ed vital power and caused the
blood to flow more rapidly in my veins. Lorenzo, this is a singularly
fortunate day for me, and I will make the most of it. Come, we will
repair to our Franciscan Place!"

"That is an admirable idea," said Lorenzo, delighted. "If your holiness
can reach it, you will recover your health, and all will again be well."

Ganganelli sighed, and glanced toward heaven with a sad smile.

"Health!" said he. "Ah, Lorenzo, that word reminds me of a lost
paradise. The avenging angel has driven me from it, and I shall never
see it again."

"Say not so!" begged Lorenzo, secretly wiping a tear from his cheek.
"No, say not so, you will certainly recover!"

"Yes, recover!" replied the pope. "For death is a recovery, and in the
end perhaps the most real."

They silently walked on, and making a path through the bushes, they at
length arrived at the place, with the construction of which Lorenzo had
some months before surprised the pope, and which Ganganelli had since
named the "Franciscan Place."

"So," joyfully exclaimed Lorenzo, while the exhausted pope glided down
upon the grass-bank--"so, brother Clement, now let us be cheerful!
You know that here we have nothing more to do with the pope. You have
yourself declared that here you would be brother Clement, and nothing
more; now brother Clement was always a healthy man, full of juvenile
spirits and strength."

"Ah, my friend," responded Ganganelli, "I fear the pope has secretly
followed brother Clement even to this place, and even here no longer
leaves him free! No, no, it is no longer brother Clement who sits
groaning here, it is the vicegerent of God, the father of Christendom,
the holy and blessed pope! And if you knew, Lorenzo, what this
vicegerent of God has to suffer and bear, how his blood like streams of
fire runs through his veins, carbonizing his entrails and parching the
roof of his mouth, so that the tongue fast cleaves to it, and he has
no longer the power to complain of his misery! And such a crushed
earth-worm this miserable, infatuated people call the vicegerent of
God, before whom they bow in the dust! Ah, foolish children, are you not
yourselves disgusted with your masquerade, and do you not blush for this
jest?"

"See you not," said Lorenzo, with forced cheerfulness, "that since you
are here you have, against your will, again become brother Clement, and
inveigh against God's vicegerent who holds his splendid court in the
Vatican