“You are right, Madame; she was a woman of strength and prudence.  When Saint Francis, ill and almost blind, came to spend a few days at Saint Damien, near his friend, she built with her own hands a hut for him in the garden.  Pain, languor, and burning eyelids deprived him of sleep.  Enormous rats came to attack him at night.  Then he composed a joyous canticle in praise of our splendid brother the Sun, and our sister the Water, chaste, useful, and pure.  My most beautiful verses have less charm and splendor.  And it is just that it should be thus, for Saint Francis’s soul was more beautiful than his mind.  I am better than all my contemporaries whom I have known, yet I am worth nothing.  When Saint Francis had composed his Song of the Sun he rejoiced.  He thought:  ’We shall go, my brothers and I, into the cities, and stand in the public squares, with a lute, on the market-day.  Good people will come near us, and we shall say to them:  “We are the jugglers of God, and we shall sing a lay to you.  If you are pleased, you will reward us.”  They will promise, and when we shall have sung, we shall recall their promise to them.  We shall say to them:  “You owe a reward to us.  And the one that we ask of you is that you love one another.”  Doubtless, to keep their word and not injure God’s poor jugglers, they will avoid doing ill to others.’”

Madame Martin thought St. Francis was the most amiable of the saints.

“His work,” replied Choulette, “was destroyed while he lived.  Yet he died happy, because in him was joy with humility.  He was, in fact, God’s sweet singer.  And it is right that another poor poet should take his task and teach the world true religion and true joy.  I shall be that poet, Madame, if I can despoil myself of reason and of conceit.  For all moral beauty is achieved in this world through the inconceivable wisdom that comes from God and resembles folly.”

“I shall not discourage you, Monsieur Choulette.  But I am anxious about the fate which you reserve for the poor women in your new society.  You will imprison them all in convents.”

“I confess,” replied Choulette, “that they embarrass me a great deal in my project of reform.  The violence with which one loves them is harsh and injurious.  The pleasure they give is not peaceful, and does not lead to joy.  I have committed for them, in my life, two or three abominable crimes of which no one knows.  I doubt whether I shall ever invite you to supper, Madame, in the new Saint Mary of the Angels.”  He took his pipe, his carpet-bag, and his stick: 

“The crimes of love shall be forgiven.  Or, rather, one can not do evil when one loves purely.  But sensual love is formed of hatred, selfishness, and anger as much as of passion.  Because I found you beautiful one night, on this sofa, I was assailed by a cloud of violent thoughts.  I had come from the Albergo, where I had heard Miss Bell’s cook improvise magnificently twelve hundred verses on Spring.  I was inundated by a celestial joy which the sight of you made me lose.  It must be that a profound truth is enclosed in the curse of Eve.  For, near you, I felt reckless and wicked.  I had soft words on my lips.  They were lies.  I felt that I was your adversary and your enemy; I hated you.  When I saw you smile, I felt a desire to kill you.”