Mrs. Hugh Fraser

A Child of Sin—Born 1444—Her Early Peculiarities—Physical Possession by Evil Spirits—Sent to a Convent—A Life of Devotion—Eustochia a Novitiate—A Supernatural Accident—Belief that She Was a Hypocrite—Resignation—The Evil Spirit in Possession-Frightful Torments—Evil Portents—A Sorceress?—Imprisonment—Persecutions by Invisible Powers—Regaining Good Esteem—A Nun—Her Sanctity and Constancy—Her Death and Burial.

The story of her, who was baptised by the name of Lucrezia Bellini and is now revered by the Church under that of Eustochia, which she assumed on becoming a Benedictine nun, in the year 1461, is one of the very strangest that even the Italian Quattrocento has to show. For it is the story of a child of sin who was tormented all her days by the Adversary of mankind, and who was yet a saint.

In these, our own latter days, when the world at large is recovering somewhat from the prolonged epidemic of materialism from which it had been suffering during the greater part of the Nineteenth Century, the fact of supernatural “possession” is coming to be recognised by many of the strongest scientific intellects as the only possible and rational explanation of certain among the numerous cases of mental perversity that fill our modern prisons and asylums. Even—so I have been given to understand—the “SalpÊtriÈre” itself has been known to express opinions favourable to the theory of possession in some instances. So that the story of Eustochia may not be deemed to be unworthy of attention—even by those persons who ordinarily find it difficult to believe anything unless it has already received the endorsement of their fellow-creatures’ belief.

The natural daughter of a dissolute citizen of Terra di Gemola in the Veneto, Lucrezia was born in shame and secrecy in the year 1444, at Padua, and was sent at once to her father, Bartolomeo Bellini, at Gemola. Bartolomeo Bellini was, alas! a married man with a lawful wife and family of his own; none the less, he received the child with some show of gladness and immediately saw to her being properly baptised, giving her the name of Lucrezia; after which he handed her over to a nurse under whose care the little Lucrezia remained until she was four years old, when Bellini sent for her to come and live with him and his family in his own house. By this time she had become very pretty, as well as being already endowed with considerable charm and brightness of spirit.

On seeing her again, her father came to love Lucrezia with an especial tenderness; but, to his wife, not unnaturally, the sight of the little girl was gall and bitterness, in its reminder of her husband’s infidelity to her; and the Signora Bellini soon grew to hate the presence of Lucrezia.

Nor were Bellini’s own good sentiments towards his daughter suffered to endure for long.

It seemed to those with whom she was in daily and hourly contact that there was something odd about Lucrezia; for all her charm and goodness, the child, in some indefinable way, was not as other children, but rather as one mysteriously marked down by Providence for some especial purpose of Its own.

And then, suddenly, Lucrezia’s peculiarities began to take definite shape, and to manifest themselves in the most disconcerting manner by a nervous inability to control the movements of her own limbs—as it were a kind of Saint Vitus’ dance. Even against her express wish, she would constantly find herself compelled to do this or that; she was even, occasionally, raised bodily by some invisible force above the ground. Her confessor declared himself of the opinion that she was under some strong preternatural influence, but of what kind, precisely, he was unable at once to determine. For, although she was frequently moved to certain movements by some will other than her own, yet her mind was entirely subject to her own control; consequently, one cannot quite think her to have yet been actually in a state of possession, her condition appearing to approximate rather to one of slight epilepsy.

But this was only the beginning of Lucrezia’s long trial. In spite of her very real sufferings, her spirit maintained the calm of a constant recollection in God, together with the unceasing interior practice of the most meritorious acts of resignation and faith. As time went on, however, the fact of her physical possession by evil spirits became self-evident, and Lucrezia herself an object of the utmost aversion—nay, of fury—to her father, who refused to recognise in his child’s condition the anger of Heaven upon himself for the sin of her birth.

