Every day I used to read the Bible to her. She asked me to read always that, and no other book, and sing her some little hymn. I never knew any other person so perfectly peaceful and happy as she was then, and for the remaining time, nearly four months, that I had the privilege of being near her. She seemed to me almost in heaven already, living in the sensible presence of our Lord, and in the enjoyment of heavenly things, as I have never known any one else do, for so long a time.[10] The almost supernatural happiness which she enjoyed—(indeed, if I were to write just as I feel and believe, I should leave out the almost,) had nothing of the convulsionary about it: it was quiet and continuous—just the same when she was better, and when she was worse, through the nights that she could not sleep for coughing, and the days that found her always a little weaker: and it left her mind free to think of others, and to invent many ways of saving trouble to her mother and Giulia, and to find little odds and ends of work that she was still able to do.
Her poor mother still clung to hope, and was always trying to make out that Ida was better, or at least that she was going to be better as soon as the weather changed, or when she had taken some new medicine. When she talked in this way it used to make Ida a little sad; still she seldom said anything directly to discourage her mother, but only would say, “It will be as the Lord pleases: He knows what He does: perhaps He sees that if I lived I should do something wicked.” One day, as we sat about her bed, where she soon began to spend most of her time, and her mother and Giulia were talking about her recovery, she said, “Perhaps it would be better that I should not recover: I can never be well, really: but still, let it be as the Lord will.” “Have courage, Ida,” said Giulia; and her mother, “Do not be afraid, my child.” “I am not afraid,” she answered. “I think,” I said, “that God gives you courage always.” “Yes, yes,” she answered, with a very bright smile: “blessed are His words!”—and the poor mother went out of the room. Then Ida looked earnestly into my face and said, “There are tears in your eyes, but there are none in mine.” I asked her if she wished to die. She thought a little while, and then said that she had no choice in the matter; if it were the Lord’s will that she should die soon, she was very happy to go; or if He wished her to recover, she should be happy just the same; and if, instead, it pleased Him that she should live a long time as ill as she was then, still she wished nothing different. And she ended with a very contented smile, saying the words which she had said so often—“He knows what He does.”
Another time, when I feared that she suffered with her constant and wearisome cough, she said, “It does not seem to me that I suffer at all; I am so happy that I hardly ever remember that I am ill.” Her spirit never failed for a moment; there were none of those seasons of depression which almost always come with a long illness. When others asked her how she was able to have so much patience, she always answered simply, “God gives it to me.” A few words like these I can remember, but not many, and they were nearly all in answer to our questions. She never spoke much about her own feelings, physical or mental, and it was more in the wonderful lighting up of her face, when she listened to the Bible, than in what she said, that I saw how much she enjoyed.
All her taste for “pretty things” continued, and she liked to have everything about her as bright and cheerful as possible. She had a friend who used to send her, by my means, beautiful flowers almost every day, which were a great comfort to her, and it was always my work to arrange them on the little table by her bedside. When she was too tired and weak for her sewing, or her books of devotion, she used to lie and look at these flowers. Edwige (whom every one knows, who knows me, and of whom it is enough to say that she is a good and pious widow who lives in the country, and who was very fond of Ida) used to bring down continually such things as she liked from the country,—long streamers of ivy, and branches of winter roses and laurustinus, and black and orange-coloured berries from the hedges,—and these were a continual amusement to her. As long as she was strong enough, she used to like to arrange them herself with the same fanciful taste which she had always shown in my painting room, ornamenting with them her crucifix, which hung near the head of the bed, and her Madonna, and one or two other devotional pictures; and what were left she used to twine about the frame-work of her bed itself, so that sometimes she looked quite as if she were in an arbour. I think she obeyed literally the gospel precept, to be “like men waiting for their Lord.” The poor little room and its dying inmate presented always a strangely festive appearance, as if they were prepared for the soon expected arrival of one greatly loved and longed for.
The window was always opened at the foot of the bed,—for light and air she would have, and her dress and the linen of her bed were always as neat and clean as possible, to the credit of her mother be it spoken, who did the washing herself, with the help of her good little servant-maid Filomena. And the pretty flowers and green branches, and the fresh smell of the country which came from them, and in the midst of it all, Ida’s wonderfully happy face, made up as bright and inspiriting a scene as I ever came near. I know that I used to think it better than going to church, to go into Ida’s room.
