Saint Francis (26 page)

"The task of shepherd is difficult, difficult indeed," murmured Francis, gazing at the thick, muddy water of the river as it flowed peacefully toward the sea. "It is my fault. I was overwhelmed with new cares on this pilgrimage; my soul forgot itself for a moment and ceased to watch over my flock. The brothers were left unattended; thus they scattered. It is my fault! I'm coming now, Father Silvester. Gather them together again and adjure them to be patient: I am coming. Go, and God be with you!"

Father Silvester kissed Francis' hand. "Goodbye," he said, and he set out toward the north.

Francis turned to me. "It is my fault," he repeated. "I am the one who sinned, who craved women, food, a soft bed, and who filled his mouth with the goat's flesh!"

He began to beat his breast and sigh.

I placed my arm around his waist. We continued along the riverbank and both collapsed finally beneath a thickly foliaged poplar. Francis closed his eyes, completely exhausted. Evidently the friars had not left his mind, because he continued to sigh frequently. Finally he opened his eyes.

"Dreams," he said, "are the night birds of God: they bring messages. Before we left for this holy city, I dreamt of a black hen, so scraggy and with such small wings that no matter how far she stretched them she could not cover all her brood. It was raining, and many of the chicks, which were still without feathers, remained outside and got wet. . . . I should have understood the message and have decided not to go away."

While he was speaking an odd-looking monk saw us and stopped. He was dressed in a white robe secured by a leather belt; his feet were protected by thick sandals made of pigskin, and on his tonsured head he wore a black woolen hat. His face was rough, fierce, and his eyes two burning coals. When he saw Francis he halted and stared at him with surprise. At first he was troubled, then elated. Finally he opened wide his arms and cried, "My brother, who are you?"

"Why are you staring at me with such persistence?" Francis asked. "Have you seen me somewhere before?"

"Yes, yes--last night in my dreams. Christ appeared in my sleep. He was angry and had His hand raised, ready to smash the world. Suddenly the Blessed Virgin Mary came forward and cried, 'Have pity, my son. Look, here are two who are your faithful servants. Be patient; they shall buttress the world.' And one was me, unworthy that I am, and the other . . . the other: I think it was you, my brother. Your face, your bearing, the robe you have on, the hood--identical! Who are you? God has brought us together."

"My name is Francis of Assisi. I'm also called God's sweet little pauper, and also His buffoon," replied Francis, making room for the stranger to sit down next to him. "And yourself?"

"I am a monk from Spain. I've come from the ends of the earth to obtain the pope's permission to found an order which will make war against heretics and infidels. My name is Dominic."

"I too asked the pope for permission to found an order, and also to preach."

"To preach what, Brother Francis?"

"Perfect Poverty and perfect Love."

"And aren't you going to light fagots in the middle of every village to burn all heretics, sinners, and infidels?"

Francis shuddered. "No, no," he protested. "I am not going to kill sin by killing the sinners; I am not going to wage war against evildoers and infidels. I shall preach love, and I shall love; I shall preach concord, and shall practice brotherly love toward everyone in the world. Forgive me, but that, Brother Dominic, is the road I have chosen."

"Human nature is evil--evil, cunning, demonic," the wearer of the white robe exclaimed angrily. "The gentleness you talk about is not enough; what's needed is force. If the body gets in the way, you must obliterate it so that the soul may be saved. I shall burn fagots in Spain, and the souls there shall abandon their bodies below on earth in the form of ashes, and mount to heaven.

"Ceniza y nada! Ceniza y nada!" the monk began to shout, clenching his fist. "Ashes and nothing! War!"

"Love!"

"Force!"

"Mercy!"

