TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

greatest holiday, unaccompanied, to receive communion and pray, I wanted to plead to God to help me in my sorry state, because I’m homeless and destitute since my late husband, Charles Valentin, may the dark earth rest light on him, an honest and widely respected confectioner—oh, what wonderful cakes he made—died several months ago and left me without a thing in theworld, me being a foreigner, fromStrasbourg, and therefore I had to scrape by as best I could, go from door to door to ask if anyone neededmy services as awool spinner, butwithout success, so I even occasionally started to beg, to my great shame, but I have to live from something since my dear Charles left me before his time, and so, like I told you, that morning I went to pray in the Petits Pères church, full of faith that there was a better tomorrow for me, that things would take a turn for the better from that very Easter day on, I received communion and came back out onto the street, it was chilly, and I sat down where I’d been sitting before, on Place des Victoires, and held out my hand, hoping that some good Christian soul would come along that morning and, in the mood of Easter charity, have pity on this poor widow, that they’d give me a little money so I could make it for another few days until I found work to get me out of this penury, many people passed me by, mostly they paid no attention to me, but I knew I had to be patient, that there certainly existed someonewhowould not refuse me on our dearest holiday, and, sure enough, a man then came up and gaveme salt, and I said to him, May God reward you for your compassion because He sees all, that’s what I said to him, but he was just silent and went on his way, then the church bell rang nine, I said to myself I’ll stay here a little longer, things have started topick up, tonight therewill be a frugal supper before I go to bed, and just then I noticed a man was watching me, he didn’t avert his eyes even when I looked at him, he stood leaning 101 Arceuil