OF THE SUFFERING OF HIS BODY--OF HOW HE BECAME A MONK IN THE MONASTERY OF ST.

DENIS AND HELOISE A NUN AT ARGENTEUIL When morning came the whole city was assembled before my dwelling.
It is difficult, nay, impossible, for words of mine to describe the amazement which bewildered them, the lamentations they uttered, the uproar with which they harassed me, or the grief with which they increased my own suffering.

Chiefly the clerics, and above all my scholars, tortured me with their intolerable lamentations and outcries, so that I suffered more intensely from their compassion than from the pain of my wound.

In truth I felt the disgrace more than the hurt to my body, and was more afflicted with shame than with pain.

My incessant thought was of the renown in which I had so much delighted, now brought low, nay, utterly blotted out, so swiftly by an evil chance.