“This year died in Potosí, that famous Señora, Doña Clara, commonly called Amaltea, or Achacosa, who was at first a great sinner, extremely rich, vain, and proud, and later very poor, humble, and virtuous. At the age of twelve she became very well known not only in Potosí and everywhere in Peru, but her fame extended also to Spain. She was, moreover, beautiful, very discreet, lively, and agreeable; nature had bestowed upon her all its gifts; she sang sweetly, played and danced gracefully. She exercised a very great influence, since besides her great patrimony as a woman of excellent standing she acquired at the cost of her virtue immense wealth in gold, silver, jewels, precious stones, pearls, and rich ornaments. She controlled everything, even the wills of her associates, and was vain in the extreme; the various rooms and patios in her house were sprinkled every day with scented water. The neatness of her stables was such that one never saw in them even a straw. Continually every day perfumed water was kept boiling in the porch and reception rooms, in apple-shaped receptacles of silver, and there were braseros of the same metal. She had as many chemises of fine linen from Holland and Cambray as there are days in the year, and she put on a fresh one every night. She had four rich bedsteads of wood and bronze with feather-beds and draperies of beautiful cloths, and she changed from one to another every three months. In a word, she was the most affluent woman in Potosí, but these goods were acquired by a violation of the will of God, and in the end pleasures of the world are such that even before they pass their retribution appears; thus it happened to this famous woman; for in a short time, by means it would be long to relate, she saw herself without gold, silver, jewels, pearls, servants, and ornaments and what was more, without even an old dress to hide her nakedness, and even more lamentable still, her poverty was so great that she had not even a crust to eat, and lived by charity, she whose weekly expenses in her house amounted to two thousand pesos in daily banquets and other worldly pleasure. She received from charity a skirt and an old chemise, cast-off finery, which was no longer of use. She washed the clothes of strangers, because they gave her food, she who had been disgusted on seeing a little spot on her dress. She worked for even the humblest for a piece of bread, she who had had white servants and many black female slaves, such an abundance of servants, that two of them were employed solely in wiping up with towels the spittle with which those who came to visit her had soiled the floor. Finally she expiated in this life the disorders of her past, and suffered with admirable patience her labours, giving by her experience a lesson to the proud, the rich, and the avaricious, and thus she died very poor in material goods, but rich in virtues. She was buried by the charity of her noble and pious neighbours.