Beaumont is composed of two villages, completely separated and quite
distinct one from the other--Beaumont-l’Église, on the hill with its old
Cathedral of the twelfth century, its Bishop’s Palace which dates only
from the seventeenth century, its inhabitants, scarcely one thousand in
number, who are crowded together in an almost stifling way in its narrow
streets; and Beaumont-la-Ville, at the foot of the hill, on the banks of
the Ligneul, an ancient suburb, which the success of its manufactories
of lace and fine cambric has enriched and enlarged to such an extent
that it has a population of nearly ten thousand persons, several public
squares, and an elegant sub-prefecture built in the modern style. These
two divisions, the northern district and the southern district, have
thus no longer anything in common except in an administrative way.
Although scarcely thirty leagues from Paris, where one can go by rail
in two hours, Beaumont-l’Église seems to be still immured in its old
ramparts, of which, however, only three gates remain. A stationary,
peculiar class of people lead there a life similar to that which their
ancestors had led from father to son during the past five hundred years.
The Cathedral explains everything, has given birth to and preserved
everything. It is the mother, the queen, as it rises in all its majesty
in the centre of, and above, the little collection of low houses, which,
like shivering birds, are sheltered under her wings of stone. One lives
there simply for it, and only by it. There is no movement of business
activity, and the little tradesmen only sell the necessities of life,
such as are absolutely required to feed, to clothe, and to maintain
the church and its clergy; and if occasionally one meets some private
individuals, they are merely the last representatives of a scattered
crowd of worshippers. The church dominates all; each street is one of
its veins; the town has no other breath than its own. On that account,
this spirit of another age, this religious torpor from the past, makes
the cloistered city which surrounds it redolent with a savoury perfume
of peace and of faith.
And in all this mystic place, the house of the Huberts, where Angelique
was to live in the future, was the one nearest to the Cathedral,
and which clung to it as if in reality it were a part thereof. The
permission to build there, between two of the great buttresses, must
have been given by some vicar long ago, who was desirous of attaching
to himself the ancestors of this line of embroiderers, as master
chasuble-makers and furnishers for the Cathedral clergy. On the southern
side, the narrow garden was barred by the colossal building; first,
the circumference of the side chapels, whose windows overlooked the
flower-beds, and then the slender, long nave, that the flying buttresses
supported, and afterwards the high roof covered with the sheet lead.
The sun never penetrated to the lower part of this garden, where ivy and
box alone grew luxuriantly; yet the eternal shadow there was very soft
and pleasant as it fell from the gigantic brow of the apse--a religious
shadow, sepulchral and pure, which had a good odour about it. In the
greenish half-light of its calm freshness, the two towers let fall
only the sound of their chimes. But the entire house kept the quivering
therefrom, sealed as it was to these old stones, melted into them and
supported by them. It trembled at the least of the ceremonies; at the
High Mass, the rumbling of the organ, the voices of the choristers, even
the oppressed sighs of the worshippers, murmured through each one of
its rooms, lulled it as if with a holy breath from the Invisible, and
at times through the half-cool walls seemed to come the vapours from the
burning incense.
For five years Angelique lived and grew there, as if in a cloister, far
away from the world. She only went out to attend the seven-o’clock Mass
on Sunday mornings, as Hubertine had obtained permission for her to
study at home, fearing that, if sent to school, she might not always
have the best of associates. This old dwelling, so shut in, with its
garden of a dead quiet, was her world. She occupied as her chamber a
little whitewashed room under the roof; she went down in the morning to
her breakfast in the kitchen, she went up again to the working-room in
the second story to her embroidery. And these places, with the turning
stone stairway of the turret, were the only corners in which she passed
her time; for she never went into the Huberts’ apartments, and only
crossed the parlour on the first floor, and they were the two rooms
which had been rejuvenated and modernised. In the parlour, the beams
were plastered over, and the ceiling had been decorated with a palm-leaf
cornice, accompanied by a rose centre; the wall-paper dated from the
First Empire, as well as the white marble chimney-piece and the mahogany
furniture, which consisted of a sofa and four armchairs covered with
Utrecht velvet, a centre table, and a cabinet.
