The monk gave a curious deprecatory gesture with his hands.
"Since you died! So long have you been dead!"
Varillo surveyed him with a touch of scorn.
"You talk in parables—like your Master!" he said with a feeble attempt at a laugh. "I am not strong enough to understand you! And if you are a Trappist monk, why do you talk at all? I thought one of your rules was perpetual silence?"
"Silence? Yes—everyone is silent but me!" said the monk—"I may talk—because I am only Ambrosio,—mad Ambrosio!—something wrong here!" And he touched his forehead. "A little teasing demon lives always behind my eyes, piercing my brain with darts of fire. And he obliges me to talk; he makes me say things I should not—and for all the mischief he works upon me I wear this—see!"—And springing up suddenly he threw aside the folds of his garment, and displayed his bare chest, over which a coarse rope was crossed and knotted so tightly, that the blood was oozing from the broken flesh on either side of it. "For every word I say, I bleed!"
Varillo gave a nervous cry and covered his eyes.
"Do not be afraid!" said Ambrosio, drawing his robe together again, "It is only flesh—not spirit—that is wounded! Flesh is our great snare,—it persuades us to eat, to sleep, to laugh, to love—the spirit commands none of these things. The spirit is of God—it wants neither food nor rest,—it is pure and calm,—it would escape to Heaven if the flesh did not cramp its wings!"
Varillo took his hand from his eyes and tossed himself back on his pillow with a petulant moan.
"Can they do nothing better for me than this?" he ejaculated. "To place me here in this wretched cell alone with a madman!"
Ambrosio stood by the pallet bed looking down upon him with a sort of child-like curiosity.