. In fact, virtue and happiness following on evil and misfortune,
security in the stead of anxiety, were as fatal to Esther as her
past wretchedness would have been to her young companions. Planted in
corruption, she had grown up in it. That infernal home still had a hold
on her, in spite of the commands of a despotic will. What she loathed
was life to her, what she loved was killing her.

Her faith was so ardent that her piety was a delight to those about
her. She loved to pray. She had opened her spirit to the lights of true
religion, and received it without an effort or a doubt. The priest who
was her director was delighted with her. Still, at every turn her body
resisted the spirit.

To please a whim of Madame de Maintenon's, who fed them with scraps from
the royal table, some carp were taken out of a muddy pool and placed in
a marble basin of bright, clean water. The carp perished. The animals
might be sacrificed, but man could never infect them with the leprosy
of flattery. A courtier remarked at Versailles on this mute resistance.
"They are like me," said the uncrowned queen; "they pine for their
obscure mud."

This speech epitomizes Esther's story.

At times the poor girl was driven to run about the splendid convent
gardens; she hurried from tree to tree, she rushed into the darkest
nooks--seeking? What? She did not know, but she fell a prey to the
demon; she carried on a flirtation with the trees, she appealed to them
in unspoken words. Sometimes, in the evening, she stole along under the
walls, like a snake, without any shawl over her bare shoulders. Often
in chapel, during the service, she remained with her eyes fixed on the
Crucifix, melted to tears; the others admired her; but she was crying
with rage. Instead of the sacred images she hoped to see, those glaring
nights when she had led some orgy as Habeneck leads a Beethoven symphony
at the Conservatoire--nights of laughter and lasciviousness, with
vehement gestures, inextinguishable laughter, rose before her, frenzied,
furious, and brutal. She was as mild to look upon as a virgin that
clings to earth only by her woman's shape; within raged an imperial
Messalina.

She alone knew the secret of this struggle between the devil and the
angel. When the Superior reproved her for having done her hair more
fashionably than the rule of the House allowed, she altered it with
prompt and beautiful submission; she would have cut her hair off if
the Mother had requ