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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Well of Saint Clare, by Anatole  France
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Well of Saint Clare
+
+Author: Anatole  France
+
+Translator: Alfred Allinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2006 [EBook #18728]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WELL OF SAINT CLARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by R. Cedron, Verity White and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+      Transcribers note:
+      This text is best viewed in palatino linotype font.
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION EDITED BY
+FREDERIC CHAPMAN
+
+THE WELL OF SAINT CLARE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE WELL OF SAINT CLARE
+
+BY ANATOLE FRANCE
+
+A TRANSLATION BY ALFRED ALLINSON
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
+NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMIX
+
+WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  Prologue--The Reverend Father Adone Doni                 3
+  San Satiro                                              17
+  Messer Guido Cavalcanti                                 51
+  Lucifer                                                 73
+  The Loaves of Black Bread                               85
+  The Merry-Hearted Buffalmacco                           95
+     i. The Cockroaches                                   96
+    ii. The Ascending up of Andria Tafi                  106
+   iii. The Master                                       118
+    iv. The Painter                                      124
+  The Lady of Verona                                     133
+  The Human Tragedy                                      141
+      i. Fra Giovanni.                                   141
+     ii. The Lamp                                        150
+    iii. The Seraphic Doctor.                            153
+     iv. The Loaf on the Flat Stone                      156
+      v. The Table under the Fig-tree                    159
+     vi. The Temptation                                  163
+    vii. The Subtle Doctor                               169
+   viii. The Burning Coal                                177
+     ix. The House of Innocence                          179
+      x. The Friends of Order                            187
+     xi. The Revolt of Gentleness                        194
+    xii. Words of Love                                   200
+   xiii. The Truth                                       205
+    xiv. Giovanni's Dream                                215
+     xv. The Judgment.                                   223
+    xvi. The Prince of this World                        231
+  The Mystic Blood                                       243
+  A Sound Security                                       257
+  History of Doña Maria d'Avalos and the Duke d'Andria   271
+  Bonaparte at San Miniato                               289
+
+
+
+
+THE WELL OF SAINT CLARE
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+THE REVEREND FATHER ADONE DONI
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+THE REVEREND FATHER ADONE DONI
+
+  _Τὰ γὰρ φυσικὰ, καὶ τὰ ἠθικὰ ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ μαθηματικὰ, καὶ τοὺς
+  ἐγκυκλίους λόγους, καὶ περὶ τεχνῶν, πᾶσαν εἶχεν ἐμπειρίαν.--Diogenes
+  Laërtius_, IX, 37.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "For of physical and ethical science, no less than of
+mathematics and the common round of learning, as well as concerning
+arts, he possessed full knowledge and experience."]
+
+
+I was spending the Spring at Sienna. Occupied all day long with
+meticulous researches among the city archives, I used after supper to
+take an evening walk along the wild road leading to Monte Oliveto, where
+I would encounter in the twilight huge white oxen under ponderous yokes
+dragging a rustic wain with wheels of solid timber--all unchanged since
+the times of old Evander. The church bells knelled the peaceful ending
+of the day, while the purple shades of night descended sadly and
+majestically on the low chain of neighbouring hills. The black squadrons
+of the rooks had already sought their nests about the city walls, but
+relieved against the opalescent sky a single sparrow-hawk still hung
+floating with motionless wings above a solitary ilex tree.
+
+I moved forward to confront the silence and solitude and the mild
+terrors that lowered before me in the growing dusk. The tide of darkness
+rose by imperceptible degrees and drowned the landscape. The infinite of
+starry eyes winked in the sky, while in the gloom below the fireflies
+spangled the bushes with their trembling love-lights.
+
+These living sparks cover all the Roman Campagna and the plains of
+Umbria and Tuscany, on May nights. I had watched them in former days on
+the Appian Way, round the tomb of Cæcilia Metella--their playground for
+two thousand years; now I found them dancing the selfsame dance in the
+land of St. Catherine and of Pia de' Tolomei, at the gates of Sienna,
+that most melancholy and most fascinating of cities. All along my path
+they quivered in the bents and brushwood, chasing one another, and ever
+and anon, at the call of desire, tracing above the roadway the fiery
+arch of their darting flight.
+
+On the white ribbon of the road, in these clear Spring nights, the only
+person I used to encounter was the Reverend Father Adone Doni, who at
+the time was, like myself, working in the old Academy _degli Intronati_.
+I had taken an instant liking for the Cordelier in question, a man who,
+grown grey in study, still preserved the cheerful, facile humour of a
+simple, unlettered countryman. He was very willing to converse; and I
+greatly relished his bland speech, his cultivated yet artless way of
+thought, his look of old Silenus purged at the baptismal font, the play
+of his passions at once keen and refined, the strange, alluring
+personality that informed the whole man. Assiduous at the library, he
+was also a frequent visitor to the marketplace, halting for choice in
+front of the peasant girls who sell oranges, and listening to their
+unconventional remarks. He was learning, he would say, from their lips
+the true _Lingua Toscana_.
+
+All I knew of his past life, about which he never spoke, was that he was
+born at Viterbo, of a noble but miserably impoverished family, that he
+had studied the humanities and theology at Rome, as a young man had
+joined the Franciscans of Assisi, where he worked at the Archives, and
+had had difficulties on questions of faith with his ecclesiastical
+superiors. Indeed I thought I noticed myself a tendency in the Father
+towards peculiar views. He was a man of religion and a man of science,
+but not without certain eccentricities under either aspect. He believed
+in God on the evidence of Holy Scripture and in accordance with the
+teachings of the Church, and laughed at those simple philosophers who
+believed in Him on their own account, without being under any obligation
+to do so. So far he was well within the bounds of orthodoxy; it was in
+connection with the Devil that he professed peculiar opinions. He held
+the Devil to be wicked, but not absolutely wicked, and considered that
+the fiend's innate imperfection must always bar him from attaining to
+the perfection of evil. He believed he discerned some symptoms of
+goodness in the obscure manifestations of Satan's activity, and without
+venturing to put it in so many words, augured from these the final
+redemption of the pensive Archangel after the consummation of the ages.
+
+These little eccentricities of thought and temperament, which had
+separated him from the rest of the world and thrown him back upon a
+solitary existence, afforded me amusement. He had wits enough; all he
+lacked was common sense and appreciation of ordinary everyday things.
+His life was divided between phantoms of the past and dreams of the
+future; the actual present was utterly foreign to his notions. For his
+political ideas, these came simultaneously from antique Santa Maria
+degli Angeli and the revolutionary secret societies of London, and were
+a combination of Christian and socialist. But he was no fanatic; his
+contempt for human reason was too complete for him to attach great
+importance to his own share in it. The government of states appeared to
+him in the light of a huge practical joke, at which he would laugh
+quietly and composedly, as a man of taste should. Judges, civil and
+criminal, caused him surprise, while he looked on the military classes
+in a spirit of philosophical toleration.
+
+I was not long in discovering some flagrant contradictions in his mental
+attitude. He longed with all the charity of his gentle heart for the
+reign of universal peace. Yet at the same time he had a _penchant_ for
+civil war, and held in high esteem that Farinata degli Uberti, who loved
+his native Florence so boldly and so well that he constrained her by
+force and fraud, making the Arbia run red with Florentine blood the
+while, to will and think precisely what he willed and thought himself.
+For all that, the Reverend Father Adone Doni was a tender-hearted
+dreamer of dreams. It was on the spiritual authority of St. Peter's
+chair he counted to establish in this world the kingdom of God. He
+believed the Paraclete was leading the Popes along a road unknown to
+themselves. Therefore he had nothing but deferential words for the
+_Roaring Lamb of Sinigaglia_ and the _Opportunist_ _Eagle of
+Carpineto_, as it was his custom to designate Pius IX and Leo XIII
+respectively.
+
+Agreeable as was the Reverend Father's conversation to me, I used, out
+of respect for his freedom of action and my own, to avoid showing myself
+too assiduous in seeking his society inside the city walls, while on his
+side he observed an exquisite discretion towards myself. But in our
+walks abroad we frequently managed to meet as if by accident. Half a
+league outside the Porta Romana the high road traverses a hollow way
+between melancholy uplands on either hand, relieved only by a few gloomy
+larches. Under the clayey slope of the northern escarpment and close by
+the roadside, a dry well rears its light canopy of open ironwork.
+
+At this spot I would encounter the Reverend Father Adone Doni almost
+every evening, seated on the coping of the well, his hands buried in the
+sleeves of his gown, gazing out with mild surprise into the night. The
+gathering dusk still left it possible to make out on his bright-eyed,
+flat-nosed face the habitual expression of timid daring and graceful
+irony which was impressed upon it so profoundly. At first we merely
+exchanged formal good wishes for each other's health, peace and
+happiness. Then I would take my place by his side on the old stone
+well-head, that bore some traces of carving. It was still possible, in
+full daylight, to distinguish a figure with a head bigger than its body
+and representing an Angel, as seemed indicated by the wings.
+
+The Reverend Father never failed to say courteously:
+
+"Welcome, Signore! Welcome to the Well of St. Clare."
+
+One evening I asked him the reason why the well bore the name of this
+favourite disciple of St. Francis. He informed me it was because of a
+very edifying little miracle, which for all its charm had unfortunately
+never found a place in the collection of the _Fioretti_. I begged him to
+oblige me by telling it, which he proceeded to do in the following
+terms:
+
+"In the days when the poor man of Jesus Christ, Francis, son of
+Bernardone, used to journey from town to town teaching holy simplicity
+and love, he visited Sienna, in company with Brother Leo, the man of his
+own heart. But the Siennese, a covetous and cruel generation, true sons
+of the She-Wolf on whose milk they boasted themselves to have been
+suckled, gave a sorry welcome to the holy man, who bade them take into
+their house two ladies of a perfect beauty, to wit Poverty and
+Obedience. They overwhelmed him with obloquy and mocking laughter, and
+drove him forth from the city. He left the place in the night by the
+Porta Romana. Brother Leo, who tramped alongside, spoke up and said to
+him:--
+
+"'The Siennese have written on the gates of their city,--"Sienna opens
+her heart to you wider than her doors." And nevertheless, brother
+Francis, these same men have shut their hearts against us.'
+
+"And Francis, son of Bernardone, replied:
+
+"'The fault is with me, be sure of that, brother Leo, little lamb of
+God. I have not known how to knock at the doors of their hearts
+forcefully and skilfully enough. I am far below the fellows who set a
+bear dancing in the Great Piazza. For they draw together a great crowd
+by exhibiting the rude coarse beast, whilst I that had ladies of
+celestial fairness to show them, I have attracted no one. Brother Leo, I
+charge you, on your holy obedience, to say thus to me: "Brother Francis,
+you are a poor man, without any merit whatsoever, a stumbling-block and
+a very rock of offence!" And all the while Brother Leo was hesitating to
+obey, the holy man suffered grievously within himself. As he went on his
+murky way, his thoughts turned to pleasant Assisi, where he had left
+behind him his sons in the spirit, and Clare, daughter of his soul. He
+knew how Clare was exposed to great tribulations for the love of holy
+Poverty. And he doubted whether his well-beloved daughter were not sick
+of body and soul, and weary of well-doing, in the house of St. Damian.
+
+"So sore did these doubts weigh on him, that arrived at this spot where
+the road enters the hollow way between the hills, he seemed to feel his
+feet sink into the ground at each step he took. He dragged himself as
+far as the Well here, which was then in its pristine beauty and full of
+limpid water, and fell exhausted on the well-head where we are seated at
+this moment. A long while the man of God remained bent over the mouth of
+the well. After which, lifting up his head, he said joyfully to Brother
+Leo: 'What think you, brother Leo, lamb of God, I have seen in the
+Well?'
+
+"And Brother Leo answered:
+
+"'Brother Francis, you saw the moon reflected in the well.'
+
+"'My brother,' replied the Saint of God, 'it is not our sister the Moon
+I saw in the well, but by the Lord, the true countenance of sister
+Clare, and so pure and shining so bright with a holy joy that all my
+doubts were instantly dispelled, and it was made plain to me that our
+sister enjoys at this present hour the full content God accords his
+chosen vessels, loading them with the treasures of Poverty.'
+
+"So saying, the good St. Francis drank a few drops of water in the
+hollow of his hand, and arose refreshed.
+
+"And that is why the name of St. Clare was given to this Well."
+
+Such was the tale told by the Reverend Father Adone Doni.
+
+Night after night I returned to find the amiable Cordelier sitting on
+the edge of the mystic well. I would seat myself by his side, and he
+would tell over for my benefit some fragment of history known only to
+himself. He had many delightful stories of the sort to relate, being
+better read than any one else in the antiquities of his country. These
+lived again and grew bright and young in his head, as if it contained an
+intellectual Fountain of Eternal Youth. Ever fresh pictures flowed from
+his white-fringed lips. As he spoke, the moonlight bathed his beard in a
+silver flood. The crickets accompanied the narrator's voice with the
+shrilling of their wing-cases, and ever and anon his words, uttered in
+the softest of all dialects of human speech, would be answered by the
+fluted plaintive croaking of the frogs, which hearkened from across the
+road--a friendly, if apprehensive audience.
+
+I left Sienna towards the middle of June; and I have never seen the
+Reverend Father Adone Doni since. He clings to my memory like a figure
+in a dream; and I have now put into writing the tales he told me on the
+road of Monte Oliveto. They will be found in the present volume; I only
+hope they may have retained, in their new dress, some vestiges of the
+grace they had in the telling at the Well of St. Clare.
+
+
+
+
+SAN SATIRO
+
+TO ALPHONSE DAUDET
+
+
+
+
+SAN SATIRO
+
+  _Consors paterni luminis,
+  Lux ipse lucis et dies,
+  Noctem canendo rumpimus;
+  Assiste postulantibus._
+
+  _Aufer tenebras mentium;
+  Fuga catervas dæmonum;
+  Expelle somnolentiam,
+  Ne pigritantes obruat._[1]
+
+  (_Breviarium Romanum_
+  Third day of the week: at matins.)
+
+[Footnote 1: "Partner of the Father's light, light of light and day of
+day, we break the dusk of night with psalms; help us now, Thy
+suppliants. Remove the darkness of our minds; scatter the demon hosts
+away; expel the sin of drowsiness, lest we be slack in serving Thee."]
+
+
+Fra Mino had raised himself by his humility above his brethren, and
+still a young man, he governed the Monastery of Santa Fiora wisely and
+well. He was devout, and loved long meditations and long prayers;
+sometimes he had ecstasies. After the example of his spiritual father,
+St. Francis, he composed songs in the vernacular tongue in celebration
+of perfect love, which is the love of God. And these exercises were
+without fault whether of metre or of meaning, for had he not studied the
+seven liberal Arts at the University of Bologna?
+
+Now one evening, as he was walking under the cloister arches, he felt
+his heart filled with trouble and sadness at the remembrance of a lady
+of Florence he had loved in the first flower of his youth, ere the habit
+of St. Francis was a safeguard to his flesh. He prayed God to drive away
+the image; nevertheless his heart continued sad within him.
+
+"The bells," he pondered, "say like the Angels, AVE MARIA; but their
+voice is lost in the mists of heaven. On the cloister wall yonder, the
+Master Perugia delights to honour has painted marvellous well the three
+Marys contemplating with a love ineffable the body of the Saviour. But
+the night has veiled the tears in their eyes and the dumb sobs of their
+mouths, and I cannot weep with them. Yonder Well in the middle of the
+cloister garth was covered but now with doves that had come to drink,
+but these are flown away, for they found no water in the hollows of the
+carven well-head. And behold. Lord! my soul falls silent like the bells,
+is darkened like the holy Marys, and runs dry like the well. Why, Jesus
+my God! why is my heart arid, and dark, and dumb, when Thou art its
+dayspring, and the song of birds, and the water-brook flowing from the
+hills?"
+
+Fra Mino dreaded to return to his cell, and thinking prayer would dispel
+his melancholy and calm his disquiet, he passed into the Monastery
+Church by the low door leading from the cloister. Silence and gloom
+filled the building, raised more than a hundred and fifty years before
+on the foundations of a ruined Roman Temple by the great Margaritone. He
+traversed the Nave, and went and knelt in the Chapel behind the High
+Altar dedicated to San Michele, whose legend was painted in fresco on
+the wall. But the dim light of the lamp hanging from the vault was
+insufficient to show the Archangel fighting with Satan and weighing
+souls in the balance. Only the moon, shining through the great window,
+threw a pale ray over the Tomb of San Satiro, where it lay under an
+arcade to the right of the Altar. This tomb, in shape resembling the
+great vats used at vintage time, was more ancient than the Church and in
+all respects similar to a Pagan sarcophagus, except that the sign of the
+Cross was to be seen traced in three different places on its marble
+sides.
+
+Fra Mino remained for hours prostrate before the Altar; but he found it
+impossible to pray, and at midnight felt himself weighed down under the
+same heaviness that overcame Jesus Christ's disciples in the Garden of
+Gethsemane. And lo! as he lay there without courage or counsel, he saw
+as it were a white cloud rise above the tomb of San Satiro, and
+presently observed that this cloud was made up of a multitude of
+cloudlets, of which each one was a woman. They floated in the dim air;
+and through their light raiment shone the whiteness of their light
+limbs. Then Fra Mino saw how among them were goat-footed young men who
+were chasing them. These were naked, and nothing hid the terrifying
+ardour of their desires. And the nymphs fled away from them, while
+beneath their racing steps there sprang up flowery meadows and brooks of
+water. Each time a goat-foot put out his hand to seize one of them, a
+sallow would shoot up suddenly to hide the nymph in its hollow trunk as
+in a cave, and the grey leaves shivered with light murmurings and spurts
+of mocking laughter.
+
+When all the women were hidden in the sallows, their goat-footed lovers,
+sitting on the grass of the new-come meadows, breathed in their flutes
+of reeds and drew from them sounds to destroy the peace of any creature
+of the earth. The nymphs were fascinated, and soon began to peep out
+between the branches, and one by one deserting the shady covert, drew
+near under the irresistible attraction of the music. Then the goat-men
+rushed upon them with a demoniac fury. Folded in the arms of their
+ruthless assailants, the nymphs strove to keep up a while longer their
+raillery and loud laughter, but the mirth died on their lips. With heads
+thrown back and eyes swooning with joy and terror, they could only call
+upon their mother, or scream a shrill "You are killing me," or keep a
+sullen silence.
+
+Fra Mino longed to turn his head, but he could not, and his eyes
+remained wide open in spite of himself.
+
+Meanwhile the nymphs, winding their arms about the goat-men's loins,
+fell to biting and caressing and provoking their hairy lovers, and body
+intertwined with body, they enfolded and bathed them in their tender
+flesh that was sweeter and softer and more living than the water of the
+brook which ran by them under the sallows.
+
+At the sight, Fra Mino fell, in mind and intention, into deadly sin. He
+desired to be one of these demons, half men and half beasts, and hold to
+his bosom, after their carnal fashion, the fair lady of Florence he had
+loved in the flower of his years, and who was now dead.
+
+But already the goat-men were scattering through the country-side. Some
+were busied gathering honey in the hollow trunks of oaks, others carving
+reeds into the shape of flutes, or butting one against the other,
+crashing their horned brows together. Meantime the bodies of the nymphs,
+sweet wrecks of love, lay motionless, strewing the meadows. Fra Mino lay
+groaning on the Chapel flags; for so fierce had been the desire of sin
+within him that now he was filled full of bitter shame at his own
+weakness.
+
+Suddenly one of the nymphs, chancing as she lay to turn her eyes upon
+him, cried out:
+
+"A man! a man!"
+
+And pointing him out to her companions:
+
+"Look, sisters; yonder is no goat-herd, he has no flute of reed beside
+him. Nor yet do I recognize him for the master of one of those rustic
+farmsteads whose garden-close, sloping to the hill-side beneath the
+vines, is guarded by a Priapus hewn out of a stump of beech. What would
+he among us, if he is neither goat-herd, nor neat-herd, nor gardener?
+His looks are harsh and gloomy, and I cannot read in his eyes the love
+of the gods and goddesses that people the wide sky, the woods and
+mountains. He wears a barbarous habit; perhaps he is a Scythian. Let us
+approach the stranger, my sisters, and make sure he is not come as a foe
+to sully our fountains, hew down our trees, tear open our hill-sides
+and betray to cruel men the mystery of our happy lurking places. Come
+with me, Mnaïs; come, Ægle, Neæra and Melibœa.
+
+"On! on!" returned Mnaïs, "on, with our arms in hand!"
+
+"On! on!" all cried in chorus.
+
+Then Fra Mino saw them spring up, and gather great handfuls of roses,
+and advance upon him in a long line, each armed with roses and thorns.
+But the distance that separated them from him, which at first had seemed
+very short, for indeed he thought almost to touch them and felt their
+breath on his face, appeared suddenly to increase, and he watched them
+coming as though from out a far-off forest. Impatient to be at him, they
+began to run, threatening him with their cruel flowers, while menaces
+flew from their flower-like lips. And lo! as they came nearer, a change
+was wrought in them; at each step they lost something of their grace and
+beauty, and the bloom of their youth faded as fast as the roses in their
+hands. First their eyes grew hollow and the mouth fell in. The neck, but
+now so pure and white, hung in great hideous folds, and grey elf-locks
+draggled over their wrinkled brows. On they came; and their eyes were
+circled with red, their lips drawn in upon the toothless gums. On they
+came, carrying dead roses in their arms, which were black and writhen
+as the old vine stocks the peasants of Chianti burn for firewood in the
+winter nights. On they came, with shaking heads and palsied thighs,
+tottering and trembling.
+
+Arrived at the spot where Fra Mino stood rooted to the ground with
+affright, they were no better than a crowd of horrid witches, bald and
+bearded, nose and chin touching, and bosoms hanging loose and flabby.
+They came crowding round him:
+
+"Ah, ha! the pretty darling!" cried one. "He is as white as a sheet, and
+his heart beats like a hare the dogs are snapping at. Ægle, sister mine,
+say, what must be done with him?"
+
+"Neæra mine!" Ægle replied, "why! we must open his breast, tear out his
+heart and put a sponge in its place instead."
+
+"Not so!" said Melibœa. "That were making him pay too dear for his
+curiosity and the pleasure he has had in surprising our frolic. Enough
+for this time to inflict a light chastisement. Say, shall we give him a
+good whipping?"
+
+Straightway surrounding the Monk, the sisters dragged his gown above his
+head and belaboured him with the handfuls of thorns they still held.
+
+The blood was beginning to come, when Neæra signed to them to stop:
+
+"Enough!" she cried! "he is my gallant, I tell you! I saw him just now
+casting tender eyes at me; I would content his wishes, and grant him my
+favours without more delay."
+
+She smiled alluringly; and a long, black tooth projecting from her mouth
+tickled his nostril. She murmured softly:
+
+"Come, come, my Adonis!"
+
+Then suddenly, wild with rage:
+
+"Fie, fie! his senses are benumbed. His coldness offends my charms. He
+scorns me; avenge me, comrades! Mnaïs, Ægle, Melibœa, avenge your
+sister!"
+
+At this appeal, one and all, lifting their thorny whips, fell to
+scourging him so savagely that Fra Mino's body was soon one wound from
+head to toe. Now and again they would stop to cough and spit, only to
+begin afresh, plying their whips more vigorously than ever. Only sheer
+weariness induced them to leave off.
+
+"I hope," Neæra then said, "next time he will not do me the undeserved
+insult I still blush to remember. We will spare his life; but if he
+betrays the secret of our sports and pleasures, we will surely kill him.
+Good-bye to you, my pretty boy!"
+
+So saying, the old woman suddenly squatted down over the Monk and
+drowned him in a torrent of very filthy liquid. Each sister followed
+suit and did the like; then one after the other they re-entered the tomb
+of San Satiro, slipping in through a tiny crack in the lid, leaving
+their victim lying full length in a stream of a most intolerable stench.
+
+When the last had disappeared,--the cock crew. Then Fra Mino at last
+found himself able to rise from the earth. Broken with fatigue and pain,
+benumbed with cold, shuddering with fever, half stifled with the foul
+exhalations of the poisonous liquor, he set his clothing straight and
+dragged himself to his cell, just as day broke.
+
+From that night on, Fra Mino never had a moment's peace. The
+recollection of what he had seen in the Chapel of San Michele, above San
+Satiro's tomb, disturbed him in the Church services and in all his pious
+exercises. He trembled when he visited the Church along with his
+fellows; and as his turn came, according to the rule, to kiss the
+pavement of the Choir, his lips shuddered to encounter the traces of the
+nymphs' presence, and he would murmur: "O! my Saviour, dost not Thou
+hear me say what Thou didst Thyself say to Thy Father, Lead us not, we
+beseech Thee, into temptation?" At first he had thought of sending to
+the Lord Bishop an account of what he had witnessed. But on riper
+reflexion, he became convinced it were better to meditate at leisure on
+these extraordinary events and only divulge them after a more exhaustive
+study of all the circumstances. Besides it so happened that the Lord
+Bishop, allied with the Guelphs of Pisa against the Ghibellines of
+Florence, was at that moment waging war with such right good will that
+for a whole month he had not so much as unbuckled his cuirass. And that
+is why, without saying a word to anyone, Fra Mino made profound
+researches on the tomb of San Satiro and the Chapel containing it.
+Deeply versed in the knowledge of books, he investigated many texts,
+both ancient and modern; yet found no glimmer of enlightenment in any of
+them. Indeed the only effect of the works on Magic which he studied was
+to double his uncertainty.
+
+One morning, after labouring all the night as was his wont, he was fain
+to refresh his heart with a walk in the fields. He took the hilly path
+which, winding between the vines and the elms they are wedded to, leads
+to a wood of myrtles and olives, sacred in old days to the Roman gods.
+His feet bathed in the wet grass, his brow refreshed by the dew that
+distilled from the pointed leaves of the Guelder roses, Fra Mino
+wandered long in the forest, till he came upon a spring over which the
+wild tamarisks gently swayed their light foliage and the downy clusters
+of their pink berries. Lower down amid the willows, where the water
+formed a wider pool, herons stood motionless, while the smaller birds
+sang sweetly in the branching myrtles. The scent of mint rose moist and
+fragrant from the ground, and the grass was spangled with the flowers of
+which our Lord said that "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
+one of these." Fra Mino sat down on a mossy stone and praising God, Who
+made the heavens and the dew, he fell to pondering the hidden mysteries
+of Nature.
+
+Now the remembrance of all he had seen in the Chapel of San Michele
+never left his thoughts; so he sat meditating, his head between his
+hands, wondering for the thousandth time what the dream might signify:
+"For indeed," he said to himself, "such a vision must needs have a
+meaning; it should even have several, which it behoves to discover,
+whether by sudden illumination, or by dint of an exact applying of the
+scholastic rules. And I deem that, in this especial case, the poets I
+studied at Bologna, such as Horace the Satirist and Statius, should
+likewise be of great help to me, seeing many verities are intermingled
+with their fables."
+
+After long pondering these thoughts within his breast, and others more
+subtle still, he lifted his eyes and perceived he was not alone. Leaning
+against the cavernous trunk of an ancient holm-oak, an old man stood
+gazing at the sky through the leaves, and smiling to himself. Above his
+hoary brow peeped out two shorty blunt horns. His nose was flat with
+wide nostrils, and from his chin depended a white beard, through which
+were visible the rugged muscles of the neck. A shaggy growth of hair
+covered his breast, while from the thighs downwards his limbs showed a
+thick fleece that trailed down to his cloven feet. He held to his lips a
+flute of reed, from which he drew a feeble sound of music. Then he began
+to sing in a voice that left the words barely distinguishable:
+
+
+  Laughing she fled,
+  Her teeth in the golden grape;
+  After I sped,
+  And clasping her flying shape,
+  I quenched my drouth
+  On the fruit at her mouth.
+
+
+Astounded at these strange sights and sounds, Fra Mino crossed himself.
+Still the old man showed no mark of confusion, but cast a long and
+artless look at the Monk. Amid the deep wrinkles that scored his face,
+the clear blue eyes sparkled like the waters of a spring through the
+rugged bark of a grove of oaks.
+
+"Man or beast," shrilled Mino, "I command you in the name of the Saviour
+to say who you are."
+
+"My son," replied the old man, "I am San Satiro! Speak not so loud, for
+fear of frightening the birds."
+
+Then Fra Mino resumed, in a quieter tone:
+
+"Forasmuch, old man, as you shrank not before the dread sign of the
+Cross, I cannot hold you to be a demon or some foul spirit escaped out
+of Hell. But if verily and indeed you are a man, as you say you are, or
+rather the soul of a man sanctified by the deeds of a good life and by
+the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, expound, I pray you, the mystery of
+your goat's horns and your shaggy limbs ending in those black, cloven
+hoofs."
+
+At the question, the old man lifted up his arms towards heaven, and
+said:
+
+"My son, the nature of men and animals, of plants and stones, is the
+secret of the immortal gods, and I know as little as yourself what is
+the reason of these horns wherewith my brow is decked, and which the
+Nymphs used in olden days to wind about with garlands of flowers. I
+cannot tell you the meaning of the two wrinkled folds that droop from my
+neck, nor why I have the feet of a wanton goat. But I would have you
+know, my son, there was once in these woods a race of women having
+horned brows like mine and shaggy thighs. Yet were their bosoms round
+and white, and their belly and polished loins shone in the light. The
+sun was young then, and loved to fleck them with his golden arrows, as
+they lay beneath the shady foliage. They were very fair, my son; but
+alas! they have vanished from the woods, every one. My mates have
+perished likewise, and I am left lonely, the last of my tribe."
+
+"I would fain know your age, old man, and your lineage and country."
+
+"My son, I was born of the Earth long ere Jupiter had dethroned Saturn,
+and my eyes have looked upon the flowery freshness of the new-created
+World. Not yet had the human race emerged from the clay. Alone with me,
+the dancing Satyr girls set the ground ringing with the rhythmic beat of
+their double hoofs. They were taller and stronger and fairer than either
+Nymphs or Women; and their ampler loins received abundantly the seed of
+the first-born of Earth.
+
+"Under the reign of Jupiter the Nymphs began to inhabit fountains and
+forests and mountains; while the Fauns, accoupling with the Nymphs,
+formed light-footed bands that roamed the woods together. Meantime I
+spent a happy life, tasting at will the clusters of the wild grapes and
+the lips of the laughing Faun-girls. I enjoyed deep and restful slumbers
+amid the lush grass; and I would celebrate on my rustic flute Jupiter,
+Saturn's successor, for it is of my nature to praise the gods, masters
+of the world.
+
+"Alas! and I am grown old, for I am but a god, and the centuries have
+blanched the hairs of my head and of my bosom, and have extinguished the
+fire of my reins. I was already heavily weighted with years when the
+Great Pan died, and Jupiter, meeting the same lot he had laid upon
+Saturn, was dethroned by the Galilean. Since then I have dragged out an
+ever-flagging life, so feeble and languid that at last it fell out I
+died, and was entombed. And verily I am now but the shadow of myself. If
+I still exist a little, it is because nothing ever really perishes, and
+none is suffered altogether to die out. Death must never be more perfect
+and complete than life. Beings lost in the Ocean of Things are like the
+waves you may watch, my child, rising and falling in the Adriatic Sea.
+They have neither beginning nor end, they are born and die insensibly.
+Insensibly as the waves, my soul passes. A faint far-off memory of the
+satyr girls of the Golden Age yet brightens my eyes, and on my lips
+float soundlessly the ancient hymns of praise."
+
+This said, he fell silent. Fra Mino gazed at the old man, and knew him,
+that he was a phantom and nothing more.
+
+"Yes! you may indeed be a goat-foot," he told him gravely, "without
+being a demon; 'tis not a thing wholly incredible. Such creatures as God
+framed to have no part in Adam's heritage, these can no more be damned
+than they can be saved. I can never believe that the Centaur Cheiron,
+who was wiser than men are, is suffering eternal torments in the belly
+of Leviathan. A traveller who penetrated once into Limbo, relates how he
+saw him seated in a grassy spot and conversing with Rhipheus, the most
+righteous man of all the Trojans. Others indeed affirm that Holy
+Paradise itself has been opened to admit Rhipheus of Troy. Any way the
+case Is one where doubt Is not unlawful. But you lied, old man, when you
+told me you were a Saint, who are not so much even as a man."
+
+The goat-foot made answer:
+
+"My son, when I was young, I was no more used to lie than the sheep
+whose milk I sucked or the he-goats with which I would butt in the joy
+of my strength and beauty. Lies were unknown In those times, nor had the
+sheep's fleece yet learned to assume factitious hues; and my soul has
+remained unchanged from that day to this. See, I go naked as in the
+golden age of Saturn; and my spirit is veiled as little as my body. I am
+no liar. And why indeed should you deem It a thing so extraordinary, my
+son, that I have become a Saint in the train of the Galilean, albeit no
+offspring of the first mother some name Eve and others Pyrrha, and whom
+it is very meet to reverence under either title? Nay! for that matter,
+neither is St. Michael woman-born. I know him, and at times we have
+talks together, he and I. He tells me of the days when he was an ox-herd
+on Mount Garganus...."
+
+But here Fra Mino interrupted the Satyr:
+
+"I cannot suffer you to say St. Michael was an ox-herd, because he
+guarded the cattle of a man whose name was Garganus, the same as the
+Mountain. But there, I would fain learn, old man, how you were made a
+Saint."
+
+"Listen," replied the goat-foot, "and your curiosity shall be satisfied.
+
+"When men coming from the East proclaimed in the fair vale of Arno how
+that the Galilean had dethroned Jupiter, they hewed down the oaks
+whereon the country folk were used to hang up little goddesses of clay
+and votive tablets; they planted crosses over against the holy
+fountains, and forbade the shepherds any more to carry to the grottos of
+the Nymphs offerings of wine and milk and cakes. Naturally enough this
+angered all the tribe of Fauns and Pans and Sylvan Genii, and in their
+wrath these attacked the apostles of the new God. When the holy men
+were asleep of nights, on their bed of dry leaves, the Nymphs would
+steal up and pull their beards, while the young Fauns, slipping into
+their stable, would pluck out hairs from their she-ass's tail. In vain I
+sought to disarm their simple malice and exhort them to submission. 'My
+children,' I would warn them, 'the days of easy gaiety and light
+laughter are gone by.' But they were reckless, and would not hearken;
+and a sore price they paid for their heedlessness.
+
+"But for myself, had I not seen the reign of Saturn come to an end? and
+I deemed it natural and just that Jupiter should perish in his turn. I
+was prepared to acquiesce in the downfall of the great old gods, and
+offered no resistance to the emissaries of the Galilean. Nay! I did them
+sundry little services. Better acquainted than they with the forest
+paths, I would gather mulberries and sloes, and lay them on leaves at
+the threshold of their grotto, and make them little presents of plovers'
+eggs. Then, if they were building a cabin, I would carry the timber and
+stones for them on my back. In gratitude, they poured water on my brow,
+invoking on my head the peace of Jesus Christ.
+
+"So I lived with them and in their way; and those who loved them, loved
+me. As they were honoured, so was I, and my sanctity seemed as great as
+theirs.
+
+"I have told you, my son, I was already very old in those days. The sun
+had scarce heat enough to warm my benumbed limbs. I was no better than
+an old rotten tree, that has lost its crown of fresh leaves and singing
+birds. Each returning Autumn brought my end nearer; and one Winter's
+morning they found me stretched motionless by the roadside.
+
+"The Bishop, followed by his Priests and all the people, celebrated my
+obsequies. Then I was laid in a great tomb of white marble, marked in
+three places with the sign of the Cross, and bearing carved on the slab
+in front the words _Sanctus Satyrus_, within a garland of roses.
