On his way down from the villa to the gate, Don Clemente asked himself with secret anxiety: “Did he recognise her, or not? And if he did, what impression did she make?” On reaching the gate he turned to him he had called Benedetto, and scrutinised his face closely—a fleshless, pallid, intellectual face, in which he read no sign of agitation. The eyes met his wonderingly, almost as if questioning: “Why do you look at me thus?” The monk said to himself: “Probably he did not recognise her, or he supposes me to be unaware of her arrival.” He passed his arm through his companion’s, holding him close, and in silence turned to the left towards the dark and noisy gorge of the Anio. When they had walked on a few paces under the trees which border the road, he said: “Do you not wish to question me about the meeting?” There was more tenderness in his tone than the commonplace words demanded. His companion answered:

“Yes, tell me about it.”

The voice was husky and devoid of interest. Don Clemente said to himself: “He certainly recognised her!” Then he talked of the meeting, but as one preoccupied with other thoughts, without warmth, without details; nor did his companion once interrupt him with questions or comments.

“We separated,” he said, “without having come to any conclusion; this was partly owing to the arrival of some foreigners. So I was not able to arrange with Signor Giovanni about you. But I think some of us, at least, will meet again tomorrow. And you yourself,” he added hesitatingly, “do you, or do you not feel inclined to return?”

Benedetto, walking steadily on, answered in the same submissive tone as before: “Are the foreign ladies I saw going to remain?”

Don Clemente pressed his arm very hard.

“I do not know,” he said, adding, much moved, and with another pressure of the arm: “If I had only known—!”

Benedetto opened his lips to speak, but checked himself. They proceeded thus in silence towards the two black cliffs in the noisy ravine, and leaving the main road, which turns to cross the Anio by the Ponte di San Mauro, took the mule-path leading to the convents, which winds up to the cliff on the left. The enormous, slanting mass of rock before them seemed to Don Clemente at that moment the symbol of a demoniacal power standing in Benedetto’s way; so, too, the gathering darkness seemed to him symbolically threatening, and threatening also the ever-increasing, ever-deepening roar of the lonely river.

Beyond the oratory of San Mauro, where the mule-path to the convents turns to the left, running along the side of the hill towards the Madonnina dell’ Oro, and another mule-path leads straight into the ravine, past the ruins of the Baths of Nero, Benedetto disengaged himself gently from the monk’s arm, and stopped.

“Listen, Padre,” said he; “I must speak with you; perhaps at some length.”

“Yes, my friend, but it is late; let us go into the monastery.”

Benedetto lived at the Ospizio for pilgrims, the farmhouse, which is reached from a courtyard communicating by a great gate with the public way and by a small gate with the corridor of the monastery, leading from the public way to the church and to the second of the three cloisters.

“I had rather not return to the monastery tonight, Padre,” said he.

“You had rather not return?”

On other occasions during the three years he had spent in the free service of the monastery, Benedetto had obtained permission from Don Clemente to spend the night in prayer, out among the hills. Therefore the master at once concluded that his disciple was passing through one of those periods of terrible inward struggle, which forced him to flee from his poor couch and from the shadows of his room, accomplices, these, of the evil one, in tormenting his imagination,

“Listen to me, Padre!” said Benedetto.

His tone was so firm, so laden with the gravity of coming words, that Don Clemente judged it wiser not to insist upon the lateness of the hour. Hearing the beat of hoofs above them, and knowing the riders were coming in their direction, the two stepped aside on to the small, grassy plateau, upon which still remain humble remnants of Neronian grandeur, which, with some arches hidden in the thick grove of hornbeams on the opposite bank, once formed part of the same Terme, but are now divided by the complaining of the Anio far below. Above those arches once dwelt the priest of Satan, and the shameless women, who assailed the sons of St. Benedict with their wiles. The monk thought of Jeanne Dessalle. There, at the end of the ravine, high up above the hills of Preclaro and of Jenne Vecchio, shone the two stars which had bean spoken of on the Selvas’ terrace as “holy lights.”

They waited for the riders to pass. When they had done so, Benedetto, in silence, fell upon his master’s neck. Don Clemente, full of wonder and noticing that he trembled and was shaken by convulsive starts, concluded that the sight of that woman had caused this emotion, and, kept repeating to him:

“Courage, dear friend, courage; this is a trial sent by the Lord!” Benedetto whispered to him:

“It is not what you think.”

Having controlled his feelings, he begged the master to sit down upon a ruined wall, against which he himself—kneeling on the grass—rested his folded arms.

“Since this morning,” said he, “I have been warned by certain signs that the Lord’s will concerning me is changed; but I have not been able to understand in what way. You know what happened to me three years ago in that little church where I was praying, while my poor wife lay dying?”

“You allude to your vision?”

