" 'Yes, I'm being pursued,' he said--he had divined my question from the movements of my lips. 'I'm being pursued by the enemies of Christ. Haven't you heard of me? I am Peter the monk, the one who raised the tattered banner with the white lilies--Christ's banner; the one who goes the rounds of cities and villages, barefooted and hungry, and who took the scourge from Jesus' hands and uses it now to drive all fornicators, liars, and cheats out of God's temple.'
"He was still talking when I heard a great uproar in the street. A large crowd was passing by, banging on doors, hooting, threatening. The bell of our parish church began to ring furiously.
"Clenching his fist, the monk turned toward the street door and contorted his lips sarcastically. 'They've smelled Him in the air,' he growled, 'smelled Christ, their great enemy, and now they're running like mad to crucify Him again. Hey, you Pilates, you Caiaphases, He's coming, He's coming; the Day of Judgment is at hand!'
"The mob went by, not daring to knock on our door, then headed for the bridge and disappeared. I remained all alone with the monk in our yard. He was staring at me, a strange anger and tenderness in his gaze. Trembling, I kept my eyes glued on the red geranium. A force gushed out of this savage monk, and I was unable to bear it. All of a sudden he seized the geranium and gave it a twist which sent all its petals to the ground. I cried out and my eyes filled with tears, but he only knitted his thick brows:
" 'Aren't you ashamed to lose your soul by regarding the creatures instead of the Creator? All the beauties of the earth prevent us from seeing the Invisible, and thus they must perish.' "
Francis had been listening with lowered head up to this point. Now he looked up suddenly. His cheeks were on fire.
"No, no, no!" he shouted.
He turned toward me. "What do you think, Brother Leo?"
"What can I say, sir? I'm a cloddish sort of fellow and to believe in anything I have to see, hear, and touch it. Only after I've seen the visible can I imagine what the Invisible is. If there were nothing visible, I'd be doomed."
"Beauty is God's daughter," said Francis as he gazed out through the open window at the yard, the vine arbor, the scattered white clouds that were cruising in the sky. "Beauty is God's daughter: that I'm sure of. The only way we can divine the appearance of God's face is by looking at beautiful things. The geranium that was despoiled of its petals by your monk, Mama, is going to hurl him into hell."
"But he did it to save my soul," Lady Pica objected.
"What is a geranium next to a human soul? My monk, as you call him, is going to enter Paradise with that red geranium in his hand, simply because he saved my soul."
"What? He saved your soul?" said Francis, staring at his mother with surprise. "But didn't your father come along and throw him out, putting an end to everything? That's what you told me before, and now--Why didn't you tell me the truth?"
"Because you wouldn't have understood when you were a child, and if I had told you when you grew older you would have laughed. But now that you've fallen ill and the ardor of your flesh has been subdued a little, my child, you can hear God's secret messages without laughing. That is why I have decided to tell you now." "Speak, Mama, speak," said Francis in an agitated voice. "No, I am not going to laugh. I may even begin to cry. The moment has come--yes, you're right, Mama--the moment has come for me to hear."
Scarcely had he finished these words when he burst into tears.
"Why are you crying, my child? Why are you trembling so?" asked his frightened mother, embracing him.
"Because I feel your blood inside me, Mama, your blood. . ."
Lady Pica took her handkerchief and wiped the sweat from her temples and neck. She glanced at me, hesitating for a moment as though not wanting to speak in front of me. I got up.
"Would you rather I left, madam? I'm going."
Francis extended his hand commandingly.
"Stay. You're not going anywhere! Mother, don't feel ashamed. Speak."
I looked at Lady Pica. Her eyebrows quivered. She threw a cutting glance at me: she was weighing me in her mind.
"Stay," she said finally. "I have nothing to be ashamed of. My heart is pure: I shall speak."
"Well . . . ?" said Francis, looking at his mother impatiently.
"The monk placed his hand on my head and I felt a flame descend to my brain, invade my throat, burn my entrails. What was this flame? It made me feel like bursting into tears, like beginning to dance in the middle of the yard, or rushing out into the street, throwing away my sandals and taking to the road, never again to return to my father's house. I was burning. What was this flame? He must be God, he must be God, I shouted to myself. This is the way God enters men."
Lady Pica's cheeks and throat were afire. Rising, she got the crystal decanter of water that was on the window sill, filled a glass, and drank. Then she refilled the glass and drank again, as though trying to extinguish the flames within her.
"And then?" asked Francis, unable to contain himself any longer.
Lady Pica bowed her head.
"Then, my child, I took leave of my senses. My father's house wasn't big enough for me any more, and when the monk opened the door and stood there and motioned me to come, I threw my sandals into the middle of the yard and ran behind him."
Francis stared at her with protruding eyes. He attempted to speak, but was unable to. I watched him anxiously, trying unsuccessfully to determine what was exciting and contorting his face so. Was it fear, or joy, or scorn--or all three, one following upon the other? Or was it all three simultaneously that made his face turn livid one moment, the flames extinguished, and the next begin to burn and smoke again, fiery red? At last he managed to move his lips and speak. "You left? You went with him, abandoned your home?"
