent me sailing along the great river—indeed, the ocean—of divine mercy and comforted me to hope in the supernatural values of the expiation of repentance, which, like a second baptism, renders us once again snow-white and acceptable to God. Seeing the progress, spiritual victories, and elevation of Franco into the kingdom of the spirit gave me wings and energy to become bold in love.

Until then, on remembering my falls, I had always been a bit paralyzed. Like a child who knows he has been naughty and, though aware of being forgiven, is still intimidated by the memory of his prank. For over a year I had been hoping deeply in the Lord and in his mercy. But I still did not dare tell Him, “I love You. I consecrate myself to You. I place myself entirely at your service.” I had so pained my God...! Fogazzaro convinced me that no fault is so great that it is not amenable to redemption, that no memory of past blame should be an obstacle to our advancing in Goodness, and that we must not offend the good Lord by thinking He is so little a Father as to be more a Judge than a Savior.

I later found this holy doctrine in the writings of Blessed Claude de la Colombière and especially of Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero, which are nothing but dictations from Jesus. But for over two years the one who cast me into the great sea of Divine Mercy was Fogazzaro, with his Saint. I sometimes think that for the good that book has done to my soul and other souls wounded like mine, fearful like mine, God must have given the writer his peace.

In April 1921 Mother had to think of returning to Florence. A law had been issued prohibiting keeping apartments without living in them. So it was a question of either going back to Florence or transporting furniture and residence to Reggio.

I had nothing against settling in Calabria. Indeed, I would have wanted to. I understood that I was really finished with Mario, and just the idea of returning to Florence, where everything reminded me of both Roberto and Mario and all my former sorrows, caused me terror. In Reggio it was easier for me to try and get over the web of memories. Such a sad one that imbecility would be desirable so as to remember no more. In Florence I would relapse into my solitude and my penury of affections.

Mother, too, would have liked to remain in Reggio. The only time in our lives Mother and I wished for the same thing, though for different reasons. For Mother going back to Florence meant risking coming across the colonel and his son. Encounters disapproved of if involving me—one never knows! I might reach an agreement with the two of them, and then.... And she certainly couldn’t keep me imprisoned at home forever. Hateful meetings if occurring between the others and herself, for there is nothing like having acted badly with a certain person to make us try to avoid running into the latter. Just seeing that individual, nothing more, arouses the voice of our reproachful conscience.

But my father, who had so many friends in Florence, military men like himself, utterly refused to yield. Here as well, for the first time, the astounding event took place of Father’s imposing his will. With a tantrum truly worthy of a stubborn child, he said that if we did not go, he would leave by himself, but he would not stay in Reggio forever. Why? Heaven knows! In Reggio he was just fine, amused himself, spent nothing, and would have continued not to spend, for at hotels there are never enough people to keep an eye on maids, waiters, cooks, and others, and our cousins asked us to stay and help them supervise. So he also benefited financially. But he would not give in.

I begged Father not to go back to Florence out of love for me: I couldn’t go back; I would suffer too much. The third unique, uncommon event: Father, who always contented me, who always wanted me with him, replied, “Stay, if you like. Mother and I shall leave.” Nothing made him change his mind.

Mother was on tenterhooks.... Then she decided. Since Clotilde was telling her that she would gladly keep me with her, I would remain down there, and the two of them would go to Florence. Just to avoid my being able to see Mario, she decided to keep me at a distance.... A fixed idea can push you that far.

After having buried me under an avalanche of “woes”: woe to you if you write to the colonel; woe if you write to Mario’s grandmother; heaven help you if you write to him; woe if you get in touch with any of the clients at the hotel; woe, woe, and more woe—and she left.

She would surely not have left if she had known that on March 14 I had received a picture postcard from Mario addressed to Florence and sent on to me by our landlord on which Mario had written these words alone: “As long as I live and after....” It had been the loveliest gift for my twenty-fifth birthday. It had made me cry all day—with emotion—for I saw that Mario still loved me. Clotilde had told me, “Answer him, silly girl. Live your own life.” But I no longer had the courage to try for the third time, convinced that it would cause a third disaster.

In short, on May 21 Father and Mother left. I stayed on with Battista, Clotilde, and Memmo.

My health, in spite of my cousins’ delicate care for eight months now, was not improving at all. Affliction was gradually destroying me like a malignant tumor. I wasted away, grew pale, and felt myself getting weaker and weaker. With the arrival of intense heat in June, I declined completely. I lived exclusively on cups of cold coffee and fruit. I couldn’t eat anything else.

