During the last days of May, Anna, having had permission from Donna
Cristina, made her preparations. She felt anxious about the turtle.
Ought she to leave it or carry it with her? She remained a long time
in doubt but at length decided to carry it for security. She put
it in a basket with her clothes and the boxes of confection which
Donna Cristina was sending to Donna Veronica Monteferrante, Abbess
of the monastery of Santa Caterina. At dawn Anna and Fra Mansueto
set out. Anna had from the first a nimble step and a gay aspect; her
hair, already almost entirely grey, lay in shining folds beneath her
handkerchief. The brother limped, supporting himself with a stick, and
an empty knapsack swung from his shoulders. When they reached the wood
of pines, they made their first halt.
The trees in the May morning, immersed in their native perfume, swayed
voluptuously between the serenity of the sky and that of the sea. The
trunks wept resin. The blackbirds whistled. All the fountains of life
seemed open for the transfiguration of the earth.
Anna sat down upon the grass, offered the monk bread and fruit, and
began to talk about the festivity, eating at intervals. The turtle
tried with its two foremost legs to reach the edge of the basket, and
its timid serpent-like head projected and withdrew in its efforts.
Then, when Anna took it out, the beast began to advance on the moss
toward a bush of myrtle, with less slowness, perhaps feeling the joy
of its primitive liberty arise confusedly in it. Its shell amongst
the green looked more beautiful. Fra Mansueto made several moral
reflections and praised Providence that gives to the turtle a house,
and sleep during the winter season. Anna recounted several facts which
demonstrated great frankness and rectitude in the turtle. Then she
added, “What are the animals thinking of?”
The brother did not answer. Both remained perplexed. There descended
from the bark of a pine a file of ants and they extended themselves
across the ground, each ant dragged a fragment of food and the entire
innumerable family fulfilled its work with diligent precision. Anna
watched, and there awoke in her mind the ingenuous beliefs of her
childhood. She spoke of wonderful dwellings that the ants excavated
beneath the earth. The brother replied with an accent of intense faith,
“God be praised!” And both remained pensive, beneath the greatness,
while worshipping God in their hearts.
In the early hours of the evening they arrived in the country of
Ortona. Anna knocked at the door of the monastery and asked to see
the abbess. On entering they saw a little court paved with black and
white stone with a cistern in the centre. The reception parlour was
a low room, with a few chairs around it; two walls were occupied by a
grating, the other two by a crucifix and images. Anna was immediately
seized by a feeling of veneration for the solemn peace that reigned
in this spot. When the Mother Veronica appeared unexpectedly behind
the grating, tall and severe in her monastic habit, Anna experienced
an unspeakable confusion as if in the presence of a supernatural
apparition. Then, reassured by the kind smile of the abbess, she
delivered her message briefly, placed her boxes in the cavity of the
turnstile and waited. The Mother Veronica moved about her benignly,
watching her with her beautiful lion-like eyes; she gave her an effigy
of the Virgin, and in taking leave she extended her illustrious hand to
be kissed through the grating, and disappeared.
Anna went out full of trepidation. As she passed the vestibule, there
reached her ears a chorus of litanies, a song, very regular and sweet,
which came perhaps from some subterranean chapel. When she passed
through the court she saw on the left, at the top of the wall, a branch
loaded with oranges. And, as she set foot again on the road, she seemed
to have left behind her a garden of blessedness.
Then she turned toward the eastern road in order to search for her
relations. At the door of the old house an unknown woman stood leaning
against the door-post. Anna approached her timidly and asked news of
the family of Francesca Nobile. The woman interrupted her: “Why? Why?
What did she want?”—with a voice and an investigating expression.
Then, when Anna recalled herself, she permitted her to enter.
The relations had almost all died or emigrated. There remained in
the house an old, rich man, Uncle Mingo, who had taken for his second
wife “the daughter of Sblendore” and lived with her almost in misery.
The old man at first did not recognise Anna. He was seated upon an
old ecclesiastical chair, whose red material hung in shreds; his
hands rested on the arms, contorted and rendered enormous through
the monstrosity of gout, his feet with rhythmic movements beat the
earth, while a continuous paralytic trembling agitated the muscles
of his neck, elbows and knees. As he gazed at Anna he held open with
difficulty his inflamed eyelids. At length he remembered her.
As Anna proceeded to explain her own experiences, the daughter
of Sblendore, sniffing money, began to conceive in her mind hopes
of usurpation, and by virtue of these hopes became more benign in
her expression. Anna’s tale was scarcely told when she offered her
hospitality for the night, took her basket of clothes and laid it down,
promised to take care of her turtle and then made several complaints,
not without tears, about the infirmity of the old man and the misery of
their house. Anna went out with her soul full of pity; she went up the
coast toward the belfry of the church, feeling anxious on approaching
it.
Around the Farnese palace the people surged like billows; and that
great feudal relic ornamented with figures, magnificent in the
sunlight, was most conspicuous. Anna passed through the crowd,
alongside of the benches of the silversmiths who made sacred apparel
and native objects. At all of that scintillating display of liturgical
forms her heart dilated with joy and she made the sign of the cross
before each bench as before an altar. When at night she reached the
door of the church and heard the canticle of the ritual, she could no
longer contain her joy as she advanced as far as the pulpit, with steps
almost vacillating. Her knees bent beneath her and the tears welled up
in her eyes. She remained there in contemplation of the candelabras,
the ostensories, of all those objects on the altar, her mind dizzy
from having eaten nothing since morning. An immense weakness seized
her nerves and her soul shrank to the point of annihilation. Above her,
along the central nave, the glass lamps formed a triple crown of fire.
In the distance, four solid trunks of wax flamed at the sides of the
tabernacle.