DOI Artikel:
Rolfe, Frederick W.: Stories Toto told me, [3]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38746#0151
By Baron Corvo 147
preach well, and at last they saw a way out of the difficulty : ‘ For
surely,’ they said, ‘ this Serafico speaks the words of San Paolo
himself, with the tongue of an angel.’
“After this he gave fervorini daily in the convent church, till all
the city was filled with his fame, and at last he was named by
Papa Silvio to preach the Lent in the Church of San Carlo A1
Corso.
“ Of course you know very well, sir, that the devil is always dis-
gusted to see the works of God going on as easily as water running
out of a turned-on tap, and you know also that when a good work
seems to be thriving at its best, then is the time the devil chooses
to try to upset it. And so he went to a little Jesuit called Padre
Tonto Pappagallo—and, of course, I need not tell you that the
Jesuits are not what you might call friendly to the Franciscans—•
and he suggested to him the evil thought, that it was a bad thing
for the Jesuits to be beaten in preaching by the Franciscans, and
what a score it would be if a Jesuit were to have the honour of
catching Fra Serafico in the act of preaching heresy. Padre Tonto,
it happened, had made a bad meditation that morning, having
allowed his eyes to fix themselves upon some of the stone angels
who were dangling their beautiful white legs over the arches round
the apsis, and his thoughts to wander from his meditation to those
things which every good priest flies from with as much haste as he
would fly from the foul fiend appearing in person. And so his
mind was just like a fertile field, and when the devil popped in his
suggestion, the seed immediately took root, and before the morn-
ing was over it had burst into blossom, for this Padre Tonto cut
off to the church of San Carlo to hear the great preacher, and
when he saw the vast multitude all so intent upon those golden
words, that if an earthquake had happened then and there I believe
no one would have blinked, and when he heard the sighs from the
breasts
preach well, and at last they saw a way out of the difficulty : ‘ For
surely,’ they said, ‘ this Serafico speaks the words of San Paolo
himself, with the tongue of an angel.’
“After this he gave fervorini daily in the convent church, till all
the city was filled with his fame, and at last he was named by
Papa Silvio to preach the Lent in the Church of San Carlo A1
Corso.
“ Of course you know very well, sir, that the devil is always dis-
gusted to see the works of God going on as easily as water running
out of a turned-on tap, and you know also that when a good work
seems to be thriving at its best, then is the time the devil chooses
to try to upset it. And so he went to a little Jesuit called Padre
Tonto Pappagallo—and, of course, I need not tell you that the
Jesuits are not what you might call friendly to the Franciscans—•
and he suggested to him the evil thought, that it was a bad thing
for the Jesuits to be beaten in preaching by the Franciscans, and
what a score it would be if a Jesuit were to have the honour of
catching Fra Serafico in the act of preaching heresy. Padre Tonto,
it happened, had made a bad meditation that morning, having
allowed his eyes to fix themselves upon some of the stone angels
who were dangling their beautiful white legs over the arches round
the apsis, and his thoughts to wander from his meditation to those
things which every good priest flies from with as much haste as he
would fly from the foul fiend appearing in person. And so his
mind was just like a fertile field, and when the devil popped in his
suggestion, the seed immediately took root, and before the morn-
ing was over it had burst into blossom, for this Padre Tonto cut
off to the church of San Carlo to hear the great preacher, and
when he saw the vast multitude all so intent upon those golden
words, that if an earthquake had happened then and there I believe
no one would have blinked, and when he heard the sighs from the
breasts