Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part three, chapter 2

English

The nuns of Montevergini and the teachers, like those of all the other monasteries, had attended the pro cessions of the inquisitions of the Holy Office from their covered loggias and now returned to go to dinner and to the choir.

The beautiful Violante, still under the impression of that spectacle, talked about it with her companions; the inquisitions and especially the realms of trade with the devil caused them a kind of terror, which made them shudder. A thousand frightening stories of diabolical apparitions, the description of the demons heard in the sermons, in the tales of the old nuns, in the reading of the ascetic books, returned to their memory: and they looked around, as if at every moment they were to see a brick rise and the horns or the blazing eyes of the monstrous infernal spirits appear.

At the exit from the choir, after recited the rosary, in the shade just interrupted by the lamps, fears grew. In the night the corridors seemed frightening, like open and endless gorges and the steps resonated with the same sense of terror with which the voices were resonated in the dark and deserted church. They narrowed down, one with the other, holding hands. But there were the boldest who said aloud:

"I am the daughter of Mary, and I am not afraid of the "enemy."

And they scored. The devil always fled to the sign of the cross.

The monastery stood partly along the façade and sides of the church; partly on the other side of the road, in a distinct building, joined to the first by a large overpass. The educator was in this building, together with the novitiate, in two wings separated by a garden.

As in all monasteries, then, and in the houses of education today, the maidens were divided according to age; there were the small and the great. Violant was among the greats. She slept in a room with three other companions and a nun: each had its own bed closed by white tendons; that of Violante was at the window that gave on the garden without iron because it was internal and because the room was outside cloistered.

The room smelled of fresh lime, in fact during the day there had been some murals sent by the attorney of the monastery, for some repairs that had lasted almost to the Hail. The teachers felt that smell, and they made faces.

"Mrs. Mother," they said to the nun, "will we leave the windows open tonight?... This smell gives us to the head."

Although in October, it was still hot enough to justify that question: Sometimes in the hot nights that drowned the breath, the windows of the dormitories were left open: This time a more persuasive reason was added to the heat.

But the nun did not give up:

"No, no: The nights are now fresh and I'm afraid someone might get sick."

Then the grievances of the maidens led to a glimpse.

"Come on, let's recite the prayers: In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

He knelt down and began to recite Latin prayers that were undergoing original and curious transformations, of which neither the good nun nor the teachers had conscience; he also educates them on their knees before her, they repeated in chorus with the same monotonous chant those prayers, to which they followed invocations, prayers in verses, in dialect:

I sleep in this bed

with Jesus in my heart

I sleep and he watches

if something, He'll awaken me

With Jesus I sleep

With Jesus I stay

being with Jesus

I have no fear

being that I have

faithful friends

I make the cross

and I go to sleep.

And then endless recommendations to the Virgin, to St. Joseph, to St. Michael the Archangel, to St. Rosalia, to St. Dominic, to St. Francis.. Some educators slumbered and repeated that prayers for the strength of habit, some others let the last syllables of every word go out. Finally, stronger than the others and as a relief, he resonated: Amen. Then the maidens rose up, kissed the nun's hand, and each one disappeared into the tendons of her bed.

For a few minutes we heard a whisper of cutettole running from bed to bed; then one by one the mouths closed, closed their eyes; in silence we heard the rhythm of the breath, similar to a slight breath of wind between the fronds.

The rather large room, with its five symmetrically arranged beds from here and there, was immersed in the shadows. High on the wall between the two windows that gave to the garden, in front of an image of Our Lady, burned a lamp, a small red flame, which just allowed to see the pale face of Our Lady on the black canvas.

He played midnight.

Violante slept deeply with his head hidden under the blankets. She fell asleep like that, for fear of the devils. The other teachers and the nun had also had a shiver of fear and instinctively hid their heads, as if they really had to see the "ugly beast."

Despite the prayers, the image of the Crucifix hanging over each bed, the blessed water that each one had at his bedside, the relics and medals that hung from every neck, the fear generated by the speeches made and the sight of the staphs persisted in them, but this did not take away that sleep took hold of those graceful bodies.

Slowly a window opened without making any noise: A black shadow leaned into the room and waited a minute, as if spying; then, when she was sure that everything was silent and slept, she pushed the window and let herself slide inside.

Another shadow followed her. They were both black and did not appear a color of face; they had bare feet and walked quietly.

They went to a bed, gently lifted up the blankets and looked. It did not seem to them what they were looking for, and they passed on to the other: It was Violante's. They bowed down to look at the maiden, and made a gesture, as if to say: "this!"

Then one of the shadows drew out of the breasts something like a scarf or a large handkerchief, the other quickly embraced the girl with all the blankets and lifted her up in her arms. Violent, raised up abruptly, he cried out, but his cry went out immediately, suffocated by a gag that closed her mouth: His eyes, barred by fear, saw nothing, for his head was turned upside down in the covered; his hands could not move, because they were tied between two arms that looked like a bite.

The poor girl was invaded by terror. The devils had certainly come to get her. The terror was so great that she fainted.

The two shadows approached the window: One of them climbed over the windowsill and went down: His hands received that little inert body, which was scattered in the dark and behind it also scattered the other shadow.

Although they had not made the slightest noise, and this scene had taken place with extraordinary speed and precision, one of the educators, perhaps for those vibrations of the senses that escape us, but that have the same energy as the conscious impressions, rose and shook the curtain of the bed. He saw that black shadow by the window and had a sense of superstitious terror that froze her blood, and took away her voice; trembling, with a voice almost extinguished, full of tears and terrifying, he came to cry out:

"Mrs. Mother!.. Madam Mother! Jesus, Joseph and Mary! Madam Mother!..."

