Pathway to Japanese Literature

○ This, too, is one of the actual events that occurred in the history of human life. ○ Again assailed by a dream, Clara opened her eyes in the darkness. In the same bed, Agnes continued to sleep peacefully, nestled against her sister’s chest. On the morning of March 18, 1212—the Palm Sunday commemorating the Savior’s Entry into Jerusalem. Among the numerous men she knew, for some reason only three appeared one after another in Clara’s dream. One of them was also a noble of Assisi—Paolo of the Montrusoli family, who lived on Via San Paolo northwest of Clara’s home. Even in the dream, the suppleness of the hand resting at her waist—from fingers to shoulder—caught her eye. Clara’s father wore a smile brimming with expectation on his cheeks and seemed to urge this refined, reserved young man to act more boldly. Paolo approached Clara with purposeful intent. And then he took out an exquisite 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 handsome young man’s body drew closer, Clara felt a sweet anguish in her chest. The moment Clara thought the young man was drawing near, she flushed and was struck by a slight dizziness. The skin of her chest tingled, her flesh tightened, and blood was pumped swiftly and forcefully from her heart. The limbs below her chest stiffened to the point of numbness; even the mere thought of their existence filled her with overwhelming shame. The roots of her hair grew damp with sweat. Her beautiful dark green eyes floated in a secretion that shone brighter than tears. Her lightly parted lips had dried parched from the hot breath. Her hands, oozing greasy sweat, grew cold as ice; whether to push the youth away or draw him close, they hung limp and powerless.

While her body teetered on the brink of being dragged backward, her heart strained recklessly to surge forward. While half-conscious, Clara struggled against this terrifying sorcerous force. Ruin loomed before her eyes. An abyss gaped beneath her feet. Tormented by the need to act yet paralyzed into inaction, she writhed. Her frantic heart raged like a tidal wave crashing toward the youth. Clara felt Paolo’s supple hand upon her neck. When scorching fingertips and cold metal touched her skin simultaneously, all restraint vanished. She closed her eyes and swayed forward with a pained expression. There his chest should have been. To be enveloped by it would mean ceasing to be Clara.

The moment she thought she would touch Paolo’s chest came and went, yet mysteriously, without touching that chest, Clara’s body tilted and fell into unresisting space. Before she could gasp in surprise, she plunged abruptly into an unfathomable depth. She tried to open her eyes. However, they were tightly shut, leaving her as if blind. Through pitch-black darkness, feeling air resistance like that of a typhoon, she fell and fell without restraint. I am falling into hell. A gut-wrenching pang of remorse suddenly assailed Clara. That was fundamentally something Clara had been contemplating from the very beginning. Having sworn at sixteen to live as Christ’s handmaid, what wonder was there in falling into hell as retribution for forgetting that sacred vow? She had to steel herself for that. Even so, the agony of being eternally deprived of beholding the face of Christ—the Son of God born into this world through the Holy Virgin—was unbearable. Clara somersaulted and fell while praying fervently to the Holy Mother.

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 arms folded on something resembling a shelf, sobbing like a penitent. Amidst her crying, Clara’s heart suddenly grew light, and soon it assumed the mood of her ten-year-old girlhood—when everything seemed splendid and wondrous. Suddenly a bold, lively song reached her ears. Clara raised her head and stared with curious eyes. Her elbows rested on the window frame of her own room; her knees were planted atop the familiar oak bench. Her hair, following the custom for maidens, was cut down to shoulder length like a page’s.

From the window, beneath the hazy moonlight, San Rufino Cathedral—the town’s matron—and the square before it, softened by the smooth spring air, spread out like a dream. Up the slope north of the cathedral leading toward Rocca Maggiore, a group of fifteen or sixteen splendid youths, stumbling together, were singing at the top of their voices a song in praise of youth as they went. Clara looked down at this scene from the window and, even though she was in a dream, thought that she had witnessed this once before.

No sooner had this thought formed than the events below the window rapidly unfolded exactly as Clara had imagined.

In summer, wait for the summer me. In spring, wait for the spring me. In summer, set a falcon upon your arm. In spring, touch your mouth to flowers. Now is spring. I am spring. I am spring. Now is spring. O my blessed maiden. O spring am I—ah, this spring am I!