So matters came to the point of Lucrezia’s being brought to the Bishop—Monsignor Pietro Donato, I fancy—that he might exorcise the spirit that tormented her; which, as it seemed at first, he successfully did, for during some weeks after the exorcism Lucrezia was able to pursue the practice of her religion without let or hindrance; so that she was considered permanently healed.

But it was not fated to be so; her foe had only changed his tactics, and now, although still capable of constant interior acts of devotion, the hitherto gentle girl began, to the amazement of all who knew her, to show herself undocile, rough of speech, and extremely resentful of the Signora Bellini’s unkindness to her. This new development, which was altogether contrary to her own inclinations, only brought upon her the increased anger and dislike of her father, who, together with his wife, proceeded to treat her so harshly as to bring her more than once to the verge of the grave. Beaten, starved, and neglected, the friendless child knew not where to find refuge from her misery save only in God, to whom she had completely given herself.

She was now seven years old, timid and crushed by suffering, but with her heart full of charity and faith; nevertheless, her father, being tempted by the father of lies, fell into the belief that Lucrezia, in revenge for his cruelty to her, was minded to poison him—and so he resolved to murder her. From this intention, however, the tempter, having no mind presumably that Lucrezia should be killed and pass in all her innocence to a better world—dissuaded Bellini, so that he changed his mind and sent her instead to the Convent of San Prosdocimo, in the city of Padua, there to finish her education.

Now, during the latter half of the Fifteenth Century, in Italy it was not unusual to find convents of religious orders in which the strict practice of the rules laid down centuries earlier for their guidance by the holy founders of those same orders had become in the course of time somewhat relaxed. The Rule—the very backbone, so to speak, of a religious community—had grown, through long, indulgent gentleness on the part of Superiors, so mild as to be no longer suitable to the special necessities of the enclosed life; there was too much intercourse allowed with the outer world, the affairs and interests of which had come in consequence to occupy too large a part in the thoughts and natural sympathies of those called by their vocation to lead the higher spiritual existence of the cloister. And so we find that many bishops and abbots and abbesses devoted themselves particularly to the task of bringing back their “houses” to the close observance of their various original “Rules”—Franciscan, Dominican, Benedictine, and others.

The convent of San Prosdocimo belonged to the Benedictines, but, unhappily, it was one of those houses that had fallen into slackness, and into which had crept the habit of worldly conversation and of carelessness in regard to the strict observance of the regulations, imposed by their most illustrious father and founder, for the guidance of his spiritual children.

It was, then, to the care of the somewhat relaxed sisterhood of San Prosdocimo that Lucrezia was committed by her father; and, within a short time of her entry as a pupil into the convent, although the youngest of its occupants in years, she showed herself far the ripest in all goodness, the best balanced, and the most intelligent.

Of a cheerful temperament, a lively and captivating personality, Lucrezia was never frivolous or superficial; but, preserving her habitual state of recollection in calm and solitude, her life was one continual prayer. For her patrons she chose three—the Mother of God, Saint Jerome, and Saint Luke the evangelist.

Nine years the girl lived thus without being more than very slightly troubled by the evil spirit who sought her destruction; until the year 1460, when the death of the Abbess brought about great changes in the convent. Upon that event Monsignor Zenoni, who had succeeded Monsignor Donato as Bishop of Padua, considered that the time was come to introduce a more strict administration in the convent and to revive among its inmates the spirit of Saint Benedict. With this object he forbade the nuns to elect their next Superior from among their number until the reformations that he considered necessary should have been brought about in their community. The nuns, though, dismayed by the uncompromising words “reform” and “strict observance,” took fright at Monsignor Zenoni’s salutary projects and transferred themselves in a body with their pupils to another house of the order.

The only one of all the convent’s inmates to accept the Bishop’s ordinance and to remain faithful to her post was the sixteen-year-old Lucrezia; abandoned by her superiors and companions, Lucrezia kept watch and ward alone in the deserted building until the Bishop sent over to join her a body of sisters from the convent of Santa Maria della Misericordia, appointing Donna Giustina Lazzara, a noble lady of Padua, to be their Abbess. With the coming of Donna Giustina and her companions, the primitive practice and regular observance of Saint Benedict’s Rule became again the life of the house of San Prosdocimo.