The nun rose, stuttering: "What? What?..."

But the maiden could no longer speak: Looked like a knot choked her. It indicated towards the window and marked with the cross:

"The devil!... The devil..." stuttered.

The nun was afraid. He opened his eyes, looked around, saw nothing; he saw only a large black square on the wall, but in the loss of those words he did not realize that it was the open window. With an effort, detached the crucifix from the wall and lifted it up to frighten, if ever, the spirit of evil, recommending itself to God, reciting verses, came down from the bed and, looking around with fear, approached the girl.

"What is it?" she asked with a voice almost crying.

"The... there... the devil... I saw it!"

The nun looked scared:

"Where is it?... How?..."

He didn't dare go near the window. The other educators woke up: They watched astoundingly, not having yet understood what it was about, but intuiting that it should be something terrible, and they dared not move. Someone stuttered:

"Jesus! Jesus! What is it?..."

Now all stood still for fear, pale, with eyes barred, staring at a point, as in an expectation of terror and so stood a piece, muttering prayers. The nun asked the maiden:

"What have you seen?... Say."

But the educator was beating his teeth with a nervous thrill and could not answer; his eyes looked at the wide open window. Who opened it up? Wind wasn't there. Then they saw the disorder that was in the bed of Violante; to the fear was added the astonishment. Where was he?

They called it: "Violant! Violant!..."

But Violante could not answer; the bed was empty, without blankets. They all looked excited, with a tear of weeping in their throats.

"Violante!... Violant!... Violant!."

The educator who woke up for the first, stuttered:

"The demons took her away..."

Then there arose a cry of terror and horror, and they all wept. The nun took a bell and, ringing desperately, opened the door and went out to the corridor; the educators followed her: And all the wise men woke up; and the hallway was filled with maidens in shirts, with bare feet, asking themselves with voices of fear:

"What is it? What happened?"

They feared earthquakes, fires, a disaster; when they heard the voice that the devils had taken away Violante, weeping with terror broke out. They ran to the monastery, raised up the abbess and the nuns.

"The relic!... we take the relic."

The abbess took a relic of Santa Rosalia: an invisible bone attached to a piece of crimson cloth and enclosed in a rich case of gold filigree. The nuns lit torcettes, put themselves in procession, and before the abbess, reciting preci, by the overpass they passed into the education and entered the room.

One nun, more courageous than the others, looked towards the window and saw the ends of a ladder; she looked out, and exclaimed:

"There's a ladder!" "A ladder! a ladder!..."

They all emphasized, nuns and educators, affected by that discovery that suddenly disconcerted and disoriented the course of their thought and stirred their conviction.

A ladder? But the devil doesn't need stairs, because he has bat wings: All men need is a ladder. So Violante had fled!... They all felt refreshed; the superstitious terror vanished as if by enchantment; what a devil!... the maiden had disguises. What black shadows!... Violant had escaped!... A new amazement, different from the first, but also painful, happened to the fear of before. Everyone wanted to see the ladder.

The abbess ordered: "Sing the bells!..."

After a moment in the silence of the night the bells rang out: The rings spread, the neighbors stirred up. They would open balconies and windows, they would face frightening faces and suspiciously look at each other, they would ask themselves:

"What is it?..."

"Where is it?"

"The bells of Montevergini ring."

Thieves?

"Fire?"

The nuns of the neighboring monasteries of the Saviour and the Chancellor, raised from that chamber, not knowing what had happened, also began to play out; the city woke up surprised, terrified, flocked armed citizens, half dressed, flocked guards; the small plan of Montevergini filled with people who thickened around the doors of the church and of the speakers, amazed by not seeing any clue of fire, no door broken. A voice came out of the monastery:

"From the garden!... a staircase in the garden!."

All that crowd turned from the alley adjacent to the church, where it was a small talker; others entered the alley of St. Biagio, climbed into private houses, trying to penetrate the garden. One voice cried out suddenly:

"This way! It's here!"

"What? What?"

There was a chiassuolo, which ran from the alley of S. Biagio towards the building of Montevergini, an open door, beyond which one could see something resembling plants. By attacking the weapons, equipped with lanterns, the most animated pushed themselves forward and through a goddess they came out into the garden of the educator. Evidently, people had gone in there. At the first entrances others followed; the garden was invaded by a crowd that searched everywhere, in the bushes, in the midst of the trees, in the corners: So they came to the ladder on the wall, which had been used by the kidnappers of Violante.

At the foot of the staircase were the blankets of his cot.

The discovery was of such evidence that all those people, who thought they had to be found at any moment in the presence of armed men, were displeased; then he began to laugh, he began to beg, to sneak, not without a hint of irreverence towards the monastery.

"A nun has fled!" "A nun has fled!"

"She ran away with her monk uncle."

"Uncle monk and monk uncle!"

"And they woke us up for this?"

"Cuffed heads"!..."

"That if you take the devil!"

A few bad words flew; then a whistle, another; the garden turned into a deafening yard: shouts, whistles, derisions that made the building shake. The nuns and teachers were afraid, they opened the doors, fearing to hear them fall from one moment to the next under the blows of that multitude that, rushed to defend the monastery, suddenly turned into an insolent and insolent horde.

And it was a good thing that the relatives of the nuns and teachers, raised from the chamber, taken from the apprehension, flocked with the servants and with the neighbors and were able to free the monastery, not without effort and a little 'with violence, from that crowd that already began to warm up and to enjoy the game.