tent was he in the blessed present. The
storm had rolled down towards Rome. In the murmur of the rain falling
softly, without wind; in the great voice of the Anio, in the restored
majesty of the mountains, in the wild odour of the damp rocky slope, in
his own heart, Benedetto felt something of the Divine mingling with the
creature, a hidden essence of Paradise. He felt that he was mingling
with the souls of things, as a small voice mingles with an immense
choir, felt that he was one with the sweet-smelling hill, one with the
blessed air. And thus submerged in a sea of heavenly sweetness, his
hands resting in his lap, his eyes half closed, soothed by the soft,
soft rain, he gave himself up to enjoyment, not however, without a vague
wish that those who do not believe, those who do not love, might also
know such sweetness. As his ecstasy diminished his mind once more
recalled the reason of his presence on the lonely hill, in the darkness
of night; recalled the uncertainties of the morrow, and Jeanne, and
his exile from the monastery. But now his soul anchored in God, was
indifferent to uncertainties and doubts, as the motionless Francolano
was indifferent to the quiverings of its cloak of leaves. Uncertainties,
doubts, memories of the mystic vision, departed from him in his profound
self-abandonment to the Divine Will, which might deal with him as it
would. The image of Jeanne, which he seemed to contemplate from the
summit of an inaccessible tower, awakened only a desire to labour
fraternally for her good. Calm reason having fully resumed its sway,
he perceived that the rain had drenched his clothes and that it still
continued to fall softly, softly. What should he do? He could not go
back to the _Ospizio_ for pilgrims, for the herder would be asleep,
and he would not wake him to get in, nor would this, indeed, be easy to
accomplish. He determined to seek shelter under the evergreen oaks of
the Sacro Speco. He rose wearily, and was seized with dizziness. He
waited a short time, and then crept down very, very slowly, towards the
path which leads from Santa Scolastica to the arch at the entrance to
the grove. Exhausted he let himself sink upon the ground there, in the
dark shadow of the great evergreen oaks, bent and spreading upon the
hillside, their arms flung wide; there between the dim light on the
slope beyond the arch to the right, and the dim light on the slope in
front of the grove to the left.

He longed for a litt