“Yes, yes, thank you. But don’t go yet! Give me your letter.” The monk handed over the letter, which the Prior opened and glanced through. “The Kurfürst of Saxony! Master Martin Luther, go if you wish to your chamber. Rest till the evening, then we will go together to the assembly at Chigi. There we shall meet elegant people like Cardinal John de Medici, great men like Raphael, and the Archangel Michael himself. Do you know Michael Angelo, who is building the new Church of St. Peter and painting the Sistine Chapel? No! then you will learn to know him. _Vale_, brother, and sleep well.” Master Martin Luther went, sorely troubled, but resolved to see more of the state of affairs before judging too hastily. Cards were now brought out, and the Prior shuffled them. “That is an unpleasant fellow, whom the Kurfürst had sent to us. A hypocrite, who does not drink wine and crosses himself at the sight of a pheasant!” “There was an ill-omened look about the man.” “He looked something like the Trojan horse, and Beelzebub only knows what he has in his belly.” * * * * * When Luther came into his lonely cell, he wept with a young man’s boundless grief when reality contradicts his expectations, and he finds that all which he has learnt to prize is only contemptible and common. He was not, however, allowed to be alone long, for there was a knock at the door, and there entered a young Augustinian monk, who seemed, with a confidential air, to invite his acquaintance. “Brother Martin, you must not be solitary, but open your heart to sympathetic friends.” He took Martin’s hands. “Tell me,” he said, “what troubles you, and I will answer you.” Luther looked at the young monk, and saw that he was a swarthy Italian with glowing eyes. But he had been so long alone that he felt the necessity of speech. “What do you think,” he said, “our Lord Christ would say if he now arose and came into the Holy City?”