STAGES OF CONVERSION Spring 1204-Spring 1206 On his return to Assisi Francis at once resumed his former mode of life; perhaps he even tried in some degree to make up for lost time.

Fetes, games, festivals, and dissipations began again.

He did his part in them so well that he soon fell gravely ill.[1] For long weeks he looked death so closely in the face that the physical crisis brought about a moral one.

Thomas of Celano has preserved for us an incident of Francis's convalescence.

He was regaining strength little by little and had begun to go about the house, when one day he felt a desire to walk abroad, to contemplate nature quietly, and so take hold again of life.
Leaning on a stick he bent his steps toward the city gate.
The nearest one, called _Porta Nuova_, is the very one which opens upon the finest scenery.