On the rare occasions when she went there, to add to the articles
exposed for sale some new bands of embroidery, if she cast her eyes
without, she saw through the window the same unchanging vista, the
narrow street ending at the portal of Saint Agnes; a parishioner pushing
open the little lower door, which shut itself without any noise, and the
shops of the plate-worker and wax-candle-maker opposite, which appeared
to be always empty, but where was a display of holy sacramental vessels,
and long lines of great church tapers. And the cloistral calm of all
Beaumont-l’Église--of the Rue Magloire, back of the Bishop’s Palace,
of the Grande Rue, where the Rue de Orfèvres began, and of the Place du
Cloître, where rose up the two towers, was felt in the drowsy air, and
seemed to fall gently with the pale daylight on the deserted pavement.
Hubertine had taken upon herself the charge of the education of
Angelique. Moreover, she was very old-fashioned in her ideas, and
maintained that a woman knew enough if she could read well, write
correctly, and had studied thoroughly the first four rules of
arithmetic. But even for this limited instruction she had constantly to
contend with an unwillingness on the part of her pupil, who, instead of
giving her attention to her books, preferred looking out of the windows,
although the recreation was very limited, as she could see nothing but
the garden from them. In reality, Angelique cared only for reading;
notwithstanding in her dictations, chosen from some classic writer, she
never succeeded in spelling a page correctly, yet her handwriting was
exceedingly pretty, graceful, and bold, one of those irregular styles
which were quite the fashion long ago. As for other studies, of
geography and history and cyphering, she was almost completely ignorant
of them. What good would knowledge ever do her? It was really useless,
she thought. Later on, when it was time for her to be Confirmed, she
learned her Catechism word for word, and with so fervent an ardour that
she astonished everyone by the exactitude of her memory.
Notwithstanding their gentleness, during the first year the Huberts
were often discouraged. Angelique, who promised to be skilful in
embroidering, disconcerted them by sudden changes to inexplicable
idleness after days of praiseworthy application. She was capricious,
seemed to lose her strength, became greedy, would steal sugar to eat
when alone, and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes looked wearied
under their reddened lids. If reproved, she would reply with a flood of
injurious words. Some days, when they wished to try to subdue her, her
foolish pride at being interfered with would throw her into such serious
attacks that she would strike her feet and her hands together, and
seemed ready to tear her clothing, or to bite anyone who approached
her. At such moments they drew away from her, for she was like a little
monster ruled by the evil sprit within her.
Who could she be? Where did she come from? Almost always these abandoned
children are the offspring of vice. Twice they had resolved to give
her up and send her back to the Asylum, so discouraged were they and so
deeply did they regret having taken her. But each time these frightful
scenes, which almost made the house tremble, ended in the same deluge of
tears, and the same excited expressions and acts of penitence, when the
child would throw herself on the floor, begging them so earnestly to
punish her that they were obliged to forgive her.
Little by little, Hubertine gained great authority over her. She was
peculiarly adapted for such a task, with her kind heart, her gentle
firmness, her common-sense and her uniform temper. She taught her the
duty of obedience and the sin of pride and of passion. To obey was to
live. We must obey God, our parents, and our superiors. There was a
whole hierarchy of respect, outside of which existence was unrestrained
and disorderly. So, after each fit of passion, that she might learn
humility, some menial labour was imposed upon her as a penance, such as
washing the cooking-utensils, or wiping up the kitchen floor; and, until
it was finished, she would remain stooping over her work, enraged at
first, but conquered at last.
With the little girl excess seemed to be a marked characteristic in
everything, even in her caresses. Many times Hubertine had seen her
kissing her hands with vehemence. She would often be in a fever of
ecstasy before the little pictures of saints and of the Child
Jesus, which she had collected; and one evening she was found in a
half-fainting state, with her head upon the table, and her lips pressed
to those of the images. When Hubertine confiscated them there was
a terrible scene of tears and cries, as if she herself were being
tortured. After that she was held very strictly, was made to obey, and
her freaks were at once checked by keeping her busy at her work; as
soon as her cheeks grew very red, her eyes dark, and she had nervous
tremblings, everything was immediately made quiet about her.
Moreover, Hubertine had found an unexpected aid in the book given by the
Society for the Protection of Abandoned Children. Every three months,
when the collector signed it, Angelique was very low-spirited for the
rest of the day. If by chance she saw it when she went to the drawer for
a ball of gold thread, her heart seemed pierced with agony. And one day,
when in a fit of uncontrollable fury, which nothing had been able
to conquer, she turned over the contents of the drawer, she suddenly
appeared as if thunderstruck before the red-covered book. Her sobs
stifled her. She threw herself at the feet of the Huberts in great
humility, stammering that they had made a mistake in giving her shelter,
and that she was not worthy of all their kindness. From that time her
anger was frequently restrained by the sight or the mention of the book.
