Page 832 - les-miserables

of roses falling athwart this house of mourning. The young
girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns; the gaze of im-
peccability 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 heav-
en. 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 He-
cuba to la Mere-Grand.
In that house more than anywhere else, perhaps, arise
those children’s 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!’
It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took
place:—
A Vocal Mother. Why are you weeping, my child?
The child (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French
history. She says that I do not know it, but I do.
Alix, the big girl (aged nine). No; she does not know it.
The Mother. How is that, my child?
Alix. She told me to open the book at random and to ask

832 Les Miserables