Some listened willingly, others scoffed, the greater number overwhelmed them with questions. "Whence come you?" "Of what order are you?" And they, though sometimes it was wearisome to answer, said simply, "We are penitents, natives of the city of Assisi."[16]
This freshness and poetry will not be found in the later missions. Here the river is still itself, and if it knows toward what sea it is hastening, it knows nothing of the streams, more or less turbid, which shall disturb its limpidity, nor the dykes and the straightenings to which it will have to submit.
A long account by the Three Companions gives us a picture from life of these first essays at preaching:
Many men took the friars for knaves or madmen and refused to receive them into their houses for fear of being robbed. So in many places, after having undergone all sorts of bad usage, they could find no other refuge for the night than the porticos of churches or houses. There were at that time two brethren who went to Florence. They begged all through the city but could find no shelter. Coming to a house which had a portico and under the portico a bench, they said to one another, "We shall be very comfortable here for the night." As the mistress of the house refused to let them enter, they humbly asked her permission to sleep upon the bench.
She was about to grant them permission when her husband appeared. "Why have you permitted these lewd fellows to stay under our portico?" he asked. The woman replied that she had refused to receive them into the house, but had given them permission to sleep under the portico where there was nothing for them to steal but the bench.
The cold was very sharp; but taking them for thieves no one gave them any covering.
As for them, after having enjoyed on their bench no more sleep than was necessary, warmed only by divine warmth, and having for covering only their Lady Poverty, in the early dawn they went to the church to hear mass.
The lady went also on her part, and seeing the friars devoutly praying she said to herself: "If these men were rascals and thieves as my husband said, they would not remain thus in prayer." And while she was making these reflections behold a man of the name of Guido was giving alms to the poor in the church. Coming to the friars he would have given a piece of money to them as to the others, but they refused his money and would not receive it. "Why," he asked, "since you are poor, will you not accept like the others?" "It is true that we are poor," replied Brother Bernardo, "but poverty does not weigh upon us as upon other poor people; for by the grace of God, whose will we are accomplishing, we have voluntarily become poor."
Much amazed, he asked them if they had ever had anything, and learned that they had possessed much, but that for the love of God they had given everything away.... The lady, seeing that the friars had refused the alms, drew near to them and said that she would gladly receive them into her house if they would be pleased to lodge there. "May the Lord recompense to you your good will," replied the friars, humbly.
But Guido, learning that they had not been able to find a shelter, took them to his own house, saying, "Here is a refuge prepared for you by the Lord; remain in it as long as you desire."