{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18728/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18728","id":"gutenberg_18728","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18728","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","French fiction -- Translations into English","Nobel Prizes in Literature","Short stories, French -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by R. Cedron, Verity White and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n      Transcribers note:\n      The Greek passages in this text have been transliterated\n      into Latin characters.\n      The symbol [oe] represents an oe ligature.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION EDITED BY\nFREDERIC CHAPMAN\n\nTHE WELL OF SAINT CLARE\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE WELL OF SAINT CLARE\n\nBY ANATOLE FRANCE\n\nA TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON\n\n[Illustration]\n\nLONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD\nNEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMIX\n\nWM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  Prologue--The Reverend Father Adone Doni                 3\n  San Satiro                                              17\n  Messer Guido Cavalcanti                                 51\n  Lucifer                                                 73\n  The Loaves of Black Bread                               85\n  The Merry-Hearted Buffalmacco                           95\n     i. The Cockroaches                                   96\n    ii. The Ascending up of Andria Tafi                  106\n   iii. The Master                                       118\n    iv. The Painter                                      124\n  The Lady of Verona                                     133\n  The Human Tragedy                                      141\n      i. Fra Giovanni.                                   141\n     ii. The Lamp                                        150\n    iii. The Seraphic Doctor.                            153\n     iv. The Loaf on the Flat Stone                      156\n      v. The Table under the Fig-tree                    159\n     vi. The Temptation                                  163\n    vii. The Subtle Doctor                               169\n   viii. The Burning Coal                                177\n     ix. The House of Innocence                          179\n      x. The Friends of Order                            187\n     xi. The Revolt of Gentleness                        194\n    xii. Words of Love                                   200\n   xiii. The Truth                                       205\n    xiv. Giovanni's Dream                                215\n     xv. The Judgment.                                   223\n    xvi. The Prince of this World                        231\n  The Mystic Blood                                       243\n  A Sound Security                                       257\n  History of Do\u00f1a Maria d'Avalos and the Duke d'Andria   271\n  Bonaparte at San Miniato                               289\n\n\n\n\nTHE WELL OF SAINT CLARE\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nTHE REVEREND FATHER ADONE DONI\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nTHE REVEREND FATHER ADONE DONI\n\n  [Greek: _Ta gar physika, kai ta \u00eathika, alla kai ta math\u00eamatika, kai\n  tous egkyklious logous, kai peri techn\u00f4n, pasan eichen\n  empeirian._]--_Diogenes La\u00ebrtius_, IX, 37.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"For of physical and ethical science, no less than of\nmathematics and the common round of learning, as well as concerning\narts, he possessed full knowledge and experience.\"]\n\n\nI was spending the Spring at Sienna. Occupied all day long with\nmeticulous researches among the city archives, I used after supper to\ntake an evening walk along the wild road leading to Monte Oliveto, where\nI would encounter in the twilight huge white oxen under ponderous yokes\ndragging a rustic wain with wheels of solid timber--all unchanged since\nthe times of old Evander. The church bells knelled the peaceful ending\nof the day, while the purple shades of night descended sadly and\nmajestically on the low chain of neighbouring hills. The black squadrons\nof the rooks had already sought their nests about the city walls, but\nrelieved against the opalescent sky a single sparrow-hawk still hung\nfloating with motionless wings above a solitary ilex tree.\n\nI moved forward to confront the silence and solitude and the mild\nterrors that lowered before me in the growing dusk. The tide of darkness\nrose by imperceptible degrees and drowned the landscape. The infinite of\nstarry eyes winked in the sky, while in the gloom below the fireflies\nspangled the bushes with their trembling love-lights.\n\nThese living sparks cover all the Roman Campagna and the plains of\nUmbria and Tuscany, on May nights. I had watched them in former days on\nthe Appian Way, round the tomb of C\u00e6cilia Metella--their playground for\ntwo thousand years; now I found them dancing the selfsame dance in the\nland of St. Catherine and of Pia de' Tolomei, at the gates of Sienna,\nthat most melancholy and most fascinating of cities. All along my path\nthey quivered in the bents and brushwood, chasing one another, and ever\nand anon, at the call of desire, tracing above the roadway the fiery\narch of their darting flight.\n\nOn the white ribbon of the road, in these clear Spring nights, the only\nperson I used to encounter was the Reverend Father Adone Doni, who at\nthe time was, like myself, working in the old Academy _degli Intronati_.\nI had taken an instant liking for the Cordelier in question, a man who,\ngrown grey in study, still preserved the cheerful, facile humour of a\nsimple, unlettered countryman. He was very willing to converse; and I\ngreatly relished his bland speech, his cultivated yet artless way of\nthought, his look of old Silenus purged at the baptismal font, the play\nof his passions at once keen and refined, the strange, alluring\npersonality that informed the whole man. Assiduous at the library, he\nwas also a frequent visitor to the marketplace, halting for choice in\nfront of the peasant girls who sell oranges, and listening to their\nunconventional remarks. He was learning, he would say, from their lips\nthe true _Lingua Toscana_.\n\nAll I knew of his past life, about which he never spoke, was that he was\nborn at Viterbo, of a noble but miserably impoverished family, that he\nhad studied the humanities and theology at Rome, as a young man had\njoined the Franciscans of Assisi, where he worked at the Archives, and\nhad had difficulties on questions of faith with his ecclesiastical\nsuperiors. Indeed I thought I noticed myself a tendency in the Father\ntowards peculiar views. He was a man of religion and a man of science,\nbut not without certain eccentricities under either aspect. He believed\nin God on the evidence of Holy Scripture and in accordance with the\nteachings of the Church, and laughed at those simple philosophers who\nbelieved in Him on their own account, without being under any obligation\nto do so. So far he was well within the bounds of orthodoxy; it was in\nconnection with the Devil that he professed peculiar opinions. He held\nthe Devil to be wicked, but not absolutely wicked, and considered that\nthe fiend's innate imperfection must always bar him from attaining to\nthe perfection of evil. He believed he discerned some symptoms of\ngoodness in the obscure manifestations of Satan's activity, and without\nventuring to put it in so many words, augured from these the final\nredemption of the pensive Archangel after the consummation of the ages.\n\nThese little eccentricities of thought and temperament, which had\nseparated him from the rest of the world and thrown him back upon a\nsolitary existence, afforded me amusement. He had wits enough; all he\nlacked was common sense and appreciation of ordinary everyday things.\nHis life was divided between phantoms of the past and dreams of the\nfuture; the actual present was utterly foreign to his notions. For his\npolitical ideas, these came simultaneously from antique Santa Maria\ndegli Angeli and the revolutionary secret societies of London, and were\na combination of Christian and socialist. But he was no fanatic; his\ncontempt for human reason was too complete for him to attach great\nimportance to his own share in it. The government of states appeared to\nhim in the light of a huge practical joke, at which he would laugh\nquietly and composedly, as a man of taste should. Judges, civil and\ncriminal, caused him surprise, while he looked on the military classes\nin a spirit of philosophical toleration.\n\nI was not long in discovering some flagrant contradictions in his mental\nattitude. He longed with all the charity of his gentle heart for the\nreign of universal peace. Yet at the same time he had a _penchant_ for\ncivil war, and held in high esteem that Farinata degli Uberti, who loved\nhis native Florence so boldly and so well that he constrained her by\nforce and fraud, making the Arbia run red with Florentine blood the\nwhile, to will and think precisely what he willed and thought himself.\nFor all that, the Reverend Father Adone Doni was a tender-hearted\ndreamer of dreams. It was on the spiritual authority of St. Peter's\nchair he counted to establish in this world the kingdom of God. He\nbelieved the Paraclete was leading the Popes along a road unknown to\nthemselves. Therefore he had nothing but deferential words for the\n_Roaring Lamb of Sinigaglia_ and the _Opportunist_ _Eagle of\nCarpineto_, as it was his custom to designate Pius IX and Leo XIII\nrespectively.\n\nAgreeable as was the Reverend Father's conversation to me, I used, out\nof respect for his freedom of action and my own, to avoid showing myself\ntoo assiduous in seeking his society inside the city walls, while on his\nside he observed an exquisite discretion towards myself. But in our\nwalks abroad we frequently managed to meet as if by accident. Half a\nleague outside the Porta Romana the high road traverses a hollow way\nbetween melancholy uplands on either hand, relieved only by a few gloomy\nlarches. Under the clayey slope of the northern escarpment and close by\nthe roadside, a dry well rears its light canopy of open ironwork.\n\nAt this spot I would encounter the Reverend Father Adone Doni almost\nevery evening, seated on the coping of the well, his hands buried in the\nsleeves of his gown, gazing out with mild surprise into the night. The\ngathering dusk still left it possible to make out on his bright-eyed,\nflat-nosed face the habitual expression of timid daring and graceful\nirony which was impressed upon it so profoundly. At first we merely\nexchanged formal good wishes for each other's health, peace and\nhappiness. Then I would take my place by his side on the old stone\nwell-head, that bore some traces of carving. It was still possible, in\nfull daylight, to distinguish a figure with a head bigger than its body\nand representing an Angel, as seemed indicated by the wings.\n\nThe Reverend Father never failed to say courteously:\n\n\"Welcome, Signore! Welcome to the Well of St. Clare.\"\n\nOne evening I asked him the reason why the well bore the name of this\nfavourite disciple of St. Francis. He informed me it was because of a\nvery edifying little miracle, which for all its charm had unfortunately\nnever found a place in the collection of the _Fioretti_. I begged him to\noblige me by telling it, which he proceeded to do in the following\nterms:\n\n\"In the days when the poor man of Jesus Christ, Francis, son of\nBernardone, used to journey from town to town teaching holy simplicity\nand love, he visited Sienna, in company with Brother Leo, the man of his\nown heart. But the Siennese, a covetous and cruel generation, true sons\nof the She-Wolf on whose milk they boasted themselves to have been\nsuckled, gave a sorry welcome to the holy man, who bade them take into\ntheir house two ladies of a perfect beauty, to wit Poverty and\nObedience. They overwhelmed him with obloquy and mocking laughter, and\ndrove him forth from the city. He left the place in the night by the\nPorta Romana. Brother Leo, who tramped alongside, spoke up and said to\nhim:--\n\n\"'The Siennese have written on the gates of their city,--\"Sienna opens\nher heart to you wider than her doors.\" And nevertheless, brother\nFrancis, these same men have shut their hearts against us.'\n\n\"And Francis, son of Bernardone, replied:\n\n\"'The fault is with me, be sure of that, brother Leo, little lamb of\nGod. I have not known how to knock at the doors of their hearts\nforcefully and skilfully enough. I am far below the fellows who set a\nbear dancing in the Great Piazza. For they draw together a great crowd\nby exhibiting the rude coarse beast, whilst I that had ladies of\ncelestial fairness to show them, I have attracted no one. Brother Leo, I\ncharge you, on your holy obedience, to say thus to me: \"Brother Francis,\nyou are a poor man, without any merit whatsoever, a stumbling-block and\na very rock of offence!\" And all the while Brother Leo was hesitating to\nobey, the holy man suffered grievously within himself. As he went on his\nmurky way, his thoughts turned to pleasant Assisi, where he had left\nbehind him his sons in the spirit, and Clare, daughter of his soul. He\nknew how Clare was exposed to great tribulations for the love of holy\nPoverty. And he doubted whether his well-beloved daughter were not sick\nof body and soul, and weary of well-doing, in the house of St. Damian.\n\n\"So sore did these doubts weigh on him, that arrived at this spot where\nthe road enters the hollow way between the hills, he seemed to feel his\nfeet sink into the ground at each step he took. He dragged himself as\nfar as the Well here, which was then in its pristine beauty and full of\nlimpid water, and fell exhausted on the well-head where we are seated at\nthis moment. A long while the man of God remained bent over the mouth of\nthe well. After which, lifting up his head, he said joyfully to Brother\nLeo: 'What think you, brother Leo, lamb of God, I have seen in the\nWell?'\n\n\"And Brother Leo answered:\n\n\"'Brother Francis, you saw the moon reflected in the well.'\n\n\"'My brother,' replied the Saint of God, 'it is not our sister the Moon\nI saw in the well, but by the Lord, the true countenance of sister\nClare, and so pure and shining so bright with a holy joy that all my\ndoubts were instantly dispelled, and it was made plain to me that our\nsister enjoys at this present hour the full content God accords his\nchosen vessels, loading them with the treasures of Poverty.'\n\n\"So saying, the good St. Francis drank a few drops of water in the\nhollow of his hand, and arose refreshed.\n\n\"And that is why the name of St. Clare was given to this Well.\"\n\nSuch was the tale told by the Reverend Father Adone Doni.\n\nNight after night I returned to find the amiable Cordelier sitting on\nthe edge of the mystic well. I would seat myself by his side, and he\nwould tell over for my benefit some fragment of history known only to\nhimself. He had many delightful stories of the sort to relate, being\nbetter read than any one else in the antiquities of his country. These\nlived again and grew bright and young in his head, as if it contained an\nintellectual Fountain of Eternal Youth. Ever fresh pictures flowed from\nhis white-fringed lips. As he spoke, the moonlight bathed his beard in a\nsilver flood. The crickets accompanied the narrator's voice with the\nshrilling of their wing-cases, and ever and anon his words, uttered in\nthe softest of all dialects of human speech, would be answered by the\nfluted plaintive croaking of the frogs, which hearkened from across the\nroad--a friendly, if apprehensive audience.\n\nI left Sienna towards the middle of June; and I have never seen the\nReverend Father Adone Doni since. He clings to my memory like a figure\nin a dream; and I have now put into writing the tales he told me on the\nroad of Monte Oliveto. They will be found in the present volume; I only\nhope they may have retained, in their new dress, some vestiges of the\ngrace they had in the telling at the Well of St. Clare.\n\n\n\n\nSAN SATIRO\n\nTO ALPHONSE DAUDET\n\n\n\n\nSAN SATIRO\n\n  _Consors paterni luminis,\n  Lux ipse lucis et dies,\n  Noctem canendo rumpimus;\n  Assiste postulantibus._\n\n  _Aufer tenebras mentium;\n  Fuga catervas d\u00e6monum;\n  Expelle somnolentiam,\n  Ne pigritantes obruat._[1]\n\n  (_Breviarium Romanum_\n  Third day of the week: at matins.)\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Partner of the Father's light, light of light and day of\nday, we break the dusk of night with psalms; help us now, Thy\nsuppliants. Remove the darkness of our minds; scatter the demon hosts\naway; expel the sin of drowsiness, lest we be slack in serving Thee.\"]\n\n\nFra Mino had raised himself by his humility above his brethren, and\nstill a young man, he governed the Monastery of Santa Fiora wisely and\nwell. He was devout, and loved long meditations and long prayers;\nsometimes he had ecstasies. After the example of his spiritual father,\nSt. Francis, he composed songs in the vernacular tongue in celebration\nof perfect love, which is the love of God. And these exercises were\nwithout fault whether of metre or of meaning, for had he not studied the\nseven liberal Arts at the University of Bologna?\n\nNow one evening, as he was walking under the cloister arches, he felt\nhis heart filled with trouble and sadness at the remembrance of a lady\nof Florence he had loved in the first flower of his youth, ere the habit\nof St. Francis was a safeguard to his flesh. He prayed God to drive away\nthe image; nevertheless his heart continued sad within him.\n\n\"The bells,\" he pondered, \"say like the Angels, AVE MARIA; but their\nvoice is lost in the mists of heaven. On the cloister wall yonder, the\nMaster Perugia delights to honour has painted marvellous well the three\nMarys contemplating with a love ineffable the body of the Saviour. But\nthe night has veiled the tears in their eyes and the dumb sobs of their\nmouths, and I cannot weep with them. Yonder Well in the middle of the\ncloister garth was covered but now with doves that had come to drink,\nbut these are flown away, for they found no water in the hollows of the\ncarven well-head. And behold. Lord! my soul falls silent like the bells,\nis darkened like the holy Marys, and runs dry like the well. Why, Jesus\nmy God! why is my heart arid, and dark, and dumb, when Thou art its\ndayspring, and the song of birds, and the water-brook flowing from the\nhills?\"\n\nFra Mino dreaded to return to his cell, and thinking prayer would dispel\nhis melancholy and calm his disquiet, he passed into the Monastery\nChurch by the low door leading from the cloister. Silence and gloom\nfilled the building, raised more than a hundred and fifty years before\non the foundations of a ruined Roman Temple by the great Margaritone. He\ntraversed the Nave, and went and knelt in the Chapel behind the High\nAltar dedicated to San Michele, whose legend was painted in fresco on\nthe wall. But the dim light of the lamp hanging from the vault was\ninsufficient to show the Archangel fighting with Satan and weighing\nsouls in the balance. Only the moon, shining through the great window,\nthrew a pale ray over the Tomb of San Satiro, where it lay under an\narcade to the right of the Altar. This tomb, in shape resembling the\ngreat vats used at vintage time, was more ancient than the Church and in\nall respects similar to a Pagan sarcophagus, except that the sign of the\nCross was to be seen traced in three different places on its marble\nsides.\n\nFra Mino remained for hours prostrate before the Altar; but he found it\nimpossible to pray, and at midnight felt himself weighed down under the\nsame heaviness that overcame Jesus Christ's disciples in the Garden of\nGethsemane. And lo! as he lay there without courage or counsel, he saw\nas it were a white cloud rise above the tomb of San Satiro, and\npresently observed that this cloud was made up of a multitude of\ncloudlets, of which each one was a woman. They floated in the dim air;\nand through their light raiment shone the whiteness of their light\nlimbs. Then Fra Mino saw how among them were goat-footed young men who\nwere chasing them. These were naked, and nothing hid the terrifying\nardour of their desires. And the nymphs fled away from them, while\nbeneath their racing steps there sprang up flowery meadows and brooks of\nwater. Each time a goat-foot put out his hand to seize one of them, a\nsallow would shoot up suddenly to hide the nymph in its hollow trunk as\nin a cave, and the grey leaves shivered with light murmurings and spurts\nof mocking laughter.\n\nWhen all the women were hidden in the sallows, their goat-footed lovers,\nsitting on the grass of the new-come meadows, breathed in their flutes\nof reeds and drew from them sounds to destroy the peace of any creature\nof the earth. The nymphs were fascinated, and soon began to peep out\nbetween the branches, and one by one deserting the shady covert, drew\nnear under the irresistible attraction of the music. Then the goat-men\nrushed upon them with a demoniac fury. Folded in the arms of their\nruthless assailants, the nymphs strove to keep up a while longer their\nraillery and loud laughter, but the mirth died on their lips. With heads\nthrown back and eyes swooning with joy and terror, they could only call\nupon their mother, or scream a shrill \"You are killing me,\" or keep a\nsullen silence.\n\nFra Mino longed to turn his head, but he could not, and his eyes\nremained wide open in spite of himself.\n\nMeanwhile the nymphs, winding their arms about the goat-men's loins,\nfell to biting and caressing and provoking their hairy lovers, and body\nintertwined with body, they enfolded and bathed them in their tender\nflesh that was sweeter and softer and more living than the water of the\nbrook which ran by them under the sallows.\n\nAt the sight, Fra Mino fell, in mind and intention, into deadly sin. He\ndesired to be one of these demons, half men and half beasts, and hold to\nhis bosom, after their carnal fashion, the fair lady of Florence he had\nloved in the flower of his years, and who was now dead.\n\nBut already the goat-men were scattering through the country-side. Some\nwere busied gathering honey in the hollow trunks of oaks, others carving\nreeds into the shape of flutes, or butting one against the other,\ncrashing their horned brows together. Meantime the bodies of the nymphs,\nsweet wrecks of love, lay motionless, strewing the meadows. Fra Mino lay\ngroaning on the Chapel flags; for so fierce had been the desire of sin\nwithin him that now he was filled full of bitter shame at his own\nweakness.\n\nSuddenly one of the nymphs, chancing as she lay to turn her eyes upon\nhim, cried out:\n\n\"A man! a man!\"\n\nAnd pointing him out to her companions:\n\n\"Look, sisters; yonder is no goat-herd, he has no flute of reed beside\nhim. Nor yet do I recognize him for the master of one of those rustic\nfarmsteads whose garden-close, sloping to the hill-side beneath the\nvines, is guarded by a Priapus hewn out of a stump of beech. What would\nhe among us, if he is neither goat-herd, nor neat-herd, nor gardener?\nHis looks are harsh and gloomy, and I cannot read in his eyes the love\nof the gods and goddesses that people the wide sky, the woods and\nmountains. He wears a barbarous habit; perhaps he is a Scythian. Let us\napproach the stranger, my sisters, and make sure he is not come as a foe\nto sully our fountains, hew down our trees, tear open our hill-sides\nand betray to cruel men the mystery of our happy lurking places. Come\nwith me, Mna\u00efs; come, \u00c6gle, Ne\u00e6ra and Melib[oe]a.\n\n\"On! on!\" returned Mna\u00efs, \"on, with our arms in hand!\"\n\n\"On! on!\" all cried in chorus.\n\nThen Fra Mino saw them spring up, and gather great handfuls of roses,\nand advance upon him in a long line, each armed with roses and thorns.\nBut the distance that separated them from him, which at first had seemed\nvery short, for indeed he thought almost to touch them and felt their\nbreath on his face, appeared suddenly to increase, and he watched them\ncoming as though from out a far-off forest. Impatient to be at him, they\nbegan to run, threatening him with their cruel flowers, while menaces\nflew from their flower-like lips. And lo! as they came nearer, a change\nwas wrought in them; at each step they lost something of their grace and\nbeauty, and the bloom of their youth faded as fast as the roses in their\nhands. First their eyes grew hollow and the mouth fell in. The neck, but\nnow so pure and white, hung in great hideous folds, and grey elf-locks\ndraggled over their wrinkled brows. On they came; and their eyes were\ncircled with red, their lips drawn in upon the toothless gums. On they\ncame, carrying dead roses in their arms, which were black and writhen\nas the old vine stocks the peasants of Chianti burn for firewood in the\nwinter nights. On they came, with shaking heads and palsied thighs,\ntottering and trembling.\n\nArrived at the spot where Fra Mino stood rooted to the ground with\naffright, they were no better than a crowd of horrid witches, bald and\nbearded, nose and chin touching, and bosoms hanging loose and flabby.\nThey came crowding round him:\n\n\"Ah, ha! the pretty darling!\" cried one. \"He is as white as a sheet, and\nhis heart beats like a hare the dogs are snapping at. \u00c6gle, sister mine,\nsay, what must be done with him?\"\n\n\"Ne\u00e6ra mine!\" \u00c6gle replied, \"why! we must open his breast, tear out his\nheart and put a sponge in its place instead.\"\n\n\"Not so!\" said Melib[oe]a. \"That were making him pay too dear for his\ncuriosity and the pleasure he has had in surprising our frolic. Enough\nfor this time to inflict a light chastisement. Say, shall we give him a\ngood whipping?\"\n\nStraightway surrounding the Monk, the sisters dragged his gown above his\nhead and belaboured him with the handfuls of thorns they still held.\n\nThe blood was beginning to come, when Ne\u00e6ra signed to them to stop:\n\n\"Enough!\" she cried! \"he is my gallant, I tell you! I saw him just now\ncasting tender eyes at me; I would content his wishes, and grant him my\nfavours without more delay.\"\n\nShe smiled alluringly; and a long, black tooth projecting from her mouth\ntickled his nostril. She murmured softly:\n\n\"Come, come, my Adonis!\"\n\nThen suddenly, wild with rage:\n\n\"Fie, fie! his senses are benumbed. His coldness offends my charms. He\nscorns me; avenge me, comrades! Mna\u00efs, \u00c6gle, Melib[oe]a, avenge your\nsister!\"\n\nAt this appeal, one and all, lifting their thorny whips, fell to\nscourging him so savagely that Fra Mino's body was soon one wound from\nhead to toe. Now and again they would stop to cough and spit, only to\nbegin afresh, plying their whips more vigorously than ever. Only sheer\nweariness induced them to leave off.\n\n\"I hope,\" Ne\u00e6ra then said, \"next time he will not do me the undeserved\ninsult I still blush to remember. We will spare his life; but if he\nbetrays the secret of our sports and pleasures, we will surely kill him.\nGood-bye to you, my pretty boy!\"\n\nSo saying, the old woman suddenly squatted down over the Monk and\ndrowned him in a torrent of very filthy liquid. Each sister followed\nsuit and did the like; then one after the other they re-entered the tomb\nof San Satiro, slipping in through a tiny crack in the lid, leaving\ntheir victim lying full length in a stream of a most intolerable stench.\n\nWhen the last had disappeared,--the cock crew. Then Fra Mino at last\nfound himself able to rise from the earth. Broken with fatigue and pain,\nbenumbed with cold, shuddering with fever, half stifled with the foul\nexhalations of the poisonous liquor, he set his clothing straight and\ndragged himself to his cell, just as day broke.\n\nFrom that night on, Fra Mino never had a moment's peace. The\nrecollection of what he had seen in the Chapel of San Michele, above San\nSatiro's tomb, disturbed him in the Church services and in all his pious\nexercises. He trembled when he visited the Church along with his\nfellows; and as his turn came, according to the rule, to kiss the\npavement of the Choir, his lips shuddered to encounter the traces of the\nnymphs' presence, and he would murmur: \"O! my Saviour, dost not Thou\nhear me say what Thou didst Thyself say to Thy Father, Lead us not, we\nbeseech Thee, into temptation?\" At first he had thought of sending to\nthe Lord Bishop an account of what he had witnessed. But on riper\nreflexion, he became convinced it were better to meditate at leisure on\nthese extraordinary events and only divulge them after a more exhaustive\nstudy of all the circumstances. Besides it so happened that the Lord\nBishop, allied with the Guelphs of Pisa against the Ghibellines of\nFlorence, was at that moment waging war with such right good will that\nfor a whole month he had not so much as unbuckled his cuirass. And that\nis why, without saying a word to anyone, Fra Mino made profound\nresearches on the tomb of San Satiro and the Chapel containing it.\nDeeply versed in the knowledge of books, he investigated many texts,\nboth ancient and modern; yet found no glimmer of enlightenment in any of\nthem. Indeed the only effect of the works on Magic which he studied was\nto double his uncertainty.\n\nOne morning, after labouring all the night as was his wont, he was fain\nto refresh his heart with a walk in the fields. He took the hilly path\nwhich, winding between the vines and the elms they are wedded to, leads\nto a wood of myrtles and olives, sacred in old days to the Roman gods.\nHis feet bathed in the wet grass, his brow refreshed by the dew that\ndistilled from the pointed leaves of the Guelder roses, Fra Mino\nwandered long in the forest, till he came upon a spring over which the\nwild tamarisks gently swayed their light foliage and the downy clusters\nof their pink berries. Lower down amid the willows, where the water\nformed a wider pool, herons stood motionless, while the smaller birds\nsang sweetly in the branching myrtles. The scent of mint rose moist and\nfragrant from the ground, and the grass was spangled with the flowers of\nwhich our Lord said that \"Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like\none of these.\" Fra Mino sat down on a mossy stone and praising God, Who\nmade the heavens and the dew, he fell to pondering the hidden mysteries\nof Nature.\n\nNow the remembrance of all he had seen in the Chapel of San Michele\nnever left his thoughts; so he sat meditating, his head between his\nhands, wondering for the thousandth time what the dream might signify:\n\"For indeed,\" he said to himself, \"such a vision must needs have a\nmeaning; it should even have several, which it behoves to discover,\nwhether by sudden illumination, or by dint of an exact applying of the\nscholastic rules. And I deem that, in this especial case, the poets I\nstudied at Bologna, such as Horace the Satirist and Statius, should\nlikewise be of great help to me, seeing many verities are intermingled\nwith their fables.\"\n\nAfter long pondering these thoughts within his breast, and others more\nsubtle still, he lifted his eyes and perceived he was not alone. Leaning\nagainst the cavernous trunk of an ancient holm-oak, an old man stood\ngazing at the sky through the leaves, and smiling to himself. Above his\nhoary brow peeped out two shorty blunt horns. His nose was flat with\nwide nostrils, and from his chin depended a white beard, through which\nwere visible the rugged muscles of the neck. A shaggy growth of hair\ncovered his breast, while from the thighs downwards his limbs showed a\nthick fleece that trailed down to his cloven feet. He held to his lips a\nflute of reed, from which he drew a feeble sound of music. Then he began\nto sing in a voice that left the words barely distinguishable:\n\n\n  Laughing she fled,\n  Her teeth in the golden grape;\n  After I sped,\n  And clasping her flying shape,\n  I quenched my drouth\n  On the fruit at her mouth.\n\n\nAstounded at these strange sights and sounds, Fra Mino crossed himself.\nStill the old man showed no mark of confusion, but cast a long and\nartless look at the Monk. Amid the deep wrinkles that scored his face,\nthe clear blue eyes sparkled like the waters of a spring through the\nrugged bark of a grove of oaks.\n\n\"Man or beast,\" shrilled Mino, \"I command you in the name of the Saviour\nto say who you are.\"\n\n\"My son,\" replied the old man, \"I am San Satiro! Speak not so loud, for\nfear of frightening the birds.\"\n\nThen Fra Mino resumed, in a quieter tone:\n\n\"Forasmuch, old man, as you shrank not before the dread sign of the\nCross, I cannot hold you to be a demon or some foul spirit escaped out\nof Hell. But if verily and indeed you are a man, as you say you are, or\nrather the soul of a man sanctified by the deeds of a good life and by\nthe merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, expound, I pray you, the mystery of\nyour goat's horns and your shaggy limbs ending in those black, cloven\nhoofs.\"\n\nAt the question, the old man lifted up his arms towards heaven, and\nsaid:\n\n\"My son, the nature of men and animals, of plants and stones, is the\nsecret of the immortal gods, and I know as little as yourself what is\nthe reason of these horns wherewith my brow is decked, and which the\nNymphs used in olden days to wind about with garlands of flowers. I\ncannot tell you the meaning of the two wrinkled folds that droop from my\nneck, nor why I have the feet of a wanton goat. But I would have you\nknow, my son, there was once in these woods a race of women having\nhorned brows like mine and shaggy thighs. Yet were their bosoms round\nand white, and their belly and polished loins shone in the light. The\nsun was young then, and loved to fleck them with his golden arrows, as\nthey lay beneath the shady foliage. They were very fair, my son; but\nalas! they have vanished from the woods, every one. My mates have\nperished likewise, and I am left lonely, the last of my tribe.\"\n\n\"I would fain know your age, old man, and your lineage and country.\"\n\n\"My son, I was born of the Earth long ere Jupiter had dethroned Saturn,\nand my eyes have looked upon the flowery freshness of the new-created\nWorld. Not yet had the human race emerged from the clay. Alone with me,\nthe dancing Satyr girls set the ground ringing with the rhythmic beat of\ntheir double hoofs. They were taller and stronger and fairer than either\nNymphs or Women; and their ampler loins received abundantly the seed of\nthe first-born of Earth.\n\n\"Under the reign of Jupiter the Nymphs began to inhabit fountains and\nforests and mountains; while the Fauns, accoupling with the Nymphs,\nformed light-footed bands that roamed the woods together. Meantime I\nspent a happy life, tasting at will the clusters of the wild grapes and\nthe lips of the laughing Faun-girls. I enjoyed deep and restful slumbers\namid the lush grass; and I would celebrate on my rustic flute Jupiter,\nSaturn's successor, for it is of my nature to praise the gods, masters\nof the world.\n\n\"Alas! and I am grown old, for I am but a god, and the centuries have\nblanched the hairs of my head and of my bosom, and have extinguished the\nfire of my reins. I was already heavily weighted with years when the\nGreat Pan died, and Jupiter, meeting the same lot he had laid upon\nSaturn, was dethroned by the Galilean. Since then I have dragged out an\never-flagging life, so feeble and languid that at last it fell out I\ndied, and was entombed. And verily I am now but the shadow of myself. If\nI still exist a little, it is because nothing ever really perishes, and\nnone is suffered altogether to die out. Death must never be more perfect\nand complete than life. Beings lost in the Ocean of Things are like the\nwaves you may watch, my child, rising and falling in the Adriatic Sea.\nThey have neither beginning nor end, they are born and die insensibly.\nInsensibly as the waves, my soul passes. A faint far-off memory of the\nsatyr girls of the Golden Age yet brightens my eyes, and on my lips\nfloat soundlessly the ancient hymns of praise.\"\n\nThis said, he fell silent. Fra Mino gazed at the old man, and knew him,\nthat he was a phantom and nothing more.\n\n\"Yes! you may indeed be a goat-foot,\" he told him gravely, \"without\nbeing a demon; 'tis not a thing wholly incredible. Such creatures as God\nframed to have no part in Adam's heritage, these can no more be damned\nthan they can be saved. I can never believe that the Centaur Cheiron,\nwho was wiser than men are, is suffering eternal torments in the belly\nof Leviathan. A traveller who penetrated once into Limbo, relates how he\nsaw him seated in a grassy spot and conversing with Rhipheus, the most\nrighteous man of all the Trojans. Others indeed affirm that Holy\nParadise itself has been opened to admit Rhipheus of Troy. Any way the\ncase Is one where doubt Is not unlawful. But you lied, old man, when you\ntold me you were a Saint, who are not so much even as a man.\"\n\nThe goat-foot made answer:\n\n\"My son, when I was young, I was no more used to lie than the sheep\nwhose milk I sucked or the he-goats with which I would butt in the joy\nof my strength and beauty. Lies were unknown In those times, nor had the\nsheep's fleece yet learned to assume factitious hues; and my soul has\nremained unchanged from that day to this. See, I go naked as in the\ngolden age of Saturn; and my spirit is veiled as little as my body. I am\nno liar. And why indeed should you deem It a thing so extraordinary, my\nson, that I have become a Saint in the train of the Galilean, albeit no\noffspring of the first mother some name Eve and others Pyrrha, and whom\nit is very meet to reverence under either title? Nay! for that matter,\nneither is St. Michael woman-born. I know him, and at times we have\ntalks together, he and I. He tells me of the days when he was an ox-herd\non Mount Garganus....\"\n\nBut here Fra Mino interrupted the Satyr:\n\n\"I cannot suffer you to say St. Michael was an ox-herd, because he\nguarded the cattle of a man whose name was Garganus, the same as the\nMountain. But there, I would fain learn, old man, how you were made a\nSaint.\"\n\n\"Listen,\" replied the goat-foot, \"and your curiosity shall be satisfied.\n\n\"When men coming from the East proclaimed in the fair vale of Arno how\nthat the Galilean had dethroned Jupiter, they hewed down the oaks\nwhereon the country folk were used to hang up little goddesses of clay\nand votive tablets; they planted crosses over against the holy\nfountains, and forbade the shepherds any more to carry to the grottos of\nthe Nymphs offerings of wine and milk and cakes. Naturally enough this\nangered all the tribe of Fauns and Pans and Sylvan Genii, and in their\nwrath these attacked the apostles of the new God. When the holy men\nwere asleep of nights, on their bed of dry leaves, the Nymphs would\nsteal up and pull their beards, while the young Fauns, slipping into\ntheir stable, would pluck out hairs from their she-ass's tail. In vain I\nsought to disarm their simple malice and exhort them to submission. 'My\nchildren,' I would warn them, 'the days of easy gaiety and light\nlaughter are gone by.' But they were reckless, and would not hearken;\nand a sore price they paid for their heedlessness.\n\n\"But for myself, had I not seen the reign of Saturn come to an end? and\nI deemed it natural and just that Jupiter should perish in his turn. I\nwas prepared to acquiesce in the downfall of the great old gods, and\noffered no resistance to the emissaries of the Galilean. Nay! I did them\nsundry little services. Better acquainted than they with the forest\npaths, I would gather mulberries and sloes, and lay them on leaves at\nthe threshold of their grotto, and make them little presents of plovers'\neggs. Then, if they were building a cabin, I would carry the timber and\nstones for them on my back. In gratitude, they poured water on my brow,\ninvoking on my head the peace of Jesus Christ.