Who was in the coffin?The reader knows.Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean had arranged things so that he could exist there, and he could almost breathe.
It is a strange thing to what a degree security of conscience confers security of the rest.Every combination thought out by Jean Valjean had been progressing, and progressing favorably, since the preceding day.He, like Fauchelevent, counted on Father Mestienne.He had no doubt as to the end.Never was there a more critical situation, never more complete composure.
The four planks of the coffin breathe out a kind of terrible peace. It seemed as though something of the repose of the dead entered into Jean Valjean's tranquillity.
From the depths of that coffin he had been able to follow, and he had followed, all the phases of the terrible drama which he was playing with death.
Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the upper plank, Jean Valjean had felt himself carried out, then driven off.He knew, from the diminution in the jolting, when they left the pavements and reached the earth road.He had divined, from a dull noise, that they were crossing the bridge of Austerlitz.At the first halt, he had understood that they were entering the cemetery; at the second halt, he said to himself:--
"Here is the grave."
Suddenly, he felt hands seize the coffin, then a harsh grating against the planks; he explained it to himself as the rope which was being fastened round the casket in order to lower it into the cavity.
Then he experienced a giddiness.
The undertaker's man and the grave-digger had probably allowed the coffin to lose its balance, and had lowered the head before the foot.He recovered himself fully when he felt himself horizontal and motionless.He had just touched the bottom.
He had a certain sensation of cold.
A voice rose above him, glacial and solemn.He heard Latin words, which he did not understand, pass over him, so slowly that he was able to catch them one by one:--
"Qui dormiunt in terrae pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam aeternam, et alii in approbrium, ut videant semper."
A child's voice said:--
"De profundis."
The grave voice began again:--
"Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine."
The child's voice responded:--
"Et lux perpetua luceat ei."
He heard something like the gentle patter of several drops of rain on the plank which covered him.It was probably the holy water.
He thought:"This will be over soon now.patience for a little while longer.The priest will take his departure. Fauchelevent will take Mestienne off to drink.I shall be left. Then Fauchelevent will return alone, and I shall get out. That will be the work of a good hour."
The grave voice resumed
"Requiescat in pace."
And the child's voice said:--
"Amen."
Jean Valjean strained his ears, and heard something like retreating footsteps.
"There, they are going now," thought he."I am alone."
All at once, he heard over his head a sound which seemed to him to be a clap of thunder.
It was a shovelful of earth falling on the coffin.
A second shovelful fell.
One of the holes through which he breathed had just been stopped up.
A third shovelful of earth fell.
Then a fourth.
There are things which are too strong for the strongest man. Jean Valjean lost consciousness.

     谁躺在那棺材里？大家都明白，是冉阿让。冉阿让想出的办法，他只有一点空气可以呼吸，在那里面勉强能活着。真奇怪，心灵的安静可以保证其他一切的安静。冉阿让事先预测一套方案全证明对了，并且从前一天晚上起，全部进行得很顺利。他把希望寄托在梅斯于爷爷身上这一点与割风一样。他对最终结局毫不怀疑。从未有比这更紧张的形势，也从未有比这更全面的安宁。
    那四诀棺材板构成一种可怕的宁静。冉阿让镇定自若，仿佛真是从此长眠了。
    在棺村里，他能够感到也确实感到了他这次游戏死亡的戏剧场面是如何一幕一幕向前的。
    当割风钉完上面那块棺盖板后不久，冉阿让就觉得自己恍若在空间飘动，然后又跟随车子向前。由于震动的减轻，他感到自己已从石块路面到了碎石路面，也就是说，他已走出街道来到大路上。随着一阵空旷的声音，他猜测他正在过奥斯特里茨桥。在第一次停下时，他知道他快进公墓了，在第二次停下时，他对自己说：“到了坟墓边了。”
    忽然他感到很多手扶住了棺材，接着一阵粗糙的摩擦声在四面的木板上响起，他明白，那是在棺材上缠绳索，准备捆好后吊进坑里去。紧接着他感到一阵晕眩。很可能是由于那些殡仪执事和埋尸人把那棺材晃了几下面且是头先脚后放下去的。他即刻又彻底恢复过来，觉得自己平稳地躺着。他才碰到了底。
    他微微地觉到一股凉气。他听到一阵凄厉严肃的声音传自上面。他听到一个个的拉丁词在慢慢他说出，他每个字都能听清，但是根本不懂：“ Quidormiuntinterraepulvere， evigilabunt； aliiin vitamaeternam，et alii in opprobrium，ut videant sem-per”①接着一个孩子的声音：“De profundis.”②那低沉的声音又说道：“Requiem eternam dona ei，domine.”③孩子的声音回答着：“Etlux perpetua Luceatd.”①他听到遮掩他的那块棺板上有几滴水轻轻敲响的声音，“那或许是洒圣水。”
    他暗想：“快完了。再坚持一下。神甫要走了。割凤与梅斯干去喝酒。大家把我扔下。随后割风独自回来，我就出去了。这事没完没了还得等个把小时。”
    那低沉的声音又说道：
①“睡在尘土中的人，醒来；让永生的人和受屈辱的人永远看得见。”
②“从深渊的底里。”（是一首安魂诗开始的两个字）③“主啊，请让他永久安息。”
①“永恒之光照着他。”
    “Requiescat in pace。”②
    孩子的声音说：
    “阿们。”冉阿让，竖着耳朵，听到许多脚步仿佛往远处走的声音。
    “他们走了，”他心想，“就剩下我一个人了。”突然，他听见他头上仿佛是遭了雷劈的声音。那是甩在棺材上的铲土。
    第二铲上又甩下了。他用于呼吸的小孔已有一个被塞祝第三铲土又甩下了。
    接着是第四铲。有些事连最坚强的人也难以忍受。冉阿让昏过去了。
②“祝他平安。”

This is what had taken place above the coffin in which lay Jean Valjean.
