Occasionally, as a gift, there would be a jar of olives, which was the
greatest delicacy that I savoured in those days. No flesh-food or fish did
I ever taste, so that I grew very lean and often suffered hunger.
My days were spent partly in prayer and partly in meditation, and I
pondered much upon what I could remember of the Confessions of St.
Augustine, deriving great consolation from the thought that if that great
father of the Church had been able to win to grace out of so much sin as
had befouled his youth, I had no reason to despair. And as yet I had
received no absolution for the mortal offences I had committed at Piacenza.
I had confessed to Fra Gervasio, and he had bidden me do penance first, but
the penance had never been imposed. I was imposing it now. All my life
should I impose it thus.
Yet, ere it was consummated I might come to die; and the thought appalled
me, for I must not die in sin.
So I resolved that when I should have spent a year in that fastness I would
send word to the priest at Casi by some of those who visited my hermitage,
and desire him to come to me that I might seek absolution at his hands.
CHAPTER VI
HYPNEROTOMACHIA
At first I seemed to make good progress in my quest after grace, and a
certain solatium of peace descended upon me, beneficent as the dew of a
summer night upon the parched and thirsty earth.
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