Saint Francis

by Nikos Kazantzakis

  As soon as he had said this he unrolled a huge scroll covered with red and black letters.

  "I have explained each of the new commandments to you and what Poverty, Love, Chastity, and Obedience shall mean to us from this moment on. Raise your hands and shout 'Aye!' "

  All the brothers raised their hands and shouted "Aye! Aye!"--all except Francis and me, who were the only ones to remain with crossed arms. Elias' thunderous voice resounded once again:

  "Happy is the brother, happy the brotherhood, that keeps pace with the rhythm of the times. Alas for him"--he threw a second flashing glance at Francis--"alas for him who lags behind!"

  He turned in triumph to the humble friar who had been listening in silence, huddled in his corner.

  "Welcome, Brother Francis! Why are you shaking your head? Don't you agree? Do you have any objection you'd care to raise?"

  "My brothers," Francis replied, stretching forth his arms, "my children, Brother Elias: forgive me, but I do have one thing, one tiny thing to say, and I shall say it. Today there are so many, so very many people who pursue wealth, power, and learning that I say, Blessed is the man who remains poor, humble, and illiterate!"

  "Now it's my turn to tell you something, Brother Francis," answered Elias with a scornful laugh. "The duty of the man who is truly alive is to conform to the times in which he lives."

  "To oppose the times in which you live," retorted Francis, "is the duty of the free man! God took me by the hand and said to me, 'Francis, step out in front, illiterate, stupid, barefooted as you are; step out in front, guide the flock I have entrusted to you, take this path and you shall find me.' The path in question, Brother Elias, is called Humility."

  "Since you insist on speaking in parables, Brother Francis, very well, God took me by the hand also. He showed me a wide road and said, 'Take this road and you shall find me!' The road in question, Brother Francis, is called Combat."

  But Francis shook his head violently. Refusing to give in, he addressed Elias in a loud, despairing voice: "Brother Elias, I fear that you are leading Christ's sheep astray. The road you speak of is not called Combat, but Easy Living. No wide road leads to God; only narrow pathways lead to His house, to Paradise, Brother Elias. The wide road is the road of Satan. I see now why God sent me to this assembly of yours today. It was to cry, 'Stop! Go no further, my brothers. Turn back! Return to the old, narrow path!' "

  "The sun does not turn back, Brother Francis," shrieked Elias; "the river does not turn back; man's soul does not turn back, but follows the impetus maintained by God. Do not listen to him, my brothers. We bow and kiss your hands, Brother Francis, and then we advance beyond you. Goodbye!"

  Cries came from every direction: "Goodbye, Brother Francis, goodbye!"

  Francis lifted his sleeve to wipe away his tears.

  "Is there anything else you'd care to say, Brother Francis?"

  "Nothing, nothing," replied Francis. He burst into a wailing lament and slowly, noiselessly, sank to the ground. I bent down to help him to his feet.

  "Let me be, Brother Leo," he whined. "Don't you see: it is finished!" Several of the friars--Sabattino, Juniper, Pacifico, Ruffino --crowded around him to express their sympathy, the remainder of our original allies having departed with Father Silvester to avoid hearing Elias. All those who remained faithful to the law had now become rebels.

  Elias came up to Francis and unrolled the scroll before his eyes. Antonio, the young novice, stood behind with inkwell and quill.

  "Here is our new charter, Brother Francis," he said, leaning over him. "Affix your seal; do not oppose us. Several rebellious brothers have already deserted. Discord is making its way into our order. Affix your seal so that we may all live together in harmony!"

  "Dead men have no seals, Brother Elias," replied Francis in a gasping voice full of despair, and he pushed away the charter which Elias was waving in front of his eyes. "Goodbye!"

