THE ROAD TO ROME
Canisius kept Stanislaus at his work in the kitchen and about the
house for a couple of weeks. He noted his cheerfulness, his love of
prayer, his readiness to do any sort of work, and best of all, his
simplicity, his entire lack of pose. He saw that this Senator's son
made no virtue of taking on himself such lowly tasks, and he knew,
therefore, that he was really humble.
Then he called the boy to him. He said:
"If I admit you into the Society here, your father may still annoy
you. It is better you should go to Rome and become a novice there.
I shall give you a letter to the Father General, Francis Borgia. In
a few days two of ours are to go to Rome. You can go with them."
Stanislaus was delighted. He was come into quiet waters at last.
But Canisius spoke further:
"First, however, you must get some decent clothes. Your old tunic,"
he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "might do well enough for a
noble, but not for a future Jesuit."
So the college tailor made Stanislaus a simple, neat suit of
clothes. And about September 20th he set out for Rome. He went on
foot, of course; in the company of Jacopo Levanzio, a Genoese, and
Fabricius Reiner, of Liége.
They struck south through Bavaria to the Tyrolese Alps. By what pass
they crossed the Alps we do not know. But Stanislaus saw first from
afar the white peaks, with their everlasting snows, shining in the
sun. Then he went up and up, into cooler and rarer air, where one's
lungs expand and one's step is light and buoyant, but where one gets
tired more easily than in the plains. High up in the passes he felt
the cold of Winter, although it was as yet early Autumn.
Then he came down the southern slopes of the great mountain-wall
that locks in Italy, and with him came the headwaters of great
rivers. He came down through bare rocks, then through twisted
mountain-pines, then through green and lovely valleys, and so into
the plains of northern Italy. He saw the mountain torrents leap and
flash, and grow always bigger and stronger. He saw them slack their
speed and widen their beds in the upland valleys. He saw them grow
sluggish, tawny with mud, in the plain.
He saw the many spires of Milan's wonderful cathedral as they drew
near the city. And when they tarried there a little while for rest,
he saw the famous armor made there, hung up for show in little shop-
windows. He passed great cavalcades of nobles and soldiers, and
marvelled at their straight, slim rapiers, so different from the
heavy Polish saber. He heard Italian speech for the first time, and
tried to get at its meaning through his Latin.
But he and his companions had not over-much time for observing. They
were traveling pretty swiftly. From Dillingen to Rome is a matter of
about eight hundred miles. They left Dillingen September 20th; they
reached Rome October 25th. That figures out to an average of about
twenty-two miles each day. Then, if you remember that they had to
climb mountains the first part of the way, that there were delays
entering towns, delays of devotion when they came to great churches,
you can see that many a day they must have equaled or surpassed
Stanislaus' thirty miles a day from Vienna.
But it was pleasanter. for Stanislaus than his first great tramp.
Now he had two good companions, with whom he could speak easily and
familiarly of the things nearest his heart. He had none of the
uncertainty about the result of this journey which he had had about
his former journey. He found shelter and friendship in many Jesuit
houses on the way.
As the three went on they lightened the road with pious songs, they
heard Mass and received Holy Communion whenever occasion offered,
they knelt by many a wayside shrine, a crucifix, or statue of our
Lady, scattered everywhere through Catholic Italy.
It did not take the two Jesuits long to appreciate Stanislaus and
delight in his company. He was so light-hearted, so merry in all
the discomforts and hardships of the long road, so thoroughly and
simply good. They wondered at his physical endurance, at the ease
and buoyancy with which the lad of seventeen kept up that hard
march, day after day.
The grasses of the Campagna were brown and brittle, the trees sere
and yellow in the Autumn, when they came to the Eternal City, the
center of the world then as now. The saintly General Francis
Borgia, busy as he was with the cares of the widespread Society,
found time to welcome the three travelers, and to hear Stanislaus'
wonderful story in full.
And this time there was no hesitation or delay. Stanislaus entered
his name in the book containing the register of the novices, on
October 25, 1567. Three days later he received his cassock and
entered at once upon his noviceship.
There were so many novices in Rome then that no single house of the
Jesuits there could hold them all. So they were scattered through
three houses, each one spending a part of his two years' noviceship
successively in each house. Stanislaus went first to the Professed
House, then called Santa Maria della Strada, and afterward the site
of the famous Gesu, one of the notable churches of Rome. From there
he passed in time to the Roman College, then to the Noviciate proper
at Sant' Andrea.
The Society of Jesus was then in its early youth, in the midst of
that first brilliant charge against the ranks of heresy without, and
against the huge sluggish inertia so striking within the Church itself.
He was fellow-novice with Claude Acquaviva, son of the Duke of Atri,
and afterwards one of the greatest Generals of the Society, which he
ruled for thirty years. With him were also Claude's nephew, Rudolph
Acquaviva, who died a martyr; Torres, a great theologian; Prando,
the first philosopher at the University of Bologna; Fabio de' Fabii,
who traced his descent from the great Roman family of that name; the
Pole, Warscewiski, formerly ambassador to the Sultan and Secretary
of State in Poland, who first wrote a life of Stanislaus; and many
more, distinguished for birth, learning, holiness.
Most of these were a great deal older, too, than Stanislaus. Many
of them had already made their names familiar to men. Yet the boy
of seventeen, who came quietly and modestly amongst them, was
somehow soon looked up to by all. They felt the force of something
in him which made him their superior. Heaven was wonderfully near
him. He was not old-fashioned; he was always a boy, unconscious of
anything unusual in himself; not solemn nor impressive nor austere
in manner. All that he did, he did with perfect naturalness; for to
him the supernatural had become almost natural.