I insistently saw the remains of a carbonized human body. It was a pathetic, fearful sight. It was so corroded by the flames that it resembled a formless iron statue taken from the bottom of the sea. The head could still be discerned in the main outlines of the nose, cheekbones, and chin, but it lacked the roundness of the cheeks, the fleshy part of the nose, the ears, and the lips. It was all dried up or destroyed. And the extremities were the same, with arms and legs resembling halfburned branches whose appearance had been changed by the heat, as if they had been made of wax covering tendons contracted by a blaze, stiffening and contorting feet and hands. Hair and eyebrows were, of course, missing. Nor could I say whether that poor individual lying on the remains of a now-extinguished fire was a man or a woman, a young person or an adult, light- or dark-haired. The place seemed to be the outskirts of a city, where the countryside began, in a desolate, rocky, gloomy area.
I contemplated and contemplated the poor body abandoned in this place and was prompted to wonder, “Who are you?”
I received no reply for many hours. But now, though finding myself again in that same place, I see it is animated by people dressed in an old-fashioned way who are working to build a formidable pyre made of faggots mixed together with sturdy little trunks - a solid structure ready to burn quite briskly. And then I see a procession of soldiers and townspeople coming from the city - I don’t know what city it is, but it is certainly near the sea, which is sparkling off in the background under the midday sun.
A young woman who is barely beyond adolescence is in their midst. She is being taken to the pyre. It was for her. She calmly and securely ascends, with the expression of supreme, dreamy peace I have always seen on the faces of the martyrs. She is followed to the foot of the pile of wood and taken leave of there by a veiled, elderly woman, who is seen to be such from her rather plump figure and the glimpse of her emerging when she lifts up her veil to kiss the young woman. She does not say a word - only kisses and tears. They want to push her back and harshly oblige her to withdraw while the first flames are already flickering over the pyre, setting fire to the dry heather of the faggots. But, with a dignity not devoid of haughtiness, she replies (to those who ask, “Why do you take an interest in this rebel? Are you a relative? Go away. One can’t stay here comforting the enemies of Caesar”), “I am Anastasia, a Roman lady, her sister. It is my right to remain at her side, as with my sisters, yesterday. Leave me alone, or I will appeal to the Emperor.”
They let her remain, and she looks at the young woman, towards whom tongues of flame and waves of smoke are rising, concealing her at intervals. She observes her, serene and smiling in her spiritual dream, not feeling the nipping of the flames, which first take hold of her hair, which burns in a smoking tongue of fire, and then her clothing... until, replacing the white robe, burned up by the flames, the instrument of martyrdom itself weaves her a splendid robe of living fire and conceals her behind it from the gaze of the throng.
“Good-bye, Irene. Remember me when you are at peace,” Anastasia shouts. And the calm youthful voice replies from behind the veil of fire, “Good-bye. I am already speaking about you with....” And nothing is heard but the crackling of the flames.
The soldiers and executors of the sentence withdraw when they understand that death has come upon her and let the pyre finish its destruction on its own. Anastasia does not move. Motionless between the heat of the fire and the heat of the sun, which is intense in this arid zone, she waits.... Until there fall the shadows of twilight, in which there feebly shine a few surviving flickers in the midst of the pyre’s wood. They seem to be writing mysterious words, narrating the glories of the young martyr in the evening.
Then Anastasia moves. She does not go towards the pyre, but towards a hovel in ruins which is not very far away, already lost in the bare countryside. Moving securely, in the light of one of the first moonbeams, she enters an uncultivated little garden, bends over a well, and calls. Her voice resounds like bronze in the hollow of the well. Several voices reply, and from the shadows one after another they come out of the well, which must be dry.
“Come. There is no longer anyone. Come. Before they offer an affront to her. She died like an angel, as she lived. I did not touch the ashes because... I gave her everything, as the Father of my soul ordered me. But... oh, it is too horrible to see a young lily reduced to coal!”
“Go home. Calm down. We’ll act in your place.”
“No, I’ve got to get used to this torture. He told me to. But then I won’t be alone. She and the sisters will be with the angels at my side. Be there now, brothers of Thessalonika.”
They go towards the pyre, which is totally extinguished: a heap of scattered ashes on which the carbonized body I saw before is resting. Anastasia slowly weeps as she wraps the body mummified by the flames in precious cloth, helped by the Christians. They then lay it on a litter, and the small, sad cortege, proceeding at the fringe of the city, reaches a vast house with a lovely appearance behind which they go, placing the body in a cemetery which has been dug out in the garden, as one of them, who is surely a priest, blesses it amidst the measured singing of the Christians present.35
35 We omit slightly over seventeen handwritten pagesn dated April 21-23, 1945, containing three episodes from The Second Year of the Public Life.