Pathway to Japanese Literature

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This, too, was truly one of the actual events that occurred within the history of human life.

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Again assailed by a dream, Clara awoke in the darkness. Her younger sister Agnes continued to sleep peacefully in the same bed, nestled against her sister’s chest. March 18, 1212—the morning of Palm Sunday, commemorating the Savior’s entry into Jerusalem. Among the numerous familiar men, for some reason only three appeared one after another in Clara’s dream. One of them was likewise a noble of Assisi—Paolo of the Montorosoli family, who resided on Via San Paolo northwest of Clara’s house. Even in the dream she noticed the suppleness of the hand resting at her waist—from fingers to shoulder. Clara’s father wore an expectant smile on his cheeks and seemed to urge this refined, modest young man to act more boldly. Paolo approached Clara with intent focus. Then he took out an elaborate necklace—likely imported from France—from a bronze box adorned with beautiful gold inlay and tried to wrap it around Clara’s neck. As the refined and comely young man’s flesh drew near, Clara felt a sweet pain in her chest. As he drew near she was already flushed and struck by faint dizziness. The skin of her chest tingled, her flesh tightened, and blood pumped swiftly from her heart. Her lower body stiffened so severely it seemed numb, and merely contemplating its existence brought overwhelming shame. Her pores grew damp. Her beautiful dark green eyes floated in secretions more luminous than tears. Her slightly parted lips had dried from hot breath. Her hands slick with oily sweat hung limp—too cold and weak to push him away or draw him close. Her body teetered on being dragged backward while her heart strained recklessly forward.

Clara, half-unconscious, tried to resist this terrible sorcerous force. Destruction loomed before her eyes. An abyss opened beneath her feet. Thinking this, she agonized over the need to act yet remained utterly still. Her heart fluttering in panic surged toward the young man like a raging tidal wave. Clara soon felt that supple hand of Paolo upon her neck. When the hot fingertips and cold metal touched her skin simultaneously, all self-control was utterly lost. With a pained expression on her face, she closed her eyes and began to collapse forward. There should be Paolo’s chest. When embraced by that chest, Clara should cease to be her former self.

The moment she thought she would touch Paolo’s chest came and passed, yet mysteriously, without making contact, Clara’s body tilted and fell into unresisting void. Without even a moment to gasp, she plunged suddenly into unfathomable depths. She tried to open her eyes. But they remained tightly shut as though blinded. Through pitch-black darkness, feeling hurricane-like air resistance, she plunged unchecked downward. “I’m falling into hell!” A heart-rending pang of conscience assailed Clara. This was what she had contemplated from the beginning. What wonder that she should fall to hell as punishment for forgetting her sacred vow—the vow sworn at sixteen to live as Christ’s servant? This she had to accept. Yet the agony of never again beholding the face of Christ—God’s Son born through the Holy Virgin—proved unbearable. Turning midair somersaults in her fall, Clara prayed desperately to the Holy Virgin.

Suddenly, she thought something glinted as it passed before her eyes. Then her elbows were supported by something like a shelf, and her knees found firm footing. Clara buried her face between her arms folded on something like a shelf while sobbing like a penitent. Amidst her weeping, Clara’s heart suddenly grew light until everything took on a bright, wondrous air—as when she had been a girl of about ten. Suddenly a vibrant, daring song burst into her ears. Clara raised her head and opened her eyes wide in curiosity. Her elbows rested on the window frame of her own room, her knees atop the familiar oak bench. Her hair was cut to shoulder length in accordance with maidenly custom—a pageboy’s style. From the window beneath hazy moonlight, San Rufino Cathedral—the town’s mother church—and its square lay softened by balmy spring air like a dreamscape. Up the slope north of the temple toward Rocca Maggiore staggered a group of fifteen or sixteen flamboyant youths singing at full voice their paean to youth. Though still within her dream, Clara looked down at this scene and felt she had witnessed it once before.

