to conform to the same pious rule, and many, having been bred in the
convent from infancy, regarded all ablutions with horror, and felt
no temptation to cleanse the filth from their flesh; but I, who had
bathed daily, had the freshness of clear water in my veins, and
perished slowly for want of it, like your garden herbs in a drought.

My cell did not look on the garden, but on the steep mule-path
leading up the cliff, where all day long the sun beat as if with
flails of fire, and I saw the sweating peasants toil up and down
behind their thirsty asses, and the beggars whining and scraping
their sores in the heat. Oh, how I hated to look out through the
bars on that burning world! I used to turn away from it, sick with
disgust, and lying on my hard bed, stare up by the hour at the
ceiling of my cell. But flies crawled in hundreds on the ceiling,
and the hot noise they made was worse than the glare. Sometimes, at
an hour when I knew myself unobserved, I tore off my stifling gown,
and hung it over the grated window, that I might no longer see the
shaft of hot sunlight lying across my cell, and the dust dancing in
it like fat in the fire. But the darkness choked me, and I struggled
for breath as though I lay at the bottom of a pit; so that at last I
would spring up, and dragging down the dress, fling myself on my
knees before the Cross, and entreat our Lord to give me the gift of
holiness, that I might escape the everlasting fires of hell, of
which this heat was like an awful foretaste. For if I could not
endure the scorching of a summer's day, with what constancy could I
meet the thought of the flame that dieth not?

This longing to escape the heat of hell made me apply myself to a
devouter way of living, and I reflected that if my bodily distress
were somewhat eased I should be able to throw myself with greater