I didn’t want to let the end of the month go by without writing to you. You might have thought that I was sad and unhappy, whereas here, at the foot of the altar, in the austere observance of our rule, I’ve found, if not peace, at least a quietness of heart.
It’s true, that you get a feeling of overwhelming dismay as you enter this place, and hear the door shut behind you, suddenly seeing yourself bereft of air and light, down in these corridors, amid this tomb-like silence and monotonous drone of prayer. Everything saddens the heart and instills it with fear: those black figures to be seen passing beneath the dim light of the lamp burning before the crucifix, figures that meet without speaking to each other, and walk without a sound, as if they were ghosts; the flowers withering in the garden; the sun that tries in vain to penetrate the opaque glass in the windows; the iron railings; and the brown twill curtains. You can hear the world going on outside, its sounds faded to a whisper, deadened by these walls. Everything that comes from outside is weak and muted. I’m alone among one hundred other forsaken souls.
I’ve also lost the consolation of my family. I can only see them in the presence of lots of other people, in a big gloomy room, through the double grating over the window. We can’t hold hands. All homely intimacy is gone, leaving nothing but phantoms speaking to each other through the screens, and I’m always wondering if that really is my father, the father who used to smile at me and hug me; if that’s the same Giuditta who used to dance with me; and if that’s the Gigi who used to be so bright and cheerful. Now, they’re grave, cold and melancholy. They look at me through the grille, as if peering into a tomb, in which they, the living, observe corpses that talk and move.
Yet all these hardships, all these austere practices serve to detach the heart from earthly frailty, isolating it, making it think of itself, and imparting to it the still calm that comes from God and from the thought that our pilgrimage on earth is thereby shortened. I’ve confessed. I confessed everything – everything! That kindly priest took pity on my poor sick heart. He comforted and counselled me, and helped me to tear the demon from my breast. I feel freer, easier, more worthy of God’s mercy.
Tomorrow I begin my noviciate. They tried to delay it for a few more days because of my delicate health (I’ve never completely recovered from the illness I suffered up at Monte Ilice: I have a fever every two or three days, and every night I cough), but God will give me the strength to endure the ordeal of this noviciate. From now on, only very rarely will we be able to see each other, and I won’t be able to write to you because I shan’t so often see Filomena, the kind-hearted lay sister who has been sending you my letters.
I shan’t even be seeing my poor papa any more … The Lord’s will be done!
Marianna, pray for me to God, that I might undergo this trial with resignation.