CHAPTER V--DISTRACTIONS

  Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was called the _whitePaternoster_and which possessed the property of bearing people straightto paradise, was inscribed in large black letters:--

  "Little white Paternoster, which God made, which God said, which Godplaced in paradise. In the evening, when I went to bed, I found threeangels sitting on my bed, one at the foot, two at the head, the goodVirgin Mary in the middle, who told me to lie down without hesitation.The good God is my father, the good Virgin is my mother, the threeapostles are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters. The shirt inwhich God was born envelopes my body; Saint Margaret's cross is writtenon my breast. Madame the Virgin was walking through the meadows, weepingfor God, when she met M. Saint John. 'Monsieur Saint John, whence comeyou?' 'I come from _Ave Salus_.' 'You have not seen the good God; whereis he?' 'He is on the tree of the Cross, his feet hanging, his handsnailed, a little cap of white thorns on his head.' Whoever shall saythis thrice at eventide, thrice in the morning, shall win paradise atthe last."

  In 1827 this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall undera triple coating of daubing paint. At the present time it is finallydisappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then, andwho are old women now.

  A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of thisrefectory, whose only door, as we think we have mentioned, opened on thegarden. Two narrow tables, each flanked by two wooden benches, formedtwo long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory.The walls were white, the tables were black; these two mourning colorsconstitute the only variety in convents. The meals were plain, andthe food of the children themselves severe. A single dish of meat andvegetables combined, or salt fish--such was their luxury. This meagrefare, which was reserved for the pupils alone, was, nevertheless, anexception. The children ate in silence, under the eye of the motherwhose turn it was, who, if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum againstthe rule, opened and shut a wooden book from time to time. This silencewas seasoned with the lives of the saints, read aloud from a littlepulpit with a desk, which was situated at the foot of the crucifix. Thereader was one of the big girls, in weekly turn. At regular distances,on the bare tables, there were large, varnished bowls in which thepupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks, and into whichthey sometimes threw some scrap of tough meat or spoiled fish; this waspunished. These bowls were called _ronds d'eau_. The child who broke thesilence "made a cross with her tongue." Where? On the ground. She lickedthe pavement. The dust, that end of all joys, was charged with thechastisement of those poor little rose-leaves which had been guilty ofchirping.

  There was in the convent a book which has never been printed except asa _unique copy_, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the rule ofSaint-Benoît. An arcanum which no profane eye must penetrate. _Nemoregulas, seu constitutiones nostras, externis communicabit_.

  The pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of this book, and setto reading it with avidity, a reading which was often interrupted bythe fear of being caught, which caused them to close the volumeprecipitately.

  From the great danger thus incurred they derived but a very moderateamount of pleasure. The most "interesting thing" they found were someunintelligible pages about the sins of young boys.

  They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabbyfruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity ofthe punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, theysometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot oran inhabited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speechto a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twentyyears ago by an old pupil, now Madame la Duchesse de----one of the mostelegant women in Paris. I quote literally: "One hides one's pear orone's apple as best one may. When one goes upstairs to put the veil onthe bed before supper, one stuffs them under one's pillow and at nightone eats them in bed, and when one cannot do that, one eats them in thecloset." That was one of their greatest luxuries.

  Once--it was at the epoch of the visit from the archbishop to theconvent--one of the young girls, Mademoiselle Bouchard, who wasconnected with the Montmorency family, laid a wager that she would askfor a day's leave of absence--an enormity in so austere a community. Thewager was accepted, but not one of those who bet believed that she woulddo it. When the moment came, as the archbishop was passing in front ofthe pupils, Mademoiselle Bouchard, to the indescribable terror of hercompanions, stepped out of the ranks, and said, "Monseigneur, a day'sleave of absence." Mademoiselle Bouchard was tall, blooming, with theprettiest little rosy face in the world. M. de Quélen smiled and said,"What, my dear child, a day's leave of absence! Three days if you like.I grant you three days." The prioress could do nothing; the archbishophad spoken. Horror of the convent, but joy of the pupil. The effect maybe imagined.

  This stern cloister was not so well walled off, however, but that thelife of the passions of the outside world, drama, and even romance,did not make their way in. To prove this, we will confine ourselves torecording here and to briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact,which, however, bears no reference in itself to, and is not connected byany thread whatever with the story which we are relating. We mention thefact for the sake of completing the physiognomy of the convent in thereader's mind.

