Italian Yesterdays, vol. 1

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

And all the while Eustochia, in exquisite, faithful humbleness, gave thanks to Heaven for Its just judgment upon her, as she deemed it, accusing herself before God and the Abbess of having brought these punishments upon herself by her sins—so that, while she lost the good opinion of those about her, she gained incessant merit in the eyes of her Creator. And now the hour of Eustochia’s long darkness sounded, during which she was destined to drink to the dregs the cup of trial.

A month before the feast of Saint Jerome—that is, towards the end of August—that same year of 1461, Eustochia felt herself much perturbed and ill at ease in her heart; and her countenance, to the disquiet of the whole house, took on an expression at once sombre and menacing and quite unaccountable to the beholders, with the exception of Father Peter Salicario, the chaplain of the convent, who alone grasped the terrible meaning of it.

Father Salicario at once proceeded to prepare Eustochia for the coming assault of her foe by counselling and exhorting her; moreover, the good man straightway warned the Abbess and her nuns of the approaching storm. What effect this had upon Donna Giustina’s relations with Eustochia, I do not know precisely, but the nuns themselves were, as may easily be imagined, greatly agitated by it; also, they were only the more inclined to resent the presence in their midst of one in whom the evil spirit had apparently taken up his abode. The horror of Eustochia’s proximity seemed to them unbearable, and they joined in protesting to Donna Giustina against any further continuance of it. She, however, was of a more courageous nature than they, and had perfect faith in the protection of the convent by Heaven.

The feast of Saint Jerome passed uneventfully enough (as though in unwilling tribute to his splendour and the power of his patronage), but on the next day the tempest broke loose.

We are told that it was as if a subterranean mine had been exploded in the quiet convent; and as if the Devil had entered there as an executioner with every circumstance of fear and horror. The agonised contortions of Eustochia were frightful to see as she twisted herself like a serpent in the extremity of her torments, the while her cries filled all the place with their lamentation.

The greater number of the sisters fled from the vicinity of the poor possessed, although a few attempted to watch over her at a little distance lest she should harm herself; but suddenly Eustochia, whom they had always known as the gentlest of beings, seized a knife and ran upon them, so that they also ran from her. She even pursued them until she fell over a bench, down on to which she sank, deprived for a time of all further power of movement. Father Salicario, on being sent for, summoned the evil spirit to speak; which it did as usual by the mouth of its victim, saying that it had been checked in the midst of its fury by the power of Saint Jerome and confined to the bench. Upon an attempt to exorcise it, however, it became again so violent that Eustochia had to be secured for some days lest she should do a hurt to herself or to others. During that time her torments were indescribable, her enemy doing all that he could to make an end of her, now by strangling, now with heavy blows from an unseen hand that beat her to the ground in a half-dying condition. Not a word of impatience escaped, however, from the afflicted girl, and in the intervals of her sufferings she never failed to give thanks for them to God. Eventually, her patience and fortitude discouraged the demon, and for a space again he left her in peace. But now the bad opinion already entertained of Eustochia by the community seemed to receive the strongest confirmation from a series of unfortunate occurrences. Be it said, frankly, that the rest of the nuns were firmly convinced that Eustochia was a sorceress and that she was feigning piety as a cloak to conceal her commerce with the Prince of this world.

For all at once the Abbess fell ill of a strange malady, the nature of which it was beyond all the science of the doctors to determine. It was a kind of slow, wasting sickness without any definite features beyond the ever increasing debility of the patient; so that, as rumour soon had it in the convent, Donna Giustina was the victim of some malignant, supernatural process emanating from Eustochia, upon whom the hostile scrutiny of all about her was now directed. To make matters worse, there were found in a corner of the convent some objects—but of what nature I do not know—which in the common opinion seemed to set the seal upon this supposition. For her adversary was now compelled to resort to a new stratagem by which to encompass Eustochia’s destruction.

Without listening to her protestations of her innocence, the community decided that Eustochia was guilty of the crimes that their imaginations, stimulated by the tempter, imputed to her; she was imprisoned in a dark cell far from those of her sisters, and there began to be talk of her being hanged for sacrilege and magic and—should the Abbess die—for murder as well! Soon the town of Padua was all agog with the news that the seemingly pious Eustochia was imprisoned on these charges and the people flocked about the gates of the convent clamouring for her to be delivered to them that they might burn her at the stake and purify their city of her being.

And, all the while, Eustochia sat alone in the dark and narrow cell with only her enemy, as it seemed to her, for company, despised and hated and abandoned of all living things; tortured in body and mind, her days and nights were spent in unutterable desolation, while, as she afterwards related, her soul was unceasingly attacked by the evil spirit with every imaginable temptation to impurity and despair. And yet, in spite of all, she could say with Abraham that she had hoped against hope. The very solitude and silence of her prison provided her with the opportunity she so needed of satisfying her supreme desire for prayer. No books were allowed her, but she found consolation in reciting over and over again such psalms as she knew by heart. She had taught herself the five canticles of which the first letters form the name of Mary—Magnificat, Ad Dominum, Retribue servo tuo, Judica me, Deus, Ad te levavi—to each of which she added an anthem formed from the same letters—Missus est, Assumpta est, Rubum, In odorem, Ave Maria, ending with the Interveniat. Thus Eustochia in her gloomy prison was as a lonely dove in its nest, weeping and sighing, not with impatience, but with Divine love, unceasingly tempted by the Devil and as unceasingly defeating him by her sweetness.

At long length her confessor obtained access to Eustochia; whereupon the demon to whom power was permitted over her body spoke by her lips and lyingly confessed that she had been guilty of the crimes attributed to her. This took place in the presence of several of the nuns who were present at Father Salicario’s interview with her; the priest was thunderstruck and embarrassed by this admission on Eustochia’s part, but, being persuaded of the diabolical influence at work in the matter, he obtained leave to speak with her again on the next day. This time he began the interview with an exorcism, as the result of which Eustochia was enabled to speak of her own accord and to tell him what was truly in her heart that was so filled with humility and charity as to flow over with them.