Don
Clemente had tried in vain to dissuade the old abbot, who had waved the
matter aside with a jest. "Read the Gospel--the Passion according to
St. Mark. He who follows Christ after all others have forsaken Him must
part with his cloak. It is a mark of holiness." Therefore, as some
one must carry this message to Jenne, Don Clemente preferred to do it
himself. He had, moreover, received a strange letter from the parish
priest of Jenne. This priest, a good man, but timid, had written that
Benedetto was, to his mind, a most pious Christian, but that he talked
too much of religion to the people, and that his discourses sometimes
had a flavour of quietism and of rationalism, that there were those who
accused him of employing a demoniacal power for the furtherance of his
not over-orthodox views, that this accusation was certainly false, but
that, nevertheless, prudence forbade the writer to keep Benedetto with
him any longer. Perhaps the wisest course for him would be to retire to
some town where he was not known, and to live quietly there.
Their conversation was here interrupted by a call from Maria.
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