  I raised him up. Placing my arm round his waist, I led him outside and started along the path. But he did not have enough strength left to walk now, and despite my support he kept sinking to his knees and falling. Eventually I had to lift him up in my arms. He was light--just a bale of rags. When we reached the hut I found him unconscious. Laying him down on his mat, I sprinkled him with water until finally, after a considerable time, he came to. He gazed at me then with inexpressible sadness, closed his eyes, and--it seemed to me--fainted once again. For four days and nights he did not open his mouth either to eat or speak. He was failing, melting away like a candle. When I awoke on the fifth morning and looked at him, I became terrified. His head was a fleshless skull: his cheeks, lips, temples had sunk away; and each of his hands was nothing more than five bones.

  "Brother Francis," I called to him, placing my mouth against his ear, "Brother Francis!"

  But he did not hear.

  "Dearest Francis," I called again. "Father!" .

  He remained immobile. I clasped him in my arms. His robe was an empty sack; his feet stuck out at the bottom like two pieces of wood. Leaving him, I ran to the Portiuncula.

  "Help!" I cried. "Brother Francis is dying. For the love of God: help!"

  Elias lifted his head from the parchment on which he was writing. "You say he's dying?" he asked.

  "He hasn't eaten anything for four days and nights, not even bread or water. And today he doesn't have enough strength left to breathe. Come--all of you. We must save him!"

  "We, how can we save him?" asked Elias, putting down his quill. "If God has decided to take him, we must not stand in the way--nor can we."

  "You can, you can," I cried in desperation. "He's deliberately advancing toward the grave; he wants to die, Brother Elias, because you wrote a new Rule which departs from the route he first laid out. Since that time a knife has been in his heart: he wants to die, and if he does, Brother Elias--I say this in front of all the brothers--you will have to answer for it"

  Elias rose.

  "Well, what do you want me to do?" he demanded with irritation. "Speak!"

  "Take the charter you've written, go to Francis, and tear it up in front of his eyes. That's what he's waiting for, that's what is needed to bring him back to life. If you don't do it-- and I say this in front of all the brothers also--if you don't do it, Brother Elias, Francis, our father, will die, and you will be his murderer!"

  Five or six of the brothers gathered around me and fixed their eyes upon Elias, waiting. The feeling that they were on my side made me begin to shout even louder than before.

  "All right, all right, stop your screaming!" cried Elias, squeezing the scroll tightly in his palm. He put on his sandals and got his staff. "Let's go," he said to me in a disgusted tone of voice. Then, turning to the brothers: "Make sure no one touches my desk. Antonio, keep watch."

  The young novice went up to him and spoke in an undertone in order not to be heard. I was able to catch his words, however. "Brother Elias," he whispered, "what are you doing! You're not going to tear up our Rule, are you?" Elias smiled, and gazed at him lovingly.

  "Don't worry, my child, I know what I'm doing."

  We arrived at the hut. When we bent over the mat on which Francis was lying, and lifted up his robe, we both started with fear. It was not a human body that we saw before us, but a string of bones surmounted by a skull. The eyes had already retracted into their sockets. Nothing remained on the face except mustache, beard, and eyebrows, all three covered with blood.

  Tying my heart into a knot, I placed my mouth against Francis' ear and cried, "Brother Francis, Elias has come--do you hear? He's come to tear up the charter, the new Rule. Open your eyes, Brother Francis, open your eyes to see!"

  He moved slightly, uttered a short, shrill cry, but kept his eyelids shut. Next, Brother Elias leaned over him.

  "It's me, Brother Francis, me, Elias. Open your eyes. Do you hear? I'm going to tear up the charter in order to soothe your heart!"

  Finally, after much labor, Francis managed to open his eyes. It was just as though the li
ds had been sewn permanently shut. He glanced at Elias without saying a word, and waited.

  Elias removed the scroll from beneath his frock. Unrolling it, he began to tear it slowly into tiny tiny pieces. A little color rose to Francis' cheeks and lips.

  "Throw the pieces in the fire, Brother Leo," he said. He turned to Elias. "Brother Elias, give me your hand."