"Yes," replied Lady Pica in a voice that was calm and relieved. "I was sixteen years old at the time. My heart was open, ready to accept all miracles, and that evening God appeared to me, appeared to me in the form He wished. To some young girls He appears in the guise of a handsome young nobleman; to me it was as a mendicant monk, savage and barefooted. I ran behind him as we t made a quick tour of the villages. He spoke to me of poverty, chastity, of heaven and hell, and the earth fled from under my naked soles: I gave it a kick and, together with the monk, mounted to heaven.
"We climbed up mountains, climbed down mountains; we entered the villages, the two of us, like great conquerors. He would stand in the village square, hop onto a stone, raise his arm, and hurl curses upon the heads of all the atheists, cheats, and rulers of the world. And when night came, I would stand in front of him and illuminate his terrible face with a lighted torch so that the villagers could see it and be overcome with fear.
"In the meantime my father had dispatched knights who combed the villages and mountains in every direction until they found me. My brother was among them. He seized me, lifted me onto his horse's rump, and brought me home."
Lady Pica stopped for a moment, looked at her son, and smiled at him. "A few days later I was married."
Francis closed his eyes. Neither of us opened his mouth to speak; and then, in the great silence, we heard the canary singing rapturously, its head thrown back toward the sky. It must have been chirping the whole time its mistress spoke, but we had not heard it: our minds had become filled with a panting, barefooted girl as she ran behind her savage monk.
Suddenly Francis opened his eyes.
"Go away, both of you! I want to be alone." His voice had become hoarse, grating.
Without breathing a word, his mother and I got up, opened the door, and left.
That whole night Francis allowed no one to enter his room. We could hear him sighing and, from time to time, rising to open the window and get some fresh air.
In the morning I heard him calling me: "Brother Leo!"
I ran and found him stretched out supine on the sheets, throbbing convulsively. His face was waxen.
"I'm doomed, Brother Leo," he said without turning to look at me. "On my right is God's abyss, on m
y left Satan's. Unless I grow wings, I'm doomed. I shall fall!"
"What's the matter with you, Francis?" I asked, clasping him in my arms. "Why are you quivering?"
"My mother's blood," he murmured, "my mother's blood . . . Didn't you hear? Madness!"
"It wasn't madness that prodded her, Francis. It was God." "Madness! The whole night long I dreamt that I too had thrown off my sandals in my father's courtyard and that I was plummeting downward. I held out my hand to catch hold of something, but all I grasped was thin air!"
He had jerked his arms above his head and was opening and closing them, embracing the air.
I caressed his forehead, rubbing it slowly. He grew calm little by little, and leaned his head upon his breast like a wounded bird. Soon he was asleep.
I watched him, trying to divine what was parading in and out of his heart now that sleep had opened all the doors. Why did his face become altered from moment to moment? Sometimes his eyebrows rose in astonishment; sometimes his lips sagged in an expression of unspeakable affliction; sometimes an effulgence fell over his entire face and his eyelids fluttered as though incapable of enduring such brightness.
Suddenly he reached out his hands and clutched my arm, terrified.
"Brother Leo, is that you? Did you see him?"
"Who?"
"He dissolved into the air just now. He's still in the room!"
"But who, sir? It must have been a dream."
"No, no, it wasn't a dream. Brother Leo, does something exist which is truer than truth itself? That's what it was!" He sat up in bed and began to rub his eyes.
"You think I was asleep, don't you? I wasn't asleep. The doors were closed but he entered, groping like a blind man, his arms stretched out in front of him. He was dressed in rags, thousands of rags with thousands of patches; and he smelled of rotting flesh. He reached my bed, searched, found me:
" 'Are you Sior Bernardone's pampered son?'
" 'I am,' I answered, trembling.
" 'Come then, get up, undress me, wash me, give me something to eat.' He wasn't imploring; he was commanding.
" 'Who are you?'
" 'First undress me, wash me, give me something to eat.'
"I rose and began to undress him. What rags, good God, what patches, what a stink! And his body, now that he was naked and I could see it, how shattered it was! And the feet: swollen and covered with hundreds of wounds! His head was thrust in a hood which I took off, revealing the temples, which were furrowed with lines made by a white-hot iron. And on his forehead he had a red wound shaped like a cross. But what horrified me the most were the large, bloody holes in his hands and feet. 'Who are you?' I asked again, staring at him with disgust and fear. 'Wash me!' was his answer. I went and heated water, washed him. Afterwards, he sat down on the trunk, the same one you're sitting on now, and said: 'Now I want to eat!' I brought him a large plate of food. He bent down, took a fistful of ashes from the hearth, threw them over the food and began to eat. When he had finished he got up and clasped my hand. His face had grown calm; he gazed at me with tenderness, compassion. 'Now you are my brother,' he said. 'If you bend over me you will see your own face; if I bend over you I shall see my own face. You are my brother. Farewell.'
" 'Where are you going?'
