The Well of Saint Clare

'The Well of Saint Clare' is a dramatic novel by the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Anatole France. Written in first-person, the story is set in a Siena church, where the narrator encountered Reverend Father Adone Doni, who at the time was, like the narrator, working in the old Academy degli Intronati. The narrator had taken an instant liking for the Cordelier in question, a man who, grown grey in study, still preserved the cheerful, facile humour of a simple, unlettered countryman. Assiduous at the library, he was also a frequent visitor to the marketplace, halting for choice in front of the peasant girls who sell oranges, and listening to their unconventional remarks. He was learning, he would say, from their lips the true Lingua Toscana.