ld no more be recognized. Those who
had seen me before used to say: "What! is that the person who passed
for being clever? She does not say two words. It is a pretty
picture."

For crown of affliction I had a maid they had given me, who was
quite in their interest. She kept me in sight like a duenna, and
strangely ill-treated me.

When I went out, the valets had orders to give an account of all I
did. It was then that I commenced to eat the bread of tears. If I
was at table they did things to me that covered me with confusion.

I had no one with whom to share my grief. I wished to tell something
of it to my mother, and that caused me so many new crosses that I
resolved to have no other confidante of my vexations than myself. It
was not through harshness that my husband treated me so, but from
his hasty and violent temper; for he loved me even passionately.
What my mother-in-law was continually telling him irritated him.

Such was my married life, rather that of a slave than of a free
person. To increase my disgrace I discovered, four months after my
marriage, that my husband was gouty. This disease caused me many
real crosses both without and within. That year he twice had gout
six weeks at a time, and it again seized him shortly after, much
more severely. At last he became so indisposed that he did not leave
his room, nor often even his bed, which he ordinarily kept many
months.

I believe that, but for his mother and that maid of whom I have
spoken, I should have been very happy with him; for as to hastiness,
there is hardly a man who has not plenty of it, and it is the duty
of a reasonable woman to put up with it quietly without increasing
it by sharp answers. You made use of all these things, O my God, for
my salvation.

I became pregnant with my first child. During this time I was
greatly petted as far as the body went, and my crosses were in some
degree less severe thereby.

I was so indisposed that I would have excited the compassion of the
most indifferent. Moreover, they had such a great wish to have
children, that they were very apprehensive lest I should miscarry.

Yet towards the end they were less considerate to me, and once, when
my mother-in-law had treated me in a very shocking manner, I was so
malicious as to feign a colic in order to alarm them