"
"Verily, the fault might have been counted to one who hath no sins of
the body to atone for!" sneered Fra Antonio, who could not be converted
to the prevailing tone of admiration for this abnormal being who walked
among them not as other men, and toward whom his own attitude was a
singular compound of obsequiousness and cynicism. "Even the slippers of
your saint can do no wrong," he added venomously.
"But thou, in canonized shoes, couldst walk but wearily, Fra Antonio,
lest they should lead thee in unwonted ways!" one of the party retorted
maliciously.
"Fra Paolo hath fear of no man, and that which he declareth he knoweth,"
said another of the frati, lowering his voice and glancing about him
furtively. "And it hath chanced to him, more than once, to be wiser than
the Serenissimo and the Ten themselves--may San Marco have other uses
for his ears! But the day that our famous Signor Bragadin was summoned
from his palace on the Giudecca to make his promised gold for the
Signoria, I stood with the crowd in the Merceria to see him pass, with
his two black dogs and their golden collars looking for all the world
like powers of evil! And our gold-maker himself going to the Senate like
a noble, with his friends the Cornaro and the Dandolo in crimson
robes--the people thronging to see him pass!"
"Ay, Bragadin was a saintly man!" one of them retorted mockingly.
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