123. CHAPTER IV—GAYETIES

Les Misérables / 悲惨世界

1Nonetheless, these young girls filled this grave house with charming souvenirs.

2At certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister. The recreation hour struck. A door swung on its hinges. The birds said, “Good; here come the children!” An irruption of youth inundated that garden intersected with a cross like a shroud. Radiant faces, white foreheads, innocent eyes, full of merry light, all sorts of auroras, were scattered about amid these shadows. After the psalmodies, the bells, the peals, and knells and offices, the sound of these little girls burst forth on a sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees. The hive of joy was opened, and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other, they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth chattered in the corners; the veils superintended the laughs from a distance, shades kept watch of the sunbeams, but what mattered it? Still they beamed and laughed. Those four lugubrious walls had their moment of dazzling brilliancy. They looked on, vaguely blanched with the reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives. It was like a shower of roses falling athwart this house of mourning. The young girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns; the gaze of impeccability does not embarrass innocence. Thanks to these children, there was, among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness. The little ones skipped about; the elder ones danced. In this cloister play was mingled with heaven. Nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh, expanding young souls. Homer would have come thither to laugh with Perrault; and there was in that black garden, youth, health, noise, cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles of all their ancestresses, those of the epic as well as those of the fairy-tale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage from Hecuba to la Mère-Grand.

3In that house more than anywhere else, perhaps, arise those childrens sayings which are so graceful and which evoke a smile that is full of thoughtfulness. It was between those four gloomy walls that a child of five years exclaimed one day: “Mother! one of the big girls has just told me that I have only nine years and ten months longer to remain here. What happiness!”

4It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took place:—

5A Vocal Mother. Why are you weeping, my child?

6The child (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French history. She says that I do not know it, but I do.

7Alix, the big girl (aged nine). No; she does not know it.

8The Mother. How is that, my child?

9Alix. She told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question in the book, and she would answer it.

10Well?”

11She did not answer it.”

12Let us see about it. What did you ask her?”

13I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first question that I came across.”

14And what was the question?”

15It was, ‘What happened after that?’”

16It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy paroquet which belonged to a lady boarder:—

17How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just like a person!”

18It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years:—

19Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.

20Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress.

21Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentlemen.”

22It was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth six years of age improvised the following tale, which was listened to by blue eyes aged four and five years:—

23There were three little cocks who owned a country where there were a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their pockets. After that they plucked the leaves and put them in their playthings. There was a wolf in that country; there was a great deal of forest; and the wolf was in the forest; and he ate the little cocks.”

24And this other poem:—

25There came a blow with a stick.

26It was Punchinello who bestowed it on the cat.

27It was not good for her; it hurt her.

28Then a lady put Punchinello in prison.”

29It was there that a little abandoned child, a foundling whom the convent was bringing up out of charity, uttered this sweet and heart-breaking saying. She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured in her corner:—

30As for me, my mother was not there when I was born!”

31There was a stout portress who could always be seen hurrying through the corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha. The big big girlsthose over ten years of agecalled her Agathocles.

32The refectory, a large apartment of an oblong square form, which received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the garden, was dark and damp, and, as the children say, full of beasts. All the places round about furnished their contingent of insects.

33Each of its four corners had received, in the language of the pupils, a special and expressive name. There was Spider corner, Caterpillar corner, Wood-louse corner, and Cricket corner.

34Cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed. It was not so cold there as elsewhere. From the refectory the names had passed to the boarding-school, and there served as in the old College Mazarin to distinguish four nations. Every pupil belonged to one of these four nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at meals. One day Monseigneur the Archbishop while making his pastoral visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the class-room through which he was passing.

35He inquired of another pupil, a charming brunette with rosy cheeks, who stood near him:—

36Who is that?”

37She is a spider, Monseigneur.”

38Bah! And that one yonder?”

39She is a cricket.”

40And that one?”

41She is a caterpillar.”

42Really! and yourself?”

43I am a wood-louse, Monseigneur.”

44Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities. At the beginning of this century Écouen was one of those strict and graceful places where young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At Écouen, in order to take rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament, a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also thedaisand thecensors,”—the first who held the cords of the dais, and the others who carried incense before the Holy Sacrament. The flowers belonged by right to the florists. Fourvirginswalked in advance. On the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question put in the dormitory, “Who is a virgin?”

45Madame Campan used to quote this saying of alittle oneof seven years, to abig girlof sixteen, who took the head of the procession, while she, the little one, remained at the rear, “You are a virgin, but I am not.”