ppetite
and as keen a relish as great drinkers do wine. And many a time he had
longed to have such homely salads of potherbs as women make when they
go into the country; and whiles eating had given him more pleasure
than himseemed it should do to one who fasteth for devotion, as did
he. 'My son,' said the friar, 'these sins are natural and very slight
and I would not therefore have thee burden thy conscience withal more
than behoveth. It happeneth to every man, how devout soever he be,
that, after long fasting, meat seemeth good to him, and after travail,
drink.'

'Alack, father mine,' rejoined Ciappelletto, 'tell me not this to
comfort me; you must know I know that things done for the service of
God should be done sincerely and with an ungrudging mind; and whoso
doth otherwise sinneth.' Quoth the friar, exceeding well pleased, 'I
am content that thou shouldst thus apprehend it and thy pure and good
conscience therein pleaseth me exceedingly. But, tell me, hast thou
sinned by way of avarice, desiring more than befitted or withholding
that which it behoved thee not to withhold?' 'Father mine,' replied
Ciappelletto, 'I would not have you look to my being in the house of
these usurers; I have nought to do here; nay, I came hither to
admonish and chasten them and turn them from this their abominable way
of gain; and methinketh I should have made shift to do so, had not God
thus visited me. But you must know that I was left a rich man by my
father, of whose good, when he was dead, I bestowed the most part in
alms, and after, to sustain my life and that I might be able to
succour Christ's poor, I have done my little traffickings, and in
these I have desired to gain; but still with God's poor have I shared
that which I gained, converting my own half to my occasion and giving
them the other, and in this so well hath my Creator prospered me that
my affairs have still gone from good to better.'

'Well hast thou done,' said the friar; 'but hast thou often been
angered?' 'Oh,' cried Master Ciappelletto, 'that I must tell you I
have very often been! And who could keep himself therefrom, seeing men
do unseemly things all day long, keeping not the commandments of God
neither fearing His judgment? Many times a day I had liefer been dead
than alive, seeing young men follow after vanities and hearing them
curse and forswear themselves, haunting the taverns, visiting not the
churches and ensuing rather the ways of the world than that of