Confessions Read Online Free Page B

and put two red apples in his hand, whether he wanted them or not, which made him blush because it crossed his mind that they could be Carolina’s lovely breasts. Or thinking of the first time he saw her, Carolina, Carolina, Carolina, the most beautiful name in the world, when she was still a nameless girl, whowalked in front of him and just then twisted an ankle, and let out a shriek of pain, poor baby, and almost fell to the ground. He was with Drago Gradnik who, in the two years since he’d entered the Theology Faculty, had grown a few inches taller and six or seven butchers’ pounds heavier and, for the last three days, lived only for Saint Anselm’s ontological argument, as if there were nothing else in the world that proved God’s existence, for example the beauty of that sweet, sweet creature. Drago Gradnik was unable to realise how terribly painful that twisted ankle must be, and Fèlix Ardèvol took the leg of the lovely Adalaisa, Beatrice, Laura, delicately by the ankle, to help her to rest on the ground, and as he touched her little leg, an electric current more intense than the voltaic arcs at the World’s Fair ran down his spine and while he asked her if it hurt, signorina, he would have liked to pounce on her and have his way with her, and that was the first time in his life that he’d felt such an urgent, painful, implacable and terrifying sexual desire. Meanwhile, Drago Gradnik was looking the other way, thinking about Saint Anselm and other more rational ways to prove God’s existence.
    ‘Ti fa male?’
    ‘Grazie, grazie mille, padre …’ said the sweet voice with the infinite eyes.
    ‘If God has given us intelligence, I take that to mean that faith can be accompanied by reasoning. Don’t you agree, Ardevole?’
    ‘Come ti chiami (my precious nymph)?’
    ‘Carolina, Father. Thank you.’
    Carolina, what a lovely name; of course you have a beautiful name, my love.
    ‘Ti fa ancora male, Carolina (sheer, absolute beauty)?’ he repeated, distressed.
    ‘Reason. Faith through reason. Is that heretical? Is it, Ardevole?’
    He had had to leave her sitting on a bench, because the nymph, blushing intensely, assured him that her mother would soon come by. While the two students resumed their walk – as Drago Gradnik, in his nasal Latin, ventured thatperhaps Saint Bernard isn’t everything in life, that Teilhard de Chardin’s conference seems to invite us to think – he found himself bringing a hand to his face and trying to smell what remained of the scent of the goddess Carolina’s skin.
    ‘Me, in love?’ He looked at Morlin, who was watching him with a smirk.
    ‘You show all the symptoms.’
    ‘What do you know?’
    ‘I’ve been through it.’
    ‘And how did you get over it?’ Ardèvol’s tone is anxious.
    ‘I didn’t get over it. I got under it. Until the love ended and then I got out.’
    ‘Don’t shock me.’
    ‘That’s life. I’m a sinner and I repent.’
    ‘Love is infinite, it never ends. I couldn’t …’
    ‘My God, you’ve got it bad, Fèlix Ardevole!’
    Ardevole didn’t answer. Before him were some thirty pigeons, the Monday after Easter, in the Piazza di Pietra. The urgency of his yearning made him cut through the jungle of pigeons until he reached Carolina, who handed him the little package.
    ‘Il gioiello dell’Africa,’ said the nymph.
    ‘And how do you know that I …’
    ‘You pass by here every day. Every day.’
    In that moment, Matthew twenty-seven fifty-one, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, the rocks were split, and the graves were opened and the many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were resurrected.
    Mystery of God and the incarnate Word of God.
    Mystery of the Virgin Mary and Mother of God.
    Mystery of the Christian faith.
    Mystery of the church, human and imperfect; divine and eternal.
    Mystery of the love of a young woman who gives me a little package that I’ve kept on the table inside