LADVENU [_replacing the pen on the table, and handing the recantation to Cauchon with a reverence_] Praise be to God, my brothers, the lamb has returned to the flock; and the shepherd rejoices in her more than in ninety and nine just persons. [_He returns to his seat_]. THE INQUISITOR [_taking the paper from Cauchon_] We declare thee by this act set free from the danger of excommunication in which thou stoodest. [_He throws the paper down to the table_]. JOAN. I thank you. THE INQUISITOR. But because thou hast sinned most presumptuously against God and the Holy Church, and that thou mayest repent thy errors in solitary contemplation, and be shielded from all temptation to return to them, we, for the good of thy soul, and for a penance that may wipe out thy sins and bring thee finally unspotted to the throne of grace, do condemn thee to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the water of affliction to the end of thy earthly days in perpetual imprisonment. JOAN [_rising in consternation and terrible anger_] Perpetual imprisonment? Am I not then to be set free? LADVENU [_mildly shocked_] Set free, child, after such wickedness as yours! What are you dreaming of? JOAN. Give me that writing. [_She rushes to the table; snatches up the paper; and tears it into fragments_] Light your fire: do you think I dread it as much as the life of a rat in a hole? My voices were right. LADVENU. Joan! Joan! JOAN. Yes: they told me you were fools [_the word gives great offence_], and that I was not to listen to your fine words nor trust to your charity. You promised me my life; but you lied [_indignant exclamations_]. You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead. It is not the bread and water I fear: I can live on bread: when have I asked for more? It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. Bread has no sorrow for me, and water no affliction. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never again ride with the soldiers nor climb the hills; to make me breathe foul damp darkness, and keep from me everything that brings me back to the love of God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate Him: all this is worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times. I could do without my warhorse; I could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind. But without these things I cannot live; and by your wanting to take them a w a y from me, or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God.