“No; before the vision—having closed my eyes—I read on my eyelids the words of Martha: ‘Magister adest et vocat te!’ This morning, while you were saying Mass, I saw the same words within me. I believed this to be an automatic revulsion of memory. After the communion I had a moment of anxiety, for it seemed to me Christ was saying in my soul: ‘Dost thou not understand, dost thou not understand, dost thou not understand?’ I passed the day in a state of continual agitation, although I strove to tire myself more than usual in the garden. In the afternoon I sat reading a short time under the ilex tree, where the Fathers congregate. I had St. Augustine’s De Opere Monachorum. Some people passed on the upper road, talking in loud voices. I raised my head mechanically. Then, I cannot tell why, but instead of resuming my reading, I closed the book and fell to thinking. I thought of what St. Augustine says about manual labour for monks, I thought of the order of St. Benedict, of RancÉ, and of how the Benedictine order might again return to manual labour. Then, in a moment of weariness, but with my heart still full of the immense grandeur of St. Augustine, I believed I heard a voice from the upper world crying: ‘Magister adest et vocat te!’ Perhaps it was only an hallucination, only because of St. Augustine, only some unconscious memory of the ‘Tolle, lege’; I do not deny this, but, nevertheless, I trembled, trembled like a leaf. And I asked myself fearfully, Does the Lord wish me to become a monk? You know, Padre mio—I have repeated it to you on two or three occasions—that in one particular, at least, this would correspond with the end of my vision. But when you counselled me, as did also Don Giuseppe Flores, not to put faith in this vision, I told you that, to me, another reason for not putting faith in it was that I do not feel myself worthy to be a priest, and, furthermore, that the idea of joining any religious order is strangely repugnant to me. But what if God should enjoin it upon me! What if this great repugnance be but a trial! I wished to speak to you when we were on our way to the Selvas’, but you were in haste to be there, and so it was not possible. There, seated on the bundle of fagots under the acacias, I received the last blow. I was weary, very weary, and for five minutes allowed myself to be overcome by sleep, I dreamt that I was walking with Don Giuseppe Flores under the arches of the courtyard at Praglia. I said to him weeping: ‘Here, it was here!’ And Don Giuseppe answered with great tenderness: ‘Yes, but do not think of that, think rather that the Lord calls you.’ And I replied: ‘But whither, whither does He call me?’ My anguish was so great that I awoke. I heard a voice calling from the top of the house, and some one answered in French from the bottom of the garden. I saw a lady leave the villa, running. I heard the greetings she exchanged with the new-comers; I distinguished her voice! At first I was not sure of it, but presently, the voices coming nearer, I could no longer doubt. It was she! For a second I was dazed, but only for a second. Then a great light shone out in my mind.”

Benedetto raised his head and his clasped hands. His voice rang with mystic ardour. “Magister adest,” said he. “Do you understand? The divine Master was with me, I had naught to fear, Padre mio! And I feared naught, neither her, nor myself. I saw her coming up to the open space. My thought was: ‘If we meet alone, I will speak to her as to a sister, I will beg her forgiveness; perhaps God will give me a word of truth for her. I will show her that I have hopes for her soul, and that I do not fear for my own.” Don Clemente could not refrain from interrupting him.

“No, no, no, my son!” he exclaimed, greatly alarmed; and while he held the young man’s face imprisoned between his hands, he was casting about in his mind for a means of preventing such a meeting, and of getting Benedetto away. The Selvas, the Selvas! they must be warned!

“I can understand why you speak thus to me,” Benedetto resumed, breathlessly; “but if I meet her, must I not seek to give her of the good that is in me, as I once sought to give her of the evil? And have not you yourself taught me that placing the saving of our own souls above all things is incompatible with the love of God above all things? That when we love truly we do not think of ourselves? That we strive only to do the will of the person beloved, and desire that others do the same? That thus we are sure of salvation, and that he who constantly has in mind the saving of his own soul risks losing it?”

“That is very true, very true, my dear friend,” answered the Padre, stroking his hair. “But nevertheless to-morrow you must go to Jenne, and remain there until I send for you. I will give you a letter to the parish priest, who is a most worthy man, and you can stay with him. Do you understand? And now we will go to the monastery, for it is late!”

He rose and obliged Benedetto to do the same. Above their heads the clock of Santa Scolastica was ringing the hour. Was it ten o’clock, or was it eleven? Don Clemente had not counted the strokes from the beginning, and feared the worst; for with all these conflicting emotions he had lost account of time. What was going to happen? Who could have foreseen? And what would take place now? They left the grassy plateau and started up the steep and rocky mule-path, Don Clemente in front, and Benedetto following close behind; both silent and with stormy souls, while the deep voice of the Anio answered their thoughts. At a bend of the path they see the lights of distant Subiaco. Only a few, however, so it is probably eleven o’clock! Presently a dark corner of the inclosure of Santa Scolastica looms before the wayfarers. Benedetto is thinking by what a mysterious way God has led him from the logge at Praglia, where Jeanne tempted and conquered him, to this toilsome ascent amidst the gloom towards another holy spot, with Jeanne near, and his heart anchored in Christ.

In the meantime, the reasons for practical prudence which pressed upon Don Clemente at this time of distress, and the reasons for ideal holiness which in calmer moments he had taught his beloved disciple, were contending for supremacy over Benedetto’s will, no longer so steadfast as in the beginning; the first striving at close quarters, and with imperious violence; the second, from a distance and by means only of their stern and sad beauty. It seemed to him the two “holy lights” high above the dark angle of the inclosure were watching him sternly and sadly. Oh! unholy earth, he thought; oh! sad earth! And, perhaps, unholy prudence, sad prudence—earthly prudence!

Upon reaching the corner, the two wayfarers turned to the left, leaving the deep roar of the Anio behind them. They passed the great gate of the monastery, and having turned the other corner of the inclosure, and traversed the long, dark passage which runs beneath the library, reached a low door. Don Clemente rang the bell. They would be obliged to wait some time, for at nine o’clock, or shortly after, all the keys of the monastery were taken to the Abbot.

“Then you will allow me to remain outside?” Benedetto asked.

On other occasions when the master had granted him this permission, he had climbed the bare heights of Colle Lungo above the monastery, and passed the night in prayer, either there, or on the heights of Taleo, or on the rocky hillside which is crossed in going from the oratory of Santa Crocella to the grove of the Sacro Speco. The master hesitated a moment; he had not thought of this wish of Benedetto’s again. And precisely to-day his disciple had looked to him more emaciated, more bloodless, than usual; he feared for his health, which was much impaired by the fatigues of labour in the fields, by penance, and by a life devoid of comfort. This the master told him.

“Do not consider my body,” the young man pleaded humbly and ardently. “My body is infinitely remote from me! Fear rather that I may not do all that is possible to ascertain the Divine Will!”

