The Well of Saint Clare | Page 5

seen traced in three different places
on its marble sides.
Fra Mino remained for hours prostrate before the Altar; but he found it
impossible to pray, and at midnight felt himself weighed down under
the same heaviness that overcame Jesus Christ's disciples in the Garden
of Gethsemane. And lo! as he lay there without courage or counsel, he
saw as it were a white cloud rise above the tomb of San Satiro, and
presently observed that this cloud was made up of a multitude of
cloudlets, of which each one was a woman. They floated in the dim air;
and through their light raiment shone the whiteness of their light limbs.
Then Fra Mino saw how among them were goat-footed young men
who were chasing them. These were naked, and nothing hid the
terrifying ardour of their desires. And the nymphs fled away from them,
while beneath their racing steps there sprang up flowery meadows and
brooks of water. Each time a goat-foot put out his hand to seize one of
them, a sallow would shoot up suddenly to hide the nymph in its
hollow trunk as in a cave, and the grey leaves shivered with light
murmurings and spurts of mocking laughter.
When all the women were hidden in the sallows, their goat-footed
lovers, sitting on the grass of the new-come meadows, breathed in their
flutes of reeds and drew from them sounds to destroy the peace of any
creature of the earth. The nymphs were fascinated, and soon began to
peep out between the branches, and one by one deserting the shady
covert, drew near under the irresistible attraction of the music. Then the
goat-men rushed upon them with a demoniac fury. Folded in the arms
of their ruthless assailants, the nymphs strove to keep up a while longer
their raillery and loud laughter, but the mirth died on their lips. With
heads thrown back and eyes swooning with joy and terror, they could
only call upon their mother, or scream a shrill "You are killing me," or
keep a sullen silence.
Fra Mino longed to turn his head, but he could not, and his eyes
remained wide open in spite of himself.
Meanwhile the nymphs, winding their arms about the goat-men's loins,

fell to biting and caressing and provoking their hairy lovers, and body
intertwined with body, they enfolded and bathed them in their tender
flesh that was sweeter and softer and more living than the water of the
brook which ran by them under the sallows.
At the sight, Fra Mino fell, in mind and intention, into deadly sin. He
desired to be one of these demons, half men and half beasts, and hold to
his bosom, after their carnal fashion, the fair lady of Florence he had
loved in the flower of his years, and who was now dead.
But already the goat-men were scattering through the country-side.
Some were busied gathering honey in the hollow trunks of oaks, others
carving reeds into the shape of flutes, or butting one against the other,
crashing their horned brows together. Meantime the bodies of the
nymphs, sweet wrecks of love, lay motionless, strewing the meadows.
Fra Mino lay groaning on the Chapel flags; for so fierce had been the
desire of sin within him that now he was filled full of bitter shame at
his own weakness.
Suddenly one of the nymphs, chancing as she lay to turn her eyes upon
him, cried out:
"A man! a man!"
And pointing him out to her companions:
"Look, sisters; yonder is no goat-herd, he has no flute of reed beside
him. Nor yet do I recognize him for the master of one of those rustic
farmsteads whose garden-close, sloping to the hill-side beneath the
vines, is guarded by a Priapus hewn out of a stump of beech. What
would he among us, if he is neither goat-herd, nor neat-herd, nor
gardener? His looks are harsh and gloomy, and I cannot read in his eyes
the love of the gods and goddesses that people the wide sky, the woods
and mountains. He wears a barbarous habit; perhaps he is a Scythian.
Let us approach the stranger, my sisters, and make sure he is not come
as a foe to sully our fountains, hew down our trees, tear open our
hill-sides and betray to cruel men the mystery of our happy lurking
places. Come with me, Mnaïs; come, Ægle, Neæra and Melib[oe]a.

"On! on!" returned Mnaïs, "on, with our arms in hand!"
"On! on!" all cried in chorus.
Then Fra Mino saw them spring up, and gather great handfuls of roses,
and advance upon him in a long line, each armed with roses and thorns.
But the distance that separated them from him, which at first had
seemed very short, for indeed he