“Call her,” said he.
Noemi came. A slight cloud had gathered that day between Giovanni and herself. As rarely happened, they had conversed on religion. Noemi clung blindly to her own religion, and disliked discussions. Notwithstanding her tenderness for Maria, and her affectionate respect for Giovanni, she feared she should lean more towards the scepticism of Jeanne than towards the liberal and progressive Catholicism of the Selvas, if she stopped to examine the reasons and nature of her own belief. This Catholicism appeared to her a hybrid thing, and she had perhaps learned from Jeanne to consider it such; for Jeanne, in moments of nervous irritability, defended her own scepticism with acrimony against that faith which, because it shone with spirituality and truth, might prove formidable to her. Noemi was always suspicious, not of her sister, but of Giovanni, fearing he would attempt to convert her, and her suspicion had that day been apparent when, discussing the confessional, she had several times answered him very sharply. Then Giovanni had reminded her, gently and gravely, that error harboured unconsciously, in the sincere and pure desire of truth, is innocent in the eyes of God, but that if a sentiment foreign to that desire have any part in the repulsion of truth, then sin alone is the outcome. This argument wounded Noemi more deeply still. She had been on the point of asking her brother-in-law by what right he was acting as vice-divine judge. She controlled herself, however, and let the discussion drop.
Upon thinking it over afterwards, she regretted her sullen silence, not so much because Giovanni’s words had affected her views, as because she was aware of the sorrow the religious opinions he professed brought him, and because she saw how depressed his spirits were. This was one reason why—when she was called to him, and entreated by her sister to show him much affection—she resolved, for once, to be unfaithful to Jeanne. Of what Jeanne had written to her under the seal of secrecy she had told Maria only as much as was absolutely necessary. Jeanne, still suffering both physically and mentally, had heard of the “Saint of Jenne,” who was healing bodies and souls, and she besought Noemi to go to Jenne and see this Saint, and then to write to her about him. Now Noemi could not go to Jenne alone, she must ask Giovanni to accompany her. Her first confidence had stopped here. Now she broke all the seals of secrecy her friend had imposed, and spoke freely.
Poor Jeanne Dessalle was more unhappy than ever. During her short visit at Subiaco she had met her former lover. An exclamation from Giovanni! Then it was Don Clemente, after all? No, it was the man who came to the villa with the Padre the night of Jeanne’s arrival, the under-gardener from Santa Scolastica—he who was no longer at the monastery—of whom all the valley of the Anio was talking, and who was known, even at Rome, as the “Saint of Jenne.” Noemi begged them to forgive her for not having told them at the time. Woe to her if Jeanne had discovered her breach of confidence, after her many admonitions. Besides it would have done no good. Giovanni took his wife’s hand almost stealthily, and raised it to his lips, Maria understood, and smiled. Then both assailed Noemi with questions.
Yes, Jeanne had recognised him the night of their arrival, and now Maria and Giovanni could understand the reason of the faintness she had experienced. Their meeting had taken place the following day at Sacro Speco. Concerning the meeting Noemi knew only this much, that Jeanne’s hopes had been dashed to the ground, that he was clad as a monk, and had spoken as one who has given himself to God for ever; that she had promised him to dedicate her life to good works, and that no direct correspondence between them was any longer possible.
Jeanne now wrote from Villa Diedo, the home in the Veneto where she had gone with her brother from Rome, two days after leaving Subiaco. She wrote in a moment of most bitter despondency. Her brother, surprised at her devoting so much time to the poor, was irritated by this innovation in her mode of thought and of life. She might give money, if she pleased, and as much as she pleased, but to bring a string of beggars into the house, to visit them in their hovels, that he would not allow! It was foolish, it was a bore, it was ridiculous, it was eccentric, it was clerical. There were other difficulties, She would have liked to join the women’s charitable associations of the town, but they drew back, shrinking into themselves like sensitive plants at the touch of this woman, who had been the subject of so much gossip on account of Maironi, and who, though she did sometimes go to church of a Sunday, did not fulfil her Easter duties. And finally her habits, which were those of a woman of leisure, were reforming their ranks after the first defeat, and delaying her progress on the new road, ever more successfully as the road became more difficult. She felt she must succumb if no word of counsel reached her, no help from him. She could not see him, she dared not write, for certainly he had intended to forbid that also; and she would rather die than do anything to displease him, if she could avoid it. She had read an article in the Corriére on the “Saint of Jenne,” in which it was stated that the Saint was young, and had been a day-labourer in the kitchen-garden at Santa Scolastica. Therefore it must be he! She entreated Noemi to go to Jenne, and beg a word of comfort for her, for the sake of charity! Noemi was determined to go. Would Giovanni accompany her? In the humble tone in which she asked this favour, Giovanni heard a tacit petition for forgiveness and peace; he held out his hand:
“With all my heart,” he said.