\n\n\"So I lived with them and in their way; and those who loved them, loved\nme. As they were honoured, so was I, and my sanctity seemed as great as\ntheirs.\n\n\"I have told you, my son, I was already very old in those days. The sun\nhad scarce heat enough to warm my benumbed limbs. I was no better than\nan old rotten tree, that has lost its crown of fresh leaves and singing\nbirds. Each returning Autumn brought my end nearer; and one Winter's\nmorning they found me stretched motionless by the roadside.\n\n\"The Bishop, followed by his Priests and all the people, celebrated my\nobsequies. Then I was laid in a great tomb of white marble, marked in\nthree places with the sign of the Cross, and bearing carved on the slab\nin front the words _Sanctus Satyrus_, within a garland of roses.\n\n\"In those times, my son, tombs were erected along the roadsides. Mine\nwas placed two miles out from the city, on the Florence road. A young\nplane-tree grew up over it, and threw its shadow across it, dappled with\nsunlight and full of bird songs and twitterings, freshness and joy. Near\nby, a fountain flowed over a bed of water-weed, where the boys and girls\ncame laughing merrily to bathe together. It was a charming spot--and\nsoon a holy one as well. Thither young mothers would bring their babies\nand let them touch the marble of the tomb, that they might grow up\nsturdy and straight in all their limbs. The country folk one and all\nbelieved that new-born infants presented at my grave must one day\nsurpass their fellows in strength and courage. This is why they brought\nme all the flower of the gallant Tuscan race. Moreover the peasants\noften led their asses thither in hopes of making them prolific. My\nmemory was revered; each year at the return of Spring, the Bishop used\nto come with his Clergy to pray over my bones, and I could watch far\naway through the meadow grass the slow approach of Cross and Candle in\nprocession, the scarlet canopy, and the chanting acolytes. Thus it was,\nmy son, in the days of good King Berengar.\n\n\"Meantime, the Satyrs and the Satyr girls, the Fauns and Nymphs, dragged\nout a wretched, wandering life. No more altars of meadow turf for them,\nno more wreaths of flowers, no more offerings of milk and wheat and\nhoney. Only now and then at long intervals some goat-herd would\nfurtively lay a tiny cheese on the threshold of the sacred grot, whose\nentrance was almost blocked now with thorns and brambles. But it was\nmerely the rabbits and squirrels came to eat these poor dainties. The\nNymphs were dwellers in distant forests and gloomy caves, driven forth\nof their old homes by the apostles from the East. And to hinder their\never returning more, the priests of the Galilean God poured over trees\nand stones a charmed water, and pronounced magic words, and set up\ncrosses where roads met in the forest; for the Galilean, my son, is\nlearned in the art of incantations. Better than Saturn, better than\nJupiter, he knows the virtue of formularies and mystic signs. Thus the\npoor rustic Divinities could no more find refuge in their sacred woods.\nThe company of long-haired, goat-footed Satyrs, that beat of yore their\nmother earth with sounding hoof, was but a cloud of pale, dumb shadows\ntrailing along the mountain-side like the morning mist the Sun melts and\ndispels.\n\n\"Buffeted, as by a fierce wind, by the wrath of Heaven, their spectral\nforms would be whirled eddying all day long in the dust of the roads.\nThe night on the contrary was somewhat less hostile to them. Night is\nnot wholly the Galilean God's; He shares its dominion with the devils.\nAs the shades of night descended from the hills, Fauns and Faun-women,\nNymphs and Pans, came huddling beneath the shelter of the tombs along\nthe roadside, and there under the kindly empire of the infernal powers\nwould enjoy a brief repose. Of all the tombs they liked mine the best,\nas that of a reverend ancestor of their own. Soon all assembled under\nthat part of the cornice which, giving South, was quite free of moss\nand always dry. Thither the airy folk came flying every evening as\nsurely as doves to the dovecote. They easily found room, grown tiny now\nand light as the chaff that scuds before the winnowing-fan. For my own\npart, sallying out from my quiet death-chamber, I would sit down\nsometimes in the midst of them under shelter of the marble edge-tiles,\nand in a feeble, whistling voice sing them songs of the days of Saturn\nand Jupiter; then they would remember the happy times gone by for ever.\nUnder the eyes of Diana, they would join to make a show of their ancient\npastimes, and the belated traveller would seem to see the night mists of\nthe meadows in the moonlight mimic the intertwining limbs of lovers. And\nin very deed they were little more than a fleeting fog themselves. The\ncold tried them sorely. One night, when the snow shrouded the fields,\nthe Nymphs \u00c6gle, Ne\u00e6ra, Mna\u00efs and Melib[oe]a glided through the cracks\nin the marble into the narrow, gloomy chamber where I dwell. Their\ncomrades crowded after in their train, and the Fauns, dashing in pursuit\nof them, quickly joined them too. My house became their house. We\nscarcely ever left it, except to visit the woods, when the night was\nfine and clear. Even then they would make haste to return at the first\ncock-crow. For you must know, my son, that alone of the horned race I\nhave leave to appear on this earth by the light of day. It is a\nprivilege attached to my Saintship.\n\n\"My tomb now inspired more veneration than ever among the country\npeople, and every day young mothers came to present their nurslings to\nme, lifting the naked babes in their arms. When the sons of St. Francis\nsettled in the land and built a monastery on the hill-side, they craved\nthe Bishop's leave to transfer my monument to their Church and there\nkeep it as a sacred thing. The favour was granted, and I was borne in\ngreat pomp to the Chapel of San Michele, where I repose to this day. My\nrustic family was carried thither along with me. It was a signal honour;\nbut I confess I regretted the broad highway, where I could watch at dawn\nthe peasant women carrying on their heads their basketfuls of grapes and\nfigs and red aubergines. Time has hardly softened my regret, and I would\nI were still beneath the plane-tree on the Sacred Way.\n\n\"Such is my life,\" ended the old Satyr. \"It flows on pleasantly, gentle\nand unobtrusive, down all the ages of the world. If a touch of sadness\nmingles with the joy of it, 'tis because the gods have willed it so. Oh!\nmy son, let us praise the gods, masters of the universe!\"\n\nFra Mino stood thinking a while. Then he said:\n\n\"I understand now the meaning of what I saw, during that evil night, in\nthe Chapel of San Michele. Still one point remains dark to my mind. Tell\nme why, old man, the Nymphs who, dwell with you, and couple with the\nfauns, changed into old women of squalid ugliness when they came nigh\nme.\"\n\n\"Alas! my son,\" answered the Saint, \"time spares neither men nor gods.\nThese last are immortal only in the imagination of the short-lived race\nof men. In reality they suffer the penalties of age, and verge, as the\ncenturies go by, towards irreparable decay. Nymphs grow old as well as\nwomen. No rose but turns into an arid hip at last; no Nymph but ends as\nan ugly Witchwife. Watching as you did the frolic of my little\nhousehold, you saw how the memory of their bygone youth yet beautifies\nthe Nymphs and Fauns in the moment of their loves, and how their ardour,\nreanimated an instant, can reanimate their charms. But the ruin of\ncenturies shows again directly after. Alas! alas! the race of the Nymphs\nis old, very old and decrepit.\"\n\nFra Mino asked yet another question:\n\n\"Old man! if what you say is true, and you have won to blessedness by\nmysterious ways, if it is true--however absurd--that you are a Saint,\nhow comes it you house in your tomb with these phantoms which know not\nto praise God, and which pollute with their indecencies the temple of\nthe Lord? Answer me, old man!\"\n\nBut the goat-footed Saint, without a word of answer, vanished softly\naway into thin air.\n\nSeated on a mossy stone beside the spring, Fra Mino pondered the\ndiscourse he had just listened to, and found it contained, along with\nsome passages impenetrably obscure, others that were full of clearness\nand enlightenment.\n\n\"This Satyr Saint,\" he reflected, \"maybe likened to the Sibyl, who in\nthe pantheon of the false gods, proclaimed the coming Redeemer to the\nNations. The mire of old-world falsehoods yet clings about the hoofs of\nhis feet, but his forehead is uplifted to the light, and his lips\nconfess the truth.\"\n\nAs the shadow of the beeches was lengthening along the grassy hill-side,\nthe Monk rose up from his stone and began to descend the narrow path\nthat led to the House of the Sons of St. Francis. But he dared not let\nhis eyes rest on the flowers sleeping on the surface of the pools, for\nhe saw in them the likeness of the wanton nymphs. He got back to his\ncell at the moment when the bells were sounding the _Ave Maria_. It was\na small, white chamber, furnished simply with a bed, a stool, and one of\nthe high desks writers use. On the wall a mendicant friar had painted\nyears ago, in the manner of Giotto, a representation of the holy Marys\nat the foot of the Cross. Below this painting, a shelf of wood, as black\nand polished as the beams of an ancient oil-press, was covered with\nbooks. Of these, some were sacred, others profane, for Fra Mino was a\nstudent of the classic poets, to the end he might praise God in all the\nworks of men, and blessed the good Virgil for having prophesied the\nbirth of the Saviour, when the bard of Mantua declares to the Nations:\n_Jam redit et Virgo._[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Now the Virgin too returns.]\n\nOn the window-sill a tall lily stood in a vase of coarse earthenware,\nfor Fra Mino loved to trace the name of the Blessed Virgin inscribed in\nthe gold dust of the flower's calyx. The window itself, which opened\nvery high up in the wall, was small, but the sky could be seen from it,\nblue above the purple hills.\n\nEnsconced in this pleasant tomb of his life and longings, Mino sat down\nbefore the narrow desk, with its two shelves at top, where he was\naccustomed to devote himself to his studies. Then, dipping his reed in\nthe inkhorn fastened to the side of the little coffer that held his\nsheets of parchment, his brushes, and his colours and gold dust, he\nbesought the flies, in the name of the Lord, not to annoy him, and began\nto write the account of all he had seen and heard in the Chapel of San\nMichele, during his night of torment, as well as on the day just done,\nin the woods by the stream side. And first of all, he traced these lines\non the parchment:\n\n\"_A true record of those things which Fra Mino, of the Order of Friars\nMinors, saw and heard, and which he doth here relate for the instruction\nof the Faithful. To the praise of Jesus Christ and the glory of the\nblessed and humble poor man of Christ, St. Francis. Amen._\"\n\nThen he set down in order in writing, without omitting aught, all he had\nnoted of the nymphs that turned into witches and the old man with horns\non his brow, whose voice quavered in the woods like a last sigh of the\nClassic flute and a first prelude of the Christian harp. While he wrote,\nthe birds sang; and night closed in slowly, blotting out the bright\ncolours of the day. The Monk lighted his lamp, and went on with his\nwriting. As he recounted each several marvel he had made acquaintance\nwith, he carefully expounded its literal, and its spiritual,\nsignification, all according to the rules of rhetoric and theology. And\njust as men fence about cities with walls and towers to make them\nstrong, so he supported all his arguments with texts of Scripture. He\nconcluded from the singular revelations he had received: firstly, that\nJesus Christ is Lord of all creatures, and is God of the Satyrs and the\nPans, as well as of men. This is why St. Jerome saw in the Desert\nCentaurs that confessed Jesus Christ; secondly, that God had\ncommunicated to the Pagans certain glimmerings of light, to the end they\nmight be saved. Likewise the Sibyls, for instance the Cum\u00e6an, the\nEgyptian and the Delphic, did these not foreshadow, amid the darkness of\nthe Gentiles, the Holy Cradle, the Rods, the Reed, the Crown of Thorns\nand the Cross itself? For which reason St. Augustine admitted the\nErythr\u00e6an Sibyl into the City of God. Fra Mino gave thanks to God for\nhaving taught him so much learning; and a great joy flooded his heart to\nthink Virgil was among the elect. And he wrote gleefully at the bottom\nof the last leaf:\n\n\"_Here endeth the Apocalypse of Brother Mino, the poor man of Jesus\nChrist. I have seen the aureole of the blessed Saints crowning the\nhorned forehead of the Satyr, in token that Jesus Christ hath redeemed\nfrom the shades of limbo the sages and poets of Antiquity._\"\n\nThe night was already far spent when, having finished his task, Fra Mino\nstretched himself upon his bed to snatch a little repose. Just as he was\ndropping asleep, an old woman came in at the window, riding on a\nmoonbeam. He recognized her instantly for the ugliest of the witches he\nhad seen in the Chapel of San Michele.\n\n\"My sweet,\" she said, addressing him, \"what have you been doing this\nday? Yet we warned you, I and my pretty sisters, you must not reveal our\nsecrets. For if you betrayed us, we told you we should kill you. And\nsorry I should be, for indeed I love you tenderly.\"\n\nShe clipped him in her arms, called him her heavenly Adonis, her\ndarling, her little white ass, and lavished a thousand ardent caresses\non him.\n\nAnon, when he repulsed her with a spasm of disgust,\n\n\"Child, child!\" she said to him, \"you scorn me, because my eyes are\nrimmed with red, my nostrils rotted with the acrid, fetid humour they\ndistil, and my gums adorned with a single tooth, and that black and\nextravagantly long. Such is your Ne\u00e6ra to-day, it is too true. But if\nyou love me, I shall once more become, by you and for you, what I was in\nthe golden days of Saturn, when my youth was in blossom amid the\nblossoms of the young, flower-decked world. 'Tis love, oh! my young god,\nthat makes the beauty of things. To restore my beauty, all that is\nneeded is a little courage. Up, Mino, be bold and show your mettle!\"\n\nAt these words, which were accompanied by appropriate gestures, Fra\nMino, shuddering with fear and horror, felt himself swoon away, and\nslipped from his bed on to the pavement of his cell. As he fell, he\nseemed to catch a glimpse, between his half-closed lids, of a nymph of\nperfect shape and peerless beauty, whose naked body rolled over his like\nwaves of milk.\n\nHe woke in broad daylight, bruised and broken by his fall. The leaves of\nthe manuscript he had written the night before still littered the desk.\nHe read them through again, folded and sealed them with his seal, put\nthe roll inside his gown, and unheeding the menaces the witches had\ntwice over given him, started to carry his revelations to the Lord\nBishop, whose Palace lifted its battlements above the roofs in the\nmiddle of the city. He found him donning his spurs in the Great Hall,\nsurrounded by his men-at-arms. For the Bishop was just then at war with\nthe Ghibellines of Florence. He asked the Monk to what he owed his\nvisit, and on being informed of the matter, invited him there and then\nto read out his report. Fra Mino obeyed, and the Bishop heard out his\ntale to the end. He had no special lights on the subject of apparitions;\nbut he was animated with an ardent zeal for the interests of the Faith.\nWithout a day's delay, and not suffering the cares of the War to\ndistract him from his purpose, he appointed twelve famous Doctors in\nTheology and Canon Law to examine into the affair, urging them to give\na definite and speedy decision. After mature inquiry and not without\nagain and again cross-questioning Fra Mino, the Doctors determined the\nbest thing to do was to open the tomb of San Satiro in the Chapel of San\nMichele, and go through a course of special exorcisms on the spot. As to\nthe points of doctrine raised by Fra Mino, they declined to pronounce a\nformal opinion, inclining however to regard as rash, frivolous and\nnew-fangled the arguments advanced by the Franciscan.\n\nAgreeably to the advice of the learned Doctors and by order of the\nBishop, the tomb of San Satiro was opened. It was found to contain\nnothing but a handful of ashes, which the priests sprinkled with holy\nwater. At this there rose a white vapour, from which issued a sound of\nfaint and feeble groans.\n\nThe night following this pious ceremony Fra Mino dreamed that the\nwitches, bending over his bed, were tearing his heart out of his bosom.\nHe rose at dawn, tortured with sharp pains and devoured by a raging\nthirst. He dragged himself as far as the cloister well, where the doves\nused to drink. But no sooner had he drained down a few drops of water\nthat filled a hollow in the well-head than he felt his heart swell\nwithin him like a sponge, and with a stifled cry to God, he choked and\ndied.\n\n\n\n\nMESSER GUIDO CAVALCANTI\n\nTO JULES LEMA\u00ceTRE\n\n\n\n\nMESSER GUIDO CAVALCANTI\n\n  _Guido, di Messer Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, fu un de' migliori loici\n  che avesse il mondo, et ottimo filosofo naturale.... E perci\u00f2 che egli\n  alquanto tenea della opinione degli Epicuri, si diceva tra la gente\n  volgare che queste sue speculazioni eran solo in cercare se trovar si\n  potesse che Iddio non fosse._[1] (The _Decameron_ of Messer Giovanni\n  Boccaccio, Sixth Day, Novella IX.)\n\n       DIM\n  NON. FVI. ME.\n  MINI. NON. SVM.\n  NON. CVRO. DO.\n  NNIA. ITALIA. AN.\n  NORVM. XX. HIC.\n  QVIESCO.[2]\n\n  (Inscription from the _Cippus of Donnia Italia_ as read by M.\n  Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Blad\u00e9.)\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Guido, son of Messer Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, was one of\nthe best Logicians the world held, and a most finished Natural\nPhilosopher.... And forasmuch as in some degree he held by the opinion\nof the Epicureans, it was therefore said among the vulgar folk how that\nthese his speculations were only pursued for to discover if it might be\nthere was no God.\"]\n\n[Footnote 2: \"To the Gods of the Lower World.--I was not. I remember. I\nam not and I heed not. I, Donnia Italia, a maid of twenty, rest here.\"]\n\n\nMesser Guido Cavalcanti was, in the twentieth year of his age, the most\nagreeable and the best-built man of all the Florentine nobles. Beneath\nhis long, dark locks, which escaping from under his cap, fell in jetty\ncurls over his white brow, his eyes, that had a golden gleam in them,\nshone out with a dazzling brilliance. He possessed the arms of Hercules\nand the hands of a Nymph. His shoulders were broad, and his figure slim\nand supple. He was well skilled in breaking difficult horses and\nwielding heavy weapons, and a peerless rider at the ring. Whenever he\npassed along the city streets to hear Mass at San Giovanni or San\nMichele, or walked by Arno side in the water-meadows, that were pranked\nwith flowers like a beautiful picture, if any fair ladies, going in a\ntroop together, met him in the way, they never failed to say the one to\nthe other with a blush: \"See, yonder is Messer Guido, son of the Lord\nCavalcante de' Cavalcanti. 'Tis a very St. George for comeliness,\npardi!\" And men report that Madonna Gemma, wife of Sandro Bujamonte, one\nday sent her Nurse to let him know how she loved him with all her soul,\nand was like to die of longing. Nor less ardently was he invited to join\nthe Companies the young Florentine lords were used in those days to form\namong themselves, feasting, supping, gaming and hunting together, and\nsometimes so dearly loving each other that one and all would wear\ngarments of a like cut and colour. But with equal disdain he shunned the\nsociety of Florentine ladies and the assemblages of her young Nobles;\nfor so proud and fierce was his humour, he took no pleasure but in\nsolitude.\n\nHe would often stay all the day shut up in his chamber, then forth to\nwander solitary beneath the holm-oaks that bordered the Ema road at the\nhour when the first stars are a-tremble in the pale evening sky. If by\nchance he encountered riders of his own age, he never laughed, and said\nlittle--and that little was not always comprehensible. His strange\nbearing and ambiguous words were a grief and a grievance to his\ncomrades--and above all to Messer Betto Brunelleschi, for he dearly\nloved Messer Guido, and had no fonder wish than to make him one of the\nBrotherhood which embraced the richest and the handsomest young noblemen\nof Florence, and of which he was himself the glory and the delight. For\nindeed Messer Betto Brunelleschi was reputed the fine flower of chivalry\nand the most perfect knight of all Tuscany--after Messer Guido.\n\nOne day as the latter was just entering the Porch of Santa Maria\nNovella, where the Monks of the Order of Saint Dominic kept at that time\na number of books that had been brought to Italy by the Greeks, Messer\nBetto, who was crossing the Piazza at the moment, loudly hailed his\nfriend:\n\n\"Hola! Guido mine,\" he shouted, \"whither away now, this bright day,\nthat invites you, methinks, to go fowling in the hills rather than hide\nin the gloom of the Cloister yonder? Do me a favour, and come to my\nhouse at Arezzo, where I will play the flute to you, for the pleasure of\nseeing you smile.\"\n\n\"Grammercy!\" replied Messer Guido, without so much as deigning to turn\nhis head. \"I am away to see my Lady.\"\n\nAnd so saying, he entered the Church, which he crossed with a rapid\nstep, recking as little of the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the\nAltar as of Messer Betto, sitting stiff on his horse outside the\ndoor, astounded at the words he had just heard. Guido pushed open a\nlow portal leading to the Cloisters, followed the Cloister wall, and\narrived in the Library, where Fra Sisto was painting the figures of\nangels. There, after saluting the good Brother, he drew out from a\ngreat painted chest one of the books newly come from Constantinople,\nlaid it on a desk and began to turn over the leaves. It was a\nTreatise on Love, writ in Greek by the divine Plato. Messer Guido\nsighed; his hands began to tremble and his eyes filled with tears.\n\n\"Alas!\" he muttered; \"hid beneath these signs is the Light, and I cannot\nsee it.\"\n\nHe said thus to himself, because the knowledge of the Greek tongue was\nthen altogether lost in the West. After many a long-drawn groan, he took\nthe book, and kissing it, laid it in the iron chest like a beautiful\ndead woman in her coffin. Then he asked the good Fra Sisto to give him\nthe Manuscript of the Speeches of Cicero, which he read, till the shades\nof evening, glooming down on the cypresses in the Cloister garden,\nspread their batlike wings over the pages of his book. For you must know\nMesser Guido Cavalcanti was a searcher after truth in the writings of\nthe Ancients, and was for treading the arduous ways that lead mankind to\nimmortality. Devoured by the noble longing of discovery, he would set\nout in canzones the doctrines of the old-world Sages concerning Love\nwhich is the path to Virtue.\n\nA few days later, Messer Betto Brunelleschi came to visit him at his own\nhouse on the promenade of the Adimari, at the peep of day, the hour when\nthe lark sings in the corn. He found him still abed, and after kissing\nhim, said tenderly:\n\n\"My Guido, my Guido lad! put me out of my pain. Last week you told me\nyou were on your way to visit your Lady in the Church and Cloister of\nSanta Maria Novella. Ever since I have been turning, turning your words\nin my head, without fathoming their meaning. I shall have no peace till\nyou have given me an explanation of them. I beseech you, tell me what\nyou meant--so far, that is, as your discretion shall suffer you, seeing\nthe matter doth concern a lady.\"\n\nMesser Guido burst out a-laughing. Raising himself on his elbow in bed,\nhe looked Messer Betto in the eyes.\n\n\"Friend!\" said he, \"the Lady I spoke to you of hath more than one\nhabitation. The day you saw me going to visit her, I found her in the\nLibrary of Santa Maria Novella. But alack! I heard but the one half of\nher discourse, for she spoke to me in both of the two languages that\nflow like honey from her adorable lips. First she delivered me a\ndiscourse in the tongue of the Greeks, which I could not comprehend,\nthen she addressed me in the dialect of the Latins with a wondrous\nwisdom. And so well pleased was I with her conversation that I am right\nfain to marry her.\"\n\n\"Tis at the least,\" said Messer Betto, \"a niece of the Emperor of\nConstantinople, or his natural daughter.... How name you her?\"\n\n\"If needs be,\" answered Messer Guido, \"we must give her a love name,\nsuch as every poet gives to his mistress. I will call her Diotima, in\nmemory of Diotima of Megara, who showed the way to the lovers of Virtue.\nBut her public and avowed name is Philosophy, and 'tis the most\nexcellent bride a man can find. I want no other, and I swear by the gods\nto be faithful unto death, which doth put an end to life and thought.\"\n\nWhen he heard these sentiments, Messer Betto struck his forehead with\nhis hand and cried:\n\n\"Per Bacco! but I never guessed the riddle! Friend Guido, you have the\nsubtlest wit under the red lily of Florence. I heartily commend your\ntaking to wife so high a dame. Of a surety, will spring of this union a\nnumerous progeny of canzones, sonnets and ballades. I promise to baptize\nyou these pretty babes to the sound of my flute, with dainty mottoes\ngalore and gallant devices. I am the more rejoiced at this spiritual\nwedlock, seeing it will never hinder you, when the time comes, to marry\naccording to the flesh some fair and goodly lady of the city.\"\n\n\"Nay! you are out,\" returned Messer Guido. \"They that celebrate the\nespousals of the mind should leave carnal marriage to the profane\nvulgar, which includes the great Lords, the Merchants and the\nHandicraftsmen. If like me you had known my Diotima, you would have\nlearned, friend Betto, that she doth distinguish two sorts of men, on\nthe one hand such as, being fruitful only by the body, strive but for\nthat coarse and commonplace immortality that is won by the generation of\nchildren, on the other they whose soul conceives and engenders what is\nmeet for the soul to produce, to wit the Good and Beautiful. My Diotima\nhath willed I should be of the second sort, and I will not go against\nher good pleasure, and copy the mere brutes that breed and procreate.\"\n\nMesser Betto Brunelleschi by no means approved of this resolution. He\npointed out to his friend that in life we must adapt ourselves to the\ndifferent conditions and modes of existence suitable to the different\nages, that after the epoch of pleasures comes that of ambition, and that\nit was good and prudent, as youth waned, to contract alliance with some\nrich and noble family, affording access to the great offices of the\nRepublic, such as Prior of the Arts and Liberty, Captain of the People,\nor Gonfalonier of Justice.\n\nSeeing however that his friend only received his advice with a lip of\ndisgust, as if it were some bitter drug, he said no more on the point,\nfor fear of angering him, deeming it wise to trust to time, which will\nchange men's hearts and reverse the strongest resolutions.\n\n\"Sweet Guido,\" he interposed gaily, \"tell me this much at any rate.\nDoth your lady suffer you to have delight with pretty maids and to take\npart in our diversions?\"\n\n\"For that matter,\" replied Messer Guido, \"she hath no more care of such\nthings than of the encounters that small dog you see asleep yonder at\nthe foot of my bed may make in the street. And in very deed they are of\nno account, provided a man doth himself attach no value to them.\"\n\nMesser Betto left the room a trifle piqued at his friend's scornful\nbearing. He continued to feel the liveliest affection for his friend,\nbut thought it unbecoming to press him overmuch to attend the f\u00eates and\nentertainments he gave all the Winter long with an admirable liberality.\nAt the same time the gentlemen of his Company resented hotly the slight\nthe son of the Signor Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti did them by refusing to\nshare their society. They began to rally him on, his studies and poring\nover books, declaring that by dint of so feeding on parchment, like the\nMonks and the rats, he would end up by growing to resemble these, and\nwould anon have nothing to show but a pointed snout and three long hairs\nfor beard, peeping out from under a black hood, and that Madonna Gemma\nherself would cry out at sight of him:\n\n\"Venus, my Patroness! what a pass have his books brought my handsome St.\nGeorge to! He is good for naught now but to throw away his lance and\nhold a writing-reed in hand instead.\" So they miscalled him sore, saying\nhe toyed only with the bookworms and spiders, and was tied to the\napron-strings of Mistress Philosophia. Nor did they stop short at\nsuch-like light raillery, but let it be understood he was too learned by\nfar to be a good Christian, that he was given over to Magic Arts, and\nheld converse with the Devils of Hell.\n\n\"Folk do not lurk in hiding like that,\" they said to each other, \"for\nany reason but to foregather with the Devils, male and female, and get\ngold of them as the price of revolting and shameful acts.\"\n\nTo crown all, they charged him with sharing those false and pernicious\ndoctrines of Epicurus which had already seduced an Emperor at Naples and\na Pope in Rome, and threatened to turn the peoples of Europe into a herd\nof swine, without a thought of God and their own immortal souls. \"A\nmighty fine gain,\" they ended up, \"when his studies have brought him to\nforswear the Holy Trinity!\" This last charge they bruited abroad was the\nmost formidable of all, and might easily work ruin on Messer Guido.\n\nNow Messer Guido Cavalcanti was well aware of the mockery they made of\nhim in the Companies by reason of the careful heed he had of eternal\nthings; and this was why he shunned the society of living men and sought\nrather to the dead.\n\nIn those days the Church of San Giovanni was surrounded with Roman\ntombs. Thither would Messer Guido often come at _Ave Maria_ and meditate\nfar into the silent night. He believed, as the Chronicles reported, that\nthis fair Church of San Giovanni had been a Pagan Temple before it was a\nChristian Church, and the thought pleased his soul, which was enamoured\nof the old-world mysteries. Especially he loved to look on these tombs,\nwhere the sign of the Cross found no place, but which bore Latin\ninscriptions and were adorned with carven figures of men and gods. They\nwere long cubes of white marble, on the sides of which could be made out\nrepresentations of banquets and hunting parties, the death of Adonis,\nthe fight of Lapith\u00e6 and Centaurs, the refusal of the chaste Hippolytus,\nthe Amazons. Messer Guido would read the lettering with anxious care,\nand try hard to penetrate the meaning of these fables. One tomb in\nparticular occupied him more than all the rest, for it showed him two\nLoves, each holding a torch, and he was curious to discover the nature\nof these two Loves. Well! one night that he was pondering on these\nthings more deeply than ever, a shadow rose up above the lid of the\ntomb--a luminous shadow, as when you see, or fancy you see, the moon\nshining faintly through a cloud. Gradually it took the shape of a\nbeautiful virgin, and said thus in a voice softer than the reeds waving\nin the wind:\n\n\"I am she that sleeps within this tomb, and I am called Julia L\u00e6ta. I\nlost the light on my marriage-day, at the age of sixteen years, three\nmonths and nine days. Since then, whether I am, or am not, I cannot\ntell. Never question the dead, stranger, for they see naught, and a\nthick night environs them. 'Tis said that such as in life knew the cruel\njoys of Venus roam the glades of a dense forest of myrtles. For me who\ndied a virgin, I sleep a dreamless sleep. They have graven two Loves on\nthe stone of my sepulchre. One gives mortals the light of day; the other\nquenches it in their tender eyes for ever. The countenance of both is\nthe same, a smiling countenance, for birth and death are two twin\nbrothers, and all is joy to the Immortal Gods. I have spoken.\"\n\nThe voice fell silent, like the rustling of leaves when the wind drops.\nThe transparent shadow vanished away in the light of dawn, which\ndescended clear and white on the hills; and the tombs of San Giovanni\ngrew wan and silent once again in the morning air. And Messer Guido\npondered:\n\n\"The truth I foresaw, hath been made manifest to me. Is it not writ in\nthe Book the Priests use, 'Shall the dead praise Thee, O Lord?' The dead\nare without thought or knowledge, and the divine Epicurus was well\nadvised when he enfranchised the living from the vain terrors of the\nlife to come.\"\n\nA troop of horsemen pricking across the Piazza abruptly broke up his\nmeditations. It was Messer Betto and his Company away to hunt the cranes\nalong the brookside of Peretola.\n\n\"So ho!\" cried one of them, whose name was Bocca, \"see yonder, Messer\nGuido the Philosopher, who scorns us for our good life and gentle ways\nand merry doings. He seems half frozen.\"\n\n\"And well he may be,\" put in Messer Doria, who was reputed a wag. \"His\nlady, the Moon, whom he kisses tenderly all night, hath hied her behind\nthe hills to sleep with some shepherd swain. He is eat up with jealousy;\nlook you, how green he is!\"\n\nThey spurred their horses among the tombs, and drew up in a ring about\nMesser Guido.\n\n\"Nay! nay! Messer Doria,\" returned Bocca, \"the lady Moon is too round\nand bright for so black a gallant. If you would know his mistresses,\nthey be here. Here he comes to find them in their bed, where he is less\nlike to be stung of fleas than of scorpions.\"\n\n\"Fie! Out upon the vile necromancer!\" exclaimed Messer Giordano,\ncrossing himself; \"see what learning leads to! Folk disown God, and go\nfornicating in Pagan graveyards.\"\n\nLeaning against the Church wall, Messer Guido let the riders have their\nsay. When he judged they had voided all the froth of their shallow\nbrains over him:\n\n\"Gentle cavaliers,\" he answered, smiling, \"you are at home. I am your\nhost, and courtesy constrains me to receive your insults without reply.\"\n\nSo saying, he bounded over the tombs and walked quietly away. The\nhorsemen looked at one another in amazement; then bursting out laughing,\nthey gave spur to their steeds. As they were galloping along the\nPeretola Road, Messer Bocca said to Messer Betto:\n\n\"Who can doubt now but this Guido is gone mad? He told us we were at\nhome in the graveyard. And to say such a thing, he must needs have lost\nhis wits.\"\n\n\"True it is,\" replied Messer Betto, \"I cannot imagine what he meant to\nhave us understand by talking in such a sort. But he is used to\nexpressing himself in dark sayings and subtle parables. He hath tossed\nus a bone this time must be opened to find the marrow.\"\n\n\"Pardi!\" ejaculated Messer Giordano; \"my dog may have this bone to gnaw,\nand the Pagan that threw it to boot.\"\n\nThey soon reached the banks of the Peretola brook, whence the cranes may\nbe seen rising in flocks at daybreak. During the chase, which was\nabundantly successful, Messer Betto Brunelleschi never ceased pondering\nthe words Guido had used. And by dint of much thinking, he discovered\ntheir signification. Hailing Messer Bocca with loud cries, he said to\nhim:\n\n\"Come hither, Messer Bocca! I have just guessed what it was Messer Guido\nmeant us to understand. He told us we were at home in a graveyard,\nbecause the ignorant be for all the world like dead men, who, according\nto the Epicurean doctrine, have no faculty of thought or knowledge.\"\n\nMesser Bocca replied, shrugging his shoulders, he understood better than\nmost how to fly a Flanders hawk, to make knife-play with his enemies,\nand to upset a girl, and this was knowledge sufficient for his state in\nlife.\n\nMesser Guido continued for several years more to study the science of\nLove. He embodied his reflexions in canzones, which it is not given to\nall men to interpret, composing a book of these verses that was borne in\ntriumph through the streets, garlanded with laurel. Then, seeing the\npurest souls are not without alloy of terrestrial passions, and life\nbears us one and all along in its sinuous and stormy course, it fell out\nthat at the turning-point of youth and age, Messer Guido was seduced by\nthe ambitions of the flesh and the powers of this world. He wedded, to\nfurther his projects of aggrandizement, the daughter of the Lord\nFarinata degli Uberti, the same who one time reddened the Arbia with the\nblood of the Florentines. He threw himself into the quarrels of the\ncitizens with all the pride and impetuosity of his nature. And he took\nfor mistresses the Lady Mandetta and the Lady Giovanna, who represented\nthe one the Albigensians, the other the Ghibellines. It was the time\nwhen Messer Dante Alighieri was Prior of the Arts and Liberty. The city\nwas divided into two hostile camps, those of the Bianchi and the Neri.\nOne day when the principal citizens were assembled in the Piazza of the\nFrescobaldi, the Bianchi on one side the square and the Neri on the\nother, to assist at the obsequies of a noble lady of Florence, the\nDoctors and the Knights were seated as the custom was, on raised\nbenches, while in front of them the younger men sat on the ground on\nrush mats. One of the latter standing up to settle his cloak, those who\nwere opposite thought he was for defying them. They started to their\nfeet in turn, and bared their swords. Instantly every one unsheathed,\nand the kinsmen of the dead lady had all the difficulty in the world to\nseparate the combatants.\n\nFrom that day, Florence ceased to be a town gladdened by the work of its\nhandicraftsmen, and became a forest full of wolves ravening for each\nother's blood. Messer Guido shared these savage passions, and grew\ngloomy, restless and sullen. Never a day passed but he exchanged\nsword-thrusts with the Neri in the streets of Florence, where in old\ndays he had meditated on the nature and constitution of the soul. More\nthan once he had felt the assassin's dagger on his flesh, before he was\nbanished with the rest of his faction and confined in the\nplague-stricken town of Sarzana. For six months he languished there,\nsick with fever and hate. And when eventually the Bianchi were recalled,\nhe came back to his native city a dying man.\n\nIn the year 1300, on the third day after the Assumption of the Blessed\nVirgin Mary, he found strength enough to drag himself as far as his own\nfair Church of San Giovanni. Worn out with fatigue and grief, he lay\ndown on the tomb of Julia L\u00e6ta, who in the old days had revealed to him\nthe mysteries the profane know nothing of. It was the hour when the\nChurch bells ring out through the quivering air of evening a long-drawn\nfarewell to the setting sun. Messer Betto Brunelleschi, who was crossing\nthe Piazza on his way home from his country house, saw amid the tombs\ntwo haggard falcon's eyes burning in a fleshless face, and recognizing\nthe friend of his youth, was seized with wonder and pity.\n\nHe approached him, and kissing him as he used in former days, said with\na sigh:\n\n\"Ah! Guido mine! what fire is it hath consumed you away thus? You burned\nup your life in science first, and then in public affairs. I beseech\nyou, quench somewhat the ardour of your spirit; comrade, let us husband\nour strength, and, as Riccardo the blacksmith says, make up a fire to\nlast.