Page 837 - les-miserables

CHAPTER V

DISTRACTIONS

Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was
called the white Paternoster, and which possessed the prop-
erty of bearing people straight to paradise, was inscribed in
large black letters:—
‘Little white Paternoster, which God made, which God
said, which God placed in paradise. In the evening, when I
went to bed, I found three angels sitting on my bed, one at
the foot, two at the head, the good Virgin Mary in the mid-
dle, who told me to lie down without hesitation. The good
God is my father, the good Virgin is my mother, the three
apostles are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters.
The shirt in which God was born envelopes my body; Saint
Margaret’s cross is written on my breast. Madame the Vir-
gin was walking through the meadows, weeping for God,
when she met M. Saint John. ‘Monsieur Saint John, whence
come you?’ ‘I come from Ave Salus.’ ‘You have not seen the
good God; where is he?’ ‘He is on the tree of the Cross, his
feet hanging, his hands nailed, a little cap of white thorns on
his head.’ Whoever shall say this thrice at eventide, thrice in
the morning, shall win paradise at the last.’

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