had gone, I set my table near the grating for the sake
of the light, and sat down to dinner, but I could only swallow a few
spoonfuls of soup. Having fasted for nearly forty-eight hours, it was not
surprising that I felt ill. I passed the day quietly enough seated on my
sofa, and proposing myself to read the "suitable books" which they had
been good enough to promise me. I did not shut my eyes the whole night,
kept awake by the hideous noise made by the rats, and by the deafening
chime of the clock of St. Mark's, which seemed to be striking in my room.
This double vexation was not my chief trouble, and I daresay many of my
readers will guess what I am going to speak of-namely, the myriads of
fleas which held high holiday over me. These small insects drank my blood
with unutterable voracity, their incessant bites gave me spasmodic
convulsions and poisoned my blood.

At day-break, Lawrence (such was the gaoler's name) came to my cell and
had my bed made, and the room swept and cleansed, and one of the guards
gave me water wherewith to wash myself. I wanted to take a walk in the
garret, but Lawrence told me that was forbidden. He gave me two thick
books which I forbore to open, not being quite sure of repressing the
wrath with which they might inspire me, and which the spy would have
infallibly reported to his masters. After leaving me my fodder and two
cut lemons he went away.

As soon as I was alone I ate my soup in a hurry, so as to take it hot,
and then I drew as near as I could to the light with one of the books,
and was delighted to find that I could see to read. I looked at the
title, and read, "The Mystical City of Sister Mary of Jesus, of Agrada."
I had never heard of it. The other book was by a Jesuit named Caravita.
This fellow, a hypocrite like the rest of them, had invented a new cult
of the "Adoration of the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ." This,
according to the author, was the part of our Divine Redeemer, which above
all others should be adored a curious idea of a besotted ignoramus, with
which I got disgusted at the first page, for to my thinking the heart is
no more worthy a part than the lungs, stomach; or any other of the
inwards. The "Mystical City" rather interested me.

I read in it the wild conceptions of a Spanish nun, devout to
superstition, melancholy, shut in by convent walls, and swayed by the
ignorance and bigotry of her confessors. All these grotesque, monstrous,
and fantastic visio