He stopped in front of a big house with many heavy balconies. He seized the door-knocker and pounded until a servant awoke. He would not be quiet till the servant called up a maid, and the maid waked the signora.
“Donna Micaela, Fra Felice is downstairs. He insists on speaking to you.”
When Donna Micaela at last came down to Fra Felice, he was still panting and breathless, but there was a fire in his eyes, and little pale roses in his cheeks.
It was the image, the image. When Fra Felice had rung the four-o’clock matins that morning he had gone into the church to look at him.
Then he had discovered that big stones had loosened from the dome just over the image. They had fallen on the altar and broken it to pieces, but the image had stood untouched. And none of the plaster and dust that had tumbled down had fallen on the image; it was quite uninjured.
Fra Felice took Donna Micaela’s hand and told her that she must go with him to the church and see the miracle. She should see it before any one, because she had taken care of the image.
And Donna Micaela went with him through the gray, chilly morning to his monastery, while her heart throbbed with eagerness and expectation.
When she arrived and saw that Fra Felice had told the truth, she said to him that she had recognized the image as soon as she had caught sight of it, and that she knew that it could work miracles. “He is the greatest and gentlest of miracle-workers,” she said.
Fra Felice went up to the image and looked into its eyes. For there is a great difference in images, and the wisdom of an old monk is needed to understand which has power and which has not. Now Fra Felice saw that this image’s eyes were deep and glowing, as if they had life; and that on its lips hovered a mysterious smile.
Then old Fra Felice fell on his knees and stretched his clasped hands towards the image, and his old shrivelled face was lighted by a great joy.