Then stepped forth the nun who had carried the water to Rouen, and said;
“Madam, there is a remedy if you would but try it.” “I do not choose to,” replied the Abbess. “Here is sister Joan, who has returned from Rouen, and has shown my water, and related my symptoms, to such and such a physician, who has declared that I shall die unless I suffer some man to approach me and have connection with me. By this means he hopes, and his books informed him, that I should escape death; but if I did not do as he bade me, there was no help for me. But as for me, I thank God that He has deigned to call me, though I have sinned much. I yield myself to His will, and my body is prepared for death, let it come when it may.”
“What, madam!” said the infirmary nun, “would you murder yourself? It is in your power to save yourself, and you have but to put forth your hand and ask for aid, and you will find it ready! That is not right; and I even venture to tell you that you are imperilling your soul if you die in that condition.”
“My dear sister,” said the Abbess, “how many times have I told you that it is better for a person to die than commit a deadly sin. You know that I cannot avoid death except by committing a deadly sin. Also I feel sure that even by prolonging my life by this means, I should be dishonoured for ever, and a reproach to all. Folks would say of me, ‘There is the lady who ——‘.
“All of you,—however you may advise me—would cease to reverence and love me, for I should seem—and with good cause—unworthy to preside over and govern you.”
“You must neither say nor think that,” said the Treasurer. “There is nothing that we should not attempt to avoid death. Does not our good father, St. Augustine, say that it is not permissible to anyone to take his own life, nor to cut off one of his limbs? And are you not acting in direct opposition to his teaching, if you allow yourself to die when you could easily prevent it?”
“She says well!” cried all the sisters in chorus. “Madam, for God’s sake obey the physician, and be not so obstinate in your own opinion as to lose both your body and soul, and leave desolate, and deprived of your care, the convent where you are so much loved.”
“My dear sisters,” replied the Abbess, “I much prefer to bow my head to death than to live dishonoured. And would you not all say—‘There is the woman who did so and so’.”
“Do not worry yourself with what people would say: you would never be reproached by good and respectable people.”
“Yes, I should be,” replied the Abbess.