of water. How great was this pleasure! She brought them all to me; she
loved me with her whole soul. I knew it, and I understood it.

She burned, twice in the year, the green rubbish of the garden; on such
occasions she took me with her to the asylum, and I lay upon the great
heaps of green leaves and pea-straw. I had many flowers to play with,
and--which was a circumstance upon which I set great importanceu I had
here better food to eat than I could expect at home.

All such patients as were harmless were permitted to go freely about
the court; they often came to us in the garden, and with curiosity and
terror I listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even ventured
so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving mad. A
long passage led to their cells. On one occasion, when the attendants
were out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped through the
crack of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a lady almost
naked, lying on her straw bed; her hair hung down over her shoulders,
and she sang with a very beautiful voice. All at once she sprang up,
and threw herself against the door where I lay; the little valve
through which she received her food burst open; she stared down upon
me, and stretched out her long arm towards me. I screamed for terror--I
felt the tips of her fingers touching my clothes--I was half dead when
the attendant came; and even in later years that sight and that feeling
remained within my soul.

Close beside the place where the leaves were burned, the poor old women
had their spinning-room. I often went in there, and was very soon a
favorite. When with these people, I found myself possessed of an
eloquence which filled them with astonishment. I had accidentally heard
about the internal mechanism of the human frame, of course without