Everything that did not lie directly in the path of the molten lava--everything that was saved by an inequality of the ground--had benefited by the destruction that had passed so near. So it is with mankind, and death everywhere makes room for life. Michel noticed that, in some places, one of two twin trees had disappeared as if carried away by a cannon-ball, and displayed its charred stump beside the proud trunk which seemed to tower triumphantly over its ruins. He found his uncle occupied in breaking away the rock to enlarge a bed planted with flourishing vegetables. The garden had been dug out of solid lava. The paths were covered with mosaics of enamelled porcelain, and the beds of vegetables and flowers, cut from the very heart of the rock, and made of earth brought from elsewhere, resembled gigantic boxes buried to the edges. To make the resemblance more striking, between the beds and the porcelain paths they had left the black lava, as it were a border of box or thyme, and at each corner of the beds it had been fashioned into a ball, the sacramental ornament of our orange-tree boxes. It will be seen, therefore, that nothing could be neater or more ugly, more symmetrical or more depressing, in a word, more monastical than that garden, an object of pride and affection to the good monks. But the beauty of the flowers, the splendor of the bunches of grapes which enveloped heavy pillars of lava, the soft murmur of the fountain, which sent forth a thousand silvery threads to refresh each plant in its rocky cell, and above all, the view from that terrace with its southern exposure, afforded ample compensation for the melancholy effect of such hard and patient toil. Fra Angelo, armed with an iron sledge hammer, had removed his frock in order to be more free in his movements. Clad only in a short brown jacket, he displayed the mighty muscles of his hairy arms in the sunlight, and at every blow that he dealt the rocky mass, shivering it into fragments, he gave a sort of savage grunt. But, when he saw the young artist, he drew himself up and showed a mild and serene countenance. "You come just in time, young man," he said. "I was thinking about you, and I have many questions to ask you." "I thought, uncle, that you had, on the contrary, many things to tell me." "Yes, doubtless I should have, if I knew what sort of man you are; but, except for the tie of relationship that unites us, you are a stranger to me; and, whatever your father may say, blinded perhaps by his affection, I do not know whether you are really a man. What do you think of the position in which you find yourself?" "To avoid my having to answer your questions by asking others, you would do well, perhaps, my dear uncle, to put them clearly in the first instance. When I know what my position is, I shall be able to tell you what I think of it."