Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/70

64 they receive him, and commanded one of their servants to furnish him with lodging in the castle and with all necessary sustenance. This servant, annoyed at the trouble he was put to, and displeased with his master's benevolence, assigned to this seeming beggar a miserable hole under some stone steps, where he threw to him, as to a dog, a sorry pittance of food. The saint, instead of suffering himself to be vexed thereat, first of all thanked God sincerely for it in his heart, and not only bore with patient meekness all this, which he might easily have altered, but, with incredible and superhuman fortitude, endured to witness the lasting grief of his parents and his wife for his absence. For he heard his much-loved parents and his beautiful spouse invoke his name a hundred times a day, and pray for his return, and he saw them waste their days in sorrow for his supposed absence." At this passage of her narrative our good hostess could not refrain her tears; while her two daughters, who during the story had crept close to her side, kept looking steadily up in their mother's face. "But," she continued, "great was the reward which the Almighty bestowed on his constancy, giving him, at his death, the greatest possible proofs of his favour in the eyes of the faithful. For after living several years in this state, daily frequenting the service of God with the most fervent zeal, he at last fell sick, without any particular heed being given to his condition by any one. One morning shortly after this, while the Pope was himself celebrating high mass, in the presence of the emperor and all the nobles, suddenly all the bells in the whole city of Rome began to toll, as if for the passing knell of some distinguished personage. Whilst every one was full of amazement, it was revealed to the Pope that this marvel was in honour of the death of the holiest person in the whole city, who had but just died in the house of the noble patrician. The father of Alexis, being