mewhat better; no one could understand the
resistance to death offered by this body so long worn out by suffering.

He himself began to hope again. A physician of Arezzo whom he knew well,
having come to visit him, "Good friend," Francis asked him, "how much
longer do you think I have to live?"

"Father," replied the other reassuringly, "this will all pass away, if
it pleases God."

"I am not a cuckoo,"[39] replied Francis smiling, using a popular
saying, "to be afraid of death. By the grace of the Holy Spirit I am so
intimately united to God that I am equally content to live or to die."

"In that case, father, from the medical point of view, your disease is
incurable, and I do not think that you can last longer than the
beginning of autumn."

At these words the poor invalid stretched out his hands as if to call on
God, crying with an indescribable expression of joy, "Welcome, Sister
Death!" Then he began to sing, and sent for Brothers Angelo and Leo.

On their arrival they were made, in spite of their emotion, to sing the
Canticle of the Sun. They were at the last doxology when Francis,
checking them, improvised the greeting to death:

Be praised, Lord, for our Sister the Death of the body,
whom no man may escape;
alas for them who die in a state of mortal sin;
happy they who are found conformed to thy most holy will,
for the second death will do to them no harm.

From this day the palace rang unceasingly with his songs. Continually,
even through the night, he would sing the Canticle of the Sun or some
other of his favorite compositions. Then, when wearied out, he would beg
Angelo and Leo to go on.

One day Brother Elias thought it his duty to make a few remarks on the
subject. He feared that the nurses and the people of the neighborhood
would be scandalized; ought not a saint to be absorbed in meditation in
the face of death, to await it with fear and trembling instead of
indulging in a gayety that might be misinterpreted?[40] Perhaps Bishop
Guido was not entirely a stranger to these reproaches; it seems not
improbable that to have his palace crowded with Brothers Minor all these
long weeks had finally put him a little out of humor. But Francis would
not yield; his union with God was too sweet for him to consent not to
sing it.

They decided at last to remove him to Portiuncula. His desire was to be
fulfilled; he was to die beside the humble chapel where he had heard
God's voice consecrating him