Sleeping was impossible for me. In the morning I was a poor rag with eyes reddened from insomnia and with a great need for sleep weighing upon my heart but never becoming real sleep. I would get up very early and go into the garden to breathe in the fresh, perfumed air of the summer dawn. Then Memmino and I would go to the sea in a carriage.

My cousins had an enormous beach house, nearly a chalet, very comfortable and well furnished. A beautiful veranda adorned it which was right above the sapphire waves of the lovely Calabrian sea, with that intense, almost unreal blue that is proper to the southern seas. While Memmino bathed with the little cousins and other friends of his age, I stayed on the veranda, lounging in an armchair. I did not read or work—I stayed there with my eyes almost always closed, for even looking around was burdensome to me, detached as I was from everyone and everything, united only to distant Mario. At times I was so worn out that I asked Memmino to throw bathrobes and cushions to the ground, onto the mat covering the shore house floor, and I would fling myself down in the shade, like a poor sick dog, marking my sad thoughts by the swashing of the waves against the shore and the piles holding up the building.

The fever, which had never completely disappeared, but which had become reduced in the winter months to a few lines, now returned more intensely: 37.8-38. Pain in the spine and on the right side of the abdomen had become acute again; my heart was acting crazier than ever, and I had also come down with an incurable sore throat and cough.

Clotilde was impressed. She asked me if I had informed my family. No, I hadn’t written at all. What for? She asked if she should notify them. I told her she need not. If I died, it was all the better. I apologized for bothering her that way, but requested that, by virtue of her love for me, a real maternal love, she let me die in peace, close to her, who loved me. Clotilde contented me.

In my physical decay, however, my psychic life was becoming more intense, alive, and vivid. The more all that was matter collapsed into a growing ruin, the more a sensitivity and lucidity of the psychic forces was accentuated.

I told you earlier that since 1910 I had been subject to strange premonitions which were a real torment for me. In sleep fragments of the future or announcements and counsels for the circumstances of life came to me from the reigns of mystery. That dream of 1916 formed part of such manifestations. But this was always in sleep. I had a very sensitive temperament—capable of vibrating to the slightest touches of currents proceeding from other “transmitters,” shall we say. I therefore perceived with clarity whether a given being was or was not “good.” My so-called “likes and dislikes” were and are always borne out by events coming afterwards. It is extremely unlikely that I will be mistaken. The first impression I get is usually exact. Only twice in my life have I erred. Those qualified say that this depends on a set of factors making us like receiving antennas. That must be so. I won’t debate it, but pass on, simply adding that I would gladly have done without being so perspicacious and sensitive, such a receiving antenna...!

Now, in that early summer of 1921, I did not need to sleep to notice strange events. I had the sensation that long, long threads, or something of the sort, were coming out of my fingers and being hurled into space and that these had hooked up with other similar ones coming from Mario. Not just this, but in addition to feeling that our spirits had become fused in a communion which no obstacle or human wickedness could impede, I felt that the distance was constantly shrinking and that, as if I had been hauling a cable aboard a ship, the threads were being gathered in me after having left to search for him, dragging my Mario behind.

I have provided some human examples to explain a sensation of the spirit. But I really had that impression of threads going out from me and coming back to me, after having found him, bringing him to me. Perhaps they were the soul’s faculties issuing forth in rays, through the ether, in search of his soul, to tell him that I was dying of desire for him? Goodness! Who knows! These are mysteries we shall never fully understand as long as we live.

Note that I had not answered Mario’s picture postcard.

Towards the end of July—I could give you the date, but it is burdensome for me to open that chest containing all the letters from Mario, his relatives, and my mother referring to Mario himself, letters I have always kept which offer irrefutable proof that the facts are as I have described them—I received a letter from Mario’s aunt, who was about to enter a cloistered convent. This aunt wrote to send her regards and convey abundant affection and kindness on behalf of her mother as well, the aged grandmother, who had already viewed me as a granddaughter. She also said, “Pray and you will see that Jesus will make you happy, and you will experience joy.” The good Gabriella was referring to one aspect, but I, who did not know what else was in store, believed she was speaking of another, entirely spiritual.