He added that he would also pray for light concerning this meeting, and that he had never felt God so near as when praying on the hills. The master took his face between his hands, and kissed him on the forehead.

“Go,” said he.

“And you will pray for me?”

“Yes, nunc et semper.”

Steps in the corridor. A key turns in the lock. Benedetto vanishes like a shadow.

Good old Fra Antonio, the doorkeeper of the monastery, did not betray the fact that he had expected to see Benedetto also, and, with that dignified respect in which were blended the humility of an inferior and the pride of an old and honest retainer, he told Don Clemente that the Father Abbot was waiting for him in his private apartment. Don Clemente, carrying a tiny lantern, went up to the great corridor, out of which the Abbot’s rooms and his own opened.

The Abbot, Padre Omobono Ravasio of Bergamo, was waiting for him in a small salon dimly lighted by a poor little petroleum lamp. The salottino, in its severe, ecclesiastical simplicity, held nothing of interest, save a canvas by Morone—the fine portrait of a man; two small panels with angels’ heads, in the style of Luini; and a grand piano, loaded with music. The Abbot, passionately fond of pictures, music, and snuff, dedicated to Mozart and Haydn a great part of the scant leisure he enjoyed after the performance of his duties as priest and ruler. He was intelligent, somewhat eccentric, and possessed of a certain amount of literary, philosophical, and religious learning which, however, stopped short with the year 1850, he having a profound contempt for all learning subsequent to that date. Short and grey-haired, he had a clever face. A certain curtness of manner, and his rough familiarity, had astonished the monks, accustomed to the exquisitely refined manners of his predecessor, a Roman of noble birth. He had come from Parma, and had assumed his duties only three days previously.

Don Clemente knelt before him and kissed his hand.

“You have strange ways here at Subiaco,” said the Abbot. “Is ten o’clock the same as eleven o’clock to you?”

Don Clemente apologised. He had been detained by a duty of charity. The Abbot invited him to be seated,

“My son,” said he, “are you sleepy?” Don Clemente smiled without answering.

“Well,” the Father Abbot continued, “you have wasted an hour of sleep, and now I have my reasons for robbing you of a little more. I intend to speak to you about two matters. You asked my permission, to visit a certain Selva and his wife. Have you been there? Yes? Can you assure me that your conscience is at rest?”

Don Clemente answered unhesitatingly, but with a movement of surprise:

“Yes, most certainly.”

“Well, well, well,” said the Abbot, and took a large pinch of snuff with evident satisfaction. “I do not know these Selvas, but there are people in Rome who do know them, or, at least, think they do. Signor Selva is an author, is he not? Has he not written on religion? I fancy he is a Rosminian, judging by the people who are opposed to him; people unworthy to tie Rosmini’s shoe-strings; but let us discriminate! True Rosminians are those at Domodossola, and not those who have wives, eh? Very well then, this evening after supper I received a letter from Rome. They write me—and you must know my correspondent is one of the mighty—that precisely to-night a conventicle was to be held at the house of this false Catholic, Selva, who had summoned to it other malignant insects like himself; that probably you would wish to be present, and that I was to prevent your going. I do not know what I should have done, for when the Holy Father speaks I obey; if the Holy Father does not speak, I reflect. But, fortunately for you, you had already started. There are really some good people who will ferret out heretics in Paradise itself! Now you tell me that your conscience is quiet. Am I not then to believe what the letter says?”

Don Clemente replied that there had certainly been neither heretics nor schismatics at Signor Selva’s house. They had talked of the Church, of her ills, and of possible remedies, but in the same spirit in which the Abbot himself might speak.

“No, my son,” the Abbot answered. “It is not for me to reflect upon the ills of the Church, or upon possible remedies. Or rather, I may reflect upon these matters, but I must speak of them only to God, that He Himself may then speak of them to the proper persons. And do you do the same. Bear this in mind, my son! The ills exist, and perhaps the remedies also exist, but—who knows?—these remedies may be poisons, and we must let the Great Healer apply them. We, for our part, must pray. If we did not believe in the communion of saints, what would, there be to do in the monasteries? So for the sake of our peace of mind, my son, do not return to that house. Do not again ask permission to go there.”

The Abbot had ended in a paternal tone, and now laid an affectionate hand upon his monk’s shoulder. Don Clemente was much grieved at the thought of not seeing his good friends again, and especially not to be able to confer with Signor Giovanni the next day, to warn him of Benedetto’s danger, and to consult with him concerning a means of defence.

“They are Christians of gold,” he said sadly, and in submissive tones.

“I believe you,” replied the Abbot. “They are probably far better than the zealots who write these letters. You see I speak my mind. You come from Brescia, eh? Well, I come from Bergamo. In either place they would be called piaghe—festers! They are indeed festers of the Church. I shall answer in a fitting tone. My monks take no part in meetings of heretics. But, nevertheless, you will not revisit the Selvas.”

Don Clemente kissed the hand of the fatherly old man resignedly.

“And now I come to the other question,” said the Abbot. “I learn that a young man whom you installed there has lived for three years at the Ospizio for pilgrims, where, as a rule, only the herder should have a permanent abode. Oh, I know, of course, that my predecessor sanctioned what you did! This young man is greatly attached to you, you are his spiritual director, and you encourage him to study in the library. It is true that he also works in the kitchen-garden, true that he displays great piety, that he is a source of edification to all, still—as he does not appear to have any intention of becoming a monk—his presence at our Ospizio, where he has had a place for three years, Is somewhat irregular, What can you tell concerning this matter? Come, let us hear.”