+
+"In those times, my son, tombs were erected along the roadsides. Mine
+was placed two miles out from the city, on the Florence road. A young
+plane-tree grew up over it, and threw its shadow across it, dappled with
+sunlight and full of bird songs and twitterings, freshness and joy. Near
+by, a fountain flowed over a bed of water-weed, where the boys and girls
+came laughing merrily to bathe together. It was a charming spot--and
+soon a holy one as well. Thither young mothers would bring their babies
+and let them touch the marble of the tomb, that they might grow up
+sturdy and straight in all their limbs. The country folk one and all
+believed that new-born infants presented at my grave must one day
+surpass their fellows in strength and courage. This is why they brought
+me all the flower of the gallant Tuscan race. Moreover the peasants
+often led their asses thither in hopes of making them prolific. My
+memory was revered; each year at the return of Spring, the Bishop used
+to come with his Clergy to pray over my bones, and I could watch far
+away through the meadow grass the slow approach of Cross and Candle in
+procession, the scarlet canopy, and the chanting acolytes. Thus it was,
+my son, in the days of good King Berengar.
+
+"Meantime, the Satyrs and the Satyr girls, the Fauns and Nymphs, dragged
+out a wretched, wandering life. No more altars of meadow turf for them,
+no more wreaths of flowers, no more offerings of milk and wheat and
+honey. Only now and then at long intervals some goat-herd would
+furtively lay a tiny cheese on the threshold of the sacred grot, whose
+entrance was almost blocked now with thorns and brambles. But it was
+merely the rabbits and squirrels came to eat these poor dainties. The
+Nymphs were dwellers in distant forests and gloomy caves, driven forth
+of their old homes by the apostles from the East. And to hinder their
+ever returning more, the priests of the Galilean God poured over trees
+and stones a charmed water, and pronounced magic words, and set up
+crosses where roads met in the forest; for the Galilean, my son, is
+learned in the art of incantations. Better than Saturn, better than
+Jupiter, he knows the virtue of formularies and mystic signs. Thus the
+poor rustic Divinities could no more find refuge in their sacred woods.
+The company of long-haired, goat-footed Satyrs, that beat of yore their
+mother earth with sounding hoof, was but a cloud of pale, dumb shadows
+trailing along the mountain-side like the morning mist the Sun melts and
+dispels.
+
+"Buffeted, as by a fierce wind, by the wrath of Heaven, their spectral
+forms would be whirled eddying all day long in the dust of the roads.
+The night on the contrary was somewhat less hostile to them. Night is
+not wholly the Galilean God's; He shares its dominion with the devils.
+As the shades of night descended from the hills, Fauns and Faun-women,
+Nymphs and Pans, came huddling beneath the shelter of the tombs along
+the roadside, and there under the kindly empire of the infernal powers
+would enjoy a brief repose. Of all the tombs they liked mine the best,
+as that of a reverend ancestor of their own. Soon all assembled under
+that part of the cornice which, giving South, was quite free of moss
+and always dry. Thither the airy folk came flying every evening as
+surely as doves to the dovecote. They easily found room, grown tiny now
+and light as the chaff that scuds before the winnowing-fan. For my own
+part, sallying out from my quiet death-chamber, I would sit down
+sometimes in the midst of them under shelter of the marble edge-tiles,
+and in a feeble, whistling voice sing them songs of the days of Saturn
+and Jupiter; then they would remember the happy times gone by for ever.
+Under the eyes of Diana, they would join to make a show of their ancient
+pastimes, and the belated traveller would seem to see the night mists of
+the meadows in the moonlight mimic the intertwining limbs of lovers. And
+in very deed they were little more than a fleeting fog themselves. The
+cold tried them sorely. One night, when the snow shrouded the fields,
+the Nymphs Ægle, Neæra, Mnaïs and Melibœa glided through the cracks
+in the marble into the narrow, gloomy chamber where I dwell. Their
+comrades crowded after in their train, and the Fauns, dashing in pursuit
+of them, quickly joined them too. My house became their house. We
+scarcely ever left it, except to visit the woods, when the night was
+fine and clear. Even then they would make haste to return at the first
+cock-crow. For you must know, my son, that alone of the horned race I
+have leave to appear on this earth by the light of day. It is a
+privilege attached to my Saintship.
+
+"My tomb now inspired more veneration than ever among the country
+people, and every day young mothers came to present their nurslings to
+me, lifting the naked babes in their arms. When the sons of St. Francis
+settled in the land and built a monastery on the hill-side, they craved
+the Bishop's leave to transfer my monument to their Church and there
+keep it as a sacred thing. The favour was granted, and I was borne in
+great pomp to the Chapel of San Michele, where I repose to this day. My
+rustic family was carried thither along with me. It was a signal honour;
+but I confess I regretted the broad highway, where I could watch at dawn
+the peasant women carrying on their heads their basketfuls of grapes and
+figs and red aubergines. Time has hardly softened my regret, and I would
+I were still beneath the plane-tree on the Sacred Way.
+
+"Such is my life," ended the old Satyr. "It flows on pleasantly, gentle
+and unobtrusive, down all the ages of the world. If a touch of sadness
+mingles with the joy of it, 'tis because the gods have willed it so. Oh!
+my son, let us praise the gods, masters of the universe!"
+
+Fra Mino stood thinking a while. Then he said:
+
+"I understand now the meaning of what I saw, during that evil night, in
+the Chapel of San Michele. Still one point remains dark to my mind. Tell
+me why, old man, the Nymphs who, dwell with you, and couple with the
+fauns, changed into old women of squalid ugliness when they came nigh
+me."
+
+"Alas! my son," answered the Saint, "time spares neither men nor gods.
+These last are immortal only in the imagination of the short-lived race
+of men. In reality they suffer the penalties of age, and verge, as the
+centuries go by, towards irreparable decay. Nymphs grow old as well as
+women. No rose but turns into an arid hip at last; no Nymph but ends as
+an ugly Witchwife. Watching as you did the frolic of my little
+household, you saw how the memory of their bygone youth yet beautifies
+the Nymphs and Fauns in the moment of their loves, and how their ardour,
+reanimated an instant, can reanimate their charms. But the ruin of
+centuries shows again directly after. Alas! alas! the race of the Nymphs
+is old, very old and decrepit."
+
+Fra Mino asked yet another question:
+
+"Old man! if what you say is true, and you have won to blessedness by
+mysterious ways, if it is true--however absurd--that you are a Saint,
+how comes it you house in your tomb with these phantoms which know not
+to praise God, and which pollute with their indecencies the temple of
+the Lord? Answer me, old man!"
+
+But the goat-footed Saint, without a word of answer, vanished softly
+away into thin air.
+
+Seated on a mossy stone beside the spring, Fra Mino pondered the
+discourse he had just listened to, and found it contained, along with
+some passages impenetrably obscure, others that were full of clearness
+and enlightenment.
+
+"This Satyr Saint," he reflected, "maybe likened to the Sibyl, who in
+the pantheon of the false gods, proclaimed the coming Redeemer to the
+Nations. The mire of old-world falsehoods yet clings about the hoofs of
+his feet, but his forehead is uplifted to the light, and his lips
+confess the truth."
+
+As the shadow of the beeches was lengthening along the grassy hill-side,
+the Monk rose up from his stone and began to descend the narrow path
+that led to the House of the Sons of St. Francis. But he dared not let
+his eyes rest on the flowers sleeping on the surface of the pools, for
+he saw in them the likeness of the wanton nymphs. He got back to his
+cell at the moment when the bells were sounding the _Ave Maria_. It was
+a small, white chamber, furnished simply with a bed, a stool, and one of
+the high desks writers use. On the wall a mendicant friar had painted
+years ago, in the manner of Giotto, a representation of the holy Marys
+at the foot of the Cross. Below this painting, a shelf of wood, as black
+and polished as the beams of an ancient oil-press, was covered with
+books. Of these, some were sacred, others profane, for Fra Mino was a
+student of the classic poets, to the end he might praise God in all the
+works of men, and blessed the good Virgil for having prophesied the
+birth of the Saviour, when the bard of Mantua declares to the Nations:
+_Jam redit et Virgo._[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Now the Virgin too returns.]
+
+On the window-sill a tall lily stood in a vase of coarse earthenware,
+for Fra Mino loved to trace the name of the Blessed Virgin inscribed in
+the gold dust of the flower's calyx. The window itself, which opened
+very high up in the wall, was small, but the sky could be seen from it,
+blue above the purple hills.
+
+Ensconced in this pleasant tomb of his life and longings, Mino sat down
+before the narrow desk, with its two shelves at top, where he was
+accustomed to devote himself to his studies. Then, dipping his reed in
+the inkhorn fastened to the side of the little coffer that held his
+sheets of parchment, his brushes, and his colours and gold dust, he
+besought the flies, in the name of the Lord, not to annoy him, and began
+to write the account of all he had seen and heard in the Chapel of San
+Michele, during his night of torment, as well as on the day just done,
+in the woods by the stream side. And first of all, he traced these lines
+on the parchment:
+
+"_A true record of those things which Fra Mino, of the Order of Friars
+Minors, saw and heard, and which he doth here relate for the instruction
+of the Faithful. To the praise of Jesus Christ and the glory of the
+blessed and humble poor man of Christ, St. Francis. Amen._"
+
+Then he set down in order in writing, without omitting aught, all he had
+noted of the nymphs that turned into witches and the old man with horns
+on his brow, whose voice quavered in the woods like a last sigh of the
+Classic flute and a first prelude of the Christian harp. While he wrote,
+the birds sang; and night closed in slowly, blotting out the bright
+colours of the day. The Monk lighted his lamp, and went on with his
+writing. As he recounted each several marvel he had made acquaintance
+with, he carefully expounded its literal, and its spiritual,
+signification, all according to the rules of rhetoric and theology. And
+just as men fence about cities with walls and towers to make them
+strong, so he supported all his arguments with texts of Scripture. He
+concluded from the singular revelations he had received: firstly, that
+Jesus Christ is Lord of all creatures, and is God of the Satyrs and the
+Pans, as well as of men. This is why St. Jerome saw in the Desert
+Centaurs that confessed Jesus Christ; secondly, that God had
+communicated to the Pagans certain glimmerings of light, to the end they
+might be saved. Likewise the Sibyls, for instance the Cumæan, the
+Egyptian and the Delphic, did these not foreshadow, amid the darkness of
+the Gentiles, the Holy Cradle, the Rods, the Reed, the Crown of Thorns
+and the Cross itself? For which reason St. Augustine admitted the
+Erythræan Sibyl into the City of God. Fra Mino gave thanks to God for
+having taught him so much learning; and a great joy flooded his heart to
+think Virgil was among the elect. And he wrote gleefully at the bottom
+of the last leaf:
+
+"_Here endeth the Apocalypse of Brother Mino, the poor man of Jesus
+Christ. I have seen the aureole of the blessed Saints crowning the
+horned forehead of the Satyr, in token that Jesus Christ hath redeemed
+from the shades of limbo the sages and poets of Antiquity._"
+
+The night was already far spent when, having finished his task, Fra Mino
+stretched himself upon his bed to snatch a little repose. Just as he was
+dropping asleep, an old woman came in at the window, riding on a
+moonbeam. He recognized her instantly for the ugliest of the witches he
+had seen in the Chapel of San Michele.
+
+"My sweet," she said, addressing him, "what have you been doing this
+day? Yet we warned you, I and my pretty sisters, you must not reveal our
+secrets. For if you betrayed us, we told you we should kill you. And
+sorry I should be, for indeed I love you tenderly."
+
+She clipped him in her arms, called him her heavenly Adonis, her
+darling, her little white ass, and lavished a thousand ardent caresses
+on him.
+
+Anon, when he repulsed her with a spasm of disgust,
+
+"Child, child!" she said to him, "you scorn me, because my eyes are
+rimmed with red, my nostrils rotted with the acrid, fetid humour they
+distil, and my gums adorned with a single tooth, and that black and
+extravagantly long. Such is your Neæra to-day, it is too true. But if
+you love me, I shall once more become, by you and for you, what I was in
+the golden days of Saturn, when my youth was in blossom amid the
+blossoms of the young, flower-decked world. 'Tis love, oh! my young god,
+that makes the beauty of things. To restore my beauty, all that is
+needed is a little courage. Up, Mino, be bold and show your mettle!"
+
+At these words, which were accompanied by appropriate gestures, Fra
+Mino, shuddering with fear and horror, felt himself swoon away, and
+slipped from his bed on to the pavement of his cell. As he fell, he
+seemed to catch a glimpse, between his half-closed lids, of a nymph of
+perfect shape and peerless beauty, whose naked body rolled over his like
+waves of milk.
+
+He woke in broad daylight, bruised and broken by his fall. The leaves of
+the manuscript he had written the night before still littered the desk.
+He read them through again, folded and sealed them with his seal, put
+the roll inside his gown, and unheeding the menaces the witches had
+twice over given him, started to carry his revelations to the Lord
+Bishop, whose Palace lifted its battlements above the roofs in the
+middle of the city. He found him donning his spurs in the Great Hall,
+surrounded by his men-at-arms. For the Bishop was just then at war with
+the Ghibellines of Florence. He asked the Monk to what he owed his
+visit, and on being informed of the matter, invited him there and then
+to read out his report. Fra Mino obeyed, and the Bishop heard out his
+tale to the end. He had no special lights on the subject of apparitions;
+but he was animated with an ardent zeal for the interests of the Faith.
+Without a day's delay, and not suffering the cares of the War to
+distract him from his purpose, he appointed twelve famous Doctors in
+Theology and Canon Law to examine into the affair, urging them to give
+a definite and speedy decision. After mature inquiry and not without
+again and again cross-questioning Fra Mino, the Doctors determined the
+best thing to do was to open the tomb of San Satiro in the Chapel of San
+Michele, and go through a course of special exorcisms on the spot. As to
+the points of doctrine raised by Fra Mino, they declined to pronounce a
+formal opinion, inclining however to regard as rash, frivolous and
+new-fangled the arguments advanced by the Franciscan.
+
+Agreeably to the advice of the learned Doctors and by order of the
+Bishop, the tomb of San Satiro was opened. It was found to contain
+nothing but a handful of ashes, which the priests sprinkled with holy
+water. At this there rose a white vapour, from which issued a sound of
+faint and feeble groans.
+
+The night following this pious ceremony Fra Mino dreamed that the
+witches, bending over his bed, were tearing his heart out of his bosom.
+He rose at dawn, tortured with sharp pains and devoured by a raging
+thirst. He dragged himself as far as the cloister well, where the doves
+used to drink. But no sooner had he drained down a few drops of water
+that filled a hollow in the well-head than he felt his heart swell
+within him like a sponge, and with a stifled cry to God, he choked and
+died.
+
+
+
+
+MESSER GUIDO CAVALCANTI
+
+TO JULES LEMAÎTRE
+
+
+
+
+MESSER GUIDO CAVALCANTI
+
+  _Guido, di Messer Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, fu un de' migliori loici
+  che avesse il mondo, et ottimo filosofo naturale.... E perciò che egli
+  alquanto tenea della opinione degli Epicuri, si diceva tra la gente
+  volgare che queste sue speculazioni eran solo in cercare se trovar si
+  potesse che Iddio non fosse._[1] (The _Decameron_ of Messer Giovanni
+  Boccaccio, Sixth Day, Novella IX.)
+
+       DIM
+  NON. FVI. ME.
+  MINI. NON. SVM.
+  NON. CVRO. DO.
+  NNIA. ITALIA. AN.
+  NORVM. XX. HIC.
+  QVIESCO.[2]
+
+  (Inscription from the _Cippus of Donnia Italia_ as read by M.
+  Jean-François Bladé.)
+
+[Footnote 1: "Guido, son of Messer Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, was one of
+the best Logicians the world held, and a most finished Natural
+Philosopher.... And forasmuch as in some degree he held by the opinion
+of the Epicureans, it was therefore said among the vulgar folk how that
+these his speculations were only pursued for to discover if it might be
+there was no God."]
+
+[Footnote 2: "To the Gods of the Lower World.--I was not. I remember. I
+am not and I heed not. I, Donnia Italia, a maid of twenty, rest here."]
+
+
+Messer Guido Cavalcanti was, in the twentieth year of his age, the most
+agreeable and the best-built man of all the Florentine nobles. Beneath
+his long, dark locks, which escaping from under his cap, fell in jetty
+curls over his white brow, his eyes, that had a golden gleam in them,
+shone out with a dazzling brilliance. He possessed the arms of Hercules
+and the hands of a Nymph. His shoulders were broad, and his figure slim
+and supple. He was well skilled in breaking difficult horses and
+wielding heavy weapons, and a peerless rider at the ring. Whenever he
+passed along the city streets to hear Mass at San Giovanni or San
+Michele, or walked by Arno side in the water-meadows, that were pranked
+with flowers like a beautiful picture, if any fair ladies, going in a
+troop together, met him in the way, they never failed to say the one to
+the other with a blush: "See, yonder is Messer Guido, son of the Lord
+Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti. 'Tis a very St. George for comeliness,
+pardi!" And men report that Madonna Gemma, wife of Sandro Bujamonte, one
+day sent her Nurse to let him know how she loved him with all her soul,
+and was like to die of longing. Nor less ardently was he invited to join
+the Companies the young Florentine lords were used in those days to form
+among themselves, feasting, supping, gaming and hunting together, and
+sometimes so dearly loving each other that one and all would wear
+garments of a like cut and colour. But with equal disdain he shunned the
+society of Florentine ladies and the assemblages of her young Nobles;
+for so proud and fierce was his humour, he took no pleasure but in
+solitude.
+
+He would often stay all the day shut up in his chamber, then forth to
+wander solitary beneath the holm-oaks that bordered the Ema road at the
+hour when the first stars are a-tremble in the pale evening sky. If by
+chance he encountered riders of his own age, he never laughed, and said
+little--and that little was not always comprehensible. His strange
+bearing and ambiguous words were a grief and a grievance to his
+comrades--and above all to Messer Betto Brunelleschi, for he dearly
+loved Messer Guido, and had no fonder wish than to make him one of the
+Brotherhood which embraced the richest and the handsomest young noblemen
+of Florence, and of which he was himself the glory and the delight. For
+indeed Messer Betto Brunelleschi was reputed the fine flower of chivalry
+and the most perfect knight of all Tuscany--after Messer Guido.
+
+One day as the latter was just entering the Porch of Santa Maria
+Novella, where the Monks of the Order of Saint Dominic kept at that time
+a number of books that had been brought to Italy by the Greeks, Messer
+Betto, who was crossing the Piazza at the moment, loudly hailed his
+friend:
+
+"Hola! Guido mine," he shouted, "whither away now, this bright day,
+that invites you, methinks, to go fowling in the hills rather than hide
+in the gloom of the Cloister yonder? Do me a favour, and come to my
+house at Arezzo, where I will play the flute to you, for the pleasure of
+seeing you smile."
+
+"Grammercy!" replied Messer Guido, without so much as deigning to turn
+his head. "I am away to see my Lady."
+
+And so saying, he entered the Church, which he crossed with a rapid
+step, recking as little of the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the
+Altar as of Messer Betto, sitting stiff on his horse outside the
+door, astounded at the words he had just heard. Guido pushed open a
+low portal leading to the Cloisters, followed the Cloister wall, and
+arrived in the Library, where Fra Sisto was painting the figures of
+angels. There, after saluting the good Brother, he drew out from a
+great painted chest one of the books newly come from Constantinople,
+laid it on a desk and began to turn over the leaves. It was a
+Treatise on Love, writ in Greek by the divine Plato. Messer Guido
+sighed; his hands began to tremble and his eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Alas!" he muttered; "hid beneath these signs is the Light, and I cannot
+see it."
+
+He said thus to himself, because the knowledge of the Greek tongue was
+then altogether lost in the West. After many a long-drawn groan, he took
+the book, and kissing it, laid it in the iron chest like a beautiful
+dead woman in her coffin. Then he asked the good Fra Sisto to give him
+the Manuscript of the Speeches of Cicero, which he read, till the shades
+of evening, glooming down on the cypresses in the Cloister garden,
+spread their batlike wings over the pages of his book. For you must know
+Messer Guido Cavalcanti was a searcher after truth in the writings of
+the Ancients, and was for treading the arduous ways that lead mankind to
+immortality. Devoured by the noble longing of discovery, he would set
+out in canzones the doctrines of the old-world Sages concerning Love
+which is the path to Virtue.
+
+A few days later, Messer Betto Brunelleschi came to visit him at his own
+house on the promenade of the Adimari, at the peep of day, the hour when
+the lark sings in the corn. He found him still abed, and after kissing
+him, said tenderly:
+
+"My Guido, my Guido lad! put me out of my pain. Last week you told me
+you were on your way to visit your Lady in the Church and Cloister of
+Santa Maria Novella. Ever since I have been turning, turning your words
+in my head, without fathoming their meaning. I shall have no peace till
+you have given me an explanation of them. I beseech you, tell me what
+you meant--so far, that is, as your discretion shall suffer you, seeing
+the matter doth concern a lady."
+
+Messer Guido burst out a-laughing. Raising himself on his elbow in bed,
+he looked Messer Betto in the eyes.
+
+"Friend!" said he, "the Lady I spoke to you of hath more than one
+habitation. The day you saw me going to visit her, I found her in the
+Library of Santa Maria Novella. But alack! I heard but the one half of
+her discourse, for she spoke to me in both of the two languages that
+flow like honey from her adorable lips. First she delivered me a
+discourse in the tongue of the Greeks, which I could not comprehend,
+then she addressed me in the dialect of the Latins with a wondrous
+wisdom. And so well pleased was I with her conversation that I am right
+fain to marry her."
+
+"Tis at the least," said Messer Betto, "a niece of the Emperor of
+Constantinople, or his natural daughter.... How name you her?"
+
+"If needs be," answered Messer Guido, "we must give her a love name,
+such as every poet gives to his mistress. I will call her Diotima, in
+memory of Diotima of Megara, who showed the way to the lovers of Virtue.
+But her public and avowed name is Philosophy, and 'tis the most
+excellent bride a man can find. I want no other, and I swear by the gods
+to be faithful unto death, which doth put an end to life and thought."
+
+When he heard these sentiments, Messer Betto struck his forehead with
+his hand and cried:
+
+"Per Bacco! but I never guessed the riddle! Friend Guido, you have the
+subtlest wit under the red lily of Florence. I heartily commend your
+taking to wife so high a dame. Of a surety, will spring of this union a
+numerous progeny of canzones, sonnets and ballades. I promise to baptize
+you these pretty babes to the sound of my flute, with dainty mottoes
+galore and gallant devices. I am the more rejoiced at this spiritual
+wedlock, seeing it will never hinder you, when the time comes, to marry
+according to the flesh some fair and goodly lady of the city."
+
+"Nay! you are out," returned Messer Guido. "They that celebrate the
+espousals of the mind should leave carnal marriage to the profane
+vulgar, which includes the great Lords, the Merchants and the
+Handicraftsmen. If like me you had known my Diotima, you would have
+learned, friend Betto, that she doth distinguish two sorts of men, on
+the one hand such as, being fruitful only by the body, strive but for
+that coarse and commonplace immortality that is won by the generation of
+children, on the other they whose soul conceives and engenders what is
+meet for the soul to produce, to wit the Good and Beautiful. My Diotima
+hath willed I should be of the second sort, and I will not go against
+her good pleasure, and copy the mere brutes that breed and procreate."
+
+Messer Betto Brunelleschi by no means approved of this resolution. He
+pointed out to his friend that in life we must adapt ourselves to the
+different conditions and modes of existence suitable to the different
+ages, that after the epoch of pleasures comes that of ambition, and that
+it was good and prudent, as youth waned, to contract alliance with some
+rich and noble family, affording access to the great offices of the
+Republic, such as Prior of the Arts and Liberty, Captain of the People,
+or Gonfalonier of Justice.
+
+Seeing however that his friend only received his advice with a lip of
+disgust, as if it were some bitter drug, he said no more on the point,
+for fear of angering him, deeming it wise to trust to time, which will
+change men's hearts and reverse the strongest resolutions.
+
+"Sweet Guido," he interposed gaily, "tell me this much at any rate.
+Doth your lady suffer you to have delight with pretty maids and to take
+part in our diversions?"
+
+"For that matter," replied Messer Guido, "she hath no more care of such
+things than of the encounters that small dog you see asleep yonder at
+the foot of my bed may make in the street. And in very deed they are of
+no account, provided a man doth himself attach no value to them."
+
+Messer Betto left the room a trifle piqued at his friend's scornful
+bearing. He continued to feel the liveliest affection for his friend,
+but thought it unbecoming to press him overmuch to attend the fêtes and
+entertainments he gave all the Winter long with an admirable liberality.
+At the same time the gentlemen of his Company resented hotly the slight
+the son of the Signor Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti did them by refusing to
+share their society. They began to rally him on, his studies and poring
+over books, declaring that by dint of so feeding on parchment, like the
+Monks and the rats, he would end up by growing to resemble these, and
+would anon have nothing to show but a pointed snout and three long hairs
+for beard, peeping out from under a black hood, and that Madonna Gemma
+herself would cry out at sight of him:
+
+"Venus, my Patroness! what a pass have his books brought my handsome St.
+George to! He is good for naught now but to throw away his lance and
+hold a writing-reed in hand instead." So they miscalled him sore, saying
+he toyed only with the bookworms and spiders, and was tied to the
+apron-strings of Mistress Philosophia. Nor did they stop short at
+such-like light raillery, but let it be understood he was too learned by
+far to be a good Christian, that he was given over to Magic Arts, and
+held converse with the Devils of Hell.
+
+"Folk do not lurk in hiding like that," they said to each other, "for
+any reason but to foregather with the Devils, male and female, and get
+gold of them as the price of revolting and shameful acts."
+
+To crown all, they charged him with sharing those false and pernicious
+doctrines of Epicurus which had already seduced an Emperor at Naples and
+a Pope in Rome, and threatened to turn the peoples of Europe into a herd
+of swine, without a thought of God and their own immortal souls. "A
+mighty fine gain," they ended up, "when his studies have brought him to
+forswear the Holy Trinity!" This last charge they bruited abroad was the
+most formidable of all, and might easily work ruin on Messer Guido.
+
+Now Messer Guido Cavalcanti was well aware of the mockery they made of
+him in the Companies by reason of the careful heed he had of eternal
+things; and this was why he shunned the society of living men and sought
+rather to the dead.
+
+In those days the Church of San Giovanni was surrounded with Roman
+tombs. Thither would Messer Guido often come at _Ave Maria_ and meditate
+far into the silent night. He believed, as the Chronicles reported, that
+this fair Church of San Giovanni had been a Pagan Temple before it was a
+Christian Church, and the thought pleased his soul, which was enamoured
+of the old-world mysteries. Especially he loved to look on these tombs,
+where the sign of the Cross found no place, but which bore Latin
+inscriptions and were adorned with carven figures of men and gods. They
+were long cubes of white marble, on the sides of which could be made out
+representations of banquets and hunting parties, the death of Adonis,
+the fight of Lapithæ and Centaurs, the refusal of the chaste Hippolytus,
+the Amazons. Messer Guido would read the lettering with anxious care,
+and try hard to penetrate the meaning of these fables. One tomb in
+particular occupied him more than all the rest, for it showed him two
+Loves, each holding a torch, and he was curious to discover the nature
+of these two Loves. Well! one night that he was pondering on these
+things more deeply than ever, a shadow rose up above the lid of the
+tomb--a luminous shadow, as when you see, or fancy you see, the moon
+shining faintly through a cloud. Gradually it took the shape of a
+beautiful virgin, and said thus in a voice softer than the reeds waving
+in the wind:
+
+"I am she that sleeps within this tomb, and I am called Julia Læta. I
+lost the light on my marriage-day, at the age of sixteen years, three
+months and nine days. Since then, whether I am, or am not, I cannot
+tell. Never question the dead, stranger, for they see naught, and a
+thick night environs them. 'Tis said that such as in life knew the cruel
+joys of Venus roam the glades of a dense forest of myrtles. For me who
+died a virgin, I sleep a dreamless sleep. They have graven two Loves on
+the stone of my sepulchre. One gives mortals the light of day; the other
+quenches it in their tender eyes for ever. The countenance of both is
+the same, a smiling countenance, for birth and death are two twin
+brothers, and all is joy to the Immortal Gods. I have spoken."
+
+The voice fell silent, like the rustling of leaves when the wind drops.
+The transparent shadow vanished away in the light of dawn, which
+descended clear and white on the hills; and the tombs of San Giovanni
+grew wan and silent once again in the morning air. And Messer Guido
+pondered:
+
+"The truth I foresaw, hath been made manifest to me. Is it not writ in
+the Book the Priests use, 'Shall the dead praise Thee, O Lord?' The dead
+are without thought or knowledge, and the divine Epicurus was well
+advised when he enfranchised the living from the vain terrors of the
+life to come."
+
+A troop of horsemen pricking across the Piazza abruptly broke up his
+meditations. It was Messer Betto and his Company away to hunt the cranes
+along the brookside of Peretola.
+
+"So ho!" cried one of them, whose name was Bocca, "see yonder, Messer
+Guido the Philosopher, who scorns us for our good life and gentle ways
+and merry doings. He seems half frozen."
+
+"And well he may be," put in Messer Doria, who was reputed a wag. "His
+lady, the Moon, whom he kisses tenderly all night, hath hied her behind
+the hills to sleep with some shepherd swain. He is eat up with jealousy;
+look you, how green he is!"
+
+They spurred their horses among the tombs, and drew up in a ring about
+Messer Guido.
+
+"Nay! nay! Messer Doria," returned Bocca, "the lady Moon is too round
+and bright for so black a gallant. If you would know his mistresses,
+they be here. Here he comes to find them in their bed, where he is less
+like to be stung of fleas than of scorpions."
+
+"Fie! Out upon the vile necromancer!" exclaimed Messer Giordano,
+crossing himself; "see what learning leads to! Folk disown God, and go
+fornicating in Pagan graveyards."
+
+Leaning against the Church wall, Messer Guido let the riders have their
+say. When he judged they had voided all the froth of their shallow
+brains over him:
+
+"Gentle cavaliers," he answered, smiling, "you are at home. I am your
+host, and courtesy constrains me to receive your insults without reply."
+
+So saying, he bounded over the tombs and walked quietly away. The
+horsemen looked at one another in amazement; then bursting out laughing,
+they gave spur to their steeds. As they were galloping along the
+Peretola Road, Messer Bocca said to Messer Betto:
+
+"Who can doubt now but this Guido is gone mad? He told us we were at
+home in the graveyard. And to say such a thing, he must needs have lost
+his wits."
+
+"True it is," replied Messer Betto, "I cannot imagine what he meant to
+have us understand by talking in such a sort. But he is used to
+expressing himself in dark sayings and subtle parables. He hath tossed
+us a bone this time must be opened to find the marrow."
+
+"Pardi!" ejaculated Messer Giordano; "my dog may have this bone to gnaw,
+and the Pagan that threw it to boot."
+
+They soon reached the banks of the Peretola brook, whence the cranes may
+be seen rising in flocks at daybreak. During the chase, which was
+abundantly successful, Messer Betto Brunelleschi never ceased pondering
+the words Guido had used. And by dint of much thinking, he discovered
+their signification. Hailing Messer Bocca with loud cries, he said to
+him:
+
+"Come hither, Messer Bocca! I have just guessed what it was Messer Guido
+meant us to understand. He told us we were at home in a graveyard,
+because the ignorant be for all the world like dead men, who, according
+to the Epicurean doctrine, have no faculty of thought or knowledge."
+
+Messer Bocca replied, shrugging his shoulders, he understood better than
+most how to fly a Flanders hawk, to make knife-play with his enemies,
+and to upset a girl, and this was knowledge sufficient for his state in
+life.
+
+Messer Guido continued for several years more to study the science of
+Love. He embodied his reflexions in canzones, which it is not given to
+all men to interpret, composing a book of these verses that was borne in
+triumph through the streets, garlanded with laurel. Then, seeing the
+purest souls are not without alloy of terrestrial passions, and life
+bears us one and all along in its sinuous and stormy course, it fell out
+that at the turning-point of youth and age, Messer Guido was seduced by
+the ambitions of the flesh and the powers of this world. He wedded, to
+further his projects of aggrandizement, the daughter of the Lord
+Farinata degli Uberti, the same who one time reddened the Arbia with the
+blood of the Florentines. He threw himself into the quarrels of the
+citizens with all the pride and impetuosity of his nature. And he took
+for mistresses the Lady Mandetta and the Lady Giovanna, who represented
+the one the Albigensians, the other the Ghibellines. It was the time
+when Messer Dante Alighieri was Prior of the Arts and Liberty. The city
+was divided into two hostile camps, those of the Bianchi and the Neri.
+One day when the principal citizens were assembled in the Piazza of the
+Frescobaldi, the Bianchi on one side the square and the Neri on the
+other, to assist at the obsequies of a noble lady of Florence, the
+Doctors and the Knights were seated as the custom was, on raised
+benches, while in front of them the younger men sat on the ground on
+rush mats. One of the latter standing up to settle his cloak, those who
+were opposite thought he was for defying them. They started to their
+feet in turn, and bared their swords. Instantly every one unsheathed,
+and the kinsmen of the dead lady had all the difficulty in the world to
+separate the combatants.
+
+From that day, Florence ceased to be a town gladdened by the work of its
+handicraftsmen, and became a forest full of wolves ravening for each
+other's blood. Messer Guido shared these savage passions, and grew
+gloomy, restless and sullen. Never a day passed but he exchanged
+sword-thrusts with the Neri in the streets of Florence, where in old
+days he had meditated on the nature and constitution of the soul. More
+than once he had felt the assassin's dagger on his flesh, before he was
+banished with the rest of his faction and confined in the
+plague-stricken town of Sarzana. For six months he languished there,
+sick with fever and hate. And when eventually the Bianchi were recalled,
+he came back to his native city a dying man.
+
+In the year 1300, on the third day after the Assumption of the Blessed
+Virgin Mary, he found strength enough to drag himself as far as his own
+fair Church of San Giovanni. Worn out with fatigue and grief, he lay
+down on the tomb of Julia Læta, who in the old days had revealed to him
+the mysteries the profane know nothing of. It was the hour when the
+Church bells ring out through the quivering air of evening a long-drawn
+farewell to the setting sun. Messer Betto Brunelleschi, who was crossing
+the Piazza on his way home from his country house, saw amid the tombs
+two haggard falcon's eyes burning in a fleshless face, and recognizing
+the friend of his youth, was seized with wonder and pity.
+
+He approached him, and kissing him as he used in former days, said with
+a sigh:
+
+"Ah! Guido mine! what fire is it hath consumed you away thus? You burned
+up your life in science first, and then in public affairs. I beseech
+you, quench somewhat the ardour of your spirit; comrade, let us husband
+our strength, and, as Riccardo the blacksmith says, make up a fire to
+last."
+
+But Guido Cavalcanti put his hand on his lips.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, "hush! not a word more, friend Betto. I wait my
+lady, her who shall console me for so many vain loves that in this world
+have betrayed me and that I have betrayed. It is equally cruel and
+useless to think and to act. This I know. The curse is not so much to
+live, for I see you are well and hearty, friend Betto, and many another
+man is the same. The curse is not to live, but to know we live. The
+curse is to be conscious and to will. Happily there is a remedy for
+these evils. Let us say no more; I await the lady whom I have never
+wronged, for never have I doubted but she was gentle and true-hearted,
+and I have learned by much pondering how peaceful and secure it is to
+slumber on her bosom. Many fables have been told of her bed and
+dwelling-places. But I have not believed the lies of the ignorant crowd.