When the hearse had driven off, when the priest and the choir boy had entered the carriage again and taken their departure, Fauchelevent, who had not taken his eyes from the grave-digger, saw the latter bend over and grasp his shovel, which was sticking upright in the heap of dirt.
Then Fauchelevent took a supreme resolve.
He placed himself between the grave and the grave-digger, crossed his arms and said:--
"I am the one to pay!"
The grave-digger stared at him in amazement, and replied:--
"What's that, peasant?"
Fauchelevent repeated:--
"I am the one who pays!"
"What?"
"For the wine."
"What wine?"
"That Argenteuil wine."
"Where is the Argenteuil?"
"At the Bon Coing."
"Go to the devil!" said the grave-digger.
And he flung a shovelful of earth on the coffin.
The coffin gave back a hollow sound.Fauchelevent felt himself stagger and on the point of falling headlong into the grave himself. He shouted in a voice in which the strangling sound of the death rattle began to mingle:--
"Comrade!Before the Bon Coing is shut!"
The grave-digger took some more earth on his shovel. Fauchelevent continued.
"I will pay."
And he seized the man's arm.
"Listen to me, comrade.I am the convent grave-digger, I have come to help you.It is a business which can be performed at night. Let us begin, then, by going for a drink."
And as he spoke, and clung to this desperate insistence, this melancholy reflection occurred to him:"And if he drinks, will he get drunk?"
"provincial," said the man, "if you positively insist upon it, I consent.We will drink.After work, never before."
And he flourished his shovel briskly.Fauchelevent held him back.
"It is Argenteuil wine, at six."
"Oh, come," said the grave-digger, "you are a bell-ringer. Ding dong, ding dong, that's all you know how to say.Go hang yourself."
And he threw in a second shovelful.
Fauchelevent had reached a point where he no longer knew what he was saying.
"Come along and drink," he cried, "since it is I who pays the bill."
"When we have put the child to bed," said the grave-digger.
He flung in a third shovelful.
Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added:--
"It's cold to-night, you see, and the corpse would shriek out after us if we were to plant her there without a coverlet."
At that moment, as he loaded his shovel, the grave-digger bent over, and the pocket of his waistcoat gaped.Fauchelevent's wild gaze fell mechanically into that pocket, and there it stopped.
The sun was not yet hidden behind the horizon; there was still light enough to enable him to distinguish something white at the bottom of that yawning pocket.
The sum total of lightning that the eye of a picard peasant can contain, traversed Fauchelevent's pupils.An idea had just occurred to him.
He thrust his hand into the pocket from behind, without the grave-digger, who was wholly absorbed in his shovelful of earth, observing it, and pulled out the white object which lay at the bottom of it.
The man sent a fourth shovelful tumbling into the grave.
Just as he turned round to get the fifth, Fauchelevent looked calmly at him and said:--
"By the way, you new man, have you your card?"
The grave-digger paused.
"What card?"
"The sun is on the point of setting."
"That's good, it is going to put on its nightcap."
"The gate of the cemetery will close immediately."
"Well, what then?"
"Have you your card?"
"Ah! my card?" said the grave-digger.
And he fumbled in his pocket.
Having searched one pocket, he proceeded to search the other. He passed on to his fobs, explored the first, returned to the second.
"Why, no," said he, "I have not my card.I must have forgotten it."
"Fifteen francs fine," said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger turned green.Green is the pallor of livid people.
"Ah!Jesus-mon-Dieu-bancroche-a-bas-la-lune!"(17) he exclaimed. "Fifteen francs fine!"
(17) Jesus-my-God-bandy-leg--down with the moon!
"Three pieces of a hundred sous," said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger dropped his shovel.
Fauchelevent's turn had come.
"Ah, come now, conscript," said Fauchelevent, "none of this despair. There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave. Fifteen francs is fifteen francs, and besides, you may not be able to pay it.I am an old hand, you are a new one.I know all the ropes and the devices.I will give you some friendly advice. One thing is clear, the sun is on the point of setting, it is touching the dome now, the cemetery will be closed in five minutes more."
"That is true," replied the man.
"Five minutes more and you will not have time to fill the grave, it is as hollow as the devil, this grave, and to reach the gate in season to pass it before it is shut."
"That is true."
"In that case, a fine of fifteen francs."
"Fifteen francs."