  About this time there was in the convent a mysterious person who wasnot a nun, who was treated with great respect, and who was addressed as_Madame Albertine_. Nothing was known about her, save that she was mad,and that in the world she passed for dead. Beneath this history itwas said there lay the arrangements of fortune necessary for a greatmarriage.

  This woman, hardly thirty years of age, of dark complexion and tolerablypretty, had a vague look in her large black eyes. Could she see? Therewas some doubt about this. She glided rather than walked, she neverspoke; it was not quite known whether she breathed. Her nostrils werelivid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh. To touch herhand was like touching snow. She possessed a strange spectral grace.Wherever she entered, people felt cold. One day a sister, on seeing herpass, said to another sister, "She passes for a dead woman." "Perhapsshe is one," replied the other.

  A hundred tales were told of Madame Albertine. This arose from theeternal curiosity of the pupils. In the chapel there was a gallerycalled _L'Oil de Bouf_. It was in this gallery, which had only acircular bay, an _oil de bouf_, that Madame Albertine listened to theoffices. She always occupied it alone because this gallery, being on thelevel of the first story, the preacher or the officiating priest couldbe seen, which was interdicted to the nuns. One day the pulpit wasoccupied by a young priest of high rank, M. Le Duc de Rohan, peer ofFrance, officer of the Red Musketeers in 1815 when he was Prince deLéon, and who died afterward, in 1830, as cardinal and Archbishop ofBesançon. It was the first time that M. de Rohan had preached atthe Petit-Picpus convent. Madame Albertine usually preserved perfectcalmness and complete immobility during the sermons and services. Thatday, as soon as she caught sight of M. de Rohan, she half rose, andsaid, in a loud voice, amid the silence of the chapel, "Ah! Auguste!"The whole community turned their heads in amazement, the preacher raisedhis eyes, but Madame Albertine had relapsed into her immobility. Abreath from the outer world, a flash of life, had passed for an instantacross that cold and lifeless face and had then vanished, and the madwoman had become a corpse again.

  Those two words, however, had set every one in the convent who had theprivilege of speech to chattering. How many things were contained inthat "Ah! Auguste!" what revelations! M. de Rohan's name really wasAuguste. It was evident that Madame Albertine belonged to the veryhighest society, since she knew M. de Rohan, and that her own rank therewas of the highest, since she spoke thus familiarly of so great a lord,and that there existed between them some connection, of relationship,perhaps, but a very close one in any case, since she knew his "petname."

  Two very severe duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Sérent, oftenvisited the community, whither they penetrated, no doubt, in virtue ofthe privilege _Magnates mulieres_, and caused great consternation in theboarding-school. When these two old ladies passed by, all the poor younggirls trembled and dropped their eyes.

  Moreover, M. de Rohan, quite unknown to himself, was an object ofattention to the school-girls. At that epoch he had just been made,while waiting for the episcopate, vicar-general of the Archbishop ofParis. It was one of his habits to come tolerably often to celebrate theoffices in the chapel of the nuns of the Petit-Picpus. Not one of theyoung recluses could see him, because of the serge curtain, but he hada sweet and rather shrill voice, which they had come to know and todistinguish. He had been a mousquetaire, and then, he was said to bevery coquettish, that his handsome brown hair was very well dressed ina roll around his head, and that he had a broad girdle of magnificentmoire, and that his black cassock was of the most elegant cut in theworld. He held a great place in all these imaginations of sixteen years.

  Not a sound from without made its way into the convent. But there wasone year when the sound of a flute penetrated thither. This was anevent, and the girls who were at school there at the time still recallit.

  It was a flute which was played in the neighborhood. This flute alwaysplayed the same air, an air which is very far away nowadays,--"MyZétulbé, come reign o'er my soul,"--and it was heard two or threetimes a day. The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocalmothers were upset by it, brains were busy, punishments descended inshowers. This lasted for several months. The girls were all more orless in love with the unknown musician. Each one dreamed that she wasZétulbé. The sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the RueDroit-Mur; and they would have given anything, compromised everything,attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, if onlyfor a second, of the "young man" who played that flute so deliciously,and who, no doubt, played on all these souls at the same time. Therewere some who made their escape by a back door, and ascended to thethird story on the Rue Droit-Mur side, in order to attempt to catch aglimpse through the gaps. Impossible! One even went so far as to thrusther arm through the grating, and to wave her white handkerchief. Twowere still bolder. They found means to climb on a roof, and risked theirlives there, and succeeded at last in seeing "the young man." He was anold _émigré_ gentleman, blind and penniless, who was playing his flutein his attic, in order to pass the time.