+So it is, she cometh to me as a mistress to her lover, her brow
+garlanded with flowers and her lips smiling."
+
+He broke off with these words, and fell dead over the ancient tomb. His
+body was buried without any great pomp in the Cloister of Santa Maria
+Novella.
+
+
+
+
+LUCIFER
+
+TO LOUIS GANDERAX
+
+
+
+
+LUCIFER
+
+  _E si compiacque tanto Spinello di farlo orribile e contrafatto, che
+  si dice (tanto può alcuna fiata l'immaginazione) che la detta figura
+  da lui dipinta gli apparve in sogno, domandandolo dove egli l' avesse
+  veduta si brutta._[1]
+
+  (_Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori_, da Messer Giorgio Vasari.--"Vita
+  di Spinello.")
+
+[Footnote 1: "And so successful was Spinello with his horrible and
+portentous Production that it was commonly reported--so great is alway
+the force of fancy--that the said figure (of Lucifer trodden underfoot
+by St. Michael in the Altar-piece of the Church of St. Agnolo at Arezzo)
+painted by him had appeared to the artist in a dream, and asked him in
+what place he had beheld him under so brutish a form."
+
+_Lives of the most Excellent Painters_, by Giorgio Vasari.--"Life of
+Spinello."]
+
+
+Andrea Tafi, painter and worker-in-mosaic of Florence, had a wholesome
+terror of the Devils of Hell, particularly in the watches of the night,
+when it is given to the powers of Darkness to prevail. And the worthy
+man's fears were not unreasonable, for in those days the Demons had good
+cause to hate the Painters, who robbed them of more souls with a single
+picture than a good little Preaching Friar could do in thirty sermons.
+No doubt the Monk, to instil a soul-saving horror in the hearts of the
+faithful, would describe to the utmost of his powers "that day of wrath,
+that day of mourning," which is to reduce the universe to ashes, _teste
+David et Sibylla_, borrowing his deepest voice and bellowing through his
+hands to imitate the Archangel's last trump. But there! it was "all
+sound and fury, signifying nothing," whereas a painting displayed on a
+Chapel wall or in the Cloister, showing Jesus Christ sitting on the
+Great White Throne to judge the living and the dead, spoke unceasingly
+to the eyes of sinners, and through the eyes chastened such as had
+sinned by the eyes or otherwise.
+
+It was in the days when cunning masters were depicting at Santa-Croce in
+Florence and the Campo Santo of Pisa the mysteries of Divine Justice.
+These works were drawn according to the account in verse which Dante
+Alighieri, a man very learned in Theology and in Canon Law, wrote in
+days gone by of his journey to Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, whither
+by the singular great merits of his lady, he was able to make his way
+alive. So everything in these paintings was instructive and true, and we
+may say surely less profit is to be had of reading the most full and
+ample Chronicle than from contemplating such representative, works of
+art. Moreover, the Florentine masters took heed to paint, under the
+shade of orange groves, on the flower-starred turf, fair ladies and
+gallant knights, with Death lying in wait for them with his scythe,
+while they were discoursing of love to the sound of lutes and viols.
+Nothing was better fitted to convert carnal-minded sinners who quaff
+forgetfulness of God on the lips of women. To rebuke the covetous, the
+painter would show to the life the Devils pouring molten gold down the
+throat of Bishop or Abbess, who had commissioned some work from him and
+then scamped his pay.
+
+This is why the Demons in those days were bitter enemies of the
+painters, and above all of the Florentine painters, who surpassed all
+the rest in subtlety of wit. Chiefly they reproached them with
+representing them under a hideous guise, with the heads of bird and
+fish, serpents' bodies and bats' wings. This sore resentment which they
+felt will come out plainly in the history of Spinello of Arezzo.
+
+Spinello Spinelli was sprung of a noble family of Florentine exiles, and
+his graciousness of mind matched his gentle birth; for he was the most
+skilful painter of his time. He wrought many and great works at
+Florence; and the Pisans begged him to complete Giotto's wall-paintings
+in their Campo Santo, where the dead rest beneath roses in holy earth
+shipped from Jerusalem. At last, after working long years in divers
+cities and getting much gold, he longed to see once more the good city
+of Arezzo, his mother. The men of Arezzo had not forgotten how Spinello,
+in his younger days, being enrolled in the Confraternity of Santa Maria
+della Misericordia, had visited the sick and buried the dead in the
+plague of 1383. They were grateful to him beside for having by his works
+spread the fame of their city over all Tuscany. For all these reasons
+they welcomed him with high honours on his return.
+
+Still full of vigour in his old age, he undertook important tasks in his
+native town. His wife would tell him:
+
+"You are rich, Spinello. Do you rest, and leave younger men to paint
+instead of you. It is meet a man should end his days in a gentle,
+religious quiet. It is tempting God to be for ever raising new and
+worldly monuments, mere heathen towers of Babel. Quit your colours and
+your varnishes, Spinello, or they will destroy your peace of mind."
+
+So the good dame would preach, but he refused to listen, for his one
+thought was to increase his fortune and renown. Far from resting on his
+laurels, he arranged a price with the Wardens of Sant' Agnolo for a
+history of St. Michael, that was to cover all the Choir of the Church
+and contain an infinity of figures. Into this enterprise he threw
+himself with extraordinary ardour. Rereading the parts of Scripture that
+were to be his inspiration, he set himself to study deeply every line
+and every word of these passages. Not content with drawing all day long
+in his workshop, he persisted in working both at bed and board; while at
+dusk, walking below the hill on whose brow Arezzo proudly lifts her
+walls and towers, he was still lost in thought. And we may say the story
+of the Archangel was already limned in his brain when he started to
+sketch out the incidents in red chalk on the plaster of the wall. He was
+soon done tracing these outlines; then he fell to painting above the
+high altar the scene that was to outshine all the others in brilliancy.
+For it was his intent therein to glorify the leader of the hosts of
+Heaven for the victory he won before the beginning of time. Accordingly
+Spinello represented St. Michael fighting in the air against the serpent
+with seven heads and ten horns, and he figured with delight, in the
+bottom part of the picture, the Prince of the Devils, Lucifer, under the
+semblance of an appalling monster. The figures seemed to grow to life of
+themselves under his hand. His success was beyond his fondest hopes; so
+hideous was the countenance of Lucifer, none could escape the nightmare
+of its foulness. The face haunted the painter in the streets and even
+went home with him to his lodging.
+
+Presently when night was come, Spinello lay-down in his bed beside his
+wife and fell asleep. In his slumbers he saw an Angel as comely as St.
+Michael, but black; and the Angel said to him:
+
+"Spinello, I am Lucifer. Tell me, where had you seen me, that you should
+paint me as you have, under so ignominious a likeness?"
+
+The old painter answered trembling, that he had never seen him with his
+eyes, never having gone down alive into Hell, like Messer Dante
+Alighieri; but that, in depicting him as he had done, he was for
+expressing in visible lines and colours the hideousness of sin.
+
+Lucifer shrugged his shoulders, and the hill of San Gemignano seemed of
+a sudden to heave and stagger.
+
+"Spinello," he went on, "will you do me the pleasure to reason awhile
+with me? I am no mean Logician; He you pray to knows that."
+
+Receiving no reply, Lucifer proceeded in these terms:
+
+"Spinello, you have read the books that tell of me. You know of my
+enterprise, and how I forsook Heaven to become the Prince of this World.
+A tremendous adventure,--and a unique one, had not the Giants in like
+fashion assailed the god Jupiter, as yourself have seen, Spinello,
+recorded on an ancient tomb where this Titanic war is carved in marble."
+
+"It is true," said Spinello, "I have seen the tomb, shaped like a great
+tun, in the Church of Santa Reparata at Florence. 'Tis a fine work of
+the Romans."
+
+"Still," returned Lucifer, smiling, "the Giants are not pictured on it
+in the shape of frogs or chameleons or the like hideous and horrid
+creatures."
+
+"True," replied the painter, "but then they had not attacked the true
+God, but only a false idol of the Pagans. 'Tis a mighty difference. The
+fact is clear, Lucifer, you raised the standard of revolt against the
+true and veritable King of Earth and Heaven."
+
+"I will not deny it," said Lucifer. "And how many sorts of sins do you
+charge me with for that?"
+
+"Seven, it is like enough," the painter answered, "and deadly sins one
+and all."
+
+"Seven!" exclaimed the Angel of Darkness; "well! the number is
+canonical. Everything goes by sevens in my history, which is close bound
+up with God's. Spinello, you deem me proud, angry and envious. I enter
+no protest, provided you allow that glory was my only aim. Do you deem
+me covetous? Granted again; Covetousness is a virtue for Princes. For
+Gluttony and Lust, if you hold me guilty, I will not complain. Remains
+_Indolence_."
+
+As he pronounced the word, Lucifer crossed his arms across his breast,
+and shaking his gloomy head, tossed his flaming locks:
+
+"Tell me, Spinello, do you really think I am indolent? Do you take me
+for a coward? Do you hold that in my revolt I showed a lack of courage?
+Nay! you cannot. Then it was but just to paint me in the guise of a
+hero, with a proud countenance. You should wrong no one, not even the
+Devil. Cannot you see that you insult Him you make prayer to, when you
+give Him for adversary a vile, monstrous toad? Spinello, you are very
+ignorant for a man of your age. I have a great mind to pull your ears,
+as they do to an ill-conditioned schoolboy."
+
+At this threat, and seeing the arm of Lucifer already stretched out
+towards him, Spinello clapped his hand to his head and began to howl
+with terror.
+
+His good wife, waking up with a start, asked him what ailed him. He told
+her with chattering teeth, how he had just seen Lucifer and had been in
+terror for his ears.
+
+"I told you so," retorted the worthy dame; "I knew all those figures
+you will go on painting on the walls would end by driving you mad."
+
+"I am not mad," protested the painter. "I saw him with my own eyes; and
+he is beautiful to look on, albeit proud and sad. First thing to-morrow
+I will blot out the horrid figure I have drawn and set in its place the
+shape I beheld in my dream. For we must not wrong even the Devil
+himself."
+
+"You had best go to sleep again," scolded his wife. "You are talking
+stark nonsense, and unchristian to boot."
+
+Spinello tried to rise, but his strength failed him and he fell back
+unconscious on his pillow. He lingered on a few days in a high fever,
+and then died.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOAVES OF BLACK BREAD
+
+TO MADEMOISELLE MARY FINALY
+
+
+
+
+THE LOAVES OF BLACK BREAD
+
+  _Tu tibi divitias stolidissime congeris amplas,
+  Negasque micam pauperi;
+  Advenit ecce dies qua saevis ignibus ardens
+  Rogabis aquae guttulam._[1]
+
+  (_Navis stultifera_, Sebastian Brandt, 1507, fol, xix.)
+
+[Footnote 1: "You heap up in your folly ample riches for yourself, and
+refuse a crumb of bread to the poor man; lo! the day is at hand when
+burning in cruel flames, you shall beg for a drop of water."--_Ship of
+Fools._]
+
+
+In those days Nicolas Nerli was a banker in the noble city of Florence.
+Tierce was no sooner sounded than he was at his desk, and at nones he
+was seated there still, poring all day long over the figures he wrote in
+his table-books. He lent money to the Emperor and to the Pope. And if he
+did not lend to the Devil, it was only because he was afraid of bad
+debts with him they call the Wily One, and who is full of cunning and
+trickery. Nicolas Nerli was bold and unscrupulous; he had won great
+riches and robbed many folks of their own. Wherefore he was highly
+honoured in the city of Florence. He dwelt in a Palace where the light
+of God's day entered only by narrow windows; and this was a wise
+precaution, for the rich man's house must be a castle, and they who
+possess much wealth do well to defend by force what they have gotten by
+cunning.
+
+Accordingly the windows were guarded with bars and the doors with
+chains. Outside, the walls were painted in fresco by clever craftsmen,
+who had depicted thereon the Virtues under the likeness of women, the
+Patriarchs, the Prophets and the Kings of Israel. Tapestries hung in the
+rooms within, displaying the histories of Alexander and Tristram, as
+they are told us in legends. Nicolas Nerli set all the city talking of
+his wealth by the pious foundations he established. He had raised an
+Hospital beyond the walls, the frieze of which, carved and painted,
+represented the most honourable actions of his own life; in gratitude
+for the sums of money he had given towards the completion of Santa Maria
+Novella, his portrait was suspended in the choir of that Church. In it
+he was shown kneeling, with praying hands, at the feet of the Blessed
+Virgin, easily recognizable by his cap of red worsted, his furred hood,
+his yellow face swimming in fatness and his little keen eyes. His good
+wife, Monna Bismantova, a worthy-looking woman with a mournful air, and
+seeming as though no man could ever have taken aught of pleasure with
+her, was on the other side of the Virgin in the humble attitude of
+supplication. Nicolas Nerli was one of the chiefest citizens of the
+Republic; seeing he had never spoken against the laws, and because he
+had never regarded the poor nor such folk as the great and powerful
+condemn to fine and exile, nothing had lowered in the estimation of the
+Magistrates the high repute he had won in their eyes by reason of his
+great riches.
+
+Returning one winter evening later than usual to his Palace, he was
+surrounded on the threshold by a band of half-naked mendicants who held
+out their hands and asked alms.
+
+He repulsed them with hard words. But hunger making them as fierce and
+bold as wolves, they formed a circle round him, and begged him for bread
+in hoarse, lamentable voices. He was just stooping to pick up stones to
+throw at them when he saw one of his serving-men coming, carrying on his
+head a basketful of loaves of black bread, intended for the stablemen,
+kitchen helpers and gardeners.
+
+He signed to the pantler to approach, and diving both hands into the
+basket, tossed the loaves to the starving wretches. Then entering the
+house, he went to bed and fell asleep. In the night, he was smitten
+with apoplexy and died so suddenly he believed himself still in his bed
+when he saw, in a place "as dark as Erebus," St. Michael the Archangel
+shining in the brightness that issued from his own presence.
+
+Balance in hand, the Archangel was engaged in filling the scales.
+Recognizing in the scale that hung lowest certain jewels belonging to
+widow women that he had in pledge, a great heap of clippings from pieces
+he had filched dishonestly, and sundry very fine gold coins which were
+unique and which he had acquired by usury or fraud, Nicolas Nerli
+comprehended it was his own life, now come to an end, that St. Michael
+was at that instant weighing before his eyes.
+
+"Good Sir!" he said, "good St. Michael! if you put in the one scale all
+the lucre I have gotten in my life, set in the other, if it please you,
+the noble foundations whereby I have so splendidly shown my piety.
+Forget not the Duomo of Santa Maria Novella, to which I contributed a
+good third; nor my Hospital beyond the walls, that I built entirely out
+of my own pocket."
+
+"Never fear, Nicolas Nerli," answered the Archangel; "I will forget
+nothing."
+
+And with his own heavenly hands he set in the lighter scale the Duomo of
+Santa Maria Novella and the Hospital with its frieze all carved and
+painted. But the scale did not drop an inch.
+
+At this the Banker was sorely disquieted.
+
+"Good St. Michael! think again. You have not put this side of the
+balance my fine holy-water stoup I gave to San Giovanni, nor the pulpit
+in Sant' Andrea, where the baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ is depicted
+life-size. The artist charged me a pretty penny for it."
+
+The Archangel put both pulpit and stoup atop of the Hospital in the
+scale, but still it never stirred. Nicolas Nerli began to feel a cold
+sweat bathing his brow.
+
+"Good Sir! dear Archangel!" he asked, "are you quite certain your
+balances are true?"
+
+St. Michael replied, smiling, that they were of a different pattern from
+the balances the brokers of Paris use and the money-changers of Venice,
+and were precisely accurate.
+
+"What!" sighed Nicolas Nerli, his face as white as chalk. "Duomo,
+pulpit, basin, Hospital with all its beds, do they weigh no more than a
+bit of straw, a pinch of down from a bird's breast?"
+
+"See for yourself, Nicolas!" said the Archangel; "so far the weight of
+your iniquities much outweighs the light load of your good works."
+
+"Then I must go to Hell," cried the Florentine; and his teeth chattered
+with horror.
+
+"Patience, Nicolas Nerli," returned the Weigher of Souls, "patience! we
+are not done yet. There is something left."
+
+So saying, the Blessed St. Michael took the loaves of black bread the
+rich man had tossed the night before to the poor beggars. He laid them
+in the scale containing the good works, which instantly fell, while the
+other rose, and the two scales remained level. The beam dropped neither
+to right nor left, and the needle marked the exact equality of the two
+loads.
+
+The Banker could not believe his eyes; but the glorious Archangel said
+solemnly:
+
+"See, Nicolas Nerli; you are good neither for Heaven nor Hell. Begone!
+Go back to Florence! multiply through the city the loaves you gave last
+night with your own hand, in the dusk, when no man saw you--and you
+shall be saved. It is not enough that Heaven open its doors to the thief
+that repented and the harlot that wept. The mercy of God is infinite,
+and able to save even a rich man. Do this; multiply the loaves whose
+weight you see weighing down my balances. Begone!"
+
+Then Nicholas Nerli awoke in his bed. He resolved to follow faithfully
+the counsel of the Archangel, and multiply the bread of the poor, and
+so enter into the kingdom of Heaven.
+
+For the three years he spent on earth after his first death, he was very
+pitiful to the unfortunate and a great giver of alms.
+
+
+
+
+THE MERRY-HEARTED BUFFALMACCO
+
+TO EUGÈNE MÜNTZ
+
+
+
+
+THE MERRY-HEARTED BUFFALMACCO
+
+  _Buonamico di Cristofano detto Buffalmacco pittore Fiorentino, il qual
+  fu discepolo d' Andrea Tafi, e come uomo burlevole celebrato da Messer
+  Giovanni Boccaccio nel suo Decamerone, fu come si sa carissimo
+  compagno di Bruno e di Calendrino pittori ancor essi faceti e
+  piacevole, e, come si può vedere nell' opere sue sparse per tutta
+  Toscana, di assai buon giudizio nell' arte sua del dipignere._
+
+  _(Vite de' più eccellenti pittori_, da Messer Giorgio Vasari.--"Vita
+  di Buonamico Buffalmacco.")[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "Buonamico di Cristofano, known as Buffalmacco, a
+Florentine painter, the same that was pupil of Andrea Tafi, and
+celebrated as a burlesque character by Messer Giovanni Boccaccio in his
+_Decameron_ was as we know bosom friend of Bruno and Calendrino, also
+painters and of an even more witty and merry humour than himself, and as
+may be seen in his works scattered throughout Tuscany, of no mean
+judgement in his art of painting." _(Lives of the most Excellent
+Painters_ by Messer Giorgio Vasari.--"Life of Buonamico Buffalmacco.")]
+
+
+I
+
+THE COCKROACHES
+
+In his callow youth, Buonamico Cristofani, Florentine, surnamed
+Buffalmacco by reason of his merry humour, served his apprenticeship in
+the workshop of Andrea Tafi, painter and worker-in-mosaic. Now the said
+Tafi was a very knowledgeable master. Sojourning at Venice in the days
+when Apollonius was covering the walls of San Marco with mosaics, he had
+discovered by means of a trick certain secrets the Greek craftsmen were
+for keeping sedulously to themselves. Returning to his native city, he
+won so high a repute in the art of composing pictures by arranging
+together a countless number of little differently coloured cubes of
+glass, he could not supply all the demands addressed to him for works of
+the sort, and all day and every day, from matins to vespers, he was
+busy, mounted on a scaffold in some Church or other, depicting the dead
+Christ, or Christ in His glory, the Patriarchs and Prophets, or the
+history of Job or of Noah. And as he was likewise keen to paint in
+fresco, with pounded colours, in the manner of the Greeks, which was
+then the only one known, he refused himself all rest, and gave his
+apprentices none either. He used to tell them:
+
+"They who like myself are in possession of noble secrets and excel in
+their art should keep both mind and hand ceaselessly active to carry out
+their enterprises, so as to win much wealth and leave a long memory
+behind them. And if I, old and broken down as I am, spare myself no
+trouble, you are bound to do your utmost to help me with all your
+strength, which is fresh, hearty and undiminished."
+
+And in order that his colours, his tesseræ of molten glass and his
+impastos might be all ready prepared by dawn of day, he forced the lads
+to rise in the middle of the night. Nothing could well be more hateful
+to Buffalmacco, who was in the habit of supping plentifully, and loved
+to run the streets at an hour when, as they say, all cats are grey. He
+went to bed late and slept sound, his conscience being clear enough
+after all. Accordingly, when Tafi's shrill voice woke him up out of his
+beauty sleep, he would only turn round on his pillow and pretend to be
+deaf. But his master invariably persisted, and at a pinch would go into
+the apprentice's room and very soon have the sheets dragged off the bed
+and a jug of cold water emptied over the sluggard's head.
+
+Poor Buffalmacco, shivering and half dressed, would away grumbling, to
+grind the colours in the dark, cold workroom, cudgelling his wits the
+while, grinding and cursing all the time, to think of some way of
+escaping such harsh and humiliating treatment in future. Long he sought
+in vain; but his mind was an active one, and one morning early a happy
+thought struck him.
+
+To put this in execution, Buffalmacco waited till his master was out of
+the way. Directly day broke, Andrea Tafi, as his habit was, pocketed the
+flask of Chianti and the three eggs that formed his regular breakfast,
+and bidding his pupils melt the glass tesseræ according to the
+directions, and take every possible pains, went off to work in the
+famous church of San Giovanni, a marvellously beautiful building,
+constructed with admirable art in the Classical manner. At the time he
+was executing on its walls a series of mosaics representing the Angels,
+Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, Powers, Thrones and Dominions; the
+chief acts of the Almighty, from the Creation of Light to the Deluge;
+the history of Joseph and his brethren, the history of Jesus Christ from
+the moment He was conceived in His Mother's womb till His Ascension
+into Heaven, and the life of St. John Baptist. Seeing the infinite pains
+he took to fix the pieces truly in the cement and arrange them
+artistically, he expected both profit and fame as the result of this
+great work and the host of figures it contained. Then, directly the
+master was gone, Buffalmacco hastened to make his preparations for the
+enterprise he was bent upon. He went down into the cellar, which,
+communicating as it did with a baker's next door, was full of
+cockroaches drawn thither by the smell of the sacks of flour. Everybody
+knows how cockroaches, or kitchen-beetles, swarm in bakeries, inns and
+corn-mills. These are a sort of crawling, stinking insects, with long,
+ungainly, shaggy legs and an ugly shell of a dirty yellow.[1]
+
+During the Civil Wars that stained the Arbia red and fertilized the
+olive-yards with the blood of nobles, these loathsome insects had two
+names in Tuscany: the Florentines called them Siennese, and the Siennese
+Florentines.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: It would be better to speak of the wing-cases. "Shell" is
+an utterly unsuitable word--not in the least fitting. The Oriental
+cockroach is in question, an insect familiar in almost every part of
+Europe.]
+
+[Footnote 2: In Russia they are termed Prussians, and in Prussia
+Russians. The French call them _cafards_ (canting creatures,
+hypocrites).]
+
+The good Buffalmacco laughed to see the creatures all moving up and
+down and in and out, looking for all the world like tiny shields of a
+host of pigmy knights jousting in a fairy tourney.
+
+"Ah, ah!" he cried to himself, "they are may-bugs bedevilled, that's
+what they are! They would not enjoy the springtime, and Jupiter punished
+them for their sluggishness. He has condemned them to crawl about in the
+dark, weighed down by their useless wings--an object-lesson to men to
+make the most of life in the heyday of youth and love."
+
+This was what Buffalmacco said to himself; for he was ready enough, like
+other folk, to see in nature a symbol of his own passions and
+inclinations, which were to drink, to divert himself with pretty women
+and sleep his fill in a warm bed in winter and a nice cool one in
+summer.
+
+However, he had not visited the cellar to ponder on symbols and emblems,
+and he was not long in carrying out his plan. He caught two dozen of the
+cockroaches, without regard to sex or age, and popped them in a bag he
+had brought with him for the purpose. This done, he proceeded to hide
+the bag under his bed, and returned to the workroom, where his comrades
+Bruno and Calendrino were painting, from the master's sketches, the good
+St. Francis receiving the stigmata, and meantime devising some way of
+hoodwinking Memmi the cobbler, whose wife was comely and obliging.
+
+Buffalmacco, who was not less expert, far from it, than his two
+comrades, mounted the ladder and started painting the wings of the
+seraphic crucifix that came down from heaven to mark the Blessed Saint
+with the five wounds of love, taking the utmost pains to blend in the
+celestial pinions all the tenderest hues of the rainbow. The task
+occupied him all day, and when old Tafi came back from San Giovanni, he
+could not refrain from bestowing a few words of commendation on his
+pupil. This cost him no small effort, for age and riches had made him
+both cross and critical.
+
+"My lads," he said, addressing the apprentices, "those wings are painted
+with a good deal of spirit. Buffalmacco might go far in the art of
+painting, if he would only apply himself more vigorously. But there, his
+mind is far too much set on self-indulgence; and great achievements can
+only be accomplished by steady labour. Now Calendrino here would beat
+you all, with his industry--if he were not a born fool."
+
+In such fashion Andrea Tafi improved the occasion with a proper
+severity. Then, having said his say, he went to the kitchen to take his
+supper, which consisted of a bit of salt fish; after that he betook
+himself to his chamber, lay down in his bed, and was soon snoring.
+Meantime Buffalmacco made his usual round through every quarter of the
+city where wine was to be had cheap and girls cheaper still. This done,
+he got home again half an hour or so before the time Tafi generally
+woke. He drew out the bag from under his bed, took the cockroaches one
+by one, and by means of a short, sharp needle fastened a little wax
+taper on the back of each. Lighting the tapers, he let the insects
+loose, one after the other, in the room. The creatures are too stupid to
+feel pain, or if they do, to manifest any great panic. They set off
+crawling over the floor, at a pace which surprise and perhaps some vague
+terror made a trifle quicker than usual. Before long they started
+describing circles, not because it is, as Plato says, a perfect figure,
+but as a result of the instinct that always makes insects turn round and
+round, in their efforts to escape any unknown danger. Buffalmacco looked
+on from the vantage-ground of his bed, on which he had thrown himself,
+and congratulated himself on the success of his device. And indeed
+nothing could be more marvellous than these lights showing a miniature
+presentment of the harmony of the spheres, such as it is set out by
+Aristotle and his commentators. The cockroaches themselves were
+invisible; only the little flames they carried could be seen, which
+seemed to be all alive. Just as these same lights were weaving in the
+darkness of the room more cycles and epicycles than ever Ptolemy and the
+Arabs observed as they watched the motions of the planets, Tafi's voice
+made itself heard, shriller than ever, what with a cold in the head and
+what with annoyance.
+
+"Buffalmacco! Buffalmacco, I say!" screamed the old fellow, coughing and
+spitting, "get up, I say! Get up, you scoundrel! In less than an hour's
+time, it will be broad daylight. The bugs in your bed must be built like
+very Venuses, you are so loath to leave 'em. Up, you sluggard! If you
+don't rise this instant, I'll drag you from between the sheets by the
+hair of your head and your long ears!"
+
+These were the sort of terms in which the master would call his pupil
+out of bed in the dusk of every morning, such was his zeal for painting
+and mosaic-work. On this occasion receiving no reply, he drew on his
+hose, but without taking time to pull them any higher than his knees,
+and started for his apprentice's bedroom, stumbling at every step. This
+was exactly what Buffalmacco expected, and directly he heard the clatter
+of his master's footsteps on the stairs, he turned his nose to the wall
+and pretended to be fast asleep. And there was old Tafi shouting up the
+stairs:
+
+"Hilloa! but you're a grand sleeper. I'll have you out of your slumbers,
+I will, though you should be dreaming this very moment that the eleven
+thousand virgins are slipping into your bed, begging you to teach 'em
+what's what."
+
+With these words on his lips, Andrea Tafi shoved the door of the room
+violently open.
+
+Then, catching sight of the points of fire running all over the floor,
+he stopped dead on the landing and fell a-trembling in every limb.
+
+"They're devils," he thought, "never a doubt of it,--devils and evil
+spirits. Why! they move with a sort of mathematical precision, which is
+their strong point, I've always been told. Naturally the Demons hate us
+painters, who depict them under hideous shapes, in contrast with the
+Angels we represent in glory, an aureole about their brows and waving
+wings of dazzling splendour. The unhappy boy is beset with devils; I can
+count at least a thousand around his pallet. No doubt he has angered
+Lucifer himself, by drawing some horrible picture of him. 'Tis only too
+likely these ten thousand imps here will leap upon him and carry him off
+alive to Hell. His doom is fixed. And alack! I have myself figured, in
+mosaic and other ways, very odious caricatures of Devils, and they have
+good reason to bear me a grudge too."
+
+The thought redoubled his fears, and hauling up his hose, he took to
+his heels, too much terrified to think of facing the hundred thousand
+hobgoblins he had seen wheeling round and round with bodies of fire, and
+dashed down the stairs as fast as ever his old legs would carry him.
+Buffalmacco had a fine laugh under the sheets, and for once in a way
+slept on till broad daylight. Nor did his master ever again dare to go
+and wake him.
+
+
+II
+
+THE ASCENDING UP OF ANDREA TAFI
+
+Andrea Tafi, of Florence, being chosen to decorate the cupola of San
+Giovanni with mosaics, carried out the said work in the most perfect
+fashion. Every figure was treated in the Greek manner, which Tafi had
+learned during his sojourn at Venice, where he had seen workmen busy
+adorning the walls of San Marco. He had even brought back with him from
+that city a Greek by name Apollonius, who knew excellent secrets for
+designing in mosaic. This Apollonius was a skilful workman and a very
+clever man. He knew the proportions to be given to the different parts
+of the human body and the material for mixing the best cement.
+
+Fearing the Greek might carry his knowledge and address to some other
+painter of the city, Andrea Tafi never left his side day or night Every
+morning he took him with him to San Giovanni, and brought him home
+every evening to his own house, facing San Michele, and made him sleep
+there with his two apprentices, Bruno and Buffalmacco, in a room
+separated merely by a partition from his own bed-chamber. And as this
+partition left half a foot between the top and the beams of the ceiling,
+whatever was said in one room could easily be overheard in the other.
+
+Now Tafi was a man of decent manners and pious. He was not like some
+painters who, on leaving the Churches where they have been depicting God
+creating the world and the infant Jesus in his holy mother's arms, go
+straight to houses of ill fame to play dice and drink, play the pipes
+and cuddle the girls. He had never wished for better than his good wife,
+albeit she was by no means made and moulded by the Creator to afford any
+great delight to men; for she was a very dry and a very chilling
+personage. Then, after God had removed her from this world to a better,
+in his loving mercy, Andrea took no other woman to his bosom either by
+marriage or otherwise. On the contrary he was strictly continent, as
+became his years, sparing himself both expense and vexation, and
+pleasing God to boot, who recompenses in the next world the privations
+men endure in this. Andrea Tafi was chaste, sober and well-advised.
+
+He said his prayers with unfailing regularity, and being got to bed, he
+never fell asleep without first invoking the Blessed Virgin in these
+words:
+
+"Holy Virgin, Mother of God, which for Thy merits wast exalted alive to
+Heaven, stretch forth Thy hand full of grace and mercy to me, to lift me
+up to that blessed Paradise where Thou sittest on a chair of gold."
+
+And this petition old Tafi did not mumble between the two or three teeth
+he had left, but spoke it out in a loud, strong voice, persuaded it is
+the singing, as they say, makes the song, and that if you want to be
+heard, it is best to shout. Thus it came about that Master Tafi's
+supplication was overheard every night by Apollonius the Greek and the
+two young Florentines who lay in the next chamber. Now it so happened
+Apollonius was likewise of a merry humour, every whit as ready for a
+jest as Bruno or Buffalmacco. All three itched sore to play off some
+trick on the old painter, who was a just man and a god-fearing, but
+hard-fisted withal and a cruel taskmaster. Accordingly one night, after
+listening to the old fellow's customary address to the Virgin, the three
+comrades fell a-laughing under the bed-clothes and cutting a hundred
+jokes. Presently, when they heard him snoring, they began asking each
+other in whispers what jape they could play off on him. Well knowing the
+holy terror the old man had of the Devil, Apollonius proposed to go,
+dressed in red, with horns and a mask, to drag him out of bed by the
+feet. But the ingenious Buffalmacco had a better suggestion to offer:
+
+"To-morrow we will provide ourselves with a good stout rope and a
+pulley, and I undertake to give you the same evening a highly diverting
+exhibition."
+
+Apollonius and Bruno were curious to know what the pulley and rope were
+to be used for, but Buffalmacco refused to say. Nevertheless they
+promised faithfully to get him what he wanted; for they knew him to
+possess the merriest wit in the world and the most fertile in amusing
+contrivances, having earned his nickname of Buffalmacco for these very
+qualities. And truly he knew some excellent turns, that have since
+become legendary.
+
+The three friends, having nothing now to keep them awake, fell asleep
+under the moon, which looking in at the garret window, pointed the tip
+of one of her horns, as if in mockery, at old Tafi. They slept sound
+till daybreak, when the master began hammering on the partition, and
+called out, coughing and spitting as usual.
+
+"Get up, master Apollonius! Up with you, apprentices! Day's come;
+Phœbus has blown out the sky candles! Quick's the word! 'Life is
+short, and art long.'"
+
+Then he began threatening Bruno and Buffalmacco he would come and start
+them out with a bucket of cold water, jeering and asking them:
+
+"Is your bed so delicious, eh? Have you got Helen of Troy there, you're
+so loath to quit the sheets?"
+
+Meanwhile he was slipping on his hose and his old, worn hood. This done,
+he sallied out, to find the lads waiting on the landing, fully dressed
+and with their tools all ready.
+
+That morning, in the fair Church of San Giovanni, on the planking that
+mounted to the cornice, the work went on merrily for a while. For the
+last week the master had been trying his hardest to give a good
+representation according to the recognized rules of art of the baptism
+of Jesus Christ. He had just begun putting in the fishes swimming in the
+Jordan. Apollonius was mixing the cement with bitumen and chopped straw,
+pronouncing words of might known only to himself; while Bruno and
+Buffalmacco were picking the little cubes of stone to be used, and Tafi
+arranging them according to the sketch he had made on a slab of slate he
+held in his hand. But just when the master was busiest over the job, the
+three friends sprang lightly down the ladder and slipped out of the
+Church. Bruno went off to the house of Calendrino, outside the walls, in
+search of a pulley that was used for hoisting corn into the granary. At
+the same time Apollonius hurried away to Ripoli to see an old lady, the
+wife of a Judge, whom he had promised to provide with a philtre to draw
+lovers to her side, and persuading her that hemp was indispensable for
+compounding the potion, got her to hand him over the well-rope, a good
+stout piece of cord.
+
+The two friends next met at Tafi's house, where they found Buffalmacco
+awaiting them. The latter at once set to work to attach the pulley
+firmly to the king-post of the roof, above the partition separating the
+master's sleeping-room from his apprentices'. Then, after passing the
+old lady's well-rope through the pulley, he left one end hanging down in
+their own chamber, while he went into his master's apartment and
+fastened the bed to the other extremity, by each corner. He took good
+care the rope should be concealed behind the curtains, so that nothing
+out of the way might be visible. When all was done, the three companions
+went back to San Giovanni.
+
+The old man, who had been so busily engaged as scarcely to have noticed
+their absence, addressed them with a beaming face:
+
+"Look you," he said, "how those fish sparkle with divers colours, and
+particularly with gold, purple and blue, as creatures should which
+inhabit the ocean and the rivers, and which possess so marvellous a
+brilliancy of hues only because they were the first to submit to the
+empire of the goddess Venus, as is all explained in the legend."