You will ask, “How did this aunt manage to discover where you were?” Very simple: over Easter Mario had been in Florence on leave and had—coaxed our landlord, who, like a cicada whose belly is tickled, had spilled the beans, telling him where we were, and not just that, but informing him that Mother and Father would soon return to Florence and I would remain there. All that Mother had feared would be said and had begged him not to say was passed on by the landlord. I do not know whether he did so out of imprudence, on account of absent-mindedness due to age, or deliberately, deeming Mother’s actions to be unjust. I have never asked about it. The fact is that Mario was informed about where I was and about my soon being left alone there.

I answered Aunt Gabriella, thanking her for thinking of me and asking her to send my regards to the grandmother and pray for me at her convent. And that’s all. And I thought it was all over.

On August 5, while we were having lunch—it was 2 p.m., for at hotels the owners usually eat before or after the clients, and my cousins always had lunch after the others—the waiter came to notify my cousin that a naval officer wished to speak to him.

Not at all strange in a seaside city near navy bases that officers should arrive, was it? They always appeared at the hotel! And yet I felt that it was him! I leapt to my feet, leaving the coffee which had constituted my meal in the lurch, and escaped. Yes, Father: I escaped. I am writing it very clearly so that you will read it. I ran to take refuge in my room and locked myself in. Why? Because joy was suffocating me, I was afraid I would not be able to contain myself in the sight of the others, and in joy and sorrow I have always had great modesty and have never wanted to expose my most intimate feelings to public view. I wept and laughed at the same time, prayed, blessed God, and felt myself dying and being reborn with every beat of my heart, which was leaping in my chest like one possessed. I was certain, ever so certain, that Mario had come, that the officer could only be him; I was happy, ever so happy, that he had come, that he had loved me to the point of not believing the deceitful words which had been said to him.

Oh, why can’t life and certain hours be brought to a halt? I would not even have wanted to pass on to a more joyful hour. No, I would have wished to stop at that one, that alone....

My cousin came up to tell me through the closed door that it was Mario himself and that I should go down. Short of breath, I replied that I would as soon as I saw I had that joy under control. Sorrow is a blow crushing us when falling suddenly upon us, but so is joy. I clearly grasp that one can die in an hour of joy, fulminated by it.

I finally went down with my legs trembling. He was in a little room at the foot of the stairs.... I still do not know if I cried out or remained silent, whether I ran to him or he to me. I know nothing. When I began to be aware, I found myself in his arms. Later, days later, Memmo said, “We thought you were dying!”

Mario had come to clarify things. He had faithfully presented himself to my cousins, asking them if they thought I still felt affection for him. If this affection existed, he would have himself announced to me. If, however, as my mother had said, I no longer thought of him and wanted to have nothing to do with him, he would leave again without even trying to greet me. He said he could not understand that I had acted on my own initiative as Mother had said and wished to hear the whole truth from upright, responsible people who really loved me. When he heard it, he had asked that I be called.

He stayed a few hours.... Hours of reverie whose sunlight has remained enclosed within me, whose sweetness has been surpassed only by that of supernatural joys.

He handed me the letter he had written on March 14 and had afterwards not sent out of fear that it might fall into my mother’s hands. I still have that letter. I have all of them. He assured me of his constant affection, of all his relatives’ affection for me. He said he was now leaving for Constantinople, assigned to the International Squadron then garrisoning the Turkish Straits, but that he was leaving happily.

I was to write to Mother in the meantime. With 990 kilometers between us, Mother could not tear me to pieces. Among other things, my cousins would help me. We would win. At Christmas or New Year’s, at the latest, he would come for the official engagement, and after a year—he had to remain in Istanbul for a year—we would be married. If Mother agreed, fine; if not, it was not necessary. I was now twenty-five, and he had a career and the respectable capital of 300,000 lire, plus a villa in Rome and another in Moncalvo Monferrato. So there was no reason to be concerned about anything. If Mother took care of the trousseau, all well and good; if not, his grandmother would, for she was more than happy to open her heart, her arms, and her pocketbook to me.

We stayed together for those hours. Part of the time, while the sun shone, in the hotel; afterwards, in a carriage under the—protection of my cousins’ faithful coachman; then back to the hotel until 12 midnight, when Clotilde, Memmo, and I went to accompany him to the station....

...I was left with the task of writing to Mother. And that’s where I erred.