There was a good American lady in Florence at that time, who did not know Ida; but she had lost a little daughter herself by the same complaint, and having heard of Ida’s illness, she used to send her her dinner every day, choosing always the best of everything from her own table;[11] and this she continued to do as long as Ida lived. This good lady’s children went constantly to see her, and always asked to be taken there, though they could not speak Italian. Children usually avoid a sick room, but she was so lovely and peaceful in appearance, that she seemed to impress them more as a beautiful picture than anything else, and they were always glad to go up all the stairs to look at her. I remember the first time that they ever went there, the youngest little girl sat contemplating her for a few minutes with a sort of wonder, and then asked me, aside, if she might kiss her.
I have said before that Giulia was engaged to be married. Her lover lived at Rome, and he was very anxious to marry her as soon as possible. She however was not willing to leave her sister while she was so ill; and at first I felt as she did, and did not wish her to go away from Ida. But there were some reasons why it seemed better that she should soon be married. Her lover, who was strongly and devotedly attached to her, was living quite alone and among strangers, (he was a Piedmontese,) and he seemed hardly able to support his long continued solitude. There was another reason, stronger yet. The doctor had forbidden Giulia to sleep in the same room with Ida, and she and little Luisa had been obliged to return into the dark closet where they had slept before. Giulia was looking poorly, and had a cough, and seemed very much as Ida had been a year ago; and we all wished that she might change scene and climate before it was too late. Still we all shrank from laying on Ida, in her last days, this farther burden of separation from her dearly loved, only sister.
It was at once a relief and a surprise to me when, one day that they had left me alone with Ida, she began to speak to me of Giulia’s marriage, and asked me to use all my influence with Giulia, and with her mother, to bring it about as soon as possible. She said that she had now only one wish left in the world, and that was, to see her sister happily married, and that it troubled her to see the marriage put off from one day to another. Ida’s word turned the scale, and in a few days the whole household was immersed in preparations for the wedding. I ought to say that the household was much reduced in number since I had first known the family. One of the little orphans had been adopted into a childless family, another had gone to live in the country with his maternal grandmother. The prettiest and sweetest of them all, little Silvio, had died, to the great sorrow of all the family, at the time when Ida was at Viareggio; so that now only Luisa was left at home. The girl’s brother, Telemaco, had obtained some sort of government employment in a distant part of the country, so that he too was gone. And only the old people, and Luisa and Filomena, would be left to take care of Ida after Giulia should be married.
And now it seemed as if all poor Ida’s hopes for this world, which had been so cruelly cut short, were renewed again in her enjoyment of Giulia’s happiness. One of the prettiest pictures that I have in my mind of Ida, is as she sat upright in her bed, propped up with pillows, her face all beaming with affectionate interest, and did her last dress-making work on Giulia’s wedding gown. She was very close to Heaven then, lying, as it were, at the gate of the Celestial City, and at times it seemed as if the light already began to shine on her face. Still, as long as she stayed in the world, she did what she could, and as well as she could, for those about her, and could put her heart into the smallest trifle for any one whom she loved.
She seemed always in haste for the wedding day, and often told me how much she wished for it; I think that she was afraid she might not live to see it. The day came at last,—a soft beautiful day of the late autumn, with plenty of flowers still in blossom to ornament the table, and the air still warm enough to make open windows pleasant. We had a very pretty simple wedding at S. Lorenzo, and then went back to the house, where we found Ida up and sitting in the easy chair, which she had not occupied for a long time. She was so excited and interested that a slight colour had come back into her face, and she looked as well as ever, and prettier than ever. Poor Giulia, laughing and crying and blushing all at once, hurried up to Ida, embraced her, and hid her face on her shoulder. Ida folded her closely in her arms for a minute or two without speaking, and I knew by the look in her face that she was giving thanks in silence, and praying for a blessing on this dear sister. When the others went into the next room, where the wedding breakfast was already set out on the table, they invited me to go with them, but Ida said, “Let Signora Francesca stay with me for a few minutes, I want her to do something for me, and then she will come.” I could not imagine what Ida wanted, she was so little in the habit of wanting anything; but I stayed, and as soon as she was satisfied that they had shut the door, she said to me, looking very pleased and triumphant, “Do you know, Signora Francesca, I am going to the table myself! I have always meant to go, when Giulia was married; and now you will help me to dress, will you not?” I was almost frightened, but I helped her arrange the lavender-coloured woollen dress which was her best,—I knew now why she had spent so much time, during the first months of her illness, in altering and trimming it,[12]—and tied her white silk handkerchief about her neck; and then she took my arm, and we went into the other room together.