BROTHER FIRE

BROTHER FIRE

A hut in the mountains of Northern Italy. Annunziata, a peasant woman, is preparing the evening meal over the fire. Her daughter, Isola, about eight years of age, is playing beside her.

ANNUNZIATA

Now, now! Not so near. One of these days you’ll be falling into the fire and there’ll be nothing left to tell us about you but your shoes. Put them on and get out the bowls for supper.

ISOLA

I like to play with the fire.

ANNUNZIATA

What a thing to say!

ISOLA

I’d like to let my hair into it, gently, gently, gently, gently.

ANNUNZIATA

Don’t you hear me tell you it’s a wicked thing?

ISOLA

Brother Francis says it’s our brother, and one of the best things in the world.

ANNUNZIATA

Tchk, Tchk! What makes the starling sing in his cage all of a sudden?

ISOLA

It’s Brother Francis himself looking at us.

ANNUNZIATA

Tell him to come in and have some supper.

ISOLA

Come in, my mother says, and have some supper.

[Francis appears at the door. He blesses the house.]

BROTHER FRANCIS

I can very well go on to my own supper and need not lighten your kettle.

ANNUNZIATA

Come in, Brother Francis. What you take will not even make a new ring around the kettle. Besides, I see you have been up to the top of the mountain again. You are cold and wet. Come and sit by the fire.

BROTHER FRANCIS

Yes, I have been up to the very top since yesterday, among the rocks and the birds in the rocks. Brother Wind was there and Sister Rain was there, but Brother Fire was not.

ANNUNZIATA

Now you sit by him, Isola, while I get some more wood; but don’t ask him any questions. Now, Brother, put this fur skin across your knees.

[She goes out.]

ISOLA

What did you do, Brother Francis?

BROTHER FRANCIS

I watched and waited to see what they would let me see. For a long while there was nothing; then they nodded to one another, meaning that it was permitted to me. I watched seven stars closely. Suddenly they turned and fled inwards, and I saw the Queen of Heaven leading forth her company before all the shipwrecked seamen of this world.—However, do not tell thy mother, for she believes in no one’s miracles but her own.

ISOLA

My mother says the fire is a wicked thing.

BROTHER FRANCIS

[Turning.]

What, Sister Annunziata, how can you say that?—Why, what would cook your broth, what would keep you warm? And when you return from the mountain-tops, what else shines out from all the friendly windows of the world? Look at its flames, how they lean towards us!

ISOLA

It says: Give me something to eat. Give me something to eat.

BROTHER FRANCIS

[Excitedly.]

Yes, yes. Its warmth is a kind of hunger. I have a love for all things in fur, feathers and scales, but I have not less a love for the fire that warms us.

[He edges the cloak into the fire.]

Look how it reaches for it. Wicked? Wicked? Never.

ISOLA

But, Brother Francis, it will ... it will....

[The flames suddenly seize the cloak. Francis rises, wrapped in fire.]

Brother Francis, you are on fire! Mother, mother!

[She rushes from the hut and returns with her mother. Annunziata snatches the fur from Brother Francis and throws it into the hearth.]

BROTHER FRANCIS

[Still standing ecstatically with lifted hands.]

Eat, Brother Fire. I knew you wanted this. I knew that you loved me too.

[He looks about him; then ruefully to Annunziata.]

Sister, you have spoiled his supper.

ANNUNZIATA

[With somber and averted face.]

I do not know what you mean. Here is your bowl of broth. Sit down and eat it.

BROTHER FRANCIS

Sister, do not be angry with me.

ANNUNZIATA

[Breaking out.]

Come now, should we kill everything, the animals for their furs, yes, and one another, to feed them to the fire? Is it not enough that it takes our good pine tree by our road? There, that is logic, Brother Francis.

BROTHER FRANCIS

Bring me not logic, sister. She is the least of the handmaids of Love. I am often troubled when she speaks.

ANNUNZIATA

Must we give what makes us often warm, for that which makes us warm only for a moment?

BROTHER FRANCIS

[Waving his wooden spoon about humorously.]

My mind is strangely light to-night, like the flames that play about the relics of Saint James. I could wander again through the whole night.

ANNUNZIATA

Where is your mother that she should watch over you? Had I not these other duties I should leave everything and watch over you myself.

BROTHER FRANCIS

She is in Paradise with a golden crook, leading the flames that died of hunger in this wicked world. She leads them to pasture on drifts of dried leaves. Look, Isola, I know that there is flame to burn all evil in the Lake of the Damned. I do not speak of that now,—but I know also that fire is at all times useful to the great Blessed. It surrounds them and they dwell in it. And even now....

[And so on.]