Her heart was stung with remorse for having preserved against Zacchiele that strange, silent rancour for so long a time; recollections one after another came to mind, and the virtues of her lost lover shone more brightly than ever in her memory. As the scourgings of her grief increased, she got up, went to her bed, and there stretched herself out upon her face. Her weeping mingled with the chattering of the birds.
Afterwards, when her tears were dried, the peace of resignation began to descend upon her soul, and she came to feel that everything of this earth was frail and that we ought to bend ourselves to the will of God. The unction of this simple act of consecration spread in her heart a fulness of sweetness. She felt herself freed from all inquietude, and found repose in her humble but firm faith. From now on in her law there was but this one clause: The sovereign will of God, always just, always adorable, established in all things praised and exalted through all eternity.
XII
Thus to the daughter of Luca was opened the true road to Paradise. The passing of time was not marked by her except in ecclesiastical occurrences. When the river re-entered its channel, there issued in consecutive order for many days processions throughout the cities and country. She followed all of them, together with the people, singing the Te Deum. The vineyards everywhere had been devastated; the earth was soft and the air pregnant with white vapours, singularly luminous, like those rising from the swamps in spring.
Then came the feast of All Saints; then the solemnity for the dead. A great number of masses were celebrated for the assistance of the victims of the flood. At Christmas Anna wished to make a manger; she bought a Christ-child, Mary, Saint Joseph, an ox and an ass, wise men, and shepherds, all made of wax. Accompanied by the daughter of the sacristan she went to the ditches of the Salaria road to search for moss. Under the glassy serenity of the fields, the lands were covered with lime, the factory of Albarosa appeared on the hill among the olives, and no voice disturbed the silence. Anna, as she discovered the moss, bent and with a knife cut the clod. On contact with the cold verdure her hands became violet coloured. From time to time, at the sight of a clod greener than the others, there escaped from her an exclamation of contentment. When her basket was full, she sat down upon the edge of the ditch with the girl. She raised her eyes thoughtfully and slowly to the olive-orchard, and they rested upon the white wall of the factory that resembled a cloisteral edifice. Then she bowed her head, tormented by her thoughts. Later she turned suddenly to her companion—”Had she never seen the olives crushed!” She began to picture the work of the crushing with voluble speech; and, as she spoke, little by little arose in her mind other recollections than those she was describing, and they showed themselves in her voice by a slight trembling.
That was the last weakness. In April of 1858, shortly after Ascension Day, she fell sick. She remained in bed almost a month, tormented by a pulmonary inflammation. Donna Cristina came morning and evening to her room to visit her. An aged maid servant who made public profession of assisting the sick gave her medicines to her. Then the turtle cheered the days of her convalescence. And as the animal was emaciated from fasting, and was nothing but skin, Anna, seeing him so lean, and perceiving herself so debilitated, felt that secret satisfaction that we experience when we suffer the same pain as a beloved one. A mild tepidity arose from the tiles covered with lichens, in the court the cocks crew, and one morning two swallows entered suddenly, flapped their wings about the room, and fled away again.
When Anna returned for the first time to the church, after her recovery, it was the festival of roses. On entering she breathed in greedily the perfume of incense. She walked softly along the nave, in order to find the spot where she had been accustomed to kneel, and she felt herself seized with a sudden joy when finally she discovered between the mortuary stories that one which bore in its centre an almost effaced bas-relief. She knelt upon it, and fell to praying. The people multiplied. At a certain point in the ceremony two acolytes descended from the choir with two silver basins full of roses, and commenced to scatter the flowers upon the heads of the prostrate ones, while the organ played a joyful hymn. Anna remained bent in a kind of ecstasy that gave her the blessedness of the mystic celebration and a vaguely voluptuous feeling of recovery. When several roses happened to fall upon her, she gave a long sigh. The poor woman had never before in her life experienced anything more sweet than that sigh of mystic delight and its subsequent languor.
The Rose Easter remained therefore Anna’s favourite festival and it returned periodically without any noteworthy episode. In 1860 the city was disturbed with serious agitations. One heard often in the night the roll of drums, the alarms of sentinels, the reports of muskets. In the house of Donna Cristina a more lively fervour for action manifested itself among the five suitors. Anna was not frightened, but lived in profound meditation, having neither a realisation of public events nor of domestic wants, fulfilling her duties with machine-like exactness.
In the month of September the fortress of Pescara was evacuated, the Bourbon militia dispersed, their arms and baggage thrown into the water of the river, while bands of citizens flocked through the streets with liberal acclamations of joy. Anna, when she heard that the Abbot Cennamele had fled precipitately, thought that the enemies of the Church of God had triumphed, and was greatly grieved at this.
After this her life unfolded in peace for a long time. The shell of the turtle increased in breadth and became more opaque; the tobacco plant sprang up annually, blossomed and fell; the wise swallows every autumn departed for the land of the Pharaohs. In 1865 the great contest of the suitors at length culminated in the victory of Don Fileno D’Amelio. The nuptials were celebrated in the month of March with banquets of solemn gaiety. There came to prepare the valuable dishes two Capuchin fathers, Fra Vittorio and Fra Mansueto.