he cared nothing for his own comfort, and reduced himself to eating
nothing but boiled eggs, which, in order to save firing, he cooked
when he was boiling his glue, and not six or eight at a time, but in
fifties; and, keeping them in a basket, he would eat them one by
one. In this life he found such peculiar pleasure that any other, in
comparison with his own, seemed to him slavery. He could not bear
the crying of children, the coughing of men, the sound of bells, and
the chanting of friars; and when the rain was pouring in torrents
from the sky, it pleased him to see it streaming straight down from
the roofs and splashing on the ground. He had the greatest terror of
lightning; and, when he heard very loud thunder, he wrapped himself
in his mantle, and, having closed the windows and the door of the
room, he crouched in a corner until the storm should pass. He was
very varied and original in his discourse, and sometimes said such
beautiful things, that he made his hearers burst with laughter. But
when he was old, and near the age of eighty, he had become so
strange and eccentric that nothing could be done with him. He would
not have assistants standing round him, so that his misanthropy had
robbed him of all possible aid. He was sometimes seized by a desire
to work, but was not able, by reason of the palsy, and fell into
such a rage that he tried to force his hands to labour; but, as he
muttered to himself, the mahlstick fell from his grasp, and even his
brushes, so that it was pitiable to behold. Flies enraged him, and
even shadows annoyed him. And so, having become ill through old age,
he was visited by one or two friends, who besought him to make his
peace with God; but he would not believe that he was dying, and put
them off from one day to another; not that he was hard of heart, or
an unbeliever, for he was a most zealous Christian, although his
life was that of a beast. He discoursed at times on the torments of
those ills that destroy men's bodies, and of the suffering endured
by those who come to die with their strength wasting away little by
little, which he called a great affliction. He spoke evil of
physicians, apothecaries, and those who nurse the sick, saying that
they cause them to die of hunger; besides the tortures of syrups,
medicines, clysters, and other martyrdoms, such as not being allowed
to sleep when you are drowsy, making your will, seeing your
relatives round you, and staying in a dark room. He pra