Good fortune has more value than horse or mule;for an unlucky man a sow will bear mongrels.Many times we see men rise from the dust of the earth,and without knowing how,they find themselves rich,honored,feared,and held in esteem.If you ask:Is this man wise?They'll tell you:Like a mule.Is he discreet?Like an ass.Does he have any good qualities?Those of a dunce.Well,how did he become so wealthy?They'll answer:It was the work of fortune.
Other people,on the contrary,who are discreet,wise,prudent,with many good qualities,capable of ruling a kingdom,find themselves beaten down,cast aside,poor,and made into a rag for the whole world.If you ask why,they'll tell you misfortune is always following them.
And I think it was misfortune that was always pursuing and persecuting me,giving the world a sample and example of what it could do.Because since the world was made there has never been a man attacked so much by this damned fortune as I was.
I was going down a street,begging alms for Saint Lazarus as usual,because in the city I didn't beg for the blessed Anselmo--that was only for the naive and ignorant who came to touch the rosary at his grave,where they said many miracles took place.I went up to a door,and giving my usual cry I heard some people call me from a stairway,"Why don't you come up,Father?Come on,come on,what are you doing,staying down there?"
I started to climb the stairs,which were a little dark,and halfway up some women clasped me about the neck;others held onto my hands and stuck theirs in my pockets And since we were in the dark,when one of the women reached for my pocket she hit upon my locket.
She gave a cry,and said,'What's this?"
I answered,"A little bird that will come out if you touch it."
They all asked why they hadn't seen me for a week.When we reached the top of the stairs they saw me in the light from the windows,and they stood there looking at each other like wooden puppets.Then they burst out laughing and laughed so hard I wondered if they would ever stop.None of them could talk.The first to speak was a little boy who said,"That isn't Daddy."
After those bursts of laughter had subsided a little,the women (there were four of them)asked me what saint I was begging alms for.I told them for Saint Lazarus.
"Why are you begging for him?"they asked."Isn't Father Anselmo feeling well?"
"Well?"I answered."He doesn't feel bad at all because a week ago he died."
When they heard that,they burst into tears,and if the laughter had been loud before,their wailing was even louder.Some of them screamed,others pulled their hair,and with all of them carrying on together,their music was as grating as a choir of hoarse nuns.
One of them said,"What will I do.Oh,me!Here I am without a husband,without protection,without consolation.Where will I go?Who will help me?What bitter news!What a misfortune!"
Another was lamenting with these words:"Oh,my son-in-law and my lord!How could you leave without saying good-by?Oh,my little grandchildren,now you are orphans,abandoned!Where is your good father?"
The children were carrying the soprano of that unharmonious music.They were all crying and shouting,and there was nothing but weeping and wailing.When the water of that great deluge let up a little they asked me how and what he had died from.I told them about it and about the will he had made,leaving me as his lawful heir and successor.And then it all started.The tears turned into rage,their wails into curses,and their sighs into threats.
"You're a thief,and you killed him to rob him,but you won't get away with it,"said the youngest girl."That hermit was my husband,and these three children are his,and if you don't give us all his property,we'll have you hanged.And if the law doesn't do it there are swords and daggers to kill you a thousand times if you had a thousand lives."
I told them there were reliable witnesses there when he'd made his will.
"That's a pack of lies,"they said."Because the day you say he died,he was here,and he told us he didn't have any company."
When I realized that he hadn't given his will to a notary,and that those women were threatening me,along with the experience I'd had with the law and with lawsuits,I decided to be courteous to them.I wanted to try to get hold of what I would lose if it came into the hands of the law.Besides,the new widow's tears had touched my heart.So I told them to calm down,they wouldn't lose anything with me;that if I had accepted the inheritance,it was only because I didn't know the dead man was married--in fact,I had never heard of hermits being married.
Putting aside all their sadness and melancholy,they began to laugh,saying that it was easy to see that I was new and inexperienced in that position since I didn't know that when people talked about solitary hermits they didn't mean they had to give up the company of women.In fact,there wasn't one who didn't have at least one woman to spend some time with after he was through contemplating,and together they would engage in active exercises--so sometimes he would imitate Martha and other times Mary.Because they were people who had a better understanding of the will of God they knew that He doesn't want man to be alone.So,like obedient sons,they have one or two women they maintain,even if it is by alms.
"And this one was especially obedient because he maintained four:this poor widow,me (her mother),these two (her sisters),and these three children who are his sons (or,at least,he considered them his)."
Then the woman they called his wife said she didn't want them to call her the widow of that rotten old carcass who hadn't remembered her the day he died,and that she would swear those children weren't his,and from then on she was renouncing the marriage contract.
"What is that marriage contract?"I asked.
The mother said,"The marriage contract I drew up when my daughter married that ungrateful wretch was this....But before I tell that,I'll have to give you the background.
