her children. When, in a state of despair, they reached her sickbed, they found her very calm and happy. She couldn’t speak many words to them, but she lay and caressed their hands. “You must be happy,” said she, “happy, happy!” Evidently she did not like their crying. She also bade the nurses smile and show their joy. “Cheerful and happy,” said she; “now you must be cheerful and happy!” She lay there with hunger in her eyes, waiting to see a little joy in their faces.
She grew more and more impatient with her children’s tears and with the solemn faces of the nurses. She began to utter things which no one could comprehend. She said that in case they were not glad she might just as well have lived. Those who heard her thought she was raving.
Suddenly the doors opened, and a young physician came into the sickroom. He was waving a newspaper and calling in a loud voice: “The Pope is better. He will live. A change has taken place in the night.”
The nurses silenced him, so that he shouldn’t disturb the dying woman, but Signora Concenza had already heard him.
She had also marked a spark of joy—a gleam of happiness which could not be concealed—pass through those who stood around her bed.
There she lay looking about her, with something farseeing in her gaze. It was as though she were looking out over Rome, where the people were now thronging up and down the streets and greeting one another with the joyful news.
She raised her head as high as she could and said: “So am I—I am very happy. God has allowed me to die that he may live. I don’t mind dying when I have made so many people happy.”
She lay down again, and a few seconds later she was dead.
But they say in Rome that, after his recovery, the Holy Father entertained himself one day by looking through the church records of pious pledges which had been offered for his recovery.
Smilingly he read the long lists of little gifts until he came to the record where Concenza Zamponi had presented him with her remaining years of life. Instantly he became very serious and thoughtful.
He made inquiries about Concenza Zamponi and learned that she had died on the night of his recovery. He then bade them call to him her son, Dominico, and questioned him minutely as to her last moments.
“My son,” said the Pope to him when he had spoken, “your mother has not saved my life, as she believed in her last hour; but I am deeply moved by her love and self-sacrifice.”
He let Dominico kiss his hand, whereupon he dismissed him.
But the Romans assure you that, although the Pope would not admit that his span of years had been lengthened by the poor woman’s gift, he was nevertheless certain of it. “Why else should Father Zamponi have had such a meteoric career?” asked the Romans. “He is already a bishop and it is whispered that he will soon be a Cardinal.”
And in Rome they never feared after that that the Pope would die, not even when he was mortally ill. They were prepared to have him live longer than other people. His life had of course been lengthened by all the years that poor Concenza had given him.
The Story of a Story6
Once there was a story that wanted to be told and sent out in the world. This was very natural, inasmuch as it knew that it was already as good as finished. Many, through remarkable deeds and strange events, had helped create it; others had added their straws in it by again and again relating these things. What it lacked was merely a matter of being joined together, so that it could travel comfortably through the country. As yet it was only a confused jumble of stories—a big, formless cloud of adventures rushing hither and thither like a swarm of stray bees on a summer’s day, not knowing where they will find someone who can gather them into a hive.
The story that wanted to be told had sprung up in Värmland, and you may be sure that it circled over many mills and manors, over many parsonages and many homes of military officers, in the beautiful province, peering through the windows and begging to be cared for. But it was forced to make many futile attempts, for everywhere it was turned away. Anything else was hardly to be expected. People had many things of much more importance to think of.
Finally the story came to an old place called Mårbacka. It was a little homestead, with low buildings overshadowed by giant trees. At one time it had been a parsonage, and it was as if this had set a certain stamp upon the place which it could not lose. They seemed to have a greater love for books and reading there than elsewhere, and a certain air of restfulness and peace always pervaded it. There rushing with duties and bickering with servants were never met with, nor was hatred or dissension given house room, either. One who happened to be a guest there was not allowed to take life too seriously, but had to feel that his first duty was to be lighthearted and believe that for one and all who lived on this estate our Lord managed everything for the best.
As I think of the matter now, I apprehend that the story of which I am speaking must have lingered thereabouts a great many years during its vain longing to be told. It seems to me as though it must have enwrapped the place, as a mist shrouds a mountain summit, now and then letting one of the adventures of which it consisted rain down upon it.
They came in the form of strange ghost stories about the superintendent of the foundries, who always had black bulls hitched to his wagon when he drove home at