In this way Angelique lived until she was twelve years of age and
ready to be Confirmed. The calm life of the household, the little
old-fashioned building sleeping under the shadow of the Cathedral,
perfumed with incense, and penetrated with religious music, favoured the
slow amelioration of this untutored nature, this wild flower, taken from
no one knew where, and transplanted in the mystic soil of the narrow
garden. Added to this was the regularity of her daily work and the utter
ignorance of what was going on in the world, without even an echo from a
sleepy quarter penetrating therein.
But, above all, the gentlest influence came from the great love of the
Huberts for each other, which seemed to be enlarged by some unknown,
incurable remorse. He passed the days in endeavouring to make his
wife forget the injury he had done her in marrying her in spite of the
opposition of her mother. He had realised at the death of their child
that she half accused him of this punishment, and he wished to be
forgiven. She had done so years ago, and now she idolised him. Sometimes
he was not sure of it, and this doubt saddened his life. He wished they
might have had another infant, and so feel assured that the obstinate
mother had been softened after death, and had withdrawn her malediction.
That, in fact, was their united desire--a child of pardon; and he
worshipped his wife with a tender love, ardent and pure as that of a
betrothed. If before the apprentice he did not even kiss her hand,
he never entered their chamber, even after twenty years of marriage,
without an emotion of gratitude for all the happiness that had
been given him. This was their true home, this room with its tinted
paintings, its blue wall-paper, its pretty hangings, and its walnut
furniture. Never was an angry word uttered therein, and, as if from a
sanctuary, a sentiment of tenderness went out from its occupants, and
filled the house. It was thus for Angelique an atmosphere of affection
and love, in which she grew and thrived.
An unexpected event finished the work of forming her character. As she
was rummaging one morning in a corner of the working-room, she found
on a shelf, among implements of embroidery which were no longer used,
a very old copy of the “Golden Legend,” by Jacques de Voragine. This
French translation, dating from 1549, must have been bought in the
long ago by some master-workman in church vestments, on account of the
pictures, full of useful information upon the Saints. It was a great
while since Angelique had given any attention to the little old carved
images, showing such childlike faith, which had once delighted her. But
now, as soon as she was allowed to go out and play in the garden, she
took the book with her. It had been rebound in yellow calf, and was in
a good condition. She slowly turned over some of the leaves, then looked
at the title-page, in red and black, with the address of the bookseller:
“à Paris, en la rue Neufre Nostre-Dame, à l’enseigne Saint Jehan
Baptiste;” and decorated with medallions of the four Evangelists, framed
at the bottom by the Adoration of the Three Magi, and at the top by the
Triumph of Jesus Christ, and His resurrection. And then picture after
picture followed; there were ornamented letters, large and small,
engravings in the text and at the heading of the chapters; “The
Annunciation,” an immense angel inundating with rays of light a slight,
delicate-looking Mary; “The Massacre of the Innocents,” where a cruel
Herod was seen surrounded by dead bodies of dear little children; “The
Nativity,” where Saint Joseph is holding a candle, the light of which
falls upon the face of the Infant Jesus, Who sleeps in His mother’s
arms; Saint John the Almoner, giving to the poor; Saint Matthias,
breaking an idol; Saint Nicholas as a bishop, having at his right hand
a little bucket filled with babies. And then, a little farther on, came
the female saints: Agnes, with her neck pierced by a sword; Christina,
torn by pincers; Genevieve, followed by her lambs; Juliana, being
whipped; Anastasia, burnt; Maria the Egyptian, repenting in the desert,
Mary of Magdalene, carrying the vase of precious ointment; and others
and still others followed. There was an increasing terror and a piety
in each one of them, making it a history which weighs upon the heart and
fills the eyes with tears.
But, little by little, Angelique was curious to know exactly what these
engravings represented. The two columns of closely-printed text, the
impression of which remained very black upon the papers yellowed by
time, frightened her by the strange, almost barbaric look of the
Gothic letters. Still, she accustomed herself to it, deciphered these
characters, learned the abbreviations and the contractions, and soon
knew how to explain the turning of the phrases and the old-fashioned
words. At last she could read it easily, and was as enchanted as if she
were penetrating a mystery, and she triumphed over each new difficulty
that she conquered.
