"They were scarlet, like an eminence's," explained Fra Giulio, who had secured this choice bit for the entertainment of his special cronies; "for all colors are one to Fra Paolo, who hath no distinction for trifles."
"Because he spendeth himself in scheming for honors that belong elsewhere," interposed a disaffected brother who had strolled up and joined the group uninvited; he belonged to another chapter of the Servi, and had but recently come among them; honors had passed him by and duties attracted him less, and he had made no friends within the convent, though he professed great interest in all that concerned Fra Paolo, and had even offered to wait upon him in chapel or in his cell.
"Thou, Fra Antonio, seek thine own friends!" Fra Giulio retorted, with unusual asperity; "for this tale is too good for thine hearing, being another triumph for Fra Paolo in the days when he was only a frate of the Servi."
"Ebbene, and then?" urged the eager auditors, crowding around the speaker, for the incongruity of the grave padre, in his frayed and rusty gown attempting to usurp a decoration, lent interest to the petty happening.
"Ebbene, and then his Eminence of Borromeo—for it seemeth that only the illustrious play parts in this farce"—Fra Giulio continued with keen enjoyment, "his Eminence of Borromeo hath explained at Rome that Fra Paolo was innocent of contempt of rule."
"Verily, the fault might have been counted to one who hath no sins of the body to atone for!" sneered Fra Antonio, who could not be converted to the prevailing tone of admiration for this abnormal being who walked among them not as other men, and toward whom his own attitude was a singular compound of obsequiousness and cynicism. "Even the slippers of your saint can do no wrong," he added venomously.
"But thou, in canonized shoes, couldst walk but wearily, Fra Antonio, lest they should lead thee in unwonted ways!" one of the party retorted maliciously.
"Fra Paolo hath fear of no man, and that which he declareth he knoweth," said another of the frati, lowering his voice and glancing about him furtively. "And it hath chanced to him, more than once, to be wiser than the Serenissimo and the Ten themselves—may San Marco have other uses for his ears! But the day that our famous Signor Bragadin was summoned from his palace on the Giudecca to make his promised gold for the Signoria, I stood with the crowd in the Merceria to see him pass, with his two black dogs and their golden collars looking for all the world like powers of evil! And our gold-maker himself going to the Senate like a noble, with his friends the Cornaro and the Dandolo in crimson robes—the people thronging to see him pass!"
"Ay, Bragadin was a saintly man!" one of them retorted mockingly. "Dost remember the tale how that he fooled the worshipful Signoria to leave him a week in peace, that he might take the blessed sacrament quietly, finding therein 'a holy joy' that should fit him to proceed to the service of Venice—looking, meanwhile, for means of escape?"
"Davvero! but this was the hour of his highest favor, and I followed with the rest of the crowd till there was scarce breathing space under the clock tower, where the Magi were just coming forth to salute the Madonna and the Bambino at the stroke of the day; and the people were shouting so one could not hear the bell for cries of 'Gold! gold! Bragadin!'