Clotilde said, “Write to say point-blank that you are engaged and will get married in a year. And that’s that. Your mother is an irrational sort, so it’s useless to try to persuade her politely. She must be placed before the fait accompli. Later, along with Battista, I’ll write explaining the rest.” I should have paid attention to her. But I was an excessively respectful daughter. I preferred to use good grace rather than haughtiness, the only weapon to be employed against the overbearing to put them in their place. The result? Endless anathemas, excommunications, maledictions, and jeremiads. I have all those letters, and if you wish, I’ll let you read them.

Then, as this was not enough, without hearing my cry of entreaty that she understand I had a right to love, as she had had, she went to the colonel, dragging along that poor man who was my father, whose task was simply to say yes and no like a marionette when Mother tugged at a given thread. A dispute so violent that the colonel at a certain point found it opportune to break off by throwing out my mother and her overly weak husband must certainly have taken place.

Other anathemas, excommunications, and jeremiads for me, who “had caused that affront,” and so on. But, at a distance and with my cousins’ support, I was as brave as a lion and withstood.

Meanwhile I miraculously bloomed again. I had promised Mario. Like a plant languishing in the heat which a beneficent rain waters, I daily regained strength. Hope revived me and joy nourished me. I was able to feed myself all over again; if I did not sleep, it was, however, no longer a question of those tormenting nights of worry. Love—our love, so faithful and pure—was restoring me entirely....

My correspondence with Mother lasted throughout August, September, and October. I countered all her obstacles with my own. She did not want to give me the dowry? It wasn’t necessary. She did not want to make my trousseau? She need not. It was madness and would cause my death? I would die in an hour of joy—in the meantime, I was getting better. Mario was not a serious man? He had given me the most beautiful proof of seriousness. Mario had been cunning and had presented himself to surprise and seduce me? Not at all true. He had spoken to my cousins before speaking to me. And so forth.

Mario had written in turn, but Mother had not replied. Indeed, in a rage she had torn up the letter and the address.

Seeing that nothing overcame me or him, Mother turned to her favorite method.

I once read in a book by a jurist that criminals always repeat their crimes using the same system. Each has his own method, and the police base themselves on the details—always the same—to recognize a given criminal. Without being material criminals who kill, rob, betray, and so on, people can be such morally, for whoever kills a heart, robs a joy, a peace, or a reputation, whoever betrays a person’s trust is no less a criminal than someone killing a life, robbing a sum, or betraying his country. Unpunished crimes seen only by God, but not on this account less criminal! Whoever commits them always follows his own method.

Mother used hers, and I, a perfect fool, swallowed the bait, and Mario—kept me company. At the end of October, after having received a very clear letter from Clotilde, Mother pretended to surrender and resign herself and asked me for Mario’s address.

Clotilde said, “Don’t send it to her.” But could I fail to send it? Wasn’t it right and proper for those two—loved by me with the same intensity, though in different ways—to come to an understanding? To continue the war meant not having Mother’s blessing for my marriage. Could I want that? I thus sent the address.

From Florence to Istanbul the mail took about a week, as it also did from Istanbul to Reggio. Now then, when we compare the dates, it is undeniably clear that Mother wrote to Mario and he replied and at the same time wrote me a letter which was a thoroughgoing protestation of affection and ended as follows: “Your Mario, ever yours, completely yours, eternally yours.”

Mother wrote again—and Mario wrote no more. What did she say to him? Only she, he, and God know.

Once, eight years ago, when I was still half-dazed by a crisis with delirium, I heard Mother say to a woman present, “Ah, Ida! Why did I ever write that letter!” You shouldn’t think I misunderstood. The woman named Ida, when questioned by me the next day, confirmed that sentence of Mother’s.

Mario never wrote me again—ever. I perceived the same phenomenon which had advised me of his arrival, but in the opposite sense. Towards the end of October I felt those mysterious threads constantly receding and then breaking. I said so to Clotilde, but she told me to cheer up. Mario was still writing and was so affectionate. Why believe in certain trifles? But when, after his letter of November 6, received by me on November 13, he wrote no more, Clotilde was left perplexed.

Mother gave herself away from that time on, for she no longer spoke to me of Mario.... Following Clotilde’s advice, I went on writing to him as if nothing had happened. But my poor letters were not answered any more.

I thus arrived at the morning of December 24. In the evening there was to be a special dinner. Clotilde and I were busy preparing flowers, glasses, and so forth.

