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 the _Quattrocento_. How could that face
harmonise with peasant's attire? In his heart Don Clemente congratulated
himself upon a thought which he had conceived during the night, and had
already communicated to the Abbot, namely, to give Benedetto an old
lay-brother's habit. Before consenting or refusing the Abbot wished to
see Benedetto and speak with him.
The Abbot, while waiting for Benedetto, was strumming with his knuckles
a piece of his own composition, accompanying the sound with horrible
contortions of lips, nostrils and eyebrows. Upon hearing a gentle knock
at the door, he neither answered nor stopped playing. Having finished
the piece he began it again, and played it a second time from beginning
to end. Then he stopped and listened.
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