The Well of Saint Clare | Page 7

on these extraordinary events and only divulge them after a
more exhaustive study of all the circumstances. Besides it so happened
that the Lord Bishop, allied with the Guelphs of Pisa against the
Ghibellines of Florence, was at that moment waging war with such
right good will that for a whole month he had not so much as
unbuckled his cuirass. And that is why, without saying a word to
anyone, Fra Mino made profound researches on the tomb of San Satiro
and the Chapel containing it. Deeply versed in the knowledge of books,
he investigated many texts, both ancient and modern; yet found no
glimmer of enlightenment in any of them. Indeed the only effect of the
works on Magic which he studied was to double his uncertainty.
One morning, after labouring all the night as was his wont, he was fain
to refresh his heart with a walk in the fields. He took the hilly path
which, winding between the vines and the elms they are wedded to,
leads to a wood of myrtles and olives, sacred in old days to the Roman
gods. His feet bathed in the wet grass, his brow refreshed by the dew
that distilled from the pointed leaves of the Guelder roses, Fra Mino
wandered long in the forest, till he came upon a spring over which the
wild tamarisks gently swayed their light foliage and the downy clusters

of their pink berries. Lower down amid the willows, where the water
formed a wider pool, herons stood motionless, while the smaller birds
sang sweetly in the branching myrtles. The scent of mint rose moist and
fragrant from the ground, and the grass was spangled with the flowers
of which our Lord said that "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these." Fra Mino sat down on a mossy stone and praising
God, Who made the heavens and the dew, he fell to pondering the
hidden mysteries of Nature.
Now the remembrance of all he had seen in the Chapel of San Michele
never left his thoughts; so he sat meditating, his head between his
hands, wondering for the thousandth time what the dream might signify:
"For indeed," he said to himself, "such a vision must needs have a
meaning; it should even have several, which it behoves to discover,
whether by sudden illumination, or by dint of an exact applying of the
scholastic rules. And I deem that, in this especial case, the poets I
studied at Bologna, such as Horace the Satirist and Statius, should
likewise be of great help to me, seeing many verities are intermingled
with their fables."
After long pondering these thoughts within his breast, and others more
subtle still, he lifted his eyes and perceived he was not alone. Leaning
against the cavernous trunk of an ancient holm-oak, an old man stood
gazing at the sky through the leaves, and smiling to himself. Above his
hoary brow peeped out two shorty blunt horns. His nose was flat with
wide nostrils, and from his chin depended a white beard, through which
were visible the rugged muscles of the neck. A shaggy growth of hair
covered his breast, while from the thighs downwards his limbs showed
a thick fleece that trailed down to his cloven feet. He held to his lips a
flute of reed, from which he drew a feeble sound of music. Then he
began to sing in a voice that left the words barely distinguishable:
Laughing she fled, Her teeth in the golden grape; After I sped, And
clasping her flying shape, I quenched my drouth On the fruit at her
mouth.
Astounded at these strange sights and sounds, Fra Mino crossed
himself. Still the old man showed no mark of confusion, but cast a long

and artless look at the Monk. Amid the deep wrinkles that scored his
face, the clear blue eyes sparkled like the waters of a spring through the
rugged bark of a grove of oaks.
"Man or beast," shrilled Mino, "I command you in the name of the
Saviour to say who you are."
"My son," replied the old man, "I am San Satiro! Speak not so loud, for
fear of frightening the birds."
Then Fra Mino resumed, in a quieter tone:
"Forasmuch, old man, as you shrank not before the dread sign of the
Cross, I cannot hold you to be a demon or some foul spirit escaped out
of Hell. But if verily and indeed you are a man, as you say you are, or
rather the soul of a man sanctified by the deeds of a good life and by
the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, expound, I pray you, the mystery of
your goat's horns and your shaggy limbs ending in those black, cloven
hoofs."