\"\n\nBut Guido Cavalcanti put his hand on his lips.\n\n\"Hush!\" he whispered, \"hush! not a word more, friend Betto. I wait my\nlady, her who shall console me for so many vain loves that in this world\nhave betrayed me and that I have betrayed. It is equally cruel and\nuseless to think and to act. This I know. The curse is not so much to\nlive, for I see you are well and hearty, friend Betto, and many another\nman is the same. The curse is not to live, but to know we live. The\ncurse is to be conscious and to will. Happily there is a remedy for\nthese evils. Let us say no more; I await the lady whom I have never\nwronged, for never have I doubted but she was gentle and true-hearted,\nand I have learned by much pondering how peaceful and secure it is to\nslumber on her bosom. Many fables have been told of her bed and\ndwelling-places. But I have not believed the lies of the ignorant crowd.\nSo it is, she cometh to me as a mistress to her lover, her brow\ngarlanded with flowers and her lips smiling.\"\n\nHe broke off with these words, and fell dead over the ancient tomb. His\nbody was buried without any great pomp in the Cloister of Santa Maria\nNovella.\n\n\n\n\nLUCIFER\n\nTO LOUIS GANDERAX\n\n\n\n\nLUCIFER\n\n  _E si compiacque tanto Spinello di farlo orribile e contrafatto, che\n  si dice (tanto pu\u00f2 alcuna fiata l'immaginazione) che la detta figura\n  da lui dipinta gli apparve in sogno, domandandolo dove egli l' avesse\n  veduta si brutta._[1]\n\n  (_Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori_, da Messer Giorgio Vasari.--\"Vita\n  di Spinello.\")\n\n[Footnote 1: \"And so successful was Spinello with his horrible and\nportentous Production that it was commonly reported--so great is alway\nthe force of fancy--that the said figure (of Lucifer trodden underfoot\nby St. Michael in the Altar-piece of the Church of St. Agnolo at Arezzo)\npainted by him had appeared to the artist in a dream, and asked him in\nwhat place he had beheld him under so brutish a form.\"\n\n_Lives of the most Excellent Painters_, by Giorgio Vasari.--\"Life of\nSpinello.\"]\n\n\nAndrea Tafi, painter and worker-in-mosaic of Florence, had a wholesome\nterror of the Devils of Hell, particularly in the watches of the night,\nwhen it is given to the powers of Darkness to prevail. And the worthy\nman's fears were not unreasonable, for in those days the Demons had good\ncause to hate the Painters, who robbed them of more souls with a single\npicture than a good little Preaching Friar could do in thirty sermons.\nNo doubt the Monk, to instil a soul-saving horror in the hearts of the\nfaithful, would describe to the utmost of his powers \"that day of wrath,\nthat day of mourning,\" which is to reduce the universe to ashes, _teste\nDavid et Sibylla_, borrowing his deepest voice and bellowing through his\nhands to imitate the Archangel's last trump. But there! it was \"all\nsound and fury, signifying nothing,\" whereas a painting displayed on a\nChapel wall or in the Cloister, showing Jesus Christ sitting on the\nGreat White Throne to judge the living and the dead, spoke unceasingly\nto the eyes of sinners, and through the eyes chastened such as had\nsinned by the eyes or otherwise.\n\nIt was in the days when cunning masters were depicting at Santa-Croce in\nFlorence and the Campo Santo of Pisa the mysteries of Divine Justice.\nThese works were drawn according to the account in verse which Dante\nAlighieri, a man very learned in Theology and in Canon Law, wrote in\ndays gone by of his journey to Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, whither\nby the singular great merits of his lady, he was able to make his way\nalive. So everything in these paintings was instructive and true, and we\nmay say surely less profit is to be had of reading the most full and\nample Chronicle than from contemplating such representative, works of\nart. Moreover, the Florentine masters took heed to paint, under the\nshade of orange groves, on the flower-starred turf, fair ladies and\ngallant knights, with Death lying in wait for them with his scythe,\nwhile they were discoursing of love to the sound of lutes and viols.\nNothing was better fitted to convert carnal-minded sinners who quaff\nforgetfulness of God on the lips of women. To rebuke the covetous, the\npainter would show to the life the Devils pouring molten gold down the\nthroat of Bishop or Abbess, who had commissioned some work from him and\nthen scamped his pay.\n\nThis is why the Demons in those days were bitter enemies of the\npainters, and above all of the Florentine painters, who surpassed all\nthe rest in subtlety of wit. Chiefly they reproached them with\nrepresenting them under a hideous guise, with the heads of bird and\nfish, serpents' bodies and bats' wings. This sore resentment which they\nfelt will come out plainly in the history of Spinello of Arezzo.\n\nSpinello Spinelli was sprung of a noble family of Florentine exiles, and\nhis graciousness of mind matched his gentle birth; for he was the most\nskilful painter of his time. He wrought many and great works at\nFlorence; and the Pisans begged him to complete Giotto's wall-paintings\nin their Campo Santo, where the dead rest beneath roses in holy earth\nshipped from Jerusalem. At last, after working long years in divers\ncities and getting much gold, he longed to see once more the good city\nof Arezzo, his mother. The men of Arezzo had not forgotten how Spinello,\nin his younger days, being enrolled in the Confraternity of Santa Maria\ndella Misericordia, had visited the sick and buried the dead in the\nplague of 1383. They were grateful to him beside for having by his works\nspread the fame of their city over all Tuscany. For all these reasons\nthey welcomed him with high honours on his return.\n\nStill full of vigour in his old age, he undertook important tasks in his\nnative town. His wife would tell him:\n\n\"You are rich, Spinello. Do you rest, and leave younger men to paint\ninstead of you. It is meet a man should end his days in a gentle,\nreligious quiet. It is tempting God to be for ever raising new and\nworldly monuments, mere heathen towers of Babel. Quit your colours and\nyour varnishes, Spinello, or they will destroy your peace of mind.\"\n\nSo the good dame would preach, but he refused to listen, for his one\nthought was to increase his fortune and renown. Far from resting on his\nlaurels, he arranged a price with the Wardens of Sant' Agnolo for a\nhistory of St. Michael, that was to cover all the Choir of the Church\nand contain an infinity of figures. Into this enterprise he threw\nhimself with extraordinary ardour. Rereading the parts of Scripture that\nwere to be his inspiration, he set himself to study deeply every line\nand every word of these passages. Not content with drawing all day long\nin his workshop, he persisted in working both at bed and board; while at\ndusk, walking below the hill on whose brow Arezzo proudly lifts her\nwalls and towers, he was still lost in thought. And we may say the story\nof the Archangel was already limned in his brain when he started to\nsketch out the incidents in red chalk on the plaster of the wall. He was\nsoon done tracing these outlines; then he fell to painting above the\nhigh altar the scene that was to outshine all the others in brilliancy.\nFor it was his intent therein to glorify the leader of the hosts of\nHeaven for the victory he won before the beginning of time. Accordingly\nSpinello represented St. Michael fighting in the air against the serpent\nwith seven heads and ten horns, and he figured with delight, in the\nbottom part of the picture, the Prince of the Devils, Lucifer, under the\nsemblance of an appalling monster. The figures seemed to grow to life of\nthemselves under his hand. His success was beyond his fondest hopes; so\nhideous was the countenance of Lucifer, none could escape the nightmare\nof its foulness. The face haunted the painter in the streets and even\nwent home with him to his lodging.\n\nPresently when night was come, Spinello lay-down in his bed beside his\nwife and fell asleep. In his slumbers he saw an Angel as comely as St.\nMichael, but black; and the Angel said to him:\n\n\"Spinello, I am Lucifer. Tell me, where had you seen me, that you should\npaint me as you have, under so ignominious a likeness?\"\n\nThe old painter answered trembling, that he had never seen him with his\neyes, never having gone down alive into Hell, like Messer Dante\nAlighieri; but that, in depicting him as he had done, he was for\nexpressing in visible lines and colours the hideousness of sin.\n\nLucifer shrugged his shoulders, and the hill of San Gemignano seemed of\na sudden to heave and stagger.\n\n\"Spinello,\" he went on, \"will you do me the pleasure to reason awhile\nwith me? I am no mean Logician; He you pray to knows that.\"\n\nReceiving no reply, Lucifer proceeded in these terms:\n\n\"Spinello, you have read the books that tell of me. You know of my\nenterprise, and how I forsook Heaven to become the Prince of this World.\nA tremendous adventure,--and a unique one, had not the Giants in like\nfashion assailed the god Jupiter, as yourself have seen, Spinello,\nrecorded on an ancient tomb where this Titanic war is carved in marble.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said Spinello, \"I have seen the tomb, shaped like a great\ntun, in the Church of Santa Reparata at Florence. 'Tis a fine work of\nthe Romans.\"\n\n\"Still,\" returned Lucifer, smiling, \"the Giants are not pictured on it\nin the shape of frogs or chameleons or the like hideous and horrid\ncreatures.\"\n\n\"True,\" replied the painter, \"but then they had not attacked the true\nGod, but only a false idol of the Pagans. 'Tis a mighty difference. The\nfact is clear, Lucifer, you raised the standard of revolt against the\ntrue and veritable King of Earth and Heaven.\"\n\n\"I will not deny it,\" said Lucifer. \"And how many sorts of sins do you\ncharge me with for that?\"\n\n\"Seven, it is like enough,\" the painter answered, \"and deadly sins one\nand all.\"\n\n\"Seven!\" exclaimed the Angel of Darkness; \"well! the number is\ncanonical. Everything goes by sevens in my history, which is close bound\nup with God's. Spinello, you deem me proud, angry and envious. I enter\nno protest, provided you allow that glory was my only aim. Do you deem\nme covetous? Granted again; Covetousness is a virtue for Princes. For\nGluttony and Lust, if you hold me guilty, I will not complain. Remains\n_Indolence_.\"\n\nAs he pronounced the word, Lucifer crossed his arms across his breast,\nand shaking his gloomy head, tossed his flaming locks:\n\n\"Tell me, Spinello, do you really think I am indolent? Do you take me\nfor a coward? Do you hold that in my revolt I showed a lack of courage?\nNay! you cannot. Then it was but just to paint me in the guise of a\nhero, with a proud countenance. You should wrong no one, not even the\nDevil. Cannot you see that you insult Him you make prayer to, when you\ngive Him for adversary a vile, monstrous toad? Spinello, you are very\nignorant for a man of your age. I have a great mind to pull your ears,\nas they do to an ill-conditioned schoolboy.\"\n\nAt this threat, and seeing the arm of Lucifer already stretched out\ntowards him, Spinello clapped his hand to his head and began to howl\nwith terror.\n\nHis good wife, waking up with a start, asked him what ailed him. He told\nher with chattering teeth, how he had just seen Lucifer and had been in\nterror for his ears.\n\n\"I told you so,\" retorted the worthy dame; \"I knew all those figures\nyou will go on painting on the walls would end by driving you mad.\"\n\n\"I am not mad,\" protested the painter. \"I saw him with my own eyes; and\nhe is beautiful to look on, albeit proud and sad. First thing to-morrow\nI will blot out the horrid figure I have drawn and set in its place the\nshape I beheld in my dream. For we must not wrong even the Devil\nhimself.\"\n\n\"You had best go to sleep again,\" scolded his wife. \"You are talking\nstark nonsense, and unchristian to boot.\"\n\nSpinello tried to rise, but his strength failed him and he fell back\nunconscious on his pillow. He lingered on a few days in a high fever,\nand then died.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LOAVES OF BLACK BREAD\n\nTO MADEMOISELLE MARY FINALY\n\n\n\n\nTHE LOAVES OF BLACK BREAD\n\n  _Tu tibi divitias stolidissime congeris amplas,\n  Negasque micam pauperi;\n  Advenit ecce dies qua saevis ignibus ardens\n  Rogabis aquae guttulam._[1]\n\n  (_Navis stultifera_, Sebastian Brandt, 1507, fol, xix.)\n\n[Footnote 1: \"You heap up in your folly ample riches for yourself, and\nrefuse a crumb of bread to the poor man; lo! the day is at hand when\nburning in cruel flames, you shall beg for a drop of water.\"--_Ship of\nFools._]\n\n\nIn those days Nicolas Nerli was a banker in the noble city of Florence.\nTierce was no sooner sounded than he was at his desk, and at nones he\nwas seated there still, poring all day long over the figures he wrote in\nhis table-books. He lent money to the Emperor and to the Pope. And if he\ndid not lend to the Devil, it was only because he was afraid of bad\ndebts with him they call the Wily One, and who is full of cunning and\ntrickery. Nicolas Nerli was bold and unscrupulous; he had won great\nriches and robbed many folks of their own. Wherefore he was highly\nhonoured in the city of Florence. He dwelt in a Palace where the light\nof God's day entered only by narrow windows; and this was a wise\nprecaution, for the rich man's house must be a castle, and they who\npossess much wealth do well to defend by force what they have gotten by\ncunning.\n\nAccordingly the windows were guarded with bars and the doors with\nchains. Outside, the walls were painted in fresco by clever craftsmen,\nwho had depicted thereon the Virtues under the likeness of women, the\nPatriarchs, the Prophets and the Kings of Israel. Tapestries hung in the\nrooms within, displaying the histories of Alexander and Tristram, as\nthey are told us in legends. Nicolas Nerli set all the city talking of\nhis wealth by the pious foundations he established. He had raised an\nHospital beyond the walls, the frieze of which, carved and painted,\nrepresented the most honourable actions of his own life; in gratitude\nfor the sums of money he had given towards the completion of Santa Maria\nNovella, his portrait was suspended in the choir of that Church. In it\nhe was shown kneeling, with praying hands, at the feet of the Blessed\nVirgin, easily recognizable by his cap of red worsted, his furred hood,\nhis yellow face swimming in fatness and his little keen eyes. His good\nwife, Monna Bismantova, a worthy-looking woman with a mournful air, and\nseeming as though no man could ever have taken aught of pleasure with\nher, was on the other side of the Virgin in the humble attitude of\nsupplication. Nicolas Nerli was one of the chiefest citizens of the\nRepublic; seeing he had never spoken against the laws, and because he\nhad never regarded the poor nor such folk as the great and powerful\ncondemn to fine and exile, nothing had lowered in the estimation of the\nMagistrates the high repute he had won in their eyes by reason of his\ngreat riches.\n\nReturning one winter evening later than usual to his Palace, he was\nsurrounded on the threshold by a band of half-naked mendicants who held\nout their hands and asked alms.\n\nHe repulsed them with hard words. But hunger making them as fierce and\nbold as wolves, they formed a circle round him, and begged him for bread\nin hoarse, lamentable voices. He was just stooping to pick up stones to\nthrow at them when he saw one of his serving-men coming, carrying on his\nhead a basketful of loaves of black bread, intended for the stablemen,\nkitchen helpers and gardeners.\n\nHe signed to the pantler to approach, and diving both hands into the\nbasket, tossed the loaves to the starving wretches. Then entering the\nhouse, he went to bed and fell asleep. In the night, he was smitten\nwith apoplexy and died so suddenly he believed himself still in his bed\nwhen he saw, in a place \"as dark as Erebus,\" St. Michael the Archangel\nshining in the brightness that issued from his own presence.\n\nBalance in hand, the Archangel was engaged in filling the scales.\nRecognizing in the scale that hung lowest certain jewels belonging to\nwidow women that he had in pledge, a great heap of clippings from pieces\nhe had filched dishonestly, and sundry very fine gold coins which were\nunique and which he had acquired by usury or fraud, Nicolas Nerli\ncomprehended it was his own life, now come to an end, that St. Michael\nwas at that instant weighing before his eyes.\n\n\"Good Sir!\" he said, \"good St. Michael! if you put in the one scale all\nthe lucre I have gotten in my life, set in the other, if it please you,\nthe noble foundations whereby I have so splendidly shown my piety.\nForget not the Duomo of Santa Maria Novella, to which I contributed a\ngood third; nor my Hospital beyond the walls, that I built entirely out\nof my own pocket.\"\n\n\"Never fear, Nicolas Nerli,\" answered the Archangel; \"I will forget\nnothing.\"\n\nAnd with his own heavenly hands he set in the lighter scale the Duomo of\nSanta Maria Novella and the Hospital with its frieze all carved and\npainted. But the scale did not drop an inch.\n\nAt this the Banker was sorely disquieted.\n\n\"Good St. Michael! think again. You have not put this side of the\nbalance my fine holy-water stoup I gave to San Giovanni, nor the pulpit\nin Sant' Andrea, where the baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ is depicted\nlife-size. The artist charged me a pretty penny for it.\"\n\nThe Archangel put both pulpit and stoup atop of the Hospital in the\nscale, but still it never stirred. Nicolas Nerli began to feel a cold\nsweat bathing his brow.\n\n\"Good Sir! dear Archangel!\" he asked, \"are you quite certain your\nbalances are true?\"\n\nSt. Michael replied, smiling, that they were of a different pattern from\nthe balances the brokers of Paris use and the money-changers of Venice,\nand were precisely accurate.\n\n\"What!\" sighed Nicolas Nerli, his face as white as chalk. \"Duomo,\npulpit, basin, Hospital with all its beds, do they weigh no more than a\nbit of straw, a pinch of down from a bird's breast?\"\n\n\"See for yourself, Nicolas!\" said the Archangel; \"so far the weight of\nyour iniquities much outweighs the light load of your good works.\"\n\n\"Then I must go to Hell,\" cried the Florentine; and his teeth chattered\nwith horror.\n\n\"Patience, Nicolas Nerli,\" returned the Weigher of Souls, \"patience! we\nare not done yet. There is something left.\"\n\nSo saying, the Blessed St. Michael took the loaves of black bread the\nrich man had tossed the night before to the poor beggars. He laid them\nin the scale containing the good works, which instantly fell, while the\nother rose, and the two scales remained level. The beam dropped neither\nto right nor left, and the needle marked the exact equality of the two\nloads.\n\nThe Banker could not believe his eyes; but the glorious Archangel said\nsolemnly:\n\n\"See, Nicolas Nerli; you are good neither for Heaven nor Hell. Begone!\nGo back to Florence! multiply through the city the loaves you gave last\nnight with your own hand, in the dusk, when no man saw you--and you\nshall be saved. It is not enough that Heaven open its doors to the thief\nthat repented and the harlot that wept. The mercy of God is infinite,\nand able to save even a rich man. Do this; multiply the loaves whose\nweight you see weighing down my balances. Begone!\"\n\nThen Nicholas Nerli awoke in his bed. He resolved to follow faithfully\nthe counsel of the Archangel, and multiply the bread of the poor, and\nso enter into the kingdom of Heaven.\n\nFor the three years he spent on earth after his first death, he was very\npitiful to the unfortunate and a great giver of alms.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MERRY-HEARTED BUFFALMACCO\n\nTO EUG\u00c8NE M\u00dcNTZ\n\n\n\n\nTHE MERRY-HEARTED BUFFALMACCO\n\n  _Buonamico di Cristofano detto Buffalmacco pittore Fiorentino, il qual\n  fu discepolo d' Andrea Tafi, e come uomo burlevole celebrato da Messer\n  Giovanni Boccaccio nel suo Decamerone, fu come si sa carissimo\n  compagno di Bruno e di Calendrino pittori ancor essi faceti e\n  piacevole, e, come si pu\u00f2 vedere nell' opere sue sparse per tutta\n  Toscana, di assai buon giudizio nell' arte sua del dipignere._\n\n  _(Vite de' pi\u00f9 eccellenti pittori_, da Messer Giorgio Vasari.--\"Vita\n  di Buonamico Buffalmacco.\")[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Buonamico di Cristofano, known as Buffalmacco, a\nFlorentine painter, the same that was pupil of Andrea Tafi, and\ncelebrated as a burlesque character by Messer Giovanni Boccaccio in his\n_Decameron_ was as we know bosom friend of Bruno and Calendrino, also\npainters and of an even more witty and merry humour than himself, and as\nmay be seen in his works scattered throughout Tuscany, of no mean\njudgement in his art of painting.\" _(Lives of the most Excellent\nPainters_ by Messer Giorgio Vasari.--\"Life of Buonamico Buffalmacco.\")]\n\n\nI\n\nTHE COCKROACHES\n\nIn his callow youth, Buonamico Cristofani, Florentine, surnamed\nBuffalmacco by reason of his merry humour, served his apprenticeship in\nthe workshop of Andrea Tafi, painter and worker-in-mosaic. Now the said\nTafi was a very knowledgeable master. Sojourning at Venice in the days\nwhen Apollonius was covering the walls of San Marco with mosaics, he had\ndiscovered by means of a trick certain secrets the Greek craftsmen were\nfor keeping sedulously to themselves. Returning to his native city, he\nwon so high a repute in the art of composing pictures by arranging\ntogether a countless number of little differently coloured cubes of\nglass, he could not supply all the demands addressed to him for works of\nthe sort, and all day and every day, from matins to vespers, he was\nbusy, mounted on a scaffold in some Church or other, depicting the dead\nChrist, or Christ in His glory, the Patriarchs and Prophets, or the\nhistory of Job or of Noah. And as he was likewise keen to paint in\nfresco, with pounded colours, in the manner of the Greeks, which was\nthen the only one known, he refused himself all rest, and gave his\napprentices none either. He used to tell them:\n\n\"They who like myself are in possession of noble secrets and excel in\ntheir art should keep both mind and hand ceaselessly active to carry out\ntheir enterprises, so as to win much wealth and leave a long memory\nbehind them. And if I, old and broken down as I am, spare myself no\ntrouble, you are bound to do your utmost to help me with all your\nstrength, which is fresh, hearty and undiminished.\"\n\nAnd in order that his colours, his tesser\u00e6 of molten glass and his\nimpastos might be all ready prepared by dawn of day, he forced the lads\nto rise in the middle of the night. Nothing could well be more hateful\nto Buffalmacco, who was in the habit of supping plentifully, and loved\nto run the streets at an hour when, as they say, all cats are grey. He\nwent to bed late and slept sound, his conscience being clear enough\nafter all. Accordingly, when Tafi's shrill voice woke him up out of his\nbeauty sleep, he would only turn round on his pillow and pretend to be\ndeaf. But his master invariably persisted, and at a pinch would go into\nthe apprentice's room and very soon have the sheets dragged off the bed\nand a jug of cold water emptied over the sluggard's head.\n\nPoor Buffalmacco, shivering and half dressed, would away grumbling, to\ngrind the colours in the dark, cold workroom, cudgelling his wits the\nwhile, grinding and cursing all the time, to think of some way of\nescaping such harsh and humiliating treatment in future. Long he sought\nin vain; but his mind was an active one, and one morning early a happy\nthought struck him.\n\nTo put this in execution, Buffalmacco waited till his master was out of\nthe way. Directly day broke, Andrea Tafi, as his habit was, pocketed the\nflask of Chianti and the three eggs that formed his regular breakfast,\nand bidding his pupils melt the glass tesser\u00e6 according to the\ndirections, and take every possible pains, went off to work in the\nfamous church of San Giovanni, a marvellously beautiful building,\nconstructed with admirable art in the Classical manner. At the time he\nwas executing on its walls a series of mosaics representing the Angels,\nArchangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, Powers, Thrones and Dominions; the\nchief acts of the Almighty, from the Creation of Light to the Deluge;\nthe history of Joseph and his brethren, the history of Jesus Christ from\nthe moment He was conceived in His Mother's womb till His Ascension\ninto Heaven, and the life of St. John Baptist. Seeing the infinite pains\nhe took to fix the pieces truly in the cement and arrange them\nartistically, he expected both profit and fame as the result of this\ngreat work and the host of figures it contained. Then, directly the\nmaster was gone, Buffalmacco hastened to make his preparations for the\nenterprise he was bent upon. He went down into the cellar, which,\ncommunicating as it did with a baker's next door, was full of\ncockroaches drawn thither by the smell of the sacks of flour. Everybody\nknows how cockroaches, or kitchen-beetles, swarm in bakeries, inns and\ncorn-mills. These are a sort of crawling, stinking insects, with long,\nungainly, shaggy legs and an ugly shell of a dirty yellow.[1]\n\nDuring the Civil Wars that stained the Arbia red and fertilized the\nolive-yards with the blood of nobles, these loathsome insects had two\nnames in Tuscany: the Florentines called them Siennese, and the Siennese\nFlorentines.[2]\n\n[Footnote 1: It would be better to speak of the wing-cases. \"Shell\" is\nan utterly unsuitable word--not in the least fitting. The Oriental\ncockroach is in question, an insect familiar in almost every part of\nEurope.]\n\n[Footnote 2: In Russia they are termed Prussians, and in Prussia\nRussians. The French call them _cafards_ (canting creatures,\nhypocrites).]\n\nThe good Buffalmacco laughed to see the creatures all moving up and\ndown and in and out, looking for all the world like tiny shields of a\nhost of pigmy knights jousting in a fairy tourney.\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" he cried to himself, \"they are may-bugs bedevilled, that's\nwhat they are! They would not enjoy the springtime, and Jupiter punished\nthem for their sluggishness. He has condemned them to crawl about in the\ndark, weighed down by their useless wings--an object-lesson to men to\nmake the most of life in the heyday of youth and love.\"\n\nThis was what Buffalmacco said to himself; for he was ready enough, like\nother folk, to see in nature a symbol of his own passions and\ninclinations, which were to drink, to divert himself with pretty women\nand sleep his fill in a warm bed in winter and a nice cool one in\nsummer.\n\nHowever, he had not visited the cellar to ponder on symbols and emblems,\nand he was not long in carrying out his plan. He caught two dozen of the\ncockroaches, without regard to sex or age, and popped them in a bag he\nhad brought with him for the purpose. This done, he proceeded to hide\nthe bag under his bed, and returned to the workroom, where his comrades\nBruno and Calendrino were painting, from the master's sketches, the good\nSt. Francis receiving the stigmata, and meantime devising some way of\nhoodwinking Memmi the cobbler, whose wife was comely and obliging.\n\nBuffalmacco, who was not less expert, far from it, than his two\ncomrades, mounted the ladder and started painting the wings of the\nseraphic crucifix that came down from heaven to mark the Blessed Saint\nwith the five wounds of love, taking the utmost pains to blend in the\ncelestial pinions all the tenderest hues of the rainbow. The task\noccupied him all day, and when old Tafi came back from San Giovanni, he\ncould not refrain from bestowing a few words of commendation on his\npupil. This cost him no small effort, for age and riches had made him\nboth cross and critical.\n\n\"My lads,\" he said, addressing the apprentices, \"those wings are painted\nwith a good deal of spirit. Buffalmacco might go far in the art of\npainting, if he would only apply himself more vigorously. But there, his\nmind is far too much set on self-indulgence; and great achievements can\nonly be accomplished by steady labour. Now Calendrino here would beat\nyou all, with his industry--if he were not a born fool.\"\n\nIn such fashion Andrea Tafi improved the occasion with a proper\nseverity. Then, having said his say, he went to the kitchen to take his\nsupper, which consisted of a bit of salt fish; after that he betook\nhimself to his chamber, lay down in his bed, and was soon snoring.\nMeantime Buffalmacco made his usual round through every quarter of the\ncity where wine was to be had cheap and girls cheaper still. This done,\nhe got home again half an hour or so before the time Tafi generally\nwoke. He drew out the bag from under his bed, took the cockroaches one\nby one, and by means of a short, sharp needle fastened a little wax\ntaper on the back of each. Lighting the tapers, he let the insects\nloose, one after the other, in the room. The creatures are too stupid to\nfeel pain, or if they do, to manifest any great panic. They set off\ncrawling over the floor, at a pace which surprise and perhaps some vague\nterror made a trifle quicker than usual. Before long they started\ndescribing circles, not because it is, as Plato says, a perfect figure,\nbut as a result of the instinct that always makes insects turn round and\nround, in their efforts to escape any unknown danger. Buffalmacco looked\non from the vantage-ground of his bed, on which he had thrown himself,\nand congratulated himself on the success of his device. And indeed\nnothing could be more marvellous than these lights showing a miniature\npresentment of the harmony of the spheres, such as it is set out by\nAristotle and his commentators. The cockroaches themselves were\ninvisible; only the little flames they carried could be seen, which\nseemed to be all alive. Just as these same lights were weaving in the\ndarkness of the room more cycles and epicycles than ever Ptolemy and the\nArabs observed as they watched the motions of the planets, Tafi's voice\nmade itself heard, shriller than ever, what with a cold in the head and\nwhat with annoyance.\n\n\"Buffalmacco! Buffalmacco, I say!\" screamed the old fellow, coughing and\nspitting, \"get up, I say! Get up, you scoundrel! In less than an hour's\ntime, it will be broad daylight. The bugs in your bed must be built like\nvery Venuses, you are so loath to leave 'em. Up, you sluggard! If you\ndon't rise this instant, I'll drag you from between the sheets by the\nhair of your head and your long ears!\"\n\nThese were the sort of terms in which the master would call his pupil\nout of bed in the dusk of every morning, such was his zeal for painting\nand mosaic-work. On this occasion receiving no reply, he drew on his\nhose, but without taking time to pull them any higher than his knees,\nand started for his apprentice's bedroom, stumbling at every step. This\nwas exactly what Buffalmacco expected, and directly he heard the clatter\nof his master's footsteps on the stairs, he turned his nose to the wall\nand pretended to be fast asleep. And there was old Tafi shouting up the\nstairs:\n\n\"Hilloa! but you're a grand sleeper. I'll have you out of your slumbers,\nI will, though you should be dreaming this very moment that the eleven\nthousand virgins are slipping into your bed, begging you to teach 'em\nwhat's what.\"\n\nWith these words on his lips, Andrea Tafi shoved the door of the room\nviolently open.\n\nThen, catching sight of the points of fire running all over the floor,\nhe stopped dead on the landing and fell a-trembling in every limb.\n\n\"They're devils,\" he thought, \"never a doubt of it,--devils and evil\nspirits. Why! they move with a sort of mathematical precision, which is\ntheir strong point, I've always been told. Naturally the Demons hate us\npainters, who depict them under hideous shapes, in contrast with the\nAngels we represent in glory, an aureole about their brows and waving\nwings of dazzling splendour. The unhappy boy is beset with devils; I can\ncount at least a thousand around his pallet. No doubt he has angered\nLucifer himself, by drawing some horrible picture of him. 'Tis only too\nlikely these ten thousand imps here will leap upon him and carry him off\nalive to Hell. His doom is fixed. And alack! I have myself figured, in\nmosaic and other ways, very odious caricatures of Devils, and they have\ngood reason to bear me a grudge too.\"\n\nThe thought redoubled his fears, and hauling up his hose, he took to\nhis heels, too much terrified to think of facing the hundred thousand\nhobgoblins he had seen wheeling round and round with bodies of fire, and\ndashed down the stairs as fast as ever his old legs would carry him.\nBuffalmacco had a fine laugh under the sheets, and for once in a way\nslept on till broad daylight. Nor did his master ever again dare to go\nand wake him.\n\n\nII\n\nTHE ASCENDING UP OF ANDREA TAFI\n\nAndrea Tafi, of Florence, being chosen to decorate the cupola of San\nGiovanni with mosaics, carried out the said work in the most perfect\nfashion. Every figure was treated in the Greek manner, which Tafi had\nlearned during his sojourn at Venice, where he had seen workmen busy\nadorning the walls of San Marco. He had even brought back with him from\nthat city a Greek by name Apollonius, who knew excellent secrets for\ndesigning in mosaic. This Apollonius was a skilful workman and a very\nclever man. He knew the proportions to be given to the different parts\nof the human body and the material for mixing the best cement.\n\nFearing the Greek might carry his knowledge and address to some other\npainter of the city, Andrea Tafi never left his side day or night Every\nmorning he took him with him to San Giovanni, and brought him home\nevery evening to his own house, facing San Michele, and made him sleep\nthere with his two apprentices, Bruno and Buffalmacco, in a room\nseparated merely by a partition from his own bed-chamber. And as this\npartition left half a foot between the top and the beams of the ceiling,\nwhatever was said in one room could easily be overheard in the other.\n\nNow Tafi was a man of decent manners and pious. He was not like some\npainters who, on leaving the Churches where they have been depicting God\ncreating the world and the infant Jesus in his holy mother's arms, go\nstraight to houses of ill fame to play dice and drink, play the pipes\nand cuddle the girls. He had never wished for better than his good wife,\nalbeit she was by no means made and moulded by the Creator to afford any\ngreat delight to men; for she was a very dry and a very chilling\npersonage. Then, after God had removed her from this world to a better,\nin his loving mercy, Andrea took no other woman to his bosom either by\nmarriage or otherwise. On the contrary he was strictly continent, as\nbecame his years, sparing himself both expense and vexation, and\npleasing God to boot, who recompenses in the next world the privations\nmen endure in this. Andrea Tafi was chaste, sober and well-advised.\n\nHe said his prayers with unfailing regularity, and being got to bed, he\nnever fell asleep without first invoking the Blessed Virgin in these\nwords:\n\n\"Holy Virgin, Mother of God, which for Thy merits wast exalted alive to\nHeaven, stretch forth Thy hand full of grace and mercy to me, to lift me\nup to that blessed Paradise where Thou sittest on a chair of gold.\"\n\nAnd this petition old Tafi did not mumble between the two or three teeth\nhe had left, but spoke it out in a loud, strong voice, persuaded it is\nthe singing, as they say, makes the song, and that if you want to be\nheard, it is best to shout. Thus it came about that Master Tafi's\nsupplication was overheard every night by Apollonius the Greek and the\ntwo young Florentines who lay in the next chamber. Now it so happened\nApollonius was likewise of a merry humour, every whit as ready for a\njest as Bruno or Buffalmacco. All three itched sore to play off some\ntrick on the old painter, who was a just man and a god-fearing, but\nhard-fisted withal and a cruel taskmaster. Accordingly one night, after\nlistening to the old fellow's customary address to the Virgin, the three\ncomrades fell a-laughing under the bed-clothes and cutting a hundred\njokes. Presently, when they heard him snoring, they began asking each\nother in whispers what jape they could play off on him. Well knowing the\nholy terror the old man had of the Devil, Apollonius proposed to go,\ndressed in red, with horns and a mask, to drag him out of bed by the\nfeet. But the ingenious Buffalmacco had a better suggestion to offer:\n\n\"To-morrow we will provide ourselves with a good stout rope and a\npulley, and I undertake to give you the same evening a highly diverting\nexhibition.\"\n\nApollonius and Bruno were curious to know what the pulley and rope were\nto be used for, but Buffalmacco refused to say. Nevertheless they\npromised faithfully to get him what he wanted; for they knew him to\npossess the merriest wit in the world and the most fertile in amusing\ncontrivances, having earned his nickname of Buffalmacco for these very\nqualities. And truly he knew some excellent turns, that have since\nbecome legendary.\n\nThe three friends, having nothing now to keep them awake, fell asleep\nunder the moon, which looking in at the garret window, pointed the tip\nof one of her horns, as if in mockery, at old Tafi. They slept sound\ntill daybreak, when the master began hammering on the partition, and\ncalled out, coughing and spitting as usual.\n\n\"Get up, master Apollonius! Up with you, apprentices! Day's come;\nPh[oe]bus has blown out the sky candles! Quick's the word! 'Life is\nshort, and art long.'\"\n\nThen he began threatening Bruno and Buffalmacco he would come and start\nthem out with a bucket of cold water, jeering and asking them:\n\n\"Is your bed so delicious, eh? Have you got Helen of Troy there, you're\nso loath to quit the sheets?\"\n\nMeanwhile he was slipping on his hose and his old, worn hood. This done,\nhe sallied out, to find the lads waiting on the landing, fully dressed\nand with their tools all ready.\n\nThat morning, in the fair Church of San Giovanni, on the planking that\nmounted to the cornice, the work went on merrily for a while. For the\nlast week the master had been trying his hardest to give a good\nrepresentation according to the recognized rules of art of the baptism\nof Jesus Christ. He had just begun putting in the fishes swimming in the\nJordan. Apollonius was mixing the cement with bitumen and chopped straw,\npronouncing words of might known only to himself; while Bruno and\nBuffalmacco were picking the little cubes of stone to be used, and Tafi\narranging them according to the sketch he had made on a slab of slate he\nheld in his hand. But just when the master was busiest over the job, the\nthree friends sprang lightly down the ladder and slipped out of the\nChurch. Bruno went off to the house of Calendrino, outside the walls, in\nsearch of a pulley that was used for hoisting corn into the granary. At\nthe same time Apollonius hurried away to Ripoli to see an old lady, the\nwife of a Judge, whom he had promised to provide with a philtre to draw\nlovers to her side, and persuading her that hemp was indispensable for\ncompounding the potion, got her to hand him over the well-rope, a good\nstout piece of cord.\n\nThe two friends next met at Tafi's house, where they found Buffalmacco\nawaiting them. The latter at once set to work to attach the pulley\nfirmly to the king-post of the roof, above the partition separating the\nmaster's sleeping-room from his apprentices'. Then, after passing the\nold lady's well-rope through the pulley, he left one end hanging down in\ntheir own chamber, while he went into his master's apartment and\nfastened the bed to the other extremity, by each corner. He took good\ncare the rope should be concealed behind the curtains, so that nothing\nout of the way might be visible. When all was done, the three companions\nwent back to San Giovanni.