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hematohydrosis.”

    “‘Bloody sweat’?”
    “Precisely. Hematohydrosis is, technically, a ‘quasi-sweat’, or parahydrosis. There seems to be a spill-over of serum containing red corpuscles and the parasitic bacterium into the sweat glands. That’s not to say that your nun wasn’t a nice woman, or even a saintly one - whatever saintly is - but the ‘blood’ can be scientifically explained. In the case of that girl in Austria, the Neumann girl, even less edifying tricks have been suggested, related to much more readily available monthly blood emissions.” Nowotny spoke with the unlit cigarette dangling from his lip, toying with the stethoscope on his desk. “That takes care of question number one. What was question number two - ecstasy, right? You wish to know what a physician thinks about the state of so-called ‘ecstasy’.”
    “For my own information, yes.”
    “Well, I haven’t witnessed any instance of it myself, but my father started his practice as intern at La Salpêtrière in Paris, where he studied hysteria and hypnotism with Charcot. I would say that in the case of your abbess we’re dealing with hysterical ecstasy, a ‘grand attack’ which culminates in so-called passional postures. Such attacks may be followed or accompanied by lack of response to painful stimuli - technically, self-induced anaesthesia - bodily rigidity, interruption of normal breathing rhythm, et cetera. I imagine your nun underwent this routine before the prophecy stage.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean, you don’t know? Haven’t you found out?”
    “No one has actually seen Mother Kazimierza in ecstasy.”
    “So, how does anyone know that she went through one?”

    “By the time the bloody sweat began to appear on her hands and forehead or she started growing rigid, she ordered everyone out of the room.”
    “And?”
    “And by the time she called her secretary in-a certain Sister Irenka - the crisis had passed. Blood supposedly streamed down her fingers and face from wounds that would close within hours, including a wound on her chest, and of course those on her feet. I did ask for gauze or bandages used to absorb the emissions, but I was flatly refused. Hopefully Father Malecki has managed to get a sample for his Vatican inquiry. Whether or not he’s willing to share it with us, we’ll see. Since it isn’t relevant to the investigation, I expect him to refuse.”
    “And are you telling me that none of the nuns ever snitched a look through the keyhole?”
    “Well, Father Malecki admits to have lingered behind the door at the time of one of her attacks. According to him, she let out a choked cry, and then he heard the thud of a body that falls flat on the floor. When he was let into the room again, the pattern of bloodstains on the tiles made him think she’d fallen face down, arms outstretched in the posture of a cross.”
    “A passionate posture, indeed.”
    “She could also kneel for two straight days with her hands clasped in prayer, sometimes indoors, sometimes in the garden. Once apparently she knelt through the night by the cloister well, with snow falling on her and in a freezing temperature. According to Father Malecki’s notes she suffered no consequences, not even frostbite.”
    Nowotny finally lit the cigarette. “What are you really thinking of?”
    “That it’s a shame we haven’t a better record of her ecstatic phenomena. She didn’t always bleed, but one wonders what else went on physically and otherwise.”

    With a good-natured tilt of the head, Nowotny emitted smoke out of his mouth. “Pay attention the next time you have an orgasm. It isn’t that different.”

17 November
    “Who kept a log of the abbess’s prophecies, and do we have her last one?”
    The time had come for this inquiry. All the neat arguments Father Malecki had planned to use in order to refuse Bora access to the document seemed immaterial.
    “Sister Irenka took them down in shorthand. Would you