+
+Thus the master discoursed in a way full of grace and good sense. For
+you must know he was a man of wit and learning, albeit his humour was so
+saturnine and grasping, above all when his thoughts turned toward filthy
+lucre. He went on:
+
+"Now is not a painter's trade a good one and deserving of all praise? it
+wins him riches in this world and happiness in the next. For be sure Our
+Lord Jesus Christ will welcome gratefully in His holy Paradise craftsmen
+like myself who have portrayed His veritable likeness."
+
+And Andrea Tafi was glad at heart to be at work upon this great picture
+in mosaic, whereof several portions are yet visible at San Giovanni to
+this day. Presently when night came and effaced both form and colour in
+all the Church, he tore himself regretfully from the river Jordan and
+sought his house. He supped in the kitchen off a couple of tomatoes and
+a scrap of cheese, went upstairs to his room, undressed in the dark and
+got into bed.
+
+No sooner was he laid down than he made his customary prayer to the
+Blessed Virgin:
+
+"Holy Virgin, Mother of God, which for Thy merits wast exalted alive to
+Heaven, stretch forth Thy hand full of grace and mercy to me, to lift me
+up to Paradise!"
+
+The moment was come which the three companions had been eagerly awaiting
+in the neighbouring room.
+
+They grasped the rope's end that hung down the partition from the
+pulley, and scarcely had the good old fellow finished his supplication
+when at a sign from Buffalmacco they hauled so vigorously on the cord,
+that the bed fastened at the other end began to rise from the floor.
+Master Andrea, feeling himself being hoisted aloft, yet without seeing
+how, got it into his head it was the Blessed Virgin answering his prayer
+and drawing him up to Heaven. He was panic-stricken and fell a-screaming
+in a quavering voice:
+
+"Stop, stop, sweet Lady! I never asked it should be now!"
+
+And as the bed rose higher and higher, the rope working smoothly and
+noiselessly over the pulley, the old man poured out the most pitiful
+supplications to the Virgin Mary:
+
+"Good Lady! sweet Lady! don't pull so! Ho, there! Let go, I say!" But
+she seemed not to hear a word. At this he grew furiously angry and
+bellowed:
+
+"You must be deaf, you wooden-head! Let go, _bitch of a Madonna_!"
+
+Seeing he was leaving the floor for good and all, his terror increased
+yet further; and, calling upon Jesus, he besought Him to make His holy
+Mother listen to reason. It was high time, he asseverated, she should
+give up this mischancy Assumption. Sinner that he was, and son of a
+sinner, he could not, and he would not, go up to Heaven before he'd
+finished the river Jordan, the waves and the fishes, and the rest of Our
+Blessed Lord's history. Meanwhile the canopy of the bed was all but
+touching the beams of the roofing, and Tafi was crying in desperation:
+
+"Jesus, unless you stop your Blessed Mother this instant, the roof of my
+house, which cost a fine penny, will most certainly be burst up. For I
+see for sure I'm going slap through it. Stop! stop! I can hear the tiles
+cracking."
+
+Buffalmacco perceived that by now his master's voice was actually
+strangling in his throat, and he ordered his companions to let go the
+rope. This they did, the result being that the bed, tumbling suddenly
+from roof to floor of the room, crashed down on the boards, breaking the
+legs and splitting the panels; simultaneously the bedposts toppled over
+and the canopy, curtains, hangings and all fell atop of Master Andrea,
+who, thinking he was going to be smothered, started howling like a devil
+incarnate. His very soul staggered under the shock, and he could not
+tell whether he was fallen back again into his chamber or pitched
+headlong into Hell.
+
+At this point the three apprentices rushed in, as if just awakened by
+the noise. Seeing the ruins of the bed lying smothered in clouds of
+dust, they feigned intense surprise, and instead of going to the old
+man's help, asked him if it was the Devil had done the mischief. But he
+only sighed heavily, and said:
+
+"It's all up with me; pull me out of this. I'm a dying man!"
+
+At last they dragged him from among the débris, under which he was ready
+to suffocate, and placed him sitting up with his back to the wall. He
+breathed hard, coughed and spat, and:
+
+"My lads," he said, "but for the timely succour of Our Lord Jesus
+Christ, who hurled me back to earth again with a violence you can
+plainly see the effects of, I should at this present moment be in the
+circle of Heaven named the crystalline or _primum mobile_. His holy
+Mother would not listen to a word. In my fall, I have lost three teeth,
+which, without being exactly sound, still did me good service.
+Moreover, I have an agonizing pain in my right side and in the arm that
+holds the brush."
+
+"My master," said Apollonius pityingly, "you must have received some
+internal hurts, which is a very dangerous thing. At Constantinople, in
+the risings, I discovered how much more deadly such injuries are than
+mere external wounds. But never fear, I am going to charm away the
+mischief with spells."
+
+"Not for worlds!" put in the old man; "that were a deadly sin. But come
+hither, all three, and do me the service, an you will, of rubbing me
+well in the worst places."
+
+They did as he asked, and never left him till they had pretty well
+scarified every bit of skin off the old fellow's back and loins.
+
+The good lads made it their first business to sow the story broadcast
+through the city. This they did to such good effect that there was not
+man, woman nor child in Florence could look Master Andrea Tafi in the
+face without bursting out laughing. Now one morning Buffalmacco was
+passing down the Corso, Messer Guido, the son of the Signor Cavalcanti,
+who was on his way to the marshes to shoot crane, stopped his horse,
+called the apprentice to him, and tossed him his purse with the words:
+
+"Ho! gentle Buffalmacco, here's somewhat to drink to the health of
+Epicurus and his disciples."
+
+You must know Messer Guido was of the sect of the Epicureans and loved
+to marshal well-arranged arguments against the existence of God. He was
+used to declare the death of men is precisely the same as that of
+beasts.
+
+"Buffalmacco," added the young nobleman, "this purse I have given you is
+for payment of the very instructive, complete and profitable experiment
+you made, when you sent old Tafi to Heaven--who, seeing his carcass
+taking the road to the Empyrean, began to squeal like a pig being
+killed. This proves plainly he had no real assurance in the promised
+joys of Paradise--which are, it must be allowed, far from certain. In
+the same way as nurses tell children fairy-tales, vague things are
+talked concerning the immortality of mortal men. The vulgar herd thinks
+it believes these tales, but it does not really and truly. Hard fact
+comes and shivers the poets' fables. There is nothing assured but the
+sad life of this world. Horace, the Roman poet, is of my opinion when he
+says: _Serus in cælum redeas_."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "_May it be long ere you return to heaven your home._"--Ode
+2 of Book I, addressed to Augustus.]
+
+
+III
+
+THE MASTER
+
+Having learned the art of preparing and using the proper coats and
+colours, as well as the secret of painting figures in the good manner of
+Cimabuë and Giotto, the young Buonamico Cristofani, the Florentine,
+surnamed Buffalmacco, abandoned the workshop of his master Andrea Tafi,
+and proceeded to establish himself in the quarter of the fullers,
+immediately opposite to the house known by the sign of the Goose's Head.
+Now in those days, like fair ladies outvying one another in wearing
+gowns broidered with flowers, the towns of Italy made it their pride to
+cover the walls of their Churches and Cloisters with paintings. Among
+all these, Florence was the most sumptuous and magnificent, and was the
+place of all others for a Painter to live in. Buffalmacco knew how to
+give his figures movement and expression; and, while far behind the
+divine Giotto for beauty of design, he pleased the eye by the gay
+exuberance of his inventions. So he was not long in getting commissions
+in considerable numbers. It only depended on himself to win riches and
+fame with all speed. But his chief idea was to amuse himself in company
+of Bruno di Giovanni and Nello, and squander along with them, in
+debauchery, all the money he made.
+
+Now the Abbess of the Ladies of Faenza, established at Florence,
+determined about this time to have the Church of their Nunnery decorated
+with frescoes. Hearing that there lived in the quarter of the fullers
+and wool-carders a very clever painter named Buffalmacco, she despatched
+her Steward thither to come to an arrangement with him as to the
+execution of the proposed paintings. The master agreed to the terms
+offered and undertook the commission readily enough. He had a
+scaffolding erected in the Nunnery Church and on the still moist plaster
+began to paint, with wondrous vigour of execution, the history of Jesus
+Christ. First of all, to the right of the Altar, he illustrated the
+massacre of the Holy Innocents, and succeeded in expressing so vividly
+the grief and rage of the mothers trying vainly to save their little
+ones from the Roman soldiers' hands, that the very wall seemed to chant
+like the faithful in Church, "_Cur, Crudelis Herodes?..._" Drawn thither
+by curiosity, the Nuns used to come, two or three of them together, to
+watch the master at work. At sight of all these despairing mothers and
+murdered babes, they could not help sobbing and shedding tears. In
+particular there was one little fellow Buffalmacco had drawn lying in
+his swaddling bands, smiling and sucking his thumb, between a soldier's
+legs. The Nuns begged and prayed this one might not be killed:
+
+"Oh! spare him," they said to the Painter. "Do take care the soldiers
+don't see him and kill him!"
+
+The good Buffalmacco answered:
+
+"For love of you, dear sisters, I will protect him all I can. But these
+murderers are filled with so savage a rage, it will be a difficult
+matter to stop them."
+
+When they declared "The baby _is_ such a little darling!..." he offered
+to make each of them a little darling prettier still.
+
+"Thank you kindly!" they answered back, laughing.
+
+The Abbess came in her turn to assure herself with her own eyes that the
+work was being done satisfactorily. She was a lady of very high birth,
+named Usimbalda, a proud, severe and careful personage. Seeing a man
+working without cloak or hood, and like a common labourer wearing only
+shirt and hose, she mistook him for some apprentice lad and did not
+condescend so much as to speak to him. She came again and again, five or
+six times, to the Chapel, without ever seeing any one more important
+than this working fellow she deemed only fit to grind the colours. Out
+of all patience at last, she showed him she was far from satisfied.
+
+"My lad," she bade him, "tell your master from me he must come and work
+himself at the pictures I commissioned him to paint. I meant them to be
+the work of his own hand, not a mere apprentice's."
+
+Far from declaring himself, Buffalmacco put on the look and voice of a
+poor working-man, and humbly answered Usimbalda, that he saw plain
+enough he was not of the sort to inspire confidence in so noble a lady,
+and that his duty was to obey.
+
+"I will inform my master," he went on; "and he will not fail to put
+himself at the orders of My Lady Abbess."
+
+With this assurance, the Lady Usimbalda left the Church. No sooner was
+he alone than Buffalmacco arranged on the scaffolding, just at the spot
+where he was at work, two stools with a crock on the top. Then going to
+the corner where he had laid them, he pulled out his cloak and hat,
+which as it happened were in a very fair state of freshness, and put
+them on the lay figure he had improvised; next, he stuck a brush in the
+spout of the crock, which was turned towards the wall. This done, after
+assuring himself the thing had quite the look of a man busy painting, he
+decamped with all speed, determined to keep away till he had seen what
+happened.
+
+Next day the Nuns paid their usual visit to the scene of action. But
+finding instead of the merry fellow they were accustomed to, a stately
+gentleman who held himself In the stiffest of attitudes and seemed
+entirely indisposed to laugh and talk, they were afraid and took to
+flight.
+
+Madame Usimbalda on the contrary, when _she_ returned to the Church, was
+delighted to see the master at work in lieu of the apprentice.
+
+She proceeded to give him much valuable advice, exhorting him for a good
+ten minutes to paint figures that should be modest, noble and
+expressive--before she discovered she was addressing her remarks to a
+crock.
+
+She would hardly have found out her mistake even then, had she not grown
+impatient at receiving no reply, and pulling the master by his cloak,
+brought crock, stool, hat, brush and all tumbling at her feet. Then, as
+she was by no means wanting in sense, she saw it was intended as a
+lesson not to judge the artist by his dress. She sent her steward to
+Buffalmacco, and begged him to finish what he had begun.
+
+He completed the work greatly to his credit. Connoisseurs especially
+admired in these frescoes the figure of the Crucified Redeemer, the
+three Marys weeping at the foot of the Cross, Judas hanged on a tree,
+and a man blowing his nose. Unfortunately the paintings were all
+destroyed along with the Church of the Nunnery of the Ladies of Faenza.
+
+
+IV
+
+THE PAINTER
+
+Equally famous for his wit and humour and for his skill in devising
+figure subjects on the walls of Church and Cloister, Buonamico, surnamed
+Buffalmacco, had already left his youth behind when he was invited from
+Florence to Arezzo by the Lord Bishop of that city, who wished the halls
+of his Palace decorated with paintings. Buffalmacco undertook the
+commission, and directly the walls were duly laid with stucco, started
+on a picture of the Adoration of the Wise Men.
+
+In the course of a few days he had painted in King Melchior complete,
+mounted on a white horse, looking for all the world as if he were alive.
+His horse's saddle-cloth was scarlet, dotted with precious stones.
+
+Now all the time he was at work, the Bishop's pet monkey sat staring
+intently at his proceedings, never taking his eyes off him. Whether the
+painter was squeezing his tubes, mixing his colours, beating up his eggs
+or laying on the colour with his brush on the moist surface, the
+creature never lost one of his movements. It was a baboon brought from
+Barbary for the Doge of Venice in one of the State Galleys. The Doge
+made a present of it to the Bishop of Arezzo, who thanked his
+Magnificence, reminding him prettily how King Solomon's ships had in
+like fashion imported from the land of Ophir apes and peacocks, as is
+related in the First Book of Kings (x. 22). And there was nothing in all
+his Palace Bishop Guido held more precious than this baboon.
+
+He left the animal to roam at liberty about the halls and gardens, where
+it was for ever at some mischievous trick or another. One Sunday, during
+the painter's absence, the creature climbed up on the scaffolding, laid
+hold of the tubes, mixed up the colours in a way of its own, broke all
+the eggs it could find, and began plying the brush on the wall, as it
+had seen the other do. It worked away at King Melchior and his horse,
+never leaving off till the whole composition was repainted according to
+its own ideas.
+
+Next morning Buffalmacco, finding his colours all topsy-turvy and his
+work spoiled, was both grieved and angry. He was persuaded some painter
+of Arezzo, who was jealous of his superior skill, had played him this
+dirty trick, and went straight to the Bishop to complain. The latter
+urged him to set to work again and repair with all speed what had been
+ruined in a manner so mysterious. He undertook that for the future two
+soldiers should keep guard night and day before the frescoes, with
+orders to drive their lances through any one who should dare to come
+near. On this condition, Buffalmacco agreed to resume his task, and two
+soldiers were put on sentry close at hand. One evening, just as he was
+leaving the hall, his day's work finished, the soldiers saw the Lord
+Bishop's ape spring so nimbly into his place on the scaffold and seize
+the colour-tubes and brushes with such rapidity there was no possibility
+of stopping him. They shouted lustily to the painter, who came back just
+in time to see the baboon paint over for the second time King Melchior,
+the white horse and the scarlet saddle-cloth. The sight was like to move
+poor Buffalmacco at one and the same time to laughter and tears.
+
+He went off to the Bishop and thus addressed him:
+
+"My Lord Bishop, you are good enough to admire my style of painting; but
+your baboon prefers a different. What need to have had me summoned here,
+when you had a master painter in your own household? It may be he
+lacked experience. But now he has nothing left to learn, my presence
+here is quite unnecessary, and I will back to Florence."
+
+Having so said, the good Buffalmacco returned to his inn, in great
+vexation. He ate his supper without appetite and went to bed in a very
+dismal frame of mind.
+
+Then the Lord Bishop's ape appeared to him in a dream, not a mere
+mannikin as he was in reality, but as tall as Monte San Gemignano,
+cocking up a prodigious tail and tickling the moon. He was squatted in
+an olive wood among the farms and oil-presses, while betwixt his legs a
+narrow road ran alongside a row of flourishing vineyards. Now the said
+road was thronged with a multitude of pilgrims, who defiled one by one
+before the painter's eyes. And lo! Buffalmacco recognized the countless
+victims of his practical jokes and merry humour generally.
+
+He saw, to begin with, his old master Andrea Tafi, who had taught him
+how men win renown by practice of the arts, and whom in return he had
+befooled again and again, making him mistake for devils of hell a dozen
+wax tapers pinned on the backs of a lot of great cockroaches, and
+hoisting him in his bed to the joists of the ceiling, so that the poor
+old fellow thought he was being carried up to heaven and was in mortal
+terror.
+
+He saw the wool-carder of the _Gooses Head_, and his wife, that notable
+woman, at the spinning-wheel. Into this good dame's cooking-pot
+Buffalmacco had been wont every evening to throw big handfuls of salt
+through a crack in the wall, so that day after day the wool-carder would
+spit out his porridge and beat his wife.
+
+He saw Master Simon de Villa, the Bolognese physician, to be known by
+his Doctor's cap, the same he had pitched into the cesspool beside the
+Convent of the Nuns of Ripoli. The Doctor ruined his best velvet gown,
+but nobody pitied him, for regardless of his good wife's claims, a plain
+woman but a Christian, he had longed to bed with Prester John's
+Chinchimura, who wears horns betwixt her sinful buttocks. Good
+Buffalmacco had persuaded the Doctor he could take him o' nights to the
+Witches' Sabbath, where he went himself with a merry company to make
+love to the Queen of France, who gave him wine and spices for his
+doughty deeds. Simon accepted the invitation, hoping he should be
+treated right royally too. Then Buffalmacco having donned a beast's skin
+and a horned mask such as they wear at merry-makings, came to Master
+Simon, declaring he was a devil ordered to conduct him to the Sabbath.
+Taking him on his shoulders, he carried him to the edge of a pit full of
+filth, where he pitched him in head first.
+
+Next Buffalmacco saw Calendrino, whom he had got to believe that the
+stone Heliotropia was to be found in the plain of the Mugnone, which
+stone possesses the virtue of rendering invisible whosoever bears it
+about his person. He took him to Mugnone along with Bruno da Giovanni,
+and when Calendrino had picked up a very large number of stones,
+Buffalmacco suddenly pretended he could not see him, crying out: "The
+scamp has given us the slip; an I catch him, I'll bang his behind with
+this paving-stone!" And he landed the stone exactly where he said he
+would, without Calendrino having any right to complain, because he was
+invisible. This same Calendrino was without any sense of humour, and
+Buffalmacco played on his simplicity so far as to make him actually
+believe he was with child, and got a brace of fat capons out of him as
+fee for his safe delivery.
+
+Next Buffalmacco saw the countryman for whom he had painted the Blessed
+Virgin with the Infant Jesus in her arms, afterwards changing the babe
+into a bear's cub.
+
+He saw moreover the Abbess of the Nuns of Faenza, who had commissioned
+him to paint the walls of the Convent Church in fresco, and he told her
+on his oath and honour you must mix good wine with the colours, if the
+flesh tints are to be really brilliant. So the Abbess gave him for every
+Saint, male or female, depicted in his pictures a flask of the wine
+reserved for Bishops' drinking, which he poured down his throat,
+trusting to vermilion to bring out the warm tints. The same Lady Abbess
+it was he deceived, making her take a pitcher with a cloak thrown over
+it for a master painter, as has been already recounted.
+
+Buffalmacco saw, besides, a long line of other folks he had befooled,
+cajoled, cozened and bemocked. Closing the rear, marched with crozier,
+mitre and cope, the great Sant' Ercolano, whom in a merry mood he had
+represented in the Great Square of Perugia, girt about with a garland of
+gudgeons.
+
+All as they passed paid their compliment to the ape which had avenged
+them; and the monster, opening a great mouth wider than the jaws of
+hell, broke into a mocking laugh.
+
+For the first time in his life Buffalmacco had a downright bad night's
+rest.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF VERONA
+
+TO HUGUES REBELL
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF VERONA
+
+  "_Puella autem moriens dixit: 'Satanas, trado tibi corpus meum cum
+  anima mea.'" (Quadragesimale opus declamatum Parisiis in ecclesia Sti.
+  Johannis in Gravia per venerabilem patrem Sacrae scripturae
+  interpretem eximium Ol. Maillardum, 1511._)[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "But the dying girl said, 'Satan, I give over my body to
+you along with my soul.'" (Lenten Sermon preached at Paris in the Church
+of St. Jean-en-Grève by that venerable father and excellent expounder of
+Holy Scripture, Olivier Maillard, 1511.)]
+
+
+_The following was found by the Reverend Father Adone Doni, in the
+Archives of the Monastery of Santa Croce, at Verona._
+
+Signora Eletta of Verona was so wondrous fair and of so perfect a grace
+of body, that the learned of the city, they who had knowledge of history
+and legend, were used to call her lady mother by the names of Latona,
+Leda and Semele, making implication thereby of their belief that the
+fruit of her womb had been framed in her by a god, Jupiter, rather than
+by any mortal man, such as were her husband and lovers. But the wiser
+heads, notably the Fra Battista, whose successor I am as Superior of
+Santa Croce, held that such exceeding beauty of the flesh came of the
+operation of the Devil, who is an artist in the sense the dying Nero
+understood the word when he said, "_Qualis artifex pereo!_"[1] And we
+may be sure Satan, the enemy of God, who is cunning to work the metals,
+excels likewise in the moulding of human flesh.
+
+[Footnote 1: "What an artist dies in me!" "Oh! the loss to Art! the loss
+to Art!"]
+
+I myself, who am writing these lines, possessing no small acquaintance
+with the world, have many a time seen church bells and figures of men
+wrought by the Enemy of Mankind--and the craftsmanship thereof
+admirable. Likewise have I had knowledge of children engendered in women
+by the Devil, but on this matter my tongue is tied by the obligation of
+secrecy binding on every Confessor. I will limit myself, therefore, to
+saying that many strange tales were bruited concerning the birth of the
+Signora Eletta. I saw this lady for the first time on the Piazza of
+Verona on Good Friday of the year 1320, when she had just completed her
+fourteenth year. And I have beheld her since in the public walks and the
+Churches ladies most favour. She was like a picture painted by a very
+excellent limner.
+
+She had hair of wavy gold, a white brow, eyes of a colour never seen but
+in the precious stone called aquamarine, cheeks of rose, a nose straight
+and finely cut. Her mouth was a Cupid's bow, that wounded with its
+smiles; and the chin was as full of laughter as the mouth. Her whole
+body was framed to perfection for the delight of lovers. The breasts
+were not of exaggerated size; yet showed beneath the muslin two swelling
+globes of a full and most winsome roundness. As well by reason of my
+sacred character, as because I never saw her but clad in her walking
+dress and her limbs half hidden, I will not describe the other parts of
+her fair body, which one and all proclaimed their perfection through the
+stuffs that veiled them. I will only assure you, that when she was in
+her accustomed place in the Church of San Zenone, there was never a
+movement she could make, whether to rise to her feet or drop on her
+knees or prostrate herself with forehead touching the stones, as is meet
+to do at the instant of the elevation of the blessed body of Jesus
+Christ, without straightway inspiring the men that saw her with an
+ardent longing to hold her pressed to their bosom.
+
+Now it came about that Signora Eletta married, when about the age of
+fifteen, Messer Antonio Torlota, an Advocate. He was a very learned
+man, of good repute, and wealthy, but already far advanced in years, and
+so heavy and misshapen, that seeing him carrying his papers in a great
+leathern bag, you could scarcely tell which bag it was dragging about
+the other.
+
+It was pitiful to think how, as the result of the holy sacrament of
+wedlock, which is instituted among men for their glory and eternal
+salvation, the fairest lady of Verona was bedded with so old a man, all
+ruinate in health and vigour. And wise folk saw with more pain than
+wonder that, profiting by the freedom allowed her by her husband, busied
+all night long as he was solving the problems of justice and injustice,
+Messer Torlota's young wife welcomed to her bed the handsomest and most
+proper cavaliers of the city. But the pleasure she took therein came
+from herself, not from them at all. It was her own self she loved, and
+not her lovers. All her enjoyment was of the loveliness of her own
+proper flesh, and of nothing else. Herself was her own desire and
+delight, and her own fond concupiscence. Whereby, methinks, the sin of
+carnal indulgence was, in her case, enormously aggravated.
+
+For, albeit, this sin must ever divide us from God--a sufficient sign of
+its gravity--yet is it true to say that carnal offenders are regarded by
+the Sovereign Judge, both in this world and the next, with less
+indignation than are covetous men, traitors, murderers, and wicked men
+who have made traffic of holy things. And the reason of this is that the
+naughty desires sensualists entertain, being directed towards others
+rather than to themselves, do still show some degraded traces of true
+love and gentle charity.
+
+But nothing of the kind was to be seen in the adulterous amours of the
+Signora Eletta, who in every passion loved herself and herself only. And
+herein was she much wider separated from God than so many other women
+who gave way to their wanton desires. For in their case these desires
+were towards others, whereas the Lady Eletta's had none but herself for
+their object. What I say hereanent, I say to make more understandable
+the conclusion of the matter, which I must now relate.
+
+At the age of twenty she fell sick and felt herself to be dying. Then
+she bewailed her fair body with the most piteous tears. She made her
+women dress her out in her richest attire, looked long and steadfastly
+at herself in the mirror, fondled with both hands her bosom and hips, to
+enjoy for the last time her own exceeding beauty. And, aghast at the
+thought of this body she so adored being eaten of the worms in the damp
+earth, she said, as she breathed her last, with a great sigh of faith
+and hope:
+
+"Satan, best beloved Satan! take thou my soul and my body; Satan, gentle
+Satan! hear my prayer: take, take my body along with my soul."
+
+She was borne to San Zenone, as custom ordains, with her face uncovered;
+and, within the memory of man, none had ever seen a dead woman look so
+lovely. While the priests were chanting the offices for the dead around
+her bier, she lay as if swooning with delight in the arms of an
+invisible lover. When the ceremony was over, the Signora Eletta's
+coffin, carefully closed and sealed, was deposited in holy ground, amid
+the tombs that surrounded San Zenone, and of which some are Ancient
+Roman monuments. But next morning the earth they had thrown over the
+dead woman was found removed, and there lay the coffin open and empty.
+
+
+
+
+THE HUMAN TRAGEDY
+
+TO J.H. ROSNY
+
+
+
+
+THE HUMAN TRAGEDY
+
+  _Πᾶς δ' ὀδυνηρὸς βίος ἀνθρώπων,
+  κοὐκ ἔστι πόνων ἀνάπαυσις.
+  ἄλλο τι τοῦ ζῆν φίλτερον, ἀλλ' ὃ
+  σκότος ἀμπίσχων κρύπτει νεφέλαις._
+
+  (Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 190 sqq.)[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "All the life of man is full of pain, and there is no
+surcease of sorrow. If there be aught better elsewhere than this present
+life, it is hid shrouded in the clouds of darkness."]
+
+
+I
+
+FRA GIOVANNI
+
+In those days the holy man, who, born though he was of human parents,
+was veritably a son of God, and who had chosen for his bride a maiden
+that folk open the door to as reluctantly as to Death itself, and never
+with a smile,--the poor man of Jesus Christ, St. Francis, was gone up to
+the Skies. Earth, which he had perfumed with his virtues, kept only his
+body and the fruitful seed of his words. His sons in the spirit grew
+meantime, and multiplied among the Peoples, for the blessing of Abraham
+was upon them.
+
+Kings and Queens girded on the cord of St. Francis, the poor man of
+Jesus Christ. Men in multitudes sought in forgetfulness of self and of
+the world the secret of true happiness; and flying the joy of life,
+found a greater joy.
+
+The Order of St. Francis spread fast through all Christendom, and the
+Houses of the Poor Men of the Lord covered the face of Italy, Spain, the
+two Gauls and the Teutonic lands. In the good town of Viterbo arose a
+House of peculiar sanctity. In it Fra Giovanni took the vows of Poverty,
+and lived humble and despised, his soul a garden of flowers fenced about
+with walls.
+
+He had knowledge by revelation of many truths that escape clever and
+world-wise men. And ignorant and simple-minded as he was, he knew things
+unknown to the most learned Doctors of the age.
+
+He knew that the cares of riches make men ill-conditioned and wretched,
+and that coming into the world poor and naked, they would be happy, if
+only they would live as they were born. He was poor and merry-hearted.
+His delight was in obedience; and renouncing the making of plans of any
+sort for the future, he relished the bread of the heart. For the weight
+of human actions is a heavy load, and we are trees bearing poisoned
+fruit. He was afraid to act, for is not all effort painful and useless?
+He was afraid to think, for thought is evil.
+
+He was very humble, knowing how men have nothing of their own that they
+should boast of, and that pride hardens the heart. He knew, moreover,
+that they who possess for all wealth only the riches of the spirit, if
+they make boast of their treasure, so far lower themselves to the level
+of the great ones of the earth.
+
+And Fra Giovanni outdid in humility all the Monks of the House of
+Viterbo. The Superior of the Monastery, the holy Brother Silvester, was
+less righteous than he, forasmuch as the master is less righteous than
+the servant, the mother less innocent than the babe.
+
+Observing that Fra Giovanni had a way of stripping himself of his gown
+to clothe the suffering members of Jesus Christ, the Superior forbade
+him, in the name of holy obedience, to give away his garments to the
+poor. Now the same day this command was laid on him, Giovanni went, as
+his wont was, to pray in the woods that cover the slopes of Monte
+Cunino. It was Winter time; snow was falling, and the wolves coming down
+into the villages.
+
+Fra Giovanni kneeling down at the foot of an oak, spoke to God, as
+might one friend to another, and besought Him to take pity on all
+orphans, prisoners and captives, to take pity on the master of the
+fields sorely harried by the Lombard usurers, to take pity on the stags
+and hinds of the forest chased by the hunters, and on all trapped
+creatures, whether of fur or feathers. And lo! he was rapt away in an
+ecstasy, and saw a hand pointing in the sky.
+
+When presently the sun had slipped behind the mountains, the man of God
+arose from his knees and took the path to the Monastery. On the white,
+silent road thither, he met a beggar, who asked him an alms for the love
+of God.
+
+"Alas!" he told him, "I have nothing but my gown, and the Superior has
+forbidden me to cut it in two so as to give away the half. Therefore I
+cannot divide it with you. But if you love me, my son, you will take it
+off me whole and undivided."
+
+On hearing these words, the beggar promptly stripped the Friar of his
+gown.
+
+So Fra Giovanni went on his way naked under the falling snow, and
+entered the city. As he was crossing the Piazza with nothing on but a
+linen cloth about his loins, the children who were running at play in
+the Great Square made mock at him. In derision, they shook their fists
+in his face with the thumb stuck between the first and middle fingers,
+and threw snow at him mixed with mud and small stones.
+
+Now there lay in the Great Square some logs of timber for the woodwork
+of a house, and one of the logs happened to be balanced across another.
+Two children ran and took their places, one at each end of the beam, and
+began playing see-saw--two of the same children who had made mock of the
+holy man and thrown stones at him.
+
+He went up to them now smiling, and said:
+
+"Dear little children, will you suffer me to share your game?"
+
+And sitting down on one end of the beam, he see-sawed up and down
+against the two little ones.
+
+And some of the citizens happening to pass that way, said, wondering:
+
+"Truly and indeed the man is out of his wits."
+
+But after the bells had rung the _Ave Maria_, Fra Giovanni was still at
+see-saw. And it chanced that certain Priests from Rome, who had come to
+Viterbo to visit the Mendicant Friars, whose fame was great through the
+world, just then crossed the Great Square. And hearing the children
+shouting, "Look! little Brother Giovanni's here," the Priests drew near
+the Monk, and saluted him very respectfully. But the holy man never
+returned their salute, but making as though he did not see them, went
+on see-sawing on the swaying beam. So the Priests said to each other:
+
+"Come away; the fellow is a mere dunce and dullard!"
+
+Then was Fra Giovanni glad, and his heart overflowed with joy. For these
+things he did out of humility and for the love of God. And he put his
+joy in the scorn of men, as the miser shuts his gold in a cedarn chest,
+locked with a triple lock.
+
+At nightfall he knocked at the Monastery door, and being admitted,
+appeared among the Brethren naked, bleeding, and covered with mire. He
+smiled and said:
+
+"A kind thief took my gown, and some children deemed me worthy to play
+with them."
+
+But the Brothers were angry, because he had dared to pass through the
+city in so undignified a plight.
+
+"He feels no compunction," they declared, "about exposing the Holy Order
+of St. Francis to derision and disgrace. He deserves the most exemplary
+punishment."
+
+The General of the Order, being warned a great scandal was ruining the
+sacred Society, called together all the Brethren of the Chapter, and
+made Fra Giovanni kneel humbly on his knees in the midst of them all.
+Then, his face blazing with anger, he chid him harshly in a loud, rough
+voice. This done, he consulted the assembly as to the penance it was
+meet to impose on the guilty Brother.
+
+Some were for having him put in prison or suspended in an iron cage from
+the Church steeple, while others advised he should be chained up for a
+madman.
+
+And Fra Giovanni, beaming with satisfaction, told them:
+
+"You are very right, my Brethren; I deserve these punishments, and worse
+ones still. I am good for nothing but foolishly to waste and squander
+the goods of God and of my Order."
+
+And Brother Marcian, who was a man of great sternness both of life and
+doctrine, cried:
+
+"Hear him! he talks like a hypocrite; that honeyed voice of his issues
+from a whited sepulchre."
+
+And Fra Giovanni said again:
+
+"Brother Marcian, I am indeed capable of every infamy--but for God's
+good help."
+
+Meantime the General was pondering over the strange behaviour of Fra
+Giovanni, and he besought the Holy Spirit to inspire the judgment he was
+to give. And lo! as he prayed, his anger was changed into admiration. He
+had known St. Francis in the days when that Angel of Heaven, born of a
+woman, was a sojourner in this world, and the ensample of the favourite
+follower of Christ had taught him the love of spiritual perfection.
+
+So his soul was enlightened, and he recognized in the works of Fra
+Giovanni a divine innocency and beauty.
+
+"My brethren," he said at length, "far from blaming our Brother, let us
+admire the grace he receives so abundantly from God. In very truth he is
+a better man than we. What he has done, he has done in imitation of
+Jesus Christ, who 'suffered the little children to come unto Him,' and
+let the Roman soldiers strip Him of His garments."
+
+Then he thus addressed the kneeling Fra Giovanni:
+
+"This, Brother, is the penance I lay upon you. In the name of that holy
+obedience you owe St. Francis, I command you go forth into the country,
+and the first beggar you meet, beg him to strip you of your tunic. Then,
+when he has left you naked, you must come back into the city, and play
+in the Public Square With the little children."
+
+Having so said, the General of the Order came down from his chair of
+state, and, raising Fra Giovanni from the ground, fell on his own knees
+before him and kissed his feet. Then, turning to the assembled Monks, he
+said to them:
+
+"In very truth, my Brethren, this man is the good God's plaything."
+
+
+II
+
+THE LAMP
+
+In those days the truth was revealed to Fra Giovanni that the riches of
+this world come from God and should be the heritage of the poor, who are
+the favourite children of Jesus Christ.
+
+Christian folk were busy celebrating the Saviour's birth; and Fra
+Giovanni had come to the town of Assisi, which is set upon a
+mountain-top, and from this mountain first rose the Sun of Charity.
+
+Now the day before Christmas eve, Fra Giovanni was kneeling in prayer
+before the Altar under which St. Francis sleeps in a stone coffin. And
+he was meditating, dreaming how St. Francis was born in a stable, like
+Jesus. And while he was pondering, the Sacristan came up to him and
+asked him of his goodness to look after the Church while he ate his
+supper. Church and Altar were both loaded with precious ornaments; gold
+and silver were there in abundance, for the sons of St. Francis had
+long fallen from their early poverty, and had received gifts from the
+Queens of the Earth.
