All human consolations were one by one fast deserting us, and our sufferings still increased. I resigned myself to the will of God, but my spirit groaned. It seemed as if my mind, instead of becoming inured to evil, grew more keenly susceptible of pain. One day there was secretly brought to me a page of the Augsburgh Gazette, in which I found the strangest assertions respecting myself on occasion of mention being made of one of my sisters retiring into a nunnery. It stated as follows:—“The Signora Maria Angiola Pellico, daughter, &c., took the veil (on such a day) in the monastery of the Visitazione at Turin, &c. This lady is sister to the author of Francesca da Rimini, Silvio Pellico, who was recently liberated from the fortress of Spielberg, being pardoned by his Majesty, the emperor—a trait of clemency worthy of so magnanimous a sovereign, and a subject of gratulation to the whole of Italy, inasmuch as,” &c., &c.

And here followed some eulogiums which I omit. I could not conceive for what reason the hoax relating to the gracious pardon had been invented. It seemed hardly probable it could be a mere freak of the editor’s; and was it then intended as some stroke of oblique German policy? Who knows! However this may be, the names of Maria Angiola were precisely those of my younger sister, and doubtless they must have been copied from the Turin Gazette into other papers. Had that excellent girl, then, really become a nun? Had she taken this step in consequence of the loss of her parents? Poor Maria! she would not permit me alone to suffer the deprivations of a prison; she too would seclude herself from the world. May God grant her patience and self-denial, far beyond what I have evinced; for often I know will that angel, in her solitary cell, turn her thoughts and her prayers towards me. Alas, it may be, she will impose on herself some rigid penance, in the hope that God may alleviate the sufferings of her brother! These reflections agitated me greatly, and my heart bled. Most likely my own misfortunes had helped to shorten the days both of my father and my mother; for, were they living, it would be hardly possible that my Marietta would have deserted our parental roof. At length the idea oppressed me with the weight of absolute certainty, and I fell into a wretched and agonised state of mind. Maroncelli was no less affected than myself. The next day he composed a beautiful elegy upon “the sister of the prisoner.” When he had completed it, he read it to me. How grateful was I for such a proof of his affection for me! Among the infinite number of poems which had been written upon similar subjects, not one, probably, had been composed in prison, for the brother of the nun, and by his companion in captivity and chains. What a field for pathetic and religious ideas was here, and Maroncelli filled his lyre with wild and pathetic tones, which drew delicious tears from my eyes.

It was thus friendship sweetened all my woes. Seldom from that day did I forget to turn my thoughts long and fondly to some sacred asylum of virgin hearts, and that one beloved form did not rise before my fancy, dressed in all that human piety and love can picture in a brother’s heart. Often did I beseech Heaven to throw a charm round her religious solitude, and not permit that her imagination should paint in too horrible colours the sufferings of the sick and weary captive.