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| Fra Dolcino |
FRA DOLCINO
Heretic
by Marcel Schwob
He first learned of holy things in the church of San-Michele at Orte, when his mother held him so his little hands might touch the pretty wax figures hanging before the Virgin. His parents’ house adjoined the baptistry. Three times a day, at dawn, at noon and at nightfall, he saw two Franciscan monks go by begging bread for their basket, and often he followed them to the convent door. One of these two was very old, having been ordained by Saint Francis himself, so he said. He promised to teach Dolcino the language of the birds and how to talk with all the beasts of the fields. Soon Dolcino spent his days in the convent, adding his fresh young voice to the songs of the brethren. When the bell called them to work he would help wash their greens and vegetables around a big bucket. Robert, the cook, loaned him an old knife to scrape the bowls. Dolcino liked to visit the refectory; he loved to see the fine lamp they had there, and the painted shade with its pictures of the Twelve Apostles in wooden sandals and little capes that fell over their shoulders.
But to go to begging from door to door with the monks was his greatest pleasure. On such occasions he was permitted to carry their napkin-covered basket while they asked for bread. The sun was high in the sky as they walked along one day after several poor houses along the river bank had refused them. The heat was intense, and the two friars were hungry and very thirsty when they entered a courtyard they had never visited before. Dolcino exclaimed in surprise as he set the basket down, for this place was all tapestried with fresh green vines and transparent verdure. Leopards and other strange beasts from across the sea were romping together, while youths and girls in gay clothing made sweet music on pipes and with zithers. A deep tranquillity pervaded the cool and odorous shade. Singers were singing strange songs to which the others listened in silence. The monks uttered not a word. Their hunger and their thirst were sated. They no longer wanted for any¬ thing. They decided at last to go, but when they reached the river bank not a sign of the entrance to the mysterious court remained behind them. The opening in the wall had vanished. Until Dolcino found the basket they believed it had all been a vision or a necromancy. But there lay the basket filled with bread—bread so white that Jesus Him¬ self might have given it out of His own hands.
Thus was the miracle of begging revealed to Dolcino. He took no holy orders after that, having conceived a stranger, loftier ideal. The brethren carried him over the roads of Italy from one convent to another, from Bologna to Modena, to Parma, to Cremona, to Pistoja and to Lucques. At Pisa he had his great revelation of the true faith. As he slept one night atop the wall of the Episcopal palace, he was awakened by the sound of a drum. A host of children carrying lighted tapers were circling around a savage man who blew on a brazen trumpet. Dolcino believed this man he saw must be John the Divine, for he wore a long black beard and a rough haircloth garment marked from collar to hem with a large red cross. The pelt of a wild beast was around his waist. In a loud, terrible voice he exclaimed: “Laudato et benedetto et glorificato sio lo Patre ” and all the children repeated his words. Then he cried “sia lo Fijo” and the children repeated that. When he chanted “sia lo Spiritu Sancto” they said the words after him. Together they ended with the cry: “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!” and after a huge blast of his trumpet he began to preach. His words were harsh as mountain wine but they held Dolcino, most of all, when the man in haircloth thumped the drum. Admiration and envy filled Dolcino’s soul. This man was ignorant and violent—he knew no Latin (he pronounced the penitence “penitenza”) but he repeated sinister predictions of Merlin and Sibyl and Joachim of Floris, all in the Book of Figures. He prophesied the Anti-Christ in the person of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa whose ruin would he complete until the seven orders were taken from him according to the Writings. Dolcino followed the strange man all the way to Parma where the full understanding came to him.
The announcer shall proceed the founder of the seven orders, Dolcino was given to know. So there at Parma, on the ancient stone from which the magistrates addressed the people, he proclaimed his new faith. Its followers must dress, he said, with little white capes over their shoulders like the apostles on the lamp-shade in the refectory of the Franciscans. Baptism was not enough, he declared. True believers must return to the complete innocence of children. He made a cradle and got in it, calling for the breast of some pious woman who cried with pity. To test his chastity he persuaded a woman to have her daughter come naked to his bed. He begged a sack of money, distributing it among the poor, to thieves and to women of the streets. Work must cease, he cried, for all could live like the beasts of the fields. Robert, the convent cook, ran away to follow Dolcino, feeding his new leader out of a bowl stolen from the poor brethren. Folk believed the days of Gerardino Secarelli, the mad vagabond, and his Chevaliers of Jesus, had come back out of the past. Blissfully they followed Dolcino, murmuring: “Father, father, father!” The monks of Parma finally drove him out of the city. Margherita, a girl of noble family, ran down the road after him, joining him on his march to Plaisance. He caught up a sack marked with the red cross and threw it over her and took her with him. Swineherds and drovers saw them sleeping in the fields. Many left their flocks to follow. Captive women whom the men of Cremona had cruelly mutilated by cutting off their noses, implored them and came with them, hiding their faces behind white shrouds. Margherita instructed them in the new faith. On a wooded mountain not far from Novara they established themselves for a communal life, though Dolcino set up neither rule nor order: according to his doctrines all would be found in charity. Those who wished fed on berries and herbs. Others begged in the towns and some stole cattle. The life of Dolcino and Margherita was free under the sky, but the people of Novara could not understand. When the peasants complained of thieving and scandal soldiery was sent to clear the mountain and the apostles were driven away. As for Dolcino and Margherita, they were tied to the back of an ass, facing tailward, and led into Novara where they were burned in the market place, both on the same pyre by order of the law. Dolcino made only one request. He asked that they should not be stripped, but burned in their white mantles, like the apostles on the lamp-shade in the refectory of the Franciscans.
Marcel Schwob
Imaginary Lives
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