+
+Fra Giovanni assured the Sacristan:
+
+"Go, Brother, and enjoy your meal. I will guard the Church, as Our Lord
+would have it guarded."
+
+And so saying, he went on with his meditations. And as he knelt there
+alone in prayer, a poor woman entered the Church and asked an alms of
+him for the love of God.
+
+"I have nothing," the holy man replied; "but the Altar is loaded with
+ornaments, and I will go see if I cannot find something to give you." A
+golden lamp hung above the Altar, decked about with silver bells.
+Examining the lamp, he said to himself:
+
+"Those little bells are but idle vanities. The true ornament of yonder
+Altar is the body of St. Francis, which reposes naked under the flags
+with a black stone for a pillow."
+
+And drawing his knife from his pocket, he detached the little silver
+bells, one after the other, and gave them to the poor woman.
+
+Presently, when the Sacristan, his meal finished, returned to the
+Church, Fra Giovanni, the holy man of God, said to him:
+
+"Never trouble, my brother, about the little bells that belonged to the
+lamp. I have given them away to a poor woman who had need of them."
+
+Now Fra Giovanni did in this wise, because he knew by revelation that
+all the things in this world, belonging to God, belong of rights to the
+poor.
+
+And he was blamed on earth by men whose thoughts were given over to
+riches. But he was found praiseworthy in the sight of the Divine
+Goodness.
+
+
+III
+
+THE SERAPHIC DOCTOR
+
+Fra Giovanni was not proficient in the knowledge of letters, and he
+rejoiced in his ignorance as being an abundant source of humiliations.
+
+But after watching one day in the Cloister of Santa Maria degli Angeli a
+number of Doctors of Theology in meditation on the perfections of the
+Most Holy Trinity and the Mysteries of the Passion, he began to doubt
+whether they did not possess the love of God more fully than he, by
+reason of their wider knowledge.
+
+He was afflicted in his soul, and for the first time in his life fell
+into melancholy. But sadness was unnatural to one in his estate; for joy
+is the inheritance of the poor.
+
+He resolved to carry his difficulty to the General of the Order, to be
+rid of it as of a galling burden. Now Giovanni di Fidanza was General of
+the Order in those days.
+
+In the cradle he had received from St. Francis himself the name of
+Bonaventure. He had studied Theology at the University of Paris; and he
+excelled in the science of Love, which is the science of God. He knew
+the four degrees which lift the creature to his Creator, and he pondered
+on the mystery of the six wings of the Cherubim. This was the reason why
+he was called the Seraphic Doctor.
+
+And he was well aware that Science is vain without Love. Fra Giovanni
+found him walking in his garden, on the terrace overlooking the city.
+
+It was a Sunday; and the handicraftsmen of the town and the peasants who
+work in the vineyards were climbing, at the foot of the terrace, the
+steep street that leads to the Church.
+
+And Fra Giovanni, seeing Brother Bonaventure in the garden, in the midst
+of the lilies, drew near and said:
+
+"Brother Bonaventure, free my mind of the doubt that is tormenting me,
+and tell me: Can an ignorant man love God with as great love as a
+learned Doctor of the Church?"
+
+And Brother Bonaventure answered:
+
+"I will tell you the truth, Fra Giovanni; a poor old woman may not only
+equal but surpass all the Doctors of Theology in the world. And seeing
+the sole excellence of man lies in loving, I tell you again--the most
+ignorant of women shall be exalted in Heaven above the Doctors."
+
+Fra Giovanni, on hearing these words, was filled with great joy; and,
+leaning out over the low wall of the garden, looked lovingly at the
+passers-by. Then he cried out at the top of his voice:
+
+"Ho! you poor women, ignorant and simple-minded, you shall be set in
+Heaven above Brother Bonaventure."
+
+And the Seraphic Doctor, hearing the good Brother's proclamation, smiled
+sweetly where he stood among the lilies of his garden.
+
+
+IV
+
+THE LOAF ON THE FLAT STONE
+
+Forasmuch as the good St. Francis had bidden his sons to "Go, beg your
+bread from door to door," Fra Giovanni was one day sent to a certain
+city. Having passed the Gate, he went up and down the streets to beg his
+bread from door to door, according to the rule of the Order, for the
+love of God.
+
+But the folk of that city were more covetous than the men of Lucca, and
+harder than they of Perugia. The bakers and tanners who were dicing
+before their shop-doors, repulsed the poor man of Jesus Christ with
+harsh words. Even the young women, holding their new-born babes in their
+arms, turned their faces from him. And when the good Brother, whose joy
+was in dishonour, smiled at the refusals and insults he received,
+
+"He is laughing at us," said the townsmen to each other. "He is a born
+fool--or say rather a vagabond impostor and a drunkard. He has
+over-drunk himself with wine. It were a sin and a shame to give him so
+much as a crumb of bread from our hutch."
+
+And the good Brother answered:
+
+"You say true, my friends; I am not worthy to stir your pity, nor fit to
+share the food of your dogs and your pigs."
+
+The children, who were just then coming out of school, overheard what
+was said, and ran after the holy man shouting:
+
+"Madman! Madman!"--and pelted him with mud and stones.
+
+Then Fra Giovanni went forth into the country. The city was built on the
+slope of a hill, and was surrounded by vineyards and oliveyards. He
+descended the hill by a hollow way, and seeing on either side the grapes
+of the vines that hung down from the branches of the elms, he stretched
+out his arm and blessed the clusters. Likewise he blessed the olive and
+the mulberry trees and all the wheat of the lowlands.
+
+Meantime he was both hungry and thirsty; and he took delight in thirst
+and hunger.
+
+At the end of a cross-road, he saw a wood of laurels; and it was the
+habit of the Begging Friars to go and pray in the woods, amongst the
+poor animals cruel men hunt and harry. Accordingly Fra Giovanni entered
+the wood, and fared on by the side of a brook that ran clear and
+singing on its way.
+
+Presently he saw a flat stone beside the brook, and at the same moment a
+young man of a wondrous beauty, clad in a white robe, laid a loaf of
+bread on the stone, and disappeared.
+
+And Fra Giovanni knelt down and prayed, saying:
+
+"O God, how good art Thou, to send Thy poor man bread by the hand of one
+of Thy Angels; O blessed poverty! O very glorious and most sumptuous
+poverty!"
+
+And he ate the loaf the Angel had brought, and drank the water of the
+brook, and was strengthened in body and in soul. And an invisible hand
+wrote on the walls of the city: "Woe, woe to the rich!"
+
+
+V
+
+THE TABLE UNDER THE FIG-TREE.
+
+Following the example of St. Francis, his well-beloved Father, Fra
+Giovanni used to visit the Hospital of Viterbo to help the lepers,
+giving them to drink and washing their sores.
+
+And if they blasphemed, he used to tell them, "You are the chosen sons
+of Jesus Christ." And there were some lepers of a very humble spirit
+whom he would gather together in a chamber, and with whom he took
+delight as a mother does surrounded by her children.
+
+But the Hospital walls were very thick, and daylight entered only by
+narrow windows high up above the floor. The air was so fetid the lepers
+could scarce live in the place at all. And Fra Giovanni noted how one of
+them, by name Lucido, who showed an exemplary patience, was slowly dying
+of the evil atmosphere.
+
+Fra Giovanni loved Lucido, and would tell him:
+
+"My brother, you are Lucido, and no precious stone is purer than your
+heart, in the eyes of God."
+
+And observing how Lucido suffered more sorely than the others from the
+poisonous air they breathed in the Lepers' Ward, he said to him one day:
+
+"Friend Lucido, dear Lamb of the Lord, while the very air they breathe
+in this place is pestilence, in the gardens of Santa Maria degli Angeli
+we inhale the sweet scent of the laburnums. Come you with me to the
+House of the Poor Brethren, and you will find relief."
+
+So speaking, he took the Leper by the arm, wrapped him in his own cloak
+and led him away to Santa Maria degli Angeli.
+
+Arrived at the gate of the Monastery, he summoned the Doorkeeper with
+happy shouts of exultation:
+
+"Open!" he cried, "open to the friend I am bringing you. His name is
+Lucido, and a good name it is, for he is a very pearl of patience."
+
+The Brother opened the Gate; but the instant he saw in Fra Giovanni's
+arms a man whose face, livid and all but expressionless, was covered
+over with scales, he knew him for a leper, and rushed off in terror to
+warn the Brother Superior. The latter's name was Andrea of Padua, and
+he was a man of very holy life. Nevertheless when he learned that Fra
+Giovanni was bringing a leper into the House of Santa Maria degli
+Angeli, he was very wroth, and coming to him with a face burning with
+anger, bade him:
+
+"Stay there outside, with the man. You are a senseless fool to expose
+your brethren thus to contagion."
+
+Fra Giovanni only looked on the ground without venturing any reply. All
+the joy was gone from his face; and Lucido, seeing him troubled:
+
+"Brother!" said he, "I am grieved you are made sad because of me."
+
+And Fra Giovanni kissed the leper on the cheek.
+
+Then he said, turning to the Superior:
+
+"Will you suffer me, my Father, to stay outside the Gate with this man,
+and share my meal with him?"--to which the Father Superior answered:
+
+"Even do as you please, seeing you set up yourself above the holy rule
+of obedience."
+
+And with these harsh words he went back again into the Monastery.
+
+Now in front of the Gate was a stone bench under a fig-tree, and on this
+bench Fra Giovanni set down his bowl. But while he was supping with the
+Leper, the Father Superior had the Gate thrown open, and came and sat
+under the fig-tree and said:
+
+"Forgive me, Fra Giovanni, for having given you offence. I am come
+hither now to share your meal."
+
+
+VI
+
+THE TEMPTATION
+
+Then Satan sat him down on the brow of a hill, and gazed down at the
+House of the Poor Brethren. He was black and beautiful, like a young
+Egyptian. And he thought in his heart:
+
+"Forasmuch as I am the Enemy of Mankind and the Adversary of God,
+therefore will I tempt these Monks, and I will tell them what is kept
+hid by Him who is their Friend. Lo! I will afflict these men of Religion
+by telling them the truth, and I will darken their spirit, uttering to
+them words of verity and reasonableness. I will plunge reflexion like a
+sword in their reins; and so soon as they shall know the reality of
+things, they will be unhappy. For joy there is none but in illusion, and
+peace is only to be found in ignorance. And because I am the Master of
+such as study the nature of plants and animals, the virtue of stones,
+the secrets of fire, the courses of the stars and the influence of the
+planets, for this reason men have named me the Prince of Darkness.
+Likewise they call me the Wily One, because by me was constructed the
+plummet-line whereby Ulpian straightened out the Law. And my kingdom is
+of this world. Well then, I will try these Monks, and I will make them
+to know their works are evil, and that the tree of their Charity bears
+bitter fruit. Yea! I will tempt them without hate and without love."
+
+Thus said Satan in his heart. Meantime, as the shades of evening were
+lengthening along the base of the hills and the cottage chimneys were
+smoking for the evening meal, the holy man Giovanni issued from out the
+wood where he was wont to pray, and turned into the road leading to
+Santa Maria degli Angeli, saying:
+
+"My house is the house of joy and delight, because it is the house of
+poverty."
+
+And seeing Fra Giovanni wending his way homewards, Satan thought:
+
+"Lo! here is one of those men I am come to tempt";--and drawing his
+black cloak over his head, he advanced along the high road, which was
+bordered with terebinths, to meet the holy man.
+
+Now Satan had made himself like a widow-woman with a veil, and when he
+had joined Fra Giovanni, he put on a honeyed voice and asked an alms of
+him, saying:
+
+"Give me an alms for the love of Him who is your friend, and whom I am
+not worthy so much as to name."
+
+And Fra Giovanni answered:
+
+"It happens so, I have with me a little silver cup a nobleman of the
+countryside gave me, to have it melted down and used for the Altar of
+Santa Maria degli Angeli. You may take that, lady; and I will go
+to-morrow and ask the nobleman to let me have another of the same weight
+for the Blessed Virgin. Thus will his wishes be accomplished, and over
+and above, you will have gotten an alms for the love of God."
+
+Satan took the cup and said:
+
+"Good brother, suffer a poor widow-woman to kiss your hand. For verily
+the hand that gives gifts is soft and fragrant."
+
+Fra Giovanni replied:
+
+"Lady, be heedful not to kiss my hand. On the contrary, begone with all
+speed. For, methinks, you are winsome of face, albeit black as the
+Magian King that bore the frankincense and myrrh; and it is not becoming
+I should look on you longer, seeing how danger is forever dogging the
+lonely man's steps. Wherefore suffer me now to leave you, commending
+you to God's care. And forgive me, if I have failed aught in politeness
+towards you, lady. For the good St. Francis was used to say: 'Courtesy
+shall be the ornament of my sons, as the flowers bedeck the
+hill-sides.'"
+
+But Satan said again:
+
+"Good Father, inform me at the least of a guest-house, where I may pass
+the night honestly."
+
+Fra Giovanni replied:
+
+"Go, mistress, to the House of St. Damian, where dwell the poor ladies
+of Our Lord. She who will welcome you is Clare, and indeed she is a
+clear mirror of purity; the same is the Duchess of Poverty."
+
+And Satan said again:
+
+"My Father, I am an adulterous woman, and I have lain with many men."
+
+And Fra Giovanni said:
+
+"Lady, if I really deemed you laden with the sins you tell of, I would
+crave of you as a high honour to kiss your feet, for I am less worth
+than you, and your crimes are little compared with mine. Yet have I
+received greater favours of Heaven than have been accorded to you. For
+in the days when St. Francis and his twelve disciples were still upon
+earth, I lived with Angels of Heaven."
+
+And Satan returned:
+
+"My Father, when I asked you an alms for the love of Him who loves you,
+I was cherishing in my heart a wicked intent, and I am fain to tell you
+what this was. I wander the roads a-begging, in order to collect a sum
+of money I destine for a man of Perosa who is my paramour, and who has
+promised me, on handling this money, to kill traitorously a certain
+knight I hate, because when I offered my body to him, he scorned me.
+Well! the total was yet incomplete; but now the weight of your silver
+cup has made it up. So the alms you have given me will be the price of
+blood. You have sold a just man to death. For the Knight I told you of
+is chaste, temperate and pious, and I hate him for this cause. 'Tis you
+will have brought about his murder. You have laid a weight of silver in
+the scale of crime, to bear it down."
+
+Hearing these words, the good Fra Giovanni wept, and drawing aside, he
+fell on his knees in a thorn-brake, and prayed the Lord, saying:
+
+"O Lord, make this crime to fall neither on this woman's head nor on
+mine nor on that of any of Thy creatures, but let it be put beneath Thy
+feet, which were pierced with the nails, and be washed in Thy most
+precious blood. Distil on me and on this my sister of the highway a drop
+of hyssop, and we shall be purified, and shall overpass the snow in
+whiteness."
+
+But the Enemy fled away, thinking:
+
+"This man I have not been able to tempt by reason of his utter
+simplicity."
+
+
+VII
+
+THE SUBTLE DOCTOR
+
+Satan returned and sat on the Mountain that looks towards Viterbo,
+laughing under its crown of olives. And he said in his heart: "I will
+tempt that man yonder." He conceived this purpose in his spirit, because
+he had seen Fra Giovanni, girt about with a cord, and a sack over his
+shoulder, crossing the meadows below on his way to the city to beg his
+bread there according to the rules.
+
+So Satan took on the appearance of a holy Bishop, and came down into the
+plain. A mitre was on his head sparkling with precious stones, that
+flashed like actual fire in the sunlight. His cope was covered with
+figures embroidered and painted so beautifully no craftsman in all the
+world could have wrought their like.
+
+Amongst the rest he was depicted himself, in silk and gold, under the
+guise of a St. George and a St. Sebastian, as also under that of a
+Virgin St. Catherine and the Empress Helena. The loveliness of the
+faces troubled the mind and saddened the heart. The garment was truly of
+a wondrous workmanship, and nothing so rich and rare is to be seen in
+the Treasuries of Churches.
+
+Thus decked in cope and mitre, and majestic as St. Ambrose, the glory of
+Milan, Satan pursued his way, leaning on his crozier, over the flowery
+plain.
+
+Presently nearing the holy man, he hailed him and said:
+
+"Peace be with you!"
+
+But he said not of what sort this peace was; and Fra Giovanni supposed
+it was the peace of the Lord. He thought to himself:
+
+"This Bishop, who gives me the salutation of peace, was doubtless in his
+lifetime a sainted Pontiff and a blessed Martyr unshakable in his
+constancy. That is why Jesus Christ has changed the wooden cross to a
+golden in the hands of this gallant Confessor of the Faith. To-day he is
+powerful in Heaven; and lo! after his holy and happy death, he walks in
+these meadows that are painted with flowers and broidered with pearls of
+dew."
+
+Such were the good Giovanni's thoughts, and he was in no wise abashed.
+So saluting Satan with a deep reverence, he said:
+
+"Sir! you are exceeding gracious to appear to a poor man such as I. But
+indeed these meadows are so lovely, 'tis no wonder if the Saints of
+Paradise come to walk here; they are painted with flowers and broidered
+with pearls of dew. The Lord did very kindly when he made them."
+
+And Satan said to him:
+
+"It is not the meadows, it is your heart I am fain to look at; I have
+come down from the Mountain to speak with you. I have, in bygone
+Centuries, held many high disputations in the Church. Amid the assembled
+Doctors my voice would boom forth like thunder, and my thoughts flash
+like lightning. I am very learned, and they name me the Subtle Doctor. I
+have disputed with God's Angels. Now I would hold dispute with you."
+
+Fra Giovanni made answer:
+
+"Nay! but how should the poor little man that I am hold dispute with the
+Subtle Doctor? I know nothing, and my simplicity is such I can keep
+nothing in my head but those songs in the vulgar tongue where they have
+stuck in rhymes to help the memory, as in
+
+  'Jesus, mirror of my soul,
+  Cleanse my heart and make it whole.'
+
+or in
+
+  'Holy Mary, Maid of Flowers,
+  Lead me to the Heavenly Bowers.'"
+
+And Satan answered:
+
+"Fra Giovanni, the Venetian ladies amuse their leisure and show their
+adroitness in fitting a multitude of little pieces of ivory into a box
+of cedar-wood, which at the set-off seemed all too small to contain so
+many. In the same fashion I will pack ideas into your head that no one
+would have dreamed it could ever hold; and I will fill you with a new
+wisdom. I will show that, thinking to walk in the right way, you are
+straying abroad all the while like a drunken man, and that you are
+driving the plough without any heed to draw the furrows straight."
+
+Fra Giovanni humbled himself, saying:
+
+"It is most true I am a fool, and do nothing but what is wrong."
+
+Then Satan asked him:
+
+"What think you of poverty? "--and the holy man replied:
+
+"I think it is a pearl of price."
+
+But Satan retorted:
+
+"You pretend poverty is a great good; yet all the while you are robbing
+the poor of a part of this great good, by giving them alms."
+
+Fra Giovanni pondered over this, and said:
+
+"The alms I give, I give to Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose poverty cannot
+be minished, for it is infinite. It gushes from Him as from an
+inexhaustible fountain; and its waters flow freely for His favourite
+sons. And these shall be poor always, according to the promise of the
+Son of God. In giving to the poor, I am giving not to men, but to God,
+as the citizens pay tax to the Podestà, and the rate is for the City,
+which of the money it so receives supplies the town's needs. Now what I
+give is for paving the City of God. It is a vain thing to be poor in
+deed, if we be not poor in spirit. The gown of frieze, the cord, the
+sandals, the wallet and the wooden bowl are only signs and symbols. The
+Poverty I love is spiritual, and I address her as _Lady_, because she is
+an idea, and all beauty resides in this same idea."
+
+Satan smiled, and replied:
+
+"Your maxims, Fra Giovanni, are the maxims of a wise man of Greece,
+Diogenes by name, who taught at their Universities in the times when
+Alexander of Macedon was waging his wars."
+
+And Satan said again:
+
+"Is it true you despise the goods of this world?"
+
+And Fra Giovanni replied:
+
+"I do despise them."
+
+And Satan said to him:
+
+"Look you! in scorning these, you are scorning at the same time the
+hard-working men who produce them, and so doing, fulfil the order given
+to your first father, Adam, when he was commanded, 'In the sweat of thy
+face, thou shalt eat bread.' Seeing work is good, the fruit of this work
+is good too. Yet you work not, neither have any care for the work of
+others. But you receive and give alms, in contempt of the law laid on
+Adam and on his seed through the ages."
+
+"Alas!" sighed Brother Giovanni, "I am laden with crimes, and at once
+the most wicked and the most foolish man in all the world. Wherefore
+never heed me, but read in the Book. Our Lord said, 'Consider the lilies
+of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin.' Again he said, 'Mary
+hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.'"
+
+Then Satan lifted up his hand, with the gesture of one who disputes and
+prepares to count off his arguments on the fingers. And he said:
+
+"Giovanni, Giovanni! what was written in one sense, you read in another;
+you are less like a Doctor at his desk than an ass at the manger. So
+must I correct you, as a master corrects his scholar. It is written the
+lilies of the field have no need to spin--because they are beautiful,
+and beauty is a virtue. Again it is written how Mary is not to do the
+household tasks, because she is doing lovingly to Him who has come to
+see her. But you, who are not beautiful nor yet instructed, like Mary,
+in the things of love, you drag out a contemptible existence wandering
+the highways."
+
+Giovanni made reply:
+
+"Sir! just as a Painter will depict on a narrow panel of wood an entire
+city with its houses and towers and walls, so you have painted in a few
+words my soul and my similitude with a wondrous exactness. And I am
+altogether what you describe. But if I followed perfectly the rule
+etablished by St. Francis, that Angel of God, and if I practised
+spiritual poverty to the full, I should be the lily of the fields and I
+should have the good part of Mary."
+
+But Satan interrupted him, and cried:
+
+"You profess to love the poor, yet you prefer the rich man and his
+riches, and adore Him who possesses treasures to give away."
+
+And Fra Giovanni answered:
+
+"He I love possesses not the good things of the body, but those of the
+spirit."
+
+And Satan retorted:
+
+"All good things are of the flesh, and are tasted of through the flesh.
+This Epicurus taught, and Horace the Satirist said the same in his
+Verses."
+
+At these words the holy man only sighed and said:
+
+"Sir! I cannot tell what you mean."
+
+Satan shrugged his shoulders and said:
+
+"My words are exact and literal, yet the man cannot tell what I mean. I
+have disputed with Augustine and Jerome, with Gregory and him of the
+Golden Mouth, St. Chrysostom. And they comprehended me still less.
+Miserable men walk groping in the dark, and Error lifts over their head
+her monstrous canopy. Simple and sage alike are the plaything of eternal
+falsehood."
+
+And Satan said again to the holy man Giovanni:
+
+"Have you won happiness? If you have happiness, I shall not prevail
+against you. A man's thoughts are only stirred by sorrow, and their
+meditations by grief. Then, tortured by fears and desires, he turns
+anxiously in his bed and rends his pillow with lies. What use to tempt
+this man? He is happy."
+
+But Fra Giovanni sighed:
+
+"Sir! I am less happy since listening to you. Your words trouble my
+mind."
+
+On hearing this, Satan cast away his pastoral staff, his mitre and his
+cope; and stood there naked and unashamed. He was black and more
+beautiful than the loveliest of the Angels.
+
+He smiled gently, and said to the holy man:
+
+"Friend, be comforted. I am the Evil Spirit."
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE BURNING COAL
+
+Now Brother Giovanni was simple of heart and spirit, and his tongue was
+tied; he knew not the secret of speaking to his fellow-men.
+
+But one day when he was praying, as his habit was, at the foot of an
+ancient holm-oak, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and saluting
+him, said:
+
+"I salute you, because it is I who visit the simple-minded, and announce
+the mysteries to virgins."
+
+And the Angel held in his hand a burning coal. This he laid on the holy
+man's lips, and spoke again, and said:
+
+"By virtue of this fire shall your lips remain pure, and they shall glow
+with eloquence. I have burned them, and they shall be burned. Your
+tongue shall be loosed, and you shall speak to your fellows. For men
+must hear the word of life, and learn how they shall not be saved but
+by innocency of heart. For this cause the Lord has unloosed the tongue
+of the simple and innocent."
+
+Then the Angel went back again to Heaven. And the holy man was seized
+with terror, and he prayed, saying:
+
+"O God, my heart is so sore troubled I cannot find on my lips the sweet
+savour of the fire Thy Angel hath touched them with.
+
+"Thou wouldst chasten me, O Lord, seeing Thou dost send me to speak to
+the folk, who will not hearken to my words. I shall be hateful to all
+men, and Thy priests themselves will declare, 'He is a blasphemer!'
+
+"For Thy reason is contrary to the reason of men. Nevertheless Thy will
+be done."
+
+Then he rose up from his knees, and set out on his way citywards.
+
+
+IX
+
+THE HOUSE OF INNOCENCE
+
+On that day Fra Giovanni had left the Monastery at early dawn, the hour
+when the birds awake and begin singing. He was on his way to the city
+and he thought within himself: "I am going to the city to beg my bread
+and to give bread to other beggars; I shall give away what I receive,
+and take back what I have given. For it is good to ask and to receive
+for the love of God. And he who receives is the brother of him who
+gives. And we should not consider too curiously which of the twain
+brothers we are, because truly the gift is naught, but everything is in
+the gracious giving.
+
+"He that receives, if he have gracious charity, is the equal of him that
+gives. But he who sells is the enemy of him who buys, and the seller
+constrains the buyer to be his foe. Herein lies the root of the curse
+that poisons cities, as the venom of the serpent is in his tail. And it
+must needs be a Lady set her foot on the serpent's tail, and that Lady
+is Poverty. Already hath she visited King Louis of France in his Tower;
+but never yet entered among the Florentines, because she is chaste and
+will not put foot in a place of ill repute. Now the money-changer's shop
+is an ill place, for it is there Bankers and Changers commit the most
+heinous of sins. Harlots sin in the brothels; but their sin is not so
+great as is that of the Bankers, and whosoever grows rich by banking and
+money-dealing.
+
+"Verily I say unto you, Bankers and Money-changers shall not enter into
+the Kingdom of Heaven, nor yet bakers, nor dealers in drugs, nor such as
+practise the trade of wool, which is the boast of the City of the Lily.
+Forasmuch as they give a price to gold, and make a profit out of
+exchange, they are setting up idols in the face of men. And when they
+declare 'Gold has a value,' they tell a lie. For Gold is more vile than
+the dry leaves that flutter and rustle in the Autumn wind under the
+terebinths. There is nothing precious save the work of men's hands, when
+God gives it His countenance."
+
+And lo! as he was meditating in this wise, Fra Giovanni saw that the
+Mountain side was torn open, and that men were dragging great stones
+from its flank. And one of the quarrymen was lying by the wayside, with
+a rag of coarse cloth for all covering; and his body was disfigured by
+bitter marks of the biting cold and scorching heat. The bones of his
+shoulders and chest showed all but bare beneath the meagre flesh; and
+Despair looked out grim and gaunt from the black cavern of his eyes.
+
+Fra Giovanni approached him, saying:
+
+"Peace be with you!"
+
+But the quarryman made no answer, and did not so much as turn his head.
+So Fra Giovanni, thinking he had not heard, repeated:
+
+"Peace be with you!"--and then the same words again for the third time.
+
+At last the quarryman looked up at him sullenly, and growled:
+
+"I shall have no peace till I am dead. Begone, cursed black crow! you
+wish me peace; that shows you are a glozing cheat! Go to, and caw to
+simpler fools than I! I know very well the quarryman's lot is an utterly
+miserable one, and there is no comfort for his wretchedness. I hale out
+stones from dawn to dark, and for price of my toil, all I get is a scrap
+of black bread. Then when my arms are no longer as strong as the stones
+of the mountain, and my body is all worn out, I shall perish of hunger."
+
+"Brother!" said the holy man Giovanni; "it is not just or right you
+should hale out so much stone, and win so little bread."
+
+Then the quarryman rose to his feet and pointing,
+
+"Master Monk," said he, "what see you up yonder on the hill?"
+
+"Brother, I see the walls of the City."
+
+"And above them?"
+
+"Above them I see the roofs of the houses, which crown the ramparts."
+
+"And higher still?"
+
+"The tops of the pines, the domes of the Churches and the Belltowers."
+
+"And higher still?"
+
+"I see a Tower overtopping all the rest, and crowned with battlements.
+It is the Tower of the Podestà."
+
+"Monk, what see you above the battlements of that Tower?"
+
+"I see nothing, brother, above the battlements save the sky."
+
+"But I," cried the quarryman, "I see upon that Tower a hideous giant
+brandishing a club, and on the club is inscribed: OPPRESSION. Yea!
+Oppression is lifted up above the citizens' heads on the Great Tower of
+the Magistrates and the City's Laws."
+
+And Fra Giovanni answered:
+
+"What one man sees, another cannot see, and it may be the horrid shape
+you describe is set on the Tower of the Podestà yonder, in the city of
+Viterbo. But is there no remedy for the ills you endure, my brother? The
+good St. Francis left behind him on this earth so full a fountain of
+consolation that all men may draw refreshment therefrom."
+
+Then the quarryman spoke after this fashion:
+
+"Men have said, 'This mountain is ours.' And these men are my masters,
+and it is for them I hew stone. And they enjoy the fruit of my labour."
+
+Fra Giovanni sighed:
+
+"Surely men must be mad to believe they own a mountain."
+
+But the quarryman replied:
+
+"Nay! they are not mad; and the Laws of the City guarantee them their
+ownership. The citizens pay them for the stones I have hewn, which are
+marbles of great price."
+
+And Fra Giovanni said:
+
+"We must change the laws of the City and the habits of the citizens. St.
+Francis, that Angel of God, has given the example and shown the way.
+When he resolved, by God's command, to rebuild the ruined Church of St.
+Damian, he did not set out to find the master of the quarry. He did not
+say, 'Go buy me the finest marbles, and I will give you gold in
+exchange.' For the holy man, who was called the son of Bernardone and
+who was the true son of God, knew this, that the man who sells is the
+enemy of the man who buys, and that the art of Trafficking is more
+mischievous, if possible, than the art of War. Wherefore he did not
+apply to the master-masons or any of them that give marble and timber
+and lead in exchange for money. But he went forth into the Mountain and
+gathered his load of wood and stones, and bore it himself to the spot
+hallowed to the memory of the Blessed Damian. With his own hands, by
+help of the mason's line, he laid the stones to form the walls; and he
+made the cement to bind together the stones one to another. Finished, it
+was a lowly circuit of roughly fashioned stones, the work of a weakling.
+But who considers it with the eyes of the soul recognizes therein an
+Angel's thought. For the mortar of this wall was not worked with the
+blood of the unfortunate; this house of St. Damian was not raised with
+the thirty pieces of silver paid for the blood of that Just Man, which,
+rejected by Iscariot, go travelling the world ever since, passing from
+hand to hand, to buy up all the injustice and all the cruelty of the
+earth.
+
+"For, alone of all others, this house is founded on Innocence,
+stablished on Love, based on Charity, and alone of all others it is the
+House of God.
+
+"And I tell you verily, quarryman and brother, the poor man of Jesus
+Christ, in doing these things, gave to the world an example of Justice,
+and one day his foolishness shall shine forth as wisdom. For all things
+in this earth are God's and we are His children; and it is meet the
+children should share alike in His inheritance. That is, each should get
+what he has need of. And seeing grown men do not ask for broth, nor
+babes for wine, the share of each shall not be the same, but each shall
+have the heritage that is fitting for him.
+
+"And labour shall be a joyful thing, when it is no longer paid. 'Tis
+gold only, the cursed gold, that makes the sharing uneven. When each man
+shall go severally to the Mountain for his stone, and carry his load to
+the city on his own back, the stone shall weigh light and it shall be
+the stone of cheerfulness. And we will build the house of joy and
+gladness, and the new city shall rise from its foundations. And there
+shall be neither rich nor poor, but all men will call themselves poor
+men, because they will be glad to bear a name that brings them honour."
+
+So spoke the gentle Fra Giovanni, and the unhappy quarryman thought to
+himself:
+
+"This man clad in a shroud and girt with a cord has proclaimed new
+tidings. I shall not see the end of my miseries, for I am going to die
+of hunger and exhaustion. But I shall die happy, for my eyes, before
+they close, will have beheld the dawn of the day of Justice."
+
+
+X
+
+THE FRIENDS OF ORDER
+
+Now in those days there was in the very illustrious city of Viterbo a
+Confraternity of sixty old men. These counted among their number many of
+the chief men of the place; and their objects were the accumulation of
+honours and riches, and the pursuit of virtue. The Brotherhood included
+a Gonfalonier of the Republic, Doctors of either faculty, Judges,
+Merchants, Money-changers of conspicuous piety, and one or two old
+Soldiers of Fortune grown too ancient and feeble for the Wars.
+
+Seeing they were banded together for the purpose of stirring up their
+fellow-citizens to goodness and good order, and to bear mutual witness
+to the practice of these virtues, they gave themselves the title of _The
+Friends of Order_. This name was inscribed on the banner of the
+Confraternity, and they were all of one mind to persuade the poor to
+follow goodness and good order, to the end no changes might be made in
+the Constitution.
+
+Their habit was to meet on the last day of each month, in the Palace of
+the Podestà, to make inquiry of each other what of good had been done in
+the city during the month. And to such of the poorer citizens as had
+done well and orderly, they used to present pieces of money.
+
+Now on a certain day the Friends of Order were holding meeting. At one
+end of the Hall was a raised platform covered with velvet, and over the
+platform a magnificent canopy of state, held up by four figures carved
+and painted. These figures represented Justice, Temperance, Strength and
+Chastity; and beneath the canopy sat the Officers of the Brotherhood.
+The President, who was entitled the Dean, took his place in the middle
+on a golden chair, which in richness was scarce inferior to the throne
+that once upon a time the disciple of St. Francis saw prepared in Heaven
+for the poor man of the Lord. This seat of state had been presented to
+the Dean of the Brotherhood to the end that in him should be honoured
+all the goodness done in the city.
+
+And as soon as the Members of the Confraternity were ranged in the
+fitting order, the Dean got up to speak. He congratulated any
+serving-maids that served their masters without receiving wages, and
+spoke highly of the old men who, having no bread to eat, did not ask for
+any.
+
+And he said:
+
+"These have done well, and we shall reward them. For it behoves that
+goodness be rewarded, and it is our bounden duty to pay the price of it,
+being as we are the first and foremost citizens of the city."
+
+And when he finished speaking, the crowd of the general folk that stood
+under the platform clapped their hands.
+
+But no sooner had they done applauding than Fra Giovanni lifted up his
+voice from the midst of the miserable, poverty-stricken band, and asked
+loudly:
+
+"What is goodness?"
+
+At this great clamour arose in the assembly, and the Dean shouted:
+
+"Who was it spoke?"
+
+And a red-haired man who was standing among the people, answered:
+
+"It was a Monk, by name Giovanni, who is the disgrace of his Cloister.
+He goes naked through the streets, carrying his clothes on his head, and
+gives himself up to all sorts of extravagances."
+
+Next a Baker spoke up and said:
+
+"He is a madman or a miscreant! He begs his bread at the Bakers' doors."
+
+Then a number of those present, shouting noisily and dragging Fra
+Giovanni by the gown, tried to hustle him out of the hall, while others
+more angry still, began throwing stools and breaking them over the holy
+man's head. But the Dean rose from his seat under the canopy, and said:
+
+"Leave the man in peace, so that he may hear me and be confounded. He
+asks what goodness is, because goodness is not in him and he is devoid
+of virtue. I answer him, 'The knowledge of goodness resides in virtuous
+men; and good citizens carry within them a proper respect for the laws.