A resonant male chorus resounded through the slumbering town, followed by a heedless, shameless guffaw. When Clara thought it was about time those youths would stop, they indeed suddenly halted midway up the slope. They seemed to be searching for something together, but soon returned toward the square, shouting “Francis!”, “Young knight of Bernardone!”, and “Leader of the Round Table children!” as they came back to look for their lost companion. They reached the edge of the square. And they spotted a young man who appeared to be twenty-two or twenty-three years old walking toward them like a sleepwalker, his steps unsteady. Clara also saw the young man by the moonlight. That was Francis of the Bernardone family, who lived just across one thoroughfare from the Corso. Clad in resplendent ceremonial robes over which he wore a dark green cloak emblazoned with his family crest, gripping in his right hand a scepter that proclaimed his sovereignty over drinking companions—his appearance presented a rakish demeanor surpassing even the other youths—but his face was gaunt and unnervingly pale, his eyes staring unblinking at the cobblestones two or three *ken* ahead as though boring holes through them. And with a staggering gait, as though dragged by some invisible force, he drew nearer to Cathedral Square. When they spotted that, the youths who had turned back all raised a cry at once and came dashing over to surround Francis. “Francis!” Even when they called out things like “Young knight!” while shaking his shoulders, Francis showed no sign of awakening from his terrifying dream. The youths burst into uproarious laughter at his ridiculous state. “Your soul’s flown off imagining some new bride, eh?” One of them pressed his mouth to Francis’s ear and shouted. Francis looked bewildered, like a fox caught in a trap, lifted his eyes from the cobblestones, and surveyed with bitter resentment the several flushed young smiles surrounding him—their faces aglow from wine. Clara, her interest stirred as though listening to an impromptu poem, leaned out from the window and gazed intently at it. When Francis finally noticed the mantle he wore and the scepter he held in his hand, he smiled wryly, as though he had at last found a thread to the recollections of the revelries he had been immersed in until now.

“We drank deep and reveled hard.” “Aye, I ponder a bride new-wrought.” “Yet this bride I’ll claim outshines your basest fancy—a maiden fair, richly dowered, chaste beyond measure.”

So saying, he raised his scepter and signaled with his eyes for the youths to go on ahead. Once he saw the youths disappear noisily into the cathedral’s shadow, Francis resentfully hurled his scepter to the ground and tore his mantle and ceremonial robes to shreds.

The next instant, Clara threw herself toward the cathedral’s locked entrance and saw young Francis rolling like a dog as he choked on tears of remorse. She watched this with bewilderment.

The spring moon, hazy and misty, was illuminating this scene from beginning to end.

The cathedral door opened. The cathedral’s interior was darkness so thick it seemed about to spill beyond the door. From that darkness emerged a man. From a ten-year-old girl, Clara had unwittingly become her present eighteen-year-old self, her long hair—grown to match her age—braided down her back as she wore her nightgown. With a foreboding of terror, she stared at the man. The man fixed his eyes on Francis crouching at the entrance, then turned a sharp gaze toward Clara—but seized Francis by the collar and pulled him up. Fluttering up into the air were only the resplendent garments, while Francis himself—the crucial figure—had vanished without a trace, as though melted away or dissolved into nothingness. Clara felt a terrible impulse as she watched. Then, the garments remaining in the man’s hands split into two—one becoming Clara’s father, the other her mother. And the man standing between the two was Clara’s betrothed, Ottaviana Fortebraccio. The three stood in a monotonous row upon marsh-like black soil one tier below the beautiful lawn where Clara stood—the father as if threatening, the mother as if lamenting, the man as if resenting. Ottaviana’s sunburned, masculine face—likely having passed through many battle-torn cities—was etched with insatiable ambition, a strong will, and an uncompromising disposition. And over it all lay an aristocratic pride. That face—which until now had apparently never shown weakness before anyone—stared fixedly at Clara with resentment. Even though Clara was betrothed to him, and even though she respected this young man’s masculine strength, she refused to meekly accept his love. Clara, even while in the dream, pondered her own mysterious fate—one that seemed to have been consecrated to God from the moment of her birth. She also contemplated that sooner or later, she would have to leave her birth parents. When she looked, the three were reaching out their hands toward her. And their feet were sinking inch by inch into the black soil. The threatening face of her father, the lamenting face of her mother, and the resentful face of Ottaviana all transformed before her eyes, their mouths twisting open as though forgetting all shame to scream for deliverance from the hardship pressing upon them. Yet all three remained silent, deathly quiet and gloomy.