As soon as this thought crossed her mind, the scene unfolding below the window began to progress swiftly and precisely as Clara had envisioned.

In summer, await the summer I! In spring, await the spring I! In summer, set a falcon upon your arm! In spring, touch your lips to flowers! Now is spring. I am spring. I am spring. Now is spring. Our beloved maiden. Spring it is—ah, this I am—spring it is! As a resonant male chorus resounded through the slumbering town, shameless, indifferent laughter followed in its wake.

No sooner had Clara thought it was about time for those young men to stop than they abruptly halted mid-slope. They seemed to be searching for something among themselves, but soon returned toward the square, shouting “Francis!”, “Young knight of Bernardone!”, and “Liege of the Round Table!” as they searched for their lost companion. They reached the front of the square. And they spotted a young man of about twenty-two or twenty-three walking toward them like a sleepwalker, his steps unsteady. Clara also saw the young man by moonlight—that was Francis of the Bernardone family who lived just across one Corso thoroughfare. Clad in resplendent finery with a crest-emblazoned maroon mantle over his festive robes, gripping in his right hand a scepter proclaiming him sovereign of his drinking companions, Francis cut a figure of rakish grandeur surpassing the other youths—yet his face bore a ghastly pallor from emaciation, eyes unblinkingly fixed on cobblestones several paces ahead as though to bore holes through them. With staggering gait dragged along by an unseen force, he approached Mother Church Square. When they spotted him, the young men who had turned back all at once seized the moment and rushed toward Francis surrounding him. “Francis!” Even when they called him “Young Knight” and shook his shoulders, Francis showed no sign of awakening from his fearful dream. The young men burst into uproarious laughter at his ridiculous antics. “Must’ve been imagining your new bride till your soul slipped out,” one pressed his mouth to Francis’s ear and shouted. Francis looked around bewilderedly like a fox caught in a trap, tearing his eyes from cobblestones to glare bitterly at flushed young smiles encircling him. Clara leaned out from the window with interest as though hearing impromptu poetry, gazing intently at the scene. When Francis finally noticed his donned mantle and gripped scepter, he gave a wry smile—as though finding a thread to recollect revelries he’d been immersed in until now.

“I sure drank and caroused.” “That’s right—I am thinking of my new bride.” “But the bride I am to take is a maiden so beautiful, wealthy, and pure that you lot could never even imagine her.”

With that, he raised his scepter and signaled with his eyes for the young men to go on ahead. After ensuring the young men had hidden themselves noisily in the shadow of the Mother Church, Francis flung his scepter to the ground with bitter resentment and tore his mantle and festive robes to shreds.

In the next instant, Clara saw young Francis—who threw himself against the locked entrance of the Mother Church, tumbling like a dog as he choked on tears of remorse. She watched this with a sense of bewilderment. The spring moon, hazy and misty, illuminated this scene from beginning to end.

The temple door opened. The temple’s interior was dark, its shadowy depths so dense they threatened to spill beyond the threshold. A man emerged from that darkness. Clara—who had somehow transformed from a ten-year-old girl into her present eighteen-year-old self, her age-appropriate long hair braided down her back and clad in a nightgown—stared at the man with foreboding dread. The man first fixed his gaze upon Francis crouching at the entrance before sharply turning piercing eyes toward Clara—yet seized Francis by the collar and yanked him upward. Only the resplendent garments went fluttering skyward in tatters, while Francis himself—whether dissolved or vanished—left neither trace nor shadow behind. Clara watched this unfold with a terrible compulsion. Then the robes remaining in the man’s hands split asunder—one becoming Clara’s father, the other her mother. And standing between them was Clara’s betrothed, Ottaviana Fortebraccio. The three stood aligned upon swamp-blackened earth one tier below Clara’s verdant lawn—her father with threatening mien, her mother lamenting, the man resentful. Ottaviana’s face—weathered and masculine from traversing war-torn cities—bore contours chiseled by relentless ambition, iron will, and unyielding temperament. An aristocratic pride shrouded these features. That countenance which had never revealed vulnerability now glared at Clara with embittered fixation. Though betrothed and though respecting this youth’s masculine vigor, Clara refused to docilely accept his affection. Even within this dreamscape, Clara contemplated her mystifying fate—as though consecrated to God from birth itself. She pondered too how sooner or later she must depart from her birth parents. Looking down, she saw all three reaching toward her. Their feet sank steadily deeper into the black soil. Father’s threatening visage, Mother’s grieving face, Ottaviana’s resentful expression—all contorted grotesquely, mouths agape in silent screams begging deliverance from encroaching torment. Yet all three remained soundless—deathly still and oppressive.

