JEANNE TO NOEMI. VENA DI FONTE ALTA, July 4,----
Forgive me if I write to you in pencil. I have just reread your letter
here, at a point half an hour distant from the hotel, seated on the
edge of a stone basin where the flocks come to drink. The tiny stream of
water which trickles into the basin from a small wooden pipe reminds me,
with its gentle voice, of something which makes my heart ache; a walk
with him across fields and through woods in the mist; a halt by this
very spring, painful words, a few tears, something written in the water,
a moment of happiness--the last. I made a great sacrifice for Carlino’s
sake when I returned to Vena after an absence of three years. I have
always loved him, but the message from Jenne would make me face far
greater sacrifices than this for him, make me face them willingly,
though conscious of having lost all merit in them.
I am not satisfied with your letters; I will tell you why sometime, but
not now. It is too difficult to write here. The mist is rolling down
from the uplands high above the spring, and a cold west wind is blowing.
I must be careful of my health on Carlino’s account, and this is another
sacrifice, for I hate my health!
_Later_.
Noemi, could you not contrive to let the enclosed half-sheet of paper,
upon which I have written in pencil, fall into _his_ hands? You hesitate
to tell him how obedient I am; could you not, at least, help me to let
him know it in this way?
I am not satisfied with your letters, first of all because they are too
short. You know how eager I am to hear all about him. He is a guest in
the same house with you; at Subiaco he can surely not know how to
employ his time, and you sum up everything in two or three words!--He
is better. He reads a great deal. He has been working in the
kitchen-garden. Perhaps he will spend the summer with us. He
writes.--And you have never yet told me what malady he is really
suffering from, what he reads, where he will go if he does not spend the
summer with you, whether he writes letters or books, and what you talk
about together, for it is not possible that you never talk together. Do
not repeat your excuse that the less you speak of him, the better it
is for me. That is a convenient excuse you have invented, but it is
foolish, because, whether you talk to me of him or not, it is all the
same. My hopes are quite dead; they will not revive. Then write me long
letters, I am sure he wishes to convert you, that you have very serious
talks together, and that is why you tell me so little about him. It
would not be a very glorious achievement to convert _you_, for you are
sentimental in matters of religion; you do not possess that clear, cold,
and positive insight which is, unfortunately, natural to me, and which I
wish _I_ did not possess.
When do you intend to return to Belgium? Do not your affairs there
need your attention? You once mentioned an agent in whom you had little
confidence. We shall probably travel in August. At least, that is what
Carlino says at present, but he changes his mind very easily. I should
like to visit Holland with you, in September. Good-bye! Please write.
If he reads much you might get him to lend you a book, and leave the
half-sheet of paper in it as a book-mark, At any rate, find some way.
That or something else; you are a woman! Contrive some means, if you
love me! But I really believe you no longer love me at all! You would
confess it if you told the truth! However, there is a lady at this hotel
who is in love with me! Laugh, if you like, but it is true. She lives in
Rome. Her husband is Under-Secretary of State. She is determined that I
shall spend next winter in Rome. It will depend upon Carlino. This lady
lays siege to him; he lets himself be besieged, and neither resists nor
capitulates. Good-bye. Write, write, and again write!
NOEMI TO JEANNE (_from the French_)
I did still better! In my presence, my brother-in-law cited from memory
a Latin passage which impressed _him_, concerning certain monks of
ancient times, before Christ. He begged Giovanni to write it down for
him. We were in the olive-grove above the villetta, seated on the grass.
I immediately passed a pencil to Giovanni, and the half-sheet of paper,
with the blank side uppermost. He wrote, and Maironi took the paper,
read the Latin passage, and put the sheet into his pocket, without
looking at the other side. It was an act of treason, and I have been
guilty of treason for love of you. Will you ever doubt me again?
What can I tell you about his illness which I have not told you already?