Clara could not simply watch from the lawn above. Beyond the three faces—mouths buried in mud, eyes brimming with tears as they strained to speak to Clara—countless heads of men and women were silently sinking into that endless muddy bog. When a head sank in, the oozing mud from all sides surged to fill the void—its unsettling movement made one’s hair stand on end. Clara, forgetting everything else, tried to plunge one foot into the mud to save the three.

In that instant, she was hurled into a blazing golden light. Neither the lawn nor the sea of mud remained there. Clara struggled to rise up while her vision swam. Something clutched Clara’s chest, preventing her from rising. Clara knew it was the Angel Gabriel. “You are purified to wed Heaven.” I thought I heard such a voice. At the same time, Gabriel thrust his blazing flaming sword forcefully through between Clara’s breasts. The burning tip reached down to her lower abdomen. In anguish, Clara raised her eyes and looked around. Within the flickering of dazzling light, the figure of Christ crucified appeared solemnly. Clara became enraptured. Her entire body trembled like a leaf under an excruciating yet blissful sensation unlike any she had ever known. A moment came when—with a scream that might tear her throat—she sought to wring out every ounce of strength filling her body. At that moment, Clara’s dream ended.

Clara quietly rose so as not to wake Agnes and looked out the window. Below her—just as seen in the dream—Rufino Cathedral revealed its solemn form within dawn's gloom. Clara opened the door and inhaled the soft spring air with pleasure. Before long, when faint eastern light began seeping from Porta Capuchini's direction, the temple bells commemorating the Savior's Entry into Jerusalem all began ringing at once. The same cheerful peal could be heard from the town below too, like roosters crowing the hour from village to village.

Today was the day I must renounce the world and wed Christ. The mysterious dream that had roused her from shallow sleep that morning could only be divine revelation to her resolute heart. Clara looked at Agnes with tearful solemnity. The fourteen-year-old girl slept on like an embodiment of divinity. The room held its silence.

○

Clara left slightly later than her parents and younger sisters and set out for the morning service at San Rufino Cathedral. When she thought this was the last day of her secular life, she found herself reluctant to part and applied her makeup with focused care. She braided her hair—that “radiant hair” celebrated throughout Assisi—with pearl cords to cascade down her back, and wore pure white Venetian silk. Seizing the moment when her family was absent, she swiftly gathered farewell letters and keepsakes to store in the desk drawer. Tears welled up ceaselessly from Clara’s eyes. Everything that met her gaze brimmed with nostalgia.

Clara left home with one maidservant. On Corso Street, people were gathered as if woven together. The spring day shone splendidly, further lifting the spirits of the people on the holy day. Men, women, and priests all turned to look at Clara. “Clara of the radiant hair passes by.” Such whispers were murmured here and there. Clara walked on, staring straight ahead as she repeated the Lord’s Prayer in her heart like a Buddhist chant, over and over with single-minded devotion. In this bustling thoroughfare, there was not a single obstacle. She walked as though traversing a vast autumn field.

Clara entered through the cathedral entrance and went straight to the Schiffi family’s seats, taking her place beside Agnes. She immediately felt upon her left cheek the gaze Ottaviana directed from the Fortebraccio family’s seats but no longer concerned herself with such matters. Upon sitting down, she lowered her face and closed her eyes. Almost unconsciously, hot tears threatened to seep from the corners of her eyes. They were tears both of sorrow and joy yet simultaneously neither. As these unprecedented tears began burning her eyes, an odd fluttering arose in her chest before an abyssal stillness suddenly assailed her heart. Though fully conscious, Clara felt everything receding from her like a dream. In a pure void emptied of all else, Clara’s solitary soul trembled with ecstasy and burned. A strange alternation of anxiety and calmness—akin to awaiting execution—assailed her in turns. Each time calm replaced anxiety, tears surged anew in Clara’s eyes. Clara’s virginal body quivered like a reed leaf. Her luminous hair too trembled faintly. Clara’s hand sought Agnes’s hand of its own accord.

