(4) Chapter Ninth then gives a narrative description of the apparently empty and abandoned condition of the advanced Soul, and, for this purpose carefully utilizes (whilst completely altering the meaning and context of) Marabotto’s description of Catherine’s first Confession to him. And in its last paragraph it again (but here with less change) incorporates other passages of that descriptive Chapter.[433] Then comes Chapter Tenth, with a short question and answer between the Lord and the Soul, the latter partly in verse (p. 267a). And this is followed by two descriptive paragraphs, how that this soul “seemed to mount above Paradise itself”; “this heart is transformed into a tabernacle of God”; and “such souls, were they but known, would be adored upon earth” (pp. 267b, c; 268a).
(5) This description is followed by a long rapturous suspension of the dialogue form, since here the Writer himself addresses successively, in three “O” paragraphs, the “soul, heart, and mind”; “Love”; and “the Spirit naked and invisible.” And, after a little exclamation as to the inadequacy of all words (this also is introduced by an “O”), he similarly invokes (in three other “O” paragraphs), “my tender Lord”; the “infinite Good”; and “the Lord” (pp. 268b-269c).—The present, most unskilful, division makes Chapter Eleventh begin with these last three of the seven “O’s.” And after the seventh “O” paragraph and a descriptive passage, still addressed to “the Lord,” composed of five “Thou” sentences, follows another short interruption,—apologizing for the delay in the narrative and the inadequacy of the words used. And then two “Oimè,” and one “O terra, terra” paragraph finish up the Writer’s exclamations, and bring us back to the interrupted dialogue-form (pp. 269c-271b). Here again a violent division has been effected in the text by Chapter Twelfth being made to exclude the first, but to include, the second “Oimè” (p. 271a). And this Chapter, after finishing the “Terra-terra” paragraph, and, with it, the whole digression, re-opens the dialogue with a curious, serpentine, all but unbroken series of seven questions of the Soul and answers of the Lord, in which each successive question picks up the previous answer and point reached, and tries to reach a deeper one. “What is Thine Operation within man? A Moving of the heart of man. And this Movement? A Grace. And this Grace? A Ray of Love. And this Ray of Love? An Arrow. And this Arrow? A Glimpse (Scintilla) of love. And this Glimpse? An Inspiration.” And at this point, description is declared to be unable to proceed further (pp. 271b-272c.)
(6) And then Chapter Thirteenth finishes up the whole by two questions and descriptive answers. The first question and answer passes between the Writer’s own mind and his heart, and thus again constitutes a break in the dialogue; and the second question and answer occurs between the Lord and the Soul. The first answer dwells upon personal experience, as the sole means of some real apprehension of Love; and the second answer concludes the whole book with a majestic paraphrase of Catherine’s doctrine as to the immanental, inevitable, self-determined, and self-endorsed character of the Soul’s joys and sufferings, here and hereafter, on Earth, in Purgatory, indeed in Hell itself (pp. 273a-275a). Such passages as these make up for much of the often painfully intense, abstract, schematic, rigoristic, and too exclusively transcendental character of this remarkable book, and explain its fascination for a mind of such rare experience and breadth as was that of Friedrich Schlegel. I shall presently group together the finest sayings peculiar to the work.
VIII. Seventh Stage continued: Minute Analysis of one Passage from the Second “Chapter.”
But I must still give for this last “Chapter,” as I did for the First “Chapter,” a synoptic demonstration, by means of one example among many, of the strange manner in which the Dialogo-writer combines the most detailed dependence on the materials of the Vita-proper with the most sovereign independence concerning the chronology, context, and drift of those same materials.—And again I choose an originally unique occurrence and description, so as to eliminate all possibility of an explanation by an original multiplicity of facts and accounts.
Catherine as “Garzonzello” or “Figliuolino.”
The Dialogo-writer having, as we saw, combined, for the purpose of describing Catherine’s latter-day habits, V.’s account of her unusually peaceful dispositions of soul, obtaining in 1499, with V.’s account of her Penance and Confessions in 1473: now utilizes here Marabotto’s account of her Confessions to him from 1499 onwards (an account which the writer had rejected there), for an entirely different purpose and context than those developed by the Confessor himself. For, in the Vita-proper account, it is in connection with the Confession of her sins that we get the highly original and curious “garzonzello” parallel; and Catherine’s lamentations do not there occur in any relation to this parallel, but they arise only when Marabotto is not at hand to comfort her. In the Dialogo-version it is simply in relation to this requirement of his presence and to its postponement, that Catherine behaves like a “figliuolino,” and cries till she gets what she wants. And yet there is not the slightest doubt that it is really the “Garzonzello” Confession-passage which (left unutilized by the writer in his account of the Contrition and Confessions of her last period, Dialogo, pp. 231c-232b, no doubt because of the difficulty and apparent temerity of the facts and doctrines implied), has here been used after all, but with all its originality and daring carefully eliminated from it. For nowhere else, in the Vita-proper, does a “Garzonzello”-passage or language, or anything like them, occur; nowhere else again, in the Dialogo does a “figliuolino”-passage or wording, or anything really resembling them, appear; and these two, respectively unique and very peculiar, passages, both occur at one and the same stage of her life, and in connection with one and the same couple of persons.
IX. Seventh Stage concluded: Character and Authorship of this Second “Chapter.”
Let us take these two points simultaneously, and move, from the more formal and literary qualities, through indications of the more or less external life-circumstances of the author, on to the writer’s special views and aims in psychology and spirituality.