"But you have time.Where do you live?"
"A couple of steps from the barrier, a quarter of an hour from here. No. 87 Rue de Vaugirard."
"You have just time to get out by taking to your heels at your best speed."
"That is exactly so."
"Once outside the gate, you gallop home, you get your card, you return, the cemetery porter admits you.As you have your card, there will be nothing to pay.And you will bury your corpse. I'll watch it for you in the meantime, so that it shall not run away."
"I am indebted to you for my life, peasant."
"Decamp!" said Fauchelevent.
The grave-digger, overwhelmed with gratitude, shook his hand and set off on a run.
When the man had disappeared in the thicket, Fauchelevent listened until he heard his footsteps die away in the distance, then he leaned over the grave, and said in a low tone:--
"Father Madeleine!"
There was no reply.
Fauchelevent was seized with a shudder.He tumbled rather than climbed into the grave, flung himself on the head of the coffin and cried:--
"Are you there?"
Silence in the coffin.
Fauchelevent, hardly able to draw his breath for trembling, seized his cold chisel and his hammer, and pried up the coffin lid.
Jean Valjean's face appeared in the twilight; it was pale and his eyes were closed.
Fauchelevent's hair rose upright on his head, he sprang to his feet, then fell back against the side of the grave, ready to swoon on the coffin.He stared at Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless.
Fauchelevent murmured in a voice as faint as a sigh:--
"He is dead!"
And, drawing himself up, and folding his arms with such violence that his clenched fists came in contact with his shoulders, he cried:--
"And this is the way I save his life!"
Then the poor man fell to sobbing.He soliloquized the while, for it is an error to suppose that the soliloquy is unnatural. powerful emotion often talks aloud.
"It is Father Mestienne's fault.Why did that fool die?What need was there for him to give up the ghost at the very moment when no one was expecting it?It is he who has killed M. Madeleine. Father Madeleine!He is in the coffin.It is quite handy. All is over.Now, is there any sense in these things? Ah! my God! he is dead!Well! and his little girl, what am I to do with her?What will the fruit-seller say?The idea of its being possible for a man like that to die like this! When I think how he put himself under that cart!Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine!pardine!He was suffocated, I said so. He wouldn't believe me.Well!Here's a pretty trick to play! He is dead, that good man, the very best man out of all the good God's good folks!And his little girl!Ah!In the first place, I won't go back there myself.I shall stay here.After having done such a thing as that!What's the use of being two old men, if we are two old fools!But, in the first place, how did he manage to enter the convent?That was the beginning of it all. One should not do such things.Father Madeleine!Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine!Madeleine!Monsieur Madeleine!Monsieur le Maire! He does not hear me.Now get out of this scrape if you can!"
And he tore his hair.
A grating sound became audible through the trees in the distance. It was the cemetery gate closing.
Fauchelevent bent over Jean Valjean, and all at once he bounded back and recoiled so far as the limits of a grave permit.
Jean Valjean's eyes were open and gazing at him.
To see a corpse is alarming, to behold a resurrection is almost as much so.Fauchelevent became like stone, pale, haggard, overwhelmed by all these excesses of emotion, not knowing whether he had to do with a living man or a dead one, and staring at Jean Valjean, who was gazing at him.
"I fell asleep," said Jean Valjean.
And he raised himself to a sitting posture.
Fauchelevent fell on his knees.
"Just, good Virgin!How you frightened me!"
Then he sprang to his feet and cried:--
"Thanks, Father Madeleine!"
Jean Valjean had merely fainted.The fresh air had revived him.
Joy is the ebb of terror.Fauchelevent found almost as much difficulty in recovering himself as Jean Valjean had.
"So you are not dead!Oh!How wise you are!I called you so much that you came back.When I saw your eyes shut, I said: `Good! there he is, stifled,' I should have gone raving mad, mad enough for a strait jacket.They would have put me in Bicetre. What do you suppose I should have done if you had been dead? And your little girl?There's that fruit-seller,--she would never have understood it!The child is thrust into your arms, and then-- the grandfather is dead!What a story! good saints of paradise, what a tale!Ah! you are alive, that's the best of it!"
"I am cold," said Jean Valjean.
This remark recalled Fauchelevent thoroughly to reality, and there was pressing need of it.The souls of these two men were troubled even when they had recovered themselves, although they did not realize it, and there was about them something uncanny, which was the sinister bewilderment inspired by the place.
"Let us get out of here quickly," exclaimed Fauchelevent.
He fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a gourd with which he had provided himself.
"But first, take a drop," said he.
The flask finished what the fresh air had begun, Jean Valjean swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and regained full possession of his faculties.
He got out of the coffin, and helped Fauchelevent to nail on the lid again.
Three minutes later they were out of the grave.
Moreover, Fauchelevent was perfectly composed.He took his time. The cemetery was closed.The arrival of the grave-digger Gribier was not to be apprehended.That "conscript" was at home busily engaged in looking for his card, and at some difficulty in finding it in his lodgings, since it was in Fauchelevent's pocket. Without a card, he could not get back into the cemetery.