Lucrezia’s whole being rejoiced exceedingly in the new order of things in the convent and she determined to become, if possible, a nun and a sister in religion of those about her. When she confided her desire to them, however, she met with no encouragement; the truth was that, although they had no fault to find with her personally, yet knowing her history and that of her parents and seeing that she had been brought up hitherto under the influence of more or less careless elders, the nuns could not help feeling rather doubtful of Lucrezia’s fitness for the religious life. Her very piety they were inclined to consider merely superficial, and possibly a trifle simulated in one as yet untried by discipline. At first even Donna Giustina was drawn to this opinion; but, on reflection, she came to the conclusion that, after all, such prejudices might well constitute a grave injustice, and, remembering how Lucrezia had remained in the convent when the others had fled, she at length consented to accept her as a postulant for the stupendous honour of a bride of Christ. And so, to the dissatisfaction of her companions, Lucrezia was invested with the habit of their order, January 15, 1461; in honour of her patron, Saint Jerome, she took the name of Eustochia, the daughter of Saint Paula and the pupil of Saint Jerome. The ceremony, however, was marked for Lucrezia by an untoward incident which served to create a further unfavourable impression towards her on the part of the other nuns; for, as the priest was giving her the Communion, the Sacred Host slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground, an accident which they chose to regard as a mark of the Divine displeasure towards her.

From the day of her thus taking the veil, the real martyrdom of Eustochia began. Until then, since her entry into the convent, her sufferings at the hands of the Adversary had been comparatively light and she had been able to conceal his attacks upon her. But now his possession of her became more malignantly active, manifesting itself by controlling her movements so as to make her commit some slight exterior fault of deportment against the Rule, so that her companions, witnesses of Eustochia’s small breach of discipline, were more than ever confirmed in the opinion that she was a hypocrite. By degrees this feeling increased among them until it arrived at the point of her being shunned by them as a moral leper.

And all the while Eustochia, in exquisite, faithful humbleness, gave thanks to Heaven for Its just judgment upon her, as she deemed it, accusing herself before God and the Abbess of having brought these punishments upon herself by her sins—so that, while she lost the good opinion of those about her, she gained incessant merit in the eyes of her Creator. And now the hour of Eustochia’s long darkness sounded, during which she was destined to drink to the dregs the cup of trial.

A month before the feast of Saint Jerome—that is, towards the end of August—that same year of 1461, Eustochia felt herself much perturbed and ill at ease in her heart; and her countenance, to the disquiet of the whole house, took on an expression at once sombre and menacing and quite unaccountable to the beholders, with the exception of Father Peter Salicario, the chaplain of the convent, who alone grasped the terrible meaning of it.

Father Salicario at once proceeded to prepare Eustochia for the coming assault of her foe by counselling and exhorting her; moreover, the good man straightway warned the Abbess and her nuns of the approaching storm. What effect this had upon Donna Giustina’s relations with Eustochia, I do not know precisely, but the nuns themselves were, as may easily be imagined, greatly agitated by it; also, they were only the more inclined to resent the presence in their midst of one in whom the evil spirit had apparently taken up his abode. The horror of Eustochia’s proximity seemed to them unbearable, and they joined in protesting to Donna Giustina against any further continuance of it. She, however, was of a more courageous nature than they, and had perfect faith in the protection of the convent by Heaven.

The feast of Saint Jerome passed uneventfully enough (as though in unwilling tribute to his splendour and the power of his patronage), but on the next day the tempest broke loose.

We are told that it was as if a subterranean mine had been exploded in the quiet convent; and as if the Devil had entered there as an executioner with every circumstance of fear and horror. The agonised contortions of Eustochia were frightful to see as she twisted herself like a serpent in the extremity of her torments, the while her cries filled all the place with their lamentation.

