“Yes, it is all mad, but the worst is that he has brought the cursed sickness, lues”—(here he whispered). “It has already attacked Cardinal John de Medici. You know he is said to be the Pope’s successor.”
“As regards the Holy Father, our great Julius II, he is a valiant champion of the Lord, and now the world has seen what this basilisk-egg, France, has hatched. Fancy! they want to come now and divide our Italy among them! As if we did not have enough with the Germans.”
“The French in Naples! What the deuce have we to do with them?”
The Prior now felt obliged to attend to his guest, the monk.
“Eat, little monk,” he said. “He who is weak, eateth herbs, and all flesh is grass, ergo....”
“I never eat meat on Friday, the day on which our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died!”
“Then you are wrong! But you must not speak so loud, you understand, for if you sin, you must go in your room, and hold your mouth! Practise obedience and silence, the first virtues of our Order.”
The monk turned first red, then pale, and his cheekbones could be seen through his thin cheeks. But he kept silence, after he had taken a spoonful of salt in his mouth to help him to control his tongue.
“He is a Maccabee,” whispered the prelate.
“Conventual disciple is decaying,” continued the Prior, jocosely; “the young monks do not obey their superiors any more, but we must have a reformation! Drink, monk, and give me an answer!”