Clara could not simply watch from the lawn. Beyond the faces of the three—buried up to their mouths in mud, their eyes brimming with tears as they fixedly tried to speak something to Clara—countless heads of men and women were quietly sinking into that endless muddy swamp. When a head sank, the unsettling ooze of mud slithering from all sides to fill the void made her hair stand on end. Clara, forgetting everything, tried to step one foot into the mud to save the three.

At that instant, she was cast into a blazing golden light. Neither the lawn nor the sea of mud remained there anymore. Clara, her vision swimming, struggled to rise. Something had seized Clara’s chest, preventing her from rising. Clara knew that it was the angel Gabriel. “To wed Heaven, you are being purified.” She thought she heard such a voice. At the same time, Gabriel thrust a fiercely blazing flaming sword straight through Clara’s chest from between her breasts. The blazing tip reached down to her lower abdomen. Clara raised her eyes in anguish and looked around. Amidst the flickering of dazzling light, the figure of Christ crucified on the cross came solemnly into view. Clara was ecstatic. Her entire body trembled like a leaf under a sensation of painful pleasure she had never known before. At a scream that could tear her throat apart, a moment came when the force filling her entire body was about to be utterly drained. At that instant, Clara awoke from her dream.

Clara rose gently so as not to wake Agnes and looked out from the window. Below her eyes, the Rufino Temple—exactly as seen in her dream—revealed its solemn form within dawn's dim twilight. Clara opened the door and drew in the tender spring air with delight. No sooner had a faint eastern light begun seeping through near Porta Capuchini than the temple bells commemorating the Savior's entry into Jerusalem all began ringing at once. The same cheerful pealing could be heard from the town below too, like cocks exchanging hour-cries from village to village.

Today was indeed the day she would renounce the world and wed Christ. That mysterious dream which had roused her from shallow sleep that morning was undoubtedly a divine message to her resolute heart. Clara looked at Agnes with a heart both tearful and solemn. The fourteen-year-old girl continued to sleep like God.

The room was quiet.

○ Clara left for the morning service at Saint Rufino Temple a little later than her parents and sisters. When she thought this was her last day of secular life, even she felt reluctant to part with it, and applied her makeup with utmost care. She braided her "hair of light"—as it was sung of in Assisi—with pearl cords and let it hang down her back, then donned Venetian pure white silk. While her family was away, she seized the opportunity to quickly gather her farewell letter and mementos, stowing them in the desk drawer. Tears welled up one after another in Clara’s eyes and streamed down. Everything that met her eyes was steeped in nostalgia.

Clara left home with a single maidservant. The Corso was thronged with people woven together like fabric. The spring day shone splendidly, further lifting the holiday spirits of the crowd. Men, women, and clergy alike turned to look at Clara. “Clara of the radiant hair passes by.” Such whispers rippled here and there. Clara walked on, reciting the Lord’s Prayer in her mind like a mantra over and over, her gaze fixed straight ahead as she went. In this bustling thoroughfare, there was not a single obstacle. She walked as though traversing a vast autumn field.