Maria offered to join them, and they decided to go the following morning, starting on foot, at five o’ clock, in order to avoid the blazing sun on the slope of Jenne. Then they spoke of the Saint.
The whole valley was talking about him. The article Jeanne had seen said that a great number of people were flocking to Jenne to see and hear the Saint; that miraculous cures were being announced as his work; that the Benedictines told with admiration of the life of penance and of prayer he had led for three years at Santa Scolastica, working in the garden. At Subiaco still more wonderful reports were circulating. A certain forester called Torquato, a most worthy man and a relative of the Selvas’ servant, told her he had been to Jenne with a stranger, a sort of poet, who had come all the way from Rome to talk with the Saint. On the way there and back, they had met perhaps fifty people—real ladies and gentlemen they were, too; and on the hillside of Jenne they had met a procession of women singing the litanies. At Jenne he had heard the whole story. One night the parish priest had dreamed that a globe of fire rested on the great cross planted on the summit of the hill; this blazing globe had set the cross itself on fire, and it was burning and glowing without being consumed, while all the mountains and the valley were illumined by it. The next day there had appeared before him a young man, in the habit of a Benedictine lay-brother, who was the bearer of a letter to him. This letter was from the Abbot of Santa Scolastica, and said: “I send you an angel whose fire burns clear, through whom Jenne will become renowned throughout the universe!” It was also written that this young man was, by birth, a mighty prince, of royal blood, but that in order to serve God, in all humility he had laboured as kitchen-gardener at Santa Scolastica for three years. The parish priest had gone half crazy from the emotion caused by the fire seen in his dream, and the fire that had come to him, and had been seized by a raging fever. The next day was a festa—a holy-day—and of the two other priests who live at Jenne, one was ill, and the other had gone to Filettino two days before to see his sick mother. In the village the priest’s servant had told all about this Benedictine, all about the dream, had told, in fact, the whole story. The villagers flocked to church, to hear the Benedictine say Mass; for they had seen him enter, and would not believe he was not going to officiate. They demanded that he should preach, at least, although he assured them he had no right to preach in church; and, keeping him in their midst, they pressed him so hard, that he finally signed to them with his hand to leave the church, promising those nearest him to speak outside. And he had spoken outside! What he had really said the servant could not tell Maria, nor could Maria herself gather much from Torquatof; but by dint of much questioning, and with the aid of her own imagination, she succeeded in reconstructing his discourse somewhat as follows:
Are you fit to enter the church? Are you at peace with your neighbour? Do you know what the Lord Jesus means, when He says to you that no man may approach the altar if he be not at peace with his neighbour? Do you know that you may not enter the church if you have sinned against charity or justice, and have not made amends, or have not repented when it was impossible to make amends? Do you know that you may not enter the church, not only if you bear ill-will against your neighbour, but also if you have injured him in any manner whatsoever, either in your dealings with him, or in his honour, if you have slandered him, or harbour in your heart wicked desires against his body or his soul? Do you know that all the Masses, all the Benedictions, all the Rosaries, and all the Litanies, count for less than nothing, if you do not first purify your hearts, according to the word of Jesus? Are you unclean with hatred, or with any impurity whatsoever? Then go! Jesus will not have you in the church! “Ma che!” said Torquato, “The discourse was nothing, it was the face, the voice, the eyes!”