He was troubled with fever for about two weeks. One day the physician
would pronounce it typhoid, and the next he would say it was not. At
last the fever left him, but his strength has not returned completely;
he is very thin; he seems to have some persistent, internal ailment; the
doctor is very particular about the quality of his food; he has changed
his way of living, eats meat and drinks a little wine. Yesterday a
friend of Giovanni’s came from Rome to see him; the famous Professor
Mayda, Giovanni begged him to examine Maironi, and to advise him. He
recommended some waters, which Maironi will certainly not take. I feel
I know him well enough to be sure of that. However, during the last week
he has improved rapidly. In the morning and evening he works a little in
the kitchen-garden. This morning he rose very early, and what should he
do but take it into his head to wash down the stairs! Yesterday Maria
scolded the old servant because the stairs were not clean. When the
old woman, who sleeps at Subiaco, arrived at seven o’clock, she found
Maironi had done the work for her. My sister and my brother-in-law
reproached him; Giovanni was almost severe, perhaps because he is so
different from Maironi, and would never think of touching a broom, even
if he lived in a cloud of cobwebs! What does Maironi read? He has never
but once spoken to me of what he reads, and then only for a moment, as I
shall tell you later. I wrote you that perhaps he would spend the
summer with us, for I know Maria and Giovanni wish it. I now have a
presentiment that he will not stay, but will go to Rome. This, however,
is only my impression; I have no positive knowledge.
As to his wishing to convert me, I do not know whether it would be an
easy task or not, or whether Maironi thinks anything about it. You will
notice that I call him Maironi in writing to you; in speaking to him I
call him simply Benedetto, for that is his wish. I am sure Giovanni once
thought of converting me. He found it so easy that he never speaks of it
to me now. I should not think the same of Maironi. I believe that to him
Christianity means, above all things, actions and life according to the
spirit of Christ, of the risen Christ who lives for ever among us, of
whom we have, as he puts it, the experience. It seems to me that the
object of his religious mission is, not the placing of the creed of one
Christian Church before another, although there is no doubt the holiness
of the life he leads is strictly Catholic. Whenever I have heard
him speak of dogmas, with Giovanni, it has never been to discuss the
difference between Church and Church, but rather to expound certain
formulas of faith, and to show what a strong light emanates from
them when they are expounded in a certain way. Giovanni himself is
past-master at this, but when Giovanni speaks you are impressed above
all, by the immense store of knowledge his mind contains; when Maironi
speaks you feel that the living Christ is in his heart, the risen
Christ, and he fires you! In order to be perfectly, scrupulously
sincere, I will tell you that although I do not think he intends to
convert me, still I am not very sure of this. One day we were in the
olive-grove. He and Giovanni were discussing a German book on the
essence of Christianity, which, it seems, has made a stir, and was
written by a Protestant theologian. Maironi observed that, when
this Protestant speaks of Catholicism, he does so with a most honest
intention of being impartial, but that, in reality, he does not know the
Catholic religion. His opinion is that no Protestant does really
know it; they are all of them full of prejudices, and believe certain
external and remediable abuses in its practices to be essential to
Catholicism. There was a basket of apricots standing near, and he chose
one which had been very fine, but which was beginning to rot. “Here,”
said he, “is an apricot, which is slightly rotten. If I offer this
apricot to one who does not know, but who wishes to be amiable, he
will tell me that part of it is indeed firm and good, but that,
unfortunately, part of it is diseased, and therefore, though he much
regrets it, he cannot accept it. Thus this illustrious Protestant speaks
of Catholicism. But if I offer my apricot to one who knows, he will
accept it even if it be entirely rotten; and he will plant the immortal
seed in his own garden, in the hope of raising fine, healthy fruit.”
These remarks he addressed to Giovanni, but his eyes sought mine
continually. I must add that at Jenne also, he told me to learn to
understand Catholicism. At any rate, if I remain a Protestant, it will
not be because I do or do not understand, but rather in obedience to my
most sacred feelings.
My dear Jeanne, there is something else I must tell you plainly. I
have a suspicion that you are jealous, I believe you do not realise the
inexpressible grief you would cause me, if this were really the case. I
fear you do not realise the immense gravity of the offence it would be,
first to him and then to me. Now I am going to open my heart to you. I
should reproach myself if I did not do so, dear friend, reproach myself
on your account, on his, and on my own. As to him, he is kind and gentle
to all with whom he comes in contact, especially to the humble, and you
might even be jealous of the old woman who comes from Subiaco to do the
rough work in the house. With Maria and myself he shows his kindness and
gentleness silently rather than in words. With us he is quiet, simple,
and affable; he does not appear to wish to avoid us, but it has never
happened that he has remained alone with either of us. In his eyes I
am a soul, and souls are to him exactly what the tiniest plants in my
father’s great garden were to him; he would have liked to protect them
from frost with the warmth of his own heart, and make then grow and
flower by communicating his own vitality to them. But I am a soul like
any other soul, the only difference perhaps being, that he deems me
further removed from the truth, and consequently more exposed to frost.