A navy officer arrived. He was passing through. He had to go to Rome to get married. He asked if, in spite of the hour (it was ten-thirty), he might have some soup and an egg, even if that alone, for he was coming from Taranto and on the desolate Metaponto line had been unable to eat anything.

As he waited for the soup to cook, my cousin, who was eager to receive news of Mario—his silence caused an impression, and my assertions that “it was all over on account of Mother” shook her—asked this officer where he had come from. She asked all the navy officers this.

He replied that he had come from Turkey, from the Black Sea, to be exact, for the Black Sea was then entirely under the control of the Inter-Allied Squadron.

“Ah, is that so? And have you ever been to Constantinople?”

“Yes, recently, too, since our torpedo boats go back and forth and often berth in Istanbul.”

“And do you know Lieutenant Mario Ottavi?”

“Who? Ottavino? Why, of course! He’s just a little older than I, and we’ve known each other since our years at the Academy.”

“What is he doing now? Is he well? Is he also in Istanbul?”

“Yes. Indeed, he’s always in Istanbul, since he’s on the flagship. Do you know him, madam?”

“Yes. He was our guest here.” Clotilde said nothing else, except guest, to provide an avenue for the other to speak freely.

I was in a little adjacent room. I could hear, but was not seen by the officer, who thought he was alone with the waiter and the owner.

Clotilde insisted, “How is he now? He used to write us, but hasn’t said a word for some time now....”

The officer smiled and good-naturedly offered the explanations requested. “Well, what can I say, madam? Mario was so serious, sensible. I don’t know.... I think he had a relationship with a young lady and serious intentions.... I don’t know what happened because, as I told you, with respect to Istanbul, I come and go. But colleagues have told me—you know, our chit-chat—that for two months Mario has been totally changed. First he had black days in which he was impossible with everyone—and he was so good-natured.... Then—well, he’s ruining himself with a woman, a Russian, a present the Russian revolution has made us. She says she’s a noble and fled to escape death. But I think she’s an adventuress. She’s very beautiful, but also very corrupt. Just imagine....”

Father, I shall save you the details not suitable for me to write or you to read....

The officer concluded, “Poor Mario! Either he has gone mad, or they have driven him mad with something we’re ignorant of. And, believe me, I’m sorry, because he was a fine lad...!”

Father, have you ever experienced the agony felt when acid is poured on a large burn? I have, once. It’s a pain that makes one’s nerves and hair stand on end. That morning I experienced such pain—but it was my burned soul on which acid was being poured....

That was my mother’s work: I was sacrificed and he was ruined.

In the evening I had a very high fever. All the guests complimented me on the “magnificent color I had that night.” I should say so! They composed dithyrambs on the “shining eyes with which I gazed at them.” They certainly were shining! The fever made them phosphorescent. And they asked me if it resulted from news of the imminent arrival of my fiancé.... Without wanting to, people are sometimes cruel to their fellows. Those worthy persons with their compliments and their questions and allusions were cruel. But they knew nothing and were thus not to blame. They were like children speaking without realizing....

I wanted to write Mario and his grandmother at once. But Clotilde and her husband said, “Wait. It must be a moment of bewilderment. Wait.” I waited. I did not write to him any more, though.

I wept, prayed, and forgave. I forgave him, understanding the drama he was going through. And I forgave Mother, seeing that she was the author of that drama. I have always forgiven the harm received with respect to myself. You can be assured.

In January I caught Spanish influenza again. It was that last terrible epidemic of Spanish flu in which Benedict XV lost his life. My cousin Normanna, the one at the villa hotel, also died, leaving four orphans, the youngest of whom was seven months old. Those children kept me from feeling the new, double stab too harshly. I had to take care of them for a while, and that kept me going.

When I have a mission, I plunge into it with such ardor that everything else becomes less important to my heart.

And then I hoped and hoped.... I could not resign myself to the idea that Mario, who had placed such trust in me and been so faithful, had suddenly become unfaithful and distrustful. I excused him, for I thought heaven only knew what my mother had said to him to separate him from me. But I could not get over his having been able to believe the lie he had undoubtedly been told. And I hoped that after the initial period of rage he would be capable of grasping the trap.

I waited until May. Six months are sufficient to reason and reach the light, see things as they are. And they are also sufficient to exhaust a whim. Certain loves based on vice last only briefly.