The greater number of the sisters fled from the vicinity of the poor possessed, although a few attempted to watch over her at a little distance lest she should harm herself; but suddenly Eustochia, whom they had always known as the gentlest of beings, seized a knife and ran upon them, so that they also ran from her. She even pursued them until she fell over a bench, down on to which she sank, deprived for a time of all further power of movement. Father Salicario, on being sent for, summoned the evil spirit to speak; which it did as usual by the mouth of its victim, saying that it had been checked in the midst of its fury by the power of Saint Jerome and confined to the bench. Upon an attempt to exorcise it, however, it became again so violent that Eustochia had to be secured for some days lest she should do a hurt to herself or to others. During that time her torments were indescribable, her enemy doing all that he could to make an end of her, now by strangling, now with heavy blows from an unseen hand that beat her to the ground in a half-dying condition. Not a word of impatience escaped, however, from the afflicted girl, and in the intervals of her sufferings she never failed to give thanks for them to God. Eventually, her patience and fortitude discouraged the demon, and for a space again he left her in peace. But now the bad opinion already entertained of Eustochia by the community seemed to receive the strongest confirmation from a series of unfortunate occurrences. Be it said, frankly, that the rest of the nuns were firmly convinced that Eustochia was a sorceress and that she was feigning piety as a cloak to conceal her commerce with the Prince of this world.

For all at once the Abbess fell ill of a strange malady, the nature of which it was beyond all the science of the doctors to determine. It was a kind of slow, wasting sickness without any definite features beyond the ever increasing debility of the patient; so that, as rumour soon had it in the convent, Donna Giustina was the victim of some malignant, supernatural process emanating from Eustochia, upon whom the hostile scrutiny of all about her was now directed. To make matters worse, there were found in a corner of the convent some objects—but of what nature I do not know—which in the common opinion seemed to set the seal upon this supposition. For her adversary was now compelled to resort to a new stratagem by which to encompass Eustochia’s destruction.

Without listening to her protestations of her innocence, the community decided that Eustochia was guilty of the crimes that their imaginations, stimulated by the tempter, imputed to her; she was imprisoned in a dark cell far from those of her sisters, and there began to be talk of her being hanged for sacrilege and magic and—should the Abbess die—for murder as well! Soon the town of Padua was all agog with the news that the seemingly pious Eustochia was imprisoned on these charges and the people flocked about the gates of the convent clamouring for her to be delivered to them that they might burn her at the stake and purify their city of her being.

And, all the while, Eustochia sat alone in the dark and narrow cell with only her enemy, as it seemed to her, for company, despised and hated and abandoned of all living things; tortured in body and mind, her days and nights were spent in unutterable desolation, while, as she afterwards related, her soul was unceasingly attacked by the evil spirit with every imaginable temptation to impurity and despair. And yet, in spite of all, she could say with Abraham that she had hoped against hope. The very solitude and silence of her prison provided her with the opportunity she so needed of satisfying her supreme desire for prayer. No books were allowed her, but she found consolation in reciting over and over again such psalms as she knew by heart. She had taught herself the five canticles of which the first letters form the name of Mary—Magnificat, Ad Dominum, Retribue servo tuo, Judica me, Deus, Ad te levavi—to each of which she added an anthem formed from the same letters—Missus est, Assumpta est, Rubum, In odorem, Ave Maria, ending with the Interveniat. Thus Eustochia in her gloomy prison was as a lonely dove in its nest, weeping and sighing, not with impatience, but with Divine love, unceasingly tempted by the Devil and as unceasingly defeating him by her sweetness.

At long length her confessor obtained access to Eustochia; whereupon the demon to whom power was permitted over her body spoke by her lips and lyingly confessed that she had been guilty of the crimes attributed to her. This took place in the presence of several of the nuns who were present at Father Salicario’s interview with her; the priest was thunderstruck and embarrassed by this admission on Eustochia’s part, but, being persuaded of the diabolical influence at work in the matter, he obtained leave to speak with her again on the next day. This time he began the interview with an exorcism, as the result of which Eustochia was enabled to speak of her own accord and to tell him what was truly in her heart that was so filled with humility and charity as to flow over with them.