\n\nThe old man, who had been so busily engaged as scarcely to have noticed\ntheir absence, addressed them with a beaming face:\n\n\"Look you,\" he said, \"how those fish sparkle with divers colours, and\nparticularly with gold, purple and blue, as creatures should which\ninhabit the ocean and the rivers, and which possess so marvellous a\nbrilliancy of hues only because they were the first to submit to the\nempire of the goddess Venus, as is all explained in the legend.\"\n\nThus the master discoursed in a way full of grace and good sense. For\nyou must know he was a man of wit and learning, albeit his humour was so\nsaturnine and grasping, above all when his thoughts turned toward filthy\nlucre. He went on:\n\n\"Now is not a painter's trade a good one and deserving of all praise? it\nwins him riches in this world and happiness in the next. For be sure Our\nLord Jesus Christ will welcome gratefully in His holy Paradise craftsmen\nlike myself who have portrayed His veritable likeness.\"\n\nAnd Andrea Tafi was glad at heart to be at work upon this great picture\nin mosaic, whereof several portions are yet visible at San Giovanni to\nthis day. Presently when night came and effaced both form and colour in\nall the Church, he tore himself regretfully from the river Jordan and\nsought his house. He supped in the kitchen off a couple of tomatoes and\na scrap of cheese, went upstairs to his room, undressed in the dark and\ngot into bed.\n\nNo sooner was he laid down than he made his customary prayer to the\nBlessed Virgin:\n\n\"Holy Virgin, Mother of God, which for Thy merits wast exalted alive to\nHeaven, stretch forth Thy hand full of grace and mercy to me, to lift me\nup to Paradise!\"\n\nThe moment was come which the three companions had been eagerly awaiting\nin the neighbouring room.\n\nThey grasped the rope's end that hung down the partition from the\npulley, and scarcely had the good old fellow finished his supplication\nwhen at a sign from Buffalmacco they hauled so vigorously on the cord,\nthat the bed fastened at the other end began to rise from the floor.\nMaster Andrea, feeling himself being hoisted aloft, yet without seeing\nhow, got it into his head it was the Blessed Virgin answering his prayer\nand drawing him up to Heaven. He was panic-stricken and fell a-screaming\nin a quavering voice:\n\n\"Stop, stop, sweet Lady! I never asked it should be now!\"\n\nAnd as the bed rose higher and higher, the rope working smoothly and\nnoiselessly over the pulley, the old man poured out the most pitiful\nsupplications to the Virgin Mary:\n\n\"Good Lady! sweet Lady! don't pull so! Ho, there! Let go, I say!\" But\nshe seemed not to hear a word. At this he grew furiously angry and\nbellowed:\n\n\"You must be deaf, you wooden-head! Let go, _bitch of a Madonna_!\"\n\nSeeing he was leaving the floor for good and all, his terror increased\nyet further; and, calling upon Jesus, he besought Him to make His holy\nMother listen to reason. It was high time, he asseverated, she should\ngive up this mischancy Assumption. Sinner that he was, and son of a\nsinner, he could not, and he would not, go up to Heaven before he'd\nfinished the river Jordan, the waves and the fishes, and the rest of Our\nBlessed Lord's history. Meanwhile the canopy of the bed was all but\ntouching the beams of the roofing, and Tafi was crying in desperation:\n\n\"Jesus, unless you stop your Blessed Mother this instant, the roof of my\nhouse, which cost a fine penny, will most certainly be burst up. For I\nsee for sure I'm going slap through it. Stop! stop! I can hear the tiles\ncracking.\"\n\nBuffalmacco perceived that by now his master's voice was actually\nstrangling in his throat, and he ordered his companions to let go the\nrope. This they did, the result being that the bed, tumbling suddenly\nfrom roof to floor of the room, crashed down on the boards, breaking the\nlegs and splitting the panels; simultaneously the bedposts toppled over\nand the canopy, curtains, hangings and all fell atop of Master Andrea,\nwho, thinking he was going to be smothered, started howling like a devil\nincarnate. His very soul staggered under the shock, and he could not\ntell whether he was fallen back again into his chamber or pitched\nheadlong into Hell.\n\nAt this point the three apprentices rushed in, as if just awakened by\nthe noise. Seeing the ruins of the bed lying smothered in clouds of\ndust, they feigned intense surprise, and instead of going to the old\nman's help, asked him if it was the Devil had done the mischief. But he\nonly sighed heavily, and said:\n\n\"It's all up with me; pull me out of this. I'm a dying man!\"\n\nAt last they dragged him from among the d\u00e9bris, under which he was ready\nto suffocate, and placed him sitting up with his back to the wall. He\nbreathed hard, coughed and spat, and:\n\n\"My lads,\" he said, \"but for the timely succour of Our Lord Jesus\nChrist, who hurled me back to earth again with a violence you can\nplainly see the effects of, I should at this present moment be in the\ncircle of Heaven named the crystalline or _primum mobile_. His holy\nMother would not listen to a word. In my fall, I have lost three teeth,\nwhich, without being exactly sound, still did me good service.\nMoreover, I have an agonizing pain in my right side and in the arm that\nholds the brush.\"\n\n\"My master,\" said Apollonius pityingly, \"you must have received some\ninternal hurts, which is a very dangerous thing. At Constantinople, in\nthe risings, I discovered how much more deadly such injuries are than\nmere external wounds. But never fear, I am going to charm away the\nmischief with spells.\"\n\n\"Not for worlds!\" put in the old man; \"that were a deadly sin. But come\nhither, all three, and do me the service, an you will, of rubbing me\nwell in the worst places.\"\n\nThey did as he asked, and never left him till they had pretty well\nscarified every bit of skin off the old fellow's back and loins.\n\nThe good lads made it their first business to sow the story broadcast\nthrough the city. This they did to such good effect that there was not\nman, woman nor child in Florence could look Master Andrea Tafi in the\nface without bursting out laughing. Now one morning Buffalmacco was\npassing down the Corso, Messer Guido, the son of the Signor Cavalcanti,\nwho was on his way to the marshes to shoot crane, stopped his horse,\ncalled the apprentice to him, and tossed him his purse with the words:\n\n\"Ho! gentle Buffalmacco, here's somewhat to drink to the health of\nEpicurus and his disciples.\"\n\nYou must know Messer Guido was of the sect of the Epicureans and loved\nto marshal well-arranged arguments against the existence of God. He was\nused to declare the death of men is precisely the same as that of\nbeasts.\n\n\"Buffalmacco,\" added the young nobleman, \"this purse I have given you is\nfor payment of the very instructive, complete and profitable experiment\nyou made, when you sent old Tafi to Heaven--who, seeing his carcass\ntaking the road to the Empyrean, began to squeal like a pig being\nkilled. This proves plainly he had no real assurance in the promised\njoys of Paradise--which are, it must be allowed, far from certain. In\nthe same way as nurses tell children fairy-tales, vague things are\ntalked concerning the immortality of mortal men. The vulgar herd thinks\nit believes these tales, but it does not really and truly. Hard fact\ncomes and shivers the poets' fables. There is nothing assured but the\nsad life of this world. Horace, the Roman poet, is of my opinion when he\nsays: _Serus in c\u00e6lum redeas_.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"_May it be long ere you return to heaven your home._\"--Ode\n2 of Book I, addressed to Augustus.]\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE MASTER\n\nHaving learned the art of preparing and using the proper coats and\ncolours, as well as the secret of painting figures in the good manner of\nCimabu\u00eb and Giotto, the young Buonamico Cristofani, the Florentine,\nsurnamed Buffalmacco, abandoned the workshop of his master Andrea Tafi,\nand proceeded to establish himself in the quarter of the fullers,\nimmediately opposite to the house known by the sign of the Goose's Head.\nNow in those days, like fair ladies outvying one another in wearing\ngowns broidered with flowers, the towns of Italy made it their pride to\ncover the walls of their Churches and Cloisters with paintings. Among\nall these, Florence was the most sumptuous and magnificent, and was the\nplace of all others for a Painter to live in. Buffalmacco knew how to\ngive his figures movement and expression; and, while far behind the\ndivine Giotto for beauty of design, he pleased the eye by the gay\nexuberance of his inventions. So he was not long in getting commissions\nin considerable numbers. It only depended on himself to win riches and\nfame with all speed. But his chief idea was to amuse himself in company\nof Bruno di Giovanni and Nello, and squander along with them, in\ndebauchery, all the money he made.\n\nNow the Abbess of the Ladies of Faenza, established at Florence,\ndetermined about this time to have the Church of their Nunnery decorated\nwith frescoes. Hearing that there lived in the quarter of the fullers\nand wool-carders a very clever painter named Buffalmacco, she despatched\nher Steward thither to come to an arrangement with him as to the\nexecution of the proposed paintings. The master agreed to the terms\noffered and undertook the commission readily enough. He had a\nscaffolding erected in the Nunnery Church and on the still moist plaster\nbegan to paint, with wondrous vigour of execution, the history of Jesus\nChrist. First of all, to the right of the Altar, he illustrated the\nmassacre of the Holy Innocents, and succeeded in expressing so vividly\nthe grief and rage of the mothers trying vainly to save their little\nones from the Roman soldiers' hands, that the very wall seemed to chant\nlike the faithful in Church, \"_Cur, Crudelis Herodes?..._\" Drawn thither\nby curiosity, the Nuns used to come, two or three of them together, to\nwatch the master at work. At sight of all these despairing mothers and\nmurdered babes, they could not help sobbing and shedding tears. In\nparticular there was one little fellow Buffalmacco had drawn lying in\nhis swaddling bands, smiling and sucking his thumb, between a soldier's\nlegs. The Nuns begged and prayed this one might not be killed:\n\n\"Oh! spare him,\" they said to the Painter. \"Do take care the soldiers\ndon't see him and kill him!\"\n\nThe good Buffalmacco answered:\n\n\"For love of you, dear sisters, I will protect him all I can. But these\nmurderers are filled with so savage a rage, it will be a difficult\nmatter to stop them.\"\n\nWhen they declared \"The baby _is_ such a little darling!...\" he offered\nto make each of them a little darling prettier still.\n\n\"Thank you kindly!\" they answered back, laughing.\n\nThe Abbess came in her turn to assure herself with her own eyes that the\nwork was being done satisfactorily. She was a lady of very high birth,\nnamed Usimbalda, a proud, severe and careful personage. Seeing a man\nworking without cloak or hood, and like a common labourer wearing only\nshirt and hose, she mistook him for some apprentice lad and did not\ncondescend so much as to speak to him. She came again and again, five or\nsix times, to the Chapel, without ever seeing any one more important\nthan this working fellow she deemed only fit to grind the colours. Out\nof all patience at last, she showed him she was far from satisfied.\n\n\"My lad,\" she bade him, \"tell your master from me he must come and work\nhimself at the pictures I commissioned him to paint. I meant them to be\nthe work of his own hand, not a mere apprentice's.\"\n\nFar from declaring himself, Buffalmacco put on the look and voice of a\npoor working-man, and humbly answered Usimbalda, that he saw plain\nenough he was not of the sort to inspire confidence in so noble a lady,\nand that his duty was to obey.\n\n\"I will inform my master,\" he went on; \"and he will not fail to put\nhimself at the orders of My Lady Abbess.\"\n\nWith this assurance, the Lady Usimbalda left the Church. No sooner was\nhe alone than Buffalmacco arranged on the scaffolding, just at the spot\nwhere he was at work, two stools with a crock on the top. Then going to\nthe corner where he had laid them, he pulled out his cloak and hat,\nwhich as it happened were in a very fair state of freshness, and put\nthem on the lay figure he had improvised; next, he stuck a brush in the\nspout of the crock, which was turned towards the wall. This done, after\nassuring himself the thing had quite the look of a man busy painting, he\ndecamped with all speed, determined to keep away till he had seen what\nhappened.\n\nNext day the Nuns paid their usual visit to the scene of action. But\nfinding instead of the merry fellow they were accustomed to, a stately\ngentleman who held himself In the stiffest of attitudes and seemed\nentirely indisposed to laugh and talk, they were afraid and took to\nflight.\n\nMadame Usimbalda on the contrary, when _she_ returned to the Church, was\ndelighted to see the master at work in lieu of the apprentice.\n\nShe proceeded to give him much valuable advice, exhorting him for a good\nten minutes to paint figures that should be modest, noble and\nexpressive--before she discovered she was addressing her remarks to a\ncrock.\n\nShe would hardly have found out her mistake even then, had she not grown\nimpatient at receiving no reply, and pulling the master by his cloak,\nbrought crock, stool, hat, brush and all tumbling at her feet. Then, as\nshe was by no means wanting in sense, she saw it was intended as a\nlesson not to judge the artist by his dress. She sent her steward to\nBuffalmacco, and begged him to finish what he had begun.\n\nHe completed the work greatly to his credit. Connoisseurs especially\nadmired in these frescoes the figure of the Crucified Redeemer, the\nthree Marys weeping at the foot of the Cross, Judas hanged on a tree,\nand a man blowing his nose. Unfortunately the paintings were all\ndestroyed along with the Church of the Nunnery of the Ladies of Faenza.\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE PAINTER\n\nEqually famous for his wit and humour and for his skill in devising\nfigure subjects on the walls of Church and Cloister, Buonamico, surnamed\nBuffalmacco, had already left his youth behind when he was invited from\nFlorence to Arezzo by the Lord Bishop of that city, who wished the halls\nof his Palace decorated with paintings. Buffalmacco undertook the\ncommission, and directly the walls were duly laid with stucco, started\non a picture of the Adoration of the Wise Men.\n\nIn the course of a few days he had painted in King Melchior complete,\nmounted on a white horse, looking for all the world as if he were alive.\nHis horse's saddle-cloth was scarlet, dotted with precious stones.\n\nNow all the time he was at work, the Bishop's pet monkey sat staring\nintently at his proceedings, never taking his eyes off him. Whether the\npainter was squeezing his tubes, mixing his colours, beating up his eggs\nor laying on the colour with his brush on the moist surface, the\ncreature never lost one of his movements. It was a baboon brought from\nBarbary for the Doge of Venice in one of the State Galleys. The Doge\nmade a present of it to the Bishop of Arezzo, who thanked his\nMagnificence, reminding him prettily how King Solomon's ships had in\nlike fashion imported from the land of Ophir apes and peacocks, as is\nrelated in the First Book of Kings (x. 22). And there was nothing in all\nhis Palace Bishop Guido held more precious than this baboon.\n\nHe left the animal to roam at liberty about the halls and gardens, where\nit was for ever at some mischievous trick or another. One Sunday, during\nthe painter's absence, the creature climbed up on the scaffolding, laid\nhold of the tubes, mixed up the colours in a way of its own, broke all\nthe eggs it could find, and began plying the brush on the wall, as it\nhad seen the other do. It worked away at King Melchior and his horse,\nnever leaving off till the whole composition was repainted according to\nits own ideas.\n\nNext morning Buffalmacco, finding his colours all topsy-turvy and his\nwork spoiled, was both grieved and angry. He was persuaded some painter\nof Arezzo, who was jealous of his superior skill, had played him this\ndirty trick, and went straight to the Bishop to complain. The latter\nurged him to set to work again and repair with all speed what had been\nruined in a manner so mysterious. He undertook that for the future two\nsoldiers should keep guard night and day before the frescoes, with\norders to drive their lances through any one who should dare to come\nnear. On this condition, Buffalmacco agreed to resume his task, and two\nsoldiers were put on sentry close at hand. One evening, just as he was\nleaving the hall, his day's work finished, the soldiers saw the Lord\nBishop's ape spring so nimbly into his place on the scaffold and seize\nthe colour-tubes and brushes with such rapidity there was no possibility\nof stopping him. They shouted lustily to the painter, who came back just\nin time to see the baboon paint over for the second time King Melchior,\nthe white horse and the scarlet saddle-cloth. The sight was like to move\npoor Buffalmacco at one and the same time to laughter and tears.\n\nHe went off to the Bishop and thus addressed him:\n\n\"My Lord Bishop, you are good enough to admire my style of painting; but\nyour baboon prefers a different. What need to have had me summoned here,\nwhen you had a master painter in your own household? It may be he\nlacked experience. But now he has nothing left to learn, my presence\nhere is quite unnecessary, and I will back to Florence.\"\n\nHaving so said, the good Buffalmacco returned to his inn, in great\nvexation. He ate his supper without appetite and went to bed in a very\ndismal frame of mind.\n\nThen the Lord Bishop's ape appeared to him in a dream, not a mere\nmannikin as he was in reality, but as tall as Monte San Gemignano,\ncocking up a prodigious tail and tickling the moon. He was squatted in\nan olive wood among the farms and oil-presses, while betwixt his legs a\nnarrow road ran alongside a row of flourishing vineyards. Now the said\nroad was thronged with a multitude of pilgrims, who defiled one by one\nbefore the painter's eyes. And lo! Buffalmacco recognized the countless\nvictims of his practical jokes and merry humour generally.\n\nHe saw, to begin with, his old master Andrea Tafi, who had taught him\nhow men win renown by practice of the arts, and whom in return he had\nbefooled again and again, making him mistake for devils of hell a dozen\nwax tapers pinned on the backs of a lot of great cockroaches, and\nhoisting him in his bed to the joists of the ceiling, so that the poor\nold fellow thought he was being carried up to heaven and was in mortal\nterror.\n\nHe saw the wool-carder of the _Gooses Head_, and his wife, that notable\nwoman, at the spinning-wheel. Into this good dame's cooking-pot\nBuffalmacco had been wont every evening to throw big handfuls of salt\nthrough a crack in the wall, so that day after day the wool-carder would\nspit out his porridge and beat his wife.\n\nHe saw Master Simon de Villa, the Bolognese physician, to be known by\nhis Doctor's cap, the same he had pitched into the cesspool beside the\nConvent of the Nuns of Ripoli. The Doctor ruined his best velvet gown,\nbut nobody pitied him, for regardless of his good wife's claims, a plain\nwoman but a Christian, he had longed to bed with Prester John's\nChinchimura, who wears horns betwixt her sinful buttocks. Good\nBuffalmacco had persuaded the Doctor he could take him o' nights to the\nWitches' Sabbath, where he went himself with a merry company to make\nlove to the Queen of France, who gave him wine and spices for his\ndoughty deeds. Simon accepted the invitation, hoping he should be\ntreated right royally too. Then Buffalmacco having donned a beast's skin\nand a horned mask such as they wear at merry-makings, came to Master\nSimon, declaring he was a devil ordered to conduct him to the Sabbath.\nTaking him on his shoulders, he carried him to the edge of a pit full of\nfilth, where he pitched him in head first.\n\nNext Buffalmacco saw Calendrino, whom he had got to believe that the\nstone Heliotropia was to be found in the plain of the Mugnone, which\nstone possesses the virtue of rendering invisible whosoever bears it\nabout his person. He took him to Mugnone along with Bruno da Giovanni,\nand when Calendrino had picked up a very large number of stones,\nBuffalmacco suddenly pretended he could not see him, crying out: \"The\nscamp has given us the slip; an I catch him, I'll bang his behind with\nthis paving-stone!\" And he landed the stone exactly where he said he\nwould, without Calendrino having any right to complain, because he was\ninvisible. This same Calendrino was without any sense of humour, and\nBuffalmacco played on his simplicity so far as to make him actually\nbelieve he was with child, and got a brace of fat capons out of him as\nfee for his safe delivery.\n\nNext Buffalmacco saw the countryman for whom he had painted the Blessed\nVirgin with the Infant Jesus in her arms, afterwards changing the babe\ninto a bear's cub.\n\nHe saw moreover the Abbess of the Nuns of Faenza, who had commissioned\nhim to paint the walls of the Convent Church in fresco, and he told her\non his oath and honour you must mix good wine with the colours, if the\nflesh tints are to be really brilliant. So the Abbess gave him for every\nSaint, male or female, depicted in his pictures a flask of the wine\nreserved for Bishops' drinking, which he poured down his throat,\ntrusting to vermilion to bring out the warm tints. The same Lady Abbess\nit was he deceived, making her take a pitcher with a cloak thrown over\nit for a master painter, as has been already recounted.\n\nBuffalmacco saw, besides, a long line of other folks he had befooled,\ncajoled, cozened and bemocked. Closing the rear, marched with crozier,\nmitre and cope, the great Sant' Ercolano, whom in a merry mood he had\nrepresented in the Great Square of Perugia, girt about with a garland of\ngudgeons.\n\nAll as they passed paid their compliment to the ape which had avenged\nthem; and the monster, opening a great mouth wider than the jaws of\nhell, broke into a mocking laugh.\n\nFor the first time in his life Buffalmacco had a downright bad night's\nrest.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LADY OF VERONA\n\nTO HUGUES REBELL\n\n\n\n\nTHE LADY OF VERONA\n\n  \"_Puella autem moriens dixit: 'Satanas, trado tibi corpus meum cum\n  anima mea.'\" (Quadragesimale opus declamatum Parisiis in ecclesia Sti.\n  Johannis in Gravia per venerabilem patrem Sacrae scripturae\n  interpretem eximium Ol. Maillardum, 1511._)[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"But the dying girl said, 'Satan, I give over my body to\nyou along with my soul.'\" (Lenten Sermon preached at Paris in the Church\nof St. Jean-en-Gr\u00e8ve by that venerable father and excellent expounder of\nHoly Scripture, Olivier Maillard, 1511.)]\n\n\n_The following was found by the Reverend Father Adone Doni, in the\nArchives of the Monastery of Santa Croce, at Verona._\n\nSignora Eletta of Verona was so wondrous fair and of so perfect a grace\nof body, that the learned of the city, they who had knowledge of history\nand legend, were used to call her lady mother by the names of Latona,\nLeda and Semele, making implication thereby of their belief that the\nfruit of her womb had been framed in her by a god, Jupiter, rather than\nby any mortal man, such as were her husband and lovers. But the wiser\nheads, notably the Fra Battista, whose successor I am as Superior of\nSanta Croce, held that such exceeding beauty of the flesh came of the\noperation of the Devil, who is an artist in the sense the dying Nero\nunderstood the word when he said, \"_Qualis artifex pereo!_\"[1] And we\nmay be sure Satan, the enemy of God, who is cunning to work the metals,\nexcels likewise in the moulding of human flesh.\n\n[Footnote 1: \"What an artist dies in me!\" \"Oh! the loss to Art! the loss\nto Art!\"]\n\nI myself, who am writing these lines, possessing no small acquaintance\nwith the world, have many a time seen church bells and figures of men\nwrought by the Enemy of Mankind--and the craftsmanship thereof\nadmirable. Likewise have I had knowledge of children engendered in women\nby the Devil, but on this matter my tongue is tied by the obligation of\nsecrecy binding on every Confessor. I will limit myself, therefore, to\nsaying that many strange tales were bruited concerning the birth of the\nSignora Eletta. I saw this lady for the first time on the Piazza of\nVerona on Good Friday of the year 1320, when she had just completed her\nfourteenth year. And I have beheld her since in the public walks and the\nChurches ladies most favour. She was like a picture painted by a very\nexcellent limner.\n\nShe had hair of wavy gold, a white brow, eyes of a colour never seen but\nin the precious stone called aquamarine, cheeks of rose, a nose straight\nand finely cut. Her mouth was a Cupid's bow, that wounded with its\nsmiles; and the chin was as full of laughter as the mouth. Her whole\nbody was framed to perfection for the delight of lovers. The breasts\nwere not of exaggerated size; yet showed beneath the muslin two swelling\nglobes of a full and most winsome roundness. As well by reason of my\nsacred character, as because I never saw her but clad in her walking\ndress and her limbs half hidden, I will not describe the other parts of\nher fair body, which one and all proclaimed their perfection through the\nstuffs that veiled them. I will only assure you, that when she was in\nher accustomed place in the Church of San Zenone, there was never a\nmovement she could make, whether to rise to her feet or drop on her\nknees or prostrate herself with forehead touching the stones, as is meet\nto do at the instant of the elevation of the blessed body of Jesus\nChrist, without straightway inspiring the men that saw her with an\nardent longing to hold her pressed to their bosom.\n\nNow it came about that Signora Eletta married, when about the age of\nfifteen, Messer Antonio Torlota, an Advocate. He was a very learned\nman, of good repute, and wealthy, but already far advanced in years, and\nso heavy and misshapen, that seeing him carrying his papers in a great\nleathern bag, you could scarcely tell which bag it was dragging about\nthe other.\n\nIt was pitiful to think how, as the result of the holy sacrament of\nwedlock, which is instituted among men for their glory and eternal\nsalvation, the fairest lady of Verona was bedded with so old a man, all\nruinate in health and vigour. And wise folk saw with more pain than\nwonder that, profiting by the freedom allowed her by her husband, busied\nall night long as he was solving the problems of justice and injustice,\nMesser Torlota's young wife welcomed to her bed the handsomest and most\nproper cavaliers of the city. But the pleasure she took therein came\nfrom herself, not from them at all. It was her own self she loved, and\nnot her lovers. All her enjoyment was of the loveliness of her own\nproper flesh, and of nothing else. Herself was her own desire and\ndelight, and her own fond concupiscence. Whereby, methinks, the sin of\ncarnal indulgence was, in her case, enormously aggravated.\n\nFor, albeit, this sin must ever divide us from God--a sufficient sign of\nits gravity--yet is it true to say that carnal offenders are regarded by\nthe Sovereign Judge, both in this world and the next, with less\nindignation than are covetous men, traitors, murderers, and wicked men\nwho have made traffic of holy things. And the reason of this is that the\nnaughty desires sensualists entertain, being directed towards others\nrather than to themselves, do still show some degraded traces of true\nlove and gentle charity.\n\nBut nothing of the kind was to be seen in the adulterous amours of the\nSignora Eletta, who in every passion loved herself and herself only. And\nherein was she much wider separated from God than so many other women\nwho gave way to their wanton desires. For in their case these desires\nwere towards others, whereas the Lady Eletta's had none but herself for\ntheir object. What I say hereanent, I say to make more understandable\nthe conclusion of the matter, which I must now relate.\n\nAt the age of twenty she fell sick and felt herself to be dying. Then\nshe bewailed her fair body with the most piteous tears. She made her\nwomen dress her out in her richest attire, looked long and steadfastly\nat herself in the mirror, fondled with both hands her bosom and hips, to\nenjoy for the last time her own exceeding beauty. And, aghast at the\nthought of this body she so adored being eaten of the worms in the damp\nearth, she said, as she breathed her last, with a great sigh of faith\nand hope:\n\n\"Satan, best beloved Satan! take thou my soul and my body; Satan, gentle\nSatan! hear my prayer: take, take my body along with my soul.\"\n\nShe was borne to San Zenone, as custom ordains, with her face uncovered;\nand, within the memory of man, none had ever seen a dead woman look so\nlovely. While the priests were chanting the offices for the dead around\nher bier, she lay as if swooning with delight in the arms of an\ninvisible lover. When the ceremony was over, the Signora Eletta's\ncoffin, carefully closed and sealed, was deposited in holy ground, amid\nthe tombs that surrounded San Zenone, and of which some are Ancient\nRoman monuments. But next morning the earth they had thrown over the\ndead woman was found removed, and there lay the coffin open and empty.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUMAN TRAGEDY\n\nTO J.H. ROSNY\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUMAN TRAGEDY\n\n  [Greek: _Pas d' odyn\u00earos bios anthr\u00f4p\u00f4n,\n  kouk esti pon\u00f4n anapausis.\n  allo ti tou z\u00ean philteron, all' ho\n  skotos ampisch\u00f4n kryptei nephelais._]\n\n  (Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 190 sqq.)[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"All the life of man is full of pain, and there is no\nsurcease of sorrow. If there be aught better elsewhere than this present\nlife, it is hid shrouded in the clouds of darkness.\"]\n\n\nI\n\nFRA GIOVANNI\n\nIn those days the holy man, who, born though he was of human parents,\nwas veritably a son of God, and who had chosen for his bride a maiden\nthat folk open the door to as reluctantly as to Death itself, and never\nwith a smile,--the poor man of Jesus Christ, St. Francis, was gone up to\nthe Skies. Earth, which he had perfumed with his virtues, kept only his\nbody and the fruitful seed of his words. His sons in the spirit grew\nmeantime, and multiplied among the Peoples, for the blessing of Abraham\nwas upon them.\n\nKings and Queens girded on the cord of St. Francis, the poor man of\nJesus Christ. Men in multitudes sought in forgetfulness of self and of\nthe world the secret of true happiness; and flying the joy of life,\nfound a greater joy.\n\nThe Order of St. Francis spread fast through all Christendom, and the\nHouses of the Poor Men of the Lord covered the face of Italy, Spain, the\ntwo Gauls and the Teutonic lands. In the good town of Viterbo arose a\nHouse of peculiar sanctity. In it Fra Giovanni took the vows of Poverty,\nand lived humble and despised, his soul a garden of flowers fenced about\nwith walls.\n\nHe had knowledge by revelation of many truths that escape clever and\nworld-wise men. And ignorant and simple-minded as he was, he knew things\nunknown to the most learned Doctors of the age.\n\nHe knew that the cares of riches make men ill-conditioned and wretched,\nand that coming into the world poor and naked, they would be happy, if\nonly they would live as they were born. He was poor and merry-hearted.\nHis delight was in obedience; and renouncing the making of plans of any\nsort for the future, he relished the bread of the heart. For the weight\nof human actions is a heavy load, and we are trees bearing poisoned\nfruit. He was afraid to act, for is not all effort painful and useless?\nHe was afraid to think, for thought is evil.\n\nHe was very humble, knowing how men have nothing of their own that they\nshould boast of, and that pride hardens the heart. He knew, moreover,\nthat they who possess for all wealth only the riches of the spirit, if\nthey make boast of their treasure, so far lower themselves to the level\nof the great ones of the earth.\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni outdid in humility all the Monks of the House of\nViterbo. The Superior of the Monastery, the holy Brother Silvester, was\nless righteous than he, forasmuch as the master is less righteous than\nthe servant, the mother less innocent than the babe.\n\nObserving that Fra Giovanni had a way of stripping himself of his gown\nto clothe the suffering members of Jesus Christ, the Superior forbade\nhim, in the name of holy obedience, to give away his garments to the\npoor. Now the same day this command was laid on him, Giovanni went, as\nhis wont was, to pray in the woods that cover the slopes of Monte\nCunino. It was Winter time; snow was falling, and the wolves coming down\ninto the villages.\n\nFra Giovanni kneeling down at the foot of an oak, spoke to God, as\nmight one friend to another, and besought Him to take pity on all\norphans, prisoners and captives, to take pity on the master of the\nfields sorely harried by the Lombard usurers, to take pity on the stags\nand hinds of the forest chased by the hunters, and on all trapped\ncreatures, whether of fur or feathers. And lo! he was rapt away in an\necstasy, and saw a hand pointing in the sky.\n\nWhen presently the sun had slipped behind the mountains, the man of God\narose from his knees and took the path to the Monastery. On the white,\nsilent road thither, he met a beggar, who asked him an alms for the love\nof God.\n\n\"Alas!\" he told him, \"I have nothing but my gown, and the Superior has\nforbidden me to cut it in two so as to give away the half. Therefore I\ncannot divide it with you. But if you love me, my son, you will take it\noff me whole and undivided.\"\n\nOn hearing these words, the beggar promptly stripped the Friar of his\ngown.\n\nSo Fra Giovanni went on his way naked under the falling snow, and\nentered the city. As he was crossing the Piazza with nothing on but a\nlinen cloth about his loins, the children who were running at play in\nthe Great Square made mock at him. In derision, they shook their fists\nin his face with the thumb stuck between the first and middle fingers,\nand threw snow at him mixed with mud and small stones.\n\nNow there lay in the Great Square some logs of timber for the woodwork\nof a house, and one of the logs happened to be balanced across another.\nTwo children ran and took their places, one at each end of the beam, and\nbegan playing see-saw--two of the same children who had made mock of the\nholy man and thrown stones at him.\n\nHe went up to them now smiling, and said:\n\n\"Dear little children, will you suffer me to share your game?\"\n\nAnd sitting down on one end of the beam, he see-sawed up and down\nagainst the two little ones.\n\nAnd some of the citizens happening to pass that way, said, wondering:\n\n\"Truly and indeed the man is out of his wits.\"\n\nBut after the bells had rung the _Ave Maria_, Fra Giovanni was still at\nsee-saw. And it chanced that certain Priests from Rome, who had come to\nViterbo to visit the Mendicant Friars, whose fame was great through the\nworld, just then crossed the Great Square. And hearing the children\nshouting, \"Look! little Brother Giovanni's here,\" the Priests drew near\nthe Monk, and saluted him very respectfully. But the holy man never\nreturned their salute, but making as though he did not see them, went\non see-sawing on the swaying beam. So the Priests said to each other:\n\n\"Come away; the fellow is a mere dunce and dullard!\"\n\nThen was Fra Giovanni glad, and his heart overflowed with joy. For these\nthings he did out of humility and for the love of God. And he put his\njoy in the scorn of men, as the miser shuts his gold in a cedarn chest,\nlocked with a triple lock.\n\nAt nightfall he knocked at the Monastery door, and being admitted,\nappeared among the Brethren naked, bleeding, and covered with mire. He\nsmiled and said:\n\n\"A kind thief took my gown, and some children deemed me worthy to play\nwith them.\"\n\nBut the Brothers were angry, because he had dared to pass through the\ncity in so undignified a plight.\n\n\"He feels no compunction,\" they declared, \"about exposing the Holy Order\nof St. Francis to derision and disgrace. He deserves the most exemplary\npunishment.\"\n\nThe General of the Order, being warned a great scandal was ruining the\nsacred Society, called together all the Brethren of the Chapter, and\nmade Fra Giovanni kneel humbly on his knees in the midst of them all.\nThen, his face blazing with anger, he chid him harshly in a loud, rough\nvoice. This done, he consulted the assembly as to the penance it was\nmeet to impose on the guilty Brother.\n\nSome were for having him put in prison or suspended in an iron cage from\nthe Church steeple, while others advised he should be chained up for a\nmadman.\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni, beaming with satisfaction, told them:\n\n\"You are very right, my Brethren; I deserve these punishments, and worse\nones still. I am good for nothing but foolishly to waste and squander\nthe goods of God and of my Order.\"\n\nAnd Brother Marcian, who was a man of great sternness both of life and\ndoctrine, cried:\n\n\"Hear him! he talks like a hypocrite; that honeyed voice of his issues\nfrom a whited sepulchre.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni said again:\n\n\"Brother Marcian, I am indeed capable of every infamy--but for God's\ngood help.\"\n\nMeantime the General was pondering over the strange behaviour of Fra\nGiovanni, and he besought the Holy Spirit to inspire the judgment he was\nto give. And lo! as he prayed, his anger was changed into admiration. He\nhad known St. Francis in the days when that Angel of Heaven, born of a\nwoman, was a sojourner in this world, and the ensample of the favourite\nfollower of Christ had taught him the love of spiritual perfection.\n\nSo his soul was enlightened, and he recognized in the works of Fra\nGiovanni a divine innocency and beauty.\n\n\"My brethren,\" he said at length, \"far from blaming our Brother, let us\nadmire the grace he receives so abundantly from God. In very truth he is\na better man than we. What he has done, he has done in imitation of\nJesus Christ, who 'suffered the little children to come unto Him,' and\nlet the Roman soldiers strip Him of His garments.\"\n\nThen he thus addressed the kneeling Fra Giovanni:\n\n\"This, Brother, is the penance I lay upon you. In the name of that holy\nobedience you owe St. Francis, I command you go forth into the country,\nand the first beggar you meet, beg him to strip you of your tunic. Then,\nwhen he has left you naked, you must come back into the city, and play\nin the Public Square With the little children.\"\n\nHaving so said, the General of the Order came down from his chair of\nstate, and, raising Fra Giovanni from the ground, fell on his own knees\nbefore him and kissed his feet. Then, turning to the assembled Monks, he\nsaid to them:\n\n\"In very truth, my Brethren, this man is the good God's plaything.\"\n\n\nII\n\nTHE LAMP\n\nIn those days the truth was revealed to Fra Giovanni that the riches of\nthis world come from God and should be the heritage of the poor, who are\nthe favourite children of Jesus Christ.