Fauchelevent took the shovel, and Jean Valjean the pick-axe, and together they buried the empty coffin.
When the grave was full, Fauchelevent said to Jean Valjean:--
"Let us go.I will keep the shovel; do you carry off the mattock."
Night was falling.
Jean Valjean experienced rome difficulty in moving and in walking. He had stiffened himself in that coffin, and had become a little like a corpse.The rigidity of death had seized upon him between those four planks.He had, in a manner, to thaw out, from the tomb.
"You are benumbed," said Fauchelevent."It is a pity that I have a game leg, for otherwise we might step out briskly."
"Bah!" replied Jean Valjean, "four paces will put life into my legs once more."
They set off by the alleys through which the hearse had passed. On arriving before the closed gate and the porter's pavilion Fauchelevent, who held the grave-digger's card in his hand, dropped it into the box, the porter pulled the rope, the gate opened, and they went out.
"How well everything is going!" said Fauchelevent; "what a capital idea that was of yours, Father Madeleine!"
They passed the Vaugirard barrier in the simplest manner in the world. In the neighborhood of the cemetery, a shovel and pick are equal to two passports.
The Rue Vaugirard was deserted.
"Father Madeleine," said Fauchelevent as they went along, and raising his eyes to the houses, "Your eyes are better than mine. Show me No. 87."
"Here it is," said Jean Valjean.
"There is no one in the street," said Fauchelevent."Give me your mattock and wait a couple of minutes for me."
Fauchelevent entered No. 87, ascended to the very top, guided by the instinct which always leads the poor man to the garret, and knocked in the dark, at the door of an attic.
A voice replied:"Come in."
It was Gribier's voice.
Fauchelevent opened the door.The grave-digger's dwelling was, like all such wretched habitations, an unfurnished and encumbered garret. A packing-case--a coffin, perhaps--took the place of a commode, a butter-pot served for a drinking-fountain, a straw mattress served for a bed, the floor served instead of tables and chairs.In a corner, on a tattered fragment which had been a piece of an old carpet, a thin woman and a number of children were piled in a heap.The whole of this poverty-stricken interior bore traces of having been overturned. One would have said that there had been an earthquake "for one." The covers were displaced, the rags scattered about, the jug broken, the mother had been crying, the children had probably been beaten; traces of a vigorous and ill-tempered search.It was plain that the grave-digger had made a desperate search for his card, and had made everybody in the garret, from the jug to his wife, responsible for its loss.He wore an air of desperation.
But Fauchelevent was in too great a hurry to terminate this adventure to take any notice of this sad side of his success.
He entered and said:--
"I have brought you back your shovel and pick."
Gribier gazed at him in stupefaction.
"Is it you, peasant?"
"And to-morrow morning you will find your card with the porter of the cemetery."
And he laid the shovel and mattock on the floor.
"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Gribier.
