The problem began quite suddenly, when that woman they call the Baroness came to live in the villa next to you, Father. On the first day of her arrival she sent someone rushing over to fetch my husband. Since that moment he hasn’t been himself. He is full of grand schemes. He seems to be ashamed of me, and yet he makes me follow him on his walks in the mountains, but he doesn’t look at me, or speak to me; he doesn’t even help me when it is steep, or to cross a stream. And at home, if I speak to him, he answers yes or no, or doesn’t reply at all. When he does eventually speak, it is only to criticize, or, what’s even more hurtful, to make some sarcastic comment: that I don’t know how to dress any more, or do my hair; or even put a spoon in my mouth, or use a knife and fork. He finds the house small. Neither lunch nor dinner is to his liking, no matter how much effort I put into trying to guess what will please him, and into preparing and cooking his food. He’s dined four times at the tavern with the carters, and even on other evenings, when he’s not at the villa and not visiting his patients, he goes and drinks gentian liqueur there, and (I’m ashamed to say) has more than one glass, for certain. And then afterwards! Father, good, kind Don Giuseppe, help me. I’m at my wits’ end, and don’t know what to do. I can’t say anything to my father or mother. You, Don Giuseppe, are the only person on earth who could understand and help me.
And I’m becoming wicked, too. I do my best to be loving and sweet to him; he rejects me, and I become meeker than ever. But sometimes I can’t. I feel, rising within me, a violent sense of rebellion that is utterly new and incomprehensible to me – which, after all, runs completely counter to my natural compliance. I’m experiencing something I’ve never known before: deep acrimony and bitterness. Now I know the taste of gall. I understand so many things I knew nothing about before: an ugly world is opening up to me. I examined myself in the mirror. Yes, I’m thin. Yes, I’m pale. But I can see that my eyes are big and black, my forehead, mouth, and features are all regular, and my body’s by no means a skeleton. Yet my husband of only three months no longer finds me attractive.
He talks of the Baroness’s rounded charms. I’ve seen those brazen charms: on three occasions she passed beneath my windows on her white mule, followed by her servants and admirers. I stared at her and took a good look at her face: she wears rouge on her cheeks, colouring on her lips, and her magnificent eyebrows are pencilled. She’s as outwardly false as she must be inwardly deceitful. And she has robbed me of Amilcare’s respect and love. Now, one last word, Father. Amilcare wants me to go and visit his beloved. I’ve said no. He insists, but I won’t, come what may. Am I right or wrong?
Don Giuseppe, lend me a guiding hand. You who see the things of this world from the lofty heights of your blessed tranquillity, tell me how to escape the baseness and depravity of these new fears, suspicions and anxieties of mine. How I have changed within a month!
Most unhappily yours,
Carlina’
The priest had read the letter closely, sighing at first, trembling by the end. ‘Poor sainted woman!’ he exclaimed. And in his large and hurried handwriting he wrote the following note: ‘I’ll come tomorrow. We’ll talk, and you’ll see that your suspicions are groundless. Patience, kindness and love – these are the remedies. Pray to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, who knows the weaknesses of mortals, and their distress. Until we meet tomorrow.’
Menico had announced a little while ago that a woman, Pina del Rosso, and her aged father wanted to speak to the priest. They came in now, their eyes filled with tears, and the woman sobbed as she told how her husband wanted to sell their heifers, all twenty of them, their sole asset, in order to invest the money in the ironworks company. ‘He’s supposed to take the animals to market in Malè the day after tomorrow, and there are five or six others possessed by demons who are also taking their herds. They’ll be giving the beasts away for nothing. And anyway, I don’t believe in such companies – may the devil take them. They’re nothing but a swindle. My father says so, too, and he knows the way of the world.’
And the poor half-paralysed old man concurred with a mournful nod of his head.
‘I should never have said so to my husband! He lost his temper, and beat me. Look at these marks.’ And she showed her bruised shoulders. ‘But I kept on at him, and he went wild. I couldn’t dissuade him at all. You save us, Father. Write to Trento, write to the Emperor. For pity’s sake, don’t let the village be destroyed.’
