When he stopped speaking Domini was again conscious of
the music in the city. She remembered that earlier in the night she had
thought of it as the music of a great festival.
"I resolved to enter the life of prayer, the most perfect life of
prayer. I resolved to become a 'religious.' It seemed to me that by so
doing I should be proving in the finest way my love for my mother. I
should be, in the strongest way, helping her. Her life was prayer for my
dead father and love for her children. By devoting myself to the life of
prayer I should show to her that I was as she was, as she had made me,
true son of her womb. Can you understand? I had a passion for my mother,
Domini--I had a passion. My brother tried to dissuade me from the
monastic life. He himself was going into business in Tunis. He wanted me
to join him. But I was firm. I felt driven towards the cloister then as
other men often feel driven towards the vicious life. The inclination
was irresistible. I yielded to it. I had to bid good-bye to my mother.
I told you--she was the passion of my life. And yet I hardly felt sad at
parting from her.
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