But this is not apparent in his bearing.
As to myself, dearest, I certainly have a deep feeling for him, but it
would be abominable to say that this feeling in the least resembles what
men call by the familiar name. This sentiment is one of reverence, of
a kind of devout fear, of awe; I feel his person is surrounded by
something like a magic circle, into which I should never dare to
penetrate. My heart beats no faster in his presence. I think, indeed,
it beats more slowly but of this I am not sure. Dear Jeanne, I could not
possibly speak more honestly than I have done, therefore I beg you, I
entreat you, not to imagine anything different!
For the present I am not thinking of going to Belgium. I may possibly
go there for a short time, later on. My kind regards to your brother. I
should like to know if he has sent the old priest and the young woman to
Formalhaut at last! I myself sometimes think of his Formalhaut! Tell
him that if you and he come to Rome this winter, we will make music
together. Good-bye I embrace you!
BENEDETTO TO DON CLEMENTE
_(Never sent)_
_Padre mio_, the Lord has departed from my soul, not, indeed, giving me
up to sin, but He has taken from me all sense of His presence, and the
despairing cry of Jesus Christ on the cross thrills, at times, through
my whole being. If I strive to concentrate all my thoughts in the one
thought of the Divine Presence, all my senses in an act of submission to
the Divine Will, I derive only pain and discouragement from it. I feel
like the beast of burden which falls under its load, and which, at the
first cut of the whip, makes an effort to rise, and falls again; at
a second blow, at a third, or a fourth, it only shivers, and does not
attempt to rise. If I open the Gospels or the _Imitation_, I find no
flavour in them. If I recite prayers, weariness overpowers me, and I am
silent. If I prostrate myself upon the ground, the ground freezes me. If
I make complaint to God at being treated thus, His silence seems to grow
more hostile. If, on the authority of the great mystics, I say to myself
that I am wrong to feel such affection for spiritual joys, to suffer
thus when deprived of them, I answer myself that the mystics err, that
in the state of conscious grace one walks safely, but that in this
starless night of spiritual darkness one cannot see the way; there is no
other rule than to withdraw one’s foot when it touches the soft grass,
and that is not sufficient, for there is also the danger of setting the
foot in empty space. Father, _Padre mio_, open your arms to me, that I
may feel the warmth of your breast, filled with God! There are a hundred
reasons why I should not go to Santa Scolastica, and in any case I
should prefer to write. You are here present with me more than in the
body; I can become one with you, can mingle with you more easily than if
you stood before me; and I need to mingle with you in thought, I need
to force my soul into yours. Perhaps I shall send you this letter, but
perhaps I shall not send it. Father, father! it does me more good to
write to you than to speak to you! I could not speak with the fire which
now rushes to my pen, and which would not rush to my lips. Writing, I
speak, I cry out to the immortal in you, I divest you of all that is
mortal even in your soul, and which in your presence would extinguish
my fire. I divest you of the mortality of an incomplete knowledge of
things, of prudence, which would prompt you to veil your thoughts. No,
I will not send this letter, but nevertheless it will reach you. I will
burn it, but still it will reach you; for it is not possible that my
silent cry should not come to you, perhaps now, in the darkness of
the night, while you sleep, perhaps in two hours’ time, still in the
darkness of the night, while you pray with the brothers, in the dear
church, where we worshipped so often together.
I know why I am wretched, I know why God has forsaken me. Always when
God forsakes me, when all the living springs of my soul are dry, and the
living germs are parched, and my heart becomes as a dead sea, I know the
reason why. It is because I have heard sweet music behind me, and have
looked back; or because the wind has brought me the scent of blossoming
fields beside my path, and I have paused; or because the mist has risen
before me, and I have been afraid; or because a thorn has pierced my
foot, and I have felt vexation. Moments, flashes, but in that moment the
door opens, an evil breath enters! It is always thus: an earnest glance,
a word of praise enjoyed, an image lingered over, an offence recalled,
any one of these suffices; the evil breath has time to enter.
And now all of these causes are joined together! Darkness descended upon
my path; I set my foot in the soft grass, I felt it; I withdrew my
foot, but not at once. Why do I speak in figures? Write, write the naked
truth, cowardly hand! Write that this house is a nest of ease, and that,
if I have enjoyed the soft bed, the fine linen, the odour of lavender, I
have delighted still more in the conversation of Giovanni Selva, in the
readings, which have filled me with the joys of the intellect, in the
presence of two young and pure women, cultured and full of grace, in
their secret admiration, in the perfume of a sentiment which I believe
one of them harbours, in the vision of a life of retirement in this
nest, with these beings, far from all that is vulgar, all that is low,
unclean, and loathsome.