Don Clemente knew that some of his brother monks—and not the oldest, but precisely the youngest among them—did not approve of the hospitality the late Abbot had extended to Benedetto. Neither was the attachment existing between himself and Benedetto entirely to their taste. Don Clemente had already had trouble on this account. He now at once perceived that certain brothers had lost no time, but had already tried to influence the new Abbot. His fine face flushed hotly. He did not answer immediately, wishing first to quell the anger burning within him by an act of mental forgiveness. At last he assured the Abbot that it was both, his duty and his wish to enlighten him.

“This young man,” he began, “Is a certain Piero Maironi of Brescia. You must surely have heard of the family. His father, Don Franco Maironi, married a woman without birth or money. His parents were already dead at the time, and he lived with his paternal grandmother, Marchesa Maironi, an imperious and proud woman.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the Abbot, “I knew her! A perfect terror! I remember her well. In Brescia they called her the ‘Marchesa Haynau’ [Footnote: In allusion to the terrible Austrian, General Haynau, who, on account of his cruelty to the Italian patriots, was surnamed the “Hyena of Brescia.”—TRANSLATOR.] She had twelve cats and wore a great black wig! I remember her well!”

“I knew her only by reputation,” Don Clemente continued, smiling, while the Abbot, with a sort of guttural purr, took a generous pinch of snuff, to rid himself of the bad taste this unpleasant memory had left.

“Well, the grandmother would not hear of this ill-assorted marriage. The young couple therefore were guests in the house of the bride’s uncle, she being also an orphan. He, Don Franco, enlisted in 1859, and died of the wounds he received. His wife died soon after. The little boy was cared for by the grandmother, Marchesa Maironi, and, after her death, by certain Venetian relations of hers, of the name of Scremin. The grandmother left him very wealthy. He married a daughter of these Scremins,’ who, unfortunately, went mad soon after her marriage, I believe. Piero felt this affliction keenly, and led a life of retirement until he had the misfortune to come in contact with a woman separated from her husband. Then a period of transgression set in; he transgressed morally and in matters of faith. At last (it seems like a miracle performed by the Lord Himself) the wife in her dying moments recovered her reason, summoned her husband, spoke with him, and then died the death of a saint. This death turned Piero’s heart towards God; he left the woman, renounced his rights, left everything, and fled from his home in the night, telling no one whither he was going. Having met me once at Brescia, where I had gone to visit my sick father, and knowing I was at Subiaco, he came here. He was, moreover, fond of our Order, and cherished certain memories connected with our poor Praglia. He told me his story, entreating me to help him lead a life of expiation. I supposed he aspired to enter the Order. But he told me that, on the contrary, he did not feel himself worthy; that he had not as yet been able to ascertain the Divine Will on this point; that he wished, in the meantime, to do penance, to labour with his hands, to earn his bread—only a crust of bread. He told me other things; he spoke of certain incidents of a supernatural character which had happened to him. I at once told the late Father Abbot about him, and we decided to lodge him in the Ospizio, to let him work within the inclosure, helping the kitchen-gardener, and to provide him with the frugal fare he craved. In three years he has never once tasted coffee, wine, milk, or eggs. He has touched nothing save bread, polenta, fruit, herbs, oil, and pure water, He has led the life of a saint, all can assure you of that. Still he believes himself the greatest sinner on earth!”

“Hm!” the Abott ejaculated thoughtfully, “Hm! I see! But why does he not join the Order? Then, another thing: I know he has passed several nights outside the inclosure.”

Don Clemente felt his face once more aflame. “In prayer,” he said.

“That may be, but perhaps some may not believe it. You know what Dante says:

“Oh!” Don Clemente exclaimed, blushing, in his modest dignity, for those who were capable of harbouring vile suspicions.

“Forgive me, my son!” said the Abbot. “He is not accused, the appearances alone are criticised. Do not vex yourself. It is wiser to pray in the house! And these incidents of a supernatural character—pray tell me about them.”

Don Clemente said they were visions—voices heard in the air.

“Hm! Hm!” ejaculated the Abbot, with a complicated play of wrinkled forehead, eyebrows, and lips, as if he were swallowing a mouthful of vinegar.

“You said his name was—? His real name?”

“Piero, but when he came here he wished to part with that name, and begged me to give him another. I chose ‘Benedetto’—it seemed the most appropriate.” At this point the Abbot expressed a wish to see Signor Benedetto, and desired Don Clemente to send him to him on the following morning after the office in the choir. At this Don Clemente was somewhat embarrassed, and had to confess that he could not promise to do so, because, as it happened, the young man had gone out among the hills to pass the night in prayer, and he did not know precisely at what hour he would return. The Abbot was greatly annoyed, and mumbled a series of reproaches and caustic remarks. Don Clemente therefore decided to tell him of the meeting with Signora Dessalle, the former mistress; of what had followed on the way home, of his determination to send Benedetto to Jenne, and to oblige him to remain there until the woman had gone. The Father Superior kept up a continuous, low grumbling, and heard him with knitted brows.

“Here,” he exclaimed at last, “you are going back to the days of St. Benedict! to the wiles of shameless women! Let your Benedetto go, let him go, let him go! To Jenne and farther still! And you were not going to tell me this? Did it seem a matter of slight consequence? Was it of no consequence that intrigues of this sort should be carried on round the monastery? Now go; go, I say!”

Don Clemente was about to answer that he had not known of any intrigue, nor if the woman had recognised his disciple; that at any rate he had already informed Benedetto of his intention of sending him away; but he silenced this useless self-justification and, kneeling, took leave of the Abbot.

