The Saint

by Antonio Fogazzaro

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?