‘A smell, indeed! In my cell which is not only the sweetest in the convent, but which is the only one fit to go into!’ exclaimed poor Giacinta in deep indignation. ‘What can you possibly mean by “a smell!”’
‘A smell of sin!’ responded the bishop; and it was observed that for a wonder Giacinta made no retort.
‘A smell of sin,’ said Giacinta to herself, as she sat alone in her elegant and luxurious cell that night. The words had touched her soul and awakened a train of thoughts latent and undisturbed till then. Always hitherto she had ambitioned the loftiest, most refined objects of research, and thought she knew the secret of attaining them. The bishop’s words spoke to her of there being ‘a more excellent way’ yet. They cast a light upon a higher path than that which she was treading, and revealed to her that those who walked along it, lowly as they might seem, could afford to look down upon hers.
She saw that those who despised distinctions were grander than those who courted them, to become, in the end, their slaves; that those who aspired to celestial joys were nobler than those who surrounded themselves with the most exquisite luxuries of earth.[6]
From that day, little by little,[7] Giacinta’s cell grew nearer and nearer to the pattern of the House of Nazareth. The mirror, the cosmetics, and the easy couch made way for the crucifix, the discipline, and the penitential chain.[8] From having been shunned as a type of worldliness, she became to her whole order a model of humility and mortification.[9]
[1] The Marescotti were a noble family of Bologna, the second city of the Pontifical Dominions; there were two cardinals of the name. [↑]
[2] ‘Il buon uomo di loro padre.’ [↑]
[3] ‘Faceva il diavolo,’ lit. ‘raised the devil.’ [↑]
[4] ‘In quei tempi antichi ubbedirono le figlie, capisce.’ ‘Capisce,’ lit. ‘understand,’ equivalent to ‘you see.’ [↑]