Les Misérables, page 129
CHAPTER III--AUSTERITIES
One is a postulant for two years at least, often for four; a novice forfour. It is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced earlierthan the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years. TheBernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga do not admit widows to theirorder.
In their cells, they deliver themselves up to many unknown macerations,of which they must never speak.
On the day when a novice makes her profession, she is dressed in herhandsomest attire, she is crowned with white roses, her hair is brusheduntil it shines, and curled. Then she prostrates herself; a great blackveil is thrown over her, and the office for the dead is sung. Then thenuns separate into two files; one file passes close to her, saying inplaintive accents, "Our sister is dead"; and the other file responds ina voice of ecstasy, "Our sister is alive in Jesus Christ!"
At the epoch when this story takes place, a boarding-school was attachedto the convent--a boarding-school for young girls of noble andmostly wealthy families, among whom could be remarked Mademoisellede Saint-Aulaire and de Bélissen, and an English girl bearing theillustrious Catholic name of Talbot. These young girls, reared by thesenuns between four walls, grew up with a horror of the world and of theage. One of them said to us one day, "The sight of the street pavementmade me shudder from head to foot." They were dressed in blue, with awhite cap and a Holy Spirit of silver gilt or of copper on their breast.On certain grand festival days, particularly Saint Martha's day, theywere permitted, as a high favor and a supreme happiness, to dressthemselves as nuns and to carry out the offices and practice ofSaint-Benoît for a whole day. In the early days the nuns were in thehabit of lending them their black garments. This seemed profane, andthe prioress forbade it. Only the novices were permitted to lend. It isremarkable that these performances, tolerated and encouraged, no doubt,in the convent out of a secret spirit of proselytism and in orderto give these children a foretaste of the holy habit, were a genuinehappiness and a real recreation for the scholars. They simply amusedthemselves with it. _It was new; it gave them a change_. Candid reasonsof childhood, which do not, however, succeed in making us worldlingscomprehend the felicity of holding a holy water sprinkler in one's handand standing for hours together singing hard enough for four in front ofa reading-desk.
The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all thepractices of the convent. There was a certain young woman who enteredthe world, and who after many years of married life had not succeeded inbreaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever anyone knocked at her door, "forever!" Like the nuns, the pupils sawtheir relatives only in the parlor. Their very mothers did not obtainpermission to embrace them. The following illustrates to what a degreeseverity on that point was carried. One day a young girl received avisit from her mother, who was accompanied by a little sister threeyears of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embraceher sister. Impossible. She begged that, at least, the child might bepermitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she couldkiss it. This was almost indignantly refused.
