Roman Legends

GIACINTA MARESCOTTI.

Reading edition

Giacinta, on the other hand, took all her worldly state into her convent with her; her cell was furnished like the drawing-room of a palace, and she insisted on having her maids to wait on her; the other nuns she scarcely spoke to, and treated as the dust under her feet.

‘A smell, indeed! In my cell which is not only the sweetest in the convent, but which is the only one fit to go into!’ exclaimed poor Giacinta in deep indignation. ‘What can you possibly mean by “a smell!”’

‘A smell of sin!’ responded the bishop; and it was observed that for a wonder Giacinta made no retort.

‘A smell of sin,’ said Giacinta to herself, as she sat alone in her elegant and luxurious cell that night. The words had touched her soul and awakened a train of thoughts latent and undisturbed till then. Always hitherto she had ambitioned the loftiest, most refined objects of research, and thought she knew the secret of attaining them. The bishop’s words spoke to her of there being ‘a more excellent way’ yet. They cast a light upon a higher path than that which she was treading, and revealed to her that those who walked along it, lowly as they might seem, could afford to look down upon hers.

Notes in this chapter

Note 1 · The Marescotti were a noble family of Bologna, the second city of the Pontifical Dominions; there were two cardinals of the name. ↑Note 2 · ‘Il buon uomo di loro padre.’ ↑Note 3 · ‘Faceva il diavolo,’ lit. ‘raised the devil.’ ↑Note 4 · ‘In quei tempi antichi ubbedirono le figlie, capisce.’ ‘Capisce,’ lit. ‘understand,’ equivalent to ‘you see.’ ↑Note 5 · ‘Puzza—puzza di peccato!’ Lit. ‘It stinks—it stinks of sin.’ (See n. 5, p. 13.) ↑Note 6 · I give the story, as near as possible, in the words which the pious faith of the narrator prompted her to use. The success of the final resu Note 7 · ‘A mano, a mano.’ ↑Note 8 · ‘Catenella,’ lit. ‘little chain,’ an instrument of penance worn by some persons on the arm or waist. ↑Note 9 · The following are briefly the authentic particulars of her life from Moroni, xxx. 194. She was daughter of Marc Antonio Mariscotti and Ottav Note 10 · One day the bishop came to visit the convent. ‘What a smell!’5 he said, as he passed the cell of Giacinta Marescotti.Note 11 · She saw that those who despised distinctions were grander than those who courted them, to become, in the end, their slaves; that those who a Note 12 · From that day, little by little,7 Giacinta’s cell grew nearer and nearer to the pattern of the House of Nazareth. The mirror, the cosmetics,