Page 839 - les-miserables

the pavement. The dust, that end of all joys, was charged
with the chastisement of those poor little rose-leaves which
had been guilty of chirping.
There was in the convent a book which has never been
printed except as a unique copy, and which it is forbidden
to read. It is the rule of Saint-Benoit. An arcanum which
no profane eye must penetrate. Nemo regulas, seu constitu-
tiones nostras, externis communicabit.
The pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of
this book, and set to reading it with avidity, a reading which
was often interrupted by the fear of being caught, which
caused them to close the volume precipitately.
From the great danger thus incurred they derived but a
very moderate amount of pleasure. The most ‘interesting
thing’ they found were some unintelligible pages about the
sins of young boys.
They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a
few shabby fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance
and the severity of the punishments administered, when
the wind had shaken the trees, they sometimes succeeded
in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or an inhab-
ited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speech to
a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twenty
years ago by an old pupil, now Madame la Duchesse de——
one of the most elegant women in Paris. I quote literally:
‘One hides one’s pear or one’s apple as best one may. When
one goes up stairs to put the veil on the bed before supper,
one stuffs them under one’s pillow and at night one eats
them in bed, and when one cannot do that, one eats them in

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