Saint Francis

  "I think none but the two of us is left in the world, Brother Leo. Do you hear anyone inside the house, or outside? The world has been destroyed and only the two of us remain."

  He was silent for a moment, but then he said, "Glory be to God," crossed himself, and looked at me. I felt his gaze pierce deep down into my soul. After another silence he reached out and grasped my knee. "Bless me, Father Leo," he said. "You are my confessor; I am about to confess."

  Seeing me hesitate, he said in a commanding tone, "Place your hand upon my head, Father Leo, and say, 'Francis, son of Bernardone, you have sinned: confess, in God's name. Your heart is filled with sins. Empty it that you may find relief!' "

  I remained silent.

  "Do what I tell you!" he said, angrily this time.

  I placed my hand on his head. It was a burning, smoldering coal.

  "Francis, son of Bernardone," I murmured, "you have sinned: confess, in God's name. Your heart is filled with sins. Empty it that you may find relief!"

  Then, remaining calm in the beginning but as he proceeded growing more and more agitated until finally he was gasping for breath, Francis began his confession:

  "My life until now has been nothing but banquets, revels, lutes, red plumes, clothes of silk. All day long--business. I gave short measure, cheated the customers, amassed money and then squandered it with both hands--which is why I came to be called 'Leaky Palms.' Business by day, wine and singing by night: that was my life.

  "But yesterday after we came home in the middle of the night and you fell into bed and slept, a great weight began to press down upon me. The house grew too constricting; I felt suffocated, so I went quietly downstairs, slipped into the yard, opened the street door like a thief, and dashed out into the road. The moon was about to set; its light had already waned. There wasn't a sound. All the lamps were out: the city was asleep in God's bosom.

  "I spread my arms and took a deep breath. This made me feel a little better. Then I began climbing, going from street to street. By the time I reached San Ruffino's I was tired, so I sat down on the marble lion that guards the entrance to the church, just exactly where you were sitting to beg when I came upon you this morning. I stroked the lion slowly with my palm and, reaching his mouth, found the tiny man that he is eating.

  "This frightened me. What is this lion? I asked myself. Why was he placed here to guard the church door? Eating a man as he is, who can he be: God? Satan? How can I know? Who can tell me whether he is God or Satan? Suddenly I felt a chasm to my right, a chasm to my left, and I was standing between the double abyss, on a piece of ground no wider than a footprint. I became dizzy. The World around me was whirling; my life was whirling. I uttered a cry: 'Is there no one to hear me? Am I all alone in the world? Where is God? Doesn't He hear; doesn't He have a hand to hold out over my head? I feel dizzy. I am going to fall!' "

  Francis had spread his arms wider and wider as he spoke: he was suffocating, unable to breathe. He had also raised his eyes and was now staring out through the window at the sky. I started to take hold of his hand in order to calm him, but he sprang back and growled in an agitated voice: "Leave me alone. I don't want to be soothed!" Then he rolled up in the corner of the bed, panting. His voice had grown hoarse:

  "I called, first God, then Satan, not caring which of the two would appear, just so I could feel I was no longer alone. Why had this fear of solitude come over me so suddenly? I was ready at that moment to surrender my soul to either of them. I didn't care which; all I wanted was to have a companion--not to be alone! And as I waited, gazing desperately at the heavens, I heard a voice--"

  He stopped, unable to catch his breath.

  "I heard a voice--" he repeated, the sweat suddenly beginning to run in thick drops over his face.

  "A voice?" I asked. "What voice, Francis? What did it say?"

  "I couldn't make out the words. No, it wasn't a voice; it was the bellowing of a wild beast--a lion. Could it have been the marble man-eating lion I was sitting on? . . . I jumped to my feet. The first sweet light of dawn had begun to shine. The voice was still rolling about within me, rebounding like peals of thunder from my heart to my kidneys, from one cavern of my bowels to another. The bells began to sound for matins. I continued on, headed for the heights of the citadel. Soon I was running, and while I was running, I found myself suddenly bathed in a cold sweat. I heard someone behind me calling: 'Where are you running, Francis? Where are you running, Francis? You cannot escape!' I turned, but saw no one. I began to run again. After a moment I heard the voice once more: 'Francis, Francis, is this why you were born--to sing, make merry, and entice the girls?'

  "This time I was too afraid to look behind me. I continued running in an effort to escape the voice. But then a stone in front of me began to shout: 'Francis, Francis, is this why you were born--to sing, make merry, and entice the girls?'

  "My hair stood on end. I ran and ran, but the voice ran with me. And then at last I understood clearly: the voice was not outside me. No matter how much I ran I would never escape it, because it came from within. Someone inside me was shouting. Not Bernardone's son, the libertine; no, not me, but someone else--someone inside me, better than me. Who? I don't know. How can I know? It was just someone else. . . .

