Saint Francis (4 page)

"Quiet," he whispered, and he thrust himself into the feather pillow. He was shivering. The pupils of his eyes had disappeared; the eyeballs had rolled downward and were gazing fearfully into his very bowels. His jaw was trembling.

At that point I understood at once. "You saw God," I cried. "You saw God!"

He seized my arm and gasped in anguish: "How do you know? Who told you?"

"No one. But I see how you're shaking, and I know. When a person shakes that way it means he's either seen a lion in front of him, or God."

He pulled his head forcefully up from the pillow. "No, I didn't see Him," he murmured. "I heard Him."

He looked around him with frightened eyes. "Sit down," he said to me. "Don't put your hands on me, don't touch me!"

"I'm not touching you. I'm afraid to touch you. If I had been touching you at that moment my hand would have been reduced to ashes."

He shook his head and smiled. The pupils of his eyes had reappeared. "I have something to ask you," he said. "Has my mother returned from Mass?"

"Not yet. She must be chatting with her friends."

"So much the better. Shut the door." He remained silent for a moment, but then repeated: "I have something to ask you."

"I'm at your command, sir. Proceed."

"You told me that your whole life you've been searching for God. How have you done this? By calling, weeping, singing songs, fasting? Each man must have his own special route to lead him to God. What route did you take? That is my question."

I lowered my head in thought. Should I tell him or shouldn't I? I had meditated on this many times and knew which my route was, but I was ashamed to reveal it. To be sure, I was still ashamed before men at that period, because I was not yet ashamed before God.

"Why don't you answer me?" Francis complained. "I am passing through a difficult moment and seek your aid. Help me!"

I felt sorry for him. With agitated heart I made the decision to tell him everything.

"My route, Sior Francis--and don't be surprised when you hear it--my route when I set out to find God . . . was . . . laziness. Yes, laziness. If I wasn't lazy I would have gone the way of respectable, upstanding people. Like everyone else I would have studied a trade--cabinetmaker, weaver, mason-- and opened a shop; I would have worked all day long, and where then would I have found time to search for God? I might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack: that's what I would have said to myself. All my mind and thoughts would have been occupied with how to earn my living, feed my children, how to keep the upper hand over my wife. With such worries, curse them, how could I have had the time, or inclination, or the pure heart needed to think about the Almighty?

"But by the grace of God I was born lazy. To work, get married, have children, and make problems for myself were all too much trouble. I simply sat in the sun during winter and in the shade during summer, while at night, stretched out on my back on the roof of my house, I watched the moon and the stars. And when you watch the moon and the stars how can you expect your mind not to dwell on God? I couldn't sleep any more. Who made all that? I asked myself. And why? Who made me, and why? Where can I find God so that I may ask Him? Piety requires laziness, you know. It requires leisure--and don't listen to what others say. The laborer who lives from hand to mouth returns home each night exhausted and famished. He assaults his dinner, bolts his food, then quarrels with his wife, beats his children without rhyme or reason simply because he's tired and irritated, and afterwards he clenches his fists and sleeps. Waking up for a moment he finds his wife at his side, couples with her, clenches his fists once more, and plunges back into sleep. . . . Where can he find time for God? But the man who is without work, children, and wife thinks about God, at first just out of curiosity, but later with anguish. Do not shake your head, Sior Francis. You asked and I answered. Forgive me."

"Speak on, speak on, Brother Leo, don't stop. It's true then, is it, that the devil hoodwinks God, that laziness hoodwinks God? You're very encouraging, Brother Leo. Speak on."

"What more can I tell you, Sior Francis? You know the rest. My parents had left me a little something; I exhausted it. Then I took to the road with my sack, began going from door to door, monastery to monastery, village to village, searching for God, asking 'Where is He?' . . . 'Who has seen Him?' . . . 'Where can I find Him?' as though He were some ferocious beast I had gone out to hunt. Some laughed, some threw stones at me, still others knocked me down and beat me to a pulp. But I always jumped to my feet again and set out once more in pursuit of God."

"And did you find Him, did you find Him?" Francis gasped. I felt his warm breath upon my skin.