"The meaning of it is, that you dropped your card out of your pocket, that I found it on the ground after you were gone, that I have buried the corpse, that I have filled the grave, that I have done your work, that the porter will return your card to you, and that you will not have to pay fifteen francs.There you have it, conscript."
"Thanks, villager!" exclaimed Gribier, radiant."The next time I will pay for the drinks."

     发生在装有冉阿让的棺材上面的事是这样的。当灵车已经开远，神甫和唱诗少年都上车走了后，眼睛一直盯着那埋尸人的割凤看到他弯腰去拿他那把插在土里的锹。这时，割风痛下了尤其坚定的决心。他走过去站在坟墓和那埋尸人之间，交叉双手，说道：“我付钱！”埋尸人大吃一惊，睁眼望着他，回答说：“什么，乡下佬？”割风重复道：“我付钱！”
    “什么钱？”
    “酒钱！”
    “什么酒？”
    “阿尔让特伊。”
    “在哪儿，阿尔让特伊？”
    “好木瓜。”
    “去你的！”埋尸人说。同时他铲起一铲土，甩在棺材上。
    棺材发出一种空的回响。割风觉得自己头重脚轻，差一点摔倒在坟墓里。
    他叫了起来，喉头已开始被气声哽滞住了。
    “伙计，趁现在‘好木瓜，还没有打烊！”埋尸人又铲满一铲土。割风继续说。
    “我付钱！”
    同时他一把抓住那埋尸人的胳膊。
    “请听我说，伙计。我是修道院里的埋尸人。我是来帮助您的。这个活，晚上也可以干。我们先喝一杯，再回头来干。”
    他一边这么说，一边死死纠缠在这个没有希望渺茫固执念头上，但心里却有另一个惨兮兮的想法：“即便他愿意去喝！他会不会醉呢？”
    “天啊，”埋尸人说，“您既然如此相迫，我陪你就是。我们一块去喝。干完活再去，活没干完，绝不行。”
    同时他抖了抖那把铲，割风又抓住了他。
    “是六法郎一瓶的阿尔让特伊呢！”
    “怎么啦，”埋尸人说，“您简直是个敲钟人。丁东，丁东，①，除了这事，您什么也不会说。走开些，不要老在这儿烦人。”
    同时他抛出了第二铲土。这时割风也不明白自己在说什么了。
    “来喝一口嘛，”他吼道，“既然是由我付钱！”
    “先让这宝贝睡安稳了再说，”埋尸人说。他抛下第三铲土。接着他又把锹插进土里，说道：①丁东指钟声，同时也影射 dindOn（愚人）。
    “您知道，今晚天气转冷，要是我们把这死女人丢弃不管，没为她盖上被子，她会在我们身后追赶叫嚷的。”
    这时，那埋尸人正弯身铲土，他那工作服的口袋叉开了。割风那惊慌失措的眼睛呆板地盯在那口袋上，注视着它。太阳还没有落下去，天还很亮，能让他望见在那大开口的衣袋里，有张白色的东西。一个庇卡底的乡巴佬的眼睛所能出现的闪光，从割风的眼珠里全部放射出来了。忽然他有了个主意。那埋尸人正在注意他那一铲上，割风乘他不备，从后面把手伸进他的衣袋中，从袋子里取出了那张白色的东西。那埋尸人已向坟墓里摔下了第四铲土了。正当他转过身来铲第五铲的时候，割风从容不迫地望着他，对他说：“喂，初出道的小伙子，您有那卡片吗？”埋尸人停下来说：“什么卡片？”
    “太阳快下山了。”
    “让它下山好了，请它戴上它的睡帽。”
    “公墓的铁栅门快关了。”
    “关了又如何？”
    “您有那卡片吗？”
    “啊，我的卡片！”埋尸人说。同时他搜寻自己的衣袋。
    搜了一个，又搜另一个。他又到背心口袋上去搜寻，检查了第一个，又检查第二个。
    “没有，”他说，“我没带上我的卡片，我忘了。”
    “十五法郎的罚款。”割风说。埋尸人的脸变青了。铁青的面孔没有一丝血色。
    “啊主蔼—我的——瘸腿—天主——蹲下了——屁股！十五法郎的罚款！”
    “三枚一百个苏的钱。”割风说。埋尸人扔下了他的铲。割风的机会来了。
    “不用伯，”割风说，“小伙子，不要悲伤失望。为了这就想寻短见，就想利用这坟坑不划算。十五法郎，只十五法郎，而且您有办法可以不给，我是老手，您是新手。我有很多办法、方法、巧法、妙法。作为朋友我为您出个主意。事情明摆着的，太阳下山了，它已到了那圆屋顶的尖上，不到五 分钟，公墓大门就关上了。”
    “这是真的。”那埋尸人回答说。
    “五分钟内您来不及填满这个坑，它和鬼门关一样深，这墓坑，您一定赶不及在关铁栅门之前跑到门口钻出去。”
    “这话对的。”
    “既然这样，就逃不脱十五法郎的罚款。”
    “十五法郎??’
    “不过您还来得及??您住在什么地方？”
    “离侧门只有几步路，从这里走去，一刻钟。伏吉拉尔街，八十七号。”
    “拔脚飞跑，马上跑出大门，您还有时间。”
    “一点不错。”
    “出了大门，您迅速奔国家，取上卡片再回来，公墓的看门为您打开门。您有了卡片，就不会罚款。那时您再埋好您的死人，我呢，我替您在这里看往，以免他开小差。”
    “您救了我的命，乡下佬。”
    “你快滚。”割风说。那埋尸人，感激万千地握着他的手一抖再抖，飓的一声跑了。埋尸人消失在树丛中后，割风又侧耳细听，直到听不见他的脚步声了，他这才朝着那坟墓，弯下身去，轻轻叫道：“马德兰爷爷！”没有回音。
    割风打了一阵寒战。他爬了下去，不，应该说滚了下去，跳到棺材头上，喊着：“您在里面吗？”棺材里没有一丝动静。
    割风发着抖连呼吸也停了，急忙拿出他的凿子和铁锤，撬开了棺盖板。
    冉阿让的脸，在那傍晚里显得苍白，眼睛紧紧闭上。割风的头发竖立起来，他站起，靠着坟墓的内壁，差一点摔倒在棺材上。
    他看着冉阿让。
    冉阿让躺着，面色青灰，丝毫不动。割风很轻地，象细凤吹过似的说道：“他死了！”
    他又站起身，凶狠地叉起两条胳膊，使他两个捏紧了的拳头猛烈地碰到了双肩，他喊着：“我是这样拯救他的，我！”
    这时，这可悲的老人放声痛哭，一面喃喃自语，一些人认为天下不含有独语的人，那是错误的认识。猛烈的激动常会通过语言大声发出来的。
    “这是梅斯千爷爷的过错，他为何要死呢，这蠢人？他为何一定要在别人预料不到的时候归天呢？是他把马德兰先生害死的。马德兰爷爷！他睡在棺材里了。他算是死了。彻底完了。这种事，有什么道理好讲呢？啊！我的上帝！他死了！好呀，我拿她怎么办？他那姑娘，那卖水果的婆娘会说什么呢？这样一个人就如已经死了，会有这样的怪事！我想到他以前钻到我的车子底下来的那个时候！马德兰爷爷！马德兰爷爷！天啊，他被窒息死了，我早就说过的。他偏不听我的话。好呀，这傻事干得好棒！他死了，这个老好人，慈悲天主呀，他是慈悲人中最最慈悲的人！还有他那小女孩！啊！无论怎样，我不回那里去了，我，我就待在这里算了。干出了这种事！我们俩，活到这把年纪了，却还象两个老疯子一样，真不该呀。可是，他到底是如何钻进那修道院的呢？从一开始就不对。那种事是不能干的。马德兰爷爷！马德兰爷爷！马德兰爷爷！马德兰！马德兰先生！市长先生！他听不见我的声音。请你赶快爬出来吧。”
    他抓自己的头发。远处树林里传来一阵尖锐的嘎嘎吱声。公墓的铁栅门关上了。
    割风低下头去瞧冉阿让，突然又猛跳了起来，弹到了坑壁。冉阿让的眼睛睁开了，并且望着他。
    看见一个死人，是吓人的事；看见一个复活的人，几乎是同样吓人的。割风似乎变成了一块石头，面色青灰，慌乱失措，内心彻底被惊讶激动压倒了，他不知道面对的是个活人呢还是个死人，他望着冉阿让，冉阿让也望着他。
    “我睡着了。”冉阿让说。他坐起来。