  "Gasping for breath, I finally reached the citadel. At that very moment the sun emerged from behind the mountain, and it warmed me. The world about me grew light, and it too was warmed. Someone within me began to speak again, but this time very softly, in whispers, as though confiding some secret to me. I lowered my head upon my breast and listened. Father Leo, I swear to you I am telling the truth, the whole truth. 'Francis, Francis,' I heard, 'your soul is the dove, the hawk pursuing you is Satan. Come into my bosom.' These were the very words I myself had composed and set to the music of the lute. Each midnight I had stood beneath a window and sung them. But now, now for the first time, Brother Leo, I understood why I had composed those words and what their hidden meaning was."

  He remained silent for a moment, a smile upon his lips. Then, as though in a trance, he bowed his head and repeated in a whisper: "Francis, Francis, your soul is the dove, the hawk pursuing you is Satan. Come into my bosom."

  Once more he fell silent. He had grown calm; I felt I could touch him now without being burned. Leaning forward, I took his hand and kissed it. "Brother Francis," I said, "every man, even the most atheistic, has God within him deep down in his heart, wrapped in layers of flesh and fat. It was God inside you who pushed aside the flesh and fat and called to you."

  Francis closed his eyes. He had lain awake the whole night and was sleepy.

  "Go to sleep, Francis," I said to him softly. "Sleep is one of God's angels; you can surrender yourself to it with confidence."

  But he drew himself up with a start. "What am I to do now?" he asked in a stifled voice, his eyes protruding out of their sockets. "Advise me."

  I felt sorry for him. Hadn't I been roaming for years now in the very same way, seeking advice?

  "Keep your head against your breast and listen to your heart," I answered. "This 'Someone Else' inside you will definitely speak again. When He does, do what He tells you."

  I heard the street door being opened quietly, then firm footsteps echoing in the courtyard. Lady Pica was returning from Mass--alone. I sighed with relief. Sior Bernardone must have mounted his horse and was probably already on the road to Florence. "Your mother is back, Francis," I said. "Go to sleep. I'm leaving."

  "Don't go. The old man is away. You'll sleep here. Don't leave me alone, I tell you!"

  He seized my hand. "Don't leave me alone in danger!" he shouted.

  "You're not alone any more, Francis. You know that! A mighty companion is within you; you heard His voice. What are you afraid of?"

  "But don't you understand, Brother Leo? It's precisely Him I'm afraid of. Don't go."

  I placed my hand on his forehead. It was burning. His mother entered, smiling.

  "I bring you greetings from the statue of the Virgin
, my child. May they be a comfort and bolster to your soul." This said, she placed a sprig of basil in his palm.

  HOW MANY days, how many nights did Francis' sickness last? I am able to measure everything, but not time. All I remember is that the moon grew small, grew large and then small again--and Francis still had not left his bed. You felt he was wrestling in his sleep. One moment he would cry out in a rage and spring up; the next he would shrink into one corner of the bed, shivering. Later, when he became well, he informed us that during his entire sickness he had been struggling, first with the Saracens--he saw himself entering Jerusalem, clutching the Holy Cross on his shoulder; then with demons that rose from the soil, descended from the trees, darted out from the bowels of night, pursuing him.

  His mother and I were the only ones who remained at his bedside. Lady Pica would get up at intervals, hide herself in a corner, and weep. Then she would wipe her eyes with her tiny white handkerchief, sit down again, take up a fan of peacock feathers, and cool her son, who was burning with fever.

  One night the patient had a dream. He related it to us the next day, not in the morning--the disturbance still upset his mind--but in the evening, after the cool darkness had fallen and the bronze oil lamps were lighted and the world about us had grown sweet. He had dreamt he was dying. As he lay in the throes of his final agony the door opened and Death entered. He wasn't holding a scythe, the way Francis had seen him depicted on paintings, but a pair of long iron pincers like those used by wardens to catch rabid dogs. "Get up, son of Bernardone," he cried, approaching the bed. "Let us go!"

  "Where?"

  "Where? Need you ask? You had time but you squandered it in parties, extravagant clothes, serenades. The hour of reckoning has come." He held out the pincers. Francis huddled against his pillows, trembling. "Let me have one year," he whined. "Just one year! Give me time to repent."

  Death laughed, and all his teeth fell out onto the sheets of linen and silk. "Too late. You lived your life, the only one you have. You gambled it and lost. Now come!"

  "Three months only . . . one month . . . three days . . . one day!"

  But this time Death did not answer. Holding out the pincers, he caught Francis around the neck--but then, uttering a heart-rending scream, the dreamer awoke.

  He looked around him. The canary that Lady Pica had brought from her room to keep the patient company was singing from its place by the window, its beak lifted to the sky.

  "Glory be to God!" Francis shouted happily, sweat running down his forehead. He touched the sheets, the iron bedstead, then began to explore his mother's knees.

  "Is it true?" he murmured, turning to me, his eyes shining. "Is it true? Am I alive?"

  "Have no fears, my young lord," I answered. "You are alive and flourishing."

  He clapped his hands. His face was resplendent.

  "In other words, I have time. Praise the Lord!" Laughing, he began to kiss his mother's hands.

  "Did you have a dream, my son?" his mother asked. "I hope it was a good omen."

  "I have time," he murmured again, carried away with emotion. "Praise the Lord! I have time!"

  The whole of that day, until evening, he did not speak again. Closing his eyes, he fell into a deep sleep. His neck and entire face were flooded with light.

