"I leave Father Silvester in my place during my absence. Obey him. He is a priest of God; he celebrates Mass before the holy altar, transforms the wine into Christ's blood, the bread into Christ's body. Of all of us, he stands the closest to God.
"Father Silvester, I deliver the friars into your hands. Watch over them. If a sheep falls ill, it is partly the shepherd's fault; if a sheep jumps over the fence and escapes from the fold, it is partly the shepherd's fault. Take care, Father Silvester!"
Spreading his arms, he embraced the friars one by one. "Farewell, my brothers. This lamb of God, Brother Leo, shall accompany me. The moon is visible tonight and the road to Rome is gleaming, all white. We are leaving now. Cross yourself, Brother Leo. In God's name!"
Giles, Masseo, and Bernard burst into tears; the others kissed Francis' hand, without speaking. Ruffino approached and whispered something in his ear, but Francis shook his head.
"No, no, Brother Ruffino," he said. "We want neither staff, sandals, nor bread. God shall be our staff, our sandals, and our bread. Farewell, my children!"
He proceeded a few paces, then turned. His eyes had filled with tears.
"You--all of you--are my father and mother and brothers. Satan has hoisted his banner, and God shouts: 'All who are faithful, come!' Listen to His appeal, and shout in response, 'We are coming, Lord, we are coming!' Courage, my brothers. Good and evil are struggling, but the good shall win. Fear does not exist, my brothers, nor does hunger, thirst, sickness, death. The only thing that exists is God."
He took me by the arm.
"Come, let's go," he said. He was impatient to begin.
How many years have elapsed since that night when we crossed ourselves and set out on our journey! I sit in my cell now, close my eyes, and think: how many moons, how many summers and autumns, how many tears! Francis must be seated now at God's feet: he is probably leaning over and gazing at the earth, searching everywhere for the Portiuncula --but he will not find it. A gigantic church sits on top of it and crushes it with a profusion of towers, bells, statues, chandeliers, and gold! And the friars: they no longer march barefooted, but wear sandals and warm robes, and some-- forgive me for saying so, Lord--have their knotted cords made of silk!
I remember that as we were walking beneath the moon Francis suddenly turned and stared behind him in terror. He seemed to hear bells and to see an immense basilica three stories high. He uttered a cry, crossed himself, and the edifice vanished into the moonlight.
"It wasn't real!" he murmured. "Glory be to God!"
Alas, Father Francis, it was all too real. But how can anyone put a bridle on man's vanity and arrogance? But how can Purity walk the earth without covering her feet with mud?
The journey lasted many days and nights. If we had not hymned God's praises along the way, if we had not conversed about the Lord, had not felt Christ traveling in front of us and turning from time to time to smile at us, I doubt if we ever would have been able to endure such fatigue, such hunger, such cold during the nights!
When we entered a village we would knock hungrily on the doors to ask for alms, and sometimes the inhabitants gave us a mouthful of bread; sometimes they put a stone or a dead mouse into our hands and doubled up with laughter, whereupon we departed, blessing the home that had wronged us.
It was springtime, glorious weather. The trees began to blossom, the buds to swell on the grapevines. The fig trees were uncurling their first tender leaves.
"This is the way the Second Coming will be, Brother Leo," Francis kept saying to me. "It will be like springtime, and the dead will leap into the light like shoots."
One evening we reached a large market town just as the boys and girls were about to begin a great celebration: the burning of Father Winter. We went to the village square and saw the figure of Winter right in the middle, in front of the church. He was made of twigs and straw, and had a long beard of cotton. The unmarried boys and girls were holding lighted torches and dancing in a circle around him, singing the barefaced songs of spring. They were all fired up with excitement: they were young, unmarried; spring, plus the wine they had drunk, had swelled out their chests and loins, and their blood was boiling.
The married and the old watched and laughed, standing in a circle around them. Francis, leaning against one of the trees which bordered the square, watched also. I expected him to grow angry and leave, dragging me with him, but he continued to watch with wide-open, insatiable eyes.
