Hard Punishments, also sometimes referred to as Cather's Avignon story, is the final, unpublished, and since lost novel by Willa Cather, almost entirely destroyed following her death in 1947. Perhaps her only book entirely contained in the Old World, Hard Punishments was set in medieval Avignon. While little is known about the plot, this final novel of hers is centered on its two main protagonists, who have both been injured: André has had his tongue cut out for blasphemy, and Pierre's hands have been maimed as a result of his theft by hanging him by his thumbs. Of the surviving fragments, sin and reconciliation are major themes, and specifically, the religious redemption and conversion of André to Catholicism is a key component. For this reason, it is believed that the text was intended t