I have felt the sin of the world with the repulsion which shrinks from
it, and not with the fiery sorrow which braves it and wrests souls from
its clutches. Moments, flashes; I took refuge, as in times past, in
the embrace of the cross; but, little by little, the cross turned to
unfeeling, dead wood in my arms, and this was not as in times past! I
told myself, “Spirits of evil, strong and cunning powers of the air, are
conspiring against me, against my mission.” I answered myself, “Pride,
be gone!” And then the first idea took possession of me once more. In
this sad manner I rocked to and fro, every day, and all day long. And
because I did not allow any part of all this to transpire, because
I understood that Signor Giovanni and the ladies did not doubt I was
inwardly as calm, as pure as I was externally; I despised myself at
certain moments for a hypocrite, only to tell myself the next moment
that, on the contrary, my pure and calm exterior helped me to live--I
allude to the spiritual life--that by appearing strong, I was forced to
be strong. I compared myself to a tree whose marrow has been destroyed
by worms, whose wood is rotten, but which still lives through its bark,
by means of which it produces leaves and flowers, and can spread welcome
shade. Then I told myself that this was good reasoning before men; but
was it good reasoning before God, before God? And again I told myself
that God could heal me, for though the tree may not be healed yet a man
may be made whole. Again my mind was tormented, because I was incapable
of doing what God would demand of me, in order that my will might once
more work in unison with His. He would order me to flee, to flee! God is
in the voice of the Anio, which, since the evening of my departure
from Jenne, has been saying: “Rome, Rome, Rome!” And God is also in the
strength of the invisible worms, which have gnawed the vital virtues of
my body. Am I then to blame? Am I then to blame? Lord, hear my groan,
which asks for justice!
I have said many times that I will leave as soon as I am strong enough,
but they wish to keep me here, and how can I say to them “My friends,
you are my enemies?” Behold my cowardice! Why can I not say so? Why
should I not say so?
One day I read in the young Protestant girl’s glance the question: “If
you go, what will become of my soul? Should you not desire to lead me to
your faith? I will not yet allow myself to be led.” No, I cannot, I must
not write all. How can I write the meaning of a glance, the accent of
a word, commonplace in itself? They are not such glances as drove
St. Jerome to plunge into icy water, or at least my emotion does not
resemble his. Icy water is of no avail against a glance which is all
sweet purity. Only fire can prevail against it, the fire of the Supreme
Love! Ah! who will free me from my mortal heart, whose faintest throb
thrills all the fibres of my body? Who will set free the immortal heart
which is within it, like the germ of a fruit, preparing for itself a
celestial body? I cannot, I must not write all, but this, indeed, I will
write: The Lord seeks to ensnare me, to entrap me! When I shall have
fallen, He will deride me! Why did it happen that I wrote the Latin
quotation about those who live and do penance between the Dead Sea and
the desert, _“Sine pecunia, sine ulla femina, omni venere abdicata socia
palmarum_,” on that piece of paper, which on the other side bore words
from J. D., words still hot concerning my past sin and hers, words
reminding me of the most terrible moments? How did a person so timid
dare to force a secret communication upon me?
The wind has blown my window open. Oh! Anio, Anio! will you never tire
of your commanding? I must start now, at once? Impossible, the doors
are locked. Moreover, it would be shame to leave thus. I should be
dishonouring God; they would say “what ungrateful, what mad servants has
the Lord!” Come, spirit of my master, come, come! Speak to me; I will
listen. What have you to say to me? What have you to say to me? Ah! you
smile at my tempest; you tell me to leave, yes, but to leave honourably,
to announce that the Lord Himself commands my departure. You tell me
to obey the voice of God in the Anio. Now the wind is ceasing; as if
satisfied, it seems to be growing quiet. Yes, yes, yes, with tears!
To-morrow, to-morrow morning! I will announce it. And I know to whom I
shall go in Rome. Oh! light, oh! peace, oh! springs burst forth again
in my soul: oh! dead sea, swelling with a wave of warmth! Yes, yes,
yes, with tears! I return thanks! I return thanks! Glory be to Thee, our
Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come: Thy
will be done!