"Brother Francis, life is not a promenade where couples walk arm in arm singing songs of love. Life is war, toil, violence! Is the sun risen? Well, get up then! Dig a well if you want a drink of water; strike evildoers squarely on the head if you expect to do away with evil; and when you die, take along a hatchet to break down the door of Paradise if you want to go inside. Paradise has no key, no master key, no doorkeeper. The only key to Paradise is the hatchet. . . . Do not look at me in terror, poor, sweet little monk. Scripture itself says the same: 'Men of violence have taken the Kingdom of heaven by force.' "

Francis sighed. "I didn't know that violence was also from God. You have broadened my mind; my heart, however, resists and cries, 'Love! Love!' But who knows: perhaps our antithetical roads may come together and we may suddenly meet each other in the course of our ascent to the Almighty."

"So please it God," the stranger replied. "But I am afraid you are a lamb fallen among men--among wolves. They shall eat you before you reach the goal of the ascent. Forgive me if I tell you in all frankness what is on my mind: You know all about love, but that is not enough. You must also learn that hate comes from God as well, that it too is in the Lord's service. And in times like these, with the world fallen to the state it has, hate serves God more than love."

"The only thing I hate is the devil, Brother Dominic," Francis replied. But immediately after he had said this, a quiver ran through his body, as though he were overcome with fright at having uttered such harsh words.

"No, no," he added at once, "I don't hate even him. Very often I fall prostrate on the ground and pray God to forgive our deluded brother."

"Whom do you mean?"

"Satan, Brother Dominic."

Brother Dominic laughed. "Lamb of God," he said, "if I had to choose, I would become God's lion. Lions and lambs don't mix--so farewell!"

He rose in order to leave.

"Farewell, Brother Dominic. Lions and lambs, love and force, light and fire, good and evil: all things, I want you to know, climb the same mountain, the mountain of God--only they do not know it. Hate does not know it, that's certain; love does know it, that's equally certain; and now that you are departing, my brother, I am revealing to you the happy secret: one day all shall join together at the summit where God stands with outstretched arms. May it so please our gracious Lord, lion of God, that we also may meet once more there above, and that when we do, you will not devour His little lamb!"

Now it was Francis' turn to laugh. Waving his hand, he bade the fiery monk goodbye.

We watched the white robe swell out in the wind and disappear around a bend in the river. Then Francis turned to me. Spread across his face was a smile which reached from ear to ear.

"Brother Dominic wants to eat us up," he said, "but he does not know--how could he know?--that the Day of Judgment is at hand, when lambs and lions shall merge and become one."

Bent over the parchment on which I write, I take a few moments' rest, the quill behind my aged ear. My eyes closed, I bring to mind all the days and nights we spent in the Holy City. I remember the churches, the prelates celebrating Mass, the small children warbling hymns to God, the sun poised in the center of the heavens, scorching us, and the violent squall which one day so refreshed the sun-roasted earth, and with it, our hearts. I remember Francis standing next to me beneath the portal of the Church of the Holy Apostles, staring in wide-eyed ecstasy at the rain, his quivering nostrils inhaling the smell of the earth, the special smell of wet soil, and happy tears running down his cheeks. "Heaven is uniting with earth; God is joining with the soul of man," he said to me. "In your earthen bowels, Brother Leo, don't you sense the words of the Gospel being watered like seeds, don't you feel them sprouting? I feel that my heart inside me has been covered with a fresh layer of grass and that my mind has been filled with poppies."

The day when we finally received the Rule after so much anguish and the pope's huge seal with its two all-powerful keys hung from the edge of the parchment, affixed to it with a silk ribbon, I remember how we raced into the square in front of the papal cathedral, the Lateran Church, and began to hop, skip, and dance, arm in arm, like two drunkards. And Francis put his fingers to his mouth and whistled like a shepherd, calling his invisible flock.

What joy that was! What power man's heart has to create and re-create, modeling out of thin air! "This is Paradise!" I exclaimed to Francis. "Christ was right when He said the kingdom of heaven is inside us. Hunger, thirst, misfortune do not exist. The only thing that exists is the heart of man: it whirls nothingness around on its wheel and models it into bread, water, and happiness."

As we were dancing and whistling, an astonished young noblewoman came up to us.

