ted without measure, and other things take place
which, indeed and in truth, I cannot bring myself to mention, nor will I
offend your chaste ears by repeating things so filthy and abominable.
Many are of opinion that we frequent these assemblies only in
imagination, wherein the demon presents to us the images of all those
things which we afterwards relate as having occurred to us in reality;
others, on the contrary, believe that we actually go to them in body and
soul; and for my part I believe that both opinions are true, since we
know not when we go in the one manner or in the other; for all that
happens to us in imagination does so with such intensity, that it is
impossible to distinguish between it and reality. Their worships the
inquisitors have had sundry opportunities of investigating this matter,
in the cases of some of us whom they have had under their hands, and I
believe that they have ascertained the truth of what I state.

"I should like, my son, to shake off this sin, and I have exerted
myself to that end. I have got myself appointed matron to this hospital;
I tend the poor, and some die who afford me a livelihood either by what
they leave me, or by what I find among their rags, through the great
care I always take to examine them well. I say but few prayers, and only
in public, but grumble a good deal in secret. It is better for me to be
a hypocrite than an open sinner; for my present good works efface from
the memory of those who know me the bad ones of my past life. After all,
pretended sanctity injures no one but the person who practises it. Look
you, Montiel, my son, my advice to you is this: be good all you can; but
if you must be wicked, contrive all you can not to appear so. I am a
witch, I do not deny it, and your mother was one likewise; but the
appearances we put on were always enough to maintain our credit in the
eyes of the whole world. Three days before she died, we were both
present at a grand sabbath of witches in a valley of the Pyrenees; and
yet when she died it was with such calmness and serenity, that were it
not for some grimaces she made a quarter of an hour before she gave up
the ghost, you would have thought she lay upon a bed of flowers. But her
two children lay heavy at her heart, and even to her last gasp she never
would forgive Camacha, such a resolute spirit she had. I closed her eyes
and followed her to the grave, and there took my last look at her;
though, indeed, I have not l