In the last letter I had written to him, which he should have received around Christmas, in addition to sending my best wishes, I exhorted him not to make me repent of having had faith in him and having entrusted and donated my heart to him. I recall that I wrote the following sentences, virtually dictated by an all-seeing spirit: “You know what an effort I have had to make to enable this love of ours to have life. Never forget it. I am not telling you to live as I—who am a woman, your woman—should. I have enough good sense to realize that it would be impossible. And since I don’t want to force you to say things that are not true, I am not asking you to give me your word of honor that you are living as those consecrated in a cloister must live. No, you must never be insincere with me, as I will never be with you. I could forgive you for anything—anything, remember that—except a lack of trust in me. That would show me that you do not yet know me and do not love me completely. For if you loved and knew me completely, you would realize as well that my love for you is so complete and perfect that it combines in itself the characteristics of the love of a mother, sister, and friend, in addition to a wife’s. And you know that a true mother forgives everything, a true sister is indulgent in everything, and a true friend understands everything. Don’t ever cause me the offense of being insincere and distrustful with me. I love your heart even more than your body, you know. And your heart must not have secrets for me. Try to live in such a way that confiding in Maria will not prove hard for you. You are living in a city where all the most insidious dangers are assembled and condensed to lay traps for a man, especially if he’s young. But always manage to free yourself from all the tentacles of a pleasure capable of making you its slave to the point of dragging you down, into the mud.... You would be too ashamed afterwards, not on my account, but on your own, for the sake of your dignity as a man. Always be a man, Mario, and not just a male. Know how to remain free and strong, to stand tall, even in the midst of all the siren songs tempting the male soul in a thousand ways. You will, won’t you? For yourself, for your career, and for me, whose Good, Hope, and Life you are. But if, by some unacceptable chance, you should already have succumbed—oh, come to me then, come to me more than before! We shall weep together, and I’ll heal you and bring you back to life, once again free and strong, for a woman’s heart, when truly loving, contains within it all the medicines to cure you of the illnesses of the flesh and all the indulgence to absolve you of the weaknesses of the spirit.”

You will ask. “How can you manage to remember after so many years what you wrote to him then?”

Oh, I remember! I remember! In the general collapse of my body, my memory alone remains strong. I remember everything, even the most insignificant things. Could I fail to recall what I have repeated interiorly, in thought, thousands of times? I could repeat to you all the letters I have written. They are engraved on my mind as if it were a phonograph record, just as his letters are engraved on my heart. I keep them beside my bed, but do not even look at them. I have no need. They are all written on my heart, and I have only to look inside myself to read them.

After six months of silence as regarded Mario, I wrote to his grandmother to tell her all that had befallen and closed as follows: “For the sake of my dignity, I now find it is well and good to put an end to this unfortunate love. I do not judge or condemn Mario. I regret only that his fine youth should thus be degraded in an unworthy liaison. But that’s the way it is. As long as Mario was a boy, he was perfect; having become a man, he has followed the path of all. A sad path which is the source of so many errors. May God forgive him as I do. Let him know that I give back his pledge, which he, moreover, has so miserably gone back on, and that, if he was not able to be faithful, I will be for him and for myself, and if I cannot take care of him as a creature of flesh, I will do so in regard to him as a soul, praying for his welfare, for, in spite of everything, though giving him back his full liberty, I shall continue to consider myself his faithful wife.”

Father, I told you that, when Roberto was taken from me, I thought one could not suffer more. But in 1921 I suffered much more. From that morning of December 24, 1921 until—until when? For as long as I live I shall bear this pain driven into my heart. And it is such a pain that it withstands and subsists even amidst the joy of my devotion to God.

How I understand Christ’s sorrow over the betrayal of the unfaithful apostle! No, there is nothing which surpasses the pain a betrayal gives us, the betrayal of one we loved and esteemed. Death’s taking from us someone we have loved is nothing in comparison to this evil action, which lowers the esteem we have until then had for a dear person and hurls to the ground, to be shattered in the mire, the very gift of our heart, which is scorned and betrayed. It is a pain which squeezes blood from our fibers and grinds us as a millstone does. It annihilates us.

We can follow someone who dies into the realms of the afterlife by way of thought; the one dying does not abandon us: from other domains he watches over, follows, and protects us, and his spirit, free from the constrictions of the flesh, can still come near us like a guardian angel. But one who betrays us is lost for us. He himself withdraws, bearing his heart—which became a chalice of bitterness for us—with him; he goes off with an insult, trampling on our heart, which under his feet vainly attempts a final plea for mercy. Lost, lost forever is he who inflicts the torture and offending slap of a betrayal and undeserved abandonment on our trust, our esteem, and our love.

