Isabel interrupted this lesson by coming to make some friendly inquiries of her young country-woman, who, after a short conversation, gave a slight sketch of her life and adventures, speaking with the most entire frankness.
Meanwhile, Miss Josephine was talking to the Signora, who was charmed by her looks and manner, both the essence of soft and graceful beauty. She was fair, rather small, and plump, with the whiteness of an infant, and pure golden
hair in thick waves fastened back from a low forehead and the most exquisite of ears with a long spray of myrtle. Her dress was of the softest gray color, close at the wrists and throat, where delicate laces turned out like the white edges of a gray cloud. The only light to this tender picture was the hair, the blue eyes, and an emerald cross, her only ornament.
“I have been to-day to see the relics of Santa Croce,” she said. “I coaxed Miss Warder not to go, though the permission included her; for she is such an unbeliever that she spoils all my pleasure in seeing such things. I am not formally a Catholic, you know, but I more than half believe. My heart is all convinced, but my head holds out yet a little. Perhaps that is because I am not well instructed. Well, I started early, so as to have a walk alone from St. John Lateran across to Santa Croce. I loitered along under the trees, perfectly happy, looking about, telling myself over and over again where I was, and gathering daisies. I looked at those daisies before I came here this evening, and every one of them had curled its little petals in, and gone to sleep, like a company of babies. In the morning they will open their eyes again. Well, I reached Santa Croce, and stood on the steps there. Everything was so quiet and beautiful, with nature so sweet, and art so magnificent. No one was near but two or three soldiers about the convent door. I knew before that the government had taken nearly all the convent. After a while I heard a trumpet-call inside, and presently company after company of soldiers, half a regiment certainly, came out and marched off to the avenue to drill. They were
dressed in gray linen and white gaiters, and looked like a crowd of great moth-millers.
“A nice, bright-faced young officer was walking to and fro near me, and I spoke to him, and asked some questions. He seemed pleased to talk—I suppose he felt dull there; and when I told him about our army, and what I had seen during the war, he asked me if I would like to go in and see their quarters. Of course I said yes. So he led me in, and over the two stories, and showed me the gardens and courts at the back, and the splendid view from the south windows. What halls they were!—long, wide corridors, arched, and bordered with pilasters, with a grand stairway climbing up from one side. Unless for hospital or barracks, with long rows of beds at the sides, I cannot imagine what they were made for, except simply to look at, to walk through, and to make a great pile on the outside. It seemed building for the mere sake of building. All the beds had the mattresses folded up, with gray blankets laid on them, and a little shelf of things over the head. One room, occupied by two officers, was almost as simple. There were none of the luxuries we have. Then the view! I fancied I could see half of Italy spread out before me. ‘But I pity the poor frati who have been turned out,’ I could not help saying to my guide. ‘So do I,’ he answered. The soldiers are not to blame, you know. They must obey. Then I went out, and the others came, and we went up to the relic chamber. You go up a good many stairs, and through a chapel hung round with paintings, and then through low-vaulted stone passages, not high enough for a tall man to stand up in. I should think
that the shape of the way we went would be like a great letter C. At the last turn we found ourselves in the little chamber, where the great relics had been set out on the altar. Behind the altar were the strong doors of the closets in the wall where these relics are kept. On the wall at the right of the door was the relic-case of Gregory the Great, about two feet square, with a glass cover, and filled with an innumerable collection of tiny relics. But all eyes were turned to the altar.
“The frate who came with us put on a stole, after lighting the candles; then we all knelt while he said a prayer. And then, one by one, he brought forward the relics, and showed to each, and gave each one to kiss and touch their beads or crucifixes to, if they wished. I looked at them with wonder, and neither believed nor disbelieved. It is so hard for us Americans, you know, to believe in the antiquity of things, unless we have material proofs. The bone of the finger of St. Thomas, the thorn from the crown of thorns, the nail—they were impressive to me chiefly because saints had believed them authentic, and centuries of Catholics had venerated them. But when, at last, he took down the crystal cross from the centre of the altar, my heart melted. I felt that it was real. I wanted to snatch it, and run away by myself, and cry over and kiss it. I wished the others would kneel, but they didn’t. They looked at the relic, and kissed it, and that was all. Perhaps they were each wishing that some one else would kneel and set the example. At length, when the last one had kissed it, I dropped on my knees, and the others did the same, and the frate gave us benediction with the
famous old relic of the true cross that Santa Helena brought from Jerusalem. Then he put the lights out, and we came away, and some of them bought fac-similes of the nail and the inscription of the cross, and we came down all the passages again, and the painted cardinals on the walls of the upper chapel looked at us as we passed, to see if we were any better for the privilege we had received, and so down through the quiet church, and out into the sunshine again. But that crystal cross, with its three pieces of dark wood inside, has been before my eyes ever since. It must be real, for it speaks. When I think of it, I can hear all the centuries weep over it.”
She stopped, smiling but choked a little.