So strengthened was Salicario in his championship of the girl that he bent all his efforts to proving her innocence; moreover, the Abbess, who was now recovering from her indisposition, was equally inclined to a generous view of the case. Her desire was to get rid of Eustochia from the convent, in the kindest manner possible, in order to spare it all further disorder and scandalous notoriety by reason of having the afflicted novice any longer beneath its roof. With this object, Donna Giustina persuaded her brother, Don Francesco Lazzara, to see Eustochia and to try to induce her to withdraw from the convent of San Prosdocimo; with which request Don Francesco, a man of rare integrity and uprightness, complied and sought out the possessed in her narrow cell.

Here, alone with Eustochia, he put the case ably and kindly to her, urging her to leave the convent—in which, as it appeared to him, it was not the will of Heaven that she should remain—and to return to the world outside it, where he promised he would undertake to provide for her and even to find her a good husband. Since she was not yet tied to the life of a religious by any vows, he concluded, she need have no hesitation in adopting a course which was not only permitted by the Church, but also, indeed, absolutely necessary.

Eustochia heard him out in silence. Then, having thanked him for his kindness to her, she replied:

“Do not believe that I am as unhappy as the world seems to think”—for in his argument Don Francesco had spoken of what must be her utter misery, both from the demon that had her frame in thrall and from the hostility towards her of the nuns themselves, for whom her presence was an affliction. “My sufferings are for me only the caresses of my Celestial Spouse, who permits the wicked spirit to chastise me, and I am so happy in them that I would not exchange them against all the delights of the world. Let them continue, or even increase, they do not disturb me. In calling me to the life of the cloister, God did not call me to an existence of tranquillity and ease. If I find my path strewn with thorns, it is a sign that that is the path by which He wishes to lead me to Him—for it is the same path that was trodden by Jesus Christ. My sisters here in the convent look upon me, I know, as an outcast; it hurts me, and I have no one but myself to blame for it, for I am full of faults. Still, I hope to correct myself in time of my faults, and so to merit a better opinion from my sisters. I know, too, that I am a burden on the convent, and that the demon who has possession of me is an object of horror to the whole community; but as I am becoming accustomed to his persecution of me, so will they get over their terror of him. For the rest, as my deliverance from him is not in my own hands, I can only entreat them to have compassion upon me.”

On hearing these words, Don Francesco was amazed by the courage and patience of Eustochia; completely won over by them to the side of the gentle speaker, he could find no words sufficient to praise her constancy or to express his enthusiastic approval of her resolution to cleave to her vocation. All he suggested was that she should change her convent for another; but this she declined to do.

This interview with Don Francesco resulted, ultimately, in some little amelioration of Eustochia’s existence; the Abbess now taking her part against the rest of the community, she was permitted to leave the cell (in which she had been confined some three months by order of the higher authorities) for the infirmary, where she was to help in tending the sick. She was forbidden, however, to appear either in choir or in church during the hours of service, or to show herself in the parlour, or to have any relations of any kind with the outside world—and, most especially, she was not to speak to any one, whosoever, of her sufferings from the demon. And when she met any of the sisters, they showed their detestation of Eustochia by lowering their eyes or turning their backs on her; nobody who could help it came near her, nobody spoke to her; for to one and all—the chaplain and the Abbess only excepted—she was an object of horror and of aversion.

Through all these trials nothing had been more painful to Eustochia than the knowledge that the sisters sometimes believed her to be only feigning possession in order to obtain their sympathy and commiseration. But, at this point, it seemed as though the evil spirit himself was determined to change their mind in respect to the reality of his presence among them by redoubling the fury of his onslaught upon Eustochia; thenceforth invisible hands daily inflicted upon her the most barbarous violence, maltreating her in a thousand ways, so as often to bring her within a short distance of expiring from the effects of it. At times it was as if he had scourged her with whips of metal; while, at others, it seemed as though her body had been slashed with knives. At times, again, Eustochia was dragged along the ground to the door of the convent as if her foe were bent upon casting her out from it into the street; and then she would be lifted up by an unseen power into the air, and let to fall, senseless and head downward, upon the stone floor with a crash—so that all wondered how it was that she escaped without a fractured skull. Again and again a deep puncture was made by the same unseen agency in the side of her neck, causing an extensive flow of blood; and once she was carried up on to the tiles of the convent roof by the invisible power and held suspended in the abyss over the street below, in the sight of the whole community, that cried aloud upon Heaven to protect her. And not until the chaplain came, to command the evil spirit that it should bring Eustochia down immediately without hurting her, was she restored in safety to her sisters, who by this time were completely cured of their former disbelief.