    割风跪下去。
    “公正慈悲的圣母！我被您吓惨了！”然后他又站起来，大声说：“谢谢，马德兰爷爷！”冉阿让最初只是昏过去了一会。新鲜空气又使他醒过来。欢乐是恐怖的回应，割风几乎要象冉阿让那样费了很大劲才能醒过来。
    “这么说，您还没有死！呵！您多么会逗着玩，我要千叫万叫，您才醒过来。我看见您眼睛紧闭时，我说：‘完了！他闷死了。’我几乎变成了一 个疯子，一个非被五花大绑不可的恶疯子。我也许会被人关进经塞特。要是您死了的话，您叫我怎么办？还有您那小姑娘！那水果店的婆娘也会感到坠入雾中！我把孩子推到她的怀里，回过头来却说她公公死了！好怪的事呀！我天国里的大圣大贤，好怪的事呀！啊！您还活着，这是最了不起的。”
    “我冷。”冉阿让说。
    这句话让割风又彻底回到了现实，当时的情况却是紧张的。两个人现在虽然都已苏醒过来，而且没有感到自己的神智还是迷糊的，但他们的心里却都有一种奇异的现象，那就是对当时凶险的处境还无法充分意识到。
    “让我们立即离开这儿。”割风大声说。
    他从衣袋里掏出一个葫芦瓶，那是也先准备好了的。
    “先喝一口。”他说。葫芦瓶完成了新鲜空气初见的成效，冉阿让喝了一大口烧酒，他这才感到完全恢复了。
    他从棺村里钻出来，协助割风再把棺盖钉好。他们三分钟过后又到了坟墓的外面。割风这下放心了，变得不慌不忙。公墓大门也已经关上。不用担心那埋尸人格利比埃会突然来到。那“小伙子”正在家里找他的卡片，由于卡片在割风的衣袋里，他决不能从他屋子里找到。没有卡片，他就进不了坟常割风拿着锹，冉阿让拿着镐，一块埋了那口空棺。填满坑时，割风对冉阿让说：“咱们走吧，我带着锹，您带着镐。”天已经黑下来了。
    冉阿让走起路来还不大方便。他在那棺村里睡僵了，似乎快有点变成僵尸了。在那四块木板里，关节已和死人一样硬化了，从某种程度上讲他应先使自己从那冰坑的凉气里恢复过来。
    “您冻僵了，”割风说，“可惜我脚跛，否则，我们可以痛快淋漓地跑一段。”
    “没关系！”冉阿让回答道，“没走几步路，我的腿劲又上来了。”
    他们沿着先前灵车走过的那些小路走，到了那早关了的铁栅门和看门人的亭子面前，割风捏着埋尸人的卡片，把它丢进匣子里，看门人拉动绳子，门一开，他们便出去了。
    “这真方便！”割凤说，“您的主意多妙，马德兰爷爷！”他们轻松地穿过了伏吉拉尔侧门，没有遇到任何困难。在公墓附近一带，一把锹和一把镐就等于两张通行证。伏吉拉尔街上杏无人迹。
    “马德兰爷爷，”割风一面抬眼望着街道的房屋，一面走着说，“您眼睛比我的好。请告诉我八十六号在那里。”
    “正巧，就是这儿。”冉阿让说。
    “街上无人，”割风接着说，“您把镐给我，等我两分钟，”割风走进八十七号，他从那种随时都把穷人引向最上层的本能一直往上走，黑暗中，他敲了一间顶楼的门。有个人的声音答道：“请进来。”那正是格利比埃的声音。
    割风推开了门。那埋尸人的屋子，正与所有穷人的住处一样，是一个既无家具而又堆满杂物的烂窝。一只装运货物的木箱——也可能是一口棺材——作为橱柜，一个奶油钵当作面盆，草褥代替床，方砖代替椅子和桌子。屋角里铺了一条破垫子，那是一条破烂地毯的残余，有个瘦女人和很多孩子，坐在烂毯上挤作一团。这穷困家庭里的一切，还留着一阵才到处乱翻过的痕迹。夸张地说，那里刚发生了一嘲私人”的地震。许多东西的盖子还未盖好，破衣烂衫零乱不堪，瓦罐被打碎了，母亲哭过了，孩子们或许还挨过打，那就是一阵顽强激愤的搜查所留下的残迹，显然，那埋尸人曾发狂地寻找他那张卡片，接着他把遗失的责任推给那狗窝里的一切东西和人的身上，从瓦罐一直到他的老婆。他正在愁苦焦的。
    割风因为要急于结束当时的险境，所以根本没有想到他的胜利的不幸的这方面。他走进去，说道：“我把您的镐和锹带来了。”
    格利比埃满脸惊俱，望着他说：
    “是您，乡下佬？”
    “明晨您可以去坟场的看门人那里取您的卡片。”同时他把锹和镐放在方砖地上。
    “这从何说起？”格利比埃问。
    “这就是说：您让您的卡片从衣袋里落出来了。您走之后，我从地上把它拾起来了，我把那死人掩埋了，我把坑填平了，我帮您干完了活，看门人会把卡片还给您，您不用付十五法郎了。就这样，小伙子，”“谢谢，乡下佬！”格利比埃兴高采烈地喊道，“下次喝酒，归我付账。”

On the following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passers-by on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an old-fashioned hearse, ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and tears. This hearse contained a coffin covered with a white cloth over which spread a large black cross, like a huge corpse with drooping arms. A mourning-coach, in which could be seen a priest in his surplice, and a choir boy in his red cap, followed.Two undertaker's men in gray uniforms trimmed with black walked on the right and the left of the hearse.Behind it came an old man in the garments of a laborer, who limped along.The procession was going in the direction of the Vaugirard cemetery.
The handle of a hammer, the blade of a cold chisel, and the antennae of a pair of pincers were visible, protruding from the man's pocket.
The Vaugirard cemetery formed an exception among the cemeteries of paris.It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter, who clung tenaciously to ancient words, still called the porte cavaliere and the porte pietonne.