Clara entered the temple and made straight for the Siffi family’s seats, taking her place beside Agnes. Though she immediately sensed Ottaviana’s gaze from the Fortebraccio seats brushing her left cheek, such matters no longer concerned her. She settled into her seat, bowed her head, and closed her eyes. Hot tears threatened to spill uncontrollably from their corners—tears that were both sorrowful and joyous yet ultimately neither. As these unfamiliar tears scorched her eyes, a peculiar fluttering arose in her chest before sudden stillness—deep as an abyss—engulfed her heart. Though fully conscious, Clara felt everything receding dreamlike into the distance. In this pure, empty world, only her soul trembled aflame with ecstasy. Waves of strange anxiety and calmness—like those preceding a death sentence—alternately assailed her. With each surge of calm replacing dread, fresh tears welled up. Her maidenly frame quivered like a reed leaf; her luminous hair shimmered faintly. Of its own volition, Clara’s hand sought Agnes’s.

“Clara, how cold and trembling your hand is.” “Shh, be quiet.” Clara, ashamed of having relied on something unreliable, released her hand. And then, amidst the chokingly thick swelter of worshippers, she returned to solitude once more. “Hosanna… Hosanna…” A chorus began to sound from the sanctuary. The congregation’s unrest subsided all at once, and the commoners without seats knelt on the flagstones. From the open windows flowed soft spring light and air, quietly stirring the flags and banners hanging on the walls. Clara suddenly raised her eyes and looked at the altar. Buried in flowers and enveloped in incense smoke, an ancient Byzantine-style crucifix icon was enshrined deep within. When she saw it, Clara choked back a sob, made the sign of the cross, and silently praised, *Amen*. What poverty. And what compassion.

Whenever Clara looked at the altar, she could not help but recall the events of her sixteenth year. Especially on this morning, that recollection pressed harshly upon her heart.

Just as she had seen in this morning’s dream, the visage of Francis of Bernardone—witnessed with her own eyes at age ten—had since never left Clara’s heart. The rumors that Francis had gone mad, and the hearsay that he had been disowned by his father and joined a band of beggars, struck Clara’s maiden heart with a strangely powerful resonance. When it came to Francis, everyone in the Siffi household—from her father down to the lowliest maidservant—turned him into a prime target for mockery. Whenever Clara heard such vulgar remarks, her face would redden as if she herself had blurted out such things.

It was during the summer when Clara was sixteen that Francis went to Rome with twelve companions and returned having received approval from Innocent III to live following Christ’s example and to preach in churches.

After this event, the attitude of Assisi’s people toward Francis changed abruptly. When Clara finally pleaded with her father at autumn’s end to let her hear that sermon, he merely called her an oddity and made no particular effort to stop her.

Clara’s recollection was of that time.

Clara was still sitting in this very seat of this temple.

In the autumn chill that remained cold even with layered garments, Leo—a companion of Francis—stood completely naked upon the pulpit. There was not a single man or woman who, encountering this strange naked form in this strange place, did not burst into laughter. Low-born women openly hurled lewd words at that young monk. The monk attempted to speak with all the fervor needed to overcome their hostility, but it seemed he still lacked sufficient faith for such a task. Clara could not lift her face.

There, Francis entered, also naked, and ascended the pulpit in Leo’s place. Clara still could not raise her face.

“By the authority of God, His only Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Pope—head of Christ’s disciples—Francis, a sinner of these latter days and a jester who brings joy through God’s calling, declares to the good citizens of Assisi:” Francis had told his fellow believer Leo to preach at the temple today. Leo refused, saying he had not been granted by God the eloquence required to speak of Him. Francis then told him to go naked and preach through his body. Leo valiantly went out naked. After Leo had left, God severely chastised this Francis who, while imposing such ascetic practices upon Leo, remained behind nonchalantly. Let those who have eyes see. The repentant Francis now stands before all of you. “Do you pity Francis’s naked form?” “Then you must fix your eyes upon what lies there.” “Lift your eyes even higher and behold!”

