zeal into the practice of vigils and austerities. And at length,
having set forth to the Abbess that the sultry air of my cell
induced in me a grievous heaviness of sleep, I prevailed on her to
lodge me in that part of the building which overlooked the garden.

For a few days I was quite happy, for instead of the dusty
mountainside, and the sight of the sweating peasants and their
asses, I looked out on dark cypresses and rows of budding
vegetables. But presently I found I had not bettered myself. For
with the approach of midsummer the garden, being all enclosed with
buildings, grew as stifling as my cell. All the green things in it
withered and dried off, leaving trenches of bare red earth, across
which the cypresses cast strips of shade too narrow to cool the
aching heads of the nuns who sought shelter there; and I began to
think sorrowfully of my former cell, where now and then there came a
sea-breeze, hot and languid, yet alive, and where at least I could
look out upon the sea. But this was not the worst; for when the
dog-days came I found that the sun, at a certain hour, cast on the
ceiling of my cell the reflection of the ripples on the garden-tank;
and to say how I suffered from this sight is not within the power of
speech. It was indeed agony to watch the clear water rippling and
washing above my head, yet feel no solace of it on my limbs: as
though I had been a senseless brazen image lying at the bottom of a
well. But the image, if it felt no refreshment, would have suffered
no torture; whereas every inch of my skin throbbed with thirst, and
every vein was a mouth of Dives praying for a drop of water. Oh,
Father, how shall I tell you the grievous pains that I endured?
Sometimes I so feared the sight of the mocking ripples overhead that
I hid my eyes from their approach, lying face down on my burning bed
till I knew that they were gone; yet on cloudy days, when they did