I MEANWHILE continued to pray as usual, and to write my Capitolo, and
every night I was visited with the gladdest and most pleasant dreams
that could be possibly imagined. It seemed to me while dreaming that I
was always in the visible company of that being whose voice and touch,
while he was still invisible, I had so often felt. To him I made but one
request, and this I urged most earnestly, namely, that he would bring me
where I could behold the sun. I told him that this was the sole desire I
had, and that if I could but see the sun once only, I should die
contented. All the disagreeable circumstances of my prison had become,
as it were, to me friendly and companionable; not one of them gave me
annoyance. Nevertheless, I ought to say that the castellan’s parasites,
who were waiting for him to hang me from the battlement whence I had
made my escape, when they saw that he had changed his mind to the exact
opposite of what he previously threatened, were unable to endure the
disappointment. Accordingly, they kept continually trying to inspire me
with the fear of imminent death by means of various terrifying hints.
But, as I have already said, I had become so well acquainted with
troubles of this sort that I was incapable of fear, and nothing any
longer could disturb me; only I had that one great longing to behold the
sphere of the sun, if only in a dream.
Thus then, while I spent many hours a day in prayer with deep emotion of
the spirit toward Christ, I used always to say: “Ah, very Son of God! I
pray Thee by Thy birth, by Thy death upon the cross, and by Thy glorious
resurrection, that Thou wilt deign to let me see the sun, if not
otherwise, at least in dreams. But if Thou wilt grant me to behold it
with these mortal eyes of mine, I engage myself to come and visit Thee
at Thy holy sepulchre.” This vow and these my greatest prayers to God I
made upon the 2nd of October in the year 1539. Upon the following
morning, which was the 3rd of October, I woke at daybreak, perhaps an
hour before the rising of the sun. Dragging myself from the miserable
lair in which I lay, I put some clothes on, for it had begun to be cold;
then I prayed more devoutly than ever I had done in the past, fervently
imploring Christ that He would at least grant me the favour of knowing
by divine inspiration what sin I was so sorely expiating; and since His
Divine Majesty had not deemed me worthy of beholding the sun even in a
dream I besought Him to let me know the cause of my punishment.