Clara had unconsciously forgotten about being confronted with the man’s naked body and was gazing at Francis. Francis reverently pointed to the crucifix icon enshrined upon the altar at the very moment he said “Lift your eyes and behold.” The Christ on the cross gazed down upon the congregation, pitifully emaciated in His naked form. Twenty-eight-year-old Francis did not possess any strikingly eye-catching features, but his gaunt form—worn by prayer, fasting, and labor—mirrored his spiritualized heart exactly. Though his sermon was not long, when he spoke of God’s love and the blessings of poverty before closing with “Amen,” the people’s compassion was stirred from the depths until they could not help but grip each other’s hands firmly and sob. Clara did not cry as the people cried. She felt her eyes burning.

That day she requested to join Francis’ confessional session. Though many others besides Clara came to confess, she deliberately chose to be last. When her turn came and she went to the apse behind the altar, Francis sat alone on a bench along the wall wearing peasant clothes of birch-colored cloth said to resemble animal hide, a rope belt tied at his waist, his head bowed as if studying his clasped hands before his chest. Seeing Clara, he gestured toward the chair before him. They sat facing each other. And their eyes met.

The apse on that cloudy autumn afternoon was cold, lonely, and pervaded by darkness. The light streaming through stained glass cast a dim hue across several narrow windows, then reached Clara’s hair and softly played amidst its strands. The surroundings were terrifyingly hushed. Clara’s burning eyes clung to Francis’s eyes like a lifeline. Francis’s eyes, filled with calm love, seemed to enfold Clara’s eyes. Clara’s heart grew intoxicated, and through Francis’s eyes, she tried to venerate his noble soul. Before long, tears filled Clara’s eyes to the brim, and once they overflowed, they began to trickle down her cheeks. Even so, she did not cease gazing directly at Francis. And thus, some more time passed. Clara simply sat in silence.

“God’s Maiden”

Francis solemnly spoke thus. Clara could not turn her eyes away.

“Your confession has reached God.” “God has graciously approved.” “Amen.”

Clara could no longer restrain herself. Sliding down from the chair, she threw herself onto the flagstones and wept without restraint. Her small heart threatened to rupture from supreme joy. Unthinkingly edging closer, she touched her hand to Francis’s bare toes. Francis quietly drew back his foot while—as if both comforting and blessing her—resting his hand lightly upon her head before beginning to murmur distantly. Like droplets of a light rain, those words struck Clara’s heart: pure, small, and sharp.

“What is best above all is a heart that is pure and poor.”

A whisper that sounded like a soliloquy reached her ears. And a silence continued for some time. “People think they are satisfied with things as they are now. “I cannot think so.” “You do not think so either.” “God would deem it good.” “Brother Sun and Sister Moon shine brightly, yet people have forgotten the joy of shining.” “Larks sing, yet people do not.” “Trees dance, yet people do not.” “What a lonely world.”

Silence again.

“Silence is as beautiful and noble as poverty.” “I drank your silence like fine wine.”

Then came a silence so long it was terrifying. Suddenly, Francis murmured while suppressing a trembling voice.

“You are in love with me.”

Clara started and looked anew at the saint. Francis regained his composure in an instant from the intense turmoil of his heart. “There’s no need to be so startled.”

With that, he quietly closed his eyes. Clara first came to know her own secret—one she herself had been unaware of—through Francis at that moment. Clara had long struggled in various ways to unravel the strange confusion in her heart, but it was only then that it finally came undone. Clara did not know how to thank Francis for his discernment, nor how she must apologize. For a brief while, only her own maddening sobs rang painfully in Clara’s ears.

"My God, my all." Another long silence continued. Francis kept his hand placed on Clara’s head as he continued to pray in silence.

"My heart trembles too. …I am not worthy of you. You came to me before going to God… Yet God will surely forgive this gentle heart that stumbled through love. He will surely forgive my sins as well." Having said this, Francis rose smoothly. Then with divine majesty unlike anything before—overwhelming Clara—he continued speaking.

