2
Padre Vincenzo worked so many miracles that all Rome was talking about him, and the Father-General thought he would get vain, so he told him not to work any more miracles. Padre Vincenzo therefore worked no more miracles; but one day as he was walking along the street, he passed under a high scaffolding of a house that was being built. Just as he came by, a labourer missed his footing and fell over from the top. ‘Padre Vincenzo, save me!’ cried the man, for everybody knew Padre Vincenzo, and he had just seen him turn into the street. ‘Stop there!’ said Padre Vincenzo; ‘I mustn’t save you, as the Padre-Generale says I’m not to work miracles; but wait there, and I’ll go and ask if I may.’ Then he left him suspended in the air while he ran breathless to ask permission of the Father-General to work the miracle of saving him.
3
One morning Padre Vincenzo had to pass through the Rotonda[1] on business of his community. A temptation of the throat[2] took him as he saw a pair of fine plump pigeons such as you, perhaps, cannot see anywhere out of the Rotonda hanging up for sale. Padre Vincenzo bought the pigeons, and took them home secretly under his cloak. In his cell he plucked the pigeons, and cooked them over a little fire. The unwonted smell of roast pigeon soon perfumed the corridor, and two or three brothers, having peeped through the keyhole and seen what was going on in Padre Vincenzo’s cell, ran off to say to the Father-General,
‘What do you think Padre Vincenzo, whom we all reckon such a saint, is doing now! He is cooking pigeons privately in his cell.’
‘It’s a calumny! I can’t believe it of him,’ answered the Father-General indignantly.
The spying brothers bid him come and see.
‘I am certain if I do, it will be to cover you with confusion in some way or other for telling tales!’ replied the Father-General as he went with them.