“Clara, how cold and trembling your hand is!” “Shh, be quiet.” Ashamed of having relied on something unreliable, Clara released the hand. And in the suffocating heat of worshippers, she returned to solitude once more. _Hosanna… Hosanna…_

A chorus began to echo from the sanctuary. The congregation's unrest subsided all at once; those without seats among the common folk knelt on the flagstones. Through open windows flowed soft spring light and air, gently teasing the flags and pennants hanging from the walls. Clara suddenly lifted her eyes to gaze at the altar. There enshrined in depth lay an ancient Byzantine crucifix buried in flowers and steeped in incense smoke. At this sight Clara choked back tears while making the sign of the cross, inwardly intoning "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 this morning, that recollection bore down harshly on her heart. As she had seen in this morning’s dream, the visage of Francis of Bernardone—which she had witnessed firsthand at age ten—had since never left Clara’s heart. The rumor 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 strange intensity. When it came to Francis, the people of the Schiffi family—from her father down to the lowest maidservant—made him a laughingstock. Every time Clara heard such remarks, she blushed as though she herself had uttered those words.

When Clara was sixteen years old in the summer, Francis went to Rome with twelve companions and returned having received approval from Innocent III to live following Christ’s example and preach in churches. After this event, the attitude of Assisi’s people toward Francis changed abruptly. Even when Clara—at autumn’s end—resolutely entreated her father to let her hear that sermon, he merely called her an eccentric creature 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 cathedral. In the autumn chill that pierced through layered garments, Francis’s companion Leo stood completely naked upon the pulpit. Men and women alike, encountering this bizarre nakedness in such an incongruous place, could not help but burst into laughter. Low-status women openly hurled lewd words at the young monk. The monk tried to speak with enough fervor to overcome all opposition, but he still seemed to lack sufficient faith for that. Clara could not lift her face.

There, Francis entered still naked and ascended the pulpit in Leo’s place. Clara still could not lift her face. “By the authority of God, His only Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Pope—head of Christ’s disciples—I, Francis, an end-times sinner and God’s jester who brings joy to people by divine summons, declare to the good citizens of Assisi. Today Francis had told his fellow believer Leo to preach at the cathedral. Leo refused, saying he had not been granted eloquence by God to speak of divine matters. Francis then said, ‘Then go naked and preach with your body.’ Leo valiantly stripped naked and went out. After Leo had left, God severely chastised this Francis—who, while imposing such ascetic practices on Leo, had remained casually behind. Let those who have eyes see. Francis, having repented, now stands before you all. Do you take pity on Francis’s naked form? Then you must fix your eyes upon what lies there. Let those who have eyes raise them still higher and look!’”

Before she knew it, Clara had forgotten even that she was facing a man’s naked body and was gazing at Francis. No sooner had Francis said, "Raise your eyes and look," than he reverently pointed to the crucifix enshrined on the altar. The Christ upon the cross gazed down at the congregation in His pitifully emaciated nakedness. Though twenty-eight-year-old Francis possessed no particularly striking features that drew people’s gazes, his emaciated form from prayers, fasting, and labor perfectly mirrored his spiritually transformed heart. Though his sermon was not long, when he spoke of God’s love and the blessings of poverty, then closed his mouth with “Amen,” the people’s hearts of love were shaken from their depths, and they involuntarily grasped each other’s hands tightly and sobbed. Clara did not cry as the people did. She felt as though her eyes were burning.

That day she requested to join Francis's confession session. There were many others besides Clara who came to confess, but Clara deliberately chose to be last. When Clara's turn came and she went to the apse behind the altar, Francis sat alone on a bench along the wall wearing a peasant's tunic said to be beast-colored—though in truth birch-hued—with a rope belt tied about his waist, his head bowed as if gazing intently at his hands clasped before his chest. When he saw Clara, he gestured toward the chair before him. The two sat facing each other. And they exchanged glances.

The apse on that cloudy autumn afternoon was chilly, desolate, and pervaded by darkness. The light filtering through the stained glass tinted several narrow windows darkly before streaming down to Clara’s hair, where it played in solemn stillness. The surroundings were terrifyingly still. Clara's burning eyes clung to Francis's eyes like a lifeline. Francis’s eyes, brimming with calm love, embraced Clara’s eyes as if to gather them in. Clara’s heart grew intoxicated, and through Francis’s eyes, she sought to venerate his noble soul. When tears had welled up in Clara’s eyes until they threatened to overflow, they began to stream down her cheeks in rivulets. Even still, she did not cease gazing directly at Francis. And so, another span of time passed. Clara remained seated in silence.

“Virgin of God.”

After a time, Francis solemnly said. Clara could not tear her eyes away. “Your confession has reached God. God has deigned to approve. Amen.”