  Lady Pica continued to fan him with the peacock feathers. Suddenly she parted her embittered lips. Remembering how she used to lull her son to sleep when he was a baby, she began to sing to him in her native tongue, softly . . . sweetly. . .

  Sleep, who taketh every babe,

  Come down and take my own.

  I give him to you tiny, tiny,

  Return him to me grown.

  She sang softly in this way for a long time, fanning her child; meanwhile, I leaned over Francis and gazed at his face. How it gleamed! Little by little the wrinkles around his mouth and between his eyebrows vanished, his skin became as firm as a tiny infant's. His whole countenance glittered like a stone which is swept over by a cool, calm sea.

  Toward evening he opened his eyes. He was rested and tranquil. Sitting up in bed, he looked around him as though seeing the world for the first time. When his gaze fell upon us he smiled and began to tell us his dream. But while he was relating it, the old fear began to take possession of him again, and his eyes filled with darkness. His mother took his hand, caressed it, and he grew calm.

  "Mother," he said, "just now as I was asleep I had the feeling I was a baby and that you were rocking me and singing me a lullaby. It seems to me, Mother, that you have given birth to me all over again!" He took her hand and kissed it. His voice had become like a child's: hungry for caresses.

  "Mother, Mama dear, tell me a story."

  He had begun to lisp. Suddenly his whole face resembled an infant's. Lady Pica became frightened. One of her brothers, a celebrated troubadour at Avignon and a bon vivant and spendthrift just like Francis, had lost his reason by virtue of excessive drink and song. Overcome by the delusion that he was a lamb, he crawled about awkwardly on all fours, bleated, went to the fields to graze. . . . And now here was her son who appeared to have returned to infancy and was requesting her to tell him a story! Was it possible, she asked herself, begging God's forgiveness for her presumption, was it possible that her blood was tainted, besotted?

  "What story, my child?" she demanded, touching his forehead to cool him.

  "Any one you want. A story from your country--about Peter, the wild, barefooted monk." "Which Peter?"

  "The heresiarch of Lyons."

  "But that isn't a story, it's true!"

  "You used to tell it to me very often when I was a boy, and I always thought it was a story. I was just as afraid of that saintly monster as I was of the bogeyman. Whenever I did something wrong--don't you remember?--you used to threaten me by saying, 'Now the monk will come and get you!' and I would huddle under an armchair and not breathe a word, scared he might find me and carry me off."

  "You told stories about Peter of Lyons, the celebrated monk?" I interrupted at that point. "Did you know him, Lady Pica? So many things are said about him--incredible, amazing things. Madam, I pray of you, humble beggar that I am, tell us if you ever saw or met him? What was he like? I myself set out to find him once, but I arrived too late. He was dead."

  Francis smiled. "She threw away her sandals," he said to tease his mother. "Apparently she wanted to follow him, barefooted and all, but they didn't let her. Instead, they shut her in the house, married her off, and she had a son and forgot about everything. You see, she was looking for a son, and not for God."

  He laughed. But Lady Pica was annoyed.

  "I never forgot him; it's just that I have other worries now," she said with a sigh. "How can I forget him? I still dream about him often."

  "Tell us how you first met him, Mother," said Francis, leaning back against the pillows. He had slept the whole day and his body felt deliciously rested. He closed his eyes.

  "I'm listening. . . ."

  Lady Pica had turned red as fire. She remained silent for some time with her head inclined upon her breast, her eyelids fluttering like the wings of a wounded bird. It was evident that this monk was deep down within her, buried in the darkness of her heart, and that she neither dared nor desired to hoist him up into the light. At last she asked her son imploringly, "Wouldn't you like me to tell you a real story, my child?"

  Francis opened his eyes.

  "No! Tell us about Peter," he said with a frown. "I don't want anything else! How you first met him, when, where, and what he said to you, and how you escaped. I've heard a great many things about him, but I don't believe them. Now the time has come--I want to know the truth!"

  He turned to me.

  "Everyone has a hidden period in his life," he said. "This is my mother's."

  "Very well, son, I'll tell you everything," said Lady Pica in a voice which betrayed her agitation. "Quiet down now."

  She laid her hands in her lap. Her fingers, which were slender and graceful like her son's,
began to fidget nervously with the white handkerchief she held between her palms.

  "It was evening, Saturday evening . . ." she began, speaking slowly, as though struggling to remember. "I had been strolling in the courtyard of our house watering the plants--the basil, marjoram, marigolds. A red geranium had blossomed that afternoon and I was standing in front of it and admiring it when suddenly someone gave a strong push to the street door and entered. I turned, frightened, and saw a wild-looking monk standing before me. His robe was patched and tattered, a thick rope served as his cincture, and he was barefooted.

  "I began to open my mouth to scream, but he placed his palm over my lips. 'Peace be to this house!' he said, lifting his hand and blessing the house. His voice was heavy, savage; but somewhere in its very center I felt an inexpressible tenderness. I tried to ask him who he was, what he wanted, why he was so out of breath, who was pursuing him, but my throat was pinched tight and no sound came out.