lessly wasted in tears. Not only did she not meddle in the affairs of her husband, but little by little she lost her interest even in household duties, leaving them to the whims of the servants. She took so little care of herself that her chambermaid, good old Marie, who was present at her birth, often had to nurse and feed her, while scolding her affectionately, as one does a little infant in the cradle. In her desire for isolation she came to a point where she could no longer stand the presence of her parents, of her friends who, discomfited and repelled by her countenance more and more morose, by this mouth whence no word ever came, by this forced smile which was immediately shrivelled by an involuntary trembling of her lips,—called less and less frequently and ended by forgetting altogether the path leading to the Priory. Religion, like everything else, became a burden to her. She no longer put in an appearance in the church, did not pray any more, and two Easters passed without anyone seeing her approach the holy table.
Then my mother began to lock herself up in her room, the shutters of which she closed, and drew the curtains together, deepening the darkness about her. She used to spend entire days there, sometimes stretched out on a lounge, sometimes kneeling in a corner, her head touching the wall. And she was annoyed by the least noise from outside; the slamming of the door, the creaking of old shoes along the corridor, the neighing of a horse in the court came to disturb her novitiate of non-existence. Alas! What could be done about it! For a long time she had struggled against an unknown disease, and the disease, stronger than she was, had felled her to the ground. Now her will-power was paralyzed. She was no longer free to rise or act. Some mysterious force held her in chains, rendering her arms inert, her
