reast, his lips slightly
parted, his face reflecting an inward vision of beatitude. Don Clemente
stroked his hair, calling him softly. The young man started, raised his
head with a dazed look, and, springing out of bed, grasped and kissed
Don Clemente's hand. The monk withdrew it with an impulse of humility,
quickly checked by the purity of his soul, by his consciousness of the
dignity of his office.

"Well?" he said. "Did the Lord speak to you?"

"I am subject to His will," Benedetto replied, "as a leaf in the wind, a
leaf which knows nought."

The monk took his head between his hands, drawing him towards him, and
pressed his lips upon his hair, letting them rest there while their
souls silently communed.

"You must go to the Abbot," he said. "Afterwards you can come to me."

Benedetto fixed his gaze upon him, questioning him without words:
"Why this visit?" Don Clemente's eyes were veiled in silence, and the
disciple humbled himself in a mute but visible impulse of obedience.

"At once?" he inquired.

"At once."

"May I first go and wash in the torrent?"

The master smiled:

"Go, wash in the torrent." Bathing in the water which sometimes, after
heavy rains, sings in the Pucceia Valley to the east of the monastery,
and cuts in rivulets across the road to the Sacro Speco, below Santa
Crocella, was the only physical pleasure in which Benedetto allowed
himself to indulge. It was still sprinkling; mist smoked slowly in the
deep valley; the trembling shallow waters complained to Benedetto as
they hastened across the road, but rested quiet and content in the
hollow of his hands; and through his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks, his
neck, they infused deep into his heart a sense of the sweet chastity of
their soul, a sense of Divine bounty. Benedetto poured the water
over his head copiously, and the spirit of the water entered into his
thoughts. He felt that the Father was sending him forth upon new paths,
but that He would carry him in His mighty hand. He reverently blessed
the creature through which so much light of grace had come to him,
the most pure water! Then he bent his steps towards the Ospizio. Don
Clemente, who was waiting for him in the courtyard, started when he
caught sight of him, so transfigured did he appear. Under his thick,
damp hair his eyes shone with quiet celestial joy, and the fleshless
face, the colour of ivory, wore that expression of occult spirituality
which flowed from the brushes of th