Under these laborious shades a whole world of light revealed itself. She
entered, as it were, into a celestial splendour. For now the few classic
books they owned, so cold and dry, existed no longer. The Legend alone
interested her. She bent over it, with her forehead resting on her
hands, studying it so intently, that she no longer lived in the real
life, but, unconscious of time, she seemed to see, mounting from the
depths of the unknown, the broad expansion of a dream.
How wonderful it all was! These saints and virgins! They are born
predestined; solemn voices announce their coming, and their mothers have
marvellous dreams about them. All are beautiful, strong, and victorious.
Great lights surround them, and their countenances are resplendent.
Dominic has a star on his forehead. They read the minds of men and
repeat their thoughts aloud. They have the gift of prophecy, and their
predictions are always realised. Their number is infinite. Among them
are bishops and monks, virgins and fallen women, beggars and nobles of a
royal race, unclothed hermits who live on roots, and old men who inhabit
caverns with goats. Their history is always the same. They grow up for
Christ, believe fervently in Him, refuse to sacrifice to false gods,
are tortured, and die filled with glory. Emperors were at last weary of
persecuting them. Andrew, after being attached to the cross, preached
during two days to twenty thousand persons. Conversions were made
in masses, forty thousand men being baptised at one time. When the
multitudes were not converted by the miracles, they fled terrified. The
saints were accused of sorcery; enigmas were proposed to them, which
they solved at once; they were obliged to dispute questions with learned
men, who remained speechless before them. As soon as they entered the
temples of sacrifice the idols were overthrown with a breath, and were
broken to pieces. A virgin tied her sash around the neck of a statue of
Venus, which at once fell in powder. The earth trembled. The Temple of
Diana was struck by lightning and destroyed; and the people revolting,
civil wars ensued. Then often the executioners asked to be baptised;
kings knelt at the feet of saints in rags who had devoted themselves to
poverty. Sabina flees from the paternal roof. Paula abandons her five
children. Mortifications of the flesh and fasts purify, not oil or
water. Germanus covers his food with ashes. Bernard cares not to eat,
but delights only in the taste of fresh water. Agatha keeps for three
years a pebble in her mouth. Augustinus is in despair for the sin he has
committed in turning to look after a dog who was running. Prosperity and
health are despised, and joy begins with privations which kill the body.
And it is thus that, subduing all things, they live at last in gardens
where the flowers are stars, and where the leaves of the trees sing.
They exterminate dragons, they raise and appease tempests, they seem
in their ecstatic visions to be borne above the earth. Their wants are
provided for while living, and after their death friends are advised
by dreams to go and bury them. Extraordinary things happen to them, and
adventures far more marvellous than those in a work of fiction. And
when their tombs are opened after hundreds of years, sweet odours escape
therefrom.
Then, opposite the saints, behold the evil spirits!
“They often fly about us like insects, and fill the air without number.
The air is also full of demons, as the rays of the sun are full of
atoms. It is even like powder.” And the eternal contest begins. The
saints are always victorious, and yet they are constantly obliged to
renew the battle. The more the demons are driven away, the more they
return. There were counted six thousand six hundred and sixty-six in the
body of a woman whom Fortunatus delivered. They moved, they talked and
cried, by the voice of the person possessed, whose body they shook as if
by a tempest. At each corner of the highways an afflicted one is seen,
and the first saint who passes contends with the evil spirits. They
enter by the eyes, the ears, and by the mouth, and, after days of
fearful struggling, they go out with loud groanings. Basilus, to save a
young man, contends personally with the Evil One. Macarius was attacked
when in a cemetery, and passed a whole night in defending himself. The
angels, even at deathbeds, in order to secure the soul of the dying were
obliged to beat the demons. At other times the contests are only of the
intellect and the mind, but are equally remarkable. Satan, who prowls
about, assumes many forms, sometimes disguising himself as a woman,
and again, even as a saint. But, once overthrown, he appears in all his
ugliness: “a black cat, larger than a dog, his huge eyes emitting flame,
his tongue long, large, and bloody, his tail twisted and raised in the
air, and his whole body disgusting to the last degree.” He is the one
thing that is hated, and the only preoccupation. People fear him,
yet ridicule him. One is not even honest with him. In reality,
notwithstanding the ferocious appearance of his furnaces, he is the
eternal dupe. All the treaties he makes are forced from him by violence
or cunning. Feeble women throw him down: Margaret crushes his head with
her feet, and Juliana beats him with her chain. From all this a serenity
disengages itself, a disdain of evil, since it is powerless, and a
certainty of good, since virtue triumphs. It is only necessary to cross
one’s self, and the Devil can do no harm, but yells and disappears,
while the infernal regions tremble.