  He grasped Elias' hand and held it for a few moments in his own. Then he burst into tears.

  "Brother Leo," he called to me afterwards, "if there is any milk, give me some to drink."

  Francis returned to life slowly, with great difficulty. Each day he became more animated. He began to open his mouth in order to eat, to move his lips in order to talk; he would draw himself to the threshold of the hut to sun himself, and in stormy weather he squatted next to the hearth and listened in exultation to the downpour as though he had never heard rain before, as though he had become entirely arid, had wrung his body dry, so to speak, and now felt the rain falling upon it to irrigate him--and not only his body, but also his soul.

  "Brother Leo," he said to me one day, "the soil and man's soul are exactly the same. Both thirst, and both wait for the heavens to open so that their thirst may be quenched."

  One day Francis' beloved Brother Giles arrived after returning from a circuit of the distant villages. Francis fell into his arms and kissed him again and again. He loved him exceedingly because, as he said, Giles kept his eyes constantly pinned on heaven. Kneeling on the ground, the visitor laughingly related all he had seen and everything that had happened to him as he went from town to town. Some of the villagers, taking him for a madman, had greeted him with jeers; others, taking him for a saint, had prostrated themselves at his feet. And he had cried, "I am neither a madman nor a saint, but a sinner. Father Francis showed me the road to salvation, so I threw off my sandals and started along it.

  "I entered every village holding a basket of figs or walnuts," Giles explained, "or at least some wild flowers if I could find nothing else. Then I cried, 'Whoever gives me a slap, I shall give a fig; whoever gives me two slaps, I shall give two figs.' The whole village ran to slap me, punch me, beat me until I was half-dead. As soon as the basket was empty I would depart contentedly to refill it, and then proceed to the next village."

  "Brother Giles, I like you! Receive my blessing," said Francis.

  "I also came across the saintly Bonaventura, Brother Francis. He took a different road: he believes that learning is an aid to salvation. So I went and asked him, 'Father, can both the illiterate and the literate be saved?'

  " 'Why of course, my brother,' he replied.

  " 'And are the uneducated and the educated equally capable of loving God?' What do you think his answer was? Listen, Brother Francis: it will warm your heart! 'An old ignorant illiterate crone,' he said, 'is far more capable of loving God than a learned theologian is.' The moment I heard those words, Brother Francis, I began to race through the streets shrieking like a town crier, 'Hear! Hear! The learned Bonaventura says an ignorant crone is far more capable of loving God than learned Bonaventura is!' " "Receive my blessing, Brother Giles," Francis repeated, smiling with satisfaction. "If anyone opens your heart, he will find the true Rule written upon it in large red letters--all of them capitals."

  His former companions in the struggle came to visit him from time to time in this way and he was comforted, for their love nourished him more than bread and milk.

  On another occasion Brother Masseo appeared holding a sheaf of beautifully ripe grain which he planned to sear over the fire and give Francis to eat.

  "Where did you find those ears of grain, Brother Masseo?" Francis asked uneasily. "I know it's not beyond you to do something bad in order to do something good. I wonder whose field you climbed into to pick those ears for me.

  Masseo laughed. "Don't be an old grouch, Brother Francis. No, I didn't steal them. On my way here I met a peasant woman loaded down with a bundle of wheat. 'Where are you going, monk?' she asked me. 'Are you one of them?'

  " 'What do you mean?' I asked.

  " 'I mean are you a follower of the sweet little pauper?'

  " 'You hit the nail on the head, my lady. How did you know?'

  " 'Because your frock has thousands of holes in it and you walk barefooted and never stop laughing, just as though someone were tickling you.'

  " 'God is tickling me,' I answered. 'That's why I laugh. . . . Why not come closer to God yourself: then you'll begin to laugh too.'

