with pain. My incessant thought was of the renown in which I had so
much delighted, now brought low, nay, utterly blotted out, so
swiftly by an evil chance. I saw, too, how justly God had punished
me in that very part of my body whereby I had sinned. I perceived
that there was indeed justice in my betrayal by him whom I had
myself already betrayed; and then I thought how eagerly my rivals
would seize upon this manifestation of justice, how this disgrace
would bring bitter and enduring grief to my kindred and my friends,
and how the tale of this amazing outrage would spread to the very
ends of the earth.

What path lay open to me thereafter? How could I ever again hold up
my head among men, when every finger should be pointed at me in
scorn, every tongue speak my blistering shame, and when I should be
a monstrous spectacle to all eyes? I was overwhelmed by the
remembrance that, according to the dread letter of the law, God
holds eunuchs in such abomination that men thus maimed are
forbidden to enter a church, even as the unclean and filthy; nay,
even beasts in such plight were not acceptable as sacrifices. Thus
in Leviticus (xxii, 24) is it said: "Ye shall not offer unto the
Lord that which hath its stones bruised, or crushed, or broken, or
cut." And in Deuteronomy (xxiii, 1), "He that is wounded in the
stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the
congregation of the Lord."

I must confess that in my misery it was the overwhelming sense of
my disgrace rather than any ardour for conversion to the religious
life that drove me to seek the seclusion of the monastic cloister.
Héloïse had already, at my bidding, taken the veil and entered a
convent. Thus it was that we both put on the sacred garb, I in the