There was a subdued exclamation of surprise from the few friends gathered about the table, and then all voices were hushed, as she came in slowly, looking rather like a vision from the other world, with her wonderful eyes and her white illuminated face and her beautiful smile, and sat down at the table opposite to her sister. But they were soon laughing and talking again, and complimenting Ida on her improved health, which enabled her to come to the table, and hoping that she would soon be well enough to come there every day; and Giulia’s husband said that when she was a little better she must come to Rome and stay with them, where the air would be sure to do her good. I think she knew very well that she should never sit at the family table again, but she would not say anything to sadden their gaiety: so she thanked them all, and took a little morsel of cake, and sat looking very earnestly and affectionately at her sister; and pretty soon she grew tired, and all the loud voices jarred on her, so I led her back to the chamber. “This was the last wish I had,” she said, after we were alone, and she had sunk back wearily into her easy chair, “to be with Giulia on her wedding day! and now, if you please, tell me all about the wedding in the church.” I described it to her as minutely as I could, and she seemed much interested. Then she wanted me to read her a chapter in the Bible, as was my habit, and after that I left her. At the head of the stairs I found myself waylaid by Giulia, who clung around my neck, weeping bitterly at parting with me, and entreated me over and over again to be good to Ida after she should be gone away.
The next day when I went there Giulia was gone, and Ida was quite weak and tired. She was never well enough to sit up again, and she faded away very slowly. The second day a letter came from Giulia, written almost in the first hour of her arrival in Rome, full of overflowing affection. Ida shed some tears at this, but not many; and she answered it with her own hand, weak as she was. One day, soon after this, as I was sitting beside Ida, she asked her mother to leave us alone for a few minutes, as she wished to speak to me. “Come a little nearer,” she said, when we were alone; and I drew up close to her side. She took my hand, and looked at me solemnly and a little sadly. “I have something,” she said, “that I have wanted to say to you for a long time: you are very fond of me, Signora Francesca?” I told her that I had always been so. “Yes,” she said, “but you are much more fond of me since I have been ill, than you were before, and you grow more so every day; I see it in a great many ways.” “That,” I said, “is no more than natural; I could not help it if I would.” “And lately,” she continued, “I have begun to be a little afraid that you may like me too much!” “Dear Ida, what do you mean?” “It is a great comfort to me,” she said, “to have you with me; but sometimes I am afraid that if I should die, you might grieve about it, and in that case I would rather that you should not come so often; I could not bear the idea of being a cause of sorrow to you. Now, I want you to promise that if I die, you will not be unhappy about me.” “I promise you,” I said, “that I will think of you always as one of the treasures laid up in Heaven, and I shall always thank God that He has let us be together for so long. I shall not be unhappy, but all the happier as long as I live, for the time that I have passed in this room.” Her face brightened. “Then I am quite happy,” she said; “that was what I wanted: now let my mother come back.” And having once satisfied herself that I was prepared, she never spoke to me of dying again.
One day a good lady came to see her, who had known her before her illness, and she brought her a pretty little silver medallion of the Madonna, which gave her great pleasure, and she never let it go out of her sight afterwards, as long as she lived. By this time Ida had become so ill that she was never able to lie down, but had to sit up day and night upright in her bed, supported by pillows, and her cough allowed her to sleep but very little. The lady was much troubled to see her in this state, and to comfort her, she told her that it was necessary to suffer much in this world if one would attain to happiness in the other. Ida answered, “That is my trouble! I ought, I suppose, to suffer a little, but I do not. I lie here in the midst of pleasure.” This lady had brought her a little book which she called the book of her remembrances, in which she had copied many prayers and pious reflections from various old authors; and because Ida seemed pleased with some portions which she read to her, she left the book with her, saying that when she had done with it, she might return it to her. Ida kept this book for several days, so that I once asked for it, feeling a little uneasy, as I knew the lady held it very precious. She said that she should like to keep it a little longer, and I did not hurry her. Two days afterwards she gave it back to me, asking me to give it to the lady, and to ask her pardon for having kept it so long. “I have added a little remembrance of my own,” she said; “I have copied for her my favourite prayer: I could only write a few words at the time, and that is why I have kept the book for so many days.” I looked at it; it was written in a clear round hand, with great pains. It was a prayer for the total conformity of one’s will to the will of God. I know that the lady for whom it was written has kept it always as a great treasure.
“You are happy,” Ida said to me once, “for you are strong, and can serve the Lord in many ways.” “I hope,” I said, “that we may both be His servants, but your service is a far more wearisome one than mine.” To which she answered, with that bright courageous smile of hers, “What God sends is never wearisome,”—and I know that she felt what she said. At another time, in thanking me for some little service that I had done for her, she said that “I did her much good.” “You do more for me,” I answered. She looked a little puzzled for a minute; then, as she took in my meaning, she said, “It is not I who do you good; this peace which you see in me is not mine. I am nothing but a poor human body with a great sickness, which I feel just as any one else would; this peace is of God.”
About the middle of December she received the communion. As she waited for the arrival of the sacrament she thought she saw a beautiful rainbow, which made an arch over her bed, and she saw it so plainly that she called her mother to look at it, but Signora Martina could see nothing. When she found that it was visible to no eyes but her own, she did not speak of it again to any one; only when I asked her about it she acknowledged that she had seen it, and that it remained for about a quarter of an hour: adding, “It is well,—it means peace.”
She feared that it might be somewhat of a shock to her sister to hear that she had taken the communion, as it might give her the idea that she was worse; and she wrote her the news with her own hand, thinking that she could tell her more gently than any one else could do. I saw Giulia’s answer to this letter. “My dearest sister,” she wrote, “I always knew that you were more fit for Heaven than Earth, and I only wish I were as near it as you are!”
One day a little girl brought her an olive branch, as she said, to remind her of the one which the dove brought to Noah in the ark: probably the child did not know how her olive branch came, like the dove’s, as a token of deliverance close at hand; but Ida understood the significance of the present, and had the olive branch placed over her Madonna, where it seemed to be a great comfort to her, and it stayed there until she died. Whenever the room was dusted she used to say, “Be careful and do not hurt my olive branch!”
She still loved hymns and religious poetry, and learned by heart many of the verses which I used to sing or recite to her. She liked best those which were most grand and triumphant. One day, as I was leaving the room, I heard her saying to herself in a whisper those beautiful lines of S. Francesco d’Assisi:—
“Amore, Amor Gesù, son giunto a porto
Amore, Amor Gesù, da mi conforto.”
She was unselfish in her happiness as she had been in her sorrow. One day I found her worse, much distressed and agitated: she was sitting up in bed with her prayer-book, but there was none of the beautiful peacefulness in her face which always accompanied her prayers,—her eyes looked positively wild with grief and terror. With some difficulty (for she had little voice then), she explained to us her trouble, entreating earnestly Edwige and myself to help her with our prayers. One of her neighbours, a very wicked and profane old woman, who had been generally avoided by all the others, had met with a sudden and fearful accident, and had been carried insensible to the hospital, where her death was hourly expected. Ida, as her mother afterwards told me, had not slept all night, but had continued in earnest and incessant prayer for this woman’s forgiveness,[13] and so she continued during the few hours until she died, asking of all whom she saw the charity of a prayer. The poor woman died without speaking, and only in the next world shall we know whether Ida’s prayers were heard. I have never felt as if they could have been altogether wasted.