Germanus covers his food with ashes.

Bernard cares not to eat, but delights only in the taste of fresh water.

Agatha keeps for three years a pebble in her mouth.

Augustinus is in despair for the sin he has committed in turning to look after a dog who was running.

Prosperity and health are despised, and joy begins with privations which kill the body.
And it is thus that, subduing all things, they live at last in gardens where the flowers are stars, and where the leaves of the trees sing.
They exterminate dragons, they raise and appease tempests, they seem in their ecstatic visions to be borne above the earth.