And that night back came his visions of earthly love and happiness so vividly, he could count every auburn hair in Margaret's head, and see the pupils of her eyes.
Then he began to despair, and said, “I must leave this country; here I am bound fast in memory's chain;” and began to dread his cell. He said, “A breath from hell hath infected it, and robbed even these holy words of their virtue.” And unconsciously imitating St. Jerome, a victim of earthly hallucinations, as overpowering, and coarser, he took his warmest covering out into the wood hard by, and there flung down under a tree that torn and wrinkled leather bag of bones, which a little ago might have served a sculptor for Apollo.
Whether the fever of his imagination intermitted, as a master mind of our day has shown that all things intermit(9) or that this really broke some subtle link, I know not, but his sleep was dreamless.
He awoke nearly frozen, but warm with joy within.
“I shall yet be a true hermit, Dei gratia,” said he.
The next day some good soul left on his little platform a new lambs-wool pelisse and cape, warm, soft, and ample.
He had a moment's misgiving on account of its delicious softness and warmth; but that passed. It was the right skin(10), and a mark that Heaven approved his present course.
It restored warmth to his bones after he came in from his short rest.
And now, at one moment he saw victory before him if he could but live to it; at another, he said to himself, “'Tis but another lull; be on thy guard, Clement.”
And this thought agitated his nerves and kept him in continual awe.