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‘There was Giuseppe Labre too, and many wonderful things he did; he was a great saint, as all the people in the Monti[2] knew. I don’t know if they’ve put all about him in books yet; if so, you may have read it; but I can’t read.’
‘I know a Life of him has been published; but tell me what you have heard about him all the same.’
Giuseppe Labre, you know, passed much of his time in meditation in the Coliseum; the arch behind the picture of the Second Station,[3] that’s where he used to be all day, and where he slept most nights, too. There was a butcher in the Via de’ Serpenti who knew him, and kept a little room for him, where he made him come and sleep when the nights were bad and cold, or stormy. These people were very good to him, and, though not well off themselves, were ready to give him a great deal more than he in his love for poverty would consent to accept.
One great affliction this butcher had; his wife was bedridden with an incurable disorder. One night there was a terrible storm, it was a burning hot night in summer, and Giuseppe Labre came to sleep at the butcher’s. He was lying on his bed in the little room, which was up a step or two higher than the butcher’s own room, where his wife lay, just as it might be where that cupboard is there. Presently the butcher’s wife heard him call her, saying,
‘Sora Angela, bring me a cup of water for the love of God!’
‘My friend, you know how gladly I would do anything to help you, but my husband is not come up, and I have no one to send, and you know I cannot move.’
Nevertheless Giuseppe called again, ‘Sora Angela, bring me a cup of water for the love of God!’
‘Don’t call so, good friend,’ replied she; ‘it distresses me; you know how gladly I would come if I could only move.’
Yet still the third time Giuseppe Labre said,
‘Sora Angela, hear me! Bring me a cup of water for the love of God!’ And he spoke the words so authoritatively that the good woman felt as if she was bound to obey him, she made the effort to rise, and, can you believe it! she got up as if there was nothing the matter with her; and from that time forward she was cured.