Don Clemente took up again the tiny lantern, which he had left in the corridor, but did not go to his cell. Slowly, very slowly, he walked to the end of the corridor; slowly, very slowly, and not without frequent pauses, he descended by a little winding stair to the other passage leading to the chapter-hall. The thought of his beloved disciple wandering amidst the darkness on the mountains; the anticipation of the resolutions he might form, after communing with his God; the covert hostility of his brother monks; the Abbot’s frowns and doubts; the fear that he would oblige Benedetto to choose between leaving the convent and taking the monastic vows, all weighed heavily upon his heart. Benedetto’s mystic fervour, his great and unconscious humility, his progress in comprehending the Faith according to the ideas originating with Signor Giovanni, a new lucidity of thought which flashed from him in conversation, the growing strength of their mutual affection, had awakened in him hopes of a revelation of Divine Grace, of Divine Truth, of Divine Power for the saving of souls, to be made, at no distant period, through this outcast of the world. They had said at the meeting at Signor Selva’s house, “A saint is needed.” The first to affirm this had been the Swiss AbbÉ. Others had said that the saint should be a layman. This was moreover his own opinion, and Benedetto’s repugnance to a monastic life seemed to him providential. The coming of the woman seemed almost providential also, forcing him as it did to leave the convent. But what was happening out on the hills? What words was God uttering in his heart? And if—

This unexpected, formidable if flashing into his mind stopped the ponderer in his slow walk. “Magister adest et vocat te!” Perhaps the Divine Master Himself was even now calling Benedetto to serve Him in the habit of a monk.

He ceased thinking, terrified, and, having set the tiny lantern down, passed from the chapter-hall into the church, directing his steps towards the chapel of the Sacrament. With that dignity of which no internal storm could rob his refined bearing and the lofty beauty of his face, he sank upon his knees at the desk which stands in the centre of the chapel, between the four columns, under the lamp, raising his eyes to the tabernacle.

The Teacher of the Way, of Truth, of Life, the Beloved of the soul, was there, and sleeping, as He had slept on that stormy night on the Lake of Gennesaret, between Gadara and Galilee, in the bark which other wave-tossed barks followed through the roaring darkness. He was there, praying as on that other night, alone, on the hillside. He was there, saying with His sweet eternal voice: “Come unto Me all ye who suffer, all ye who are heavy laden, come unto Me.” He was there and speaking, the living Christ: “Believe in Me, for I am with you; I am your strength, and I am peace. I the Humble, son of the Almighty; I the Meek, son of the Terrible; I who prepare hearts for the kingdom of justice, for the future union of all with Me in My Father.” He, the Merciful, was there in the tabernacle, breathing the ineffable invitation: “Come, open thy heart; give thyself up to Me!”

And Clemente gave himself up, confiding to Him what he had never confessed even to himself. He felt that everything in the ancient monastery was dying, save Christ in the tabernacle. As the germ-cell of ecclesiastical organism, the centre from which Christian warmth irradiates upon the world, the monastery was becoming ossified by the action of inexorable age. Within its walls noble fires of faith and piety, enclosed—like the flames of the candles burning on the altars—in traditional forms, were consuming their human envelope, their invisible vapours rising towards heaven, but sending no wave of heat or of light to vibrate beyond the ancient walls. Currents of living air no longer swept through the monastery, and the monks no longer, as in the first centuries, went out in search of them, labouring in the woods and in the fields, co-operating with the vital energies of nature while they praised God in song. His talks with Giovanni Selva had brought him indirectly, and little by little, to feel thus regarding the monastic life in its present form, although he was convinced that it has indestructible roots in the human soul. But now, perhaps for the first time, he looked his belief squarely in the face. For a long time his wish and his hope had been that Benedetto might become a great gospel labourer; not an ordinary labourer, a preacher, a confessor, but an extraordinary labourer; not a soldier of the regular army, hampered by uniform and discipline, but a free champion of the Holy Spirit. The monastic laws had never before appeared to him in such fierce antagonism with his ideal of a modern saint. And now, what if the Divine Will concerning Benedetto should reveal itself contrary to his desires?

Ah! was he not already almost on the verge of committing mortal sin? Had he not been about to judge the ways of God, he presumptuous dust? Prostrate upon the kneeling-stool, he sought to merge himself in the Almighty, praying silently for forgiveness, for a revelation to Benedetto of the Divine Will, and ready to worship it, whatever it might be, from this time forth. As he rose, with a natural ebbing of the mystic wave from his heart, his eyes still turned towards the altar, but no longer fixed upon the tabernacle, he could not refrain from thinking of Jeanne Dessalle and of what Benedetto had said. The very indifferent picture above the altar represented the martyr Anatolia offering, from Paradise, the symbolical palms to Audax, the young pagan who had attempted to seduce her, but whom, instead, she had led to Christ. Jeanne Dessalle had seduced Benedetto; of this Don Clemente had no doubts, notwithstanding Benedetto’s attempt to exonerate her and accuse himself. What if she should now be converted through him? Was it perhaps right that he should try? Was Benedetto’s impulse really more Christian than his own fears and the Abbot’s scruples? As he crossed the church with bowed head, Don Clemente’s mind was struggling with these questions. Anatolia and Audax! He remembered that a sceptical foreigner, upon hearing the explanation of the picture from him, had said: “Yes, but what if neither of them had been put to death? And what if Audax had been a married man?”

These jesting words had seemed to him an unworthy profanation. He thought of them again now, and, sighing, took up the little lantern he had left on the floor in the chapter-hall.