“In the name of God, I command. “O Maiden who shall eternally remain God’s pure beloved child, “Gird it about your waist and stand.” Those words had remained seared into Clara’s ears, never fading. And from that moment onward, she had ceased to be an ordinary maiden of this world. As her heart quickened with reminiscence of that time, she wept as violently as she had wept then.

Startled by Agnes’s voice whispering “Clara” close to her ear, Clara raised her face. Contrary to the imagined solitude of the apse she had pictured in her reverie, the nave now pressed thickly with a swarming crowd. The over a hundred maidens gathered before the altar held aloft laurel branches and bouquets in place of palm fronds—like clouds of evening glory trailing across the sky. Before Clara stood the resplendently attired Bishop, his long white beard hanging down to his chest, with Agnes in attendance. When Clara raised her face, he smiled benevolently.

“O bride-to-be maiden. May blessings be upon your tears of joy.” “This laurel was specially brought to you from the altar by the Bishop.” “Accept it along with the Bishop’s goodwill.” Unbeknownst to Clara, the ritual had progressed to its final ceremony—the moment when the Bishop himself would present laurel branches to the pilgrim maidens and lead hymns celebrating the Savior’s triumphal entry. And because Clara alone had not come to the altar, the Bishop himself brought the flowers to where she was. When Clara realized that the Bishop—who had been informed by Francis of her planned renunciation that night—had made this exceptional arrangement to bid her farewell in this manner, she could no longer hold back the renewed surge of tears. Clara’s parents likely misinterpreted the Bishop’s words as pertaining to the marriage arrangement with the Fortebraccio family, beaming while bowing in greeting.

At last, a resplendent hymn burst forth from the throats of a hundred maidens. A fervent and joyous female soprano voice—as if echoing Mount Zion’s triumphant song a thousand years later—resounded through the hall from the sanctuary, vibrating its very walls. The congregation was enchanted, listening raptly.

Clara’s heart—purified and deepened from its very depths—was moved with storm-like intensity even by manifestations of love as slight as dewdrops. Burying her face among the flowers, she swayed to the maidens’ song as she immersed herself utterly in selfless prayer.

○ “Clara… Clara”

Clara was awake but did not respond. Fortunately, as she lay facing away from where her mother stood and nestled close to Agnes, she held her breath and kept silent. Her mother said something filled with maternal affection about how soundly they were both sleeping, placed what looked like garments neatly on the large chair, then approached the bed on tiptoe and gazed intently at their sleeping forms. After laying a nightgown over them and giving it a few light pats, she quietly left the room.

Clara’s pillow was soaked with tears as if wrung out. The moonless spring night gradually deepened. The bell signaling the closing of the town gates had rung two hours prior, so the boisterous clamor of villagers who had gathered on the Corso bustling with trade was no longer audible, and every shop along the eaves seemed to have already shuttered and fallen silent. Apart from the occasional plaintive cries of tomcats yearning for females, the only sound was the quiet descent of the clock’s weight in Clara’s room, its gears creaking. The spring air from the mountain above filled the room gently and quietly, permeating every corner with the fragrance of laurel branches and bouquets the two had brought back from the chapel.

Clara prayed and prayed as if clinging desperately. When she opened her eyes, there was Agnes’s sleeping face close by. Agnes—the innocent, guileless, pure-as-an-angel Agnes—who adored Clara as both sister and parent. Agnes, who had seen Clara’s eyes tending to fill with tears these past two or three days, had been tearful alongside her. ……Agnes’s eyelashes were always as beautiful as if washed by tears. Her especially fair cheeks had taken on a healthy flush after she fell asleep, and between them, her small, shapely nose trembled faintly with each tranquil breath. Those large eyes—which belonged to this maiden said to possess “Clara’s radiant hair and Agnes’s luminous eyes,” herself endowed with peerless luster yet bearing an inexplicable sorrow—could not be seen. The longer Clara gazed, the more a surge of sisterly affection welled up within her, until she gently stroked from her hair down to her cheek with her palm. The warm, smooth sensation felt by that hand ignited Clara’s carnal desire like fire. Clara, yearning to hold her close and lavish her with affection, half-rose and leaned over. At the same time, the gravity of that situation made Clara stop herself. Clara, propped on her elbows in a half-risen position, gazed at Agnes as she wept softly and steadily. Like a mother stroking her dead only child while weeping.

