One day he brought him to a field where the young men amused themselves at the games of the day; he knew this to be a haunt of Clement's late friends.
And sure enough ere long Pietro Vanucci and Andrea passed by them, and cast a careless glance on the two friars. They did not recognize their dead friend in a shaven monk.
Clement gave a very little start, and then lowered his eyes and said a paternoster.
“Would ye not speak with them, brother?” said Jerome, trying him.
“No brother: yet was it good for me to see them. They remind me of the sins I can never repent enough.”
“It is well,” said Jerome, and he made a cold report in Clement's favour.
Then Jerome took Clement to many death-beds. And then into noisome dungeons; places where the darkness was appalling, and the stench loathsome, pestilential; and men looking like wild beasts lay coiled in rags and filth and despair. It tried his body hard; but the soul collected all its powers to comfort such poor wretches there as were not past comfort. And Clement shone in that trial. Jerome reported that Clement's spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak.
“Good!” said Anselm; “his flesh is weak, but his spirit is willing.”
But there was a greater trial in store.
I will describe it as it was seen by others.