t 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 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