(16) The Bernardines-Benedictines of the Rue petit-picpus had obtained permission, as we have already stated, to be buried there in a corner apart, and at night, the plot of land having formerly belonged to their community.The grave-diggers being thus bound to service in the evening in summer and at night in winter, in this cemetery, they were subjected to a special discipline. The gates of the paris cemeteries closed, at that epoch, at sundown, and this being a municipal regulation, the Vaugirard cemetery was bound by it like the rest.The carriage gate and the house door were two contiguous grated gates, adjoining a pavilion built by the architect perronet, and inhabited by the door-keeper of the cemetery.These gates, therefore, swung inexorably on their hinges at the instant when the sun disappeared behind the dome of the Invalides.If any grave-digger were delayed after that moment in the cemetery, there was but one way for him to get out-- his grave-digger's card furnished by the department of public funerals. A sort of letter-box was constructed in the porter's window. The grave-digger dropped his card into this box, the porter heard it fall, pulled the rope, and the small door opened.If the man had not his card, he mentioned his name, the porter, who was sometimes in bed and asleep, rose, came out and identified the man, and opened the gate with his key; the grave-digger stepped out, but had to pay a fine of fifteen francs.
(16) Instead of porte cochere and porte batarde.
This cemetery, with its peculiarities outside the regulations, embarrassed the symmetry of the administration.It was suppressed a little later than 1830.The cemetery of Mont-parnasse, called the Eastern cemetery, succeeded to it, and inherited that famous dram-shop next to the Vaugirard cemetery, which was surmounted by a quince painted on a board, and which formed an angle, one side on the drinkers' tables, and the other on the tombs, with this sign: Au Bon Coing.
The Vaugirard cemetery was what may be called a faded cemetery. It was falling into disuse.Dampness was invading it, the flowers were deserting it.The bourgeois did not care much about being buried in the Vaugirard; it hinted at poverty.pere-Lachaise if you please! to be buried in pere-Lachaise is equivalent to having furniture of mahogany.It is recognized as elegant.The Vaugirard cemetery was a venerable enclosure, planted like an old-fashioned French garden.Straight alleys, box, thuya-trees, holly, ancient tombs beneath aged cypress-trees, and very tall grass. In the evening it was tragic there.There were very lugubrious lines about it.
The sun had not yet set when the hearse with the white pall and the black cross entered the avenue of the Vaugirard cemetery. The lame man who followed it was no other than Fauchelevent.
The interment of Mother Crucifixion in the vault under the altar, the exit of Cosette, the introduction of Jean Valjean to the dead-room,-- all had been executed without difficulty, and there had been no hitch.
Let us remark in passing, that the burial of Mother Crucifixion under the altar of the convent is a perfectly venial offence in our sight.It is one of the faults which resemble a duty. The nuns had committed it, not only without difficulty, but even with the applause of their own consciences.In the cloister, what is called the "government" is only an intermeddling with authority, an interference which is always questionable.In the first place, the rule; as for the code, we shall see.Make as many laws as you please, men; but keep them for yourselves.The tribute to Caesar is never anything but the remnants of the tribute to God. A prince is nothing in the presence of a principle.