Clara could no longer restrain herself. She slid down from the chair, threw herself onto the stone floor, and wept to her heart’s content. That small heart was on the verge of bursting from supreme joy. When without thinking she drew closer and touched her hand to Francis’s bare toes, Francis quietly withdrew his foot and, as if both consoling and blessing her, placed his hand lightly upon her head before murmuring distantly. Like the dripping of a light rain, those words struck Clara’s heart—pure, small, and sharp.

“Above all else, what is best is a pure and humble heart.”

A whisper that sounded like a soliloquy reached her ears. And then a prolonged silence ensued.

“People think they’re satisfied as they are.” “I do not think so.” “You don’t think so either.” “God will deem it good.” “Though brother sun and sister moon shine brightly, people have forgotten the joy of shining.” “Skylarks sing, yet people do not.” “Trees leap, yet people do not.” “It’s a lonely world.” Silence fell again. “Silence is as beautiful and noble as poverty.” “I drank your silence like fine wine.”

Then a dreadfully long silence continued. Suddenly, Francis murmured while quelling his trembling voice.

“You are in love with me.” Clara jolted and looked up at the Saint anew. Francis regained his composure in an instant from his intense emotional turmoil. “There’s no need to be so startled.” With that, he quietly closed his eyes.

Clara learned her own secret—one she herself had been unaware of—through Francis in that moment. She had long tormented herself over the mysterious turmoil of her heart through countless interpretations, but it was then that it first became unraveled. Clara knew neither how to give thanks for Francis’s divine insight nor how she ought to apologize. For a brief while, only her own maddened weeping rang painfully in Clara’s ears.

"My God, my all."

Another long silence ensued. Francis kept his hand placed on Clara’s head as he prayed in silence.

“My heart trembles too. “…I am not worthy of you. “You made a detour to me before going to God… Yet God will surely forgive a gentle heart that stumbled through love. “…and will deign to forgive my sins as well.” Having said this, Francis rose gracefully. Now transformed utterly from before, he continued speaking with divine majesty that overwhelmed Clara. “By the holy name of God, I command: “O Virgin who shall eternally remain God’s pure beloved child. “Gird your loins and stand.”

Those words still burned in Clara’s ears, unvanished. And from that moment on, she had ceased to be an ordinary maiden of the world. While her heart quickened with reminiscence of that time, she wept as violently as she had wept then.

Suddenly startled by Agnes’s voice whispering “Clara” close to her ear, Clara raised her face. In stark contrast to the desolate apse she had envisioned in her reverie, the nave now pressed thickly with swarming crowds. Over a hundred girls gathered before the altar held aloft laurel branches and bouquets in place of palm fronds—as if clouds of evening glory trailed across the sky. Before Clara stood the Bishop in resplendent vestments, his long white beard cascading down his chest, with Agnes in attendance. When Clara raised her face, he smiled benevolently.

“O Bride-to-be Virgin. May blessings dwell upon your tears of joy.” “This laurel was specially brought to you from the altar by the Bishop.” “Receive it now with his goodwill.”

While Clara remained unaware, the ritual had progressed to its final ceremony—the Bishop himself handing laurel branches to the pilgrim virgins as the time arrived to sing hymns celebrating the Savior’s entry into Jerusalem. And because Clara alone had not come to the altar, the Bishop himself had brought the laurel to where she was. When Clara realized that the Bishop—who had been informed by Francis of her plan to renounce the world that night—had taken this extraordinary measure to bid her a formal farewell despite their distance, she found herself unable to stem the renewed surge of tears. Clara’s parents must have taken the Bishop’s words as pertaining to the marriage arrangement with the Fortebraccio family; they bowed in greeting while forcing strained smiles.

At last, a glorious hymn arose from the throats of a hundred virgins. Soprano voices brimming with fervor and joy—as though echoing Mount Zion’s triumphal hymns a millennium later—resounded through the cathedral nave, vibrating from the chancel. The congregation was enchanted and listened entranced. Clara’s heart—purified and deepened from its very depths—was moved as if by a storm even by the slightest manifestation of love. Burying her face among the flowers, as she was swayed by the maidens’ singing, she became utterly immersed in selfless prayer.