The priest had risen and was pacing up and down the room in the greatest agitation, as he listened to the woman. He kept saying, ‘Villains.’ Then he said out loud, ‘I shall speak to the Mayor, I shall confer with him, and with God’s help we shall succeed in doing something.’
‘The Mayor! A fine help he’ll be!’ said the woman. ‘He’s the one who’s been putting ideas into people’s heads. He’s the one who suggested to everyone they trade their animals, which give them so many problems, he says, and so little profit, in exchange for those sheets of paper that you only have to look at and they produce solid gold. I heard him with my own ears, Father. Our poor herd! And then (dare I mention it?) to anyone who said that Don Giuseppe didn’t believe in such miracles, the Mayor replied, ‘Ah yes! That … (I won’t say the word out of respect), that … we’ll drive him out of the village, and the sooner the better. It’s time we got rid of that … He can’t see further than the end of his nose, and he presumes to tell people what’s what.’ Then under his breath he added, ‘It won’t be long now, you know, a week at most, I have it on good authority, and that’ll be the end of him.’
The priest continued to pace up and down, filled with rage. ‘Well, then, tomorrow I’ll go to the Captain of the Militia in Male, I’ll appeal to the magistrate, I’ll bring proceedings against those scoundrels.’
From the threshold of the room, Menico said, ‘Father, it’s almost ten o’clock, come and get robed for mass.’ He had to go up to his master and repeat this several times, for the priest was so beside himself.
Don Giuseppe tried to regain a little of his composure. He said goodbye to the woman and the old villager, left the presbytery, crossed the churchyard, and entered the vestry through the outside door just as the young wolf-killer was ringing the final summons to worship.
While Menico bustled about helping his master put on his vestments, the priest pounded his breast, over his heart, as though trying to stop it beating, and whispered prayers.
He walked to the altar with his eyes on the ground, without seeing anybody. He bowed before the steps, then went and kissed the holy table. And as he uttered the ritual words he inwardly made these devotions: ‘I am unworthy to approach the altar that holds the relics of the saints; I am unworthy to be admitted to the divine table at which the Holy of Holies offers himself as the Eucharist. O Lord, let me not give you a kiss like the one Judas gave you. O Lord, save me from such wickedness by cleansing my spirit … Oramus te Domine … Kyrie eleison … O merciful Lord, you have given men so many blessings, and how they have repaid you with evil. Behold before you the most ungrateful, the most guilty of all. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive my weakness, have pity on me … Gloria in excelsis Deo …’
Still with his eyes to the ground, the priest turned to face the people. And while his lips read the Epistle from the right of the altar, he silently murmured, ‘Lamb without sin, who was willing to be vilified, mocked and insulted, in order to fulfil the prophesies in the Scriptures, let me imitate your innocence in my deeds, and your patience in my afflictions.
He turned to the left and began the reading from the Bible: Munda cor meum … Word of God, who in your graciousness show meekness and humility, let not meekness and humility ever forsake my heart … Credo in unum Deum …’
The priest removed the lid from the chalice, replaced it again, washed his hands at the side of the altar, turned to face the congregation, and still with his gaze lowered, he said, ‘Orate fratres.’ Then he held up the host, in memory of Christ raised on the Cross, and having consecrated the wine, lifted up
the chalice.
‘O precious blood, let this new baptism flow over me. If only I could shed all my blood for you, to the very last drop … Per omnia secula …’
The priest broke the sacred host in two, as a symbolic reminder of the separation between the body and spirit of Christ, and dropped a piece of the host into the chalice. He then swallowed the wafer, striking his breast. ‘Domine non sum dignus …’ Afterwards he drank the precious blood from the chalice. And having taken communion, he proceeded to the ablutions. ‘Dominus vobiscum … In the ineffable joy of seeing you rise up into heaven, O Saviour of the world, I feel the happiness of still possessing you here on earth. My faith adores you on the throne of your love in the Eucharist, in the same way that it adores you on the throne of your glory in Paradise …’
With the words ‘Ita missa est’, the priest looked up and saw Olimpia, the Baroness, seated at the head of the congregation, in the front pew, next to her piano master. Her snow-white neck and the top of her milky bosom gleamed in the semi-darkness of the church. Her full, red lips smiled, as she met Don Giuseppe’s gaze with brazen lustfulness. The priest felt a veil come down over his eyes. He could not see. He staggered. All his blood ran to his heart. A moment later it all ran to his head, and then he could not control himself any longer. Adopting the same attitude as Christ in Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’, in a thundering voice he launched into a wrathful sermon from the very steps of the altar.
