One day a feeling of sickness came over her before a leper whose sores were stinking. To punish herself she drank the water in which she had washed the sores; she was overcome with nausea; and punished herself yet more by forcing herself to swallow a scab which had not gone down with the water and remained dry in her throat.
For years she dressed ulcers and meditated on the Passion of Christ. Then her novitiate of sorrows drew to a close and a radiant day of visions dawned on her. Jesus treated her as a spoilt child, called her, "My sweetest, my well-beloved daughter;" He dispensed her from the necessity of eating, and nourished her only with the Sacred Species; He called her, drew her, absorbed her in uncreated light, and by anticipating her inheritance, enabled her to understand, in life, the joys of heaven.
And she was so simple and timid that she feared in spite of all, for the memory of her sins alarmed her. She could not believe herself forgiven, and said to Christ; "Ah, if I could but put myself in an iron collar and drag myself to the market-place to proclaim my shame."
And He consoled her: "Be easy, My daughter, My sufferings have atoned for your sins;" and as she reproached herself for having lived in opulence and having delighted in clothes and jewels, He addressed her, smiling: "To buy you riches, I have wanted for everything; you required a great number of clothes, and I had but one garment of which the soldiers stripped Me, for which they drew lots; My nakedness was the expiation of your vanity in ornaments."
And all her conversations with Christ were in this tone. He passed His time in comforting this humble creature whom His benefits overwhelmed; and this has made her the most loving of the saints! her work is a succession of spiritual outpourings and caresses; her book is such a living hearth that beside it the volumes of other mystics seem but dull coal.
"Ah," said Durtal to himself, in turning over these pages, "it was indeed the Christ of Saint Francis, the God of mercy who spoke to this Franciscan!" and he went on: "that ought to give me courage, for Angela of Foligno was as great a sinner as I am, but all her sins were remitted! Yes, but then what a soul she had, while mine is good for nothing; instead of loving, I reason; nevertheless it is right to remember that the conditions of the Blessed Angela were more favourable than mine. Living in the thirteenth century she had a shorter journey to make to approach God, for since the Middle Ages, each century takes us further from Him! she lived in a time full of miracles, which overflowed with Saints. For me, I live in Paris in an age when miracles are rare and Saints scarcely abound. And once away from here, what a vista is before me of falling away, of soaking myself in a stew of infamy, in a bath of the sins of great cities."
"By the way" ... he looked at his watch and started; it was two o'clock—"I have missed the office of Nones," he said; "I must simplify my complicated horary, or I shall never know where I am;" and at once he traced in a few lines:
"Morning. Rise at 3 o'clock, or rather at 3.30. Breakfast at 7—Sext at 11, dinner at 11.30—Nones at 1.30—Vespers at 5.15—Supper at 6, and Compline at 7.25."
"There, at least that is clear and easy to remember—If only Father Etienne have not noticed my absence from chapel!"
He left his room. "Ah, here is the famous rule," he said to himself, on seeing a framed table hung on the landing.