The Strolling Saint

y the blame of much of the ill that befell me, and the ill that in my sinful life I did to others, upo

rivial and without consequence, may yet be causes pregnant of terrible effects, mainsprings of Des

holars of antiquity can I find that this matter of names has been touched

so, they might in their weighty and impressive manner have set down a lesson on the subject, and so relieved me-who am a

ed what a subtle influence for good or ill, what

it can matter little that he be called Alexander or Achilles; and once there was a man named Judas who fell so fa

-or whose nature is such as to crave for models, the name he bears may become a thing portentous by th

ue of this premiss, at least as it concer

eason for the choice other than the taste of her parents in the matter of sounds. It is a pleasing enough name

soiled and fingered portion of an old manuscript collection of the life histories of a score or so of saints that was one of her dearest possessions. To render herself worthy of the name she bore, to model her life upon that of the sainted woman

he had preferred the virginal life of the cloister, and thus spared me the heavy burden

ecome her wont to weave her life; so that in all that drab, sackcloth tissue there was embroidered at least one warm and brilliant little wedge of colour; so

so very bitterly. Before ever I was born it must have ceased; whilst still she bore me she put from her lips the cup th

t glorious field. Afterwards he was found still living, but upon the very edge and border of Eternity; and when the news of it was borne to my mother I have little doubt but that she imagined it

than of love. Indeed, I almost know this to be so. In delicate health as she was, she bade her people prepare a litter for her, and so she had herself carried into Piacenza, to the Church of St. Augustine. There, having confessed

r that my father, his recovery by now wel

ve offering, an oblate, ere yet

saw a Sign, for she was given to seeing signs in the slightest and most natural happenings. It was as it should be; it was as it had been with the Sainted Monica in whose ways she strove, poor thing, to walk. Moni

d read for myself, the life of that great saint-with such castrations as my tender years demanded-was told me and repeated until I knew by heart its every in

d to have been so different, it is from his Confessions that I have gathered inspiration t

ad, as you have seen; and yet, had she been other than she was, she must have accounted herself cheated of her bargain in the end. For betwixt my father

n, that he should sacrifice me willingly to the seclusion of the cloister, whilst our lords

mother's pietistic obstinacy. She had vowed me to the service of Holy Church, and she would suffer tribulation and death so that her vow should be fulfilled. And hers was a manner again

iding his fiery glance, she would bow her head meekly, fold h

e, and her tears-horrid, silent weeping that brought no trace of emotion to her countenance-showered dow

ntifical sway. Nor was he one to content himself with passive enmity. He must be up and doing, seeking the destruction of the thing he hated. And so it befell that upon the death of Pope Clement (the second Medici Pontiff), profiting by the weak condition f

tle there was about our citadel of Mondolfo, the armed multitudes that thronged the fort

alance a pike in my hands was to procure me the oddest and most exquisite thrills that I had known. But my mother, perceiving

fearful stoicism his harsh upbraidings. She was turned into a suppliant, now fierce, now lachrymose; by her prayers, by her prophecies of the ev

ic; and when from very weariness the flow of her inspired or

something that is not yours to bestow. That vow you cannot break, you say. Be it so. But I must seek a remedy elsewhere. To save

e him with a little moan of horror, ta

spent together-she would turn, and dragging me with her, all stunned and bewildered by something beyond my understanding, she would hurry

n them widened until t

poken between them, what premonitions may have troubled one or the

l. Close to mine was pressed a hot, dark, shaven hawk-face; a pair of great eyes, humid with tears, considered me passionately. Then a rin

im with us to th

tightened there convulsively until th

I sobbed.

his voice. He swung me to his shoulder, and held me poi

ne. "Still with his milk-teeth in his he

me again, and swore o

hen your thews are grown it will not be on thuribles they'll spend their strength, or

sped me to his breast so that the studs of his armour re

one, and I lay weeping, a

one pope must be as supine as another, and that Paul III would prove no more redoubtable than Clement VIII. To his bitter cost did he

ne of the scions of the great house of Pallavicini, who took a wound in the leg wh

tate by the papal emissaries, so that my father never more dared set foot in Mondolfo, or, indeed, within the Stat

and my own behalf by her brother, the powerful Cardinal of San Paulo in Carcere, seconded by that guelphic cousin of my father's, C

d news of him. Now he was in Venice, now in Milan, now in Naples; but never long in any place for his safety's sake. And then one night, six years later, a scarred and grizzled veteran, com

e news to my mother, with whom I was at table at the

ted my father in those six weary years of wandering until now t

the pope's own abominable son. For some months my father had been enjoying the shelter of the Perugians, and he had repaid their hospitality by joining them and bearing

, thought I, when I had heard the tale of horrors that had been und

ll presently learn more fully-sank his head upon his arm and wept like a child to hear the piteous tale of it. And whether from force of example, whether from the memories that came to

y gave orders that Falcone be cared for

rms against the Holy Church, excommunicate and foredoomed to Hell? Or were they of thanksgiving that at last she was completely mistress of my destinies, her mind