"The human race is indestructible, Brother Leo," he said to me. "Look at those young men and girls. Look how their faces have ignited, how their eyes gleam, how they gaze at one another as though saying, 'Do not worry, even if the two of us were the sole people remaining on earth, we should soon replenish it with sons and daughters!' They too, Brother Leo, are following their road, a road which shall lead them to God. We go by way of poverty and chastity; they by way of food in abundance, and copulation."
As we were talking, the young man who was the lead dancer leapt forward and thrust his lighted torch into Winter's abdomen. All at once the old gaffer of straw caught fire. The flames shot straight up, rose, fell, and soon there was nothing left but ashes. The boys and girls threw away their torches with a wild shout and, groaning and shrieking, departed in order to pursue one another furiously in the darkness. The village became filled with laughter and panting.
Francis took my hand. We proceeded to the church on the opposite side of the square and squatted beneath its arched doorway.
"This was a fine day, Brother Leo," he said, and he settled himself against the doorpost, preparing to sleep. "Yes, this was a fine day: we saw the other face of the man who struggles. May it too be blessed!"
We departed again early in the morning.
"What freedom we have!" Francis exclaimed joyously. "We are the freest men in the world because we are the poorest. Poverty, simplicity, and freedom are identical."
We began to sing again in order to forget our hunger and fatigue.
Each day, however, Francis found his heart being filled with bitterness. In every village we entered, every city, Satan had set up camp. The people blasphemed, quarreled, stabbed one another, never set foot in church, never made the sign of the cross.
"The soul of man has revolted; it no longer fears God, Brother Leo," he kept saying to me. "Satan stands at the crossroads, assumes whatever face pleases him, and tempts mankind. Sometimes he appears as a monk, sometimes as a handsome young man, sometimes as a woman."
One day when we were finally nearing the Holy City, we halted--it must have been midday--and stretched out under a cypress to rest and catch our breath. Our feet were oozing blood, our shanks and scalps were covered with dust; we had been conversing since morning about Christ's Passion, and our eyes were swollen and inflamed with weeping. Just as we had closed our eyes halfway, in the hope that perhaps sleep would come and take pity on us, who should step out from behind the cypress trees but a fat, jovial monk with red sandals and a wide, red hat. He was clean-shaven, perfumed --a handsome specimen. Or could it have been that we actually did fall asleep and it only seemed to us that we saw him? He came up to us, greeted us majestically, spread out a silk handkerchief on a rock, and sat down.
"Judging from your bare feet and from your robes, which are full of holes, you must be members of some new order, one that is extremely hard and strict. I take it you are making a pilgrimage to Rome."
"We are poor friars," replied Francis, "sinners, illiterates, the dregs of humanity, and we are journeying to Rome in order to fall at the pope's feet and ask him to grant us a privilege."
"What privilege?"
"The privilege of absolute Poverty, of possessing nothing, absolutely nothing."
The fat monk laughed. "I can see arrogance peeping through the holes in your robes," he said. "Nothing and everything are the same, and whoever seeks to have nothing also seeks to have everything--which you know well enough, you sly foxes, but you pretend to be poor, miserable devils just so you can dig your claws into everything without meeting any opposition and without anyone realizing what you are up to--not even God."
A quiver ran through Francis' body. He sat up beneath the cypress, terrified. "Everything?" he said, his lips trembling.
"Everything. And you possess everything already, hypocrite! You are the richest man on earth."
"Me?" "Yes, you--for the simple reason that you have placed your hopes in God. What I want to see is this: for you to become so poor that you must renounce even the hope that one day you will see God. Can you do it? Can you? That is what perfect Poverty means; what it means to be a perfect ascetic. That is the highest form of sainthood. Can you do it?"
"Who are you?" cried Francis. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" He made the sign of the cross in the air, and all at once the monk melted into the sun and we heard nothing but a screeching, jeering laugh which faded away and then vanished behind the cypresses. The smell of tar and brimstone remained in the air.