+They approve what has been done in the city to insure to each man
+enjoyment of the riches he may have acquired. They support the
+established order of things, and are ready to fly to arms to defend the
+same. For the duty of the poor is to defend the good things belonging to
+the rich; and this is how the union betwixt citizens is maintained. This
+is goodness and good order. Again, the rich man has his serving-man
+bring out a basket full of bread, which he distributes to the poor; and
+this is goodness again.' These are the lessons this rough, ignorant
+fellow required to be taught."
+
+Having so said, the Dean sat down, and the crowd of poor folks raised a
+murmur of approval. But Fra Giovanni, stepping on one of the stools
+that had been thrown at his head with contumely and insult, addressed
+them all and said:
+
+"Hear the words of comfort! Goodness resides not in men, for men know
+not of themselves what is good. They are ignorant of their own nature
+and destiny. What seems good, may be evil all the while; and what is
+deemed useful, harmful. No man can choose the things meet for him,
+because he knows not his own needs, but is like the little child sitting
+in the meadows, that sucks for wholesome milk the juice of the deadly
+nightshade. The babe does not know that the nightshade is a poison; but
+its mother knows. This is why goodness is to do the will of God.
+
+"It is false to say, 'Tis I teach goodness, and goodness is to obey the
+city laws.' For the Laws are not of God; they are of man, and share in
+man's craft and cunning and imperfection. They are like the rules
+children make in the Square of Viterbo, when they are playing ball.
+Goodness is not in customs nor in laws; it is in God and in the
+accomplishment of God's will upon earth, and it is neither by law-makers
+nor magistrates that God's will is accomplished upon the earth.
+
+"For the great men of this world do their own will, and their will is
+contrary to God's. But they who have stripped off pride and know there
+is no goodness in them, these men receive noble gifts, and God Himself
+distils His sweetness within them like honey in the hollow of the oaks.
+
+"And we must be the oak-tree full of honey and dew. Humble, ignorant and
+simple folks, these have knowledge of God; and by them shall God's
+kingdom be stablished on earth. Salvation is not in the strength of laws
+nor in the multitude of soldiers; it is in poverty and humbleness of
+spirit.
+
+"Say not, 'Goodness is in me, and I teach goodness.' Rather say,
+'Goodness is in God on high.' Over long have men hardened their hearts
+in their own wisdom. Over long have they set up the Lion and the
+She-Wolf above the Gates of their Cities. Their wisdom and their
+prudence have brought about slavery and wars and the shedding of much
+innocent blood. Wherefore you should put your guidance in God's hand, as
+the blind man trusts himself to his dog's guidance. Fear not to shut the
+eyes of your spirit and have done with Reason, for has not Reason made
+you unhappy and wicked? By Reason have you grown like the man who,
+having guessed the secrets of the Beast crouching in the cavern, waxed
+proud of his knowingness, and deeming himself wiser than his fellows,
+slew his father and wedded his mother.
+
+"God was not with him; but He is with the humble and simple-minded.
+Learn not to will and He will put His will in you. Seek not to guess the
+riddles of the Beast. Be ignorant, and you shall not fear to go astray.
+'Tis only wise men that are deceived."
+
+Fra Giovanni having thus spoken, the Dean got up and said:
+
+"The miscreant has insulted me, and I willingly forgive him the insult.
+But he has spoken against the laws of Viterbo, and it is meet he should
+be punished."
+
+So Fra Giovanni was led before the Judges, who had him loaded with
+chains and cast him into the city gaol.
+
+
+XI
+
+THE REVOLT OF GENTLENESS
+
+The holy man Giovanni was chained to a massive pillar in the middle of
+the dungeon over which the river flowed.
+
+Two other prisoners were plunged along with him in the thick and fetid
+darkness. Both these had realized and proclaimed the injustice of the
+Laws. One was for overthrowing the Republic by force. He had been guilty
+of startling assassinations, and his hope was to purify the city with
+fire and sword. The other trusted to be able to change men's hearts, and
+had delivered very persuasive discourses. Inventor of wise laws, he
+counted on the charms of his genius and the innocency of his life to
+induce his fellow-citizens to submit to them. But both had met with the
+same doom.
+
+When they learned how the holy man was chained alongside of them for
+having spoken against the laws of the city, they congratulated him. And
+the one who had invented wise laws, said to him:
+
+"If ever, brother, we are restored to liberty, seeing you think as I do,
+you shall help me to persuade the citizens that they ought to set up
+above them the empire of just laws."
+
+But the holy man Giovanni answered him:
+
+"What matter for Justice being in the Laws, if it is not in men's
+hearts? And if men's hearts are unjust, what gain shall it be that
+Equity reign in the Courts of Law?
+
+"Say not, 'We will stablish just laws, and we will render to every man
+what is his due.' For no one is just, and we know not what is meet for
+men. We are no less ignorant what is good for them and what is evil. And
+whensoever the Princes of the People and the Chiefs of the Commonwealth
+have loved Justice, they have caused the slaying of many folk.
+
+"Give not the compass and the level to the false measurer; for with true
+instruments, he will make untrue apportionments. And he will say: 'See,
+I carry on me the level, the rule and the square, and I am a good
+measurer.' So long as men shall be covetous and cruel, will they make
+the most merciful laws cruel, and will rob their brethren with words of
+love on their lips. This is why it is vain to reveal to them the words
+of love and the laws of gentleness.
+
+"Set not up laws against laws, nor raise tables of marble and tables of
+brass before men's eyes. For whatever is written on the tables of the
+Law, is written in letters of blood."
+
+So spoke the holy man. And the other prisoner,--he who had committed
+startling murders, and contrived the ruin that was to save the city,
+approved his words and said:
+
+"Comrade, you have spoken well. Know you, I will never set up law
+against law, right rule against crooked rule; my wish is to destroy the
+law by violence and compel the citizens to live thenceforth in happy
+freedom. And know further that I have slain both judges and soldiers,
+and have committed many crimes for the public good."
+
+Hearing these words, the man of the Lord rose, stretched out his
+manacled arms in the heavy darkness and cried:
+
+"Ill betide the violent! for violence ever begets violence. Whosoever
+acts like you is sowing the earth with hate and fury, and his children
+shall tear their feet with the wayside briars, and serpents shall bite
+their heel.
+
+"Ill betide you! for you have shed the blood of the unjust judge and the
+brutal soldier, and lo! you are become like the soldier and the judge
+yourself. Like them you bear on your hands the indelible stain.
+
+"A fool the man who says, 'We will do evildoing in our turn, and our
+heart shall be comforted. We will be unjust, and it shall be the
+beginning of justice.' Evildoing is in evil desiring. Desire nothing,
+and evildoing will be done away. Injustice hurts only the unjust; I
+shall suffer no harm of it, if I am just. Oppression is a sword whose
+hilt wounds the hand of him who holds it; but its point cannot pierce
+the heart of the man who is simple-minded and good and kind.
+
+"For such an one nothing is dangerous, if he fear nothing. To endure all
+things, is to endure nothing. Let us be good and kindly, and the whole
+round world shall be the same. For the world will be an instrument for
+your goodness, and your persecutors will work to make you better and
+more beautiful.
+
+"You love life, and this is an affection which rules the heart of every
+man. Then love suffering; for to live is to suffer. Never envy your
+cruel masters; rather have compassion for the commanders of armies. Pity
+the Publicans and Judges; the proudest of them have known the stings of
+grief and the terrors of death. Happier you, because your consciences
+are void of offence; for you, let grief lose its bitterness and death
+its terrors.
+
+"Be ye God's children, and tell yourselves, 'All is well in Him.'
+Beware of pursuing even the public good with overmuch violence and
+avidity, for fear something of cruelty mar your integrity. Rather should
+your desire of universal loving-kindness have the unction of a prayer
+and the soft fervour of a hope.
+
+"Fair the table, whereat every man shall get his just portion, and the
+guests shall each one wash the other's feet. But say not, 'I will set up
+this table by force in the streets of the city and in the public
+squares.' For it is not knife in hand you must call together your
+brethren to the feast of Justice and Gentleness. Of its own accord must
+the board be spread in the Campo di Marte, by virtue of graciousness and
+good will.
+
+"This shall be a miracle; and be sure, miracles are not wrought save by
+faith and love. If you disobey your masters, let it be by love. Neither
+fetter nor kill them, but tell them rather, 'I will never slay my
+brothers, nor throw them into chains.' Endure, suffer, submit, will what
+God wills, and your will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. What
+seems evil is evil, and what seems good is good. Striving and discontent
+is the true curse of mankind. Let us then be peaceful and content, and
+never strike the wicked, for fear we make ourselves like them.
+
+"If we have not the good fortune to be poor in very deed, let us not
+make ourselves rich men in spirit, and heartbound to the things of this
+world that make folk unjust and unhappy. Let us suffer persecution with
+gentleness, and be those chosen vessels that turn into balm the gall
+poured into them."
+
+
+XII
+
+WORDS OF LOVE
+
+Then the Judges had the holy man, Giovanni, brought before them chained
+to him who had thrown Greek fire in the Palace of the Priors. And they
+said to the holy man:
+
+"You are alongside of the guilty because you are not on our side. For
+whosoever is not with good citizens is with evil."
+
+And the holy man answered them:
+
+"There are neither good nor evil among men; but all alike are unhappy.
+And they who suffer neither hunger nor contumely, they are afflicted by
+riches and power. It is not given to any man born of woman to escape the
+miseries of life, and the son of woman is like a fever patient, who
+turns and turns in his bed, and can find no rest, because he will not
+lie down on the Cross of Jesus, his head among the thorns, and take his
+joy in suffering. Yet is it in suffering that joy is found; and they who
+love know this.
+
+"I companion with Love, but that man with Hate; and for this cause we
+can never come together. And I say to him, 'Brother, you have done ill,
+and your crime is great and grievous,' And I speak so, because Charity
+and Love urge me. But you, you condemn yonder guilty man in the name of
+Justice. But invoking Justice, you take a vain oath, for there is no
+such thing as Justice among men.
+
+"We are all of us guilty. And when you say, 'The life of peoples is in
+our hand,' you are lying, and you are the coffin which declares, 'I am
+the cradle.' The life of peoples is in the harvests of the fields, which
+grow yellow beneath the Lord's sight. It is in the vines hanging from
+the elms, and in the smiles and tears wherein heaven bathes the fruits
+of the trees in the orchard closes. It is not in the laws, which are
+made by the rich and powerful for the maintenance of their own power and
+riches.
+
+"Ye forget how ye are all born poor and naked. And He who came to lie in
+the manger at Bethlehem, has come without profiting you. And He must
+needs be born again and be crucified a second time for your salvation.
+
+"The man of violence has laid hold of the arms you forged; and is well
+compared to the warriors you hold in honour because they have destroyed
+cities. What is defended by force shall be attacked by force. And if you
+have wit to read the book you have written, you will find what I say
+therein. For you have put in your book that the right of nations is the
+right of war; and you have glorified violence, paying honours to
+conquering generals and raising statues in your public squares to them
+and their war-horses.
+
+"And you have laid it down, 'There is violence that is right, and
+violence that is wrong. And this is the right of nations and this is the
+law.' But so soon as the men shall have put you outside the law, they
+will be the law, even as you became the law, when you had overthrown the
+tyrant that was the law before you.
+
+"Now, be assured, it is very certain that there is no true right save in
+the renouncing of right. There is no hallowed law save in love. There is
+no Justice save in Charity. 'Tis not by force we should resist force,
+for strife only hardens the fighters' hearts and the issue of battles is
+aye dubious. But if we oppose gentleness to violence, this latter
+getting no hold upon its adversary, falls dead of itself.
+
+"It is related by learned men in the _Bestiaries_ how the unicorn, which
+bears on its forehead a flaming sword, transfixes the hunter in his
+coat-of-mail, but falls to its knees before a pure virgin. Be ye
+gentle-hearted, therefore, and simple-souled; keep your heart pure, and
+ye shall fear nothing.
+
+"Put not your trust in the sword of the Condottieri, for did not the
+shepherd boy's smooth stone pierce Goliath's brow? But be ye strong in
+love, and love them that hate you. Hate, when unreturned, is robbed of
+half its sting; and what is left is weak, widowed, and like to die.
+Strip yourselves, that other men strip you not. Love your enemies, that
+they become your friends. Forgive, that ye may be forgiven. Say not,
+'Gentleness is a bane to the shepherds of the peoples.' For how can you
+know, seeing these have never tried? They profess by harshness to have
+lessened the evil of the world. Yet is evil still rampant among men, and
+there is never a sign of its growing less.
+
+"I said to some, 'Be not oppressors,' and to others, 'Rise not in revolt
+against oppression,'--and neither hearkened to me. They cast the stone
+of derision at me. Because I was on all men's side, each reproached me
+and said, 'You are not on my side.'
+
+"I said, 'I am the friend of the wretched.' But you never thought I was
+your friend, because in your pride, you know not that you are wretched.
+Nevertheless the wretchedness of the master is more cruel than that of
+the slave. My tender pity for your woes only made you think I was
+mocking you; and the oppressed deemed me to be of the party of the
+oppressors. 'He has no bowels,' they said. Nay! but I am on the side of
+love and not of hate. This is why you scorn me; and because I preach
+peace on earth, you hold me for a fool. You think my words wander all
+ways, like the steps of a drunken man. And it is very true I walk your
+fields like those harpers who on the eve of battles, come to play before
+the tents. And the soldiers say, as they listen: ''Tis some poor
+simpletons come playing the tunes we heard long ago in our mountains.' I
+am this harper that roams between the hosts in battle array of hostile
+armies. When I think whither human wisdom leads, I am glad to be a
+madman and a simpleton; and I thank God that He has given me the harp to
+handle and not the sword."
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE TRUTH
+
+The holy man Giovanni was very straitly confined in gaol, where he was
+fastened by chains to rings built into the wall. But his soul was
+unfettered, and no tortures had been able to shake his firmness. He
+promised himself he would never betray the faith that was in him, and
+was ready to be witness and martyr of the Truth, to the end he might die
+in God. And he said to himself, "Truth shall go along with me to the
+scaffold. She shall look at me and weep and say, 'My tears flow, seeing
+it is for my sake this man is going to his death.'"
+
+And as the holy man was thus holding colloquy of his own thoughts in the
+solitude of his dungeon, a knight entered into the prison, without ever
+the doors having been opened. He was clad in a red mantle, and carried
+in his hand a lighted lantern.
+
+Fra Giovanni accosted him and said:
+
+"What is your name, subtle sir, that slips through prison walls?"
+
+And the knight made answer:
+
+"Brother, what use to tell you the names folk give me? For you I will
+bear the one you shall call me by. Know this, I am come to you full of
+helpfulness and goodwill, and being informed you dearly love the Truth,
+I bring you a word touching this same Truth that you have taken for lady
+and companion."
+
+And Fra Giovanni began to tender thanks to his visitor. But the knight
+stopped him in the midst, saying:
+
+"I warn you, this word of mine will seem to you at the first empty and
+of no account, for it is with it as with a tiny key, that the heedless
+man throws away without using.
+
+"But the careful householder tries it in lock after lock, till he finds
+at last it opens a chest full of gold and precious stones.
+
+"Wherefore I say to you, Fra Giovanni, seeing you have chosen
+peradventure to take Truth for your Lady and darling, it behoves you
+greatly to know concerning her all that may be known. Well then, know
+that she is _white_. And from her appearance, which I will describe you,
+you shall gather her nature, which will be very useful to you in making
+up to her and kissing her fair body with all sorts of pretty caresses,
+after the fashion of a lover fondling his mistress. Therefore take it as
+proven, brother mine, that she is _white_."
+
+After hearkening to these words, the holy man Giovanni answered:
+
+"Subtle Sir, the meaning of your discourse is not so hard to guess as
+you would seem to fear. And my wit, albeit naturally thick and dull, was
+instantly transfixed by the fine point of your allegory. You say that
+Truth is white to manifest the perfect purity that is in her, and show
+clearly she is a lady of immaculate virtue. And truly I picture her to
+myself such as you describe, overpassing in whiteness the lilies of the
+garden and the snow that in winter clothes the summits of Monte
+Alverno."
+
+But the visitor shook his head and said:
+
+"Nay! Fra Giovanni, that is not the meaning of my words, and you have in
+no wise broken the bone to extract the marrow. I instructed you that
+Truth is white, _not_ that she is pure; and it shows little discernment
+to think that she is pure."
+
+Grieved at what he now heard, the holy man Giovanni replied:
+
+"Even as the Moon, when the Earth hides the Sun's light from her, is
+darkened by the thick shadow of this World, where was wrought the crime
+of our mother Eve, so, most Subtle Sir, you have obscured a plain
+saying under baffling phrases. Thus we have you astray in the dark; for
+indeed Truth is pure, coming from God, the fountain of all purity."
+
+But the Opponent retorted:
+
+"Fra Giovanni, your logic is at fault, or you would know that purity is
+an inconceivable quality. This is what the shepherds of Arcady did, so
+they say, who named pure gods the gods they knew not the nature of."
+
+Then the good Fra Giovanni sighed and said:
+
+"Sir! your words are dark and wrapped in sadness. At times in my sleep
+angels have visited me. Their words I could not comprehend; but the
+mystery of _their_ thought was full of joy."
+
+Hereupon the subtle visitor resumed:
+
+"Come, Fra Giovanni, let us argue it out both of us according to the
+rules of syllogism."
+
+But the holy man answered:
+
+"Nay! I cannot argue with you; I have neither wish nor wit for the
+task."
+
+"Well then!" returned the Subtle Sophist, "I must needs find another
+Opponent."
+
+And in a moment, lifting the index finger of his left hand, he made with
+his right out of a corner of his gown a red cap for this finger. Then
+holding it up before his nose,
+
+"Look!" he said, "look at this finger. He's a learned Doctor now, and I
+am going to hold a learned argument with him. He's a Platonist, maybe
+Plato himself.
+
+"Messer Plato, what is purity? I wait your answer, Messer Plato. Oh! you
+say. Consciousness is pure. Consciousness only when it is devoid of
+everything which may be seen, heard, handled, in one word proved by the
+senses. You grant me further,--yes! you nod your cap, that Truth will be
+pure Truth under the same conditions, that is to say provided only you
+make her dumb, blind, deaf, legless, paralytic, crippled of all her
+limbs. And I am quite ready to allow that in this state she will escape
+the delusions that make mock of mankind, and will have no temptations to
+play the runagate. You are a scoffer, and you have made much mock at the
+world. Doff your cap."
+
+And the Opponent, dropping the corner of his gown, once more addressed
+the holy man Giovanni:
+
+"My friend, these old Sophists knew not what Truth was. But I, who am a
+student of physics and a great observer of natural curiosities, you may
+believe me when I tell you she is white, or, more strictly speaking,
+whiteness itself.
+
+"From which we must not conclude, I have told you before, that she is
+pure. Consider the Lady Eletta, of Verona, whose thighs were like milk;
+think you for this they were abstract from the world in general,
+withdrawn in the invisible and intangible, which is the pure, according
+to the Platonic doctrine? You would be much mistaken if you supposed
+so."
+
+"I do not know this Lady Eletta you speak of," said the holy man
+Giovanni.
+
+"She gave herself and her living body," said the Opponent, "to two
+Popes, sixty Cardinals, fourteen Princes, eighteen merchants, the Queen
+of Cyprus, three Turks, four Jews, the Lord Bishop of Arezzo's ape, a
+hermaphrodite, and the Devil. But we are wandering from our subject,
+which is to discover the proper character of Truth.
+
+"Now, if this character is not purity, as I have just established it
+cannot be in argument with Plato himself, it is conceivable it may be
+impurity, which impurity is the necessary condition of all existing
+things. For have we not just seen how the pure has neither life nor
+consciousness? And you must yourself, I trow, have learned amply from
+experience that life and all pertaining thereto is invariably compound,
+blended, diversified, liable to increase and decrease, unstable,
+soluble, corruptible--never pure."
+
+"Doctor," replied Giovanni, "your reasons are nothing worth, forasmuch
+as God, who is all pure, exists."
+
+But the Subtle Doctor retorted:
+
+"If you would read your books more carefully, my son, you would see it
+is said of Him you have just named, _not_, 'He exists,' but, 'He is.'
+Now to exist and to be are not one and the same thing, but two opposite
+things. You are alive, and do you not say yourself, 'I am nothing; I am
+as if I were not'? And you do not say, 'I am he who is.' Because to
+live, is each moment to cease to be. Again you say, 'I am full of
+impurities,' forasmuch you are not a single thing, but a blending of
+things that stir and strive."
+
+"Now do you speak wisely," answered the holy man, "and I see by your
+discourse that you are very deep read, Subtle Sir, in the sciences,
+divine as well as human. For true indeed it is God is He who is."
+
+"By the body of Bacchus," exclaimed the other, "He is, and that
+perfectly and universally. Wherefore are we dispensed from seeking Him
+in any single place, being assured He is to be discovered neither more
+nor less in any one spot than in any other, and that you cannot find so
+much as a pair of old spatterdashes without their due share of Him."
+
+"Admirably put, and most true," returned Giovanni. "But it is right to
+add that He is more particularly in the sacred elements, by the way of
+transubstantiation."
+
+"More than that!" added the learned Doctor; "He is actually edible in
+them. Note moreover, my son, that He is round in an apple, long-shaped
+in an aubergine, sharp in a knife and musical in a flute. He has all the
+qualities of substances, and likewise all the properties of figures. He
+is acute and He is obtuse, because He is at one and the same time all
+possible triangles; his radii are at once equal and unequal, because He
+is both the circle and the ellipse--and He is the hyperbola besides,
+which is an indescribable figure."
+
+While the holy Giovanni was still pondering these sublime verities, he
+heard the Subtle Doctor suddenly burst out a-laughing. Then he asked
+him:
+
+"Why do you laugh?"
+
+"I am laughing," replied the Doctor, "to think how they have discovered
+in me certain oppositions and contradictions, and have reproached me
+bitterly for the same. It is very true I have many such. But they fail
+to see that, if I had them all, I should then be like the Other."
+
+The holy man asked him:
+
+"What other is it you speak of?"
+
+And the Adversary answered:
+
+"If you knew of whom I speak, you would know who I am. And my wisest
+words you would be loath to listen to, for much ill has been said of
+me. But, if you remain ignorant who I am, I can be of much use to you. I
+will teach you how intensely sensitive men are to the sounds that the
+lips utter, and how they let themselves be killed for the sake of words
+that are devoid of meaning. This we see with the Martyrs,--and in your
+own case, Giovanni, who look forward with joy to be strangled and then
+burned to the singing of the Seven Psalms, in the Great Square of
+Viterbo, for this word _Truth_, for which you could not by any
+possibility discover a reasonable interpretation.
+
+"Verily you might ransack every hole and corner of your dim brain, and
+pick over all the spiders' webs and old iron that cumber your head,
+without ever lighting on a picklock to open this word and extract the
+meaning. But for me, my poor friend, you would get yourself hanged and
+your body burned for a word of one syllable which neither you nor your
+judges know the sense of, so that none could ever have discovered which
+to despise the most, hangmen or hanged.
+
+"Know then that Truth, your well-beloved mistress, is made up of
+elements compacted of wet and dry, hard and soft, cold and hot, and that
+it is with this lady as with women of common humanity, in whom soft
+flesh and warm blood are not diffused equally in all the body."
+
+Fra Giovanni doubted in his simplicity whether this discourse was
+altogether becoming. The Adversary read the holy man's thought, and
+reassured him, saying:
+
+"Such is the learning we are taught at School. I am a Theologian, I!"
+
+Then he got up, and added:
+
+"I regret to leave you, friend; but I cannot tarry longer with you. For
+I have many contradictions to pose to many men. I can taste no rest day
+nor night; but I must be going ceaselessly from place to place, setting
+down my lantern now on the scholar's desk, now at the bed's head of the
+sick man who cannot sleep."
+
+So saying, he went away as he had come. And the holy man Giovanni asked
+himself: "Why did this Doctor say, Truth was white, I wonder?" And lying
+in the straw he kept revolving this question in his head. His body
+shared the restlessness of his mind, and kept turning first one side
+then the other in search of the repose he could not find.
+
+
+XIV
+
+GIOVANNI'S DREAM
+
+And this is why, left alone in his dungeon, he prayed to the Lord,
+saying:
+
+"O Lord! Thy loving-kindness is infinite toward me, and Thy favour
+manifest, seeing Thou hast so willed I should lie on a dunghill, like
+Job and Lazarus, whom Thou didst love so well. And Thou hast given me to
+know how filthy straw is a soft and sweet pillow to the just man. And
+Thou, dear Son of God, who didst descend into Hell, bless Thou the sleep
+of Thy servant where he lies in the gloomy prison-house. Forasmuch as
+men have robbed me of air and light, because I was steadfast to confess
+the truth, deign to enlighten me with the glory of the everlasting
+dayspring and feed me on the flames of Thy love, O living Truth, O Lord
+my God!"
+
+Thus prayed the holy man Giovanni with his lips. But in his heart he
+remembered the sayings of the Adversary. He was troubled to the bottom
+of his spirit, and in much trouble and anguish of mind he fell asleep.
+
+And seeing the thought of the Adversary weighed heavy on his slumbers,
+his sleep was not like the little child's lying on its mother's breast,
+a gentle sleep of smiles and milk. And in his dreams he beheld a vast
+wheel that shone with colours of living fire.
+
+It was like those rose windows of flower-like brilliancy that glow over
+the doors of Churches, the masterpieces of Gothic craftsmen, and display
+in the translucent glass the history of the Virgin Mary and the glory of
+the Prophets. But the secret of these rose windows is unknown to the
+Tuscan artificer.
+
+And this wheel was great and dazzling and brighter a thousandfold than
+the best wrought of all the rose windows that ever were divided by
+compass and painted with brush in the lands of the North. The Emperor
+Charlemagne saw not the like the day he was crowned.
+
+The only man who ever beheld a wheel more splendid was the poet who, a
+lady leading him, entered clothed in flesh into Holy Paradise. The rose
+was of living light, and seemed alive itself, every age and every
+condition, in an eager crowd, formed the nave and spokes and felloe.
+They were clad each according to his estate, and it was easy to
+recognize Pope and Emperor, Kings and Queens, Bishops, Barons, Knights,
+ladies, esquires, clerks, burghers, merchants, attorneys, apothecaries,
+labourers, ruffians, Moors and Jews. Moreover, seeing all that live on
+this earth were shown on the wheel, Satyrs and Cyclopes were there, and
+Pygmies and Centaurs such as Africa nurses in her burning deserts, and
+the men Marco Polo the traveller found, who are born without heads and
+with a face below their navel.
+
+And from betwixt the lips of each there issued a scroll, bearing a
+device. Now each device was of a hue which did not appear in any other,
+and in all the incalculable multitude of devices, no two could have been
+discovered of the same appearance. Some were dyed purple, others painted
+with the bright colours of the sky and sea, or the shining of the stars,
+yet others green as grass. Many were exceeding pale, many again
+exceeding dark and sombre, the whole so ordered that the eye found in
+these devices every one of the colours that paint the universe.
+
+The holy man Giovanni began to decipher them, by this means making
+himself acquainted with the divers thoughts of divers men. And after
+reading on a good while, he perceived that these devices were as much
+diversified in the sense of the words as in the hues of the letters, and
+that the sentences differed one from the other in such sort that there
+was never a single one did not flatly contradict every other.
+
+But at the same time he noted that this contradiction which existed in
+the head and body of the maxims did not continue in their tail, but that
+they all agreed together very accurately in their lower extremity, all
+ending in the same fashion, seeing each and all terminated in these
+words, _Such is Truth_.
+
+And he said in his heart:
+
+"These mottoes are like the flowers young men and maidens pluck in the
+water-meadows by the Arno, to make them into posies. For these flowers
+are readily gathered together by the tails, while the heads keep
+separate and fight amongst themselves in hue and brilliancy. And it is
+the same with the opinions of human beings."
+
+And the holy man found in the devices a host of contradictions regarding
+the origin of sovereignty, the fountains of knowledge, pleasure and
+pain, things lawful and things unlawful. And he discovered likewise
+mighty difficulties in connection with the shape of the Earth and the
+Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by reason of the Heretics and Arabs
+and Jews, the monsters of the African desert and the Epicureans, who all
+had their place, a scroll in their lips, on the wheel of fire.
+
+And each sentence ended in this way, _Such is Truth_. And the holy man
+Giovanni marvelled to see so many truths all diversely coloured. He saw
+red, and blue, and green, and yellow, but he saw no white--not even the
+one the Pope made proclamation of, to wit, "On this rock have I built my
+Church and committed thereto the crowns of all the world." Indeed this
+device was all red and as if blood-stained.
+
+And the holy man sighed:
+
+"Then I am never to find on the wheel of the universe the pure, white
+Truth, the immaculate and candid Truth, I would find."
+
+And he called upon Truth, crying with tears in his eyes:
+
+"Truth! Truth! for whose sake I am to die, show yourself before your
+martyr's eyes."
+
+And lo! as he was wailing out the words, the living wheel began to
+revolve, and the devices, running one into the other, no longer kept
+distinct, while on the great disk came circles of every hue, circles
+wider and wider the further they were from the centre.
+
+Then as the motion grew faster, these circles disappeared one by one;
+the widest vanished first, because the speed was swiftest near the
+felloe of the wheel. But directly the wheel began to spin so fast the
+eye could not see it move and it seemed to stand motionless, the
+smallest circles too disappeared, like the morning-star when the sun
+pales the hills of Assisi.
+
+Then at the last the wheel looked all white; and it overpassed in
+brilliance the translucent orb where the Florentine poet saw Beatrice in
+the dewdrop. It seemed as though an Angel, wiping the eternal pearl to
+cleanse it of all stains, had set it on the Earth, so like was the wheel
+to the Moon, when she shines high in the heavens lightly veiled under
+the gauze of filmy clouds. For at these times no shadow of a man
+carrying sticks, no mark at all, shows on her opalescent surface. Even
+so never a stain was visible on the wheel of light.
+
+And the holy man Giovanni heard a voice which said to him:
+
+"Behold that same white Truth you were fain to contemplate. And know it
+is built up of the divers contradictory truths, in the same fashion as
+all colours go to make up white. The little children of Viterbo know
+this, for having spun their tops striped with many colours on the flags
+on the Great Market. But the doctors of Bologna never guessed the
+reasons for this appearance. Now in every one of the devices was a
+portion of the Truth, and all together make up the true and veritable
+device."
+
+"Alas! and alas!" replied the holy man, "how am I to read it? For my
+eyes are dazzled."
+
+And the voice answered:
+
+"Very true, there is naught to be seen there but flashing fire. No Latin
+letters, nor Arabic, nor Greek, no cabalistic signs, can ever express
+this device; and no hand is there may trace it in characters of flame on
+palace walls.
+
+"Friend, never set your heart on reading what is not written. Only know
+this, that whatsoever a man has thought or believed in his brief
+lifetime is a parcel of this infinite Truth; and that, even as much dirt
+and disorder enter into what we call the order of nature, that is the
+clean and proper ordering of the universe, so the maxims of knaves and
+fools, who make the mass of mankind, participate in some sort in that
+general and universal Truth-which is absolute, everlasting and divine.
+Which makes me sore afraid, by the by, it may very like not exist at
+all."
+
+And with a great burst of mocking laughter, the voice fell silent.
+
+Then the holy man saw a long leg stretched out, in red hose, and inside
+the shoe the foot seemed cloven and like a goat's, only much larger. And
+it gave the wheel of light so shrewd a kick on the rim of its felloe,
+that sparks flew out as they do when the blacksmith smites the iron with
+his hammer, and the great wheel leapt into the air to fall far away,
+broken into fragments. Meantime the air was filled with such piercing
+laughter that the holy man awoke.
+
+And in the livid gloom of the dungeon, he thought sadly:
+
+"I have no hope or wish left to know Truth, if, as has just been
+manifested to me, she only shows herself in contradictions and
+inconsistencies. How shall I dare by my death to be witness and martyr
+of what men must believe, now the vision of the wheel of the universe
+has made me see how every particular falsehood is a parcel of general
+Truth, absolute and unknowable? Why, O my God, have you suffered me to
+behold these things, and let it be revealed to me before my last sleep,
+that Truth is everywhere and that she is nowhere?"
+
+And the holy man laid his head in his hands and wept.
+
+
+XV
+
+THE JUDGMENT
+
+Fra Giovanni was led before the Magistrates of the Republic to be judged
+according to the laws of Viterbo. And one of the Magistrates said to the
+guards:
+
+"Take his chains off him. For every person accused should appear freely
+before us."
+
+And Giovanni thought:
+
+"Why does the Judge pronounce words that are not straight?"
+
+And the first of the Magistrates began to question the holy man, and
+said to him:
+
+"Giovanni, bad man that you are, being thrown in prison by the august
+clemency of the laws, you have spoken against those laws. You have
+contrived with wicked men, chained in the same dungeon as yourself, a
+plot to overthrow the order stablished in this city."
+
+The holy man Giovanni made answer:
+
+"Nay! I but spoke for Justice and Truth. If the laws of the city are
+agreeable to Justice and Truth, I have not spoken against them. I have
+only spoken words of loving-kindness. I said:
+
+"'Strive not to destroy force by force. Be peaceable in the midst of
+wars, to the end the spirit of God may rest on you like a little bird on
+the top of a poplar in the valley that is flooded by the torrent.' I
+said, 'Be gentle toward the men of violence.'"
+
+Then the Judge cried out in anger:
+
+"Speak! tell us who are the men of violence."
+
+But the holy man said:
+
+"You are for milking the cow that has given all her milk, and would
+learn of me more than I know."
+
+However the Judge imposed silence on the holy man, and he said:
+
+"Your tongue has discharged the arrow of your discourse, and its shot
+was aimed at the Republic. Only it has lighted lower, and turned back
+upon yourself."
+
+And the holy man said:
+
+"You judge me, not by my acts and my words, which are manifest, but by
+my motives, which are visible only to God's eye."
+
+And the Judge replied:
+
+"Nay! if we could not see the invisible and were not gods upon earth,
+how would it be possible for us to judge folk? Do you not know a law
+has just been passed in Viterbo, which punishes even men's secret
+thoughts? For the police of cities is for ever being perfected, and the
+wise Ulpian, who held the rule and the square in the days of Cæsar,
+would be astonished himself, if he could see our rules and squares,
+improved as they are."
+
+And the Judge said again:
+
+"Giovanni, you have been conspiring in your prison against the common
+weal."
+
+But the holy man denied having ever conspired against the weal of
+Viterbo. Then the Judge said:
+
+"The gaoler has given testimony against you."
+
+And the holy man asked the Judge:
+
+"What weight will my testimony have in one scale, when that of the
+gaoler is in the other?"
+
+The Judge answered:
+
+"Why! yours will kick the beam."
+
+Wherefore the holy man held his peace henceforth.
+
+Then the Judge declared:
+
+"Anon you were talking, and the words you said proved your perfidy. Now
+you say nothing, and your silence is the avowal of your crime. So you
+have confessed your guilt twice over."
+
+And the Magistrate they entitled the Accuser rose and said:
+
+"The illustrious city of Viterbo speaks by my voice, and my voice shall
+be grave and calm, because it is the public voice. And you will think
+you are listening to a bronze statue speaking, for I make accusation not
+with my heart and bowels, but with the tables of bronze whereon the Law
+is inscribed."
