Page 961 - les-miserables

low tones in the corner of the parlor, then the prioress
turned round and said:—
‘Father Fauvent, you will get another knee-cap with a
bell. Two will be required now.’
On the following day, therefore, two bells were audible in
the garden, and the nuns could not resist the temptation to
raise the corner of their veils. At the extreme end of the gar-
den, under the trees, two men, Fauvent and another man,
were visible as they dug side by side. An enormous event.
Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each oth-
er: ‘He is an assistant gardener.’
The vocal mothers added: ‘He is a brother of Father Fau-
vent.’
Jean Valjean was, in fact, regularly installed; he had his
belled knee-cap; henceforth he was official. His name was
Ultime Fauchelevent.
The most powerful determining cause of his admission
had been the prioress’s observation upon Cosette: ‘She will
grow up ugly.’
The prioress, that pronounced prognosticator, imme-
diately took a fancy to Cosette and gave her a place in the
school as a charity pupil.
There is nothing that is not strictly logical about this.
It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the con-
vent, women are conscious of their faces; now, girls who are
conscious of their beauty do not easily become nuns; the vo-
cation being voluntary in inverse proportion to their good
looks, more is to be hoped from the ugly than from the pret-
ty. Hence a lively taste for plain girls.

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