St Francis, a dog and redemption

The words are mine, the idea, Karel Capek's. I here recreate a pale simulacrum of an out of print story by the author of R.U.R. and War with the Newts. It is done out of respect not cheating. This comes nowhere close to Kapek's prose, even in translation, but the idea is so endearing.

It is a feeble effort but perhaps it will move.

The farmer paused to mop his brow with the soiled towel hanging from his belt. Wiping his forehead and cheeks, he rubbed his naked chest, tanned to the colour of tree bark in the summer sun, and then his arms and, as he folded the towel back into his belt, gazed into the distance along a winding path that led from his smallholding to the next. As he peered at the panorama spread before him, he made out a small figure; a figure the colour of the earth from which the farmer ground out a meagre existence for his wife and family.

“Another mendicant friar,” he thought. As if life were not precarious enough in these foothills with never any certainty that there would be food on the table for those he loved, hours of backbreaking toil in the baking sun from dawn until dusk and beyond; and these friars had the cheek to beg from him! He, who had too little of almost everything, and too much charity. “There is little to complain about, I suppose,” he muttered to himself. “To devote oneself to God, to willingly dispossess oneself of all that is desirable in this world, a wife, children, a place, however small, that one might call one’s own; to do this for the love of God is perhaps a truly wond’rous thing deserving of our charity. For although I love my God with all my heart, this I could not do, and I hope He does forgive me for this.”

The image of the friar grew larger in his sight and he began to discern details: the straw, wide-brimmed hat, which cast a long shadow across his face; the aquiline nose, a rudder steering the friar along his course, along the strait but winding road to salvation. Dust lay thick and heavy around the plain brown cassock, a cord loosely knotted around his middle, the underarms stained a deep brown, almost sepia.

“Come, wife! Bring some food for we have a guest,” the farmer called loudly towards the hovel he called home. A plump woman with long, flowing, black hair appeared in the doorway, a small raven-haired child hanging at her breast. “Bring water too,” the farmer called. “He will no doubt be thirsty and wine, though cheaper, these friars will not take, except at mass!” The farmer’s wife disappeared from whence she came just as the friar approached the gate.

“Hail to you, child of God!" the friar called. "Would you have a crust perhaps to share with an itinerant friar who has yet to break his fast this day though I have been many hours on the road since dawn did first break? It is of no matter if the crust be stale and, perhaps, a flagon of water?” The farmer smiled. “Come, father, we will share what little we have.” The friar opened the gate and stepped up to the farmer and grasping his hand declared: “God bless you, my son! You shall reap many rewards in heaven for the kindness you show.”

“You have a name?” the farmer asked. “Brother Francis, I am called by my brethren and Francis of Assisi by others.” the friar replied. It wat at this point that a small dog, whippet like, its ribs starkly outlined against its chest, hearing the friar's soft voice, crept from behind a barrel, its tail between its legs, its head bowed in submission. The farmer raised his fist and lashed out with his boot. “Begone wretched cur! Begone! Do not torment us so, spawn of Satan!” The farmer aimed another kick at the dog. “Brother!” exclaimed the friar. “Do not treat God’s creatures so! It is needless! What can this poor creature ever have done to you that would make you even contemplate such behaviour. He is, like all of our God’s creatures, innocent.”

The farmer’s wife re-appeared in the doorway, a small muslin bag of bread and cheese in one hand, a flagon of water in the other. She hesitated on the small porch, as though in fear. “Get him away from here!” she screamed. The dog cowered behind his barrel, his body shaking as though a fit were upon him. “Sister,” the friar said, “what has this animal done? Why do you punish him so? He is a creature of God, as you are. Why such scorn? He surely cannot deserve your hatred.”

The farmer beckoned to his wife to come to him and the friar who was now kneeling so as to present a less imposing and threatening figure to the trembling animal before him. As she handed the food and water to Francis, the friar could see that she was crying. “You must forgive us, friar," she said gesturing towards the dog. "Although we have no forgiveness for that in us, yet still we ask. He is our dog, these five years past but we cannot bear him to be here, around us, not now. However he will not leave, whatever violence we do him. He runs but ever he returns, whimpering in the shadows. We only wish that he were gone.”

“But he is your friend, my daughter, a creature of God. He was created especially for his devotion and trust. Why do you wish him gone?” the friar asked . The farmer laid his arm across his wife’s shoulder and quietly spoke. “It is my wife's niece. She left home not 10 miles from here to visit us and help my wife with the baby. A comely child and ever willing to help, she was. Her laughter was like unto a trickling stream, ever bubbling. She did not arrive at the appointed hour and although we searched and searched for days, from dawn until dusk, no trace of her did we ever find. Most like, set upon by brigands, or worse. Her loss was felt by all in these hills.” At the sound of his master’s quiet, calm voice the dog once more crept from behind his barrel, his legs bent, scraping the earth with his belly.

“Then three days ago, that wretched cur returned with a bone. It was an arm bone of a child, slivers of her fine new smock still attached.” The friar gasped. “No, friar, we do not think that the dog was responsible, but how could he? How could he do such a thing? To treat our niece’s sacred body so? To return to us with such a thing? Does she not deserve to have a burial, in the sight of God? To know that she has been ripped apart by scavengers!” The friar hung his head. Moving to one side, he looked into the dog’s eyes. “That was not well done, little one. To so defile an innocent child’s body. To so treat one of God’s own children. That was not well done. She was innocent as you were. Come!” Francis held out his hand and proffered some cheese to the cowering dog. Slowly, the dog raised himself from the ground and, quivering, his tail between his legs once more, slowly walked towards the friar.

His head lowered, ears back, the dog slowly fed from the friar’s hand. “There, little one,” the friar softly said, gently stroking the head between the ears. “You were not to know. How could you? We cannot expect the beasts of the earth to command the wisdom of men. Come! I will forgive you, as God will.” As the friar removed his hand from the dog’s head, it was replaced by one smaller, softer, more gentle.

The dog capered around the ankles of the friar, his tail wagging with pleasure, and the friar smiled.