Les Misérables, page 62
CHAPTER I--SISTER SIMPLICE
The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at M. surM. But the small portion of them which became known left such a memoryin that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we didnot narrate them in their most minute details. Among these details thereader will encounter two or three improbable circumstances, which wepreserve out of respect for the truth.
On the afternoon following the visit of Javert, M. Madeleine went to seeFantine according to his wont.
Before entering Fantine's room, he had Sister Simplice summoned.
The two nuns who performed the services of nurse in the infirmary,Lazariste ladies, like all sisters of charity, bore the names of SisterPerpétue and Sister Simplice.
Sister Perpétue was an ordinary villager, a sister of charity in acoarse style, who had entered the service of God as one enters any otherservice. She was a nun as other women are cooks. This type is notso very rare. The monastic orders gladly accept this heavy peasantearthenware, which is easily fashioned into a Capuchin or an Ursuline.These rustics are utilized for the rough work of devotion. Thetransition from a drover to a Carmelite is not in the least violent;the one turns into the other without much effort; the fund of ignorancecommon to the village and the cloister is a preparation ready at hand,and places the boor at once on the same footing as the monk: a littlemore amplitude in the smock, and it becomes a frock. Sister Perpétuewas a robust nun from Marines near Pontoise, who chattered her patois,droned, grumbled, sugared the potion according to the bigotry or thehypocrisy of the invalid, treated her patients abruptly, roughly, wascrabbed with the dying, almost flung God in their faces, stoned theirdeath agony with prayers mumbled in a rage; was bold, honest, and ruddy.
Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor. Beside Sister Perpétue,she was the taper beside the candle. Vincent de Paul has divinely tracedthe features of the Sister of Charity in these admirable words, in whichhe mingles as much freedom as servitude: "They shall have for theirconvent only the house of the sick; for cell only a hired room; forchapel only their parish church; for cloister only the streets of thetown and the wards of the hospitals; for enclosure only obedience; forgratings only the fear of God; for veil only modesty." This ideal wasrealized in the living person of Sister Simplice: she had never beenyoung, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. No one couldhave told Sister Simplice's age. She was a person--we dare not say awoman--who was gentle, austere, well-bred, cold, and who had never lied.She was so gentle that she appeared fragile; but she was more solid thangranite. She touched the unhappy with fingers that were charmingly pureand fine. There was, so to speak, silence in her speech; she said justwhat was necessary, and she possessed a tone of voice which wouldhave equally edified a confessional or enchanted a drawing-room. Thisdelicacy accommodated itself to the serge gown, finding in this harshcontact a continual reminder of heaven and of God. Let us emphasizeone detail. Never to have lied, never to have said, for any interestwhatever, even in indifference, any single thing which was not thetruth, the sacred truth, was Sister Simplice's distinctive trait; it wasthe accent of her virtue. She was almost renowned in the congregationfor this imperturbable veracity. The Abbé Sicard speaks of SisterSimplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu. However pure and sincerewe may be, we all bear upon our candor the crack of the little, innocentlie. She did not. Little lie, innocent lie--does such a thing exist? Tolie is the absolute form of evil. To lie a little is not possible: hewho lies, lies the whole lie. To lie is the very face of the demon.Satan has two names; he is called Satan and Lying. That is what shethought; and as she thought, so she did. The result was the whitenesswhich we have mentioned--a whiteness which covered even her lips and hereyes with radiance. Her smile was white, her glance was white. There wasnot a single spider's web, not a grain of dust, on the glass window ofthat conscience. On entering the order of Saint Vincent de Paul, she hadtaken the name of Simplice by special choice. Simplice of Sicily, as weknow, is the saint who preferred to allow both her breasts to be tornoff rather than to say that she had been born at Segesta when she hadbeen born at Syracuse--a lie which would have saved her. This patronsaint suited this soul.
Sister Simplice, on her entrance into the order, had had two faultswhich she had gradually corrected: she had a taste for dainties, and sheliked to receive letters. She never read anything but a book of prayersprinted in Latin, in coarse type. She did not understand Latin, but sheunderstood the book.
This pious woman had conceived an affection for Fantine, probablyfeeling a latent virtue there, and she had devoted herself almostexclusively to her care.
M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice apart and recommended Fantine to herin a singular tone, which the sister recalled later on.
On leaving the sister, he approached Fantine.
Fantine awaited M. Madeleine's appearance every day as one awaits a rayof warmth and joy. She said to the sisters, "I only live when Monsieurle Maire is here."
She had a great deal of fever that day. As soon as she saw M. Madeleineshe asked him:--
"And Cosette?"
He replied with a smile:--
"Soon."
M. Madeleine was the same as usual with Fantine. Only he remained anhour instead of half an hour, to Fantine's great delight. He urged everyone repeatedly not to allow the invalid to want for anything. It wasnoticed that there was a moment when his countenance became very sombre.But this was explained when it became known that the doctor had bentdown to his ear and said to him, "She is losing ground fast."
Then he returned to the town-hall, and the clerk observed himattentively examining a road map of France which hung in his study. Hewrote a few figures on a bit of paper with a pencil.
