Читать книгу The Mystical Element of Religion - Friedrich von Hügel - Страница 138

In this year, too, if not already in the previous one, Vernazza founded the institution of the “Mandiletto.” Still a young man—for he was now at most but twenty-eight—Ettore had been noticing, in his work among the poor, how much misery of all kinds obtained in commercial, money-making, hazard-loving Genoa, amongst persons who, even though ill, refused to take refuge in the hospitals; and who, however poor at present, had known better, even brilliant days, and were too proud to beg, or even to accept alms from any one who could recognize them. And hence he now organized a system for discovering and visiting such persons in their own homes and for minimizing their pain in accepting help, by arranging that the members of this little fraternity should never visit such houses, except with some kind of little veil or handkerchief (fazzoletto, mandiletto) applied to their faces.[128]

Catherine, who had helped the Uffizio della Misericordia so much, and who herself so greatly disliked being noticed or even simply seen whenever she was doing or suffering anything at all out of the common, had no doubt, at least in a general way, inspired this beautifully delicate means of preserving and sparing the bashfulness of the giver and the dignity of the recipient. Throughout the remaining years of her life she must have cared to hear Vernazza’s report as to the progress of this work.