"Little fish, I am a knight of God; and I have chosen for my lady one beyond all mortal women. She hath neither fine raiment, nor gold, nor jewels; neither a covering for her head, nor shoes for her feet; neither land nor castles; nay! not so much as a shelter against the ravening beasts; nor do her serving-men bring her delicate meats in vessels of gold and silver, nor do musicians play to her upon viols or psalteries, nor hath she any treasure hidden in the ground. She goeth from door to door, begging her bread through every city of the populous earth; and the porters drive her from the gate with blows; and the children mock her in the streets for being old, and lean, and ill-favoured; and the dogs snarl at her heels. Yet all these things she endures patiently, nor complains that men revile her, for God hath put much comfort in her heart. I, also, little brother Francis, in my youth reviled her; for it was then my pleasure to live sumptuously, to wear rich apparel, and to pass my days with music and feasting; but when she revealed herself to me I was overcome by her exceeding great beauty, and I lamented that I had not followed after her all my days. Alas! it is the wickedness of men that shows her as a vile and despicable thing; for having nothing she possesses all things. God hath clothed her with virtues more precious than rubies; he hath given her the wide earth and all the pleasant ways thereof to be her home; he hath commanded the beasts that they do her no hurt: nay! they are serviceable to her and fawn about her feet; and God himself ministers to her, feeding her as he feeds the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, and sweetening her food, so that if it be but a dry crust it savours most excellently to her, even as honey and manna in the mouth. Such is the excellence of my Lady Poverty, with whom I shall always keep faith in this life. Little fish, God hath given you the cool water to inhabit; and he hath clad you in golden mail, delightful to the eyes of men; and when all the birds and beasts and creeping things entered into the Ark, he preserved you in a safe refuge beneath the tumult of the waters: yea! of all things, which went not in with Noah, he preserved you in your multitudes though all else perished. Little fish, I praise the Lord for you, because he hath made you beautiful, and shown you infinite mercies."
But the fish, having eaten all the crumbs, swam back among the stems of the lilies, and hung poised there in the shadowy waters, with undulating motions, waving their delicate fins, and opening and shutting their mouths. Francis considered them for a moment.
"Little fish," he said, "perchance it is the way that you praise the Lord, being dumb and without reason; but men, to whom God hath given such excellent gifts as speech and reason, have turned from him. I would that they also might learn to praise him with great simplicity and joy in their hearts."
He looked toward the gateway through which he saw the roofs and towers of Rome, the city which had not accepted him, inhospitable, gay, given over to the lusts of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, hungering passionately after the tangible but transient pleasures of this delightful world; a new Jerusalem, as stubborn and hard-hearted as the old, but, like that, too, a chosen city of God, in which he had elected to dwell and have his abiding place. Tears suffused his face as he looked at it lying there calm and golden in the sunlight.
"I have not known how to draw them to me," he said. "Surely they would have followed after me if I had spoken to them more joyfully. A little thing delights them, and they will flock to see a dancer, a juggler, a jester! We must become the jesters of God, amusing the hearts of men and leading them toward spiritual joys."
A bell struck, and was answered from all the towers of Rome, until the air pulsed with vibrations as if with a multitude of beating wings. Francis moved slowly away toward the new buildings of the Lateran. Those of his companions who were pacing up and down in the cool shadow of the wall suddenly stopped and pointed to him.
"Look! Look!" they cried.
Some play of the wind carrying the fine drifting mist over the isolated figure had clothed him for a moment in a glory of radiant colours. The sound of the bell still trembling in the air, and the sudden iridescence of spray in the sunlight, was to them a revelation. Hearing their voices raised Francis went toward them.
"What is it, my brothers?" he asked of them.
They received him almost with adoration.