He looked toward the gateway through which he saw the roofs and towers of Rome, the city which had not accepted him, inhospitable, gay, given over to the lusts of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, hungering passionately after the tangible but transient pleasures of this delightful world; a new Jerusalem, as stubborn and hard-hearted as the old, but, like that, too, a chosen city of God, in which he had elected to dwell and have his abiding place. Tears suffused his face as he looked at it lying there calm and golden in the sunlight. "I have not known how to draw them to me," he said. "Surely they would have followed after me if I had spoken to them more joyfully. A little thing delights them, and they will flock to see a dancer, a juggler, a jester! We must become the jesters of God, amusing the hearts of men and leading them toward spiritual joys." A bell struck, and was answered from all the towers of Rome, until the air pulsed with vibrations as if with a multitude of beating wings. Francis moved slowly away toward the new buildings of the Lateran. Those of his companions who were pacing up and down in the cool shadow of the wall suddenly stopped and pointed to him. "Look! Look!" they cried. Some play of the wind carrying the fine drifting mist over the isolated figure had clothed him for a moment in a glory of radiant colours. The sound of the bell still trembling in the air, and the sudden iridescence of spray in the sunlight, was to them a revelation. Hearing their voices raised Francis went toward them. "What is it, my brothers?" he asked of them. They received him almost with adoration. "We saw you troubled, and in thought," answered Brother Egidio; "and then, suddenly, as the bells ceased, we saw a glory shine about you, and heard a great beating of wings." But Francis remembering the doubts which had afflicted him a moment before, cast himself at the feet of Brother Egidio. "I command you, in the name of holy obedience, that when I return you say to me: Francis, son of Pietro Bernardone, because of your doubt you are contemptible, and in no wise deserving of God's mercy." Then, rising, he went toward the palace with a serene countenance. Having watched Francis enter into the palace, the eleven companions continued to pace up and down in the cool shadow of the wall, and to discourse to each other upon grave matters. "How is it, Brother Bernard," said Egidio, "that astrologers are able to foretell all things that will happen to a man in his journey through life?"