  " 'No time,' she answered. 'I have a husband and children, and I can't walk barefooted on the stones, so leave me alone. But there is one thing I'd like you to do for me.' She lowered the bundle from her back, drew out a handful of ears, and gave them to me. 'I've heard that he's hungry,' she continued. 'I am poor; give him this grain--a greeting from poverty.' "

  Francis pressed the ears to his heart. "This bread of beggary is the true bread of the angels, Brother Masseo. So please it God that your peasant woman may enter Paradise crowned with ears of grain!"

  Masseo went to the fire and began to singe the ears, then to rub them and collect the seeds.

  "I have something else to tell you also, Brother Francis," he said. "You must not take it in the wrong spirit, however. Shall I speak?"

  "Speak freely, Brother Masseo."

  "But I think I did something foolish, mad. It will make you angry."

  "Madness, Brother , Masseo, is the salt which prevents good sense from rotting. I myself, don't forget, used to go through the streets crying, 'Hear! Hear the new madness.' So, speak."

  "No matter where I go, Brother Francis, I find your name on everyone's lips. Many people want to journey here on foot so that they can kiss your hand. 'How is this possible?' a haughty count asked me one day. 'I once saw this celebrated Francis. He is not learned, carries no sword, cannot trace his descent from a great family. On top of this he is undersized, puny, and has an ugly face all covered with hair. How is it, therefore, that everybody desires to see him? I don't understand!' "

  "And what was your answer?" inquired Francis with a chuckle.

  "This is where the madness starts, Brother Francis. 'You know why everyone wants to see him?' I said to the count. 'It's because he exudes an odor like the beasts of the forest: a strange odor which makes you dizzy the moment you smell it.' 'What is this odor?' the count asked me. 'The odor of sainthood,' I replied. . . . Did I speak well, Brother Francis?"

  "No, no!" cried Francis. "Don't ever say that again, Brother Masseo. Do you want to have me hurled into hell?"

  "What should I say then? Everyone asks me."

  "What you should say is this: 'Do you want to learn why everyone runs behind him, why every eye wants to see him? It is because these eyes have never seen, nor will they ever see in the whole wide world a man so ugly in appearance, so weighted down with sins, so unworthy. And it was precisely because of this that God chose him: in order to put beauty, wisdom, and noble lineages to shame!' That is what you must tell them, Brother Masseo, if you wish to have my blessing." Masseo scratched his head and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as though to ask: "Should I say it or shouldn't I?"

  "Tell them whatever is at the tip of your tongue," I advised him. "And stop scratching your head!"

  "Oh, yes, there was one more thing I wanted to mention to you, Brother Francis; only one more and then I'll go. I really do smell an odor about you, an odor like musk, or rose incense--I'm not sure which. I can smell you a mile away. That's how I found you just now at this hut--by your smell."

  At long last we were preparing to leave the vicinity of the Portiuncula. Francis had grown tired of wrestling with men, and was anxious to bury himself again in some mountain cave where he could speak to God in complete solitude.

  "I was made to live alone and isolated like a wild animal," he always used to say. "It was precisely because of this that God commanded me to come forth and preach to mankind. Good Lord, what can I say to them? God knows I cannot speak. I was born to sing and weep.
"

  Father Silvester appeared at the door of our hut a few days before our departure, together with five of the old, faithful brothers: Bernard, Pietro, Sabattino, Ruffino, and Pacifico. An aged peasant who had loaded down his donkey with grapes and was on his way to Assisi to sell them had just presented a cluster to Francis, and he had taken them in his hands and begun to gaze at them in amazement, ecstatically, as though he had never seen a grape before. "What a miracle this is, Brother Leo!" he exclaimed. "How insensible, how blind men are not to see everyday miracles! A bunch of grapes: what a great mystery! You eat them and you feel refreshed. You crush them and they give you wine. You drink the wine and you immediately lose your reason: sometimes God expands inside you and you open your arms and embrace all of mankind; sometimes you fly into a rage, draw your knife, and kill!"