\n\nChristian folk were busy celebrating the Saviour's birth; and Fra\nGiovanni had come to the town of Assisi, which is set upon a\nmountain-top, and from this mountain first rose the Sun of Charity.\n\nNow the day before Christmas eve, Fra Giovanni was kneeling in prayer\nbefore the Altar under which St. Francis sleeps in a stone coffin. And\nhe was meditating, dreaming how St. Francis was born in a stable, like\nJesus. And while he was pondering, the Sacristan came up to him and\nasked him of his goodness to look after the Church while he ate his\nsupper. Church and Altar were both loaded with precious ornaments; gold\nand silver were there in abundance, for the sons of St. Francis had\nlong fallen from their early poverty, and had received gifts from the\nQueens of the Earth.\n\nFra Giovanni assured the Sacristan:\n\n\"Go, Brother, and enjoy your meal. I will guard the Church, as Our Lord\nwould have it guarded.\"\n\nAnd so saying, he went on with his meditations. And as he knelt there\nalone in prayer, a poor woman entered the Church and asked an alms of\nhim for the love of God.\n\n\"I have nothing,\" the holy man replied; \"but the Altar is loaded with\nornaments, and I will go see if I cannot find something to give you.\" A\ngolden lamp hung above the Altar, decked about with silver bells.\nExamining the lamp, he said to himself:\n\n\"Those little bells are but idle vanities. The true ornament of yonder\nAltar is the body of St. Francis, which reposes naked under the flags\nwith a black stone for a pillow.\"\n\nAnd drawing his knife from his pocket, he detached the little silver\nbells, one after the other, and gave them to the poor woman.\n\nPresently, when the Sacristan, his meal finished, returned to the\nChurch, Fra Giovanni, the holy man of God, said to him:\n\n\"Never trouble, my brother, about the little bells that belonged to the\nlamp. I have given them away to a poor woman who had need of them.\"\n\nNow Fra Giovanni did in this wise, because he knew by revelation that\nall the things in this world, belonging to God, belong of rights to the\npoor.\n\nAnd he was blamed on earth by men whose thoughts were given over to\nriches. But he was found praiseworthy in the sight of the Divine\nGoodness.\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE SERAPHIC DOCTOR\n\nFra Giovanni was not proficient in the knowledge of letters, and he\nrejoiced in his ignorance as being an abundant source of humiliations.\n\nBut after watching one day in the Cloister of Santa Maria degli Angeli a\nnumber of Doctors of Theology in meditation on the perfections of the\nMost Holy Trinity and the Mysteries of the Passion, he began to doubt\nwhether they did not possess the love of God more fully than he, by\nreason of their wider knowledge.\n\nHe was afflicted in his soul, and for the first time in his life fell\ninto melancholy. But sadness was unnatural to one in his estate; for joy\nis the inheritance of the poor.\n\nHe resolved to carry his difficulty to the General of the Order, to be\nrid of it as of a galling burden. Now Giovanni di Fidanza was General of\nthe Order in those days.\n\nIn the cradle he had received from St. Francis himself the name of\nBonaventure. He had studied Theology at the University of Paris; and he\nexcelled in the science of Love, which is the science of God. He knew\nthe four degrees which lift the creature to his Creator, and he pondered\non the mystery of the six wings of the Cherubim. This was the reason why\nhe was called the Seraphic Doctor.\n\nAnd he was well aware that Science is vain without Love. Fra Giovanni\nfound him walking in his garden, on the terrace overlooking the city.\n\nIt was a Sunday; and the handicraftsmen of the town and the peasants who\nwork in the vineyards were climbing, at the foot of the terrace, the\nsteep street that leads to the Church.\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni, seeing Brother Bonaventure in the garden, in the midst\nof the lilies, drew near and said:\n\n\"Brother Bonaventure, free my mind of the doubt that is tormenting me,\nand tell me: Can an ignorant man love God with as great love as a\nlearned Doctor of the Church?\"\n\nAnd Brother Bonaventure answered:\n\n\"I will tell you the truth, Fra Giovanni; a poor old woman may not only\nequal but surpass all the Doctors of Theology in the world. And seeing\nthe sole excellence of man lies in loving, I tell you again--the most\nignorant of women shall be exalted in Heaven above the Doctors.\"\n\nFra Giovanni, on hearing these words, was filled with great joy; and,\nleaning out over the low wall of the garden, looked lovingly at the\npassers-by. Then he cried out at the top of his voice:\n\n\"Ho! you poor women, ignorant and simple-minded, you shall be set in\nHeaven above Brother Bonaventure.\"\n\nAnd the Seraphic Doctor, hearing the good Brother's proclamation, smiled\nsweetly where he stood among the lilies of his garden.\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE LOAF ON THE FLAT STONE\n\nForasmuch as the good St. Francis had bidden his sons to \"Go, beg your\nbread from door to door,\" Fra Giovanni was one day sent to a certain\ncity. Having passed the Gate, he went up and down the streets to beg his\nbread from door to door, according to the rule of the Order, for the\nlove of God.\n\nBut the folk of that city were more covetous than the men of Lucca, and\nharder than they of Perugia. The bakers and tanners who were dicing\nbefore their shop-doors, repulsed the poor man of Jesus Christ with\nharsh words. Even the young women, holding their new-born babes in their\narms, turned their faces from him. And when the good Brother, whose joy\nwas in dishonour, smiled at the refusals and insults he received,\n\n\"He is laughing at us,\" said the townsmen to each other. \"He is a born\nfool--or say rather a vagabond impostor and a drunkard. He has\nover-drunk himself with wine. It were a sin and a shame to give him so\nmuch as a crumb of bread from our hutch.\"\n\nAnd the good Brother answered:\n\n\"You say true, my friends; I am not worthy to stir your pity, nor fit to\nshare the food of your dogs and your pigs.\"\n\nThe children, who were just then coming out of school, overheard what\nwas said, and ran after the holy man shouting:\n\n\"Madman! Madman!\"--and pelted him with mud and stones.\n\nThen Fra Giovanni went forth into the country. The city was built on the\nslope of a hill, and was surrounded by vineyards and oliveyards. He\ndescended the hill by a hollow way, and seeing on either side the grapes\nof the vines that hung down from the branches of the elms, he stretched\nout his arm and blessed the clusters. Likewise he blessed the olive and\nthe mulberry trees and all the wheat of the lowlands.\n\nMeantime he was both hungry and thirsty; and he took delight in thirst\nand hunger.\n\nAt the end of a cross-road, he saw a wood of laurels; and it was the\nhabit of the Begging Friars to go and pray in the woods, amongst the\npoor animals cruel men hunt and harry. Accordingly Fra Giovanni entered\nthe wood, and fared on by the side of a brook that ran clear and\nsinging on its way.\n\nPresently he saw a flat stone beside the brook, and at the same moment a\nyoung man of a wondrous beauty, clad in a white robe, laid a loaf of\nbread on the stone, and disappeared.\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni knelt down and prayed, saying:\n\n\"O God, how good art Thou, to send Thy poor man bread by the hand of one\nof Thy Angels; O blessed poverty! O very glorious and most sumptuous\npoverty!\"\n\nAnd he ate the loaf the Angel had brought, and drank the water of the\nbrook, and was strengthened in body and in soul. And an invisible hand\nwrote on the walls of the city: \"Woe, woe to the rich!\"\n\n\nV\n\nTHE TABLE UNDER THE FIG-TREE.\n\nFollowing the example of St. Francis, his well-beloved Father, Fra\nGiovanni used to visit the Hospital of Viterbo to help the lepers,\ngiving them to drink and washing their sores.\n\nAnd if they blasphemed, he used to tell them, \"You are the chosen sons\nof Jesus Christ.\" And there were some lepers of a very humble spirit\nwhom he would gather together in a chamber, and with whom he took\ndelight as a mother does surrounded by her children.\n\nBut the Hospital walls were very thick, and daylight entered only by\nnarrow windows high up above the floor. The air was so fetid the lepers\ncould scarce live in the place at all. And Fra Giovanni noted how one of\nthem, by name Lucido, who showed an exemplary patience, was slowly dying\nof the evil atmosphere.\n\nFra Giovanni loved Lucido, and would tell him:\n\n\"My brother, you are Lucido, and no precious stone is purer than your\nheart, in the eyes of God.\"\n\nAnd observing how Lucido suffered more sorely than the others from the\npoisonous air they breathed in the Lepers' Ward, he said to him one day:\n\n\"Friend Lucido, dear Lamb of the Lord, while the very air they breathe\nin this place is pestilence, in the gardens of Santa Maria degli Angeli\nwe inhale the sweet scent of the laburnums. Come you with me to the\nHouse of the Poor Brethren, and you will find relief.\"\n\nSo speaking, he took the Leper by the arm, wrapped him in his own cloak\nand led him away to Santa Maria degli Angeli.\n\nArrived at the gate of the Monastery, he summoned the Doorkeeper with\nhappy shouts of exultation:\n\n\"Open!\" he cried, \"open to the friend I am bringing you. His name is\nLucido, and a good name it is, for he is a very pearl of patience.\"\n\nThe Brother opened the Gate; but the instant he saw in Fra Giovanni's\narms a man whose face, livid and all but expressionless, was covered\nover with scales, he knew him for a leper, and rushed off in terror to\nwarn the Brother Superior. The latter's name was Andrea of Padua, and\nhe was a man of very holy life. Nevertheless when he learned that Fra\nGiovanni was bringing a leper into the House of Santa Maria degli\nAngeli, he was very wroth, and coming to him with a face burning with\nanger, bade him:\n\n\"Stay there outside, with the man. You are a senseless fool to expose\nyour brethren thus to contagion.\"\n\nFra Giovanni only looked on the ground without venturing any reply. All\nthe joy was gone from his face; and Lucido, seeing him troubled:\n\n\"Brother!\" said he, \"I am grieved you are made sad because of me.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni kissed the leper on the cheek.\n\nThen he said, turning to the Superior:\n\n\"Will you suffer me, my Father, to stay outside the Gate with this man,\nand share my meal with him?\"--to which the Father Superior answered:\n\n\"Even do as you please, seeing you set up yourself above the holy rule\nof obedience.\"\n\nAnd with these harsh words he went back again into the Monastery.\n\nNow in front of the Gate was a stone bench under a fig-tree, and on this\nbench Fra Giovanni set down his bowl. But while he was supping with the\nLeper, the Father Superior had the Gate thrown open, and came and sat\nunder the fig-tree and said:\n\n\"Forgive me, Fra Giovanni, for having given you offence. I am come\nhither now to share your meal.\"\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE TEMPTATION\n\nThen Satan sat him down on the brow of a hill, and gazed down at the\nHouse of the Poor Brethren. He was black and beautiful, like a young\nEgyptian. And he thought in his heart:\n\n\"Forasmuch as I am the Enemy of Mankind and the Adversary of God,\ntherefore will I tempt these Monks, and I will tell them what is kept\nhid by Him who is their Friend. Lo! I will afflict these men of Religion\nby telling them the truth, and I will darken their spirit, uttering to\nthem words of verity and reasonableness. I will plunge reflexion like a\nsword in their reins; and so soon as they shall know the reality of\nthings, they will be unhappy. For joy there is none but in illusion, and\npeace is only to be found in ignorance. And because I am the Master of\nsuch as study the nature of plants and animals, the virtue of stones,\nthe secrets of fire, the courses of the stars and the influence of the\nplanets, for this reason men have named me the Prince of Darkness.\nLikewise they call me the Wily One, because by me was constructed the\nplummet-line whereby Ulpian straightened out the Law. And my kingdom is\nof this world. Well then, I will try these Monks, and I will make them\nto know their works are evil, and that the tree of their Charity bears\nbitter fruit. Yea! I will tempt them without hate and without love.\"\n\nThus said Satan in his heart. Meantime, as the shades of evening were\nlengthening along the base of the hills and the cottage chimneys were\nsmoking for the evening meal, the holy man Giovanni issued from out the\nwood where he was wont to pray, and turned into the road leading to\nSanta Maria degli Angeli, saying:\n\n\"My house is the house of joy and delight, because it is the house of\npoverty.\"\n\nAnd seeing Fra Giovanni wending his way homewards, Satan thought:\n\n\"Lo! here is one of those men I am come to tempt\";--and drawing his\nblack cloak over his head, he advanced along the high road, which was\nbordered with terebinths, to meet the holy man.\n\nNow Satan had made himself like a widow-woman with a veil, and when he\nhad joined Fra Giovanni, he put on a honeyed voice and asked an alms of\nhim, saying:\n\n\"Give me an alms for the love of Him who is your friend, and whom I am\nnot worthy so much as to name.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni answered:\n\n\"It happens so, I have with me a little silver cup a nobleman of the\ncountryside gave me, to have it melted down and used for the Altar of\nSanta Maria degli Angeli. You may take that, lady; and I will go\nto-morrow and ask the nobleman to let me have another of the same weight\nfor the Blessed Virgin. Thus will his wishes be accomplished, and over\nand above, you will have gotten an alms for the love of God.\"\n\nSatan took the cup and said:\n\n\"Good brother, suffer a poor widow-woman to kiss your hand. For verily\nthe hand that gives gifts is soft and fragrant.\"\n\nFra Giovanni replied:\n\n\"Lady, be heedful not to kiss my hand. On the contrary, begone with all\nspeed. For, methinks, you are winsome of face, albeit black as the\nMagian King that bore the frankincense and myrrh; and it is not becoming\nI should look on you longer, seeing how danger is forever dogging the\nlonely man's steps. Wherefore suffer me now to leave you, commending\nyou to God's care. And forgive me, if I have failed aught in politeness\ntowards you, lady. For the good St. Francis was used to say: 'Courtesy\nshall be the ornament of my sons, as the flowers bedeck the\nhill-sides.'\"\n\nBut Satan said again:\n\n\"Good Father, inform me at the least of a guest-house, where I may pass\nthe night honestly.\"\n\nFra Giovanni replied:\n\n\"Go, mistress, to the House of St. Damian, where dwell the poor ladies\nof Our Lord. She who will welcome you is Clare, and indeed she is a\nclear mirror of purity; the same is the Duchess of Poverty.\"\n\nAnd Satan said again:\n\n\"My Father, I am an adulterous woman, and I have lain with many men.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni said:\n\n\"Lady, if I really deemed you laden with the sins you tell of, I would\ncrave of you as a high honour to kiss your feet, for I am less worth\nthan you, and your crimes are little compared with mine. Yet have I\nreceived greater favours of Heaven than have been accorded to you. For\nin the days when St. Francis and his twelve disciples were still upon\nearth, I lived with Angels of Heaven.\"\n\nAnd Satan returned:\n\n\"My Father, when I asked you an alms for the love of Him who loves you,\nI was cherishing in my heart a wicked intent, and I am fain to tell you\nwhat this was. I wander the roads a-begging, in order to collect a sum\nof money I destine for a man of Perosa who is my paramour, and who has\npromised me, on handling this money, to kill traitorously a certain\nknight I hate, because when I offered my body to him, he scorned me.\nWell! the total was yet incomplete; but now the weight of your silver\ncup has made it up. So the alms you have given me will be the price of\nblood. You have sold a just man to death. For the Knight I told you of\nis chaste, temperate and pious, and I hate him for this cause. 'Tis you\nwill have brought about his murder. You have laid a weight of silver in\nthe scale of crime, to bear it down.\"\n\nHearing these words, the good Fra Giovanni wept, and drawing aside, he\nfell on his knees in a thorn-brake, and prayed the Lord, saying:\n\n\"O Lord, make this crime to fall neither on this woman's head nor on\nmine nor on that of any of Thy creatures, but let it be put beneath Thy\nfeet, which were pierced with the nails, and be washed in Thy most\nprecious blood. Distil on me and on this my sister of the highway a drop\nof hyssop, and we shall be purified, and shall overpass the snow in\nwhiteness.\"\n\nBut the Enemy fled away, thinking:\n\n\"This man I have not been able to tempt by reason of his utter\nsimplicity.\"\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE SUBTLE DOCTOR\n\nSatan returned and sat on the Mountain that looks towards Viterbo,\nlaughing under its crown of olives. And he said in his heart: \"I will\ntempt that man yonder.\" He conceived this purpose in his spirit, because\nhe had seen Fra Giovanni, girt about with a cord, and a sack over his\nshoulder, crossing the meadows below on his way to the city to beg his\nbread there according to the rules.\n\nSo Satan took on the appearance of a holy Bishop, and came down into the\nplain. A mitre was on his head sparkling with precious stones, that\nflashed like actual fire in the sunlight. His cope was covered with\nfigures embroidered and painted so beautifully no craftsman in all the\nworld could have wrought their like.\n\nAmongst the rest he was depicted himself, in silk and gold, under the\nguise of a St. George and a St. Sebastian, as also under that of a\nVirgin St. Catherine and the Empress Helena. The loveliness of the\nfaces troubled the mind and saddened the heart. The garment was truly of\na wondrous workmanship, and nothing so rich and rare is to be seen in\nthe Treasuries of Churches.\n\nThus decked in cope and mitre, and majestic as St. Ambrose, the glory of\nMilan, Satan pursued his way, leaning on his crozier, over the flowery\nplain.\n\nPresently nearing the holy man, he hailed him and said:\n\n\"Peace be with you!\"\n\nBut he said not of what sort this peace was; and Fra Giovanni supposed\nit was the peace of the Lord. He thought to himself:\n\n\"This Bishop, who gives me the salutation of peace, was doubtless in his\nlifetime a sainted Pontiff and a blessed Martyr unshakable in his\nconstancy. That is why Jesus Christ has changed the wooden cross to a\ngolden in the hands of this gallant Confessor of the Faith. To-day he is\npowerful in Heaven; and lo! after his holy and happy death, he walks in\nthese meadows that are painted with flowers and broidered with pearls of\ndew.\"\n\nSuch were the good Giovanni's thoughts, and he was in no wise abashed.\nSo saluting Satan with a deep reverence, he said:\n\n\"Sir! you are exceeding gracious to appear to a poor man such as I. But\nindeed these meadows are so lovely, 'tis no wonder if the Saints of\nParadise come to walk here; they are painted with flowers and broidered\nwith pearls of dew. The Lord did very kindly when he made them.\"\n\nAnd Satan said to him:\n\n\"It is not the meadows, it is your heart I am fain to look at; I have\ncome down from the Mountain to speak with you. I have, in bygone\nCenturies, held many high disputations in the Church. Amid the assembled\nDoctors my voice would boom forth like thunder, and my thoughts flash\nlike lightning. I am very learned, and they name me the Subtle Doctor. I\nhave disputed with God's Angels. Now I would hold dispute with you.\"\n\nFra Giovanni made answer:\n\n\"Nay! but how should the poor little man that I am hold dispute with the\nSubtle Doctor? I know nothing, and my simplicity is such I can keep\nnothing in my head but those songs in the vulgar tongue where they have\nstuck in rhymes to help the memory, as in\n\n  'Jesus, mirror of my soul,\n  Cleanse my heart and make it whole.'\n\nor in\n\n  'Holy Mary, Maid of Flowers,\n  Lead me to the Heavenly Bowers.'\"\n\nAnd Satan answered:\n\n\"Fra Giovanni, the Venetian ladies amuse their leisure and show their\nadroitness in fitting a multitude of little pieces of ivory into a box\nof cedar-wood, which at the set-off seemed all too small to contain so\nmany. In the same fashion I will pack ideas into your head that no one\nwould have dreamed it could ever hold; and I will fill you with a new\nwisdom. I will show that, thinking to walk in the right way, you are\nstraying abroad all the while like a drunken man, and that you are\ndriving the plough without any heed to draw the furrows straight.\"\n\nFra Giovanni humbled himself, saying:\n\n\"It is most true I am a fool, and do nothing but what is wrong.\"\n\nThen Satan asked him:\n\n\"What think you of poverty? \"--and the holy man replied:\n\n\"I think it is a pearl of price.\"\n\nBut Satan retorted:\n\n\"You pretend poverty is a great good; yet all the while you are robbing\nthe poor of a part of this great good, by giving them alms.\"\n\nFra Giovanni pondered over this, and said:\n\n\"The alms I give, I give to Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose poverty cannot\nbe minished, for it is infinite. It gushes from Him as from an\ninexhaustible fountain; and its waters flow freely for His favourite\nsons. And these shall be poor always, according to the promise of the\nSon of God. In giving to the poor, I am giving not to men, but to God,\nas the citizens pay tax to the Podest\u00e0, and the rate is for the City,\nwhich of the money it so receives supplies the town's needs. Now what I\ngive is for paving the City of God. It is a vain thing to be poor in\ndeed, if we be not poor in spirit. The gown of frieze, the cord, the\nsandals, the wallet and the wooden bowl are only signs and symbols. The\nPoverty I love is spiritual, and I address her as _Lady_, because she is\nan idea, and all beauty resides in this same idea.\"\n\nSatan smiled, and replied:\n\n\"Your maxims, Fra Giovanni, are the maxims of a wise man of Greece,\nDiogenes by name, who taught at their Universities in the times when\nAlexander of Macedon was waging his wars.\"\n\nAnd Satan said again:\n\n\"Is it true you despise the goods of this world?\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni replied:\n\n\"I do despise them.\"\n\nAnd Satan said to him:\n\n\"Look you! in scorning these, you are scorning at the same time the\nhard-working men who produce them, and so doing, fulfil the order given\nto your first father, Adam, when he was commanded, 'In the sweat of thy\nface, thou shalt eat bread.' Seeing work is good, the fruit of this work\nis good too. Yet you work not, neither have any care for the work of\nothers. But you receive and give alms, in contempt of the law laid on\nAdam and on his seed through the ages.\"\n\n\"Alas!\" sighed Brother Giovanni, \"I am laden with crimes, and at once\nthe most wicked and the most foolish man in all the world. Wherefore\nnever heed me, but read in the Book. Our Lord said, 'Consider the lilies\nof the field; they toil not, neither do they spin.' Again he said, 'Mary\nhath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.'\"\n\nThen Satan lifted up his hand, with the gesture of one who disputes and\nprepares to count off his arguments on the fingers. And he said:\n\n\"Giovanni, Giovanni! what was written in one sense, you read in another;\nyou are less like a Doctor at his desk than an ass at the manger. So\nmust I correct you, as a master corrects his scholar. It is written the\nlilies of the field have no need to spin--because they are beautiful,\nand beauty is a virtue. Again it is written how Mary is not to do the\nhousehold tasks, because she is doing lovingly to Him who has come to\nsee her. But you, who are not beautiful nor yet instructed, like Mary,\nin the things of love, you drag out a contemptible existence wandering\nthe highways.\"\n\nGiovanni made reply:\n\n\"Sir! just as a Painter will depict on a narrow panel of wood an entire\ncity with its houses and towers and walls, so you have painted in a few\nwords my soul and my similitude with a wondrous exactness. And I am\naltogether what you describe. But if I followed perfectly the rule\netablished by St. Francis, that Angel of God, and if I practised\nspiritual poverty to the full, I should be the lily of the fields and I\nshould have the good part of Mary.\"\n\nBut Satan interrupted him, and cried:\n\n\"You profess to love the poor, yet you prefer the rich man and his\nriches, and adore Him who possesses treasures to give away.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni answered:\n\n\"He I love possesses not the good things of the body, but those of the\nspirit.\"\n\nAnd Satan retorted:\n\n\"All good things are of the flesh, and are tasted of through the flesh.\nThis Epicurus taught, and Horace the Satirist said the same in his\nVerses.\"\n\nAt these words the holy man only sighed and said:\n\n\"Sir! I cannot tell what you mean.\"\n\nSatan shrugged his shoulders and said:\n\n\"My words are exact and literal, yet the man cannot tell what I mean. I\nhave disputed with Augustine and Jerome, with Gregory and him of the\nGolden Mouth, St. Chrysostom. And they comprehended me still less.\nMiserable men walk groping in the dark, and Error lifts over their head\nher monstrous canopy. Simple and sage alike are the plaything of eternal\nfalsehood.\"\n\nAnd Satan said again to the holy man Giovanni:\n\n\"Have you won happiness? If you have happiness, I shall not prevail\nagainst you. A man's thoughts are only stirred by sorrow, and their\nmeditations by grief. Then, tortured by fears and desires, he turns\nanxiously in his bed and rends his pillow with lies. What use to tempt\nthis man? He is happy.\"\n\nBut Fra Giovanni sighed:\n\n\"Sir! I am less happy since listening to you. Your words trouble my\nmind.\"\n\nOn hearing this, Satan cast away his pastoral staff, his mitre and his\ncope; and stood there naked and unashamed. He was black and more\nbeautiful than the loveliest of the Angels.\n\nHe smiled gently, and said to the holy man:\n\n\"Friend, be comforted. I am the Evil Spirit.\"\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE BURNING COAL\n\nNow Brother Giovanni was simple of heart and spirit, and his tongue was\ntied; he knew not the secret of speaking to his fellow-men.\n\nBut one day when he was praying, as his habit was, at the foot of an\nancient holm-oak, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and saluting\nhim, said:\n\n\"I salute you, because it is I who visit the simple-minded, and announce\nthe mysteries to virgins.\"\n\nAnd the Angel held in his hand a burning coal. This he laid on the holy\nman's lips, and spoke again, and said:\n\n\"By virtue of this fire shall your lips remain pure, and they shall glow\nwith eloquence. I have burned them, and they shall be burned. Your\ntongue shall be loosed, and you shall speak to your fellows. For men\nmust hear the word of life, and learn how they shall not be saved but\nby innocency of heart. For this cause the Lord has unloosed the tongue\nof the simple and innocent.\"\n\nThen the Angel went back again to Heaven. And the holy man was seized\nwith terror, and he prayed, saying:\n\n\"O God, my heart is so sore troubled I cannot find on my lips the sweet\nsavour of the fire Thy Angel hath touched them with.\n\n\"Thou wouldst chasten me, O Lord, seeing Thou dost send me to speak to\nthe folk, who will not hearken to my words. I shall be hateful to all\nmen, and Thy priests themselves will declare, 'He is a blasphemer!'\n\n\"For Thy reason is contrary to the reason of men. Nevertheless Thy will\nbe done.\"\n\nThen he rose up from his knees, and set out on his way citywards.\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE HOUSE OF INNOCENCE\n\nOn that day Fra Giovanni had left the Monastery at early dawn, the hour\nwhen the birds awake and begin singing. He was on his way to the city\nand he thought within himself: \"I am going to the city to beg my bread\nand to give bread to other beggars; I shall give away what I receive,\nand take back what I have given. For it is good to ask and to receive\nfor the love of God. And he who receives is the brother of him who\ngives. And we should not consider too curiously which of the twain\nbrothers we are, because truly the gift is naught, but everything is in\nthe gracious giving.\n\n\"He that receives, if he have gracious charity, is the equal of him that\ngives. But he who sells is the enemy of him who buys, and the seller\nconstrains the buyer to be his foe. Herein lies the root of the curse\nthat poisons cities, as the venom of the serpent is in his tail. And it\nmust needs be a Lady set her foot on the serpent's tail, and that Lady\nis Poverty. Already hath she visited King Louis of France in his Tower;\nbut never yet entered among the Florentines, because she is chaste and\nwill not put foot in a place of ill repute. Now the money-changer's shop\nis an ill place, for it is there Bankers and Changers commit the most\nheinous of sins. Harlots sin in the brothels; but their sin is not so\ngreat as is that of the Bankers, and whosoever grows rich by banking and\nmoney-dealing.\n\n\"Verily I say unto you, Bankers and Money-changers shall not enter into\nthe Kingdom of Heaven, nor yet bakers, nor dealers in drugs, nor such as\npractise the trade of wool, which is the boast of the City of the Lily.\nForasmuch as they give a price to gold, and make a profit out of\nexchange, they are setting up idols in the face of men. And when they\ndeclare 'Gold has a value,' they tell a lie. For Gold is more vile than\nthe dry leaves that flutter and rustle in the Autumn wind under the\nterebinths. There is nothing precious save the work of men's hands, when\nGod gives it His countenance.\"\n\nAnd lo! as he was meditating in this wise, Fra Giovanni saw that the\nMountain side was torn open, and that men were dragging great stones\nfrom its flank. And one of the quarrymen was lying by the wayside, with\na rag of coarse cloth for all covering; and his body was disfigured by\nbitter marks of the biting cold and scorching heat. The bones of his\nshoulders and chest showed all but bare beneath the meagre flesh; and\nDespair looked out grim and gaunt from the black cavern of his eyes.\n\nFra Giovanni approached him, saying:\n\n\"Peace be with you!\"\n\nBut the quarryman made no answer, and did not so much as turn his head.\nSo Fra Giovanni, thinking he had not heard, repeated:\n\n\"Peace be with you!\"--and then the same words again for the third time.\n\nAt last the quarryman looked up at him sullenly, and growled:\n\n\"I shall have no peace till I am dead. Begone, cursed black crow! you\nwish me peace; that shows you are a glozing cheat! Go to, and caw to\nsimpler fools than I! I know very well the quarryman's lot is an utterly\nmiserable one, and there is no comfort for his wretchedness. I hale out\nstones from dawn to dark, and for price of my toil, all I get is a scrap\nof black bread. Then when my arms are no longer as strong as the stones\nof the mountain, and my body is all worn out, I shall perish of hunger.\"\n\n\"Brother!\" said the holy man Giovanni; \"it is not just or right you\nshould hale out so much stone, and win so little bread.\"\n\nThen the quarryman rose to his feet and pointing,\n\n\"Master Monk,\" said he, \"what see you up yonder on the hill?\"\n\n\"Brother, I see the walls of the City.\"\n\n\"And above them?\"\n\n\"Above them I see the roofs of the houses, which crown the ramparts.\"\n\n\"And higher still?\"\n\n\"The tops of the pines, the domes of the Churches and the Belltowers.\"\n\n\"And higher still?\"\n\n\"I see a Tower overtopping all the rest, and crowned with battlements.\nIt is the Tower of the Podest\u00e0.\"\n\n\"Monk, what see you above the battlements of that Tower?\"\n\n\"I see nothing, brother, above the battlements save the sky.\"\n\n\"But I,\" cried the quarryman, \"I see upon that Tower a hideous giant\nbrandishing a club, and on the club is inscribed: OPPRESSION. Yea!\nOppression is lifted up above the citizens' heads on the Great Tower of\nthe Magistrates and the City's Laws.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni answered:\n\n\"What one man sees, another cannot see, and it may be the horrid shape\nyou describe is set on the Tower of the Podest\u00e0 yonder, in the city of\nViterbo. But is there no remedy for the ills you endure, my brother? The\ngood St. Francis left behind him on this earth so full a fountain of\nconsolation that all men may draw refreshment therefrom.\"\n\nThen the quarryman spoke after this fashion:\n\n\"Men have said, 'This mountain is ours.' And these men are my masters,\nand it is for them I hew stone. And they enjoy the fruit of my labour.\"\n\nFra Giovanni sighed:\n\n\"Surely men must be mad to believe they own a mountain.\"\n\nBut the quarryman replied:\n\n\"Nay! they are not mad; and the Laws of the City guarantee them their\nownership. The citizens pay them for the stones I have hewn, which are\nmarbles of great price.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni said:\n\n\"We must change the laws of the City and the habits of the citizens. St.\nFrancis, that Angel of God, has given the example and shown the way.\nWhen he resolved, by God's command, to rebuild the ruined Church of St.\nDamian, he did not set out to find the master of the quarry. He did not\nsay, 'Go buy me the finest marbles, and I will give you gold in\nexchange.' For the holy man, who was called the son of Bernardone and\nwho was the true son of God, knew this, that the man who sells is the\nenemy of the man who buys, and that the art of Trafficking is more\nmischievous, if possible, than the art of War. Wherefore he did not\napply to the master-masons or any of them that give marble and timber\nand lead in exchange for money. But he went forth into the Mountain and\ngathered his load of wood and stones, and bore it himself to the spot\nhallowed to the memory of the Blessed Damian. With his own hands, by\nhelp of the mason's line, he laid the stones to form the walls; and he\nmade the cement to bind together the stones one to another. Finished, it\nwas a lowly circuit of roughly fashioned stones, the work of a weakling.\nBut who considers it with the eyes of the soul recognizes therein an\nAngel's thought. For the mortar of this wall was not worked with the\nblood of the unfortunate; this house of St. Damian was not raised with\nthe thirty pieces of silver paid for the blood of that Just Man, which,\nrejected by Iscariot, go travelling the world ever since, passing from\nhand to hand, to buy up all the injustice and all the cruelty of the\nearth.\n\n\"For, alone of all others, this house is founded on Innocence,\nstablished on Love, based on Charity, and alone of all others it is the\nHouse of God.\n\n\"And I tell you verily, quarryman and brother, the poor man of Jesus\nChrist, in doing these things, gave to the world an example of Justice,\nand one day his foolishness shall shine forth as wisdom. For all things\nin this earth are God's and we are His children; and it is meet the\nchildren should share alike in His inheritance. That is, each should get\nwhat he has need of. And seeing grown men do not ask for broth, nor\nbabes for wine, the share of each shall not be the same, but each shall\nhave the heritage that is fitting for him.\n\n\"And labour shall be a joyful thing, when it is no longer paid. 'Tis\ngold only, the cursed gold, that makes the sharing uneven. When each man\nshall go severally to the Mountain for his stone, and carry his load to\nthe city on his own back, the stone shall weigh light and it shall be\nthe stone of cheerfulness. And we will build the house of joy and\ngladness, and the new city shall rise from its foundations. And there\nshall be neither rich nor poor, but all men will call themselves poor\nmen, because they will be glad to bear a name that brings them honour.\"\n\nSo spoke the gentle Fra Giovanni, and the unhappy quarryman thought to\nhimself:\n\n\"This man clad in a shroud and girt with a cord has proclaimed new\ntidings. I shall not see the end of my miseries, for I am going to die\nof hunger and exhaustion. But I shall die happy, for my eyes, before\nthey close, will have beheld the dawn of the day of Justice.\"\n\n\nX\n\nTHE FRIENDS OF ORDER\n\nNow in those days there was in the very illustrious city of Viterbo a\nConfraternity of sixty old men. These counted among their number many of\nthe chief men of the place; and their objects were the accumulation of\nhonours and riches, and the pursuit of virtue. The Brotherhood included\na Gonfalonier of the Republic, Doctors of either faculty, Judges,\nMerchants, Money-changers of conspicuous piety, and one or two old\nSoldiers of Fortune grown too ancient and feeble for the Wars.\n\nSeeing they were banded together for the purpose of stirring up their\nfellow-citizens to goodness and good order, and to bear mutual witness\nto the practice of these virtues, they gave themselves the title of _The\nFriends of Order_. This name was inscribed on the banner of the\nConfraternity, and they were all of one mind to persuade the poor to\nfollow goodness and good order, to the end no changes might be made in\nthe Constitution.\n\nTheir habit was to meet on the last day of each month, in the Palace of\nthe Podest\u00e0, to make inquiry of each other what of good had been done in\nthe city during the month. And to such of the poorer citizens as had\ndone well and orderly, they used to present pieces of money.\n\nNow on a certain day the Friends of Order were holding meeting. At one\nend of the Hall was a raised platform covered with velvet, and over the\nplatform a magnificent canopy of state, held up by four figures carved\nand painted. These figures represented Justice, Temperance, Strength and\nChastity; and beneath the canopy sat the Officers of the Brotherhood.\nThe President, who was entitled the Dean, took his place in the middle\non a golden chair, which in richness was scarce inferior to the throne\nthat once upon a time the disciple of St. Francis saw prepared in Heaven\nfor the poor man of the Lord. This seat of state had been presented to\nthe Dean of the Brotherhood to the end that in him should be honoured\nall the goodness done in the city.\n\nAnd as soon as the Members of the Confraternity were ranged in the\nfitting order, the Dean got up to speak. He congratulated any\nserving-maids that served their masters without receiving wages, and\nspoke highly of the old men who, having no bread to eat, did not ask for\nany.\n\nAnd he said:\n\n\"These have done well, and we shall reward them. For it behoves that\ngoodness be rewarded, and it is our bounden duty to pay the price of it,\nbeing as we are the first and foremost citizens of the city.\"\n\nAnd when he finished speaking, the crowd of the general folk that stood\nunder the platform clapped their hands.\n\nBut no sooner had they done applauding than Fra Giovanni lifted up his\nvoice from the midst of the miserable, poverty-stricken band, and asked\nloudly:\n\n\"What is goodness?\"\n\nAt this great clamour arose in the assembly, and the Dean shouted:\n\n\"Who was it spoke?\"\n\nAnd a red-haired man who was standing among the people, answered:\n\n\"It was a Monk, by name Giovanni, who is the disgrace of his Cloister.\nHe goes naked through the streets, carrying his clothes on his head, and\ngives himself up to all sorts of extravagances.\"\n\nNext a Baker spoke up and said:\n\n\"He is a madman or a miscreant! He begs his bread at the Bakers' doors.