○

“Clara… Clara” Clara was awake but did not respond. Fortunately, since she lay facing away from where mother was and close to Agnes, she kept holding her breath and remained silent. Mother said something in her characteristically maternal tone—words like “How soundly both of you are sleeping”—and after placing what appeared to be garments neatly on the large chair, she approached the bed with stealthy footsteps and studied their sleeping forms intently. And after laying a night garment over them and giving it two or three 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 tolled two hours prior, so the boisterous commotion of villagers who had gathered at the Corso busily engaged in buying and selling was no longer audible, and every shop along the eaves seemed to have already closed and fallen silent. Apart from the occasional longing cries of tomcats yearning for females, the only sounds were the clock’s weight in Clara’s room quietly descending and the gears creaking. The spring air from the mountain above filled the room with gentle tranquility, permeating every corner with the fragrance of the laurel and bouquet that the two had brought back from the cathedral.

Clara prayed desperately as though clinging to salvation. When she opened her eyes, Agnes’ sleeping face lay close before her. Agnes—innocent, pure-hearted, angelically pure—who adored Clara as both sister and parent. Agnes who, these past few days upon seeing tears ever ready to pool in Clara’s eyes, had herself teared up in sympathy. ...Those eyelashes of hers were always beautiful as though cleansed by tears. Her fair cheeks especially had taken on a healthy flush in sleep, the shapely little nose between them quivering faintly with each calm breath. She could not see those large eyes of the maiden—said to possess “Clara’s luminous hair, Agnes’ luminous eyes”—which held matchless radiance yet somehow seemed pitiful for a girl. The longer Clara gazed, the more fraternal affection surged within her, until she gently stroked from hairline to cheek with her palm. The warm smoothness beneath her hand kindled Clara’s carnal desire to flame. She wanted to embrace Agnes, to lavish affection without restraint—half-rising, she leaned over. Simultaneously, the gravity of circumstances stayed her. Propped on her elbows with torso half-raised, Clara wept quietly while gazing at Agnes. As a mother might weep while stroking her dead only child.

With a creak of its spring, the clock began to ring. Clara knew it was midnight without counting. Without even wiping her tears, she quietly slipped from the bed. The appointed hour had come. The Sabbath had passed; Holy Monday had arrived. Clara stepped down and tried to don the Venetian white silk she had worn to San Rufino Cathedral yesterday. It was a bride-worthy hue. But there on the armchair lay other garments her mother had brought last night. The lavender ensemble Clara favored. She instantly understood her mother’s thoughtful intent—since another ceremony awaited at San Rufino Cathedral this Holy Monday, she should wear different attire than yesterday’s. Clara dressed gratefully yet wistfully. As she fastened each button, she imagined this might have been her wedding with parental blessing. Her father would likely sit smiling on that chair there, watching over her. Mother and maid would stand before and behind, tending her bridal toilette. Taking care to make no sound, Clara struggled with the hard-to-reach back buttons. From her dresser drawer she retrieved the small box holding necklace and rings—now realizing their futility. A sudden pang of attachment struck her toward those jewels. Each gemstone carried its own constellation of memories. Clara kissed the box’s lid lightly before restoring it exactly. The lonely bride’s preparations concluded in silent night.

Within that solitude，her heart gradually calmed and gained strength. The worry she had felt while lying in bed—"What should I do when fleeing this home，with her crying so much?"—had become unnecessary. Though weighed down，her spirits were tautly resolved as Clara knelt before the sacred statue in the corner of the room and offered up the candle flame. And she quietly looked back on her past. From childhood，Clara had harbored an inexpressible dissatisfaction deep within her heart. Her irritable moods often made her complain about how her hair was styled and how her clothes were put on. The memory too revived—how after scolding at length and being left alone，she would be struck by inexpressible loneliness and weep for half a day all by herself in the corner of the room. At such times，Clara even disliked seeing her beloved mother’s face. Moreover，father’s face appeared like a wild beast. Soon someone would come and help me. She thought it was fine because they would take her to a heaven like that depicted in the cathedral’s murals. Whenever she encountered various religious paintings，she would wonder where her desired destination might be and observe them carefully. Within that，two worlds began taking shape within Clara’s heart. One was a world where Assisi’s citizens，clergy included，lived from top to bottom. The other was Christ’s realm with His saints—a world receiving homage regardless of true belief. Clara had been born into that first world，destined for glory and splendor. Why she yearned toward that other realm even Clara couldn’t fathom—yet she found herself compelled to study that nameless beggar shouting “Seek peace! Let eternal peace reign!” through Assisi’s prosperous crossroads，threading among citizens swollen with pride over Perugia’s defeat，their newfound independence. When he vanished—dead or apostate—the citizens plunged into unbridled indulgence，yet Clara couldn’t reconcile herself to living by her father’s ways. Then came Francis—that same Francis who’d once championed worldly life against spiritual realms—now appearing through Assisi’s streets in peasant rags，mocked as mad while begging alms for San Damiano’s restoration. Clara secretly watched this mendicant monk’s every move.