But of all these manifestations of unearthly violence towards Eustochia, perhaps the most remarkable was one that occurred in the presence of her confessor, that same Father Salicario, who afterwards bore testimony of it. One day, as he was conversing with her, a large kitchen knife, lying on a table nearby, rose up suddenly of itself and struck Eustochia upon her breast, transfixing her habit over which the blood ran out in streams, the while a voice cried:

“If you do not give yourself to me, I will enlarge the wound until your heart is visible!”

“So much the better,” gasped Eustochia, as she staggered to the table and leaned upon it for support. “For, if you do, you will first have to write the holy name of Jesus upon my breast....”

Which thing Father Salicario laid it upon the evil spirit that it should do according as Eustochia had said; and a few years later, when they were preparing her dead body for its resting-place, the nuns, to their delight and great wonder, found the Holy Name cut deep into the flesh over the region of Eustochia’s loving heart.

After four years of her terrible novitiate, during which she had never ceased, in spite of all their unconcealed antipathy with its constant slights and affronts, to love her sister nuns and to venerate them as her betters, Eustochia was now, at length, conquering their dislike of her and acquiring even something of their esteem by the sublime perfection of her bearing. Of this improvement in their feelings towards her they gave proof in admitting Eustochia to the number of professed nuns on March 25, 1465, for which favour she was more than grateful. On that day, therefore, she made her first vows, kneeling before Donna Giustina in the chapel and having in her hands the written formula which, signed by Eustochia herself, is sacredly preserved among the treasures of her order.

From that day forth Eustochia gave herself up entirely to prayer and meditation, neither appearing in the parlour nor even speaking to any of the sisters, except only when absolutely necessary. And the demon never ceased from tormenting her daily and in many ways; but without being able to disturb the heavenly serenity of her.

Thus Eustochia entered upon her twenty-third year, and the time was come (in accordance with the custom in convents of those days) for her to make her final vows and to take the veil. This she did at the hands of the chaplain—being confined by her extreme, increasing weakness to her bed—on September 14, 1467, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. At this time the community, now so altered in its sentiments towards Eustochia, was in fear of soon losing her from its midst, so exhausted and emaciated was she in consequence of her persecution by the spirit that possessed her; but, to the general astonishment, she proceeded to recover rapidly and, a week after her reception of the veil almost “in articulo mortis,” Eustochia was once more well enough to go to church and there to repeat her vows in public.

From being despised and shunned by all as a sorceress and supposed murderess, an object of horror and suspicion not only to the inmates of the convent but to the townspeople of Padua as well, Eustochia was now the glory of her convent and the model of her sisters in it; the whole town joined them in extolling her constancy in affliction and in doing honour to her sanctity.

So much for the judgments of this world!

As for Eustochia herself, she remained the same through good and evil report. From her cell where she passed her time there floated out now and again a burst of golden song in praise of God, so tender and sweet as to ravish the hearts of those that heard her; on these occasions the other nuns thought of her rather as an angel than a human being. It was during this last phase of her life that there was celebrated at Venice the marriage of Caterina Cornaro with James, the King of Cyprus. The report of the splendours in connection with this wedding was brought to Padua, where for many days there was talk of little else. But “I would not exchange my pains and dolours against all the pomp of them,” remarked Eustochia quietly. To such a point of virtue had she attained that she was only afraid lest Heaven should order the Devil to leave her in peace—and so she might be in danger of losing her humility. At this time she ate only once a day, and on two days of each week abstained altogether from food of any kind.

