But my grief was unavailing. My infant was no more; nor could all my sighs impart to its little tender frame the breath of a moment. I rent my winding-sheet, and wrapped in it my lovely child. I placed it on my bosom, its soft arm folded round my neck, and its pale cold cheek resting upon mine. Thus did its lifeless limbs repose, while I covered it with kisses, talked to it, wept, and moaned over it without remission, day or night. Camilla entered my prison regularly once every twenty-four hours, to bring me food. In spite of her flinty nature, she could not behold this spectacle unmoved. She feared that grief so excessive would at length turn my brain, and in truth I was not always in my proper senses. From a principle of compassion she urged me to permit the corse to be buried: but to this I never would consent. I vowed not to part with it while I had life: its presence was my only comfort, and no persuasion could induce me to give it up. It soon became a mass of putridity, and to every eye was a loathsome and disgusting object; to every eye but a mother’s. In vain did human feelings bid me recoil from this emblem of mortality with repugnance: I withstood, and vanquished that repugnance. I persisted in holding my infant to my bosom, in lamenting it, loving it, adoring it! Hour after hour have I passed upon my sorry couch, contemplating what had once been my child: I endeavoured to retrace its features through the livid corruption, with which they were overspread: during my confinement this sad occupation was my only delight; and at that time worlds should not have bribed me to give it up. Even when released from my prison, I brought away my child in my arms. The representations of my two kind friends—(Here she took the hands of the marchioness and Virginia, and pressed them alternately to her lips)—at length persuaded me to resign my unhappy infant to the grave. Yet I parted from it with reluctance: however, reason at length prevailed; I suffered it to be taken from me, and it now reposes in consecrated ground.
I before mentioned that regularly once a day Camilla brought me food. She sought not to embitter my sorrows with reproach: she bad me, ’tis true, resign all hopes of liberty and worldly happiness; but she encouraged me to bear with patience my temporary distress, and advised me to draw comfort from religion.
My situation evidently affected her more than she ventured to express: but she believed that to extenuate my fault would make me less anxious to repent it. Often while her lips painted the enormity of my guilt in glaring colours, her eyes betrayed how sensible she was to my sufferings. In fact I am certain that none of my tormentors (for the three other nuns entered my prison occasionally) were so much actuated by the spirit of oppressive cruelty as by the idea that to afflict my body was the only way to preserve my soul. Nay, even this persuasion might not have had such weight with them, and they might have thought my punishment too severe, had not their good dispositions been repressed by blind obedience to their superior. Her resentment existed in full force. My project of elopement having been discovered by the abbot of the Capuchins, she supposed herself lowered in his opinion by my disgrace, and in consequence her hate was inveterate. She told the nuns to whose custody I was committed that my fault was of the most heinous nature, that no sufferings could equal the offence, and that nothing could save me from eternal perdition but punishing my guilt with the utmost severity. The superior’s word is an oracle to but too many of a convent’s inhabitants. The nuns believed whatever the prioress chose to assert: though contradicted by reason and charity, they hesitated not to admit the truth of her arguments. They followed her injunctions to the very letter, and were fully persuaded that to treat me with lenity, or to show the least pity for my woes, would be a direct means to destroy my chance for salvation.
Camilla, being most employed about me, was particularly charged by the prioress to treat me with harshness. In compliance with these orders, she frequently strove to convince me, how just was my punishment, and how enormous was my crime: she bad me think myself too happy in saving my soul by mortifying my body, and even threatened me sometimes with eternal perdition. Yet as I before observed, she always concluded by words of encouragement and comfort; and though uttered by Camilla’s lips, I easily recognised the domina’s expressions. Once, and once only, the prioress visited me in my dungeon. She then treated me with the most unrelenting cruelty: she loaded me with reproaches, taunted me with my frailty, and when I implored her mercy, told me to ask it of heaven, since I deserved none on earth. She even gazed upon my lifeless infant without emotion; and when she left me, I heard her charge Camilla to increase the hardships of my captivity. Unfeeling woman! But let me check my resentment: she has expiated her errors by her sad and unexpected death. Peace be with her; and may her