Around that time, as marriage talks with the Montrusoli family arose, Clara began frequently hearing serenades sung late beneath her window. This set Clara’s heart leaping and fluttering. Yet simultaneously, Clara came to fear this mysterious power above all else.

At that time, Clara discovered the following passage in an old book of unknown authorship. “O you who seek to drown in flesh, Know you not that flesh is a temptation unto the spirit? Those whose spiritual eyes are dull first awaken to love through the flesh. Know you not that those who awaken to love and nurture it shall find no rest until they attain the spirit? But those whose spiritual eyes are keen know where love lies hidden without relying on the flesh. Just as the Holy Virgin conceived the Savior not through flesh, so you whose spiritual eyes are keen shall become wombs of all virtues through the Holy Spirit. Do not fear the vastness of the world of flesh. Once ye fear not, through God’s grace ye shall come to know that ye were born as those whose spiritual eyes are keen.”

Clara read and reread that passage countless times. Her doubt began to mysteriously clear through this unremarkable passage. And she began to nurture affection for Francis. If anyone dared defend Francis, she developed such fierce fondness that she couldn't help feeling jealous. From that moment on, Clara ceased to entertain any marriage proposals. Even when her father consented to the engagement with the Fortebraccio family, she merely declined and let matters follow their natural course. Her heart no longer lingered on such trifles. She had done nothing but wait for the chance to dedicate her pure heart and body to Christ with undivided devotion. Then came the autumn of her sixteenth year—after confessing before Francis, her heart had finally broken free from the world of flesh. The long, long betrothal trials to Heaven over eighteen months had reached their conclusion this very night. Henceforth awaited a joyous path where she might devote both body and soul to a single Lord.

Clara’s face flushed and shone. After offering her final prayer before the sacred statue, she stood up briskly. And taking up the mirror, she looked closely at her own face. That was her final farewell to her own flesh. In her eyes, Agnes’s sleeping face appeared charmingly lovely, as though clinging to her gaze. Clara quietly approached the bed, spread the laurel branches she had brought back from the cathedral over the impression her body had left, placed the sacred statue atop them, and adorned the surroundings with flowers. And once again offered a prayer to the sacred statue.

"If it be Your will, Lord, take Agnes unto You as well." Clara lightly kissed Agnes's forehead. There was nothing left for her to dwell upon.

Without hesitation, Clara left the room, pressed a fervent kiss to the wooden floor before her parents' bedroom, then opened the door and stepped onto the balcony. When she peered down from the handrail, two human silhouettes became visible in the darkness. "Amen," a solemn voice resounded from below. Clara too responded "Amen" and descended to the road using the prepared rope.

Both the sky and the road were dark. The three bribed the gatekeeper of Porta Nuova and exited the gate with ease. When they passed through the gate, the Umbrian plain spread out before their eyes—pitch-dark, vast, and endless. The mountain of Monte Falco rose imposingly from the plain into the dark sky, gazing solemnly toward them. The lonely bride, guarded by two men whose faces were deeply hidden under hoods, descended the winding mountain path by starlight while clinging to prayer to Jehovah.

At a bend in the slope where the lamplight of Porziuncola—the chapel of Francis and his companions—had begun to glimmer far below, four brethren bearing torches awaited Clara. Clara’s heart, which until now had been cold as ice and calm, now—like a dying person feeling their final attachment to this world—thought fiercely and intensely of her parents and sister. Illuminated by the torchlight, Clara’s eyes glistened with tears once more, brimming with lingering attachment. An indescribable loneliness assailed that young heart.

“Please pray for me.” Clara, sobbing, entreated the four torch-bearing brethren. The four brethren placed Clara at their center and crouched in silence.

Breaking the peaceful nocturnal silence of the plain, from far below at Porziuncola came the voices of a chorus—brethren awaiting their new bride—singing wholeheartedly, heard quietly, faintly, solemnly.

(August 15, 1917, at Usui Pass)