+
+And straightway he began to gesticulate furiously and utter a raging
+torrent of words. And he declaimed the argument of a play, in imitation
+of Seneca the Tragedian: and this drama was filled full of crimes
+committed by the holy man Giovanni. And the Accuser represented in
+succession all the characters of the tragedy. He mimicked the groans of
+the victims and the voice of Giovanni, the better to strike awe into his
+audience, who seemed to hear and see Giovanni himself, intoxicated with
+hate and evildoing. And the Accuser tore his hair and rent his gown and
+fell back exhausted on his august seat of office.
+
+And the Judge who had questioned the accused before took up the word
+again and said:
+
+"It is meet a citizen defend this man. For none, so says the law of
+Viterbo, may be condemned without having been first defended."
+
+Thereupon an Advocate of Viterbo got up on a stool and spoke in these
+terms:
+
+"If this monk has said and done what is laid to his charge, he is very
+wicked. But we have no proof that he has spoken and acted in the manner
+supposed. Moreover, good sirs, had we this proof, it would behove us to
+consider further the extreme simplicity of the man and the feebleness of
+his understanding. He was the laughing-stock of the children in the
+Public Square. He is ignorant; he has done a thousand extravagances. For
+my own part I believe he is beside himself. What he says is worthless
+nonsense, and there is nothing sensible he can do. I think he has been
+frequenting seditious societies; and goes about repeating what he heard
+there, without understanding a word of it. He is too dull-witted to be
+punished. Look out for his instructors; it is they are to blame. There
+are many difficulties in the matter, and the wise man has told us, 'In
+doubt, refrain from action.'"
+
+Having so said, the Advocate stepped down from his stool. And Brother
+Giovanni received his death sentence. And he was informed he was to be
+hanged in the Square where the peasant women come to sell fruit and
+vegetables and the children to play knucklebones.
+
+Next a very illustrious Doctor of Law, who was one of the Judges, got up
+and said:
+
+"Giovanni, it behoves you to subscribe consent to the sentence
+condemning you, for being pronounced in the name of the city, it is
+pronounced by yourself, inasmuch as you are part and parcel of the
+city. You have an honourable part in it, as citizen, and I will convince
+you that you ought to be well content to be strangled by the city's
+judgment.
+
+"Know this, the satisfaction of the whole comprehends and embraces the
+satisfaction of the parts, and seeing you are a part--a vile and
+miserable part, yet still a part--of the noble city of Viterbo, your
+condemnation which satisfies the community should be no less
+satisfactory to yourself.
+
+"And I will further prove you that you should rightly consider death
+doom agreeable and fitting. For there is no other thing so useful and
+becoming as is the law, which is the just measure of things, and you
+ought to be pleased to have received this same just and proper measure.
+In accordance with the rules stablished by Cæsar Justinian, you have got
+your due. Your condemnation is just, and therefore a pleasant and a good
+thing. But, were it unjust and tainted and contaminated with ignorance
+and iniquity (which God forbid), still it would be incumbent on you to
+approve the same.
+
+"For an unjust sentence, when it is pronounced in the prescribed forms
+of law, participates in the virtue of the said forms and through them
+continues august, efficacious and of high merit. What it contains of
+wrong is temporary and of little consequence, and concerns only the
+particular instance, whereas the good in it derives from the fixity and
+permanence of the organization of the laws, and therefore is it
+agreeable to the general dictates of justice. Wherefore Papinian
+declares it is better to give false judgment than none at all, seeing
+how men without justice are no better than wild beasts in the woods,
+whereas by justice is made manifest their nobleness and dignity, as is
+seen by the example of the Judges of the Areopagus, who were held in
+special honour among the Athenians. So, seeing it is necessary and
+profitable to give judgment, and that it is not possible to do so
+without fault or mistake, it follows that mistake and faultiness are
+comprised in the excellence of Justice and participate in the said
+excellence. Accordingly, supposing you deemed your sentence unfair, you
+should find satisfaction in this unfairness, inasmuch as it is united
+and amalgamated with fairness, just as tin and copper are fused together
+to make bronze, which is a precious metal and employed for very noble
+purposes, in the fashion Pliny describes in his Histories."
+
+The learned Doctor then proceeded to enumerate the conveniencies and
+advantages which flow from expiation and wash away sin, as the maids
+every Saturday wash the courtyards of their masters' houses. And he
+demonstrated to the holy man what a boon it was for him to be condemned
+to death by the august good pleasure of the Commonwealth of Viterbo,
+which had granted him judges and a defender. And so soon as the Doctor's
+eloquence was exhausted and he fell silent, Fra Giovanni was fettered
+once more and led back to prison.
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD
+
+Now on the morning appointed for his hanging, the holy man Giovanni was
+lying sound asleep. And the Subtle Doctor came and opened the door of
+his prison cell, and pulling him by the sleeve, cried:
+
+"Ho! there, son of woman, awake! The day is just unclosing his grey
+eyes. The lark is singing, and the morning mists kissing the mountain
+sides. Clouds glide along the hills, soft and sinuous, snow-white with
+rosy reflexions,--which are the flanks and bosoms and loins of immortal
+nymphs, divine daughters of the rivers and the sky, maidens of the morn
+old Oceanus leads forth along the heights,--a flock multiform as his
+waves, and who welcome to their cool, fresh arms, on a couch of
+hyacinths and anemones, the gods, masters of the world, and the shepherd
+swains loved of goddesses. For there are shepherds their mothers bore
+beautiful and worthy the bed of the nymphs that dwell in the
+water-springs and woodlands.
+
+"And for myself, who have deeply studied the secrets of nature, seeing
+but now these clouds curling wantonly round the bosom of the hill, I was
+filled with mysterious longings at the sight, longings I know nothing of
+but that they spring from the region of my loins, and that, like the
+infant Hercules, they showed their strength from the very cradle. And
+these longings were not merely after rosy mists and floating clouds;
+they pictured very precisely a wench named Monna Libetta I made
+acquaintance with once in travelling, at Castro, at an inn where she was
+serving-maid and at the free disposal of the muleteers and soldiers
+frequenting it.
+
+"But the picture I framed in my mind of Monna Libetta, this morning, as
+I fared along the slopes of the hills, was wondrously embellished by the
+tenderness of recollection and the regrets of separation, and she was
+tricked out with all the pretty fancies that, springing from the loins
+as I said, presently send their fragrant fire coursing through all the
+body's soul, transfusing it with languishing ardours and pains that are
+a delicious pleasure.
+
+"For I would have you know, my Giovanni, that looking at her calmly and
+coldly, the girl was not greatly different from all the rest of the
+country wenches that, in the plains of Umbria and the Roman Marches, go
+afield to milk the cattle. She had dark eyes, slow and sullen, a
+sunburnt face, a big mouth, the bosom heavy, the belly tanned and the
+forepart of the legs, from the knee, shaggy with hair. Her laugh was
+ready and rude, in a general way; but in act with a lover, her face grew
+dark and transfigured as if with wonder at the presence of a god. 'Twas
+this had attached me to her, and I have many a time pondered since on
+the nature of this attachment, for I am learned and curious to search
+out the reasons of things.
+
+"And I discovered the force that drew me toward this girl Monna Libetta,
+maid-servant at the inn of Castro, was the same that governs the stars
+in heaven and that there is one force and one only in the world, which
+is Love. And it is likewise Hate, as is shown by the case of this same
+Monna Libetta, who was fiercely fondled, and just as fiercely beaten.
+
+"And I mind me how a groom in the Pope's stables, who was her chief
+lover, struck her so savagely one night in the hay-loft where he was
+bedding with her, that he left her lying there for dead. And he rushed
+crying through the streets that the vampires had strangled the girl.
+These be subjects a man must needs ponder if he would gain some notion
+of true physics and natural philosophy."
+
+Thus spoke the Subtle Doctor. And the holy man Giovanni sitting up on
+his bedding of dung, answered:
+
+"Nay! Doctor, is this language meet to address to a man that is to be
+hanged in a very short while? Hearing you, I am filled with doubt
+whether your words are the words of a good man and a great Theologian,
+or if they do not rather come from an evil dream sent by the Angel of
+Darkness."
+
+But the Subtle Doctor made answer:
+
+"Who talks of being hanged? I tell you, Giovanni, I am come hither, at
+the earliest peep of day, to set you free and help you to fly. See! I
+have donned a gaoler's habit; the prison door stands open. Quick! up and
+away!"
+
+At this the holy man rose to his feet, and answered:
+
+"Doctor, take heed what you are saying. I have made the sacrifice of my
+life, and I admit it has cost me dear to make it. If trusting to your
+word that I am restored to life, I am then led to the place of
+execution, I must needs make a second sacrifice more grievous than the
+first, and suffer two deaths instead of out. And I confess to you my
+desire of martyrdom is vanished away, and a longing come upon me to
+breathe the air of day under the branches of the mountain pines."
+
+The Subtle Doctor made reply:
+
+"It happens that was just my intent to lead you away under the pines
+rustling in the wind with the soft sighing of a flute. We will break our
+fast sitting on the mossy slope overlooking the city. Come with me! Why
+do you tarry?"
+
+And the holy man said:
+
+"Before going hence with you, I would fain know clearly who you are. I
+am fallen from my first constancy; my courage is no better now than a
+straw blown about on the wasted threshing-floor of my virtue. But I am
+left my faith in the Son of God, and to save my body, I would ill like
+to lose my soul."
+
+"Verily," cried the Subtle Doctor, "think you verily I have any desire
+of your soul! Is it then so fair a maid and sweet a lady you are afraid
+I may rob you of it? Nay! keep it, friend; I could make nothing of it."
+
+The holy man was scarce assured by what he heard, for the other's words
+breathed no pious odour. But, as he was exceeding eager to be free, he
+asked no more questions, but followed the Doctor and passed the wicket
+of the prison by his side.
+
+Only when he was without, he inquired:
+
+"Who are you, you who send dreams to men and set prisoners free? You
+have the beauty of a woman and the strength of a man, and I admire you,
+though I cannot love you."
+
+And the Subtle Doctor answered:
+
+"You will love me so soon as I have made you suffer. Men cannot love but
+those who make them suffer; and there is no love except in pain."
+
+And so conversing, they left the city and began climbing the mountain
+paths. And after faring far, they saw at the entering in of a wood a
+red-tiled house, before which was a wide terrace overlooking the plain,
+planted with fruit trees and bordered with vines.
+
+So they sat down in the courtyard at the foot of a vine trunk; its
+leaves were gilded by the Autumn and from the boughs hung clusters of
+grapes. And a girl brought them milk and honey and cakes of maize.
+
+Presently the Subtle Doctor, stretching out his arm, plucked a
+scarlet-cheeked apple, bit into it and gave it to the holy man. And
+Giovanni ate and drank; and his beard was all white with milk and his
+eyes laughed as he gazed up at the sky, which filled them with blue
+light and joy. And the girl smiled.
+
+Then the Subtle Doctor said:
+
+"Look at yonder child; she is far comelier than Monna Libetta."
+
+And the holy man, intoxicated with milk and honey, and made merry with
+the light of day, sang songs his mother was used to sing when she
+carried him as a babe in her arms. They were songs of shepherds and
+shepherdesses, and they spoke of love. And as the girl stood listening
+on the threshold of the door, the holy man left his seat and ran
+staggering towards her, took her in his arms and showered on her cheeks
+kisses full of milk, laughter and joy.
+
+And the Subtle Doctor having paid the reckoning, the two travellers hied
+them toward the plain.
+
+As they were walking between the silvery willows that border the water,
+the holy man said:
+
+"Let us sit; for now I am weary."
+
+So they sat down beneath a willow, and watched the water-flags curling
+their sword-like leaves on the river banks and the bright-coloured flies
+flashing over the surface. But Giovanni's laughter was ceased, and his
+face was sad.
+
+And the Subtle Doctor asked him:
+
+"Why are you so pensive?"
+
+And Giovanni answered him:
+
+"I have felt through you the sweet caress of living things, and I am
+troubled at heart. I have tasted the milk and the honey. I have looked
+on the servant-maid standing at the threshold and seen that she was
+comely. And disquietude is in my soul and in my flesh.
+
+"What a long road I have travelled since I have known you. Do you
+remember the grove of holm-oaks where I saw you the first time? For be
+sure, I recognize you.
+
+"You it was visited me in my hermit's cell and stood before me with
+woman's eyes sparkling through a transparent veil, while your alluring
+mouth instructed me in the entanglements of Right and Wrong. Again it
+was you appeared in the meadows clad in a golden cope, like an Ambrose
+or an Augustine. Then I knew not the curse of thought; but you set me
+thinking. You put pride like a coal of fire on my lips; and I learned to
+speculate. But as yet, in the untrained freshness of my wit and raw
+youthfulness of mind, I felt no doubt. But again you came to me, and
+gave me uncertainty to feed on and doubt to drink like wine. So comes
+it, that this day I taste through you the entrancing illusion of things,
+and that the soul of woods and streams, of sky and earth, and living
+shapes, penetrates my breast.
+
+"And lo! I am a miserable man, because I have followed after you, Prince
+of men!"
+
+And Giovanni gazed at his companion, who stood there beautiful as day
+and night. And he said to him:
+
+"Through you it is I suffer, and I love you. I love you because you are
+my misery and my pride, my joy and my sorrow, the splendour and the
+cruelty of things created, because you are desire and speculation, and
+because you have made me like unto yourself. For verily your promise in
+the Garden, in the dawn of this world's days, was not vain, and I have
+tasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, O Satan."
+
+Presently Giovanni resumed again.
+
+"I know, I see, I feel, I will, I suffer. And I love you for all the ill
+you have done me. I love you, because you have undone me."
+
+And, leaning on the Archangel's shoulder, the man wept bitterly.
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTIC BLOOD
+
+TO FÉLIX JEANTET
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTIC BLOOD
+
+  _La Bocca sua non diceva se non Jesù e Caterina, e cosi dicendo
+  ricevatti el capo nelle mani mie, fermando l'occhio nella Divina
+  Bontà, e dicendo: lo voglio...._
+
+  (_Le lettere di S. Caterina da Siena._--xcvii, Gigli e
+  Burlamacchi.)[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "His mouth spake no word but only Jesus and Caterina, and
+with these words I received his head in my two hands, as he closed his
+eyes in the Divine Goodness, and said: I will...." (_Letters of St.
+Catherine of Sienna_--xcvii, ed. Gigli e Burlamacchi.)]
+
+
+The good town of Sienna was like a sick man that seeks vainly for a
+restful place in his bed, and thinks, by turning about and about, to
+cheat his pain. Again and again had she changed the government of the
+Republic, which passed from the Consuls to the Assemblies of the
+Burghers, and, originally entrusted to the Nobles, was subsequently
+exercised by the money-changers, drapers, apothecaries, furriers,
+silk-mercers and all such citizens as were concerned with the superior
+arts and crafts. But these worthies having shown themselves weak and
+self-seeking, the People expelled them in their turn and entrusted the
+sovereign power to the petty artisans. In the year 1368 of the glorious
+Incarnation of the Son of God, the Signory was composed of fourteen
+Magistrates chosen from among the hosiers, butchers, locksmiths,
+shoemakers, and stonemasons, who together formed a Great Council known
+as the _Mount of the Reformers_. They were a plebeian band, rough and
+hard as the bronze She-Wolf, emblem of their city, which they loved with
+an affection at once filial and formidable. But the People, which had
+set them up over the Commonwealth, had suffered another body to continue
+in existence, though subordinate to them, the Twelve to wit, who came
+from the class of Bankers and wealthy Merchants. These men were in
+conspiracy with the Nobles, at the Emperor's instigation, to sell the
+City to the Pope of Rome.
+
+The German Kaiser was the life and soul of the plot, promising the aid
+of his landsknechts to guarantee success. He was in the utmost haste to
+have the affair ended, hoping with the price of the bargain, he might be
+able to redeem the Crown of Charlemagne, pledged for sixteen hundred
+florins with the Florentine Bankers.
+
+Meantime, they of the _Reformers' Mount_, who formed the Signory, held
+firm the rod of government and watched heedfully over the safety of the
+Republic. These artisans, officers of a free People, had refused the
+Emperor, when he came within their walls, bread, water, salt and fire;
+they had driven him forth the city groaning and trembling, and they now
+condemned the conspirators to death. Guardians of the town founded by
+Remus long ago, they copied the sternness of the first Consuls of Rome.
+But their city, which went clad in silk and cloth-of-gold, was ever
+ready to slip betwixt their fingers, like a lascivious, false-hearted
+wanton; and fear and anxiety made them implacable.
+
+In the year 1370 they discovered that a nobleman of Perugia, Ser Niccola
+Tuldo, had been sent by the Pope to stir up the Siennese, in connivance
+with the Kaiser, to deliver up the city to the Holy Father. The young
+Lord in question was in the prime of manly beauty, and had learned in
+the company of fair ladies those arts of flattery and seductive
+compliment he now proceeded to practise in the Palace of the Salimbeni
+and the shops of the money-changers. And, for all his light heart and
+empty head, he gained over to the Pope's side many burghers and some
+artisans. Informed of his intrigues, the Magistrates of the _Mount of
+the Reformers_ had him brought before their august Council, and after
+questioning him underneath the gonfalon of the Republic, which shows a
+Lion rampant for device, they declared him guilty of attempted outrage
+against the liberties of the City.
+
+He had answered with mere smiling scorn to the questions of these
+cobbler fellows and butchers. But when he heard his sentence of death
+pronounced, he fell into ecstasy of deep astonishment, and was led away
+to prison as if in a trance. No sooner was he locked up in his cell
+than, awaking from his stupor, he began to regret the life he was to
+lose with all the ardour of his young blood and impetuous character;
+visions of all its pleasures, arms, women, horses, crowded before his
+eyes, and at the thought he would never enjoy the delights more, he was
+carried away by so furious a despair he beat with fists and forehead on
+the walls of his dungeon, and gave vent to such wild howls as were
+audible over all the neighbourhood, even in the burghers' houses and the
+drapers' booths. The gaoler coming in to know the cause of the uproar,
+found him covered with blood and foaming at the mouth.
+
+Ser Niccola Tuldo never left off howling with rage for three days and
+three nights.
+
+The thing was reported to the _Mount of the Reformers_. The members of
+the most august Signory, after despatching their more pressing business,
+examined into the case of the unhappy man in the condemned cell.
+
+Leone Rancati, brickmaker by trade, said:
+
+"The man must pay with his head for his crime against the Commonwealth
+of Sienna; and none can relieve him of this debt, without encroaching on
+the sacred rights of the City our mother. He must needs die; but his
+soul is his Maker's, and it is not meet that through our fault he die in
+this sinful state of madness and despair. Therefore should we use all
+the means within our competence to assure his eternal salvation."
+
+Matteino Renzano, the baker, a man famed for his wisdom, rose in his
+turn and said:
+
+"Well spoken, Leone Rancati! The case demands we send to the condemned
+man Catherine, the fuller's daughter."
+
+The advice was approved by all the Signory, who resolved to invite
+Catherine to visit Niccola Tuldo in his prison.
+
+In those days Catherine, daughter of Giacomo the fuller, filled all the
+city of Sienna with the perfume of her virtues. She dwelt in a little
+cell in her father's house and wore the habit of the Sisters of
+Penitence. She carried girt about her under her gown of white linen an
+iron chain, and scourged herself an hour long every day. Then, showing
+her arms covered with wounds, she would cry, "Behold my pretty red
+roses!" She cultivated in her chamber lilies and violets, wherewith she
+wove garlands for the altars of the Virgin and the Saints. And all the
+while she would be singing hymns in the vulgar tongue to the praise of
+Jesus and Mary His Mother. In those mournful times, when the city of
+Sienna was a hostel of sorrow, and a house of joy to boot, Catherine was
+ever visiting the unhappy prisoners, and telling the prostitutes: "My
+sisters, how fain would I hide you in the loving wounds of the Saviour!"
+A maiden so pure, fired with so sweet charity, could nowhere have budded
+and blossomed but at Sienna, which under all its defilements and amid
+all its crimes, was still the City of the Blessed Virgin.
+
+Apprised by the Magistrates, Catherine betook herself to the public gaol
+on the morning of the day Ser Niccola Tuldo was to die. She found him
+stretched on the stone floor of the dungeon, bellowing blasphemies.
+Raising the white veil the blessed St. Dominic himself had come down
+from Paradise to lay upon her brow, she showed the prisoner a
+countenance of heavenly beauty. As he gazed at her in wonder, she leant
+over him to wipe away the spume that defiled his mouth.
+
+Ser Niccola Tuldo, turning on her eyes that still retained their savage
+ferocity, cried out:
+
+"Begone! I hate you, because you are of Sienna, the city that slays me.
+Oh! Sienna, she-wolf indeed, that with her vile claws tears out the
+throat of a noble gentleman of Perugia! Horrid she-wolf! unclean and
+inhuman hell-hound!"
+
+But Catherine made answer:
+
+"Nay! brother, what is a city, what are all the cities of the earth,
+beside the City of God and the holy Angels? I am Catherine, and I am
+come to call you to the everlasting nuptials."
+
+The sweet voice and beaming face shed a sudden peace and radiance over
+the savage soul of Niccola Tuldo. He remembered the days of his
+innocence, and cried like a child.
+
+The sun, rising above the Apennines, was just whitening the prison walls
+with its earliest rays. Catherine said:
+
+"Look, the dawn! Up, up, my brother, for the eternal nuptials! Up, I
+say!"
+
+And raising him from the ground, she drew him into the Chapel, where Fra
+Cattaneo confessed him.
+
+Ser Niccola Tuldo then listened devoutly to the holy Mass and received
+the body of Our Lord. This done, he turned to Catherine and said:
+
+"Stay with me; do not leave me, and I shall be well, and shall die
+content."
+
+The bells began to toll the signal for the execution.
+
+Then Catherine answered:
+
+"Gentle brother, I will wait you at the place of Justice."
+
+At this, Ser Niccola smiled and said, as if ravished with bliss:
+
+"Joy! joy! the Delight of my soul will wait me at the holy place of
+Justice!"
+
+Catherine pondered and prayed, finally saying:
+
+"Gracious Lord, Thou hast indeed wrought in him a great enlightenment,
+seeing he calls holy the place of Justice."
+
+Ser Niccola went on:
+
+"Yes! I shall hie me thither, strong in heart and rejoicing. I weary, as
+though I had a thousand years to wait, to be there, where I shall find
+you once more."
+
+"Farewell till the nuptials, the everlasting nuptials!" Catherine cried
+again, as she left the prison.
+
+The condemned man was served with a little bread and wine, and supplied
+with a black cloak; then he was led forth along the precipitous streets,
+to the sound of trumpets, between the city guards, beneath the banner of
+the Republic. The ways swarmed with curious onlookers, and women lifted
+their little ones in their arms, showing them the man doomed to die.
+
+Meantime Niccola Tuldo was dreaming of Catherine, and his lips, that
+had so long been bitter, opened softly as though to kiss the likeness of
+the blessed maid.
+
+After climbing for some while the rude brick-paved road, the procession
+reached one of the heights dominating the city, and the condemned man
+saw suddenly, with his eyes that were soon to see no more, the roofs,
+domes, cloisters, and towers of Sienna, and further away the walls that
+followed the slope of the hills. The sight reminded him of his native
+town, the gay city of Perugia, surrounded with its gardens, where
+springs of living water sing amid the fruits and flowers. He saw once
+more in fancy the terrace that looks over the vale of Trasimene, whence
+the eye drinks in the light of day with delight.
+
+And the yearning for life tore his heart afresh, and he sighed:
+
+"Oh! city of my fathers! Oh! house of my birth!"
+
+But presently the thought of Catherine re-entered his soul, filling it
+to the brim with gladness and sweet peace.
+
+Finally they arrive in the Market Square, where each Saturday the
+peasant girls of Camiano and Granayola display their citrons,
+grapes, figs, and pomegranates, and hail the housewives with merry
+appeals to buy, not unmixed with high-spiced jests. It was there the
+scaffold was erected; and there Ser Niccola beheld Catherine
+kneeling in prayer, her head resting on the block.
+
+He climbed the steps with eager joy. At his coming, Catherine rose and
+turned toward him with all the look of a bride once more united to her
+spouse; she insisted on baring his neck with her own hands and placing
+her dear one on the block as on a marriage bed.
+
+Then she knelt down beside him. Thrice he repeated in fervent tones,
+"Jesus, Catherine!"--after which the executioner struck with his sword,
+and the maiden caught the severed head within her hands. Hereupon all
+the victim's blood seemed to be suffused in her, and to fill her veins
+with a flood as soft as warm milk; a fragrant odour set her nostrils
+quivering, while before her swooning eyes floated the shadows of angels.
+Filled with wonder and joy unspeakable, she fell softly into the depths
+of celestial ecstasy.
+
+Two women of the third Order of St. Dominic, who stood at the foot of
+the scaffold, seeing her stretched there motionless, hastened to raise
+her up and support her in their arms. The holy maid, coming to herself,
+told them: "I have seen the heavens opened!"
+
+One of the women made as though to wash away with a sponge the blood
+that covered St. Catherine's robe, but she stopped her, crying out
+eagerly:
+
+"No, no! leave the blood, leave it; never rob me of my purple and my
+perfumes!"
+
+
+
+
+A SOUND SECURITY
+
+TO HENRI LAVEDAN
+
+
+
+
+A SOUND SECURITY
+
+  _. . . . . . . . Par cest ymage
+  Te doing en pleige Jhesu-Crist
+  Qui tout fist, ainsi est escript:
+  Il te pleige tout ton avoir;
+  Ne peuz nulz si bon pleige avoir._
+
+           (_Miracles de Notre-Dame par personnages_,
+             publ. par. G. Paris et U. Robert.)[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "... By this image I take Jesus Christ in pledge for you,
+Him who wrought all men's salvation, as is writ in Scripture: He is
+pledge against all your fortune; so good a pledge can no man have."
+(_Miracles of Our Lady, as they Fell out to Sundry_--G. Paris and U.
+Robert.)]
+
+
+Of all the merchants of Venice, Fabio Mutinelli was the most exact in
+keeping his engagements. In all cases he showed himself free-handed and
+sumptuous in his dealings,--above all where ladies and churchmen were
+concerned. The elegance and honesty of his character were renowned
+throughout the State, and all admired at San Zanipolo an altar of gold
+he had offered to St. Catherine for the love of the fair Catherine
+Manini, wife of the Senator Alesso Cornaro. Being very wealthy, he had
+numerous friends, whom he entertained at feasts and helped at need from
+his purse. However, he incurred heavy losses in the war against the
+Genoese and in the Naples troubles. It fell out, moreover, that thirty
+of his ships were taken by the Uscoque pirates or foundered at sea. The
+Pope, to whom he had lent great sums of money, refused to repay a doit.
+The result of all was, the magnificent Fabio Mutinelli was stripped bare
+in brief space of all his riches. After selling his Palace and plate to
+pay what he owed, he found himself left without anything. But clever,
+bold, well practised in affairs and in the vigour of his powers, his
+only thought was to make head once more against fortune. He made careful
+calculation and judged that five hundred ducats were needful for him to
+take the sea again and attempt fresh enterprises for which he augured
+happy and sure success. He asked the Signor Alesso Bontura, who was the
+richest citizen of the Republic, to oblige him by lending him the five
+hundred ducats. But the good Bontura, holding that if daring wins great
+gains, 'tis prudence only keeps the same, refused to expose so great a
+sum to the risks of sea and shipwreck. Fabio next applied to the Signor
+Andrea Morosini, whom he had benefited in former days in a thousand
+ways.
+
+"My dear Fabio," answered Andrea, "to any one else but you I would
+willingly lend this sum. I have no affection for gold, and on this
+point act according to the maxims of Horace the Satirist. But your
+friendship is dear to me, Fabio Mutinelli, and I should be running the
+risk of losing it, if I lent you money. For more often than not, the
+commerce of the heart comes to a bad end betwixt debtor and creditor. I
+have known but too many instances."
+
+So saying, the Signor Andrea kissed the Merchant with all seeming
+tenderness, and shut the door in his face.
+
+Next day, Fabio went to see the Lombard and Florentine bankers. But not
+one of them would agree to lend him so much as twenty ducats without
+security. All day long he hurried from one counting-house to another,
+but was everywhere met by much the same answer:
+
+"Signor Fabio, we all know you well for the most upright merchant of
+this city, and it is with regret we must refuse you what you ask. But
+the morality of trade requires it."
+
+That evening, as he was making sadly for home, the courtesan Zanetta,
+who was bathing in the canal, hung on to his gondola and gazed amorously
+into his eyes. In the days of his prosperity he had had her one night
+into his Palace and had treated her very kindly, for he was of a gay and
+gracious humour.
+
+"Sweet Signor Fabio," she said to him, "I am aware of your misfortunes;
+they are the talk of all the town. Hear me; I am not rich, but I have
+some jewels at the bottom of a little coffer. An you will accept them of
+a poor girl that would serve you, I shall know God and the Virgin love
+me."
+
+And it was a true word, that in the prime of her youth and fine flower
+of her beauty, the fair Zanetta was poor. Fabio answered her:
+
+"Kind Zanetta, there is more nobility in the hovel where you dwell than
+in all the Palaces of Venice."
+
+For three days longer Fabio visited the banks and fondacos without
+discovering any one willing to lend him money. Everywhere he received an
+unfavourable answer, and listened to speeches that always came to this:
+
+"You did very wrong to sell your plate to pay your debts. Money is lent
+to a man in debt, but not to one without furniture and plate."
+
+The fifth day he made his way, in despair, as far as the Corte delle
+Galli, which men also call the Ghetto, and which is the quarter the Jews
+inhabit.
+
+"Who knows," he kept saying to himself, "if I may not get from one of
+the Circumcised what the Christians have denied me?"
+
+He proceeded therefore between the Calle San Geremia and the Calle San
+Girolamo along a narrow evil-smelling canal, the entrance of which was
+barred with chains every night, by order of the Senate. While hesitating
+to know which Usurer he should first apply to, he remembered to have
+heard speak of an Israelite named Eliezer, son of Eliezer Maimonides,
+who was said to be exceedingly rich and of a wondrous subtle spirit.
+Accordingly, inquiring out the house of the Jew Eliezer, he stopped his
+gondola before the door. Above the entrance was seen a representation of
+the seven-branched candlestick, which the Jew had had carved as a sign
+of hope, in expectation of the promised days when the Temple should rise
+again from its ashes.
+
+The Merchant now entered a hall lighted by a copper lamp with twelve
+wicks that were burning smokily. Eliezer the Jew was there, seated
+before his scales. The windows of the house were walled up, because he
+was an Unbeliever.
+
+Fabio Mutinelli approached and thus accosted him:
+
+"Eliezer, over and over again have I called you dog and renegade
+heathen. There have been times, when I was younger and in the flush of
+early manhood, I have cast stones and mud at folks going along the Canal
+who wore the round patch of yellow sewn on their shoulder, so that I
+may likely have struck one of your friends or perhaps yourself. I tell
+you this, not to affront you, but out of fairness, at the same instant I
+come to ask you to do me a very great service."
+
+The Jew lifted his arm, which was as dry and gnarled as an ancient
+vine-stock:
+
+"Fabio Mutinelli, the Father which is in Heaven shall judge us, one and
+the other. What is the service you are come to ask of me?"
+
+"Lend me five hundred ducats for a year."
+
+"Men do not lend without security. Doubtless you have learned this from
+your own people. What is the security you offer?"
+
+"You must know, Eliezer, I have not a denier left, not one gold cup, not
+one silver goblet. Neither have I a friend left. One and all, they have
+refused to do me the service I ask of you. I have nothing in all the
+world but my honour as a merchant and my faith as a Christian. I offer
+you for security the holy Virgin Mary and her Divine Son."
+
+At this reply, the Jew, bending down his head as a man does to ponder
+and consider, stroked his long white beard for a while. Presently he
+looked up and said:
+
+"Fabio Mutinelli, take me to see this security you offer. For it is meet
+the lender be put in presence of the pledge proposed for his
+acceptance."
+
+"You are within your rights," returned the Merchant, "rise therefore and
+come."
+
+So saying, he led Eliezer to the Chiesa dell' Orto, near the spot called
+the _Field of the Moors_. Arrived there and pointing to the figure of
+the Madonna, which stood above the High Altar, the brow wreathed with a
+circlet of precious stones and the shoulders covered with a
+gold-broidered mantle, holding in her arms the Child Jesus sumptuously
+adorned like his mother, the Merchant said to the Jew:
+
+"Yonder is my security."
+
+Eliezer looked with a keen eye and a calculating air first at the
+Christian Merchant, then at the Madonna and Child; then presently bowed
+his head in assent and said he would accept the pledge offered. He
+returned with Fabio to his own house, and there handed him the five
+hundred ducats, well and truly weighed:
+
+"The money is yours for a year. If at the end of that time, to the day,
+you have not paid me back the sum with interest at the rate fixed by the
+law of Venice and the custom of the Lombards, you can picture yourself,
+Fabio Mutinelli, what I shall think of the Christian Merchant and his
+security."
+
+Fabio, without a moment's loss of time, bought ships and loaded up with
+salt and other sorts of merchandise, which he disposed of in the cities
+of the Adriatic shore to great advantage. Then, with a fresh cargo
+aboard, he set sail for Constantinople, where he bought carpets,
+perfumes, peacock feathers, ivory and ebony. These goods his agents
+exchanged along the coasts of Dalmatia for building timber, which the
+Venetians had contracted for from him in advance. By these means, in six
+months' time, he had multiplied tenfold the amount the Jew had lent him.
+
+But one day that he was taking his diversion with some Greek women,
+aboard his vessel, which lay in the Bosphorus, having put out too far to
+sea, he was captured by pirates and carried prisoner to Egypt, though,
+by rare good fortune, his gold and merchandise were in a safe place all
+the while. The pirates sold him to a Saracen lord, who putting him in
+fetters, sent him afield to till the wheat, which grows very finely in
+that country. Fabio offered his master to pay a heavy ransom, but the
+Paynim's daughter, who loved him and was fain to bring him to the end
+she desired, over-persuaded her father not to let him go at any price.
+Reduced to the necessity of trusting to himself alone for release, he
+filed his irons with the tools given him for tilling the ground, made
+good his escape to the Nile and threw himself into a boat. Casting
+loose, he got to the sea, which was not far off, and when on the point
+of death from thirst and hunger, was rescued by a Spanish vessel bound
+for Genoa. But, after keeping her course a week, the ship was caught in
+a storm which drove her on the coast of Dalmatia. In making the shore,
+she was wrecked on a reef. All the crew were drowned except Fabio, who
+reached the beach after much difficulty, clinging to a hen-coop. There
+he lay senseless, but was presently succoured by a handsome widow, named
+Loreta, whose house was upon the seashore. She had him carried to it,
+put him to bed in her own chamber, watched over him and lavished every
+care for his recovery.
+
+On coming to himself, he smelt the perfume of myrtles and roses, and
+looking out of window saw a garden that descended in successive
+declivities to the sea. Signora Loreta, standing at his bed's head, took
+up her viol and began playing a tender air.
+
+Fabio, ravished with gratitude and pleasure, fell to kissing the lady's
+hands a thousand times over. He thanked her earnestly, assuring her he
+was less touched by the saving of his life than by the fact of his owing
+his recovery to the pains of so fair a benefactress.
+
+Presently he rose and went to walk with her in the garden, and sitting
+down to rest in a thicket of myrtles, he drew the young widow on his
+knee and manifested his gratitude by a thousand caresses.
+
+He found her not insensible to his efforts and spent some hours by her
+side drowned in amorous delight. But soon he grew pensive, and suddenly
+asked his hostess what month they were in, and what day of the month
+precisely it then was.
