From ‘A Pilgrim in Wartime’, The Spectator, 10 July 1915:
WITH a heavy bundle on her head, and gathered skirts which swung as she walked, I mistook her for a peasant carrying fodder home to the farm. Then as I saw the cockleshell sewn on to her cape my heart gave a bound. “O Pellegrina, stop and talk to me a while,” I cried. And there on the Fiesole hillside she turned to greet me—a little old woman, erect and agile, with white hair and brown, weather-beaten skin, her poor rough garments clean and neat. At once I felt she could be no ordinary pilgrim, and as I watched her penetrating dark eyes I knew that the Sacred Fire glowed within, giving her a vision of things beyond my reach. While she spoke of nine years of travel throughout the length and breadth of Italy to every shrine of hill and plain, her eyes lit up and her earnest expression softened in a smile. She pointed to the bundle she carried: it contained a change of clothes and some wraps, which she would spread beneath the shelter of any but or hedge she mune upon at nightfall, What riches are hers, for has she not the whole of Italy to choose from? I listened enviously to the good days she lied known climbing the green hills of Umbria, wandering through the Tuscan vineyards and the olive groves of the South to gain some hallowed spot. In the ecstasy that physical pain had brought to her soul while carrying out the holy purpose of life she forgot dusty roads and other wearinesses, and spoke only of the delights of travel. She was a born saint and traveller.
Whence had the call come to her? I wondered, perhaps after some great sorrow? “Pellegrina,” I asked, “who set you upon your road of wandering prayer?”
“No one but God. He has willed that I should pray for the souls of the living and gain indulgences at these Holy Places for the souls of the dead. Such is my destiny.”
“Were you ever married?”
“Ohimè, Signora! what is that you say? One does not speak of such things.”
Her words came in horrified gasps and her eyes scorched me. “Forgive me, Pellegrina, I meant no harm. Now tell me what you think of this universal war; and how much longer are we to wait for Italy to fight?”
“Waiting? Who waits for Italy? War is here,” she answered promptly. I shook my head: “We are to know to-night, but no news has come from Rome as yet.” “Ma sì, ma sì che c’è la guerra. The word has gone forth from Rome, and Italy fights. It is well, it is well that the war has come. God has sent it to punish us for our sins. Our men have become too proud. They are puffed np with pride like English lords, and God does not wish us to be proud, and they must be brought low and humbled. But it is not only our men who are wicked. There are our women. Ohimè! what do I see these days? I see the women go forth with uncovered breasts and adorned with certain vanities of the devil, which turn their hearts front God. Worse still, I see them abroad wearing skirts so narrow that they look like men. Misericordia! I am ashamed to look at them, but they are not ashamed to be seen. They too shall suffer for their presumption. Away in a foreign land a great multitude of women have been sent out to fight against the enemy. This also shall happen to our women here; they wish to look like men, va bene, they also shall go forth and fight like men.”
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