When the turmoil by which the people were agitated was somewhat allayed, the body of Pietro was silently buried at night, without the consecrated churchyard. Antonio and Alfonso renewed their friendship, and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through the solemn rites and pronouncing a devout oration, had the body of the beautiful Crescentia laid a second time in the vault designed for her. Antonio however could not bear to stay any longer at Padua; he resolved to revisit his native city, that he might settle his affairs, and then perhaps get admitted into a convent. Alfonso on the other hand determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where the holy Father had just been proclaiming a year of jubilee with a plenary indulgence for sins. Not only throughout Italy was every one in motion; but from France too, and Germany, and Spain, came numerous trains of pilgrims, to celebrate this till then unheard of solemnity, this great festival of the church, in the holy city.
After the friends had parted, Antonio pursued his lonely path, shunning the great road, partly for the sake of brooding uninterruptedly over his sorrows, and partly to avoid the swarms that were flocking along the highway, and were often troublesome at the nightly resting-places.
Thus following his own mood, he roamed through the plains and through the vallies of the Apennines. One evening the sun set and no inn was to be seen. As the shades were deepening, he heard a hermit's little bell tinkling in a wood on one side. He bent his steps toward the sound, and when the darkness of night was already closing, he arrived at a small hut, to which a narrow plank led across a brook, surrounded by bushes.
He found an aged infirm man praying with the deepest devotion before a crucifix. The hermit received the youth, who greeted him courteously, with kindness made up a couch of moss for him in a recess of the rock which was separated by a door from his cell, and placed some of his fruit, some water, and a little wine before him. When Antonio was refresht, he was greatly pleased with the conversation of the monk, who in earlier times had lived in the world, and served as a soldier in many campaigns. In this way it had grown late in the night, and the youth betook himself to his bed, just as another weak and sickly monk entered, who meant to pass the night with the hermit in prayer.