\"\n\nThen a number of those present, shouting noisily and dragging Fra\nGiovanni by the gown, tried to hustle him out of the hall, while others\nmore angry still, began throwing stools and breaking them over the holy\nman's head. But the Dean rose from his seat under the canopy, and said:\n\n\"Leave the man in peace, so that he may hear me and be confounded. He\nasks what goodness is, because goodness is not in him and he is devoid\nof virtue. I answer him, 'The knowledge of goodness resides in virtuous\nmen; and good citizens carry within them a proper respect for the laws.\nThey approve what has been done in the city to insure to each man\nenjoyment of the riches he may have acquired. They support the\nestablished order of things, and are ready to fly to arms to defend the\nsame. For the duty of the poor is to defend the good things belonging to\nthe rich; and this is how the union betwixt citizens is maintained. This\nis goodness and good order. Again, the rich man has his serving-man\nbring out a basket full of bread, which he distributes to the poor; and\nthis is goodness again.' These are the lessons this rough, ignorant\nfellow required to be taught.\"\n\nHaving so said, the Dean sat down, and the crowd of poor folks raised a\nmurmur of approval. But Fra Giovanni, stepping on one of the stools\nthat had been thrown at his head with contumely and insult, addressed\nthem all and said:\n\n\"Hear the words of comfort! Goodness resides not in men, for men know\nnot of themselves what is good. They are ignorant of their own nature\nand destiny. What seems good, may be evil all the while; and what is\ndeemed useful, harmful. No man can choose the things meet for him,\nbecause he knows not his own needs, but is like the little child sitting\nin the meadows, that sucks for wholesome milk the juice of the deadly\nnightshade. The babe does not know that the nightshade is a poison; but\nits mother knows. This is why goodness is to do the will of God.\n\n\"It is false to say, 'Tis I teach goodness, and goodness is to obey the\ncity laws.' For the Laws are not of God; they are of man, and share in\nman's craft and cunning and imperfection. They are like the rules\nchildren make in the Square of Viterbo, when they are playing ball.\nGoodness is not in customs nor in laws; it is in God and in the\naccomplishment of God's will upon earth, and it is neither by law-makers\nnor magistrates that God's will is accomplished upon the earth.\n\n\"For the great men of this world do their own will, and their will is\ncontrary to God's. But they who have stripped off pride and know there\nis no goodness in them, these men receive noble gifts, and God Himself\ndistils His sweetness within them like honey in the hollow of the oaks.\n\n\"And we must be the oak-tree full of honey and dew. Humble, ignorant and\nsimple folks, these have knowledge of God; and by them shall God's\nkingdom be stablished on earth. Salvation is not in the strength of laws\nnor in the multitude of soldiers; it is in poverty and humbleness of\nspirit.\n\n\"Say not, 'Goodness is in me, and I teach goodness.' Rather say,\n'Goodness is in God on high.' Over long have men hardened their hearts\nin their own wisdom. Over long have they set up the Lion and the\nShe-Wolf above the Gates of their Cities. Their wisdom and their\nprudence have brought about slavery and wars and the shedding of much\ninnocent blood. Wherefore you should put your guidance in God's hand, as\nthe blind man trusts himself to his dog's guidance. Fear not to shut the\neyes of your spirit and have done with Reason, for has not Reason made\nyou unhappy and wicked? By Reason have you grown like the man who,\nhaving guessed the secrets of the Beast crouching in the cavern, waxed\nproud of his knowingness, and deeming himself wiser than his fellows,\nslew his father and wedded his mother.\n\n\"God was not with him; but He is with the humble and simple-minded.\nLearn not to will and He will put His will in you. Seek not to guess the\nriddles of the Beast. Be ignorant, and you shall not fear to go astray.\n'Tis only wise men that are deceived.\"\n\nFra Giovanni having thus spoken, the Dean got up and said:\n\n\"The miscreant has insulted me, and I willingly forgive him the insult.\nBut he has spoken against the laws of Viterbo, and it is meet he should\nbe punished.\"\n\nSo Fra Giovanni was led before the Judges, who had him loaded with\nchains and cast him into the city gaol.\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE REVOLT OF GENTLENESS\n\nThe holy man Giovanni was chained to a massive pillar in the middle of\nthe dungeon over which the river flowed.\n\nTwo other prisoners were plunged along with him in the thick and fetid\ndarkness. Both these had realized and proclaimed the injustice of the\nLaws. One was for overthrowing the Republic by force. He had been guilty\nof startling assassinations, and his hope was to purify the city with\nfire and sword. The other trusted to be able to change men's hearts, and\nhad delivered very persuasive discourses. Inventor of wise laws, he\ncounted on the charms of his genius and the innocency of his life to\ninduce his fellow-citizens to submit to them. But both had met with the\nsame doom.\n\nWhen they learned how the holy man was chained alongside of them for\nhaving spoken against the laws of the city, they congratulated him. And\nthe one who had invented wise laws, said to him:\n\n\"If ever, brother, we are restored to liberty, seeing you think as I do,\nyou shall help me to persuade the citizens that they ought to set up\nabove them the empire of just laws.\"\n\nBut the holy man Giovanni answered him:\n\n\"What matter for Justice being in the Laws, if it is not in men's\nhearts? And if men's hearts are unjust, what gain shall it be that\nEquity reign in the Courts of Law?\n\n\"Say not, 'We will stablish just laws, and we will render to every man\nwhat is his due.' For no one is just, and we know not what is meet for\nmen. We are no less ignorant what is good for them and what is evil. And\nwhensoever the Princes of the People and the Chiefs of the Commonwealth\nhave loved Justice, they have caused the slaying of many folk.\n\n\"Give not the compass and the level to the false measurer; for with true\ninstruments, he will make untrue apportionments. And he will say: 'See,\nI carry on me the level, the rule and the square, and I am a good\nmeasurer.' So long as men shall be covetous and cruel, will they make\nthe most merciful laws cruel, and will rob their brethren with words of\nlove on their lips. This is why it is vain to reveal to them the words\nof love and the laws of gentleness.\n\n\"Set not up laws against laws, nor raise tables of marble and tables of\nbrass before men's eyes. For whatever is written on the tables of the\nLaw, is written in letters of blood.\"\n\nSo spoke the holy man. And the other prisoner,--he who had committed\nstartling murders, and contrived the ruin that was to save the city,\napproved his words and said:\n\n\"Comrade, you have spoken well. Know you, I will never set up law\nagainst law, right rule against crooked rule; my wish is to destroy the\nlaw by violence and compel the citizens to live thenceforth in happy\nfreedom. And know further that I have slain both judges and soldiers,\nand have committed many crimes for the public good.\"\n\nHearing these words, the man of the Lord rose, stretched out his\nmanacled arms in the heavy darkness and cried:\n\n\"Ill betide the violent! for violence ever begets violence. Whosoever\nacts like you is sowing the earth with hate and fury, and his children\nshall tear their feet with the wayside briars, and serpents shall bite\ntheir heel.\n\n\"Ill betide you! for you have shed the blood of the unjust judge and the\nbrutal soldier, and lo! you are become like the soldier and the judge\nyourself. Like them you bear on your hands the indelible stain.\n\n\"A fool the man who says, 'We will do evildoing in our turn, and our\nheart shall be comforted. We will be unjust, and it shall be the\nbeginning of justice.' Evildoing is in evil desiring. Desire nothing,\nand evildoing will be done away. Injustice hurts only the unjust; I\nshall suffer no harm of it, if I am just. Oppression is a sword whose\nhilt wounds the hand of him who holds it; but its point cannot pierce\nthe heart of the man who is simple-minded and good and kind.\n\n\"For such an one nothing is dangerous, if he fear nothing. To endure all\nthings, is to endure nothing. Let us be good and kindly, and the whole\nround world shall be the same. For the world will be an instrument for\nyour goodness, and your persecutors will work to make you better and\nmore beautiful.\n\n\"You love life, and this is an affection which rules the heart of every\nman. Then love suffering; for to live is to suffer. Never envy your\ncruel masters; rather have compassion for the commanders of armies. Pity\nthe Publicans and Judges; the proudest of them have known the stings of\ngrief and the terrors of death. Happier you, because your consciences\nare void of offence; for you, let grief lose its bitterness and death\nits terrors.\n\n\"Be ye God's children, and tell yourselves, 'All is well in Him.'\nBeware of pursuing even the public good with overmuch violence and\navidity, for fear something of cruelty mar your integrity. Rather should\nyour desire of universal loving-kindness have the unction of a prayer\nand the soft fervour of a hope.\n\n\"Fair the table, whereat every man shall get his just portion, and the\nguests shall each one wash the other's feet. But say not, 'I will set up\nthis table by force in the streets of the city and in the public\nsquares.' For it is not knife in hand you must call together your\nbrethren to the feast of Justice and Gentleness. Of its own accord must\nthe board be spread in the Campo di Marte, by virtue of graciousness and\ngood will.\n\n\"This shall be a miracle; and be sure, miracles are not wrought save by\nfaith and love. If you disobey your masters, let it be by love. Neither\nfetter nor kill them, but tell them rather, 'I will never slay my\nbrothers, nor throw them into chains.' Endure, suffer, submit, will what\nGod wills, and your will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. What\nseems evil is evil, and what seems good is good. Striving and discontent\nis the true curse of mankind. Let us then be peaceful and content, and\nnever strike the wicked, for fear we make ourselves like them.\n\n\"If we have not the good fortune to be poor in very deed, let us not\nmake ourselves rich men in spirit, and heartbound to the things of this\nworld that make folk unjust and unhappy. Let us suffer persecution with\ngentleness, and be those chosen vessels that turn into balm the gall\npoured into them.\"\n\n\nXII\n\nWORDS OF LOVE\n\nThen the Judges had the holy man, Giovanni, brought before them chained\nto him who had thrown Greek fire in the Palace of the Priors. And they\nsaid to the holy man:\n\n\"You are alongside of the guilty because you are not on our side. For\nwhosoever is not with good citizens is with evil.\"\n\nAnd the holy man answered them:\n\n\"There are neither good nor evil among men; but all alike are unhappy.\nAnd they who suffer neither hunger nor contumely, they are afflicted by\nriches and power. It is not given to any man born of woman to escape the\nmiseries of life, and the son of woman is like a fever patient, who\nturns and turns in his bed, and can find no rest, because he will not\nlie down on the Cross of Jesus, his head among the thorns, and take his\njoy in suffering. Yet is it in suffering that joy is found; and they who\nlove know this.\n\n\"I companion with Love, but that man with Hate; and for this cause we\ncan never come together. And I say to him, 'Brother, you have done ill,\nand your crime is great and grievous,' And I speak so, because Charity\nand Love urge me. But you, you condemn yonder guilty man in the name of\nJustice. But invoking Justice, you take a vain oath, for there is no\nsuch thing as Justice among men.\n\n\"We are all of us guilty. And when you say, 'The life of peoples is in\nour hand,' you are lying, and you are the coffin which declares, 'I am\nthe cradle.' The life of peoples is in the harvests of the fields, which\ngrow yellow beneath the Lord's sight. It is in the vines hanging from\nthe elms, and in the smiles and tears wherein heaven bathes the fruits\nof the trees in the orchard closes. It is not in the laws, which are\nmade by the rich and powerful for the maintenance of their own power and\nriches.\n\n\"Ye forget how ye are all born poor and naked. And He who came to lie in\nthe manger at Bethlehem, has come without profiting you. And He must\nneeds be born again and be crucified a second time for your salvation.\n\n\"The man of violence has laid hold of the arms you forged; and is well\ncompared to the warriors you hold in honour because they have destroyed\ncities. What is defended by force shall be attacked by force. And if you\nhave wit to read the book you have written, you will find what I say\ntherein. For you have put in your book that the right of nations is the\nright of war; and you have glorified violence, paying honours to\nconquering generals and raising statues in your public squares to them\nand their war-horses.\n\n\"And you have laid it down, 'There is violence that is right, and\nviolence that is wrong. And this is the right of nations and this is the\nlaw.' But so soon as the men shall have put you outside the law, they\nwill be the law, even as you became the law, when you had overthrown the\ntyrant that was the law before you.\n\n\"Now, be assured, it is very certain that there is no true right save in\nthe renouncing of right. There is no hallowed law save in love. There is\nno Justice save in Charity. 'Tis not by force we should resist force,\nfor strife only hardens the fighters' hearts and the issue of battles is\naye dubious. But if we oppose gentleness to violence, this latter\ngetting no hold upon its adversary, falls dead of itself.\n\n\"It is related by learned men in the _Bestiaries_ how the unicorn, which\nbears on its forehead a flaming sword, transfixes the hunter in his\ncoat-of-mail, but falls to its knees before a pure virgin. Be ye\ngentle-hearted, therefore, and simple-souled; keep your heart pure, and\nye shall fear nothing.\n\n\"Put not your trust in the sword of the Condottieri, for did not the\nshepherd boy's smooth stone pierce Goliath's brow? But be ye strong in\nlove, and love them that hate you. Hate, when unreturned, is robbed of\nhalf its sting; and what is left is weak, widowed, and like to die.\nStrip yourselves, that other men strip you not. Love your enemies, that\nthey become your friends. Forgive, that ye may be forgiven. Say not,\n'Gentleness is a bane to the shepherds of the peoples.' For how can you\nknow, seeing these have never tried? They profess by harshness to have\nlessened the evil of the world. Yet is evil still rampant among men, and\nthere is never a sign of its growing less.\n\n\"I said to some, 'Be not oppressors,' and to others, 'Rise not in revolt\nagainst oppression,'--and neither hearkened to me. They cast the stone\nof derision at me. Because I was on all men's side, each reproached me\nand said, 'You are not on my side.'\n\n\"I said, 'I am the friend of the wretched.' But you never thought I was\nyour friend, because in your pride, you know not that you are wretched.\nNevertheless the wretchedness of the master is more cruel than that of\nthe slave. My tender pity for your woes only made you think I was\nmocking you; and the oppressed deemed me to be of the party of the\noppressors. 'He has no bowels,' they said. Nay! but I am on the side of\nlove and not of hate. This is why you scorn me; and because I preach\npeace on earth, you hold me for a fool. You think my words wander all\nways, like the steps of a drunken man. And it is very true I walk your\nfields like those harpers who on the eve of battles, come to play before\nthe tents. And the soldiers say, as they listen: ''Tis some poor\nsimpletons come playing the tunes we heard long ago in our mountains.' I\nam this harper that roams between the hosts in battle array of hostile\narmies. When I think whither human wisdom leads, I am glad to be a\nmadman and a simpleton; and I thank God that He has given me the harp to\nhandle and not the sword.\"\n\n\nXIII\n\nTHE TRUTH\n\nThe holy man Giovanni was very straitly confined in gaol, where he was\nfastened by chains to rings built into the wall. But his soul was\nunfettered, and no tortures had been able to shake his firmness. He\npromised himself he would never betray the faith that was in him, and\nwas ready to be witness and martyr of the Truth, to the end he might die\nin God. And he said to himself, \"Truth shall go along with me to the\nscaffold. She shall look at me and weep and say, 'My tears flow, seeing\nit is for my sake this man is going to his death.'\"\n\nAnd as the holy man was thus holding colloquy of his own thoughts in the\nsolitude of his dungeon, a knight entered into the prison, without ever\nthe doors having been opened. He was clad in a red mantle, and carried\nin his hand a lighted lantern.\n\nFra Giovanni accosted him and said:\n\n\"What is your name, subtle sir, that slips through prison walls?\"\n\nAnd the knight made answer:\n\n\"Brother, what use to tell you the names folk give me? For you I will\nbear the one you shall call me by. Know this, I am come to you full of\nhelpfulness and goodwill, and being informed you dearly love the Truth,\nI bring you a word touching this same Truth that you have taken for lady\nand companion.\"\n\nAnd Fra Giovanni began to tender thanks to his visitor. But the knight\nstopped him in the midst, saying:\n\n\"I warn you, this word of mine will seem to you at the first empty and\nof no account, for it is with it as with a tiny key, that the heedless\nman throws away without using.\n\n\"But the careful householder tries it in lock after lock, till he finds\nat last it opens a chest full of gold and precious stones.\n\n\"Wherefore I say to you, Fra Giovanni, seeing you have chosen\nperadventure to take Truth for your Lady and darling, it behoves you\ngreatly to know concerning her all that may be known. Well then, know\nthat she is _white_. And from her appearance, which I will describe you,\nyou shall gather her nature, which will be very useful to you in making\nup to her and kissing her fair body with all sorts of pretty caresses,\nafter the fashion of a lover fondling his mistress. Therefore take it as\nproven, brother mine, that she is _white_.\"\n\nAfter hearkening to these words, the holy man Giovanni answered:\n\n\"Subtle Sir, the meaning of your discourse is not so hard to guess as\nyou would seem to fear. And my wit, albeit naturally thick and dull, was\ninstantly transfixed by the fine point of your allegory. You say that\nTruth is white to manifest the perfect purity that is in her, and show\nclearly she is a lady of immaculate virtue. And truly I picture her to\nmyself such as you describe, overpassing in whiteness the lilies of the\ngarden and the snow that in winter clothes the summits of Monte\nAlverno.\"\n\nBut the visitor shook his head and said:\n\n\"Nay! Fra Giovanni, that is not the meaning of my words, and you have in\nno wise broken the bone to extract the marrow. I instructed you that\nTruth is white, _not_ that she is pure; and it shows little discernment\nto think that she is pure.\"\n\nGrieved at what he now heard, the holy man Giovanni replied:\n\n\"Even as the Moon, when the Earth hides the Sun's light from her, is\ndarkened by the thick shadow of this World, where was wrought the crime\nof our mother Eve, so, most Subtle Sir, you have obscured a plain\nsaying under baffling phrases. Thus we have you astray in the dark; for\nindeed Truth is pure, coming from God, the fountain of all purity.\"\n\nBut the Opponent retorted:\n\n\"Fra Giovanni, your logic is at fault, or you would know that purity is\nan inconceivable quality. This is what the shepherds of Arcady did, so\nthey say, who named pure gods the gods they knew not the nature of.\"\n\nThen the good Fra Giovanni sighed and said:\n\n\"Sir! your words are dark and wrapped in sadness. At times in my sleep\nangels have visited me. Their words I could not comprehend; but the\nmystery of _their_ thought was full of joy.\"\n\nHereupon the subtle visitor resumed:\n\n\"Come, Fra Giovanni, let us argue it out both of us according to the\nrules of syllogism.\"\n\nBut the holy man answered:\n\n\"Nay! I cannot argue with you; I have neither wish nor wit for the\ntask.\"\n\n\"Well then!\" returned the Subtle Sophist, \"I must needs find another\nOpponent.\"\n\nAnd in a moment, lifting the index finger of his left hand, he made with\nhis right out of a corner of his gown a red cap for this finger. Then\nholding it up before his nose,\n\n\"Look!\" he said, \"look at this finger. He's a learned Doctor now, and I\nam going to hold a learned argument with him. He's a Platonist, maybe\nPlato himself.\n\n\"Messer Plato, what is purity? I wait your answer, Messer Plato. Oh! you\nsay. Consciousness is pure. Consciousness only when it is devoid of\neverything which may be seen, heard, handled, in one word proved by the\nsenses. You grant me further,--yes! you nod your cap, that Truth will be\npure Truth under the same conditions, that is to say provided only you\nmake her dumb, blind, deaf, legless, paralytic, crippled of all her\nlimbs. And I am quite ready to allow that in this state she will escape\nthe delusions that make mock of mankind, and will have no temptations to\nplay the runagate. You are a scoffer, and you have made much mock at the\nworld. Doff your cap.\"\n\nAnd the Opponent, dropping the corner of his gown, once more addressed\nthe holy man Giovanni:\n\n\"My friend, these old Sophists knew not what Truth was. But I, who am a\nstudent of physics and a great observer of natural curiosities, you may\nbelieve me when I tell you she is white, or, more strictly speaking,\nwhiteness itself.\n\n\"From which we must not conclude, I have told you before, that she is\npure. Consider the Lady Eletta, of Verona, whose thighs were like milk;\nthink you for this they were abstract from the world in general,\nwithdrawn in the invisible and intangible, which is the pure, according\nto the Platonic doctrine? You would be much mistaken if you supposed\nso.\"\n\n\"I do not know this Lady Eletta you speak of,\" said the holy man\nGiovanni.\n\n\"She gave herself and her living body,\" said the Opponent, \"to two\nPopes, sixty Cardinals, fourteen Princes, eighteen merchants, the Queen\nof Cyprus, three Turks, four Jews, the Lord Bishop of Arezzo's ape, a\nhermaphrodite, and the Devil. But we are wandering from our subject,\nwhich is to discover the proper character of Truth.\n\n\"Now, if this character is not purity, as I have just established it\ncannot be in argument with Plato himself, it is conceivable it may be\nimpurity, which impurity is the necessary condition of all existing\nthings. For have we not just seen how the pure has neither life nor\nconsciousness? And you must yourself, I trow, have learned amply from\nexperience that life and all pertaining thereto is invariably compound,\nblended, diversified, liable to increase and decrease, unstable,\nsoluble, corruptible--never pure.\"\n\n\"Doctor,\" replied Giovanni, \"your reasons are nothing worth, forasmuch\nas God, who is all pure, exists.\"\n\nBut the Subtle Doctor retorted:\n\n\"If you would read your books more carefully, my son, you would see it\nis said of Him you have just named, _not_, 'He exists,' but, 'He is.'\nNow to exist and to be are not one and the same thing, but two opposite\nthings. You are alive, and do you not say yourself, 'I am nothing; I am\nas if I were not'? And you do not say, 'I am he who is.' Because to\nlive, is each moment to cease to be. Again you say, 'I am full of\nimpurities,' forasmuch you are not a single thing, but a blending of\nthings that stir and strive.\"\n\n\"Now do you speak wisely,\" answered the holy man, \"and I see by your\ndiscourse that you are very deep read, Subtle Sir, in the sciences,\ndivine as well as human. For true indeed it is God is He who is.\"\n\n\"By the body of Bacchus,\" exclaimed the other, \"He is, and that\nperfectly and universally. Wherefore are we dispensed from seeking Him\nin any single place, being assured He is to be discovered neither more\nnor less in any one spot than in any other, and that you cannot find so\nmuch as a pair of old spatterdashes without their due share of Him.\"\n\n\"Admirably put, and most true,\" returned Giovanni. \"But it is right to\nadd that He is more particularly in the sacred elements, by the way of\ntransubstantiation.\"\n\n\"More than that!\" added the learned Doctor; \"He is actually edible in\nthem. Note moreover, my son, that He is round in an apple, long-shaped\nin an aubergine, sharp in a knife and musical in a flute. He has all the\nqualities of substances, and likewise all the properties of figures. He\nis acute and He is obtuse, because He is at one and the same time all\npossible triangles; his radii are at once equal and unequal, because He\nis both the circle and the ellipse--and He is the hyperbola besides,\nwhich is an indescribable figure.\"\n\nWhile the holy Giovanni was still pondering these sublime verities, he\nheard the Subtle Doctor suddenly burst out a-laughing. Then he asked\nhim:\n\n\"Why do you laugh?\"\n\n\"I am laughing,\" replied the Doctor, \"to think how they have discovered\nin me certain oppositions and contradictions, and have reproached me\nbitterly for the same. It is very true I have many such. But they fail\nto see that, if I had them all, I should then be like the Other.\"\n\nThe holy man asked him:\n\n\"What other is it you speak of?\"\n\nAnd the Adversary answered:\n\n\"If you knew of whom I speak, you would know who I am. And my wisest\nwords you would be loath to listen to, for much ill has been said of\nme. But, if you remain ignorant who I am, I can be of much use to you. I\nwill teach you how intensely sensitive men are to the sounds that the\nlips utter, and how they let themselves be killed for the sake of words\nthat are devoid of meaning. This we see with the Martyrs,--and in your\nown case, Giovanni, who look forward with joy to be strangled and then\nburned to the singing of the Seven Psalms, in the Great Square of\nViterbo, for this word _Truth_, for which you could not by any\npossibility discover a reasonable interpretation.\n\n\"Verily you might ransack every hole and corner of your dim brain, and\npick over all the spiders' webs and old iron that cumber your head,\nwithout ever lighting on a picklock to open this word and extract the\nmeaning. But for me, my poor friend, you would get yourself hanged and\nyour body burned for a word of one syllable which neither you nor your\njudges know the sense of, so that none could ever have discovered which\nto despise the most, hangmen or hanged.\n\n\"Know then that Truth, your well-beloved mistress, is made up of\nelements compacted of wet and dry, hard and soft, cold and hot, and that\nit is with this lady as with women of common humanity, in whom soft\nflesh and warm blood are not diffused equally in all the body.\"\n\nFra Giovanni doubted in his simplicity whether this discourse was\naltogether becoming. The Adversary read the holy man's thought, and\nreassured him, saying:\n\n\"Such is the learning we are taught at School. I am a Theologian, I!\"\n\nThen he got up, and added:\n\n\"I regret to leave you, friend; but I cannot tarry longer with you. For\nI have many contradictions to pose to many men. I can taste no rest day\nnor night; but I must be going ceaselessly from place to place, setting\ndown my lantern now on the scholar's desk, now at the bed's head of the\nsick man who cannot sleep.\"\n\nSo saying, he went away as he had come. And the holy man Giovanni asked\nhimself: \"Why did this Doctor say, Truth was white, I wonder?\" And lying\nin the straw he kept revolving this question in his head. His body\nshared the restlessness of his mind, and kept turning first one side\nthen the other in search of the repose he could not find.\n\n\nXIV\n\nGIOVANNI'S DREAM\n\nAnd this is why, left alone in his dungeon, he prayed to the Lord,\nsaying:\n\n\"O Lord! Thy loving-kindness is infinite toward me, and Thy favour\nmanifest, seeing Thou hast so willed I should lie on a dunghill, like\nJob and Lazarus, whom Thou didst love so well. And Thou hast given me to\nknow how filthy straw is a soft and sweet pillow to the just man. And\nThou, dear Son of God, who didst descend into Hell, bless Thou the sleep\nof Thy servant where he lies in the gloomy prison-house. Forasmuch as\nmen have robbed me of air and light, because I was steadfast to confess\nthe truth, deign to enlighten me with the glory of the everlasting\ndayspring and feed me on the flames of Thy love, O living Truth, O Lord\nmy God!\"\n\nThus prayed the holy man Giovanni with his lips. But in his heart he\nremembered the sayings of the Adversary. He was troubled to the bottom\nof his spirit, and in much trouble and anguish of mind he fell asleep.\n\nAnd seeing the thought of the Adversary weighed heavy on his slumbers,\nhis sleep was not like the little child's lying on its mother's breast,\na gentle sleep of smiles and milk. And in his dreams he beheld a vast\nwheel that shone with colours of living fire.\n\nIt was like those rose windows of flower-like brilliancy that glow over\nthe doors of Churches, the masterpieces of Gothic craftsmen, and display\nin the translucent glass the history of the Virgin Mary and the glory of\nthe Prophets. But the secret of these rose windows is unknown to the\nTuscan artificer.\n\nAnd this wheel was great and dazzling and brighter a thousandfold than\nthe best wrought of all the rose windows that ever were divided by\ncompass and painted with brush in the lands of the North. The Emperor\nCharlemagne saw not the like the day he was crowned.\n\nThe only man who ever beheld a wheel more splendid was the poet who, a\nlady leading him, entered clothed in flesh into Holy Paradise. The rose\nwas of living light, and seemed alive itself, every age and every\ncondition, in an eager crowd, formed the nave and spokes and felloe.\nThey were clad each according to his estate, and it was easy to\nrecognize Pope and Emperor, Kings and Queens, Bishops, Barons, Knights,\nladies, esquires, clerks, burghers, merchants, attorneys, apothecaries,\nlabourers, ruffians, Moors and Jews. Moreover, seeing all that live on\nthis earth were shown on the wheel, Satyrs and Cyclopes were there, and\nPygmies and Centaurs such as Africa nurses in her burning deserts, and\nthe men Marco Polo the traveller found, who are born without heads and\nwith a face below their navel.\n\nAnd from betwixt the lips of each there issued a scroll, bearing a\ndevice. Now each device was of a hue which did not appear in any other,\nand in all the incalculable multitude of devices, no two could have been\ndiscovered of the same appearance. Some were dyed purple, others painted\nwith the bright colours of the sky and sea, or the shining of the stars,\nyet others green as grass. Many were exceeding pale, many again\nexceeding dark and sombre, the whole so ordered that the eye found in\nthese devices every one of the colours that paint the universe.\n\nThe holy man Giovanni began to decipher them, by this means making\nhimself acquainted with the divers thoughts of divers men. And after\nreading on a good while, he perceived that these devices were as much\ndiversified in the sense of the words as in the hues of the letters, and\nthat the sentences differed one from the other in such sort that there\nwas never a single one did not flatly contradict every other.\n\nBut at the same time he noted that this contradiction which existed in\nthe head and body of the maxims did not continue in their tail, but that\nthey all agreed together very accurately in their lower extremity, all\nending in the same fashion, seeing each and all terminated in these\nwords, _Such is Truth_.\n\nAnd he said in his heart:\n\n\"These mottoes are like the flowers young men and maidens pluck in the\nwater-meadows by the Arno, to make them into posies. For these flowers\nare readily gathered together by the tails, while the heads keep\nseparate and fight amongst themselves in hue and brilliancy. And it is\nthe same with the opinions of human beings.\"\n\nAnd the holy man found in the devices a host of contradictions regarding\nthe origin of sovereignty, the fountains of knowledge, pleasure and\npain, things lawful and things unlawful. And he discovered likewise\nmighty difficulties in connection with the shape of the Earth and the\nDivinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by reason of the Heretics and Arabs\nand Jews, the monsters of the African desert and the Epicureans, who all\nhad their place, a scroll in their lips, on the wheel of fire.\n\nAnd each sentence ended in this way, _Such is Truth_. And the holy man\nGiovanni marvelled to see so many truths all diversely coloured. He saw\nred, and blue, and green, and yellow, but he saw no white--not even the\none the Pope made proclamation of, to wit, \"On this rock have I built my\nChurch and committed thereto the crowns of all the world.\" Indeed this\ndevice was all red and as if blood-stained.\n\nAnd the holy man sighed:\n\n\"Then I am never to find on the wheel of the universe the pure, white\nTruth, the immaculate and candid Truth, I would find.\"\n\nAnd he called upon Truth, crying with tears in his eyes:\n\n\"Truth! Truth! for whose sake I am to die, show yourself before your\nmartyr's eyes.\"\n\nAnd lo! as he was wailing out the words, the living wheel began to\nrevolve, and the devices, running one into the other, no longer kept\ndistinct, while on the great disk came circles of every hue, circles\nwider and wider the further they were from the centre.\n\nThen as the motion grew faster, these circles disappeared one by one;\nthe widest vanished first, because the speed was swiftest near the\nfelloe of the wheel. But directly the wheel began to spin so fast the\neye could not see it move and it seemed to stand motionless, the\nsmallest circles too disappeared, like the morning-star when the sun\npales the hills of Assisi.\n\nThen at the last the wheel looked all white; and it overpassed in\nbrilliance the translucent orb where the Florentine poet saw Beatrice in\nthe dewdrop. It seemed as though an Angel, wiping the eternal pearl to\ncleanse it of all stains, had set it on the Earth, so like was the wheel\nto the Moon, when she shines high in the heavens lightly veiled under\nthe gauze of filmy clouds. For at these times no shadow of a man\ncarrying sticks, no mark at all, shows on her opalescent surface. Even\nso never a stain was visible on the wheel of light.\n\nAnd the holy man Giovanni heard a voice which said to him:\n\n\"Behold that same white Truth you were fain to contemplate. And know it\nis built up of the divers contradictory truths, in the same fashion as\nall colours go to make up white. The little children of Viterbo know\nthis, for having spun their tops striped with many colours on the flags\non the Great Market. But the doctors of Bologna never guessed the\nreasons for this appearance. Now in every one of the devices was a\nportion of the Truth, and all together make up the true and veritable\ndevice.\"\n\n\"Alas! and alas!\" replied the holy man, \"how am I to read it? For my\neyes are dazzled.\"\n\nAnd the voice answered:\n\n\"Very true, there is naught to be seen there but flashing fire. No Latin\nletters, nor Arabic, nor Greek, no cabalistic signs, can ever express\nthis device; and no hand is there may trace it in characters of flame on\npalace walls.\n\n\"Friend, never set your heart on reading what is not written. Only know\nthis, that whatsoever a man has thought or believed in his brief\nlifetime is a parcel of this infinite Truth; and that, even as much dirt\nand disorder enter into what we call the order of nature, that is the\nclean and proper ordering of the universe, so the maxims of knaves and\nfools, who make the mass of mankind, participate in some sort in that\ngeneral and universal Truth-which is absolute, everlasting and divine.\nWhich makes me sore afraid, by the by, it may very like not exist at\nall.\"\n\nAnd with a great burst of mocking laughter, the voice fell silent.\n\nThen the holy man saw a long leg stretched out, in red hose, and inside\nthe shoe the foot seemed cloven and like a goat's, only much larger. And\nit gave the wheel of light so shrewd a kick on the rim of its felloe,\nthat sparks flew out as they do when the blacksmith smites the iron with\nhis hammer, and the great wheel leapt into the air to fall far away,\nbroken into fragments. Meantime the air was filled with such piercing\nlaughter that the holy man awoke.\n\nAnd in the livid gloom of the dungeon, he thought sadly:\n\n\"I have no hope or wish left to know Truth, if, as has just been\nmanifested to me, she only shows herself in contradictions and\ninconsistencies. How shall I dare by my death to be witness and martyr\nof what men must believe, now the vision of the wheel of the universe\nhas made me see how every particular falsehood is a parcel of general\nTruth, absolute and unknowable? Why, O my God, have you suffered me to\nbehold these things, and let it be revealed to me before my last sleep,\nthat Truth is everywhere and that she is nowhere?\"\n\nAnd the holy man laid his head in his hands and wept.\n\n\nXV\n\nTHE JUDGMENT\n\nFra Giovanni was led before the Magistrates of the Republic to be judged\naccording to the laws of Viterbo. And one of the Magistrates said to the\nguards:\n\n\"Take his chains off him. For every person accused should appear freely\nbefore us.\"\n\nAnd Giovanni thought:\n\n\"Why does the Judge pronounce words that are not straight?\"\n\nAnd the first of the Magistrates began to question the holy man, and\nsaid to him:\n\n\"Giovanni, bad man that you are, being thrown in prison by the august\nclemency of the laws, you have spoken against those laws. You have\ncontrived with wicked men, chained in the same dungeon as yourself, a\nplot to overthrow the order stablished in this city.\"\n\nThe holy man Giovanni made answer:\n\n\"Nay! I but spoke for Justice and Truth. If the laws of the city are\nagreeable to Justice and Truth, I have not spoken against them. I have\nonly spoken words of loving-kindness. I said:\n\n\"'Strive not to destroy force by force. Be peaceable in the midst of\nwars, to the end the spirit of God may rest on you like a little bird on\nthe top of a poplar in the valley that is flooded by the torrent.' I\nsaid, 'Be gentle toward the men of violence.'\"\n\nThen the Judge cried out in anger:\n\n\"Speak! tell us who are the men of violence.\"\n\nBut the holy man said:\n\n\"You are for milking the cow that has given all her milk, and would\nlearn of me more than I know.\"\n\nHowever the Judge imposed silence on the holy man, and he said:\n\n\"Your tongue has discharged the arrow of your discourse, and its shot\nwas aimed at the Republic. Only it has lighted lower, and turned back\nupon yourself.\"\n\nAnd the holy man said:\n\n\"You judge me, not by my acts and my words, which are manifest, but by\nmy motives, which are visible only to God's eye.\"\n\nAnd the Judge replied:\n\n\"Nay! if we could not see the invisible and were not gods upon earth,\nhow would it be possible for us to judge folk? Do you not know a law\nhas just been passed in Viterbo, which punishes even men's secret\nthoughts? For the police of cities is for ever being perfected, and the\nwise Ulpian, who held the rule and the square in the days of C\u00e6sar,\nwould be astonished himself, if he could see our rules and squares,\nimproved as they are.\"\n\nAnd the Judge said again:\n\n\"Giovanni, you have been conspiring in your prison against the common\nweal.\"\n\nBut the holy man denied having ever conspired against the weal of\nViterbo. Then the Judge said:\n\n\"The gaoler has given testimony against you.\"\n\nAnd the holy man asked the Judge:\n\n\"What weight will my testimony have in one scale, when that of the\ngaoler is in the other?\"\n\nThe Judge answered:\n\n\"Why! yours will kick the beam.\"\n\nWherefore the holy man held his peace henceforth.