Then, in this combat of legions of saints against Satan are developed
the fearful sufferings from persecutions. The executioners expose to the
flies the martyrs whose bodies are covered with honey; they make them
walk with bare feet over broken glass or red-hot coals, put them in
ditches with reptiles; chastise them with whips, whose thongs are
weighted with leaden balls; nail them when alive in coffins, which they
throw into the sea; hang them by their hair, and then set fire to them;
moisten their wounds with quicklime, boiling pitch, or molten lead; make
them sit on red-hot iron stools; burn their sides with torches; break
their bones on wheels, and torture them in every conceivable way. And,
with all this, physical pain counts for nothing; indeed, it seems to be
desired. Moreover, a continual miracle protects them. John drinks
poison but is unharmed. Sebastian smiles although pierced with arrows;
sometimes they remain in the air at the right or left of the martyr, or,
launched by the archer, they return upon himself and put out his eyes.
Molten lead is swallowed as if it were ice-water. Lions prostrate
themselves, and lick their hands as gently as lambs. The gridiron of
Saint Lawrence is of an agreeable freshness to him. He cries, “Unhappy
man, you have roasted one side, turn the other and then eat, for it is
sufficiently cooked.” Cecilia, placed in a boiling bath, is refreshed
by it. Christina exhorts those who would torture her. Her father had
her whipped by twelve men, who at last drop from fatigue; she is then
attached to a wheel, under which a fire is kindled, and the flame,
turning to one side, devours fifteen hundred persons. She is then thrown
into the sea, but the angels support her; Jesus comes to baptise her
in person, then gives her to the charge of Saint Michael, that he may
conduct her back to the earth; after that she is placed for five days in
a heated oven, where she suffers not, but sings constantly. Vincent,
who was exposed to still greater tortures, feels them not. His limbs are
broken, he is covered with red-hot irons, he is pricked with needles,
he is placed on a brazier of live coals, and then taken back to prison,
where his feet are nailed to a post. Yet he still lives, and his
pains are changed into a sweetness of flowers, a great light fills his
dungeon, and angels sing with him, giving him rest as if he were on a
bed of roses. The sweet sound of singing, and the fresh odour of flowers
spread without in the room, and when the guards saw the miracle they
were converted to the faith, and when Dacian heard of it, he was greatly
enraged, and said, “Do nothing more to him, for we are conquered.” Such
was the excitement among the persecutors, it could only end either by
their conversion or by their death. Their hands are paralysed; they
perish violently; they are choked by fish-bones; they are struck by
lightning, and their chariots are broken. In the meanwhile, the cells of
the martyrs are resplendent. Mary and the Apostles enter them at will,
although the doors are bolted. Constant aid is given, apparitions
descend from the skies, where angels are waiting, holding crowns of
precious stones. Since death seems joyous, it is not feared, and their
friends are glad when they succumb to it. On Mount Ararat ten thousand
are crucified, and at Cologne eleven thousand virgins are massacred by
the Huns. In the circuses they are devoured by wild beasts. Quirique,
who, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, taught like a man, suffered
martyrdom when but three years of age. Nursing-children reproved the
executioners. The hope for celestial happiness deadened the physical
senses and softened pain. Were they torn to pieces, or burnt, they
minded it not. They never yielded, and they called for the sword, which
alone could kill them. Eulalia, when at the stake, breathes the flame
that she may die the more quickly. Her prayer is granted, and a white
dove flies from her mouth and bears her soul to heaven.
Angelique marvelled greatly at all these accounts. So many abominations
and such triumphant joy delighted her and carried her out of herself.
But other points in the Legend, of quite a different nature, also
interested her; the animals, for instance, of which there were enough
to fill an Ark of Noah. She liked the ravens and the eagles who fed the
hermits.
