")[*]
[*] This formula is repeated with reference to the other
senses--hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
And the sins of the sight were redeemed; lascivious looks, immodest
curiosity, the pride of spectacles, unwholesome readings, tears shed for
guilty troubles.
And she, dear child, knew no other book than the "Golden Legend," no
other horizon than the apse of the Cathedral, which hid from view all
the rest of the world. She had wept only in the struggle of obedience
and the renunciation of passion.
The Abbe Cornille wiped both her eyes with a bit of cotton, which he
afterwards put into one of the little cornets of paper.
Then Monseigneur anointed the ears, with their lobes as delicate and
transparent as pearl, first the right ear, afterwards the left, scarcely
moistened with the sign of the cross.
"_Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam,
indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per auditum deliquisti_."
So all the abominations of hearing were atoned for: all the words and
music which corrupt, the slanders, the calumnies, the blasphemies, the
sinful propositions listened to with complacency, the falsehoods of love
which aided the forgetfulness of duty, the profane songs which excited
the senses, the violins of the orchestra which, as it were, wept
voluptuously under the brilliant lights.
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