11. Ribera, lib. i. ch. iv., says he heard Fra Banes, in a
sermon, say that the Saint told him she had, during these four
days, seen hell in a vision. And the chronicler says that though
there was bodily illness, yet it was a trance of the soul at the
same time (vol. i. lib. i. ch. xii. section 3).



Chapter VI.


The Great Debt She Owed to Our Lord for His Mercy to Her.
She Takes St. Joseph for Her Patron.


1. After those four days, during which I was insensible, so great
was my distress, that our Lord alone knoweth the intolerable
sufferings I endured. My tongue was bitten to pieces; there was
a choking in my throat because I had taken nothing, and because
of my weakness, so that I could not swallow even a drop of water;
all my bones seemed to be out of joint, and the disorder of my
head was extreme. I was bent together like a coil of ropes--for
to this was I brought by the torture of those days--unable to
move either arm, or foot, or hand, or head, any more than if I
had been dead, unless others moved me; I could move, however, I
think, one finger of my right hand. Then, as to touching me,
that was impossible, for I was so bruised that I could not endure
it. They used to move me in a sheet, one holding one end, and
another the other. This lasted till Palm Sunday. [1]