Les Misérables, v. 2/5: Cosette

by Victor Hugo

  CHAPTER IV.

  GAYETIES.

  For all this, though, the young ladies filled this grave house withdelightful reminiscences. At certain hours childhood sparkled in thiscloister. The bell for recreation was rung, the gate creaked on itshinges, and the birds whispered to each other, "Here are the children."An irruption of youth inundated this garden, which with its cross-walksresembled a pall. Radiant faces, white foreheads, ingenuous eyes,full of gay light--all sorts of dawn--spread through the gloom. Afterthe psalm-singing, the bell-ringing, and the services, the noise ofgirls, softer than the buzzing of bees, suddenly burst out. The hiveof joy opened, and each brought her honey; they played, they calledeach other, they formed groups, and ran about; pretty little whiteteeth chattered at corners; in the distance veils watched the laughter,shadows guarded the beams,--but what matter! they were radiant, andlaughed. These four mournful walls had their moment of bedazzlement;vaguely whitened by the reflection of so much joy, they watched thisgentle buzzing of the swarm. It was like a shower of roses fallingon this mourning. The girls sported beneath the eye of the nuns, forthe glance of impeccability does not disturb innocence; and, thanksto these children, there was a simple hour among so many austerehours. The little girls jumped about and the elder danced, and nothingcould be so ravishing and august as all the fresh, innocent expansionof these childish souls. Homer would have come here to dance withPerrault, and there were in this black garden, youth, health, noise,cries, pleasure, and happiness enough to unwrinkle the brows of all theancestry, both of the epic poem and the fairy tale, of the throne andthe cottage, from Hecuba down to La Mère Grand. In this house, moreperhaps than elsewhere, those childish remarks were made which possessso much grace, and which make the hearer laugh thoughtfully. It waswithin these four gloomy walls that a child of four years of age oneday exclaimed,--"Mother, a grown-up girl has just told me that I haveonly nine years and ten months longer to remain here. What happiness!"Here too it was that the memorable dialogue took place:--

  _A vocal mother_.--Why are you crying, my child?

  _The child_ (six years old), sobbing.--I said to Alix that I knew myFrench history. She says that I don't know it, but I do know it.

  _Alix_, the grown-up girl (just nine).--No. She does not know it.

  _Mother_.--How so, my child?

  _Alix_.--She told me to open the book haphazard, and ask her a questionout of the book, which she would answer.

  "Well?"

  "She did not answer it."

  "What was it you asked her?"

  "I opened the book as she said, and I asked her the first question thatI came across."

  "And pray what was the question?"

  "It was, '_What happened next?_'"

  It was here that the profound observation was made about a ratherdainty parrot which belonged to a lady boarder. "How well bred it is!It eats the top of the slice of bread and butter, just like a lady."In one of these cloisters was also picked up the following confession,written beforehand, so as not to forget it, by a little sinner of sevenyears of age:--

  "My father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.

  "My father, I accuse myself of having committed adultery.

  "My father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to gentlemen."

  It was on one of the benches in the garden that the following fable wasimprovised by rosy lips six years of age, and listened to by blue eyesof four and five years:--

  "There were three little cocks, which lived in a place where there weremany flowers. They picked the flowers and put them in their pockets;after that they plucked the leaves and put them in their play-things.There was a wolf in those parts, and there was a great deal of wood;and the wolf was in the wood, and all the three cocks."

  It was here too that the following sweet and affecting remark was madeby a foundling child whom the convent brought up through charity. Sheheard the others speaking of their mothers, and she murmured in hercorner,--"My mother was not there when I was born." There was a fatportress who could continually be seen hurrying along the passage withher bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agathe. The grown-upgirls--those above ten years of age--called her Agathoclès (Agathe auxclefs). The refectory, a large, rectangular room, which only receivedlight through an arched window looking on the garden, was gloomy anddamp, and, as children say, full of animals. All the surrounding placesfurnished their contingent of insects; and each of the four cornershad received a private and expressive name, in the language of theboarders. There were Spider corner, Caterpillar corner, Woodlousecorner, and Cricket corner; the latter was near the kitchen, and highlyesteemed, for it was warmer there. The names had passed from therefectory to the school-room, and served to distinguish four nations,as in the old Mazarin College. Every boarder belonged to one or otherof these nations, according to the corner of the refectory in which shesat at meals. One day the archbishop, while paying a pastoral visit,noticed a charming little rosy-faced girl, with glorious light hair,pass, and he asked another boarder, a pretty brunette with pink cheeks,who was near him,--

  "Who is that?"

  "She is a spider, sir."

  "Nonsense; and this other?"

  "Is a cricket."

  "And this one?"

  "A caterpillar."

  "Indeed! and what may you be?"

  "I am a woodlouse, Monseigneur."

  Each house of this nature has its peculiarities: at the beginning ofthis century Écouen was one of those places in which the childhood ofchildren is passed in an almost august gloom. At Écouen a distinctionwas made between the virgins and flower-girls in taking rank in theprocession of the Holy Sacrament. There were also the "canopies," andthe "censers," the former holding the cords of the canopy, the latterswinging the censers in front of the Holy Sacrament, while four virginswalked in front. On the morning of the great day it was not rare tohave people say in the dormitory,--"Who is a virgin?" Madame Campanmentions a remark made by a little girl of seven to a grown-up girlof sixteen, who walked at the head of the procession, while she, thelittle one, remained behind: "You are a virgin, but I am not one."