As the spring creaked, the clock began to ring. Clara knew it was exactly midnight even without counting the chimes. Without even wiping her tears, she quietly slipped out of bed. The appointed time had come. The Sabbath had passed and Holy Monday arrived. Clara got out of bed and tried to put on the Venetian white silk she had worn to the chapel the previous day. It was a color befitting a bride. Yet when she looked, there lay on the large chair another outfit her mother had brought the night before. This was a wisteria-purple ensemble Clara had often favored. Since there would be another ceremony at San Rufino Cathedral on Holy Monday, she immediately understood her mother’s thoughtful intention to have her wear different attire from yesterday’s. Clara dressed herself gratefully yet joyfully. As she did so, she imagined how this might have been had it been a marriage with her parents’ blessing. Father would likely be sitting in that chair, smiling as he watched over her. Mother and the maid would stand before and behind her, helping with her adornments. With these thoughts, Clara carefully fastened the hard-to-reach buttons on her back without making a sound. Following her usual habit, she took out the small box containing necklaces and rings from her dresser drawer—only to realize they served no purpose now. Clara suddenly felt a pang of lingering attachment toward those jewels. Each piece carried its own memories. She pressed a light kiss to the box’s lid before putting it away exactly as it had been. The lonely bride’s preparations reached their solitary conclusion in the quiet night.

Within that, her heart gradually calmed and gained strength. The worry she had thought while in bed—What should I do when escaping home if she cries this much?—had become unnecessary. With a heart subdued yet resolute, Clara knelt before the sacred icon in the corner of the room and offered a candle flame. And quietly looked back upon her past. Since childhood, an inexpressible dissatisfaction had lain at the bottom of Clara’s heart. Her irritable mood often made her complain about how her hair was styled and her clothes were put on. After venting her complaints at length and finding herself alone, she would be overcome by an indescribable loneliness—and now even the memory of having wept alone in a corner of her room for half a day came back to her. Clara disliked even seeing her beloved mother’s face during such times. Even more so, her father’s face looked like that of a wild beast. Someone will come to help me soon. Since they would take me to a heaven like the one depicted in the chapel’s murals, that would be fine, she thought. Whenever she encountered various religious paintings, she would wonder where her desired destination might be, contemplating this as she studied them carefully. Within that, within Clara’s heart, two worlds came to be conceived. One was a world where the citizens of Assisi, encompassing even the clergy, lived from top to bottom. The other was a world of Christ and the saints to whom the citizens paid reverence, whether in faith or even in contempt. Clara had been born into the first world and was of a station that should have attained splendor and glory. Why she had come to gaze upon that world with such thirsting eyes, even Clara herself did not understand—yet she could not help watching with pensive intensity the figure of a nameless beggar who walked through Assisi’s bustling crossroads. These streets now thrived with citizens basking in their city’s pride of independence and prosperity after its victory over Perugia. There he moved among opulent townsfolk, crying out: Seek peace, and may there be eternal peace! Whether he had died or abandoned his mission, the beggar ceased to appear, and the citizens indulged in lives of unrestrained pleasure without inhibition—but Clara found herself utterly unable to resign herself to living according to the ways of her father and his associates. It was around this time that Francis—who until recently had stood at the forefront of the first world, valiantly defying the second—appeared in the streets of Assisi wearing a peasant’s clothes. Though children jeered at him as a madman, he came to gather support for rebuilding San Damiano Monastery. Clara had been secretly observing the behavior of this beggar monk.