‘Stay away from the house of the Lord, sinners and hypocrites! Be gone, profaners of the temple. I would seize Christ’s scourge to drive away these corruptors of souls, these deceivers of consciences, these greedy parasites that feed on the money of the poor. And you, misguided souls, blinded as you are, do you not see what precipice opens beneath your feet? You’re ruining the village, casting into destitution your children, wives and old folk by chasing after illusions. Open your eyes, my sons. Believe me. With all my heart I’ve been father and brother to you for ten years. I would rather die a hundred deaths sooner than leave this beloved mountain. Believe me. And I beseech you, as I prayed moments ago to God, lord of all things: acknowledge your error, return to your simple, honest ways, to the care of your beasts, to the love of Him who truly loves you. You shall have peace on earth and joy in heaven. Remember God’s commandments. Regarding the sixth, canon law condemns the woman who beautifies herself to please men. As for the seventh and ninth, it condemns those who steal by violence, fraud, or false promises. Be gone, sinners. May God help and enlighten you.
V
Having given vent to his feelings, the priest returned to his room. White-faced apart from two pink circles in the middle of his cheeks, his throat dry, his breast inwardly consumed with flames, he was coughing, and spitting large spots of blood into his handkerchief, but felt quite calm, while outside, by contrast, the storm gathered against him. In church, at the sound of his terrible voice thundering beneath the vaults, no one had dared to breathe. But afterwards, once the sermon was over, on the way out, almost everyone was whispering, and questioning each other, and exclaiming in scandalized tones. Anyone who had not quite grasped the meaning of the words had a companion explain them. The Baroness had vanished. The Mayor had rushed off to order his mule to be saddled, intending to ride over to Trento in order, he said, to get this raving lunatic finally sent to the asylum.
The next day, no sooner was it light than the priest, despite his fever, walked down into the valley. Then from Cogo, where he got a ride on a peasant’s cart, he went to Male to see the Captain of the Militia, who listened with some impatience to what the priest had to say, and told him that his own information was different: there was no danger, and no reason to get so worked up. In any case, these were matters for the civil authorities, not the Church, so he should calm down and go home.
On his return, disheartened and exhausted, the priest stopped by to see Signora Carlina, who was on her own. He remembered the letter he had received the previous day, and he set about trying to comfort her with judicious arguments. But as he spoke, tears ran down his cheeks, and his breathing was laboured. The good-hearted young woman graciously silenced him, and kindly made him take a little broth, half a glass of wine and two slices of a cake that she had made with her own fair hands. The priest calmed down, and listened to that soft, gentle voice, as the poor girl, forgetting her own distress, tended to her dear Don Giuseppe. She did not want him to leave, and with her hands joined in entreaty she begged him not to continue on his way. But the priest kept saying with a sigh, ‘I shall do my duty.’
When he left the house, he felt stronger, lighter and purer. Before starting off up the mountainside, he retraced his steps some twenty yards, to kneel at a roadside shrine. A light shone on the Virgin’s image, which was certainly not one painted by Fra Angelico or Raphael. Set around her reddish-yellow hair, which was drawn in wavy lines down to her shoulders, were the rays of a large halo, like the spokes of a wheel. She had pink cheeks, while her crudely shaped mouth was a bright scarlet. And so neat and precise were her semicircular eyebrows, they must have been drawn with a set of compasses, centred on her blue eyes. But when, in the fervour of his prayer, the priest looked up at this image, he thought it must be some trick of the Devil. It looked to him like a ghastly caricature of Olimpia, and he suddenly felt his heart pounding horribly, and he frantically got to his feet.