\n\nThen the Judge declared:\n\n\"Anon you were talking, and the words you said proved your perfidy. Now\nyou say nothing, and your silence is the avowal of your crime. So you\nhave confessed your guilt twice over.\"\n\nAnd the Magistrate they entitled the Accuser rose and said:\n\n\"The illustrious city of Viterbo speaks by my voice, and my voice shall\nbe grave and calm, because it is the public voice. And you will think\nyou are listening to a bronze statue speaking, for I make accusation not\nwith my heart and bowels, but with the tables of bronze whereon the Law\nis inscribed.\"\n\nAnd straightway he began to gesticulate furiously and utter a raging\ntorrent of words. And he declaimed the argument of a play, in imitation\nof Seneca the Tragedian: and this drama was filled full of crimes\ncommitted by the holy man Giovanni. And the Accuser represented in\nsuccession all the characters of the tragedy. He mimicked the groans of\nthe victims and the voice of Giovanni, the better to strike awe into his\naudience, who seemed to hear and see Giovanni himself, intoxicated with\nhate and evildoing. And the Accuser tore his hair and rent his gown and\nfell back exhausted on his august seat of office.\n\nAnd the Judge who had questioned the accused before took up the word\nagain and said:\n\n\"It is meet a citizen defend this man. For none, so says the law of\nViterbo, may be condemned without having been first defended.\"\n\nThereupon an Advocate of Viterbo got up on a stool and spoke in these\nterms:\n\n\"If this monk has said and done what is laid to his charge, he is very\nwicked. But we have no proof that he has spoken and acted in the manner\nsupposed. Moreover, good sirs, had we this proof, it would behove us to\nconsider further the extreme simplicity of the man and the feebleness of\nhis understanding. He was the laughing-stock of the children in the\nPublic Square. He is ignorant; he has done a thousand extravagances. For\nmy own part I believe he is beside himself. What he says is worthless\nnonsense, and there is nothing sensible he can do. I think he has been\nfrequenting seditious societies; and goes about repeating what he heard\nthere, without understanding a word of it. He is too dull-witted to be\npunished. Look out for his instructors; it is they are to blame. There\nare many difficulties in the matter, and the wise man has told us, 'In\ndoubt, refrain from action.'\"\n\nHaving so said, the Advocate stepped down from his stool. And Brother\nGiovanni received his death sentence. And he was informed he was to be\nhanged in the Square where the peasant women come to sell fruit and\nvegetables and the children to play knucklebones.\n\nNext a very illustrious Doctor of Law, who was one of the Judges, got up\nand said:\n\n\"Giovanni, it behoves you to subscribe consent to the sentence\ncondemning you, for being pronounced in the name of the city, it is\npronounced by yourself, inasmuch as you are part and parcel of the\ncity. You have an honourable part in it, as citizen, and I will convince\nyou that you ought to be well content to be strangled by the city's\njudgment.\n\n\"Know this, the satisfaction of the whole comprehends and embraces the\nsatisfaction of the parts, and seeing you are a part--a vile and\nmiserable part, yet still a part--of the noble city of Viterbo, your\ncondemnation which satisfies the community should be no less\nsatisfactory to yourself.\n\n\"And I will further prove you that you should rightly consider death\ndoom agreeable and fitting. For there is no other thing so useful and\nbecoming as is the law, which is the just measure of things, and you\nought to be pleased to have received this same just and proper measure.\nIn accordance with the rules stablished by C\u00e6sar Justinian, you have got\nyour due. Your condemnation is just, and therefore a pleasant and a good\nthing. But, were it unjust and tainted and contaminated with ignorance\nand iniquity (which God forbid), still it would be incumbent on you to\napprove the same.\n\n\"For an unjust sentence, when it is pronounced in the prescribed forms\nof law, participates in the virtue of the said forms and through them\ncontinues august, efficacious and of high merit. What it contains of\nwrong is temporary and of little consequence, and concerns only the\nparticular instance, whereas the good in it derives from the fixity and\npermanence of the organization of the laws, and therefore is it\nagreeable to the general dictates of justice. Wherefore Papinian\ndeclares it is better to give false judgment than none at all, seeing\nhow men without justice are no better than wild beasts in the woods,\nwhereas by justice is made manifest their nobleness and dignity, as is\nseen by the example of the Judges of the Areopagus, who were held in\nspecial honour among the Athenians. So, seeing it is necessary and\nprofitable to give judgment, and that it is not possible to do so\nwithout fault or mistake, it follows that mistake and faultiness are\ncomprised in the excellence of Justice and participate in the said\nexcellence. Accordingly, supposing you deemed your sentence unfair, you\nshould find satisfaction in this unfairness, inasmuch as it is united\nand amalgamated with fairness, just as tin and copper are fused together\nto make bronze, which is a precious metal and employed for very noble\npurposes, in the fashion Pliny describes in his Histories.\"\n\nThe learned Doctor then proceeded to enumerate the conveniencies and\nadvantages which flow from expiation and wash away sin, as the maids\nevery Saturday wash the courtyards of their masters' houses. And he\ndemonstrated to the holy man what a boon it was for him to be condemned\nto death by the august good pleasure of the Commonwealth of Viterbo,\nwhich had granted him judges and a defender. And so soon as the Doctor's\neloquence was exhausted and he fell silent, Fra Giovanni was fettered\nonce more and led back to prison.\n\n\nXVI\n\nTHE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD\n\nNow on the morning appointed for his hanging, the holy man Giovanni was\nlying sound asleep. And the Subtle Doctor came and opened the door of\nhis prison cell, and pulling him by the sleeve, cried:\n\n\"Ho! there, son of woman, awake! The day is just unclosing his grey\neyes. The lark is singing, and the morning mists kissing the mountain\nsides. Clouds glide along the hills, soft and sinuous, snow-white with\nrosy reflexions,--which are the flanks and bosoms and loins of immortal\nnymphs, divine daughters of the rivers and the sky, maidens of the morn\nold Oceanus leads forth along the heights,--a flock multiform as his\nwaves, and who welcome to their cool, fresh arms, on a couch of\nhyacinths and anemones, the gods, masters of the world, and the shepherd\nswains loved of goddesses. For there are shepherds their mothers bore\nbeautiful and worthy the bed of the nymphs that dwell in the\nwater-springs and woodlands.\n\n\"And for myself, who have deeply studied the secrets of nature, seeing\nbut now these clouds curling wantonly round the bosom of the hill, I was\nfilled with mysterious longings at the sight, longings I know nothing of\nbut that they spring from the region of my loins, and that, like the\ninfant Hercules, they showed their strength from the very cradle. And\nthese longings were not merely after rosy mists and floating clouds;\nthey pictured very precisely a wench named Monna Libetta I made\nacquaintance with once in travelling, at Castro, at an inn where she was\nserving-maid and at the free disposal of the muleteers and soldiers\nfrequenting it.\n\n\"But the picture I framed in my mind of Monna Libetta, this morning, as\nI fared along the slopes of the hills, was wondrously embellished by the\ntenderness of recollection and the regrets of separation, and she was\ntricked out with all the pretty fancies that, springing from the loins\nas I said, presently send their fragrant fire coursing through all the\nbody's soul, transfusing it with languishing ardours and pains that are\na delicious pleasure.\n\n\"For I would have you know, my Giovanni, that looking at her calmly and\ncoldly, the girl was not greatly different from all the rest of the\ncountry wenches that, in the plains of Umbria and the Roman Marches, go\nafield to milk the cattle. She had dark eyes, slow and sullen, a\nsunburnt face, a big mouth, the bosom heavy, the belly tanned and the\nforepart of the legs, from the knee, shaggy with hair. Her laugh was\nready and rude, in a general way; but in act with a lover, her face grew\ndark and transfigured as if with wonder at the presence of a god. 'Twas\nthis had attached me to her, and I have many a time pondered since on\nthe nature of this attachment, for I am learned and curious to search\nout the reasons of things.\n\n\"And I discovered the force that drew me toward this girl Monna Libetta,\nmaid-servant at the inn of Castro, was the same that governs the stars\nin heaven and that there is one force and one only in the world, which\nis Love. And it is likewise Hate, as is shown by the case of this same\nMonna Libetta, who was fiercely fondled, and just as fiercely beaten.\n\n\"And I mind me how a groom in the Pope's stables, who was her chief\nlover, struck her so savagely one night in the hay-loft where he was\nbedding with her, that he left her lying there for dead. And he rushed\ncrying through the streets that the vampires had strangled the girl.\nThese be subjects a man must needs ponder if he would gain some notion\nof true physics and natural philosophy.\"\n\nThus spoke the Subtle Doctor. And the holy man Giovanni sitting up on\nhis bedding of dung, answered:\n\n\"Nay! Doctor, is this language meet to address to a man that is to be\nhanged in a very short while? Hearing you, I am filled with doubt\nwhether your words are the words of a good man and a great Theologian,\nor if they do not rather come from an evil dream sent by the Angel of\nDarkness.\"\n\nBut the Subtle Doctor made answer:\n\n\"Who talks of being hanged? I tell you, Giovanni, I am come hither, at\nthe earliest peep of day, to set you free and help you to fly. See! I\nhave donned a gaoler's habit; the prison door stands open. Quick! up and\naway!\"\n\nAt this the holy man rose to his feet, and answered:\n\n\"Doctor, take heed what you are saying. I have made the sacrifice of my\nlife, and I admit it has cost me dear to make it. If trusting to your\nword that I am restored to life, I am then led to the place of\nexecution, I must needs make a second sacrifice more grievous than the\nfirst, and suffer two deaths instead of out. And I confess to you my\ndesire of martyrdom is vanished away, and a longing come upon me to\nbreathe the air of day under the branches of the mountain pines.\"\n\nThe Subtle Doctor made reply:\n\n\"It happens that was just my intent to lead you away under the pines\nrustling in the wind with the soft sighing of a flute. We will break our\nfast sitting on the mossy slope overlooking the city. Come with me! Why\ndo you tarry?\"\n\nAnd the holy man said:\n\n\"Before going hence with you, I would fain know clearly who you are. I\nam fallen from my first constancy; my courage is no better now than a\nstraw blown about on the wasted threshing-floor of my virtue. But I am\nleft my faith in the Son of God, and to save my body, I would ill like\nto lose my soul.\"\n\n\"Verily,\" cried the Subtle Doctor, \"think you verily I have any desire\nof your soul! Is it then so fair a maid and sweet a lady you are afraid\nI may rob you of it? Nay! keep it, friend; I could make nothing of it.\"\n\nThe holy man was scarce assured by what he heard, for the other's words\nbreathed no pious odour. But, as he was exceeding eager to be free, he\nasked no more questions, but followed the Doctor and passed the wicket\nof the prison by his side.\n\nOnly when he was without, he inquired:\n\n\"Who are you, you who send dreams to men and set prisoners free? You\nhave the beauty of a woman and the strength of a man, and I admire you,\nthough I cannot love you.\"\n\nAnd the Subtle Doctor answered:\n\n\"You will love me so soon as I have made you suffer. Men cannot love but\nthose who make them suffer; and there is no love except in pain.\"\n\nAnd so conversing, they left the city and began climbing the mountain\npaths. And after faring far, they saw at the entering in of a wood a\nred-tiled house, before which was a wide terrace overlooking the plain,\nplanted with fruit trees and bordered with vines.\n\nSo they sat down in the courtyard at the foot of a vine trunk; its\nleaves were gilded by the Autumn and from the boughs hung clusters of\ngrapes. And a girl brought them milk and honey and cakes of maize.\n\nPresently the Subtle Doctor, stretching out his arm, plucked a\nscarlet-cheeked apple, bit into it and gave it to the holy man. And\nGiovanni ate and drank; and his beard was all white with milk and his\neyes laughed as he gazed up at the sky, which filled them with blue\nlight and joy. And the girl smiled.\n\nThen the Subtle Doctor said:\n\n\"Look at yonder child; she is far comelier than Monna Libetta.\"\n\nAnd the holy man, intoxicated with milk and honey, and made merry with\nthe light of day, sang songs his mother was used to sing when she\ncarried him as a babe in her arms. They were songs of shepherds and\nshepherdesses, and they spoke of love. And as the girl stood listening\non the threshold of the door, the holy man left his seat and ran\nstaggering towards her, took her in his arms and showered on her cheeks\nkisses full of milk, laughter and joy.\n\nAnd the Subtle Doctor having paid the reckoning, the two travellers hied\nthem toward the plain.\n\nAs they were walking between the silvery willows that border the water,\nthe holy man said:\n\n\"Let us sit; for now I am weary.\"\n\nSo they sat down beneath a willow, and watched the water-flags curling\ntheir sword-like leaves on the river banks and the bright-coloured flies\nflashing over the surface. But Giovanni's laughter was ceased, and his\nface was sad.\n\nAnd the Subtle Doctor asked him:\n\n\"Why are you so pensive?\"\n\nAnd Giovanni answered him:\n\n\"I have felt through you the sweet caress of living things, and I am\ntroubled at heart. I have tasted the milk and the honey. I have looked\non the servant-maid standing at the threshold and seen that she was\ncomely. And disquietude is in my soul and in my flesh.\n\n\"What a long road I have travelled since I have known you. Do you\nremember the grove of holm-oaks where I saw you the first time? For be\nsure, I recognize you.\n\n\"You it was visited me in my hermit's cell and stood before me with\nwoman's eyes sparkling through a transparent veil, while your alluring\nmouth instructed me in the entanglements of Right and Wrong. Again it\nwas you appeared in the meadows clad in a golden cope, like an Ambrose\nor an Augustine. Then I knew not the curse of thought; but you set me\nthinking. You put pride like a coal of fire on my lips; and I learned to\nspeculate. But as yet, in the untrained freshness of my wit and raw\nyouthfulness of mind, I felt no doubt. But again you came to me, and\ngave me uncertainty to feed on and doubt to drink like wine. So comes\nit, that this day I taste through you the entrancing illusion of things,\nand that the soul of woods and streams, of sky and earth, and living\nshapes, penetrates my breast.\n\n\"And lo! I am a miserable man, because I have followed after you, Prince\nof men!\"\n\nAnd Giovanni gazed at his companion, who stood there beautiful as day\nand night. And he said to him:\n\n\"Through you it is I suffer, and I love you. I love you because you are\nmy misery and my pride, my joy and my sorrow, the splendour and the\ncruelty of things created, because you are desire and speculation, and\nbecause you have made me like unto yourself. For verily your promise in\nthe Garden, in the dawn of this world's days, was not vain, and I have\ntasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, O Satan.\"\n\nPresently Giovanni resumed again.\n\n\"I know, I see, I feel, I will, I suffer. And I love you for all the ill\nyou have done me. I love you, because you have undone me.\"\n\nAnd, leaning on the Archangel's shoulder, the man wept bitterly.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MYSTIC BLOOD\n\nTO F\u00c9LIX JEANTET\n\n\n\n\nTHE MYSTIC BLOOD\n\n  _La Bocca sua non diceva se non Jes\u00f9 e Caterina, e cosi dicendo\n  ricevatti el capo nelle mani mie, fermando l'occhio nella Divina\n  Bont\u00e0, e dicendo: lo voglio...._\n\n  (_Le lettere di S. Caterina da Siena._--xcvii, Gigli e\n  Burlamacchi.)[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"His mouth spake no word but only Jesus and Caterina, and\nwith these words I received his head in my two hands, as he closed his\neyes in the Divine Goodness, and said: I will....\" (_Letters of St.\nCatherine of Sienna_--xcvii, ed. Gigli e Burlamacchi.)]\n\n\nThe good town of Sienna was like a sick man that seeks vainly for a\nrestful place in his bed, and thinks, by turning about and about, to\ncheat his pain. Again and again had she changed the government of the\nRepublic, which passed from the Consuls to the Assemblies of the\nBurghers, and, originally entrusted to the Nobles, was subsequently\nexercised by the money-changers, drapers, apothecaries, furriers,\nsilk-mercers and all such citizens as were concerned with the superior\narts and crafts. But these worthies having shown themselves weak and\nself-seeking, the People expelled them in their turn and entrusted the\nsovereign power to the petty artisans. In the year 1368 of the glorious\nIncarnation of the Son of God, the Signory was composed of fourteen\nMagistrates chosen from among the hosiers, butchers, locksmiths,\nshoemakers, and stonemasons, who together formed a Great Council known\nas the _Mount of the Reformers_. They were a plebeian band, rough and\nhard as the bronze She-Wolf, emblem of their city, which they loved with\nan affection at once filial and formidable. But the People, which had\nset them up over the Commonwealth, had suffered another body to continue\nin existence, though subordinate to them, the Twelve to wit, who came\nfrom the class of Bankers and wealthy Merchants. These men were in\nconspiracy with the Nobles, at the Emperor's instigation, to sell the\nCity to the Pope of Rome.\n\nThe German Kaiser was the life and soul of the plot, promising the aid\nof his landsknechts to guarantee success. He was in the utmost haste to\nhave the affair ended, hoping with the price of the bargain, he might be\nable to redeem the Crown of Charlemagne, pledged for sixteen hundred\nflorins with the Florentine Bankers.\n\nMeantime, they of the _Reformers' Mount_, who formed the Signory, held\nfirm the rod of government and watched heedfully over the safety of the\nRepublic. These artisans, officers of a free People, had refused the\nEmperor, when he came within their walls, bread, water, salt and fire;\nthey had driven him forth the city groaning and trembling, and they now\ncondemned the conspirators to death. Guardians of the town founded by\nRemus long ago, they copied the sternness of the first Consuls of Rome.\nBut their city, which went clad in silk and cloth-of-gold, was ever\nready to slip betwixt their fingers, like a lascivious, false-hearted\nwanton; and fear and anxiety made them implacable.\n\nIn the year 1370 they discovered that a nobleman of Perugia, Ser Niccola\nTuldo, had been sent by the Pope to stir up the Siennese, in connivance\nwith the Kaiser, to deliver up the city to the Holy Father. The young\nLord in question was in the prime of manly beauty, and had learned in\nthe company of fair ladies those arts of flattery and seductive\ncompliment he now proceeded to practise in the Palace of the Salimbeni\nand the shops of the money-changers. And, for all his light heart and\nempty head, he gained over to the Pope's side many burghers and some\nartisans. Informed of his intrigues, the Magistrates of the _Mount of\nthe Reformers_ had him brought before their august Council, and after\nquestioning him underneath the gonfalon of the Republic, which shows a\nLion rampant for device, they declared him guilty of attempted outrage\nagainst the liberties of the City.\n\nHe had answered with mere smiling scorn to the questions of these\ncobbler fellows and butchers. But when he heard his sentence of death\npronounced, he fell into ecstasy of deep astonishment, and was led away\nto prison as if in a trance. No sooner was he locked up in his cell\nthan, awaking from his stupor, he began to regret the life he was to\nlose with all the ardour of his young blood and impetuous character;\nvisions of all its pleasures, arms, women, horses, crowded before his\neyes, and at the thought he would never enjoy the delights more, he was\ncarried away by so furious a despair he beat with fists and forehead on\nthe walls of his dungeon, and gave vent to such wild howls as were\naudible over all the neighbourhood, even in the burghers' houses and the\ndrapers' booths. The gaoler coming in to know the cause of the uproar,\nfound him covered with blood and foaming at the mouth.\n\nSer Niccola Tuldo never left off howling with rage for three days and\nthree nights.\n\nThe thing was reported to the _Mount of the Reformers_. The members of\nthe most august Signory, after despatching their more pressing business,\nexamined into the case of the unhappy man in the condemned cell.\n\nLeone Rancati, brickmaker by trade, said:\n\n\"The man must pay with his head for his crime against the Commonwealth\nof Sienna; and none can relieve him of this debt, without encroaching on\nthe sacred rights of the City our mother. He must needs die; but his\nsoul is his Maker's, and it is not meet that through our fault he die in\nthis sinful state of madness and despair. Therefore should we use all\nthe means within our competence to assure his eternal salvation.\"\n\nMatteino Renzano, the baker, a man famed for his wisdom, rose in his\nturn and said:\n\n\"Well spoken, Leone Rancati! The case demands we send to the condemned\nman Catherine, the fuller's daughter.\"\n\nThe advice was approved by all the Signory, who resolved to invite\nCatherine to visit Niccola Tuldo in his prison.\n\nIn those days Catherine, daughter of Giacomo the fuller, filled all the\ncity of Sienna with the perfume of her virtues. She dwelt in a little\ncell in her father's house and wore the habit of the Sisters of\nPenitence. She carried girt about her under her gown of white linen an\niron chain, and scourged herself an hour long every day. Then, showing\nher arms covered with wounds, she would cry, \"Behold my pretty red\nroses!\" She cultivated in her chamber lilies and violets, wherewith she\nwove garlands for the altars of the Virgin and the Saints. And all the\nwhile she would be singing hymns in the vulgar tongue to the praise of\nJesus and Mary His Mother. In those mournful times, when the city of\nSienna was a hostel of sorrow, and a house of joy to boot, Catherine was\never visiting the unhappy prisoners, and telling the prostitutes: \"My\nsisters, how fain would I hide you in the loving wounds of the Saviour!\"\nA maiden so pure, fired with so sweet charity, could nowhere have budded\nand blossomed but at Sienna, which under all its defilements and amid\nall its crimes, was still the City of the Blessed Virgin.\n\nApprised by the Magistrates, Catherine betook herself to the public gaol\non the morning of the day Ser Niccola Tuldo was to die. She found him\nstretched on the stone floor of the dungeon, bellowing blasphemies.\nRaising the white veil the blessed St. Dominic himself had come down\nfrom Paradise to lay upon her brow, she showed the prisoner a\ncountenance of heavenly beauty. As he gazed at her in wonder, she leant\nover him to wipe away the spume that defiled his mouth.\n\nSer Niccola Tuldo, turning on her eyes that still retained their savage\nferocity, cried out:\n\n\"Begone! I hate you, because you are of Sienna, the city that slays me.\nOh! Sienna, she-wolf indeed, that with her vile claws tears out the\nthroat of a noble gentleman of Perugia! Horrid she-wolf! unclean and\ninhuman hell-hound!\"\n\nBut Catherine made answer:\n\n\"Nay! brother, what is a city, what are all the cities of the earth,\nbeside the City of God and the holy Angels? I am Catherine, and I am\ncome to call you to the everlasting nuptials.\"\n\nThe sweet voice and beaming face shed a sudden peace and radiance over\nthe savage soul of Niccola Tuldo. He remembered the days of his\ninnocence, and cried like a child.\n\nThe sun, rising above the Apennines, was just whitening the prison walls\nwith its earliest rays. Catherine said:\n\n\"Look, the dawn! Up, up, my brother, for the eternal nuptials! Up, I\nsay!\"\n\nAnd raising him from the ground, she drew him into the Chapel, where Fra\nCattaneo confessed him.\n\nSer Niccola Tuldo then listened devoutly to the holy Mass and received\nthe body of Our Lord. This done, he turned to Catherine and said:\n\n\"Stay with me; do not leave me, and I shall be well, and shall die\ncontent.\"\n\nThe bells began to toll the signal for the execution.\n\nThen Catherine answered:\n\n\"Gentle brother, I will wait you at the place of Justice.\"\n\nAt this, Ser Niccola smiled and said, as if ravished with bliss:\n\n\"Joy! joy! the Delight of my soul will wait me at the holy place of\nJustice!\"\n\nCatherine pondered and prayed, finally saying:\n\n\"Gracious Lord, Thou hast indeed wrought in him a great enlightenment,\nseeing he calls holy the place of Justice.\"\n\nSer Niccola went on:\n\n\"Yes! I shall hie me thither, strong in heart and rejoicing. I weary, as\nthough I had a thousand years to wait, to be there, where I shall find\nyou once more.\"\n\n\"Farewell till the nuptials, the everlasting nuptials!\" Catherine cried\nagain, as she left the prison.\n\nThe condemned man was served with a little bread and wine, and supplied\nwith a black cloak; then he was led forth along the precipitous streets,\nto the sound of trumpets, between the city guards, beneath the banner of\nthe Republic. The ways swarmed with curious onlookers, and women lifted\ntheir little ones in their arms, showing them the man doomed to die.\n\nMeantime Niccola Tuldo was dreaming of Catherine, and his lips, that\nhad so long been bitter, opened softly as though to kiss the likeness of\nthe blessed maid.\n\nAfter climbing for some while the rude brick-paved road, the procession\nreached one of the heights dominating the city, and the condemned man\nsaw suddenly, with his eyes that were soon to see no more, the roofs,\ndomes, cloisters, and towers of Sienna, and further away the walls that\nfollowed the slope of the hills. The sight reminded him of his native\ntown, the gay city of Perugia, surrounded with its gardens, where\nsprings of living water sing amid the fruits and flowers. He saw once\nmore in fancy the terrace that looks over the vale of Trasimene, whence\nthe eye drinks in the light of day with delight.\n\nAnd the yearning for life tore his heart afresh, and he sighed:\n\n\"Oh! city of my fathers! Oh! house of my birth!\"\n\nBut presently the thought of Catherine re-entered his soul, filling it\nto the brim with gladness and sweet peace.\n\nFinally they arrive in the Market Square, where each Saturday the\npeasant girls of Camiano and Granayola display their citrons,\ngrapes, figs, and pomegranates, and hail the housewives with merry\nappeals to buy, not unmixed with high-spiced jests. It was there the\nscaffold was erected; and there Ser Niccola beheld Catherine\nkneeling in prayer, her head resting on the block.\n\nHe climbed the steps with eager joy. At his coming, Catherine rose and\nturned toward him with all the look of a bride once more united to her\nspouse; she insisted on baring his neck with her own hands and placing\nher dear one on the block as on a marriage bed.\n\nThen she knelt down beside him. Thrice he repeated in fervent tones,\n\"Jesus, Catherine!\"--after which the executioner struck with his sword,\nand the maiden caught the severed head within her hands. Hereupon all\nthe victim's blood seemed to be suffused in her, and to fill her veins\nwith a flood as soft as warm milk; a fragrant odour set her nostrils\nquivering, while before her swooning eyes floated the shadows of angels.\nFilled with wonder and joy unspeakable, she fell softly into the depths\nof celestial ecstasy.\n\nTwo women of the third Order of St. Dominic, who stood at the foot of\nthe scaffold, seeing her stretched there motionless, hastened to raise\nher up and support her in their arms. The holy maid, coming to herself,\ntold them: \"I have seen the heavens opened!\"\n\nOne of the women made as though to wash away with a sponge the blood\nthat covered St. Catherine's robe, but she stopped her, crying out\neagerly:\n\n\"No, no! leave the blood, leave it; never rob me of my purple and my\nperfumes!\"\n\n\n\n\nA SOUND SECURITY\n\nTO HENRI LAVEDAN\n\n\n\n\nA SOUND SECURITY\n\n  _. . . . . . . . Par cest ymage\n  Te doing en pleige Jhesu-Crist\n  Qui tout fist, ainsi est escript:\n  Il te pleige tout ton avoir;\n  Ne peuz nulz si bon pleige avoir._\n\n           (_Miracles de Notre-Dame par personnages_,\n             publ. par. G. Paris et U. Robert.)[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"... By this image I take Jesus Christ in pledge for you,\nHim who wrought all men's salvation, as is writ in Scripture: He is\npledge against all your fortune; so good a pledge can no man have.\"\n(_Miracles of Our Lady, as they Fell out to Sundry_--G. Paris and U.\nRobert.)]\n\n\nOf all the merchants of Venice, Fabio Mutinelli was the most exact in\nkeeping his engagements. In all cases he showed himself free-handed and\nsumptuous in his dealings,--above all where ladies and churchmen were\nconcerned. The elegance and honesty of his character were renowned\nthroughout the State, and all admired at San Zanipolo an altar of gold\nhe had offered to St. Catherine for the love of the fair Catherine\nManini, wife of the Senator Alesso Cornaro. Being very wealthy, he had\nnumerous friends, whom he entertained at feasts and helped at need from\nhis purse. However, he incurred heavy losses in the war against the\nGenoese and in the Naples troubles. It fell out, moreover, that thirty\nof his ships were taken by the Uscoque pirates or foundered at sea. The\nPope, to whom he had lent great sums of money, refused to repay a doit.\nThe result of all was, the magnificent Fabio Mutinelli was stripped bare\nin brief space of all his riches. After selling his Palace and plate to\npay what he owed, he found himself left without anything. But clever,\nbold, well practised in affairs and in the vigour of his powers, his\nonly thought was to make head once more against fortune. He made careful\ncalculation and judged that five hundred ducats were needful for him to\ntake the sea again and attempt fresh enterprises for which he augured\nhappy and sure success. He asked the Signor Alesso Bontura, who was the\nrichest citizen of the Republic, to oblige him by lending him the five\nhundred ducats. But the good Bontura, holding that if daring wins great\ngains, 'tis prudence only keeps the same, refused to expose so great a\nsum to the risks of sea and shipwreck. Fabio next applied to the Signor\nAndrea Morosini, whom he had benefited in former days in a thousand\nways.\n\n\"My dear Fabio,\" answered Andrea, \"to any one else but you I would\nwillingly lend this sum. I have no affection for gold, and on this\npoint act according to the maxims of Horace the Satirist. But your\nfriendship is dear to me, Fabio Mutinelli, and I should be running the\nrisk of losing it, if I lent you money. For more often than not, the\ncommerce of the heart comes to a bad end betwixt debtor and creditor. I\nhave known but too many instances.\"\n\nSo saying, the Signor Andrea kissed the Merchant with all seeming\ntenderness, and shut the door in his face.\n\nNext day, Fabio went to see the Lombard and Florentine bankers. But not\none of them would agree to lend him so much as twenty ducats without\nsecurity. All day long he hurried from one counting-house to another,\nbut was everywhere met by much the same answer:\n\n\"Signor Fabio, we all know you well for the most upright merchant of\nthis city, and it is with regret we must refuse you what you ask. But\nthe morality of trade requires it.\"\n\nThat evening, as he was making sadly for home, the courtesan Zanetta,\nwho was bathing in the canal, hung on to his gondola and gazed amorously\ninto his eyes. In the days of his prosperity he had had her one night\ninto his Palace and had treated her very kindly, for he was of a gay and\ngracious humour.\n\n\"Sweet Signor Fabio,\" she said to him, \"I am aware of your misfortunes;\nthey are the talk of all the town. Hear me; I am not rich, but I have\nsome jewels at the bottom of a little coffer. An you will accept them of\na poor girl that would serve you, I shall know God and the Virgin love\nme.\"\n\nAnd it was a true word, that in the prime of her youth and fine flower\nof her beauty, the fair Zanetta was poor. Fabio answered her:\n\n\"Kind Zanetta, there is more nobility in the hovel where you dwell than\nin all the Palaces of Venice.\"\n\nFor three days longer Fabio visited the banks and fondacos without\ndiscovering any one willing to lend him money. Everywhere he received an\nunfavourable answer, and listened to speeches that always came to this:\n\n\"You did very wrong to sell your plate to pay your debts. Money is lent\nto a man in debt, but not to one without furniture and plate.\"\n\nThe fifth day he made his way, in despair, as far as the Corte delle\nGalli, which men also call the Ghetto, and which is the quarter the Jews\ninhabit.\n\n\"Who knows,\" he kept saying to himself, \"if I may not get from one of\nthe Circumcised what the Christians have denied me?\"\n\nHe proceeded therefore between the Calle San Geremia and the Calle San\nGirolamo along a narrow evil-smelling canal, the entrance of which was\nbarred with chains every night, by order of the Senate. While hesitating\nto know which Usurer he should first apply to, he remembered to have\nheard speak of an Israelite named Eliezer, son of Eliezer Maimonides,\nwho was said to be exceedingly rich and of a wondrous subtle spirit.\nAccordingly, inquiring out the house of the Jew Eliezer, he stopped his\ngondola before the door. Above the entrance was seen a representation of\nthe seven-branched candlestick, which the Jew had had carved as a sign\nof hope, in expectation of the promised days when the Temple should rise\nagain from its ashes.\n\nThe Merchant now entered a hall lighted by a copper lamp with twelve\nwicks that were burning smokily. Eliezer the Jew was there, seated\nbefore his scales. The windows of the house were walled up, because he\nwas an Unbeliever.\n\nFabio Mutinelli approached and thus accosted him:\n\n\"Eliezer, over and over again have I called you dog and renegade\nheathen. There have been times, when I was younger and in the flush of\nearly manhood, I have cast stones and mud at folks going along the Canal\nwho wore the round patch of yellow sewn on their shoulder, so that I\nmay likely have struck one of your friends or perhaps yourself. I tell\nyou this, not to affront you, but out of fairness, at the same instant I\ncome to ask you to do me a very great service.\"\n\nThe Jew lifted his arm, which was as dry and gnarled as an ancient\nvine-stock:\n\n\"Fabio Mutinelli, the Father which is in Heaven shall judge us, one and\nthe other. What is the service you are come to ask of me?\"\n\n\"Lend me five hundred ducats for a year.\"\n\n\"Men do not lend without security. Doubtless you have learned this from\nyour own people. What is the security you offer?\"\n\n\"You must know, Eliezer, I have not a denier left, not one gold cup, not\none silver goblet. Neither have I a friend left. One and all, they have\nrefused to do me the service I ask of you. I have nothing in all the\nworld but my honour as a merchant and my faith as a Christian. I offer\nyou for security the holy Virgin Mary and her Divine Son.\"\n\nAt this reply, the Jew, bending down his head as a man does to ponder\nand consider, stroked his long white beard for a while. Presently he\nlooked up and said:\n\n\"Fabio Mutinelli, take me to see this security you offer. For it is meet\nthe lender be put in presence of the pledge proposed for his\nacceptance.\"\n\n\"You are within your rights,\" returned the Merchant, \"rise therefore and\ncome.\"\n\nSo saying, he led Eliezer to the Chiesa dell' Orto, near the spot called\nthe _Field of the Moors_. Arrived there and pointing to the figure of\nthe Madonna, which stood above the High Altar, the brow wreathed with a\ncirclet of precious stones and the shoulders covered with a\ngold-broidered mantle, holding in her arms the Child Jesus sumptuously\nadorned like his mother, the Merchant said to the Jew:\n\n\"Yonder is my security.\"\n\nEliezer looked with a keen eye and a calculating air first at the\nChristian Merchant, then at the Madonna and Child; then presently bowed\nhis head in assent and said he would accept the pledge offered. He\nreturned with Fabio to his own house, and there handed him the five\nhundred ducats, well and truly weighed:\n\n\"The money is yours for a year. If at the end of that time, to the day,\nyou have not paid me back the sum with interest at the rate fixed by the\nlaw of Venice and the custom of the Lombards, you can picture yourself,\nFabio Mutinelli, what I shall think of the Christian Merchant and his\nsecurity.\"\n\nFabio, without a moment's loss of time, bought ships and loaded up with\nsalt and other sorts of merchandise, which he disposed of in the cities\nof the Adriatic shore to great advantage. Then, with a fresh cargo\naboard, he set sail for Constantinople, where he bought carpets,\nperfumes, peacock feathers, ivory and ebony. These goods his agents\nexchanged along the coasts of Dalmatia for building timber, which the\nVenetians had contracted for from him in advance. By these means, in six\nmonths' time, he had multiplied tenfold the amount the Jew had lent him.\n\nBut one day that he was taking his diversion with some Greek women,\naboard his vessel, which lay in the Bosphorus, having put out too far to\nsea, he was captured by pirates and carried prisoner to Egypt, though,\nby rare good fortune, his gold and merchandise were in a safe place all\nthe while. The pirates sold him to a Saracen lord, who putting him in\nfetters, sent him afield to till the wheat, which grows very finely in\nthat country. Fabio offered his master to pay a heavy ransom, but the\nPaynim's daughter, who loved him and was fain to bring him to the end\nshe desired, over-persuaded her father not to let him go at any price.\nReduced to the necessity of trusting to himself alone for release, he\nfiled his irons with the tools given him for tilling the ground, made\ngood his escape to the Nile and threw himself into a boat. Casting\nloose, he got to the sea, which was not far off, and when on the point\nof death from thirst and hunger, was rescued by a Spanish vessel bound\nfor Genoa. But, after keeping her course a week, the ship was caught in\na storm which drove her on the coast of Dalmatia. In making the shore,\nshe was wrecked on a reef. All the crew were drowned except Fabio, who\nreached the beach after much difficulty, clinging to a hen-coop. There\nhe lay senseless, but was presently succoured by a handsome widow, named\nLoreta, whose house was upon the seashore. She had him carried to it,\nput him to bed in her own chamber, watched over him and lavished every\ncare for his recovery.\n\nOn coming to himself, he smelt the perfume of myrtles and roses, and\nlooking out of window saw a garden that descended in successive\ndeclivities to the sea. Signora Loreta, standing at his bed's head, took\nup her viol and began playing a tender air.\n\nFabio, ravished with gratitude and pleasure, fell to kissing the lady's\nhands a thousand times over. He thanked her earnestly, assuring her he\nwas less touched by the saving of his life than by the fact of his owing\nhis recovery to the pains of so fair a benefactress.