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 required it of her.  This moral home-sickness was truly pathetic in a girl who would rather have perished than have returned to the depths of impurity.  She grew pale and altered and thin.  The Superior gave her shorter lessons, and called the interesting creature to her room to question her.  But Esther was happy; she enjoyed the society of her companions; she felt no pain in any vital part; still, it was vitality itself that was attacked.  She regretted nothing; she wanted nothing.  The Superior, puzzled by her boarder’s answers, did not know what to think when she saw her pining under consuming debility.

The doctor was called in when the girl’s condition seemed serious; but this doctor knew nothing of Esther’s previous life, and could not guess it; he found every organ sound, the pain could not be localized.  The invalid’s replies were such as to upset every hypothesis.  There remained one way of clearing up the learned man’s doubts, which now lighted on a frightful suggestion; but Esther obstinately refused to submit to a medical examination.