THE NINTH MAN
revolting in their rejoicings. The business of living and dying and of buying and selling for a moment sank to unimportance.
"We are to live," San Moglio shouted, "therefore, let us live." And they lived at their hardest. The savage rejoicing of the piazza would not spend itself, and finally it was the sight of three fat women teetering and shrieking, crying and dancing, as though they were girls, around a May-pole, that sickened me. I went out up to the little piazza of Ogni Santi, and there sat by the fountain a man whose head was bowed on his hands, and as I came nearer I saw that it was the Brother Minor, Agnello, and I saw that he wept. And as he wept he cried aloud, "The Lord take from me this cup."
Two loutish boys were throwing mud at him, but he heeded them not; and they, still tormenting him, cried, "Why do you weep?"
Said he, his hands in his eyes, "Because I have but thirty days to live innocent, and then, by taking an innocent life I give my innocence." And he wept again, and the boys laughed together, and one cried:
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