He who dies does not cease to love us, but rather loves us with greater perfection from the other life: our love continues with a deceased loved one. But he who betrays no longer loves us. He goes off with his whole self, and we remain alone to love him.... For—it seems impossible, but it’s true—we love nothing so perfectly and intensely as we love him who has betrayed us, with a love made of compassion. He remains fixed in our heart. Upon him we see the guilt of his betrayal wounding us so deeply, but we are not grieved over our wound, but over the wound he has inflicted on himself, impairing himself in his honesty as a man. We grieve over his future remorse, which will inevitably arise when the soul, cleared of the caprice which has seduced it, in hours of meditation experienced by even the most superficial, finds itself face to face with itself and its past.

As I state, Mario has the significant extenuating circumstance of what my mother wrote to him. But if it mitigates his guilt, it does not annul it, for the betrayal remains, as does the offense he caused me in preferring a creature of vice encountered by chance on the sidewalks of a cosmopolitan city to me, his faithful and honest woman. If he had come back to me after a brief fling, I would have made allowances for him. But that way.... It is a bitterness which remains intense and will remain until the tomb.

And yet it did not extinguish my love for him. Nor do I feel this involves a diminishment of my devotion to God. As widows can enter monasteries and honor God with all the practices of a monastic life and with a love which, having been formed for the creature, becomes perfect in donating itself to the Creator, so I, a poor widow before becoming a wife, can love my God, who alone has remained to reign over and in me, and at the same time conserve a supernatural love for the soul of him who left me and fell so low after so much good I had sown therein...!

Don’t you think I may do so?

My new sorrow did not detach me from God. Rather, it was an increase in love for Him. I experienced none of those tremendous hours of rebellion undergone in 1914 and the following years. I suffered unsurpassably. Oh, yes! Now I can say so clearly, now that I have experienced all sorrows except that of the death of a son! I suffered, but not one of my tears fell to the ground alone, after having burned my heart. I poured them all into the Heart of Christ.

Towards Easter, in the Church of the Purification, which was the parish for the hotel where I was, the parish priest exhorted the faithful to join the Franciscan Third Order.

St. Francis and I were old acquaintances.

At my school, in the spring of 1912, my Superior, aware of my enthusiasm for this Saint, whose praises were not very loudly sung at that time, had given me a book on him to read, The Love That Inspires, if I remember the title correctly. No one wanted to be the first to read it, not even the Sisters. The Superior brought it to me, saying, “Take this, Valtortino, since you’re a little Franciscan. Read it and let me know if it might be to the others’ liking to have it read in the refectory.” It was a new book, with the pages still to be cut. I plunged into that reading, and if at first I loved the Seraphic Father by instinct, I afterwards loved him three times as much with knowledge. I had found my Saint. And even in the black times of my youth my affection for him did not slacken.

It was more than natural that, having returned to God with my whole will, I should now, more than ever, feel led towards his Herald, the Stigmatized One of Verna, who, after having been flesh, out of love for Christ was able to become spirit.

I was on the verge of immediately joining the Franciscan Third Order. But I refrained. Why? Because a remnant of shame was still in me. I now trusted in and entrusted myself to the Mercy of God and in God increasingly found the comfort I had uselessly sought to find in all human beings. But I had not yet reached the point of believing, as I do now, that God’s Mercy is so boundless that nothing is an obstacle to it in loving his creatures.

I told myself, “Yes, God has forgiven you and loves you as before. But you, my soul, should not forget what you have done contrary to the Divine Law. Therefore, before entering a militia such as the Third Order, you must undergo your purgatory. A purgatory of penance, a purgatory of study to purify yourself and grow in the knowledge of your duties as a Christian. You have been infected for many years and are now in quarantine.”

As long as I told myself I should remember my mistakes, it was fine. I always remember them even now, to spur myself increasingly to feel gratitude towards God, who was so merciful to me, and to feel ever more the need to cancel my debt to Divine Justice through a continual offer of holocausts. Where I erred was in waiting to enter, restrained by a remnant of shame that was not holy. I judged God according to a human vision, and behaved towards Him as I would have with a fellow creature whom I had offended. I did not yet have a proper vision.

