Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

The official story is silent as to details but it appears that in 1846 Sister Jovita, as Barbara Ubrik had been named in the convent, bore a child. Very naturally, she was called before the abbess, who appears in the accounts as Zitta, confronted with her sin and sentenced to the usual and doubtless severe punishments. In the progress of her chastisement she seems to have declared that Father Gratian was the guilty man.

This was the beginning of the young man’s troubles. Detective Masilewski, in his report on the investigation of the case, says that the motivation of the nun’s subsequent mistreatment was complex. Father Gratian naturally wanted to defend himself from the serious charge. The abbess, Zitta, was quite as anxious both to discipline the nun and to prevent the airing of a scandal, especially in times of suspicion and persecution, when the imperial attitude toward the holy orders was far from friendly and any pretext might have been seized for the closing of a nunnery and the expropriation of church property. Masilewski says, also, that Sister Jovita possessed a considerable property which was to belong to the cloister and that there was, thus, a further material motive.

But, whatever else may have actuated either the priest or the abbess, Sister Jovita aggravated matters by her own conduct. The severity of her punishment led her to desire liberty and she sought to renounce her vows and return to her family. Such a course would probably have been followed by a public repetition of the charges made by the young nun, and every effort was accordingly made to prevent her from leaving the order. She was locked into her cell, loaded with penances and almost unbelievably severe punishments and prevented from communicating with her mother and sisters.

Not long afterwards love again intruded itself into the story of Sister Jovita and further complicated the situation. This was in the last months of 1847. It appears that a young lay brother whose worldly name was Wolcech Zarski happened about this time to meet the beautiful young nun, while occupied at the convent with some official duties, and straightway fell in love with her. She told him of her experiences and sufferings and he, a spirited young man and not yet a monk, immediately laid plans to elope. Owing to the stringent discipline and the careful watch kept over the offending sister, this departure was not quickly or easily accomplished. Finally, however, on the night of May 25th, 1848, Zarski managed to pull his beloved to the top of the convent wall by means of a rope. In trying to descend outside, she fell and was injured, with the result that flight was impeded.

Zarski seems, however, to have had the strength to carry his precious burden to the nearest inn. Here friends and human nature failed him. The friends did not appear with a coach and change of feminine clothing, as they had promised, and the superstitious dread of the innkeeper’s wife led her to send immediate word to the convent. Before he could move from the neighborhood, Zarski was overcome by a bevy of stout friars and Sister Jovita carried back to the nunnery.

The monasteries and nunneries of Poland had still their own judicial jurisdiction, so Zarski could not enter St. Theresa’s by legal means. He tried again and again to communicate with his beloved by stealth, but the Abbess Zitta was now fully awake to the danger and every effort was defeated. The young lover tried one measure after another, appealed to ecclesiastical authorities, consulted lawyers, besieged officials. At length he was told that the object of all this devotion was no longer in St. Theresa’s but had been removed to another Carmelite seat, the name of which was, of course, refused.

Here political events intervened. Nicholas I had grown slowly but surely relentless in his attitude toward the Roman clergy in Poland, whom he considered to be the chief fomenters and supporters of the continued Polish resistance. Nicholas simply closed the monasteries and cloisters and drove the clergy out of Poland. It was the kind of drastic step always taken in the past in response to religious interference in political matters.

Now the unfortunate Zarski was at his dark hour. The nuns were scattered into foreign lands where he, as a foreigner, could have little chance of either legal or official aid, where he knew nothing of the ways, was acquainted with no one, could count on no encouragement. Worse yet, he was not rich. He had to stop for months and even years at a time and earn more money with which to press his quest. His tenacity seems to have been heroic; his faith tragic.

One evening in the summer of 1868, twenty years after Sister Jovita had last been seen, Detective Masilewski was driving homeward toward Warsaw, after a day’s hunt, when an old peasant stepped before the horse, doffed his hat and asked:

“Are you the secret detective, Mr. Masilewski?”