"What happened to you?" she asked with a laugh. "Who fed you all that wine and made you drunk?"

"God!" replied Francis, clapping his hands. "The Lord Christ of the many casks. Come, join us yourself. Drink!" "Where do you come from?"

"From nothingness, madam."

"Where are you going?"

"To God. On the way between nothingness and God, we dance and weep."

The young woman was not laughing now. Her dress was open at the collar. Placing her right hand over her exposed throat, she sighed, "Is this what we were born for?"

"Yes, madam: to dance, to weep, and journey toward God."

"I am Jacopa, wife of the nobleman Gratiano Frangipani. My life has been exceptionally happy, and this makes me ashamed; it has been exceptionally lucky, and this makes me afraid. . . . I cannot talk to you here in front of everyone. Oblige me by coming to my home."

She led the way; we followed behind.

Who could have told us that this charming noblewoman was to become Francis' most faithful and precious woman companion, second only to Sister Clara? Who could have told us that inordinate happiness is able to push an honest soul into a state of contrition and tears?

"I am ashamed," Jacopa said to us when we had entered her palazzo, "I am ashamed to possess everything while countless women have nothing. It's unjust, unjust! If God is just He will send me some great calamity. Beseech Him to do so. If I were free I would go barefooted into the streets and beg from door to door. But I have a husband and children; I am in fetters."

Francis had been watching her admiringly. "You have a valiant, manly soul, madam, and a masculine mind. Permit me to call you Brother Jacopa instead of Sister. . . . Brother Jacopa, be patient. The day will come when you will be free and will go about barefooted in the streets, begging. The Lord is great. He feels compassion for women, and He will take pity on you. . . . Goodbye now, until we meet again!"

"When? Where?"

"Brother Jacopa, a voice inside me says: at the terrible hour of my death."

He raised his hand and blessed her. "Until then!"

"Why do you speak about death, Brother Francis?" I asked as soon as we had left Jacopa's mansion and had begun our journey homeward. "A plague on it! We still haven't finished our labor here on earth."

Francis shook his head.

"While we were dancing and whistling, Brother Leo, while we were at the highest summit of our exultation, I saw the black Archangel descending from heaven. 'Wait,' I nodded to him, 'wait a little longer, Brother Death!' And he smiled and halted in the air. Have no fears, Brother Leo: I shall die when the right time comes, not before, not after. When the right time comes . . ."

Heading north, traveling hurriedly, like horses returning to their manger, we shook the dust of Rome from our feet. From time to time, whenever we found water, we would halt, lower our faces, and drink; afterwards we would sit on a rock and gaze mutely into the distance, toward Assisi. As we came closer Francis' face grew somber and he found it harder and harder to part his lips to speak. Only when we encountered a child or a brilliant wild flower or a bird sitting on a branch and peeping did his expression brighten again.

Once he said to me, "As long as there are flowers and children and birds in the world, have no fears, Brother Leo: everything will be fine."

We marched and marched, our feet covered with bleeding wounds. We could no longer hold ourselves erect. On top of this we were constantly hungry, and at night we froze. Oh, for a platter of roast lamb and a jug of wine, I kept saying to myself, licking my chops. And after that a soft bed to sleep on. With what untold zest I would sing God's praises then. . . . It was in vain that I tossed my head and tried to drive away the temptation. The platter, jug, and bed invariably returned and hovered before me in the air.

Francis divined my thoughts. Overcome with sympathy for me, he placed his hand tenderly on my shoulder.

"Dear Brother Leo, I don't know why, but just now I thought of a great anchorite who once said something I have never been able to forget. Do you want to hear it?"

"I'm listening, Brother Francis," I said, and I lowered my eyes, afraid he might see the platter, jug, and bed in the pupils.

"One day a passer-by who had heard the holy man's sighs stopped and asked, 'Saint of God, what is it that you desire, what is it that makes you sigh so?'

" 'A glass of cold water, my child,' answered the ascetic.