For three years, once upon a time, it did not rain in Sorrento. Not a
drop out of the clouds for three years, an Italian lady here, born in
Ireland, assures me. If there was an occasional shower on the Piano
during all that drought, I have the confidence in her to think that she
would not spoil the story by noticing it.
The conformation of the hills encircling the plain would be likely to
lead any shower astray, and discharge it into the sea, with whatever
good intentions it may have started down the promontory for Sorrento. I
can see how these sharp hills would tear the clouds asunder, and let out
all their water, while the people in the plain below watched them with
longing eyes. But it can rain in Sorrento. Occasionally the northeast
wind comes down with whirling, howling fury, as if it would scoop
villages and orchards out of the little nook; and the rain, riding on
the whirlwind, pours in drenching floods. At such times I hear the beat
of the waves at the foot of the rock, and feel like a prisoner on an
island. Eden would not be Eden in a rainstorm.
The drought occurred just after the expulsion of the Bourbons from
Naples, and many think on account of it. There is this to be said in
favor of the Bourbons: that a dry time never had occurred while they
reigned,--a statement in which all good Catholics in Sorrento will
concur. As the drought went on, almost all the wells in the place dried
up, except that of the Tramontano and the one in the suppressed convent
of the Sacred Heart,--I think that is its name.
It is a rambling pile of old buildings, in the center of the town, with
a courtyard in the middle, and in it a deep well, boring down I know
not how far into the rock, and always full of cold sweet water. The
nuns have all gone now; and I look in vain up at the narrow slits in the
masonry, which served them for windows, for the glance of a worldly or
a pious eye. The poor people of Sorrento, when the public wells and
fountains had gone dry, used to come and draw at the Tramontano; but
they were not allowed to go to the well of the convent, the gates were
closed. Why the government shut them I cannot see: perhaps it knew
nothing of it, and some stupid official took the pompous responsibility.
The people grumbled, and cursed the government; and, in their
simplicity, probably never took any steps to revoke the prohibitory
law. No doubt, as the government had caused the drought, it was all of a
piece, the good rustics thought.
For the government did indirectly occasion the dry spell. I have the
information from the Italian lady of whom I have spoken. Among the first
steps of the new government of Italy was the suppression of the useless
convents and nunneries. This one at Sorrento early came under the ban.
It always seemed to me almost a pity to rout out this asylum of praying
and charitable women, whose occupation was the encouragement of beggary
and idleness in others, but whose prayers were constant, and whose
charities to the sick of the little city were many. If they never were
of much good to the community, it was a pleasure to have such a sweet
little hive in the center of it; and I doubt not that the simple people
felt a genuine satisfaction, as they walked around the high walls, in
believing that pure prayers within were put up for them night and day;
and especially when they waked at night, and heard the bell of the
convent, and knew that at that moment some faithful soul kept her
vigils, and chanted prayers for them and all the world besides; and they
slept the sounder for it thereafter. I confess that, if one is helped
by vicarious prayer, I would rather trust a convent of devoted women
(though many of them are ignorant, and some of them are worldly, and
none are fair to see) to pray for me, than some of the houses of coarse
monks which I have seen.
But the order came down from Naples to pack off all the nuns of the
Sacred Heart on a day named, to close up the gates of the nunnery,
and hang a flaming sword outside. The nuns were to be pulled up by the
roots, so to say, on the day specified, and without postponement, and to
be transferred to a house prepared for them at Massa, a few miles down
the promontory, and several hundred feet nearer heaven. Sorrento was
really in mourning: it went about in grief. It seemed as if something
sacrilegious were about to be done. It was the intention of the whole
town to show its sense of it in some way.
The day of removal came, and it rained! It poured: the water came
down in sheets, in torrents, in deluges; it came down with the wildest
tempest of many a year. I think, from accurate reports of those who
witnessed it, that the beginning of the great Deluge was only a moisture
compared to this. To turn the poor women out of doors such a day as this
was unchristian, barbarous, impossible. Everybody who had a shelter was
shivering indoors. But the officials were inexorable. In the order for
removal, nothing was said about postponement on account of weather; and
go the nuns must.
And go they did; the whole town shuddering at the impiety of it, but
kept from any demonstration by the tempest. Carriages went round to the
convent; and the women were loaded into them, packed into them, carried
and put in, if they were too infirm to go themselves. They were driven
away, cross and wet and bedraggled. They found their dwelling on the
hill not half prepared for them, leaking and cold and cheerless. They
experienced very rough treatment, if I can credit my informant, who says
she hates the government, and would not even look out of her lattice
that day to see the carriages drive past.
And when the Lady Superior was driven away from the gate, she said to
the officials, and the few faithful attendants, prophesying in the midst
of the rain that poured about her, “The day will come shortly, when you
will want rain, and shall not have it; and you will pray for my return.”
And it did not rain, from that day for three years.
And the simple people thought of the good Superior, whose departure had
been in such a deluge, and who had taken away with her all the moisture
of the land; and they did pray for her return, and believed that
the gates of heaven would be again opened if only the nunnery were
repeopled. But the government could not see the connection between
convents and the theory of storms, and the remnant of pious women was
permitted to remain in their lodgings at Massa. Perhaps the government
thought they could, if they bore no malice, pray as effectually for rain
there as anywhere.
I do not know, said my informant, that the curse of the Lady Superior
had anything to do with the drought, but many think it had; and those
are the facts.