It came to pass that Flamminio, after he had traversed many lands, came at last to a desert and solitary place, where he found a hermit with his beard all matted with dirt, and his body worn away by the passage of the years and by fasting, letting his mind concern itself only in contemplation. Whereupon, thinking that assuredly he had at last found Death, Flamminio thus addressed him: ‘Of a truth, I am very glad to meet with you, holy father.’ ‘The sight of you is welcome to me, my son,’ the hermit replied. ‘My good father,’ said Flamminio, ‘what do you here in this rough and uninhabitable spot, cut off from all pleasure and from all human society?’ ‘I pass my time,’ answered the hermit, ‘in prayers and in fastings and in contemplation.’ Then Flamminio inquired, ‘And for what reason do you follow this life?’ ‘Why, my son,’ exclaimed the hermit, ‘I do all this to serve God, to mortify this wretched flesh of mine, to do penance for all the offences I have wrought in the sight of the eternal and immortal God and of the true son of Mary, and in the end to get salvation for my sinful soul, so that when the hour of my death shall come I may render it up pure of all stain, and in the awful day of judgment, by the grace of my redeemer and by no merit of my own, may make myself worthy of that happy and glorious home where I may taste the joys of eternal life, to which blessedness God lead us!’ Then said Flamminio, ‘Oh, my dear father! spare a few words to tell me—if it be not an offence to you—what manner of thing is this Death, and after what fashion is it made?’ The holy father answered, ‘Oh, my son! trouble not yourself to gain knowledge of this thing you seek; for Death is a very terrible and a fearful being, and is called by wise men the final end of all our sufferings, a misery to the happy, a happiness to the miserable, and the term and limit of all worldly things. It severs friend from friend; it separates the father from the son, and the son from the father, the mother from the daughter, and the daughter from the mother. It cuts the marriage bond, and finally disunites the soul and the body, so that the body, severed from the soul, loses all its power and becomes so putrid and of so evil a savour that all men flee therefrom and abandon it as a thing abominable.’ ‘And have you never set eyes on him, my father?’ asked Flamminio. ‘Of a certainty I have never seen him,’ answered the hermit. ‘But can you tell me what I should do in order to see him?’ asked Flamminio. ‘Ah, my son!’ said the hermit, ‘if you are indeed so keenly set on finding him, you have only to keep going further and further on; because man, the longer the way he has journeyed through this world, the nearer he is to Death.’ The young man having thanked the holy father, and received his benediction, went his way.