"Collect yourself, my dear Madame, collect yourself," and assuming a
serious look I bestowed my benediction upon her.

The Countess sought to collect herself, but I saw very well that her
troubled spirit vainly strove to recover itself. By a singular
phenomenon I could see into her brain, and her thoughts appeared to me
one after the other. She was saying to herself, "Let me collect myself;
our Father, give me grace to collect myself," but the more effort she
made to restrain her imagination the more it became difficult to restrain
and slipped through her fingers. "I had made a serious examination of my
conscience, however," she added. "Not ten minutes ago as I was getting
out of my carriage I counted up three sins; there was one above all I
wished to mention. How these little things escape me! I must have left
them in the carriage." And she could not help smiling to herself at the
idea of these three little sins lost among the cushions. "And the poor
Abbe waiting for me in his box. How hot it must be in there! he is
quite red. Good Heavens! how shall I begin? I can not invent faults?
It is that torn dress which has upset me. And there is Louise, who is to
meet me at five o'clock at the dressmaker's. It is impossible for me to
collect myself. O God, do not turn away your face from me, and you,
Lord, who can read in my soul--Louise will wait till a quarter past five;
besides, the bodice fits--there is only the skirt to try on. And to
think that I had three sins only a minute ago."

All these different thoughts, pious and profane, were struggling together
at once in the Countess's brain, so that I thought the moment had come to
interfere and help her a little.

"Come," I said, in a paternal voice, leaning forward benevolently and