“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 fra
grant.”
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 b
y 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.”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 331