partly in meditation, and I
pondered much upon what I could remember of the Confessions of St.
Augustine, deriving great consolation from the thought that if that
great father of the Church had been able to win to grace out of so much
sin as had befouled his youth, I had no reason to despair. And as yet
I had received no absolution for the mortal offences I had committed
at Piacenza. I had confessed to Fra Gervasio, and he had bidden me do
penance first, but the penance had never been imposed. I was imposing it
now. All my life should I impose it thus.

Yet, ere it was consummated I might come to die; and the thought
appalled me, for I must not die in sin.

So I resolved that when I should have spent a year in that fastness I
would send word to the priest at Casi by some of those who visited my
hermitage, and desire him to come to me that I might seek absolution at
his hands.

CHAPTER VI. HYPNEROTOMACHIA

At first I seemed to make good progress in my quest after grace, and a
certain solatium of peace descended upon me, beneficent as the dew of a
summer night upon the parched and thirsty earth. But anon this changed
and I would catch the thoughts that should have been bent upon pious
meditation glancing backward with regretful longings at that life out of
which I had departed.

I would start up in a pious rage and cast out such thoughts by more
strenuous prayer and still more strenuous fasting. But as my body grew
accustomed to the discomforts to which it was subjected, my mind assumed
a rebellious freedom that clogged the work of purification upon which
I strove to engage it. My stomach out of its very emptiness conjured
up evil visions to torment me in the night, and with these I vainly
wrestled until I remembered the measures which Fra Gervasio told me
that he had taken in like case. I had then the happy inspiration to have
recourse to the hair-shirt, which hitherto I had dreaded.

It would be towards the end of October, as the days were growing colder,
that I first put on that armour against the shafts of Satan. It galled
me horribly and fretted my tender flesh at almost every movement; but so
at least, at the expense of the body, I won back to some peace of mind,
and the flesh, being quelled and subdued, no longer interposed its evil
humours to the purity I desired for my meditations.

For upwards of a month, then, the mild torture of the goat's-hair cilice
did the office I required of it. But towar