Francis jumped to his feet. "Quickly, let's go," he said. "It's courting death to sit in the shade of a cypress. . . . Did you see, Brother Leo? Did you hear?"
"I saw, Brother Francis, I heard. Let's go."
We set out once again, but both our hearts remained in turmoil. Francis did not breathe a word the whole afternoon. He raced on ahead of me; I could hear him sighing frequently. Toward evening he turned and I saw him: his face was wasted away.
"Do you think he was right?" he asked in a whisper. "Do you think the thrice-damned monk was right? But without this hope, I'm doomed!"
I struggled to console him. "Words are diabolical," I said; "they are traps set by the Tempter. Don't let yourself be caught, Francis."
But he shook his head despairingly. "The words of the Tempter and the words of God are often identical, Brother Leo. When God wishes to inform us of His divine will, sometimes He sends the Tempter."
He was silent for a moment, but then he continued in a doleful voice:
"The monk was right. Our poverty is opulent--opulent, because it keeps heaven concealed deep down at the bottom of its coffer. True Poverty, Brother Leo, means that the coffer is entirely empty right down to the bottom; it contains nothing, not even heaven, not even immortality. Nothing, nothing, nothing!"
He reflected for a moment, and sighed. He wanted to say something further, but the terrible words were being smothered in his throat Finally they managed to come forth:
"Lord," he whispered, "give me the strength to enable me one day to renounce hope, the hope, O Lord, of seeing Thee. Who knows: perhaps this, and only this, constitutes absolute Poverty."
His tears stifled his voice. He staggered, and I caught hold of him to keep him from falling.
"Don't say that, Brother Francis. It is asking to surpass the strength allotted to man."
"Yes, yes, poor Brother Leo, it is asking to surpass the strength allotted to man. But that is precisely why God expects this from us. Precisely! Haven't you been able to understand that yet, my poor, unfortunate fellow voyager?"
I hadn't nor would I ever. Didn't human nature have bounds, and weren't those bounds fixed by God Himself? Why then did the Almighty expect us to surpass them? Since He had not given us wings, why was he prodding us to fly? He should have given us wings!
We found a pine tree with long, thickly needled branches that inclined toward the ground, forming a natural shelter. The sun had beat down upon it all day long; fragrant sap was oozing from the trunk. We both collapsed to the ground, preparing to spend the night. Though a few dry crusts of bread remained in my sack, we did not have appetite even for a taste.
Neither of us spoke. I did not feel sleepy, but I closed my eyes, for I was unable to look at Francis' face any longer: never before had I seen such anguish there. Although he was biting his lips in an effort to suppress his emotion, I heard the groan of a wounded beast rising from his chest.
The stars came out; the earth's nocturnal voices rose from the soil; I felt the sweetness of night gradually penetrating me, wrapping itself cunningly around my bowels.
Suddenly there was a falling star in the sky. "Did you see that, Brother Leo?" Francis called to me, pointing upwards. "A tear just rolled down God's cheek. . . . Is man then not the only one who weeps? Dost Thou weep also, Lord? Dost Thou suffer, Father, just as I do?"
He leaned back against the trunk of the pine tree, exhausted. I closed my eyes and was already feeling the tranquillity which heralds the approach of sleep when suddenly I heard Francis' voice. It was raucous, stifled, unrecognizable:
"I implore you, Brother Leo, do not go to sleep, do not leave me alone! A terrible thought is rising from the depths of my being, and I do not want to be left all alone with it!"
I opened my eyes. The heart-rending tone of his voice frightened me.
"What thought, Brother Francis? Could it be the Tempter again? Tell me and you'll feel better."
Francis came next to me and laid his palm on my knee. "You know, Brother Leo, man clings to a tiny blade of grass. Angels and devils tug at him and try to tear him away from this blade of grass. He is hungry, thirsty, the sweat gushes from his forehead, he is covered with blood, he weeps and curses--but does not let go. He is unwilling to release his grip on this tiny blade of grass, the earth. Brother Leo, heaven too is a blade of grass!"