At that moment Catherine appeared—according to Raymond, much to Vanni’s disgust. But Catherine was all smiles, comfortableness, and simple ease of manner. Vanni’s chances, in fact, of not being converted ended with her entrance. The manner of his surrender was humorously characteristic of the man himself. Catherine—she was always so clever when she was good—presently left the room. No woman ever knew better when another word would have been too much. She had hardly gone when Vanni broke out that, for the sake of courtesy, he could not wholly refuse her some gratification. At the moment he had four virulent hatreds, but to please Catherine he would give up, in the case of one of them, all thoughts of vengeance. He then started to leave the house, but before he reached the door stopped suddenly and declared he could hardly draw his breath, so intense was the sense of peace and ecstasy this one small action of the right kind had given him. Evidently it was useless to hold out against her influence, and he then and there declared himself conquered, and ready to abandon all the vices he could under Catherine’s gentle guidance.
Thus came an end to Vanni’s murders. Catherine held him for the rest of his days. It is only to be regretted that he did not paint her portrait before instead of after his conversion. He would have attended less to her reputation as a saint, and more to what was lovely and pictorial in her person.
Catherine no longer lived at home. She had instituted an informal sisterhood at Siena, where “Mantellate” sisters from every part of Lombardy lived in community. Her work still continued among the sick, the lepers, and prisoners. But rumours of her miracles, and of an almost miraculous gift of persuasion, were spreading to many parts of Italy. Talk of the dyer’s daughter had already reached the ears of the Pope at Avignon, and was paving the way to further political successes. Before Catherine had passed out of her teens she employed four secretaries to cope with the colossal inflow of correspondence that reached her. It was through the urgency of help in answering letters in fact that Catherine made the great friendship of her life, and drew under her influence the man who largely contributed towards keeping natural feelings alive in her.
Stephen Marconi never cast off a cheerful and innate earthliness. He came across Catherine originally, as so many people did, over the matter of a Sienese family feud. Stephen, headstrong and exuberant, had roused ill-feeling in both the Tolomei and Rinaldini families. Torrents of blood loomed as the sole termination. Mutual acquaintances had made useless attempts to produce peace; at the last crisis before violence Stephen’s mother implored him to go to the “Mantellate” sister. The suggestion drew some contemptuous comments. But the woman persisted, and essentially good-natured, Stephen went in order to pacify her. He had every reason subsequently to thank the solicitations that overbore derision. Catherine settled everything with absolute successfulness, Stephen himself speaking of the reconciliation that followed as truly miraculous.
More extraordinary than the reconciliation even was the effect of Catherine’s individuality upon Stephen Marconi. He possessed no natural aptitude for spirituality. Handsome, irresponsible, sought after, he epitomized effervescent worldliness. But, having once seen Catherine, he could not keep away. Excuses were raked together for further interviews, and one day, finding her overburdened with correspondence, he wrote a letter at her dictation. It was the beginning of the end. At first informally, and later explicitly, he became one of her secretaries; presently also a member of what was called her “spiritual family.”
Siena relished as a joke the dandy converted by the ascetic, but Stephen was unconcerned. An irrepressible humourist, he appreciated to the full the oddity of the situation; though if jocose, he was also deeply contented. Catherine had become almost instantly the instigating motive of his life, the one precious thing his heart needed. Catherine, on her side, was known to care for him more than for almost any other person. Her relations with him became those of a deep and exciting friendship. Towards the end of her life she heard a report that Stephen had definitely cast off his semi-worldliness and taken ascetic vows. Catherine should have known an exquisite and glowing comfort. Instead of it, her letter to him on the subject is very nearly petulant. That any action should have been taken without first becoming a matter of confidences between them clearly unspeakably hurt her. She wrote that of course it was a great joy to hear that he desired to lead a better life, but that she was “very surprised” that he should have made any decision without previously having said a word to her about it. She added further that there was something in the matter that she could not understand, though she prayed that whatever he did would prove to be for the benefit of his soul.
There is more sign in this of a woman stung by an unexpected neglect, than any religious exaltation at a soul saved. Stephen had not become a monk, and the misunderstanding swiftly passed over. But the letter is pleasant reading, because it was written at a time when Catherine’s mysticism threatened to overshadow the purely human kindnesses of her earlier years. The idea of Christ as the heavenly Husband had developed from vague symbolism into a definite expression of spiritual familiarity. It was an unrealized element of good fortune that Stephen’s whimsical frivolity kept alive in her a strain of normal sensations. She suffered whenever they were separated, and among the last letters she ever wrote, moreover, was one to Stephen with the pathetic, dependent cry, “When will you come, Stephen? Oh, come soon!”
Another secretary closely associated with Catherine’s life for many years was Neri di Landoccio, a poet belonging to the group of dawning Renaissance writers. He suffered from melancholy, and having once met Catherine, naturally clung to the heartening radiance of her presence. From his letters, his youth appears to have been vicious. He was, at any rate, haunted by the notion that his misdemeanours were greater than God would be likely to forgive. He worried himself into a dangerous dismalness—a gloom perceiving no remedy. Then Catherine wrote him a long letter. She reiterated that God was far more ready to forgive than humanity to offend; that He was the Physician, and mankind His sick and ailing children. She told him that sadness constituted the worst fault of all in a disciple of Christ. To believe in the unplumbable love of God, and still persist in disheartenment, was a form of unrighteousness.
Neri did his best, but a gentle wistfulness penetrated his disposition, and not even Catherine could give him gaiety of thoughts. He and Stephen Marconi—the extreme opposites in temperament—became deeply attached to one another. They corresponded when apart, and Stephen, after Catherine’s death, called Neri “among those whom the Lord has engrafted in the very innermost depths of my heart.” A third man constantly in Catherine’s society was her Confessor Raymond. Two small incidents told by himself, and against himself, suggest a perfectly honest and rather pleasant temperament, but a somewhat limited spiritual capacity. In the first, he confesses that when on their journeys great multitudes thronged to Catherine for confession and comfort, and that the fact of having to go for hours without food or rest greatly annoyed as well as wearied him.
From the other, both issue rather sweetly, but Catherine with almost a touch of greatness. Raymond, who again tells the story, says that she loved to talk to him upon spiritual matters, but that, not having the same mystical sensibility, these conversations frequently sent him to sleep. Catherine, absorbed in her subject, would continue for some time talking without perceiving that she lacked a listener, but when she did, she would merely wake the other, and good-humouredly tease him for allowing her to talk to the walls.