Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘Firmament! What a beautiful word, perhaps the most beautiful word … the brightest in the firmament of words.’

‘What did you say, Modesta? How wonderful! What did you say, dear heart? Tell me again.’

I said it again.

‘How wonderful! It sounds like a poem. You’re extraordinary! Not only intelligent, conscientious and good, but with an imagination that is almost frightening! You will be a poetess: a nun and a poetess. That way you will be able to sing the high praises of the Lord!’

A poetess, maybe, but I wasn’t too sure about the nun. Of course, we had it good there. Every day we ate as if it were Sunday, and the rooms, the sheets smelled of sugared almonds. But an entire life there?

‘How many years have you been here, Mother?’

‘That’s not the way to say it, Modesta! Repeat the question properly.’

‘How many years has it been, Mother, since you took your vows?’

‘Good! That’s the way. You have to be vigilant, Modesta. Sometimes you have a worldly tone — who knows where you picked it up — that does not befit a future novice … It’s been many years, my child, since I entered this peaceful oasis. Oh, if only I had entered it sooner, at your age! At the pure, chaste age that you were when you came to us. Unfortunately, I lived in a fatuous world which was almost never touched by the word of God. I should not talk about worldly matters, but in this case it is permissible because it will help you understand how the Virgin protected you by making you come here among us, even though it was through misfortune. She chose you right away, partly because you are of humble origins and she protects the unprivileged, whereas for me, perhaps because of the sin of heresy that had possessed several members of my family, the path was long and painful. For years I lived a life of light-hearted luxury, until a terrible dejection overcame me and made me suspect I was in error, as my confessor, to whom I owe my salvation, repeated to me every Sunday. He opposed everyone in my family to bring me closer to faith. My parents said that my depression was a bodily illness — anaemia, they said. But it was my young, pure soul that was suffering from all that luxury, from all that immoral, hopeless talk which my uncle in particular — God rest his soul — was fond of. The source of my suffering was unclear, torn as I was between the lofty, moral words of my confessor and the learned superficiality of the others.

‘It was at the debutantes’ ball that Our Lady, to whom I had prayed so much, enlightened me as to my malady, which no medicine had been able to relieve. A malady that manifested itself in endless ennui and depression. Until the day before the dance, what am I saying? until that very morning, I didn’t know. On the contrary, the joyous preparations, the ribbons, the gowns, the flowers, seemed to have revived me, a momentary diversion from my ennui and dejection. But that evening, as I put on the immaculate, white organdy gown customary for debutantes, I began to feel supremely anxious and started trembling all over. I was already promised to a young cavalry officer whom I had not yet met. I had caught a glimpse of him from the balcony, marching with his platoon. He was tall, with a moustache and eyes so black they seemed like pitch. I have always found dark men repulsive. They said he was handsome, but to me he was frightening like all swarthy men. He was tall and muscular, and his cheeks bore the numerous scars of various duels, as I was able to observe when I saw him up close. He had already killed three men back in his own country. He was a German aristocrat. May God forgive him! At the age of twenty-three or twenty-four, three deaths already weighed on his conscience. Just think, three men dead, killed for trivial reasons of worldly honour. That man had already frightened me from a distance, but up close, as we danced the quadrille, with those scars reminding me of his crimes, the horror that lay concealed behind that dazzling uniform, resplendent with medals and chevrons, was passed on to the splendour of the silks, the candelabra, the women’s tiaras, revealing an orgy of sin and crime concealed by all that luxury.’

Silks, candelabra, dazzling tiaras, his scarred cheeks … A pang in my stomach, like when I was hungry, made me shiver from Mother Leonora’s trembling and I had to run into her arms and hide my face. In part because she looked so beautiful when she got excited that way, and also to hide the desire that had overcome me to be embraced by that officer. A desire that surely could be read on my face, even in the dark … Tuzzu, where was Tuzzu? His cheeks weren’t scarred, but a blue sea welled out of the wounds of his eyes, and his hands were strong when they caressed me. Tuzzu’s hands caress me in the dark; he always caresses me like that when the reeds grow dark and silent. No, these are not Tuzzu’s hands. These are the soft, trembling palms of Mother Leonora, which rise from my waist to my shoulders barely brushing my breast with a rustling of wings.

‘What’s wrong? Did you get scared? Were you frightened at the thought of my going to perdition had I remained in the world? But the Madonna enlightened me in time, as she will with you. Come now, don’t be afraid. The danger is past. You’re a big, strong girl now. You mustn’t get scared like you did when you were a child. See how well your chest has developed? Remember how we worried that it would remain flat and shrivelled like Sister Teresa’s?’

Yes, my breasts had thankfully grown, but those hands no longer gave me the shivers. They were spineless and they never dared to do anything. Many times I had hoped, but she never went further than a few timid caresses. At first I had thought that Mother Leonora didn’t stroke herself because she was pure and holy, like everyone in the convent kept saying, but now I knew that at night she too stroked herself the same as I did. I realized it the night she brought me to sleep in her bed, using the storm as an excuse. Then, believing that I was asleep, she began touching herself and moaning. Some saint! A coward is what she was! A coward, and that’s why all she talked about was hell and punishment …

What had I said? A long scream, followed by a fluttering of white wings, pushes me away. What had I said? Crazy! I must have said something terrible, because Mother Leonora is now running around the tower like a bat blinded by the light; something terrible, since she falls to her knees and begins making the sign of the cross, crying desperately:

‘ Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa .’

How to make amends?

A high fever took care of making amends, gripping me the instant I saw Mother Leonora shut me out as she went on praying, frozen as a corpse. A fever caused by fear, I think. How could I have been so foolish as to tell Mother Leonora what I was thinking? Shivering, my teeth chattering, I tried to make sense of what had happened to me. The terrible fever lasted three days and three nights, gouging my brain with the question: why did you do it? I had done it because like a fool, I who thought I was so clever had put too much faith in Mother Leonora. And so the disillusionment of seeing her cowardice day after day, and consequently, no longer loving her, had made me commit one of the most predictable errors. Once I realized my mistake, the fever went away. But not the terror of being exiled from all those women who, though fatuous and contemptible, were essential to me. For years they had seemed so sweet and beautiful and tall! They weren’t even tall. At fifteen I was already taller than Sister Costanza, who was the homeliest, true, but also the tallest. Too bad. I almost wished I could go back to the time when I admired them and tried to walk and talk like them. Careful, Modesta, even this desire to return to a past that can no longer be is a sentimental trap that can cost you dearly. No! Look at the reality: what happened happened and could not have been otherwise. Now I have to get out of this exile in which Mother Leonora has plunged me. In three days I haven’t seen anyone except the nursing sister and the old, bald doctor. If he were at least young! I wonder where Tuzzu is? Maybe he went to sea.