Instead of going towards his cell he turned into the second cloister to look at the ridge of the Colle Lungo, where, perhaps, Benedetto was praying. Some stars were shining above the rocky, grey ridge, spotted with black, and their dim light revealed the square of the cloister, the scattered shrubs, the mighty tower of Abate Umberto, the arcades, the old walls, which had stood for nine centuries, and the double row of little stone friars ascending in procession upon the arch of the great gate where Don Clemente stood, lost in contemplation. The cloister and the tower stood out majestic and strong against the darkness. Was it indeed true that they were dying? In the starlight the monastery appeared more alive than in the sunlight, aggrandised by its mystic religious communing with the stars. It was alive, it was big with many different spiritual currents, all confused in one single being, like the different wrought and sculptured stones, which, united, formed its body; like different thoughts and sentiments in a human conscience. The ancient stones, inclosing souls which love had mingled with them, saturated with holy longings and holy sorrows, with groans and prayers, radiated a dim something which penetrated the subconsciousness. They had the power of infusing strength into those of God’s labourers who, in arid moments, withdrew from the world, seeking brief repose among them, as a spring of water infuses strength into the reaper on the lonely hills. But in order that the life of the stones might continue, a ceaseless living stream must flow through them, a stream of adoring and contemplating spirits. Don Clemente felt something akin to remorse for the thoughts he had harboured in the church about the decrepitude of the monastery; thoughts which had sprung from his own personal judgment, pleasing to his self-esteem, and therefore tainted by that arrogance of the spirit which his beloved mystics had taught him to discern and abhor. Clasping his hands, he fixed his gaze on the wild ridge of the hill, picturing to himself Benedetto praying there, and, in an act of silent renunciation, he humbly relinquished his own desires concerning the young man’s future. He praised God should He choose to let him remain a layman; he praised God should He choose to make him a monk, should He reveal His will, or should it remain hidden. “Si vis me esse in luce sis benedictus, si vis me esse in tenebris sis iterum benedictus.” And then he sought his cell.

As he passed the Abbot’s door in the broad corridor where the two dim lamps were still burning, he thought of the talk he had had with the old man, of those maxims of his concerning the ills affecting the Church, and the wisdom of struggling against them. He remembered something Signor Giovanni had said about the words “Fiat voluntas tua,” which the majority of the faithful understand only as an act of resignation, and which really point out the duty of working with all our strength for the triumph of Divine Law in the field of human liberty. Signor Giovanni had made his heart beat faster, and the Abbot had made it beat more slowly: which had spoken the word of life and of truth?

His cell was the last one on the right, near the balcony which overlooks Subiaco, the Sabine Hills, and the shell-shaped tract watered by the Anio. Before entering his cell Don Clemente stopped to look at the distant lights of Subiaco; he thought of the little red villa, nearer but not discernible; he thought of the woman. Intrigues, the Abbot had said. Did she still love Piero Maironi? Had she discovered, did she know that he had sought refuge at Santa Scolastica? Had she recognised him? If so, what did she propose to do? Probably she was not staying in the Selvas’ very small lodging, but was at some hotel in Subiaco. Were those distant lights fires in an enemy’s camp? He made the sign of the cross, and entered his narrow cell, for a short rest until two o’clock, the hour of assembly in the choir.

Benedetto took the road to the Sacro Speco. Beyond the further corner of the monastery he crossed the dry bed of a small torrent, reached the very ancient oratory of Santa Crocella on the right, and climbed the rocky slope which tumbles its stones down towards the rumbling Anio and faces the hornbeams of the Francolano, rising, straight and black, to the star-crowned cross on its summit. Before reaching the arch which stands at the entrance to the grove of the Sacro Speco, he left the road, and climbed up towards the left, in search of the scene of his last vigil, high above the square roofs and the squat tower of Santa Scolastica. The search for the stone where he had knelt in prayer on another night of sorrow distracted his thoughts from the mystic fire which had enveloped him, and cooled its ardour. He soon perceived this and was seized with a heavy sense of regret, with impatience to rekindle the flame, enhanced by the fear of not succeeding in the attempt, by the feeling that it had been his own fault, and by the memory of other barren moments. He was growing colder, ever colder. He fell upon his knees, calling upon God in an outburst of prayer. Like a small flame applied in vain to a bundle of green sticks, this effort of his will gradually weakened without having moved the sluggish heart, and left him at last in vague contemplation of the even roar of the Anio. His senses returned to him with a rush of terror! Perhaps the whole night would pass thus; perhaps this barren coldness would be followed by burning temptation! He silenced the clamour of his fervid imagination, and concentrated his thoughts on his determination not to lose courage. He now became firmly convinced that hostile spirits had seized upon him. He would not have felt more sure of this had he seen fiendish eyes flashing in the crevices of the neighbouring rocks. He felt conscious of poisonous vapours within him; he felt the absence of all love, the absence of all sorrow; he felt weariness, a great weight, the advance of a mortal drowsiness. Once more he fell into stupid contemplation of the noise of the river, and fixed his unseeing eyes upon the dark woods of the Francolano. Before his mental vision passed slowly, automatically, the image of the evil priest, who had lived there with his court of harlots. He felt weary from kneeling, and let himself sink to the ground. Again he was the slow automaton. With a painful effort he rose to a sitting posture, and dropped his hand upon the tufts of soft, sweet-smelling grass, pushing up between the stones. He closed his eyes in enjoyment of the sweetness of that soft touch, of the wild odour, of rest, and he saw Jeanne, pale under the drooping brim of her black, plumed hat, smiling at him, her eyes wet with tears. His heart beat fast, fast, ever faster; a thread, only a thread of will-power held him back on the downward slope leading him to answer the invitation of that face. With wide eyes, his arms extended, his hands spread open, he uttered a long groan. Then, suddenly fearing some nocturnal wayfarer might have heard him, he held his breath, listening. Silence: silence in all things save the river. His heart was growing more calm. “My God! my God!” he murmured, horrified at the he had been in, at the abyss he had crossed. He clung with his eyes, with his soul, to the great, sacred, cube-shaped Santa Scolastica, down below with its squat, friendly tower, which he loved. In spirit he passed through the shadows and the roofs; he had a vision of the church, of the lighted lamp, of the tabernacle, of the Sacrament, at which he gazed hungrily. With an effort he pictured to himself the cloisters, the cells, the great crosses near the monks’ couches, the seraphic face of his sleeping master. He continued in this effort as long as possible, checking in anguish of soul frequent flashes of the drooping plumed hat and of the pale face, until these flashes grew fainter, and were finally lost in the unconscious depths of his soul. Then he rose wearily to his feet, and slowly, as though his movements were controlled by a consciousness of great majesty, he clasped his hands and rested his chin upon them. He concentrated his thoughts on the prayer from the Imitation: “Domine, dummodo voluntas mea recta et firma ad te permaneat, fac de me quid-quid tibi placuerit.” He was no longer inwardly agitated; it seemed to him that the evil spirits had fled, but no angels had as yet entered into him. His weary mind rested upon external things: vague forms, the flakes of white among the shadows, the distant hoot of an owl among the hornbeams, the faint scent of the grass which still clung to his clasped hands upon the grass, before Jeanne’s sad smile had appeared to him. Impetuously he unclasped his hands and turned his hungry eyes towards the monastery. No, no, God would not allow him to be conquered! God had chosen him to do His own work. Then from the depths of his soul, and independently of his will, arose images, which, in obedience to his master’s counsels, he had not allowed himself to evoke since his arrival at Santa Scolastica; images of the vision, a written description of which he had confided to Don Giuseppe Flores.

