"Yes," answered Francis, arousing himself and looking at them with a
smile which they did not recognize. "I am thinking of taking a wife
more beautiful, more rich, more pure than you could ever imagine."[12]

This reply marks a decisive stage in his inner life. By it he cut the
last links which bound him to trivial pleasures. It remains for us to
see through what struggles he was to give himself to God, after having
torn himself free from the world. His friends probably understood
nothing of all that had taken place, but he had become aware of the
abyss that was opening between them and him. They soon accepted the
situation.

As for himself, no longer having any reason for caution, he gave himself
up more than ever to his passion for solitude. If he often wept over his
past dissipations and wondered how he could have lived so long without
tasting the bitterness of the dregs of the enchanted cup, he never
allowed himself to be overwhelmed with vain regrets.

The poor had remained faithful to him. They gave him an admiration of
which he knew himself to be unworthy, yet which had for him an infinite
sweetness. The future grew bright to him in the light of their
gratitude, of the timid, trembling affection which they dared not utter
but which his heart revealed to him; this worship which he does not
deserve to-day he will deserve to-morrow, at least he promises himself
to do all he can to deserve it.

To understand these feelings one must understand the condition of the
poor of a place like Assisi. In an agricultural country poverty does
not, as elsewhere, almost inevitably involve moral destitution, that
degeneration of the entire human being which renders charity so