What then? In their hands the Church has been enriched. She has gained
power, which she must retain. And that is to the Church's good."
"And what of the scandal of it?" I stormed.
"0, as to that--why, boy, have you never read Boccaccio?"
"Never," said I.
"Read him, then," he urged me. "He will teach you much that you need to
know. And read in particular the story of Abraam, the Jew, who upon
visiting Rome was so scandalized by the licence and luxury of the clergy
that he straightway had himself baptized and became a Christian, accounting
that a religion that could survive such wiles of Satan to destroy it must
indeed be the true religion, divinely inspired." He laughed his little
cynical laugh to see my confusion increased by that bitter paradox.
It is little wonder that I was all bewildered, that I was like some poor
mariner upon unknown waters, without stars or compass.
Thus that summer ebbed slowly, and the time of my projected minor
ordination approached. Messer Gambara's visits to Fifanti's grew more and
more frequent, until they became a daily occurrence; and now my cousin
Cosimo came oftener too. But it was their custom to come in the forenoon,
when I was at work with Fifanti. And often I observed the doctor to be
oddly preoccupied, and to spend much time in creeping to the window that
was all wreathed in clematis, and in peeping through that purple-decked
green curtain into the garden where his excellency and Cosimo walked with
Monna Giuliana.
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