"How could I possibly find Him, sir? I asked every kind of person: sages, saints, madmen, prelates, troubadours, centenarians. Each gave me advice: showed me a path, saying 'Take it and you'll find Him!' But each showed me a different path. Which was I to choose? I was going out of my wits. A sage from Bologna said to me, 'The road which leads to God is that of wife and children. Get married.' Someone else, a madman and saint from Gubbio, said, 'If you want to find God, don't look for Him. If you want to see Him, close your eyes; to hear Him, stop up your ears. That's what I do.' Having said this, he shut his eyes, stopped up his ears, crossed his hands, and began to weep. . . . And a woman who lived as a hermit in the forest ran stark naked under the pine trees striking her breasts and shouting, 'Love! Love! Love!' That was the only answer she was able to give.

"Another day I came across a saint in a cave. Excessive weeping had blinded him; his skin was all scales, the result of sanctity and uncleanliness. He gave me the advice that was both most correct and most frightening. When I weigh it in my mind my hair stands on end."

"What advice? I want to hear it!" said Francis, seizing my hand. He was trembling.

"I bowed down, prostrated myself before him, and said, 'Holy ascetic, I have set out to find God. Show me the road.'

" 'There isn't any road,' he answered me, beating his staff on the ground.

" 'What is there, then?' I asked, seized with terror.

" 'There is the abyss. Jump!'

" 'Abyss?' I screamed. 'Is that the way?' " 'Yes, the abyss. All roads lead to the earth; the abyss leads to God. Jump!'

" 'I can't, Father.'

" 'Then get married and forget your troubles,' he said, and stretching forth his skeleton-like arm he motioned me to leave. As I departed I could hear his lamentations in the distance."

"Did they all weep?" murmured Francis, terrified. "All? Those who had found God as well as those who had not?"

"All."

"Why, Brother Leo?"

"I don't know. But they all wept."

We remained silent. Francis had buried his face in the pillow; he was breathing fitfully.

"Listen, Sior Francis, it seems to me that I did see a trace of Him once or twice," I said in order to comfort him. "Once, when I was drunk, I caught sight of His back for a moment. It was in a tavern where I was having a good time with my friends, and He had just opened the door to leave. Another time I was going through the woods; there was rain and lightning, and I just managed to catch a glimpse of the edge of His garment as it was illuminated by a lightning flash. But then the flash expired, the garment vanished. Or was it possible that the lightning itself was His garment? Still another time, last winter in fact, I saw His footprints in the snow atop a high mountain. A shepherd came by. 'Look, God's footprints!' I said to him. But he replied with a laugh: 'You're out of your mind, poor fellow. Those are a wolfs tracks; a wolf passed by here.' I kept quiet. What was I to say to this thickheaded bumpkin with his brain filled with sheep and wolves? How could he ever understand anything higher! As for me, I was certain those were God's footprints upon the snow. . . . I've been pursuing Him for twelve years, Sior Francis, but these are the only signs I've found. Forgive me."

Lowering his head, Francis plunged deep into thought. "Do not sigh, Brother Leo," he murmured after a moment. "Who knows, perhaps God is simply the search for God."

These words frightened me. They frightened Francis also. He hid his face in his hands.

"What demon is speaking within me?" he growled in despair.

I didn't breathe a word, but stood there trembling. To search for God, was that God? If so, woe unto us!

Neither of us spoke. Francis' eyes had rolled in their sockets again; I saw only the whites. His cheeks were flushed, his teeth chattering. I covered him with a thick woolen blanket, but he tossed it aside. "I want to be cold," he said. "Leave me! Don't stare at me; do your staring somewhere else!"

I got up to depart, but his expression grew fierce. "Where are you going?" he said to me. "Sit down! Do you plan to leave me all alone like this when I'm in danger? You spoke, you found relief. Now I want to speak, I want to find relief. Where's your mind--on food? Eat then, go to the larder and eat. And drink some wine. What I'm going to tell you is very unpleasant. Fortify yourself so that you'll be able to listen. Do not desert me!"

"I have no need to eat or drink," I answered, hurt. "What do you think I am, nothing but stomach? To listen--that's what I was born for, I want you to know; just for that: to listen. So go ahead and speak. No matter what you say, I'll be able to bear it."

"Give me a glass of water. I'm thirsty."

He drank, then leaned back on his pillow, cocked his ear, and listened intently, his mouth half open. The house was silent, empty. A rooster crowed in the courtyard.

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

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

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

I remained silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He stopped, unable to catch his breath.

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

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

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