He saw himself in Rome at night, on his knees in Piazza San Pietro, between the obelisk and the front of the immense temple, illumined by the moon. The square was deserted; the noise of the Anio seemed to him the noise of the fountains. A group of men clad in red, in violet and in black, issued forth from the door of the temple and stopped on the steps. They fixed their gaze upon him, pointing with their forefingers towards Castel Sant’ Angelo, as if commanding him to leave the sacred spot. But now it was no longer the vision, this was a new imagining. He was standing, straight and bold, before the hostile band. Suddenly behind him he heard the rumbling of hastening multitudes pouring into the square in streams from all the adjacent streets. A human wave swept him along, and, proclaiming him the reformer of the Church, the true Vicar of Christ, set him upon the threshold of the temple. Here he faced about, as if ready to affirm his world-wide authority. At that moment there flashed across his mind the thought of Satan offering the kingdoms of the world to Christ. He fell upon the ground, stretching himself face downward on the rock, groaning in spirit: “Jesus, Jesus, I am not worthy, not worthy to be tempted as Thou wast!” And he pressed his tightly closed lips to the stone, seeking God in the dumb creature. God! God! the desire, the life, the ardent peace of the soul! A breath of wind blew over him, and moved the grass about him.

“Is it Thou?” he groaned. “Is it Thou, is it Thou?”

The wind was silent.

Benedetto pressed his clenched hands to his cheeks, raised his head, and, resting his elbows on the rock, listened, for what he knew not. Sighing he rose to a sitting posture. God will not speak to him. His weary soul is silent, barren of thought. Time creeps slowly on. To refresh itself, the weary soul makes an effort to recall the last part of the vision, its soaring flight through a stormy nocturnal sky to meet descending angels. And he reflects dimly: “If this fate awaits me, why should I repine? Though I be tempted I shall not be conquered, and though I be conquered still God will raise me up again. Neither is it necessary to ask what His will is concerning me. Why not go down, and sleep?”

Benedetto rose, his head heavy with leaden weariness. The sky was hidden by thick clouds as far as the hills of Jenne, where the valley of the upper Anio turns. Benedetto could hardly distinguish the black shadow of the Francolano opposite, or the livid, rocky slope at his feet. He started down, but stopped after a few steps. His legs would not support him, a rush of blood set his face aflame. He had scarcely broken his fast for thirty hours, having eaten only a crust of bread at noon. He felt millions of pins pricking him, felt the violent beating of his heart, felt his mind becoming clouded. What was that tangle of serpents winding themselves about his feet, in the disguise of innocent grasses? And what sinister demon was that, waiting for him down there, crouching on all fours on a rock, disguised as a bush and ready to jump upon him? Were not the demons waiting for him at the monastery also? Did they not nest in the openings of the great tower? Was there not a black flame flashing in those openings? No, no, not now; now they were staring at him like half-closed and mocking eyes. Was this the rumbling of the Anio? No, rather the roaring of the triumphant abyss. He did not entirely credit all he saw and heard, but he trembled, trembled like a reed in the wind, and the millions of pins were moving over his whole body. He tried to free his feet from the tangle of serpents, and did not succeed. From terror he passed to anger: “I must be able to do it!” he exclaimed aloud. From the gloomy gorge of Jenne, the dull rumble of thunder answered him. He glanced in that direction. A flash of lightning rent the clouds and disappeared above the blackness of Monte Preclaro. Benedetto tried again to free his feet from the serpents, and again the leonine voice of the thunder threatened him.

“What am I doing?” he asked himself, trying to understand. “Why do I wish to go down?” He no longer knew, and was obliged to make a mental effort to recall the reason. That was it! He had decided to go down and sleep, because one sure of the kingdom of heaven has no need of prayer. Then, like the lightning flashing round him, came a flash within him:

“I am tempting God!”

The serpents pressed him tighter; the demon crept towards him on all fours, up the rocky slope, all hellishly alive with fierce spirits; the black flames burst forth in the openings of the great tower, the abyss the while howling, triumphant! Then the sovereign roar of the thunder rumbled through the clouds: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!” Benedetto raised his face and his clasped hands towards heaven, worshipping as best he might with the last glimmer of clouded consciousness. He swayed, spread wide his arms, clutching the air. Slowly he bent backwards, fell prostrate upon his back on the hillside, and then lay motionless.