Towards the end the Demon, despairing almost of her, turned his activities to Father Salicario, whom he contrived to inspire with the strongest personal dislike for Eustochia. This design, however, of separating her from the kind friend of whose services she felt herself to be hourly more in need, Eustochia defeated by means of commending her need to the Mother of God and of reciting a hundred times the “Ave Maria,” the result of which was always to bring the chaplain to her. As Father Salicario afterward testified to many, he felt himself compelled by an irresistible force to go to her at such times, his own disinclination notwithstanding.

It was not until eleven days before Eustochia’s death, at the feast of the Purification, that the evil spirit seemed to have been commanded to desist from doing bodily violence upon her; and now he redoubled his efforts to gain possession of her soul. A week before she died she received the last Sacraments, which were administered to her in church—to the general astonishment—in view of her feeble condition. Having returned to her bed of pain, Eustochia became absorbed in heavenly contemplation; when, all at once, she was attacked by a legion of hateful fancies, and there passed before her dying eyes a train of spectral revellings—from dances, feastings, and wedding banquets to other and darker things such as she had never given a thought to in the days of her youth and health. All she told to her friend, a certain Sister Euphrasia, remarking how the human soul is liable to such sensual temptations even on the brink of the grave, adding her conviction that God does not abandon His creatures in their supreme struggle.

And so the hour of her death—which she had foretold—drew nigh for Eustochia. On the day—a Sunday—before that appointed from the beginning of all time for her departure out of this life, Eustochia made her confession and received absolution for the last time; then, begging Euphrasia to keep watch with her in the Valley of the Shadow, the little servant of God waited patiently for the end.

The last night of Eustochia’s life, that of Sunday, February 12-13, 1469, drew on during some hours in utter stillness for Euphrasia, as she sat beside the bed in the dimly lit cell. Suddenly, towards morning, she became conscious of a disquieting, stealthy sound, as of a man climbing up the outer wall of the convent towards the roof—an altogether unbelievable sound to Euphrasia’s ears, considering the physical impossibility of such a thing. Nevertheless, as she listened, incredulous yet affrighted, the slow dragging of hands and feet over the smooth surface of the wall was distinctly audible to her; until, at last, the noises passed away into the silence overhead, and all was quiet once more, save for the laboured breathing of the form on the bed.

And then Euphrasia’s eyes fell to the face of Eustochia, who was sleeping, and she saw that it was smiling, and all luminous with a kind of unearthly brightness; so she understood that what she had heard was the departure of the evil spirit from the body of her whom he had been permitted for so long to torment. These sounds were audible to all in the convent, by whom, and by Father Salicario, they were held to be those of the demon’s reluctant flight.

In the morning, the Abbess with her nuns came, at her request, to say farewell to Eustochia, kneeling about the bed in prayer for her, the while she thanked them, as she expressed it, “for all your long-suffering and patience with me.” After which she still found strength to ask their “pardon for all the bad examples I have given you and all the inconvenience and embarrassment of having me among you.”

Then, having bidden them “Arrivederci in Cielo,” so affectionately as to wring the hearts of all who heard her, Eustochia, folding her hands upon her breast, fell asleep with a smile. Nor was it until some time had elapsed that they could bring themselves to believe that she was really dead.

When Eustochia was laid out in the chapel, all the town flocked to do honour to the body, which, as we are told, exhaled a very sweet and noticeable fragrance. She was first buried in the cloister of the convent, where her remains were disinterred on November 16, 1472, in the presence of many witnesses, who testified to it that the body was still precisely as it had been in the moment of her death, perfectly incorrupt and supple and deliciously fragrant. In 1475, however, the coffin was transferred to the church and a marble monument raised above her resting-place; meanwhile, as though to mark the spot formerly hallowed by being the depository of Eustochia’s body, a spring of purest water burst up out of her first grave in the cloister; which spring became a famous resort for the sick, of whom multitudes recovered their health by drinking of it.