The Good Jesus had already taken me by the hand, as with the blind man of Bethsaida, and had led me out of the crowd.... He had then placed saliva on my eyes and imposed his hands—and I was beginning to see, but as a final deceit of the Evil One I viewed my whole past fearfully enlarged, and just as men looked like big trees to the blind man of the Gospel, so my faults—which, undeniably, were such—appeared so monstrous that they made me fear entering among the followers of Christ, under the seal of a Third Order. The second laying-on of the Divine Hands was still needed in order for me to see everything clearly.

I thus said to myself, “Imagine yourself as a postulant. Observe whether you are capable of following the Master under a special rule or must be satisfied with being a simple believer.”

In divine and human matters I have always considered carefully whether I could bring them to a conclusion. I never started off—and do not now—at a gallop, like so many under the spur of a sudden enthusiasm, which, even if given by a holy inspiration, does not last unless fortified by many other factors. I have always preferred a constant trot carrying one far to rearing up and galloping, which are soon exhausted. In place of the very swift dash of an olympic champion I have always preferred the measured step of our mountain dwellers, for example, who seem to go so slowly, but methodically cover distances which no champion could and overcome all obstacles with a calm I would term almost solemn.

Method and order are needed in all things, along with reflection, to more closely resemble God, who, in spite of his boundless power, was methodical and orderly in creating and only exceptionally violates his order, either to punish us by stirring up cosmic forces or to convince us of his existence by working a miracle. And reflection is needed, first, to undertake a work, so as not to cause people to laugh afterwards at our presumption, which goes limp liked a pierced blister at the first setback it encounters.

I thus imposed a waiting period on myself. And in the meantime I tried to reclaim the soil of my soul to prepare it for the divine seed.

Away with the stones, that is, the feeling of resentment towards those who had most harmed me. God cannot reign where even a minuscule hatred reigns, for charity and hatred cannot lodge under the same roof. Therefore, first of all I have removed this from my heart, forgiving the two people to blame: my mother, guilty of lying and selfishness, and Mario, guilty of a lack of reflection and betrayal.

Next, the birds of the air, that is, the different thoughts making our mind flutter here and there, scattering the seed outside the furrow when they do not destroy it outright by swallowing up the divine inspirations in their gizzards, eager for base human food.

Then I eliminated the passers-by who might trample on my seed, that is, the affections which were not contained in the middle of the way or in the seeded clods of earth, loving everyone with an intense spiritual affection, for the sake of their souls and without human attachment concerned with what is fleeting and fostered by human sympathies.

The fourth thing to be removed was the thorns, that is, human preoccupations over what might still happen to me, the sad future presenting itself, and so on.

I won’t say it was quick work.... But to reclaim land as well years and years are needed. Afterwards, though, it yields a hundredfold, for, rich in virgin humors and cleared of all imperfections, it provides abundant harvests.

When my soul, cleared by my assiduous toil of all stones, thorns, and stagnant waters, well irrigated by love, but not subject to the overflowing of passions, fertilized by pain and charity, ploughed by contrition, and softened by trust, was ready, the Divine Sower came, and everything blossomed in Christ. A flowering which has never ceased, but, rather, has continually intensified its blooming, increasing with ever-new steles, for from the first sowings of the virtues commanded we passed on to those of the Gospel counsels, and from these to the holy boldness of love, to the thirst for suffering, to asking to become a holocaust.

I say “we passed” because in the divine betrothal to Christ my soul was no longer alone in asking and Christ was no longer alone in sowing, but there were two of us: two wills, two loves, two hearts wanting ever-new flowers, working to attain increasingly select blossomings, and each of us, if pausing for a moment, was urged by the other to continue....

I said that the point was reached of sowing the request to become a holocaust as the supreme flower. No, after this the flower of flowers also bloomed in my heart. The flower whose seed, to grow and blossom eternally, needs to be fertilized by complete sacrifice. Christ was born in me.

From the distant—distant, that is, in time—annunciation of Christ to my heart, after the dark period of pains laden with all the weight of humanity, Christ had been born anew and covered the native sod with his lush growth, my poor soul, which is nothing, but whose only reason for existence is to be a pedestal for its Lord.

Maria has disappeared. He alone lives. Maria is dying. He breathes in life from her to blossom ever more beautifully in her. In a short time Maria will be nothing but a memory among men. But He will bear my soul to his lovely heavenly garden, and I shall go on blooming eternally under the divine rays of the Holy Trinity, caressed by the hand of Mary....