Her religious faith drove Modeste for a time into a singular track of
thought. She imagined that if she became sinless (speaking
ecclesiastically) she would attain to such a condition of sanctity
that God would hear her and accomplish her desires. "Faith," she
thought, "can move mountains; Christ has said so. The Saviour led his
apostle upon the waters of the lake Tiberias; and I, all I ask of God
is a husband to love me; that is easier than walking upon the sea."
She fasted through the next Lent, and did not commit a single sin;
then she said to herself that on a certain day coming out of church
she should meet a handsome young man who was worthy of her, whom her
mother would accept, and who would fall madly in love with her. When
the day came on which she had, as it were, summoned God to send her an
angel, she was persistently followed by a rather disgusting beggar;
moreover, it rained heavily, and not a single young man was in the
streets. On another occasion she went to walk on the jetty to see the
English travellers land; but each Englishman had an Englishwoman,
nearly as handsome as Modeste herself, who saw no one at all
resembling a wandering Childe Harold.
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