“As far as I am concerned,” said the priest, “I approve of the conduct of that saint, quite in accord with the most subtle doctors. It is a lesson for honest women stubborn in too much pride of their haughty virtue. Thinking well over it there is some sensuality in prizing too highly the flesh and guarding excessively what one ought to despise. There are some matrons to be met with who believe they have a treasure and who visibly exaggerate the interest God and the angels may have in them. They believe themselves to be a kind of natural Holy Sacrament. St Mary the Egyptian was a better judge. Pretty and divinely shaped as she was, she considered that it would be all too proud of her flesh to stop in the course of a holy pilgrimage for a paltry indifferent reason which is no more than a piece of mortification and far from being a precious jewel. She humbled herself, madam, and entered by using so admirable a humility the road of penitence, where she accomplished marvellous works.” “Your reverence,” said my mother, “I do not understand you. You are too learned for me.” “That grand saint.” said Friar Ange, “is painted in a state of nature in the chapel of my convent, and by the grace of God all her body is covered with long and thick hair. Reproductions of this picture have been printed, and I’ll bring you a fully blessed one, my dear madam.” Tenderly touched, my mother passed the soup-tureen to him, behind the back of my teacher. And the holy friar, seated on the cinder board, silently soaked his bread in the savoury liquid. “Now is the moment,” said my father, “to uncork one of those bottles which I keep in reserve for the great feasts, which are Christmas, Twelfth Night, and St Laurence’s Day. Nothing is more agreeable than to drink a good wine quietly at home secure of unwelcome intruders.” Hardly had these words been uttered when the door was opened and a tall man in black entered the shop in a squall of snow and wind exclaiming: “A Salamander! A Salamander!” And without taking notice of anyone he bent over the grate, rummaging in the cinders with the end of his walking stick, very much to the detriment of Friar Ange, who coughed fit to give up the ghost, swallowing the ashes and coal-dust thrown into his soup plate. And the man in black still continued to rummage in the fire, shouting, “A Salamander! I see a Salamander!” while the stirred-up flames made the shadow of his bodily form tremble on the ceiling like a large bird of prey. My father was surprised and rather annoyed by the manners of the visitor. But he knew how to restrain himself. And so he rose, his napkin under his arm, and went to the fireplace, bending to the hearth, both his fists on his thighs. When he had sufficiently considered the disordered fireplace, and Friar Ange covered with ashes, he said: “Your lordship will excuse me. I cannot see anything but this paltry monk, and no Salamander.