Letters

^29. Why do I still linger, and prolong my suffering by postponing it? Paula's intelligence showed her that her death was near. Her body and limbs grew cold and only in her holy breast did the warm beat of the living soul continue. Yet, as though she were leaving strangers to go home to her own people, she whispered the verses of the psalmist: “Lord, I have loved the habitation of your house and the place where your honour dwells,” and “How amiable are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs yea even faints for the courts of the Lord,” and “I had rather be an outcast in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” When I asked her why she remained silent refusing to answer my call, and whether she was in pain, she replied in Greek that she had no suffering and that all things were to her eyes calm and tranquil. After this she said no more but closed her eyes as though she already despised all mortal things, and kept repeating the verses just quoted down to the moment in which she breathed out her soul, but in a tone so low that we could scarcely hear what she said. Raising her finger also to her mouth she made the sign of the cross upon her lips. Then her breath failed her and she gasped for death; yet even when her soul was eager to break free, she turned the death-rattle (which comes at last to all) into the praise of the Lord. The bishop of Jerusalem and some from other cities were present, also a great number of the inferior clergy, both priests and levites. The entire monastery was filled with bodies of virgins and monks. As soon as Paula heard the bridegroom saying: “Rise up my love my fair one, my dove, and come away: for, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone,” she answered joyfully “the flowers appear on the earth; the time to cut them has come” and “I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.”