" 'Wherever you shall go! Farewell, until we meet again!'
"As soon as he said this he vanished, dissolved into thin air. His smell is still in the room! Who was he? Who? . . . What do you think, Brother Leo?"
Without answering, I shifted my position on the trunk for fear I might touch the invisible visitor. Who could he have been--a messenger from the dark demons? A messenger from the luminous powers? There was only one thing I felt sure of: in the air around this rich young man a great battle was taking place.
Three more days went by. The blood started to flow up into Francis' pale cheeks, his joints grew firm, his lips reddened, the flesh began to hunger and ask for food. And as his body was set on its legs once more, so was his soul, and with it, the world. The yard, well, vine arbor, the utensils around the room, the voices outside in the street, the constellations in the sky at night--all reappeared and arranged themselves in the places given them by time and God. The world, together with Francis' blood, was returning to its normal order.
The fourth day, at dawn, the bells of San Ruffino began to ring, and Lady Pica started for church, followed by the old nanny. Sior Bernardone had not yet returned from his tour. The bells rang festively because this day, the twenty-third of September, was the feast of San Damiano, the beloved saint of Assisi. His tiny church lay outside the city on the slope leading to the plain. It was falling gradually into ruins now, but once it had been in its glory, and each year on this day a rollicking festival had taken place there and the saint's statue had been covered with gold and silver offerings. Now the walls were tottering, full of gaping holes. The only thing that remained intact was the crucifix, a large Byzantine cross with a bloody, pale-green Christ hanging on it. There was something strangely sweet about this Christ, a sadness that was not divine, but human. You sensed He was weeping, dying like a human being, and thus the faithful who knelt before Him shuddered at the sight, for they felt it was they themselves who were suspended upon the cross, convulsed with pain.
I had entered Francis' room early in the morning. Lady Pica had set aside, as long as her husband remained away, a tiny room where I could sleep and be near her son, because he asked for me continually during his illness and did not want me to stray far from his side. Today I found him sitting up in bed. He was happy. His eyes pinned on the door, he had been waiting for me. "Come in, come in, lion of God," he called as soon as he saw me. "I see you've combed your mane today and twisted your mustache in a most lion-hearted way. And you're licking your chops. You've eaten, I take it."
"Your mother, God bless her, sent the nanny to me with bread, cheese, and milk before she left for church. . . . Yes, my young lord--how can I describe the feeling to you?--I am beginning to turn into a lion, so help me God."
He laughed.
"Sit down," he said to me, pointing to the delicately carved trunk next to the bed.
The canary began to sing again. The sun had struck it, and its throat and tiny breast had filled with song. Francis gazed at it for a long time, not speaking, his mouth hanging half- opened, his eyes dimmed with tears.
"The canary is like man's soul," he whispered finally. "It sees bars around it, but instead of despairing, it sings. It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo: one day its song shall break the bars."
I smiled. Would that the bars could be broken so easily!
But when Francis saw my smile, he grew bitter. "What? You don't believe me?" he said. "In other words, it never occurred to you to ask yourself whether the body--bones, hair, flesh--really exists, or whether perhaps everything is soul?"
"Never, Francis, never. Forgive me. I am a cloddish sort of man, I tell you, and my mind is cloddish too."
"Such a suspicion never occurred to me either, Brother Leo, until now, during my sickness. God pulled you and brought you near Him by way of laziness; in my case, I think, it was by way of sickness--and not during the day, but at night while I was asleep and unable to resist Him. In my dreams I kept asking myself if perhaps there is no such thing as the body, if perhaps only the soul exists and what we call body is simply that part of the soul which we are able to see and feel. Each night of my sickness as I began to fall asleep I felt my soul hovering buoyantly, tranquilly above my bed. It would leave through the window, promenade in the courtyard, perch on top of the vine arbor and afterwards hang in the air, undulating back and forth over the rooftops of Assisi. It was then that I suddenly discovered the great secret. The body does not exist! Yes, Brother Leo, there is no such thing as the body; nothing exists but the soul!"
He sprang up in bed, his face resplendent.
"And if nothing exists but the soul," he shouted happily, "if nothing exists but the soul, just think, Brother Leo, how far we can go! When the
body is no longer here to hinder us, with one leap we shall be in heaven!"
I kept silent. My mind did not understand his words very well, but my heart understood them all. He continued:
"And I took this leap in my dreams--look, like this!" He thrust his arms vigorously up toward the sky as though they were wings. "When you dream, there is nothing simpler, nothing easier. But I shall also do it--you will see; yes, I've made the decision; inside me my mother's blood is crying out --I shall also do it now that I am awake. It will be difficult, very difficult. Brother Leo, I need your help!"
"I want to help you, Brother Francis, and I would with pleasure--but how? My schooling isn't worth mentioning, and my brain isn't very extensive either. The only thing I have is my heart, but what can you do with that? Poor thing, it's unhinged by nature, and proud as a cock, too, miserable beggar that it is! Better not place your trust in it. . . . So you see, how can I help you?"