Then what lovely stories there were about the lions. The serviceable one
who found a resting-place in a field for Mary the Egyptian; the flaming
lion who protected virgins or maidens in danger; and then the lion of
Saint Jerome, to whose care an ass had been confided, and, when the
animal was stolen, went in search of him and brought him back. There was
also the penitent wolf, who had restored a little pig he had intended
eating. Then there was Bernard, who excommunicates the flies, and they
drop dead. Remi and Blaise feed birds at their table, bless them,
and make them strong. Francis, “filled with a dove-like simplicity,”
preaches to them, and exhorts them to love God. A bird was on a branch
of a fig-tree, and Francis, holding out his hand, beckoned to it, and
soon it obeyed, and lighted on his hand. And he said to it, “Sing my
sister, and praise the Lord.” And immediately the bird began to sing,
and did not go away until it was told to do so.
All this was a continual source of recreation to Angelique, and gave her
the idea of calling to the swallows, and hoping they might come to her.
The good giant Christopher, who carried the Infant Christ on his
shoulders, delighted her so much as to bring tears to her eyes.
She was very merry over the misadventures of a certain Governor with
the three chambermaids of Anastasia, whom he hoped to have found in
the kitchen, where he kissed the stove and the kettles, thinking he
was embracing them. “He went out therefrom very black and ugly, and his
clothes quite smutched. And when his servants, who were waiting, saw him
in such a state, they thought he was the Devil. Then they beat him with
birch-rods, and, running away, left him alone.”
But that which convulsed her most with laughter, was the account of the
blows given to the Evil One himself, especially when Juliana,
having been tempted by him in her prison cell, administered such an
extraordinary chastisement with her chain. “Then the Provost commanded
that Juliana should be brought before him; and when she came into his
presence, she was drawing the Devil after her, and he cried out, saying,
‘My good lady Juliana, do not hurt me any more!’ She led him in this way
around the public square, and afterwards threw him into a deep ditch.”
Often Angelique would repeat to the Huberts, as they were all at work
together, legends far more interesting than any fairy-tale. She had
read them over so often that she knew them by heart, and she told in
a charming way the story of the Seven Sleepers, who, to escape
persecution, walled themselves up in a cavern, and whose awakening
greatly astonished the Emperor Theodosius. Then the Legend of Saint
Clement with its endless adventures, so unexpected and touching, where
the whole family, father, mother, and three sons, separated by terrible
misfortunes, are finally re-united in the midst of the most beautiful
miracles.
Her tears would flow at these recitals. She dreamed of them at night,
she lived, as it were, only in this tragic and triumphant world of
prodigy, in a supernatural country where all virtues are recompensed by
all imaginable joys.
When Angelique partook of her first Communion, it seemed as if she were
walking, like the saints, a little above the earth. She was a young
Christian of the primitive Church; she gave herself into the hands of
God, having learned from her book that she could not be saved without
grace.
The Huberts were simple in their profession of faith. They went every
Sunday to Mass, and to Communion on all great fête-days, and this
was done with the tranquil humility of true belief, aided a little by
tradition, as the chasubliers had from father to son always observed the
Church ceremonies, particularly those at Easter.
Hubert himself had a tendency to imaginative fancies. He would at times
stop his work and let fall his frame to listen to the child as she
read or repeated the legends, and, carried away for the moment by her
enthusiasm, it seemed as if his hair were blown about by the light
breath of some invisible power. He was so in sympathy with Angelique,
and associated her to such a degree with the youthful saints of the
past, that he wept when he saw her in her white dress and veil. This
day at church was like a dream, and they returned home quite exhausted.
Hubertine was obliged to scold them both, for, with her excellent
common-sense, she disliked exaggeration even in good things.
From that time she had to restrain the zeal of Angelique, especially in
her tendency to what she thought was charity, and to which she wished
to devote herself. Saint Francis had wedded poverty; Julien the Chaplain
had called the poor his superiors; Gervasius and Protais had washed the
feet of the most indigent, and Martin had divided his cloak with them.
So she, following the example of Lucy, wished to sell everything
that she might give. At first she disposed of all her little private
possessions, then she began to pillage the house. But at last she
gave without judgment and foolishly. One evening, two days after her
Confirmation, being reprimanded for having thrown from the window
several articles of underwear to a drunken woman, she had a terrible
attack of anger like those when she was young; then, overcome by shame,
she was really ill and forced to keep her bed for a couple of days.