His body, motionless midst the rush of the thunderstorm, lay like an uprooted trunk, among the straining gorse and the waving grass. His soul must have been sealed by the central contact with the Being without time and without space, for when Benedetto first regained consciousness he had lost all sense of place and of time. His limbs felt strangely light; he experienced a pleasant sensation of physical exhaustion, and his heart was flooded with infinite sweetness. First upon his face, then upon his hands, he felt innumerable slight touches, as though loving, animate atoms of the air were gently tickling him; he heard a faint murmur of timid voices round what seemed to be his bed. He sat up and looked about him, dazed, but at peace; forgetful of the where and the when, but perfectly at peace and filled with content by the quiet, inner spring of vague love, which flowed through all his being, and overflowed upon surrounding things, upon the sweet little lives about him, that thus came to love him in turn. Smiling at his own bewilderment, he recognised the where and the how. The when he could not recognise, nor did he desire to do so. Neither did he question whether hours or minutes had passed since his fall, so content was he in the blessed present. The storm had rolled down towards Rome. In the murmur of the rain falling softly, without wind; in the great voice of the Anio, in the restored majesty of the mountains, in the wild odour of the damp rocky slope, in his own heart, Benedetto felt something of the Divine mingling with the creature, a hidden essence of Paradise. He felt that he was mingling with the souls of things, as a small voice mingles with an immense choir, felt that he was one with the sweet-smelling hill, one with the blessed air. And thus submerged in a sea of heavenly sweetness, his hands resting in his lap, his eyes half closed, soothed by the soft, soft rain, he gave himself up to enjoyment, not however, without a vague wish that those who do not believe, those who do not love, might also know such sweetness. As his ecstasy diminished his mind once more recalled the reason of his presence on the lonely hill, in the darkness of night; recalled the uncertainties of the morrow, and Jeanne, and his exile from the monastery. But now his soul anchored in God, was indifferent to uncertainties and doubts, as the motionless Francolano was indifferent to the quiverings of its cloak of leaves. Uncertainties, doubts, memories of the mystic vision, departed from him in his profound self-abandonment to the Divine Will, which might deal with him as it would. The image of Jeanne, which he seemed to contemplate from the summit of an inaccessible tower, awakened only a desire to labour fraternally for her good. Calm reason having fully resumed its sway, he perceived that the rain had drenched his clothes and that it still continued to fall softly, softly. What should he do? He could not go back to the Ospizio for pilgrims, for the herder would be asleep, and he would not wake him to get in, nor would this, indeed, be easy to accomplish. He determined to seek shelter under the evergreen oaks of the Sacro Speco. He rose wearily, and was seized with dizziness. He waited a short time, and then crept down very, very slowly, towards the path which leads from Santa Scolastica to the arch at the entrance to the grove. Exhausted he let himself sink upon the ground there, in the dark shadow of the great evergreen oaks, bent and spreading upon the hillside, their arms flung wide; there between the dim light on the slope beyond the arch to the right, and the dim light on the slope in front of the grove to the left.

He longed for a little food, but dared not ask it of God, for it would be like asking for a miracle. He was prepared to wait for the dawn. The air was warm, the ground hardly damp; a few great drops fell, here and there, from the leaves of the evergreen oaks. Benedetto sank into a sleep so light that it hardly made him unconscious of his sensations, which it transformed into a dream. He fancied he was in a safe refuge of prayer and peace, in the shadow of holy arms extended above his head; and it seemed to him he must leave this refuge for reasons of which the necessity was evident to him, although he was unaware of their nature. He could go by a door opening on to the road which leads down to the world, or he could go by the opposite door, taking a path which rose towards sacred solitudes. He hesitated, undecided. The falling of a great drop near him made him open his eyes. After the first moment of numbness he recognised the arch on the right, where the road begins which leads down to Santa Scolastica, to Subiaco, to Rome; and on the left the path which rises toward the Sacro Speco. He noticed with astonishment that on both sides, beyond the evergreen oaks, the bare rocks looked much whiter than before; that many little streaks of light were glinting through the foliage above his head. Dawn? Was it dawn? Benedetto had thought it was little past midnight. The hour struck at Santa Scolastica—one, two, three, four. It was indeed morning, and it would be lighter still—for it no longer rained-were the sky not one heavy cloud from the hills of Subiaco to the hills of Jenne. A step in the distance; some one coming up towards the arch.

It was the herder of Santa Scolastica who, for special reasons, was carrying the milk to the Sacro Speco at that unusually early hour. Benedetto greeted him. The man started violently at the sound of his voice, and nearly let the jug of milk fall.

“Oh, BenedÉ!” he exclaimed, recognising Benedetto, “are you here?”

Benedetto begged for a drink of milk, for the love of God!

“You can explain to the monks,” said he. “You can say I was exhausted, and asked for a little milk, for the love of God.”

“Yes, yes! It is all right! Take it! Drink!” the man exclaimed, for he believed Benedetto to be a saint. “And have you passed the night out here? You were out in all that rain? Good Lord! how wet you are! You are soaked through like a sponge!” Benedetto drank.

“I thank God,” he said, “for your Madness and for the blessing of the milk.”

He embraced the man, and years afterwards the herder, Nazzareno Mercuri, used to tell that while Benedetto held him in his arms, he, Nazzareno did not seem to be himself; that his blood first turned to ice and then to fire; that his heart beat hard, very hard, as it did the first time he received Christ in the Sacrament; that a terrible headache which had tormented him for two days suddenly disappeared; that then he had realised he was in the arms of a saint, a worker of miracles; and that he had fallen on his knees at his feet! In reality he did not fall on his knees, but stood as one petrified, and Benedetto had to say twice to him: “Now go, Nazzareno; go, my dear son.” Having despatched him thus lovingly on his way to the Sacro Speco, he himself started towards Santa Scholastica.

In the light of day the rocky slope held no spirits either good or evil. The mountains, the clouds, even the dark walls of the monastery, and the tower itself looked heavy with sleep in the pale dawn. Benedetto entered the Ospizio, and stretching himself on his poor couch, without removing his wet garments, he crossed his arms on his breast, and sank into a deep sleep.