\n\nPresently he rose and went to walk with her in the garden, and sitting\ndown to rest in a thicket of myrtles, he drew the young widow on his\nknee and manifested his gratitude by a thousand caresses.\n\nHe found her not insensible to his efforts and spent some hours by her\nside drowned in amorous delight. But soon he grew pensive, and suddenly\nasked his hostess what month they were in, and what day of the month\nprecisely it then was.\n\nAnd when she told him, he fell to groaning and lamenting sore, finding\nit lacked but twenty-four short hours of a full year since he had\nreceived the five hundred ducats of Eliezer the Jew. The thought of\nbreaking his promise and exposing his pledge to the reproaches of the\nCircumcised was intolerable to him. Signora Loreta inquiring the reason\nof his despair, he told her the whole story; and being a very pious\nwoman and an ardent votress of the Holy Mother of God, she shared his\nchagrin to the full. The difficulty was not to procure the five hundred\nducats; a Banker in a neighbouring town had had such a sum in his hands\nfor the last six months at Fabio's disposition. But to travel from the\ncoast of Dalmatia to Venice in four-and-twenty hours, with a broken sea\nand contrary winds, was a thing beyond all hope.\n\n\"Let us have the money ready to begin with,\" said Fabio.\n\nAnd when one of his hostess's serving-men had brought the sum, the noble\nMerchant ordered a vessel to be brought close in to the shore. In her\nhe laid the bags containing the ducats, then went to the Signora\nLoreta's Oratory in search of an image of the Virgin with the Infant\nJesus--an image of cedar-wood and greatly revered. This he set in the\nlittle bark, near the rudder, and addressed in these words:\n\n\"Madonna, you are my pledge. Now the Jew Eliezer must needs be paid\nto-morrow; 'tis a question of mine honour and of yours, Madonna, and of\nyour Son's good name. What a mortal sinner, such as I, cannot do, you\nwill assuredly accomplish, unsullied Star of the Sea, you whose bosom\nsuckled Him who walked upon the waters. Bear this silver to Eliezer the\nJew, in the Ghetto at Venice, to the end the Circumcised may never say\nyou are a bad surety.\"\n\nAnd pushing the bark afloat, he doffed his hat and cried softly:\n\n\"Farewell, Madonna! farewell!\"\n\nThe vessel sailed out to sea, and long the merchant and the widow\nfollowed it with their eyes. When night began to close in, a furrow of\nlight was seen marking her wake over the waters, which were fallen to a\ndead calm.\n\nAt Venice next morning Eliezer, on opening his door, saw a bark in the\nnarrow canal of the Ghetto laden with full sacks and manned by a little\nfigure of black wood, flashing in the clear morning sunbeams. The\nvessel stopped before the house where the seven-branched candlestick was\ncarved; and the Jew recognized the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus,\npledge of the Christian Merchant.\n\n\n\n\nHISTORY OF DO\u00d1A MARIA D'AVALOS AND DON FABRICIO, DUKE D'ANDRIA\n\nTO HENRY GAUTHIER-VILLARS\n\n\n\n\nHISTORY OF DO\u00d1A MARIA D'AVALOS AND DON FABRICIO, DUKE D'ANDRIA\n\n  _Done Marie d'Avalos, l'une des belles princesses du pa\u00efs, mari\u00e9e avec\n  le prince de Venouse, laquelle s'estant enamourach\u00e9e du comte\n  d'Andriane, l'un des beaux princes du pa\u00efs aussy, et s'estans tous\n  deux concertez \u00e0 la jouissance et le mari l'ayant descouverte ... les\n  fit tous deux massacrer par gens appostez; si que le lendemain on\n  trouva ces deux belles moictiez et cr\u00e9atures expos\u00e9es et tendues sur\n  le pav\u00e9 devant la porte de la maison, toutes mortes et froides, \u00e0 la\n  veue de tous les passants, qui les larmoyoient et plaignoient de leur\n  mis\u00e9rable estat._[1]\n\n  (Pierre de Bourdeilles, abb\u00e9 et Seigneur de Brant\u00f4me. _Recueil des\n  dames, seconde partie._)\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Do\u00f1a Maria d'Avalos, one of the fair Princesses of the\nland, and married to the Prince of Venosa, was enamoured of the Count\nd'Andriane, likewise one of the noble Princes of the country. So being\nboth of them come together to enjoy their passion, and the husband\nhaving discovered it ... had the twain of them slain by men appointed\nthereto. In such wise that next morning the fair and noble pair, unhappy\nbeings, were seen lying stretched out and exposed to public view on the\npavement in front of the house door, all dead and cold, in sight of all\npassers-by, who could not but weep and lament over their piteous lot.\"]\n\n\nIt was a day of high rejoicing at Naples, when the Prince of Venosa, a\nrich and puissant Lord, was wed to Do\u00f1a Maria, of the illustrious house\nof Avalos.\n\nDrawn by horses bedizened with scales, feathers or furs, in such wise as\nto figure forth dragons, griffins, lions, lynxes, panthers and unicorns,\nwere twelve cars which did bear through all the city an host of naked\nmen and women, gilded all over, for to represent the Gods of Olympus,\ncome down to Earth to do honour to the Venosian nuptials. On one of\nthese cars was to be seen a young lad with wings treading underfoot\nthree old hags of an hideous ugliness. A tablet was fixed up above the\ncar to display the meaning thereof, to wit: LOVE VANQUISHETH THE FATAL\nSISTERS. Whereby 'twas to be understood that the new-wedded pair would\nenjoy many a long year of happiness by each other's side.\n\nBut this presage of Love, more strong than the Fates, was false withal.\nTwo years after her marriage, one day she was gone abroad a-fowling,\nDo\u00f1a Maria d'Avalos saw the Duke d'Andria, which was a gallant,\nhandsome and well-knit man, and did straight love the same. An honest\ngirl and a well-born, heedful of her noble name and still in that callow\nyouth when women have not gotten boldness yet to match their naughty\ndesires, she sent no go-between to the nobleman for to make assignation\nin Church or at her own abode. She never told her love, but did bide the\ntime when her good star should bring beside her him which had grown in\nthe twinkling of an eye more dear to her than the day. She had not to\ntarry long. For the Duke d'Andria had noted her beauty, and went\nstraightway to pay his court to the Prince of Venosa. Encountering Do\u00f1a\nMaria in the Palace with no other by, he did beseech her in right\ngentle, and withal gallant and masterful wise, that very favour she was\nherself well disposed and well resolved to grant him. She did lead him\nto her chamber instantly, and did there refuse him naught of all he was\nfain to have of her.\n\nBut when he did proffer her his thanks for that she had graciously\nyielded to his desires, she made answer:\n\n\"My Lord, the desire was mine own more than it was yours. I, it was, was\nfain we should lie in the arms one of the other, as we be now laid, in\nthis bed, to the which I will aye make you dearly welcome, as oft as it\nshall please you to come thither.\"\n\nEvery time she was able so to do, from that day forth Do\u00f1a Maria\nd'Avalos would receive in her chamber the Duke d'Andria and this was\nmany a time and oft, for the Prince of Venosa went much to the chase and\nwould sometimes spend whole weeks together diverting him with his\nfriends in one of his pleasure houses he had in the country parts.\n\nThe whole while that Do\u00f1a Maria was abed with her lover, her nurse Lucia\nwould stand a-watching at the chamber door, telling of her beads and\ntrembling sore lest the Prince perchance should return home against all\nexpectation.\n\n'Twas indeed a nobleman mightily feared by reason of his jealous and\ngrim humour. His enemies did reproach him for his cunning and cruelty,\nnaming him mongrel cur of fox and she-wolf, stinking hound, if ever\nstinking hound was. But his friends would commend him, for that he kept\never in sure memory whatsoever of right or wrong folk did him, and would\nin no wise suffer patiently any injury wrought him or his.\n\nDuring the space of three full months which were now gone by the lovers\nhad great joy of each other and content of their desires without or let\nor hindrance, when one morning the Nurse came to seek Do\u00f1a Maria in her\nchamber, and spake thus to her:\n\n\"Listen, my pearl of pearls; albeit my words this day will be neither of\nflowers nor sugar-plums, but of a right serious and fearsome matter. My\nLord the Prince of Venosa hath heard some ill report concerning you and\nthe Duke d'Andria.\n\n\"But now I saw him in the Palace court, as he was a-mounting his horse.\nHe was gnawing his moustache--a fell sign with him. He was in talk with\ntwo fellows, which had little of the air about them of leading honest\nlives; all I heard him tell them was, 'See ye, without being seen!' Of\nsuch sort the orders the noble Prince was charging them withal. And the\nworst is, he did stop dead whenas he set eyes on me. My own little pearl\nof price, so true as God is in the Holy Sacrament, an if the Prince find\nyou with the Lord Duke d'Andria, he will kill both the twain of you. You\nwill be a dead woman; and ah! me, what will become of me?\"\n\nThe Nurse spake on in this wise and besought her mistress long and sore;\nbut Do\u00f1a Maria d'Avalos did send her away without deigning so much as\none word of answer.\n\nAs it was Springtide she went forth that same day a-walking in the\ncountry with some ladies of the city. They were following a path\nbordered with thorn-trees all a-bloom, when one of the ladies said thus\nto her:\n\n\"Dogs will sometimes come and stick at travellers' heels, Do\u00f1a Maria.\nWell! look, to-day we be dogged by a great black and white hound!\"\n\nAnd the Princess, turning her head to see, did recognize a certain\nDominican monk which was used to come each day to the courtyard of the\nPalazzo Venosa for to rest in the shade there, and in winter-time to\nwarm him in the great kitchen.\n\nMeanwhile the Nurse, seeing her lady mistress paid no heed to her words,\nran to warn the Duke d'Andria. Moreover the said Duke had reasons of his\nown to fear the sweet secret of his loves had been unhappily discovered.\nThe very evening afore, finding himself followed by a pair of ruffians\narmed with arquebuses, he had killed one of the twain with a\nsword-thrust, whiles the other had taken to his heels. The Duke felt no\ndoubt now but these two rascals had been set at him by the Prince of\nVenosa.\n\n\"Lucia,\" he said to the Nurse, \"I must needs shudder at this danger,\nseeing it doth threaten my Lady Maria d'Avalos no less than myself. Tell\nher I will not return again to her chamber, cost me what regrets it\nwill, before that the Prince's suspicions be lulled asleep.\"\n\nThese words the Nurse did report the same evening to Do\u00f1a Maria, which\ndid hearken to them with impatience, biting her lip till the blood came.\n\nLearning that the Prince was at the moment abroad, she bade her Nurse go\nstraight to fetch the Duke d'Andria, and bring him into her chamber; and\nso soon as he was come spake thus to him:\n\n\"My gracious Lord, a day spent apart from you is to me the cruellest of\ntorments. I shall not fear to die; but I have not the fortitude to\nendure your absence. You should not have loved me, if you had not the\nhardihood to brave all for love of me. You should not have loved me if\nthere were aught else in all the world you set above my love, even mine\nown honour and mine own life. Choose; either you shall see me every day\nas aforetime, or you shall never see me more.\"\n\nHe made answer:\n\n\"Well and good then, Lady, and so be it; for, indeed, there is no room\nfor ill or evil henceforth betwixt us twain! Verily I do love you as you\nwould have me love you, even more than your own life.\"\n\nAnd that day, which was a Thursday, they did tarry a long time, close\npressed one against the other. Naught of moment fell out ere the Monday\nof the next week, on the which day the Prince did apprise his wife how\nthat he was setting forth with a numerous train for Rome, whither he was\ncalled by the Pope, which was his kinsman. And in very deed a score of\nhorses were then standing ready saddled and bridled in the Great Court.\nThen did the Prince kiss his wife's hand, as he was used to do on taking\nleave of her for any lengthy absence. Last of all, when he was now\na-horseback, he did turn his face to her and say:\n\n\"God have you in His keeping, Do\u00f1a Maria!\" and so rode forth with his\ncompany behind him.\n\nSoon as ever she thought her husband's troop to be gotten forth of the\nwalls, the Princess bade her Nurse summon the Duke d'Andria to her. The\nold woman besought her to defer a meeting that might easily be cause of\nsuch sore calamity.\n\n\"My dove,\" she cried, falling on her knees, her hands uplifted in\nsupplication, \"receive not the Duke to-day! All night long I heard the\nPrince's men grinding swords. Yet another thing, my flower of flowers,\nthe good brother that cometh day by day to our kitchen to seek his dole\nof bread, hath but now overset a salt-cellar of salt with the sleeve of\nhis gown. Give your lover a little repose, little one. Your pleasure\nwill be all the greater to have him again presently, and he will love\nyou all the better for the respite.\"\n\nBut Do\u00f1a Maria d'Avalos said:\n\n\"Nurse, an if he be not here in one quarter of an hour, I will send you\nback home to your brethren in the mountains.\"\n\nAnd when the Duke d'Andria was by her side she did welcome him with an\nexceeding great joy.\n\n\"My Lord,\" cried she, \"this will be a good day for us, and the night\nbetter still. I shall keep you till the dawn.\"\n\nAnd straightway did they exchange betwixt them an host of kisses and\nfond caresses. Presently, after doffing their clothes, they gat them to\nbed, and held each the other close embraced so long that evening found\nthem yet pressed in each other's arms. Then, for that they were sore\nhungered, Do\u00f1a Maria drew forth of her marriage chest a pasty, dried\nconserves, and a flask of wine, the which she had been heedful to lay by\ntherein.\n\nAfter the twain had eaten and drunk their fill, playing the while all\nsorts of pretty plays, the moon rose and did look in so friendly at the\nwindow that they were fain to wish her welcome. So they went forth upon\nthe balcony, and there, breathing the freshness and softness of the\nnight, did watch the fireflies dancing in the dark bushes. All were\nstill save only the shrilling of the insects in the grass. Then there\ncame a sound of footsteps along the street, and Do\u00f1a Maria did\nrecognize the poor monk which was wont to haunt the kitchen and the\nPalace courtyards, the same she had encountered one day in the flowery\npath where she was a-walking with two ladies--her companions. She shut\nto the window softly, and to bed again with her lover. 'Twas deep in the\nnight, and they were lying so, kissing and murmuring the softest\nnothings ever were inspired by Love, whether at Naples or any other spot\nin all the wide world, when of a sudden they caught a noise of steps\nmounting the stairway and the rattle of arms; at the same time they\nbeheld a red glow shining through the chinks of the door. And they heard\nthe Nurse's voice shrieking, \"Jesu Maria! I am a dead woman.\" The Duke\nd'Andria sprang up, leapt upon his sword, and cried:\n\n\"Up, Do\u00f1a Maria! We must leap forth by the window.\"\n\nBut, rushing to the balcony and leaning out, he saw how the street was\nguarded and all bristling with pikes.\n\nThereupon he came back to Do\u00f1a Maria, which said:\n\n\"'Tis the end of all! But know this, I do not regret aught of what I\nhave done, my dear, dear Lord!\"\n\nAnd he made answer:\n\n\"Well and good then, and so be it!\" and did haste to don his trunks.\n\nCracking and crunching under the mighty blows struck by them outside,\nthe door was meantime a-trembling, and the panels began to gape.\n\nHe spake again and said:\n\n\"Fain would I know who hath betrayed and sold us thus.\"\n\nAt the instant he was seeking his shoon, the one half of the door gave\nway, and a troop of men, bearing arms and torches, threw themselves into\nthe chamber. The Prince of Venosa was in their midst, shouting: \"Have at\nthe traitor! Kill! Kill!\"\n\nLustily did three swordsmen attack the Duke, but he set him in front of\nthe bed, where was Do\u00f1a Maria, and made valiant stand against the\ncaitiffs.\n\nSix men were there in all, led on by the Prince, being of his bosom\nfriends every one or his own varlets. Albeit blinded by the dazzle of\nthe torches, the Duke d'Andria did contrive to parry several thrusts,\nand gave back some shrewd blows himself. But catching his foot in the\nplatters lying on the floor, with the remains of the pasty and\nconserves, he fell over backward. Finding himself on his back, a sword's\npoint at his throat, he did seize the blade in his left hand; the man,\nsnatching it back, cut off three of his fingers, and the sword was bent.\nThen, as the Duke d'Andria was heaving forward his shoulders to rise,\none of the fellows struck him a blow over the head which did break in\nthe bones of his skull. At this all six did hurl them upon him, and slew\nhim, lunging with such savage haste they did wound each other.\n\nWhenas the thing was done, the Prince of Venosa bade them stand quietly\naside; and marching upon Do\u00f1a Maria, which till now had tarried still\nbeside the bed, he drave her before his sword's point into the corner of\nthe chamber where was the marriage chest. And there, holding her at bay,\nhe did hiss in her face one word:\n\n\"_Puttana!_\" (Harlot!)\n\nShamed by reason of her nakedness, she went to drag to her some of the\nbedclothes, which were hanging over the bedside. But he stayed her with\na thrust of his sword, which did graze her white side.\n\nThen, leaning against the wall, hands and arms held up to veil her eyes,\nshe stood waiting.\n\nThe other never left off crying:\n\n\"_Puttaccia! Puttaccia!_\" (Whore! Whore!)\n\nThen, forasmuch as he did yet tarry, and slew her not, she was afraid.\nHe saw that she was afraid, and said gleefully:\n\n\"You are afraid!\"\n\nBut pointing her finger at the dead body of the Duke d'Andria, she made\nanswer:\n\n\"Fool! what think you I can have to fear now?\"\n\nAnd, to make a seeming of being no more terrified, she sought to recall\na song-tune she had sung many a time as a girl, and began humming the\nsame, or rather hissing it, betwixt her teeth.\n\nThe Prince, furious to see how she defied him, did now prick her with\nhis point in the belly, crying out:\n\n\"_Ah! Sporca-puttaccia!_\" (Fie! Filthy trull!) Exultant, she stayed her\nsinging, and said:\n\n\"Sir, 'tis two years sithence I have been to confession.\"\n\nAt this word the Prince of Venosa bethought him how that, an if she died\nand were damned, she might return by night and drag him down to Hell\nalong with her. He asked her:\n\n\"Will you not have a Confessor?\"\n\nShe did ponder an instant, then shaking her head:\n\n\"'Tis useless. I cannot save my soul. I repent me not. I cannot, and I\nwill not, repent. I love him! I love him! Let me die in his arms.\"\n\nWith a quick movement, she did thrust the sword aside, threw her on the\nbleeding corse of the Duke d'Andria, and lay clipping her dead lover in\nher arms.\n\nSeeing her so, the Prince of Venosa did lose what patience he had kept\ntill then, to the end he might not kill her ere he had made her suffer.\nHe drave his blade through her body. She cried, \"Jesu!\" rolled over,\nsprang to her feet, and after a little shudder that shook her every\nlimb, fell to the floor dead.\n\nHe struck her several blows more in the belly and bosom; then said to\nhis varlets:\n\n\"Go throw these two pieces of carrion at the foot of the Great\nStaircase, and open wide the Palace doors, that men may note my\nvengeance at the same time as the insult done mine honour.\"\n\nHe bade strip the lover's corse bare like the other.\n\nThe men did as they were bidden. And all the day the bodies of the Duke\nd'Andria and Do\u00f1a Maria lay naked at the bottom of the steps. The\npassers-by drew near to see them. And the news of the bloody deed being\nspread about the city, a great press of curious onlookers came crowding\nbefore the Palace. Some said, \"Lo! a good deed well done!\" Others, and\nthese the more part, at sight of so lamentable a spectacle, were filled\nwith ruth. Yet durst they not openly commiserate the Prince's victims,\nfor fear of evil handling by his armed dependents, which were set to\nguard the bodies. Young men gazed at the Princess's corse, for to\ndiscover the traces of that beauty which had been her undoing, while the\nlittle children would be expounding one to the other the meaning of that\nthey saw.\n\nDo\u00f1a Maria lay stretched on her back. The lips were drawn back,\ndisplaying the teeth in a ghastly smile. Her eyes stood wide open, the\nwhites only showing. Six wounds were upon her, three in the belly, which\nwas greatly swollen, two in the bosom, one in the neck. The last had\nbled profusely, and the dogs kept fawning up to lick it.\n\nTowards nightfall, the Prince bade set torches of resin, like as on days\nof festival, in the bronze rings fixed in the Palace walls, and eke\nkindle great fires in the Courtyard, to the end all men might see the\ncriminals plain. At midnight, a pious widow brought coverings and spread\nthe same over the dead bodies. But, by the Prince's commandment, these\nwere incontinent torn away again.\n\nThe Ambassador of Spain informed of the unseemly treatment meted to a\nlady of the Spanish house of Avalos, came in person urgently to entreat\nthe Prince of Venosa to stay these outrages, which did insult the noble\nmemory of the Duke de Pescara, uncle to Do\u00f1a Maria, and offend in their\ntomb so many great Captains of whose blood the said lady was descended.\nBut he withdrew after profiting naught by his intercession; and writ a\nletter thereanent to his Catholic Majesty. The poor bodies were left\nshamefully exposed as before. Toward the latter end of the night, the\ncurious having ceased to come any more, the guards were withdrawn.\n\nThen a Dominican monk, which had all the day lurked about the great\ndoors, did slip within the vestibule by the smoky light of the dying\ntorches, crept to the steps where Do\u00f1a Maria lay, and threw himself on\nher corse.\n\n\n\n\nBONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO\n\nTO ARMAND GENEST\n\n\n\n\nBONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO\n\n  _Quand, simple citoyen, soldat d'un peuple libre,\n  Aux bords de l'\u00c9ridan, de l'Adige et du Tibre,\n  Foudroyant tour \u00e0 tour quelques tyrans pervers,\n  Des nations en pleurs, sa main brisait les fers...._\n\n  (Marie-Joseph Ch\u00e9nier, _La Promenade_.)[1]\n\n  _Napol\u00e9on, apr\u00e8s son exp\u00e9dition de Livourne, se rendant \u00e0\n  Florence, co\u00f9cha \u00e0 San Miniato chez un vieil abb\u00e9 Buonaparte...._\n\n  (_M\u00e9morial de Saint-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne_, par le comte de Las Cases, r\u00e9impression\n  de 1823, 1824, t. I'er, p. 149.)[2]\n\n  \"_Je fus sur le soir \u00e0 San Miniato. J'y avais un vieux\n  chanoine de parent...._\"\n\n  (_M\u00e9moires du docteur F. Antommarchi, sur les derniers moments de\n  Napol\u00e9on_ 1825, t. I'er p. 155.)[3]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"When, a plain citizen, soldier of a free people, by the\nbanks of the Eridanus, the Adige and the Tiber, blasting with his\nlightnings one after another recalcitrant tyrants, his hand brake the\nfetters of the nations that wept....\"]\n\n[Footnote 2: \"Napoleon, visiting Florence after his Leghorn expedition,\nlay one night at San Miniato at the house of an old Abb\u00e9 Buonaparte....\"\n(_Memorial of St. Helena_, by the Count de Las Cases--reprint of 1823,\n1824, Vol. I, p. 149.)]\n\n[Footnote 3: \"I stayed for the night at San Miniato. I had a relative\nliving there, an old Canon....\" (_Memoirs of Dr. F. Antommarchi on the\nLast Moments of Napoleon_, 1825, vol. I, p. 155.)]\n\n\nAfter occupying Leghorn and closing that port against the English\nmen-of-war, General Bonaparte proceeded to Florence to visit the Grand\nDuke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, who alone of all the princes of Europe had\nhonestly and honourably fulfilled his engagements with the French\nRepublic. In token of esteem and confidence, he went there without\nescort, accompanied only by the officers of his Staff. Amongst other\nsights he was shown the arms of the Buonapartes carved over the gateway\nof an old house. He was already aware that a branch of his family had\nbeen fruitful and multiplied at Florence in days of yore, and that a\nlast descendant of this the ancient race was still alive. This was a\ncertain Canon of San Miniato, now eighty years of age. In spite of all\nthe pressing affairs he had to attend to, he made a point of paying him\na visit. Napoleon Bonaparte was always strongly moved by feelings of\nnatural affection.\n\nOn the eve of his departure from Florence, he made his way with some of\nhis officers to the hill of San Miniato, which crowned with its walls\nand towers, rises from the plain at half a league's distance from the\ncity.\n\nOld Canon Buonaparte welcomed with agreeable and dignified politeness\nhis young kinsman and the French officers who accompanied him--Berthier,\nJunot, Orderly Officer in Chief Chauvet and Lieutenant Th\u00e9zard. He\nregaled them with a supper _\u00e0 l'italienne_, which lacked neither the\ncranes of Peretola nor the little sucking-pig scented with aromatic\nherbs, nor the best vintages of Tuscany, Naples and Sicily.\nUncompromising Republicans as Brutus himself, they drank to France and\nFreedom. Their host acknowledged the toast; then turning to the General\nwhom he had seated on his right hand;\n\n\"Nephew!\" said he, \"are you not curious to examine the genealogical tree\npainted on the wall yonder? You will be gratified to see from it that we\nare descended from the Lombard Cadolingians, who from the tenth to the\ntwelfth centuries covered themselves with glory by their fidelity to the\nGerman Emperors, and from whom sprung, prior to the year 1100, the\nBuonapartes of Treviso and the Buonapartes of Florence, the latter stock\nproving by far the more illustrious.\"\n\nAt this the officers began to whisper together and laugh. Orderly\nOfficer Chauvet asked Berthier behind his hand if the Republican General\nfelt flattered to possess amongst his ancestors a lot of slaves serving\nthe Two-headed Eagle, while Lieutenant Th\u00e9zard was ready to take his\noath the General owed his birth to good _sans-culottes_ and nobody else.\nMeanwhile the Canon went on with a long string of boasts concerning the\nnobility of his house and lineage.\n\n\"Know this, nephew,\" he finished by saying, \"our Florentine ancestors\nwell deserved their name. They were ever of the _bon parti_, and\nsteadfast defenders of Mother Church.\"\n\nAt these words, which the old fellow had uttered in a high, clear voice,\nthe General, who so far had been scarcely listening, gathered his\nwandering wits together, and raising his pale, thin face, with its\nclassically moulded features, threw a piercing look at his interlocutor,\nwhich closed his lips instantly.\n\n\"Nay! uncle,\" he cried, \"let us have done with these follies! the rats\nof your garret are very welcome to these moth-eaten parchments for me.\"\n\nThen he added in a voice of brass:\n\n\"The only nobility I vaunt is in my deeds. It dates from the 13th\nVend\u00e9miaire of Year IV, the day I swept the Royalist Sections with\ncannon-shot from the steps of St. Roch. Come, let us drink to the\nRepublic! 'Tis the arrow of Evander, which falls not to earth again, and\nis transformed into a star!\"\n\nThe officers answered the appeal with a shout of enthusiasm. It was a\nmoment when Berthier himself felt a Republican's and a Patriot's fire.\n\nJunot exclaimed: \"Napoleon had no need for ancestors; 'twas enough for\nhim his soldiers had acclaimed him Corporal at the Bridge of Lodi.\"\n\nThe wines had the dry smack of gunflint and the bouquet of powder, and\nthe company imbibed freely. Lieutenant Th\u00e9zard was soon in a condition\nthat rendered him incapable of concealing his sentiments. Proud of the\nwounds and the kisses of women he had enjoyed in lavish abundance in\nthis campaign, at once so heroic and so gallant and gay, he informed the\nCanon without more ado, that following in the steps of Bonaparte, the\nFrench were going to march round the world, upsetting Thrones and Altars\nin every land, giving the girls bastards and ripping up the bellies of\nall fanatics.\n\nThe old Priest only went on smiling, and replied he was willing enough\nto sacrifice to their noble rage, not indeed the pretty girls, whom he\nbesought them rather to treat cannily, but the Fanatics, the chiefest\nfoes, he said, of Holy Church.\n\nJunot promised him to deal leniently with the Nuns; he could heartily\ncommend some of them, having found them to possess tender hearts and the\nwhitest of skins.\n\nOrderly Officer Chauvet maintained we should take account of the\ninfluence exercised by the cloistered life on the complexion of young\nwomen; you see, he was a student of natural philosophy.\n\n\"Between Genoa and Milan,\" he went on, \"we tasted largely of this sort\nof forbidden fruit. One may profess to be without prejudices; still, a\npretty bosom does look prettier half hid by the Veil. I set no value on\nreligious vows, yet I am free to confess I attach a very special value\nto a fine leg if it belongs to a Nun. Strange contradictions of the\nhuman heart!\"\n\n\"Fie! fie!\" put in Berthier; \"what pleasure can you find in upsetting\nthe wits and troubling the senses of these unhappy victims of\nfanaticism? What! are there no women of condition in Italy, to whom you\ncould offer your vows at f\u00eates, under the Venetian cloak that favours\nlittle intrigues so admirably? Is it nothing that Pietra Grua Mariani,\nMadame Lambert, Signora Monti, Signora Gherardi of Brescia, are fair and\ngallant dames?\"\n\nAs he ran over the names of these Italian toasts, he was thinking of the\nPrincess Visconti. This great lady, finding herself unable to enthral\nBonaparte, had given herself to his Chief of the Staff, whom she loved\nwith a fire of wantonness and a refined sensuality which left their mark\non the weak-kneed Berthier for the rest of his days.\n\n\"For my own part,\" interrupted Lieutenant Th\u00e9zard, \"I shall never\nforget a little water-melon seller on the steps of the Duomo, who....\"\n\nThe General rose from his chair with a gesture of impatience. A bare\nthree hours was left them for sleep, as they were to start at dawn.\n\n\"Never trouble, kinsman, about our sleeping accommodation,\" he said,\naddressing the Canon. \"We are soldiers; a bundle of hay is good enough\nfor us.\"\n\nBut their excellent host had had beds prepared. His house was bare and\nunornamented, but of vast proportions. He conducted the French officers,\none after the other, to the rooms assigned them, and wished them a good\nnight.\n\nLeft alone in his chamber, Bonaparte threw off his coat and sword, and\nproceeded to scrawl a pencil note to Josephine--twenty illegible lines,\nin which his violent, yet calculating, spirit spoke loudly. Then,\nfolding the letter, he abruptly drove the woman's image from his mind,\nas you push-to a drawer. He unrolled a plan of Mantua, and selected the\npoint on which he should concentrate his fire.\n\nHe was still absorbed in his calculations when he heard a knock at the\ndoor. He thought it was Berthier; but it proved to be the Canon, who\ncame to ask him for a few minutes' conversation. Under his arm he\ncarried two or three parchment-covered portfolios. The General looked\nat these documents with something of a quizzical air. He felt certain\nthey contained the genealogy of the Buonapartes, and anticipated their\nleading to a never-ending talk. However, he suffered no trace of his\nimpatience to appear.\n\nHe was never morose or angry but when he deliberately made up his mind\nto be so. Now he had no sort of wish to offend his worthy kinsman; on\nthe contrary, he was anxious to make himself agreeable to him. Moreover,\nhe was not really sorry to learn the nobility of his race, now his\nJacobin officers were no longer there to laugh or take umbrage at the\nmatter. He begged the Canon to take a seat, who did so, and, laying his\nregisters on the table, said:\n\n\"I made a beginning during supper, nephew, of telling you about the\nBuonapartes of Florence; but I gathered by the look you gave me, it was\nnot then the place or time to enlarge on such a subject. I broke off\ntherefore, reserving the essential part of what I have to say for the\npresent moment. I beg of you, kinsman, to hear me with great attention.\n\n\"The Tuscan branch of our family produced some excellent\nrepresentatives, among whom should be named Jacopo di Buonaparte, who\nwitnessed the sack of Rome in 1527 and wrote an account of that event,\nalso Niccol\u00f2, author of a Comedy entitled _La Vedova_ that was declared\nthe work of another Terence. However, it is not of these two famous\nancestors I now wish to speak, but rather of a third, who eclipses them\nas much in glory as the sun outshines the stars. Know then that your\nfamily counts amongst its members a man of saintly life, deemed worthy\nof Beatification and the title of blessed, Fra Bonaventura, disciple of\nthe reformed Order of St. Francis, who died in 1593 in the odour of\nSanctity.\"\n\nThe old man bent his head reverently as he pronounced the name. Then he\nresumed with a fire scarcely to have been expected from one of his years\nand easy character:\n\n\"Fra Bonaventura! Ah, kinsman! 'tis to him, to this good Father, you owe\nthe success of your arms. He was beside you, doubt it not, when you\nannihilated, as you told us at supper, the enemies of your party on the\nsteps of St. Roch. This Capuchin Friar has been your helper 'mid the\nsmoke of battles. But for him, be assured, you would not have been\nvictorious, whether at Montenotte or Millesimo or Lodi. The marks of his\npatronage are too striking and self-evident to be ignored, and in your\nsuccess I plainly discern a miracle of the good Fra Bonaventura. But\nwhat is most important you should know, is this; the holy man had a\npurpose of his own in view when, giving you the advantage even over\nBeaulieu himself, he led you from victory to victory to this antique\nroof under which you rest to-night with an old man's blessing to keep\nyou. I am here for the very purpose of revealing his intentions to you.\nFra Bonaventura wished you should be informed of his merits, that you\nshould hear of his fasts and austerities and the whole year's silence he\nonce condemned himself to endure. He would have you touch his hair-shirt\nand scourge, and his knees stiffened so at the altar-steps that he\nwalked bent double like the letter Z. For this it was he has brought you\ninto Italy, where he was for contriving you an opportunity of returning\nhim benefit for benefit. For you must know, good kinsman, if the Friar\nhas helped you greatly, in your turn, you can be of the greatest use to\nhim.\"\n\nWith these words, the Canon laid his hands on the heavy portfolios that\nloaded the table, and drew a deep breath.\n\nBonaparte said nothing, but waited quietly for the Canon to go on with\nhis remarks, which diverted him greatly. Never was any one easier to\namuse than Napoleon.\n\nAfter recovering breath, the old man resumed:\n\n\"Why, yes! kinsman, you can be of the greatest use to Fra Bonaventura,\nwho in his present situation needs your help. He was beatified many\nyears ago, but is still waiting his admission to the Calendar of Saints.\nHe is thinking long, is the good Father Bonaventura. Yet what can I, a\npoor Canon of San Miniato, do for him to secure him the honour he has\nearned? His enrolment demands an outlay that goes far beyond my fortune\nand even the resources of the Bishopric! Poor Canon! Poor Diocese! Poor\nDuchy of Tuscany! Poor Italy! they are all poor together. It is you,\nkinsman, must ask the Pope to recognize Fra Bonaventura's claim. He will\ncertainly grant you so much. His Holiness will never refuse, for your\nsake, to add another Saint to the Calendar. Great honour will accrue to\nyourself and your family, and the good Friar will always be ready to\nafford you his patronage. Do you not realize the advantages of having a\nSaint in the family?\"\n\nAnd the Canon, pointing to the portfolios, urged the General to put them\nin his valise and take them with him. Their contents consisted of the\nmemorial relating to the Canonization of the Blessed Friar Bonaventura,\ntogether with documents in corroboration of his claim.\n\n\"Promise me,\" he added, \"that you will see to this matter, the most\nimportant that can concern you.\"\n\nBonaparte restrained his strong inclination to laugh.\n\n\"I am unfortunately situated,\" he objected, \"for undertaking a case for\nCanonization. You are aware that the French Republic is taking measures\nto exact compensation from the Court of Rome for the murder of her\nAmbassador Bassville, foully assassinated.\"\n\nThe Canon protested eagerly:\n\n\"Corpo di Bacco! the Court of Rome will find excuses enough; all due\ncompensation will be accorded, and our kinsman will be placed on the\nCalendar, never fear.\"\n\n\"The negotiations are far from being concluded at present,\" replied the\nRepublican General. \"The Roman Curia has yet to recognize the civil\nconstitution of the French clergy and to break up and abolish the\nInquisition, which is an offence to humanity and an unjustifiable\nencroachment on the rights of Nations.\"\n\nThe old man only smiled and said:\n\n\"Mio caro figliuolo Napoleone, the Pope knows perfectly well folk must\nboth give and take. He will be reasonable, and yield a point where\nnecessary. He is for all time, long-suffering and a man of peace.\"\n\nBonaparte pondered deeply awhile, as though a series of quite new ideas\nwere taking muster in his powerful brain. Then suddenly breaking\nsilence,\n\n\"You do not realize,\" he said, \"the spirit of the age. We are highly\nirreligious in France; impiety is deeply rooted in our soil. You do not\nknow the progress achieved by the ideas of Montesquieu, Raynal and\nRousseau. Public worship is abolished; veneration is a thing of the\npast. You must have seen this from the scandalous talk my officers\nindulged in just now at your own table.\"\n\nThe good Canon shook his head:\n\n\"Ah, yes! those fine young men, they are wild fellows enough, dissipated\nand reckless! It is only a passing phase. Ten years more, and they will\nbe thinking less of the girls and more of going to Mass. The Carnival is\na matter of a few days, and even this mad one of your French Revolution\nwill not last for long. The Church is eternal.\"\n\nNapoleon declared bluntly he cared too little about Religion himself to\nmeddle in a purely ecclesiastical matter like this.\n\nThereupon the Canon looked him in the eyes and told him:\n\n\"My son, I understand men. I can divine your nature; you are no sceptic.\nTake up this case, the Blessed Father Bonaventura's case. He will repay\nyou the services you may render him. For myself, I am over old to\nwitness the success of this noble enterprise. I must die soon; but\nknowing it to be in your hands, I shall die happy. Above all, never\nforget, my kinsman, that all power comes of God by the instrumentality\nof his priests.\"\n\nHe rose to his feet, raised his arms to bless his young kinsman and\nwithdrew.\n\nLeft alone, Bonaparte turned over the leaves of the ponderous Memorial\nby the smoky light of his candle, as he pondered over the power of the\nChurch, and told himself the Papacy was a more enduring institution than\never the Constitution of the Year III was likely to be.\n\nA knock was heard at the door. It was Berthier, come to inform the\nGeneral that all was ready for their departure.\n\n\nTHE END","title":"The Well of Saint Clare","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":56608}