+
+And when she told him, he fell to groaning and lamenting sore, finding
+it lacked but twenty-four short hours of a full year since he had
+received the five hundred ducats of Eliezer the Jew. The thought of
+breaking his promise and exposing his pledge to the reproaches of the
+Circumcised was intolerable to him. Signora Loreta inquiring the reason
+of his despair, he told her the whole story; and being a very pious
+woman and an ardent votress of the Holy Mother of God, she shared his
+chagrin to the full. The difficulty was not to procure the five hundred
+ducats; a Banker in a neighbouring town had had such a sum in his hands
+for the last six months at Fabio's disposition. But to travel from the
+coast of Dalmatia to Venice in four-and-twenty hours, with a broken sea
+and contrary winds, was a thing beyond all hope.
+
+"Let us have the money ready to begin with," said Fabio.
+
+And when one of his hostess's serving-men had brought the sum, the noble
+Merchant ordered a vessel to be brought close in to the shore. In her
+he laid the bags containing the ducats, then went to the Signora
+Loreta's Oratory in search of an image of the Virgin with the Infant
+Jesus--an image of cedar-wood and greatly revered. This he set in the
+little bark, near the rudder, and addressed in these words:
+
+"Madonna, you are my pledge. Now the Jew Eliezer must needs be paid
+to-morrow; 'tis a question of mine honour and of yours, Madonna, and of
+your Son's good name. What a mortal sinner, such as I, cannot do, you
+will assuredly accomplish, unsullied Star of the Sea, you whose bosom
+suckled Him who walked upon the waters. Bear this silver to Eliezer the
+Jew, in the Ghetto at Venice, to the end the Circumcised may never say
+you are a bad surety."
+
+And pushing the bark afloat, he doffed his hat and cried softly:
+
+"Farewell, Madonna! farewell!"
+
+The vessel sailed out to sea, and long the merchant and the widow
+followed it with their eyes. When night began to close in, a furrow of
+light was seen marking her wake over the waters, which were fallen to a
+dead calm.
+
+At Venice next morning Eliezer, on opening his door, saw a bark in the
+narrow canal of the Ghetto laden with full sacks and manned by a little
+figure of black wood, flashing in the clear morning sunbeams. The
+vessel stopped before the house where the seven-branched candlestick was
+carved; and the Jew recognized the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus,
+pledge of the Christian Merchant.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF DOÑA MARIA D'AVALOS AND DON FABRICIO, DUKE D'ANDRIA
+
+TO HENRY GAUTHIER-VILLARS
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF DOÑA MARIA D'AVALOS AND DON FABRICIO, DUKE D'ANDRIA
+
+  _Done Marie d'Avalos, l'une des belles princesses du païs, mariée avec
+  le prince de Venouse, laquelle s'estant enamourachée du comte
+  d'Andriane, l'un des beaux princes du païs aussy, et s'estans tous
+  deux concertez à la jouissance et le mari l'ayant descouverte ... les
+  fit tous deux massacrer par gens appostez; si que le lendemain on
+  trouva ces deux belles moictiez et créatures exposées et tendues sur
+  le pavé devant la porte de la maison, toutes mortes et froides, à la
+  veue de tous les passants, qui les larmoyoient et plaignoient de leur
+  misérable estat._[1]
+
+  (Pierre de Bourdeilles, abbé et Seigneur de Brantôme. _Recueil des
+  dames, seconde partie._)
+
+[Footnote 1: "Doña Maria d'Avalos, one of the fair Princesses of the
+land, and married to the Prince of Venosa, was enamoured of the Count
+d'Andriane, likewise one of the noble Princes of the country. So being
+both of them come together to enjoy their passion, and the husband
+having discovered it ... had the twain of them slain by men appointed
+thereto. In such wise that next morning the fair and noble pair, unhappy
+beings, were seen lying stretched out and exposed to public view on the
+pavement in front of the house door, all dead and cold, in sight of all
+passers-by, who could not but weep and lament over their piteous lot."]
+
+
+It was a day of high rejoicing at Naples, when the Prince of Venosa, a
+rich and puissant Lord, was wed to Doña Maria, of the illustrious house
+of Avalos.
+
+Drawn by horses bedizened with scales, feathers or furs, in such wise as
+to figure forth dragons, griffins, lions, lynxes, panthers and unicorns,
+were twelve cars which did bear through all the city an host of naked
+men and women, gilded all over, for to represent the Gods of Olympus,
+come down to Earth to do honour to the Venosian nuptials. On one of
+these cars was to be seen a young lad with wings treading underfoot
+three old hags of an hideous ugliness. A tablet was fixed up above the
+car to display the meaning thereof, to wit: LOVE VANQUISHETH THE FATAL
+SISTERS. Whereby 'twas to be understood that the new-wedded pair would
+enjoy many a long year of happiness by each other's side.
+
+But this presage of Love, more strong than the Fates, was false withal.
+Two years after her marriage, one day she was gone abroad a-fowling,
+Doña Maria d'Avalos saw the Duke d'Andria, which was a gallant,
+handsome and well-knit man, and did straight love the same. An honest
+girl and a well-born, heedful of her noble name and still in that callow
+youth when women have not gotten boldness yet to match their naughty
+desires, she sent no go-between to the nobleman for to make assignation
+in Church or at her own abode. She never told her love, but did bide the
+time when her good star should bring beside her him which had grown in
+the twinkling of an eye more dear to her than the day. She had not to
+tarry long. For the Duke d'Andria had noted her beauty, and went
+straightway to pay his court to the Prince of Venosa. Encountering Doña
+Maria in the Palace with no other by, he did beseech her in right
+gentle, and withal gallant and masterful wise, that very favour she was
+herself well disposed and well resolved to grant him. She did lead him
+to her chamber instantly, and did there refuse him naught of all he was
+fain to have of her.
+
+But when he did proffer her his thanks for that she had graciously
+yielded to his desires, she made answer:
+
+"My Lord, the desire was mine own more than it was yours. I, it was, was
+fain we should lie in the arms one of the other, as we be now laid, in
+this bed, to the which I will aye make you dearly welcome, as oft as it
+shall please you to come thither."
+
+Every time she was able so to do, from that day forth Doña Maria
+d'Avalos would receive in her chamber the Duke d'Andria and this was
+many a time and oft, for the Prince of Venosa went much to the chase and
+would sometimes spend whole weeks together diverting him with his
+friends in one of his pleasure houses he had in the country parts.
+
+The whole while that Doña Maria was abed with her lover, her nurse Lucia
+would stand a-watching at the chamber door, telling of her beads and
+trembling sore lest the Prince perchance should return home against all
+expectation.
+
+'Twas indeed a nobleman mightily feared by reason of his jealous and
+grim humour. His enemies did reproach him for his cunning and cruelty,
+naming him mongrel cur of fox and she-wolf, stinking hound, if ever
+stinking hound was. But his friends would commend him, for that he kept
+ever in sure memory whatsoever of right or wrong folk did him, and would
+in no wise suffer patiently any injury wrought him or his.
+
+During the space of three full months which were now gone by the lovers
+had great joy of each other and content of their desires without or let
+or hindrance, when one morning the Nurse came to seek Doña Maria in her
+chamber, and spake thus to her:
+
+"Listen, my pearl of pearls; albeit my words this day will be neither of
+flowers nor sugar-plums, but of a right serious and fearsome matter. My
+Lord the Prince of Venosa hath heard some ill report concerning you and
+the Duke d'Andria.
+
+"But now I saw him in the Palace court, as he was a-mounting his horse.
+He was gnawing his moustache--a fell sign with him. He was in talk with
+two fellows, which had little of the air about them of leading honest
+lives; all I heard him tell them was, 'See ye, without being seen!' Of
+such sort the orders the noble Prince was charging them withal. And the
+worst is, he did stop dead whenas he set eyes on me. My own little pearl
+of price, so true as God is in the Holy Sacrament, an if the Prince find
+you with the Lord Duke d'Andria, he will kill both the twain of you. You
+will be a dead woman; and ah! me, what will become of me?"
+
+The Nurse spake on in this wise and besought her mistress long and sore;
+but Doña Maria d'Avalos did send her away without deigning so much as
+one word of answer.
+
+As it was Springtide she went forth that same day a-walking in the
+country with some ladies of the city. They were following a path
+bordered with thorn-trees all a-bloom, when one of the ladies said thus
+to her:
+
+"Dogs will sometimes come and stick at travellers' heels, Doña Maria.
+Well! look, to-day we be dogged by a great black and white hound!"
+
+And the Princess, turning her head to see, did recognize a certain
+Dominican monk which was used to come each day to the courtyard of the
+Palazzo Venosa for to rest in the shade there, and in winter-time to
+warm him in the great kitchen.
+
+Meanwhile the Nurse, seeing her lady mistress paid no heed to her words,
+ran to warn the Duke d'Andria. Moreover the said Duke had reasons of his
+own to fear the sweet secret of his loves had been unhappily discovered.
+The very evening afore, finding himself followed by a pair of ruffians
+armed with arquebuses, he had killed one of the twain with a
+sword-thrust, whiles the other had taken to his heels. The Duke felt no
+doubt now but these two rascals had been set at him by the Prince of
+Venosa.
+
+"Lucia," he said to the Nurse, "I must needs shudder at this danger,
+seeing it doth threaten my Lady Maria d'Avalos no less than myself. Tell
+her I will not return again to her chamber, cost me what regrets it
+will, before that the Prince's suspicions be lulled asleep."
+
+These words the Nurse did report the same evening to Doña Maria, which
+did hearken to them with impatience, biting her lip till the blood came.
+
+Learning that the Prince was at the moment abroad, she bade her Nurse go
+straight to fetch the Duke d'Andria, and bring him into her chamber; and
+so soon as he was come spake thus to him:
+
+"My gracious Lord, a day spent apart from you is to me the cruellest of
+torments. I shall not fear to die; but I have not the fortitude to
+endure your absence. You should not have loved me, if you had not the
+hardihood to brave all for love of me. You should not have loved me if
+there were aught else in all the world you set above my love, even mine
+own honour and mine own life. Choose; either you shall see me every day
+as aforetime, or you shall never see me more."
+
+He made answer:
+
+"Well and good then, Lady, and so be it; for, indeed, there is no room
+for ill or evil henceforth betwixt us twain! Verily I do love you as you
+would have me love you, even more than your own life."
+
+And that day, which was a Thursday, they did tarry a long time, close
+pressed one against the other. Naught of moment fell out ere the Monday
+of the next week, on the which day the Prince did apprise his wife how
+that he was setting forth with a numerous train for Rome, whither he was
+called by the Pope, which was his kinsman. And in very deed a score of
+horses were then standing ready saddled and bridled in the Great Court.
+Then did the Prince kiss his wife's hand, as he was used to do on taking
+leave of her for any lengthy absence. Last of all, when he was now
+a-horseback, he did turn his face to her and say:
+
+"God have you in His keeping, Doña Maria!" and so rode forth with his
+company behind him.
+
+Soon as ever she thought her husband's troop to be gotten forth of the
+walls, the Princess bade her Nurse summon the Duke d'Andria to her. The
+old woman besought her to defer a meeting that might easily be cause of
+such sore calamity.
+
+"My dove," she cried, falling on her knees, her hands uplifted in
+supplication, "receive not the Duke to-day! All night long I heard the
+Prince's men grinding swords. Yet another thing, my flower of flowers,
+the good brother that cometh day by day to our kitchen to seek his dole
+of bread, hath but now overset a salt-cellar of salt with the sleeve of
+his gown. Give your lover a little repose, little one. Your pleasure
+will be all the greater to have him again presently, and he will love
+you all the better for the respite."
+
+But Doña Maria d'Avalos said:
+
+"Nurse, an if he be not here in one quarter of an hour, I will send you
+back home to your brethren in the mountains."
+
+And when the Duke d'Andria was by her side she did welcome him with an
+exceeding great joy.
+
+"My Lord," cried she, "this will be a good day for us, and the night
+better still. I shall keep you till the dawn."
+
+And straightway did they exchange betwixt them an host of kisses and
+fond caresses. Presently, after doffing their clothes, they gat them to
+bed, and held each the other close embraced so long that evening found
+them yet pressed in each other's arms. Then, for that they were sore
+hungered, Doña Maria drew forth of her marriage chest a pasty, dried
+conserves, and a flask of wine, the which she had been heedful to lay by
+therein.
+
+After the twain had eaten and drunk their fill, playing the while all
+sorts of pretty plays, the moon rose and did look in so friendly at the
+window that they were fain to wish her welcome. So they went forth upon
+the balcony, and there, breathing the freshness and softness of the
+night, did watch the fireflies dancing in the dark bushes. All were
+still save only the shrilling of the insects in the grass. Then there
+came a sound of footsteps along the street, and Doña Maria did
+recognize the poor monk which was wont to haunt the kitchen and the
+Palace courtyards, the same she had encountered one day in the flowery
+path where she was a-walking with two ladies--her companions. She shut
+to the window softly, and to bed again with her lover. 'Twas deep in the
+night, and they were lying so, kissing and murmuring the softest
+nothings ever were inspired by Love, whether at Naples or any other spot
+in all the wide world, when of a sudden they caught a noise of steps
+mounting the stairway and the rattle of arms; at the same time they
+beheld a red glow shining through the chinks of the door. And they heard
+the Nurse's voice shrieking, "Jesu Maria! I am a dead woman." The Duke
+d'Andria sprang up, leapt upon his sword, and cried:
+
+"Up, Doña Maria! We must leap forth by the window."
+
+But, rushing to the balcony and leaning out, he saw how the street was
+guarded and all bristling with pikes.
+
+Thereupon he came back to Doña Maria, which said:
+
+"'Tis the end of all! But know this, I do not regret aught of what I
+have done, my dear, dear Lord!"
+
+And he made answer:
+
+"Well and good then, and so be it!" and did haste to don his trunks.
+
+Cracking and crunching under the mighty blows struck by them outside,
+the door was meantime a-trembling, and the panels began to gape.
+
+He spake again and said:
+
+"Fain would I know who hath betrayed and sold us thus."
+
+At the instant he was seeking his shoon, the one half of the door gave
+way, and a troop of men, bearing arms and torches, threw themselves into
+the chamber. The Prince of Venosa was in their midst, shouting: "Have at
+the traitor! Kill! Kill!"
+
+Lustily did three swordsmen attack the Duke, but he set him in front of
+the bed, where was Doña Maria, and made valiant stand against the
+caitiffs.
+
+Six men were there in all, led on by the Prince, being of his bosom
+friends every one or his own varlets. Albeit blinded by the dazzle of
+the torches, the Duke d'Andria did contrive to parry several thrusts,
+and gave back some shrewd blows himself. But catching his foot in the
+platters lying on the floor, with the remains of the pasty and
+conserves, he fell over backward. Finding himself on his back, a sword's
+point at his throat, he did seize the blade in his left hand; the man,
+snatching it back, cut off three of his fingers, and the sword was bent.
+Then, as the Duke d'Andria was heaving forward his shoulders to rise,
+one of the fellows struck him a blow over the head which did break in
+the bones of his skull. At this all six did hurl them upon him, and slew
+him, lunging with such savage haste they did wound each other.
+
+Whenas the thing was done, the Prince of Venosa bade them stand quietly
+aside; and marching upon Doña Maria, which till now had tarried still
+beside the bed, he drave her before his sword's point into the corner of
+the chamber where was the marriage chest. And there, holding her at bay,
+he did hiss in her face one word:
+
+"_Puttana!_" (Harlot!)
+
+Shamed by reason of her nakedness, she went to drag to her some of the
+bedclothes, which were hanging over the bedside. But he stayed her with
+a thrust of his sword, which did graze her white side.
+
+Then, leaning against the wall, hands and arms held up to veil her eyes,
+she stood waiting.
+
+The other never left off crying:
+
+"_Puttaccia! Puttaccia!_" (Whore! Whore!)
+
+Then, forasmuch as he did yet tarry, and slew her not, she was afraid.
+He saw that she was afraid, and said gleefully:
+
+"You are afraid!"
+
+But pointing her finger at the dead body of the Duke d'Andria, she made
+answer:
+
+"Fool! what think you I can have to fear now?"
+
+And, to make a seeming of being no more terrified, she sought to recall
+a song-tune she had sung many a time as a girl, and began humming the
+same, or rather hissing it, betwixt her teeth.
+
+The Prince, furious to see how she defied him, did now prick her with
+his point in the belly, crying out:
+
+"_Ah! Sporca-puttaccia!_" (Fie! Filthy trull!) Exultant, she stayed her
+singing, and said:
+
+"Sir, 'tis two years sithence I have been to confession."
+
+At this word the Prince of Venosa bethought him how that, an if she died
+and were damned, she might return by night and drag him down to Hell
+along with her. He asked her:
+
+"Will you not have a Confessor?"
+
+She did ponder an instant, then shaking her head:
+
+"'Tis useless. I cannot save my soul. I repent me not. I cannot, and I
+will not, repent. I love him! I love him! Let me die in his arms."
+
+With a quick movement, she did thrust the sword aside, threw her on the
+bleeding corse of the Duke d'Andria, and lay clipping her dead lover in
+her arms.
+
+Seeing her so, the Prince of Venosa did lose what patience he had kept
+till then, to the end he might not kill her ere he had made her suffer.
+He drave his blade through her body. She cried, "Jesu!" rolled over,
+sprang to her feet, and after a little shudder that shook her every
+limb, fell to the floor dead.
+
+He struck her several blows more in the belly and bosom; then said to
+his varlets:
+
+"Go throw these two pieces of carrion at the foot of the Great
+Staircase, and open wide the Palace doors, that men may note my
+vengeance at the same time as the insult done mine honour."
+
+He bade strip the lover's corse bare like the other.
+
+The men did as they were bidden. And all the day the bodies of the Duke
+d'Andria and Doña Maria lay naked at the bottom of the steps. The
+passers-by drew near to see them. And the news of the bloody deed being
+spread about the city, a great press of curious onlookers came crowding
+before the Palace. Some said, "Lo! a good deed well done!" Others, and
+these the more part, at sight of so lamentable a spectacle, were filled
+with ruth. Yet durst they not openly commiserate the Prince's victims,
+for fear of evil handling by his armed dependents, which were set to
+guard the bodies. Young men gazed at the Princess's corse, for to
+discover the traces of that beauty which had been her undoing, while the
+little children would be expounding one to the other the meaning of that
+they saw.
+
+Doña Maria lay stretched on her back. The lips were drawn back,
+displaying the teeth in a ghastly smile. Her eyes stood wide open, the
+whites only showing. Six wounds were upon her, three in the belly, which
+was greatly swollen, two in the bosom, one in the neck. The last had
+bled profusely, and the dogs kept fawning up to lick it.
+
+Towards nightfall, the Prince bade set torches of resin, like as on days
+of festival, in the bronze rings fixed in the Palace walls, and eke
+kindle great fires in the Courtyard, to the end all men might see the
+criminals plain. At midnight, a pious widow brought coverings and spread
+the same over the dead bodies. But, by the Prince's commandment, these
+were incontinent torn away again.
+
+The Ambassador of Spain informed of the unseemly treatment meted to a
+lady of the Spanish house of Avalos, came in person urgently to entreat
+the Prince of Venosa to stay these outrages, which did insult the noble
+memory of the Duke de Pescara, uncle to Doña Maria, and offend in their
+tomb so many great Captains of whose blood the said lady was descended.
+But he withdrew after profiting naught by his intercession; and writ a
+letter thereanent to his Catholic Majesty. The poor bodies were left
+shamefully exposed as before. Toward the latter end of the night, the
+curious having ceased to come any more, the guards were withdrawn.
+
+Then a Dominican monk, which had all the day lurked about the great
+doors, did slip within the vestibule by the smoky light of the dying
+torches, crept to the steps where Doña Maria lay, and threw himself on
+her corse.
+
+
+
+
+BONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO
+
+TO ARMAND GENEST
+
+
+
+
+BONAPARTE AT SAN MINIATO
+
+  _Quand, simple citoyen, soldat d'un peuple libre,
+  Aux bords de l'Éridan, de l'Adige et du Tibre,
+  Foudroyant tour à tour quelques tyrans pervers,
+  Des nations en pleurs, sa main brisait les fers...._
+
+  (Marie-Joseph Chénier, _La Promenade_.)[1]
+
+  _Napoléon, après son expédition de Livourne, se rendant à
+  Florence, coùcha à San Miniato chez un vieil abbé Buonaparte...._
+
+  (_Mémorial de Saint-Hélène_, par le comte de Las Cases, réimpression
+  de 1823, 1824, t. I'er, p. 149.)[2]
+
+  "_Je fus sur le soir à San Miniato. J'y avais un vieux
+  chanoine de parent...._"
+
+  (_Mémoires du docteur F. Antommarchi, sur les derniers moments de
+  Napoléon_ 1825, t. I'er p. 155.)[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: "When, a plain citizen, soldier of a free people, by the
+banks of the Eridanus, the Adige and the Tiber, blasting with his
+lightnings one after another recalcitrant tyrants, his hand brake the
+fetters of the nations that wept...."]
+
+[Footnote 2: "Napoleon, visiting Florence after his Leghorn expedition,
+lay one night at San Miniato at the house of an old Abbé Buonaparte...."
+(_Memorial of St. Helena_, by the Count de Las Cases--reprint of 1823,
+1824, Vol. I, p. 149.)]
+
+[Footnote 3: "I stayed for the night at San Miniato. I had a relative
+living there, an old Canon...." (_Memoirs of Dr. F. Antommarchi on the
+Last Moments of Napoleon_, 1825, vol. I, p. 155.)]
+
+
+After occupying Leghorn and closing that port against the English
+men-of-war, General Bonaparte proceeded to Florence to visit the Grand
+Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, who alone of all the princes of Europe had
+honestly and honourably fulfilled his engagements with the French
+Republic. In token of esteem and confidence, he went there without
+escort, accompanied only by the officers of his Staff. Amongst other
+sights he was shown the arms of the Buonapartes carved over the gateway
+of an old house. He was already aware that a branch of his family had
+been fruitful and multiplied at Florence in days of yore, and that a
+last descendant of this the ancient race was still alive. This was a
+certain Canon of San Miniato, now eighty years of age. In spite of all
+the pressing affairs he had to attend to, he made a point of paying him
+a visit. Napoleon Bonaparte was always strongly moved by feelings of
+natural affection.
+
+On the eve of his departure from Florence, he made his way with some of
+his officers to the hill of San Miniato, which crowned with its walls
+and towers, rises from the plain at half a league's distance from the
+city.
+
+Old Canon Buonaparte welcomed with agreeable and dignified politeness
+his young kinsman and the French officers who accompanied him--Berthier,
+Junot, Orderly Officer in Chief Chauvet and Lieutenant Thézard. He
+regaled them with a supper _à l'italienne_, which lacked neither the
+cranes of Peretola nor the little sucking-pig scented with aromatic
+herbs, nor the best vintages of Tuscany, Naples and Sicily.
+Uncompromising Republicans as Brutus himself, they drank to France and
+Freedom. Their host acknowledged the toast; then turning to the General
+whom he had seated on his right hand;
+
+"Nephew!" said he, "are you not curious to examine the genealogical tree
+painted on the wall yonder? You will be gratified to see from it that we
+are descended from the Lombard Cadolingians, who from the tenth to the
+twelfth centuries covered themselves with glory by their fidelity to the
+German Emperors, and from whom sprung, prior to the year 1100, the
+Buonapartes of Treviso and the Buonapartes of Florence, the latter stock
+proving by far the more illustrious."
+
+At this the officers began to whisper together and laugh. Orderly
+Officer Chauvet asked Berthier behind his hand if the Republican General
+felt flattered to possess amongst his ancestors a lot of slaves serving
+the Two-headed Eagle, while Lieutenant Thézard was ready to take his
+oath the General owed his birth to good _sans-culottes_ and nobody else.
+Meanwhile the Canon went on with a long string of boasts concerning the
+nobility of his house and lineage.
+
+"Know this, nephew," he finished by saying, "our Florentine ancestors
+well deserved their name. They were ever of the _bon parti_, and
+steadfast defenders of Mother Church."
+
+At these words, which the old fellow had uttered in a high, clear voice,
+the General, who so far had been scarcely listening, gathered his
+wandering wits together, and raising his pale, thin face, with its
+classically moulded features, threw a piercing look at his interlocutor,
+which closed his lips instantly.
+
+"Nay! uncle," he cried, "let us have done with these follies! the rats
+of your garret are very welcome to these moth-eaten parchments for me."
+
+Then he added in a voice of brass:
+
+"The only nobility I vaunt is in my deeds. It dates from the 13th
+Vendémiaire of Year IV, the day I swept the Royalist Sections with
+cannon-shot from the steps of St. Roch. Come, let us drink to the
+Republic! 'Tis the arrow of Evander, which falls not to earth again, and
+is transformed into a star!"
+
+The officers answered the appeal with a shout of enthusiasm. It was a
+moment when Berthier himself felt a Republican's and a Patriot's fire.
+
+Junot exclaimed: "Napoleon had no need for ancestors; 'twas enough for
+him his soldiers had acclaimed him Corporal at the Bridge of Lodi."
+
+The wines had the dry smack of gunflint and the bouquet of powder, and
+the company imbibed freely. Lieutenant Thézard was soon in a condition
+that rendered him incapable of concealing his sentiments. Proud of the
+wounds and the kisses of women he had enjoyed in lavish abundance in
+this campaign, at once so heroic and so gallant and gay, he informed the
+Canon without more ado, that following in the steps of Bonaparte, the
+French were going to march round the world, upsetting Thrones and Altars
+in every land, giving the girls bastards and ripping up the bellies of
+all fanatics.
+
+The old Priest only went on smiling, and replied he was willing enough
+to sacrifice to their noble rage, not indeed the pretty girls, whom he
+besought them rather to treat cannily, but the Fanatics, the chiefest
+foes, he said, of Holy Church.
+
+Junot promised him to deal leniently with the Nuns; he could heartily
+commend some of them, having found them to possess tender hearts and the
+whitest of skins.
+
+Orderly Officer Chauvet maintained we should take account of the
+influence exercised by the cloistered life on the complexion of young
+women; you see, he was a student of natural philosophy.
+
+"Between Genoa and Milan," he went on, "we tasted largely of this sort
+of forbidden fruit. One may profess to be without prejudices; still, a
+pretty bosom does look prettier half hid by the Veil. I set no value on
+religious vows, yet I am free to confess I attach a very special value
+to a fine leg if it belongs to a Nun. Strange contradictions of the
+human heart!"
+
+"Fie! fie!" put in Berthier; "what pleasure can you find in upsetting
+the wits and troubling the senses of these unhappy victims of
+fanaticism? What! are there no women of condition in Italy, to whom you
+could offer your vows at fêtes, under the Venetian cloak that favours
+little intrigues so admirably? Is it nothing that Pietra Grua Mariani,
+Madame Lambert, Signora Monti, Signora Gherardi of Brescia, are fair and
+gallant dames?"
+
+As he ran over the names of these Italian toasts, he was thinking of the
+Princess Visconti. This great lady, finding herself unable to enthral
+Bonaparte, had given herself to his Chief of the Staff, whom she loved
+with a fire of wantonness and a refined sensuality which left their mark
+on the weak-kneed Berthier for the rest of his days.
+
+"For my own part," interrupted Lieutenant Thézard, "I shall never
+forget a little water-melon seller on the steps of the Duomo, who...."
+
+The General rose from his chair with a gesture of impatience. A bare
+three hours was left them for sleep, as they were to start at dawn.
+
+"Never trouble, kinsman, about our sleeping accommodation," he said,
+addressing the Canon. "We are soldiers; a bundle of hay is good enough
+for us."
+
+But their excellent host had had beds prepared. His house was bare and
+unornamented, but of vast proportions. He conducted the French officers,
+one after the other, to the rooms assigned them, and wished them a good
+night.
+
+Left alone in his chamber, Bonaparte threw off his coat and sword, and
+proceeded to scrawl a pencil note to Josephine--twenty illegible lines,
+in which his violent, yet calculating, spirit spoke loudly. Then,
+folding the letter, he abruptly drove the woman's image from his mind,
+as you push-to a drawer. He unrolled a plan of Mantua, and selected the
+point on which he should concentrate his fire.
+
+He was still absorbed in his calculations when he heard a knock at the
+door. He thought it was Berthier; but it proved to be the Canon, who
+came to ask him for a few minutes' conversation. Under his arm he
+carried two or three parchment-covered portfolios. The General looked
+at these documents with something of a quizzical air. He felt certain
+they contained the genealogy of the Buonapartes, and anticipated their
+leading to a never-ending talk. However, he suffered no trace of his
+impatience to appear.
+
+He was never morose or angry but when he deliberately made up his mind
+to be so. Now he had no sort of wish to offend his worthy kinsman; on
+the contrary, he was anxious to make himself agreeable to him. Moreover,
+he was not really sorry to learn the nobility of his race, now his
+Jacobin officers were no longer there to laugh or take umbrage at the
+matter. He begged the Canon to take a seat, who did so, and, laying his
+registers on the table, said:
+
+"I made a beginning during supper, nephew, of telling you about the
+Buonapartes of Florence; but I gathered by the look you gave me, it was
+not then the place or time to enlarge on such a subject. I broke off
+therefore, reserving the essential part of what I have to say for the
+present moment. I beg of you, kinsman, to hear me with great attention.
+
+"The Tuscan branch of our family produced some excellent
+representatives, among whom should be named Jacopo di Buonaparte, who
+witnessed the sack of Rome in 1527 and wrote an account of that event,
+also Niccolò, author of a Comedy entitled _La Vedova_ that was declared
+the work of another Terence. However, it is not of these two famous
+ancestors I now wish to speak, but rather of a third, who eclipses them
+as much in glory as the sun outshines the stars. Know then that your
+family counts amongst its members a man of saintly life, deemed worthy
+of Beatification and the title of blessed, Fra Bonaventura, disciple of
+the reformed Order of St. Francis, who died in 1593 in the odour of
+Sanctity."
+
+The old man bent his head reverently as he pronounced the name. Then he
+resumed with a fire scarcely to have been expected from one of his years
+and easy character:
+
+"Fra Bonaventura! Ah, kinsman! 'tis to him, to this good Father, you owe
+the success of your arms. He was beside you, doubt it not, when you
+annihilated, as you told us at supper, the enemies of your party on the
+steps of St. Roch. This Capuchin Friar has been your helper 'mid the
+smoke of battles. But for him, be assured, you would not have been
+victorious, whether at Montenotte or Millesimo or Lodi. The marks of his
+patronage are too striking and self-evident to be ignored, and in your
+success I plainly discern a miracle of the good Fra Bonaventura. But
+what is most important you should know, is this; the holy man had a
+purpose of his own in view when, giving you the advantage even over
+Beaulieu himself, he led you from victory to victory to this antique
+roof under which you rest to-night with an old man's blessing to keep
+you. I am here for the very purpose of revealing his intentions to you.
+Fra Bonaventura wished you should be informed of his merits, that you
+should hear of his fasts and austerities and the whole year's silence he
+once condemned himself to endure. He would have you touch his hair-shirt
+and scourge, and his knees stiffened so at the altar-steps that he
+walked bent double like the letter Z. For this it was he has brought you
+into Italy, where he was for contriving you an opportunity of returning
+him benefit for benefit. For you must know, good kinsman, if the Friar
+has helped you greatly, in your turn, you can be of the greatest use to
+him."
+
+With these words, the Canon laid his hands on the heavy portfolios that
+loaded the table, and drew a deep breath.
+
+Bonaparte said nothing, but waited quietly for the Canon to go on with
+his remarks, which diverted him greatly. Never was any one easier to
+amuse than Napoleon.
+
+After recovering breath, the old man resumed:
+
+"Why, yes! kinsman, you can be of the greatest use to Fra Bonaventura,
+who in his present situation needs your help. He was beatified many
+years ago, but is still waiting his admission to the Calendar of Saints.
+He is thinking long, is the good Father Bonaventura. Yet what can I, a
+poor Canon of San Miniato, do for him to secure him the honour he has
+earned? His enrolment demands an outlay that goes far beyond my fortune
+and even the resources of the Bishopric! Poor Canon! Poor Diocese! Poor
+Duchy of Tuscany! Poor Italy! they are all poor together. It is you,
+kinsman, must ask the Pope to recognize Fra Bonaventura's claim. He will
+certainly grant you so much. His Holiness will never refuse, for your
+sake, to add another Saint to the Calendar. Great honour will accrue to
+yourself and your family, and the good Friar will always be ready to
+afford you his patronage. Do you not realize the advantages of having a
+Saint in the family?"
+
+And the Canon, pointing to the portfolios, urged the General to put them
+in his valise and take them with him. Their contents consisted of the
+memorial relating to the Canonization of the Blessed Friar Bonaventura,
+together with documents in corroboration of his claim.
+
+"Promise me," he added, "that you will see to this matter, the most
+important that can concern you."
+
+Bonaparte restrained his strong inclination to laugh.
+
+"I am unfortunately situated," he objected, "for undertaking a case for
+Canonization. You are aware that the French Republic is taking measures
+to exact compensation from the Court of Rome for the murder of her
+Ambassador Bassville, foully assassinated."
+
+The Canon protested eagerly:
+
+"Corpo di Bacco! the Court of Rome will find excuses enough; all due
+compensation will be accorded, and our kinsman will be placed on the
+Calendar, never fear."
+
+"The negotiations are far from being concluded at present," replied the
+Republican General. "The Roman Curia has yet to recognize the civil
+constitution of the French clergy and to break up and abolish the
+Inquisition, which is an offence to humanity and an unjustifiable
+encroachment on the rights of Nations."
+
+The old man only smiled and said:
+
+"Mio caro figliuolo Napoleone, the Pope knows perfectly well folk must
+both give and take. He will be reasonable, and yield a point where
+necessary. He is for all time, long-suffering and a man of peace."
+
+Bonaparte pondered deeply awhile, as though a series of quite new ideas
+were taking muster in his powerful brain. Then suddenly breaking
+silence,
+
+"You do not realize," he said, "the spirit of the age. We are highly
+irreligious in France; impiety is deeply rooted in our soil. You do not
+know the progress achieved by the ideas of Montesquieu, Raynal and
+Rousseau. Public worship is abolished; veneration is a thing of the
+past. You must have seen this from the scandalous talk my officers
+indulged in just now at your own table."
+
+The good Canon shook his head:
+
+"Ah, yes! those fine young men, they are wild fellows enough, dissipated
+and reckless! It is only a passing phase. Ten years more, and they will
+be thinking less of the girls and more of going to Mass. The Carnival is
+a matter of a few days, and even this mad one of your French Revolution
+will not last for long. The Church is eternal."
+
+Napoleon declared bluntly he cared too little about Religion himself to
+meddle in a purely ecclesiastical matter like this.
+
+Thereupon the Canon looked him in the eyes and told him:
+
+"My son, I understand men. I can divine your nature; you are no sceptic.
+Take up this case, the Blessed Father Bonaventura's case. He will repay
+you the services you may render him. For myself, I am over old to
+witness the success of this noble enterprise. I must die soon; but
+knowing it to be in your hands, I shall die happy. Above all, never
+forget, my kinsman, that all power comes of God by the instrumentality
+of his priests."
+
+He rose to his feet, raised his arms to bless his young kinsman and
+withdrew.
+
+Left alone, Bonaparte turned over the leaves of the ponderous Memorial
+by the smoky light of his candle, as he pondered over the power of the
+Church, and told himself the Papacy was a more enduring institution than
+ever the Constitution of the Year III was likely to be.
+
+A knock was heard at the door. It was Berthier, come to inform the
+General that all was ready for their departure.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Well of Saint Clare, by Anatole  France
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