But towards December, my skin having
grown tough and callous from the perpetual irritation, and inured to the
fretting of the sharp hair, my mind once more began to wander mutinously.
To check it again I put off the cilice, and with it all other
undergarments, retaining no more clothing than just the rough brown monkish
habit. Thus I exposed myself to the rigours of the weather, for it had
grown very cold in those heights where I dwelt, and the snows were creeping
nearer adown the mountain-side.
I had seen the green of the valley turn to gold and then to flaming brown.
I had seen the fire perish out of those autumnal tints, and with the
falling of the leaves, a slow, grey, bald decrepitude covering the world.
And to this had now succeeded chill wintry gales that howled and whistled
through the logs of my wretched hut, whilst the western wind coming down
over the frozen zone above cut into me like a knife's edge.
And famished as I was I felt this coldness the more, and daily I grew
leaner until there was little left of my erstwhile lusty vigour, and I was
reduced to a parcel of bones held together in a bag of skin, so that it
almost seemed that I must rattle as I walked.
I suffered, and yet I was glad to suffer, and took a joy in my pain,
thanking God for the grace of permitting me to endure it, since the greater
the discomforts of my body, the more numbed became the pain of my mind, the
more removed from me were the lures of longing with which Satan still did
battle for my soul.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276