Around that time, marriage talks with the Montorosoli family arose, and Clara began to frequently hear serenades sung late beneath her window. It set Clara’s heart leaping and fluttering. At the same time, Clara feared this mysterious power more than anything else.

Around that time, Clara discovered the following passage in an old book of unknown authorship.

“O you who would drown in flesh, Know you not that flesh is temptation unto spirit? Those whose spiritual eyes are dim must first awaken to love through the flesh. Do they not know that those who awaken to love and nourish it will find no rest unless they attain the spirit? But those whose spiritual eyes are keen, without leaning on the flesh, directly perceive where love lies concealed. Just as the Holy Virgin conceived the Savior not through flesh, you whose spiritual eyes are keen shall become vessels of all virtues through the Holy Spirit. Do not fear the vastness of the world of flesh. If you do not fear, through God’s grace you shall realize that you were born with keen spiritual eyes.”

Clara read over that passage many times. Her doubts were strangely dispelled by this unremarkable text. And she came to feel affection for Francis. Whenever someone spoke in defense of Francis, she felt such affection that she could not help growing jealous. From that time on, Clara ceased to consider any marriage proposals. Even when her father accepted the engagement with the Fortebraccio family, Clara simply declined and left matters to follow their natural course. Her heart no longer lingered on such things. She had been focused solely on awaiting the chance to devote her pure mind and body to Christ with single-minded devotion. Then came the autumn of her sixteenth year—after confessing before Francis, her heart at last broke free completely from the world of flesh.

The long, long year-and-a-half trial of engagement with heaven came to an end tonight. From now on awaited a joyous state where she could devote both body and soul to her one Lord. Clara’s face flushed and glowed. After offering her final prayer before the sacred icon, she rose eagerly. And taking the mirror in hand, she looked closely at her own face. That was her final farewell to her own flesh. In her eyes, Agnes’s sleeping face appeared enchantingly, as though clinging to her vision. Clara quietly approached the bed, spread the laurel branches she had brought back from the chapel over the indentation where she had lain, placed the sacred icon upon them, and adorned their surroundings with flowers. And once again she offered a prayer to the sacred icon.

"If it be Your will, Lord, call Agnes unto You as well."

Clara lightly kissed Agnes’s forehead. She had nothing left to do.

Without hesitation, Clara left the room, left a fervent kiss on the wooden floor before her parents’ bedroom, then opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony. When she peered down from the handrail, two human figures were visible in the darkness. “Amen,” a solemn voice resounded from below. Clara responded “Amen,” and descended to the road by means of the prepared rope.

The sky and road were dark. The three bribed Porta Nuova’s gatekeeper and passed through the gate with ease. Beyond the gate stretched Umbria’s plain—pitch-dark, vast and distant before their eyes. Monte Falco’s mountain rose from the plain into the blackened sky, solemnly gazing their way. The solitary bride—guarded by two hooded men who hid their faces—descended the winding slope by starlight while clinging to prayers fervently offered to Jehovah.

At a bend in the slope where the lamplight of Porziuncola—the chapel of Francis and his companion—had begun to glimmer far below, four friars holding torches waited for Clara. Clara’s heart, until now cold and calm as ice, now thought of her parents and sister with fierce intensity—like a dying soul clutching at final worldly attachments. Bathed in torchlight, Clara’s eyes glistened once more with tears of lingering regret. An unknowable loneliness assailed that youthful heart.

“Pray for me.” Clara implored the four torchbearers through her sobs. The four placed Clara in their center and crouched in silence.

Breaking the peaceful night silence of the plain, from far below at Porziuncola came the voices of their heartfelt chanted hymns—the brethren who were to welcome the new bride—heard quietly, faintly, and solemnly.

(August 15, 1917, at Usui Pass)