Thoughts seethed in his brain, but a trifling one kept coming to the fore, and it was this: ‘Are that disreputable woman’s lips, cheeks and eyebrows painted, or not? Was Signora Carlina right about what she had seen, or had a blameless jealousy clouded her judgement? And at the idea that she might have been deluded, the priest had a sense of vague regret. Then, feeling ashamed of such unseemly thoughts, he tried to pick up the thread of his interrupted prayers, but the more he concentrated his efforts upon banishing the lewd woman’s image, the more stubbornly this vital, imperious, seductive and supremely beautiful image confronted him.
Already at five in the morning, the following day, the priest was sitting in the confessional-box, hearing and pardoning the village women’s humdrum sins. It was St Roch’s feast-day, and before bringing their candles to join in the procession from the village church to the saint’s shrine that was to take place at about four in the afternoon, these pious women wanted to set their consciences at rest. With every absolution the priest repeated to himself, contritely and devoutly, the verses of the fiftieth psalm, and in order to overcome his tiredness and boredom he went over in his memory the good confessor’s guiding principles, especially those given by St Alfonsus Liguori, whose teaching was always to observe the golden mean, inclining neque ad destram rigorismi, neque ad sinistram laxitatis.
Some twenty penitents had already received the Ego te absolvo when the priest smelt a most delicate fragrance, like that of violets, and through the small holes in the close-meshed grille saw a very dark shadow. In the enclosed gloom of the confessional, it was impossible to distinguish the features of the person’s face, which were covered, moreover, with a black, embroidered veil.
The priest began in a tone full of benevolence, ‘Let us thank the Lord, my child, who has today brought you to confession. Don’t be afraid. I’m really the vicar of his love, vicarius amoris Christi. God wants to comfort you, so take heart. I shall help you. Whatever may have befallen you, with divine help we shall put everything right. Speak then in holy confidence.’
‘Father, it is I.’
The priest leapt up and was about to leave the confessional-box. But then, thinking this might be a temptation of the Devil, he clutched the crucifix that hung from his neck and murmured a prayer.
‘Father, it is I,’ repeated the dark shadow’s voice, ‘and I want you to listen to me.’
The priest sat down again, thinking that it was not right to refuse a penitent, and with big beads of sweat dripping from his brow he stammered, ‘Have you repented? Truly repented? Do you know what contrition means? It means abhorrence of any sin committed, and a firm
resolve to mend one’s ways.’
‘Don Giuseppe, I’ve come to save you.’
‘Does this concern only myself?’
‘Only yourself.’
‘Then this is not the place. Write to me.’
‘I can’t. What I have to say to you must remain secret.’
‘Under the seal of the confessional?’
‘Under the seal of the confessional.’
‘Then I warn you that you must not name any guilty parties or accomplices: the Synods have formally ruled against such denouncements.’
‘I’ll tell you what they’re going to do. I’ll reveal no names. Don Giuseppe, you’re an obstacle. They want you out of the way.’
‘I shall fight.’
‘Don Giuseppe, they want to kill you.’
‘I’ll look after myself.’
‘They’re going to poison you tomorrow. Beware of the wine cruet. Lock up the sacristy. Change the wine. Smash the cruet. Save yourself. Goodbye.’ And the dark shadow disappeared from the church, while the sun was beginning to gild the top of the belltower.
The priest resumed his confessions with the same patience and gentleness as before. He was busy all day with the procession, with visiting priests from the valley to whom he had to offer some of the wine that he had – a very light, slightly acidic wine – and with many other duties and obligations. He made arrangements for the following morning’s ceremony, when St Roch’s statue, which had been solemnly brought from the shrine to the village church, had to be taken back. And having said good-night to Menico, he finally retired to his bedroom, more dead than alive, although his temperature had dropped and his cough had given him some respite.
Senso (And Other Stories) Page 14