Fauchelevent limped along behind the hearse in a very contented frame of mind.His twin plots, the one with the nuns, the one for the convent, the other against it, the other with M. Madeleine, had succeeded, to all appearance.Jean Valjean's composure was one of those powerful tranquillities which are contagious. Fauchelevent no longer felt doubtful as to his success.
What remained to be done was a mere nothing.Within the last two years, he had made good Father Mestienne, a chubby-cheeked person, drunk at least ten times.He played with Father Mestienne.He did what he liked with him.He made him dance according to his whim. Mestienne's head adjusted itself to the cap of Fauchelevent's will. Fauchelevent's confidence was perfect.
At the moment when the convoy entered the avenue leading to the cemetery, Fauchelevent glanced cheerfully at the hearse, and said half aloud, as he rubbed his big hands:--
"Here's a fine farce!"
All at once the hearse halted; it had reached the gate.The permission for interment must be exhibited.The undertaker's man addressed himself to the porter of the cemetery.During this colloquy, which always is productive of a delay of from one to two minutes, some one, a stranger, came and placed himself behind the hearse, beside Fauchelevent.He was a sort of laboring man, who wore a waistcoat with large pockets and carried a mattock under his arm.
Fauchelevent surveyed this stranger.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"The man replied:--
"The grave-digger."
If a man could survive the blow of a cannon-ball full in the breast, he would make the same face that Fauchelevent made.
"The grave-digger?"
"Yes."
"You?"
"I."
"Father Mestienne is the grave-digger."
"He was."
"What!He was?"
"He is dead."
Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a grave-digger could die.It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves.By dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one's own.
Fauchelevent stood there with his mouth wide open.He had hardly the strength to stammer:--
"But it is not possible!"
"It is so."
"But," he persisted feebly, "Father Mestienne is the grave-digger."
"After Napoleon, Louis XVIII.After Mestienne, Gribier. peasant, my name is Gribier."
Fauchelevent, who was deadly pale, stared at this Gribier.
He was a tall, thin, livid, utterly funereal man.He had the air of an unsuccessful doctor who had turned grave-digger.
Fauchelevent burst out laughing.
"Ah!" said he, "what queer things do happen!Father Mestienne is dead, but long live little Father Lenoir!Do you know who little Father Lenoir is?He is a jug of red wine.It is a jug of Surene, morbigou! of real paris Surene?Ah!So old Mestienne is dead! I am sorry for it; he was a jolly fellow.But you are a jolly fellow, too.Are you not, comrade?We'll go and have a drink together presently."
The man replied:--
"I have been a student.I passed my fourth examination. I never drink."
The hearse had set out again, and was rolling up the grand alley of the cemetery.
Fauchelevent had slackened his pace.He limped more out of anxiety than from infirmity.
The grave-digger walked on in front of him.
Fauchelevent passed the unexpected Gribier once more in review.
He was one of those men who, though very young, have the air of age, and who, though slender, are extremely strong.
"Comrade!" cried Fauchelevent.
The man turned round.
"I am the convent grave-digger."
"My colleague," said the man.
Fauchelevent, who was illiterate but very sharp, understood that he had to deal with a formidable species of man, with a fine talker. He muttered:
"So Father Mestienne is dead."
The man replied:--
"Completely.The good God consulted his note-book which shows when the time is up.It was Father Mestienne's turn.Father Mestienne died."
Fauchelevent repeated mechanically:"The good God--"
"The good God," said the man authoritatively."According to the philosophers, the Eternal Father; according to the Jacobins, the Supreme Being."
"Shall we not make each other's acquaintance?" stammered Fauchelevent.
"It is made.You are a peasant, I am a parisian."
"people do not know each other until they have drunk together. He who empties his glass empties his heart.You must come and have a drink with me.Such a thing cannot be refused."
"Business first."
Fauchelevent thought:"I am lost."
They were only a few turns of the wheel distant from the small alley leading to the nuns' corner.
The grave-digger resumed:--
"peasant, I have seven small children who must be fed.As they must eat, I cannot drink."
And he added, with the satisfaction of a serious man who is turning a phrase well:--
"Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst."
The hearse skirted a clump of cypress-trees, quitted the grand alley, turned into a narrow one, entered the waste land, and plunged into a thicket.This indicated the immediate proximity of the place of sepulture.Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the hearse.Fortunately, the soil, which was light and wet with the winter rains, clogged the wheels and retarded its speed.
He approached the grave-digger.
"They have such a nice little Argenteuil wine," murmured Fauchelevent.
"Villager," retorted the man, "I ought not be a grave-digger. My father was a porter at the prytaneum (Town-Hall). He destined me for literature.But he had reverses.He had losses on 'change. I was obliged to renounce the profession of author.But I am still a public writer."
"So you are not a grave-digger, then?" returned Fauchelevent, clutching at this branch, feeble as it was.
"The one does not hinder the other.I cumulate."
Fauchelevent did not understand this last word.
"Come have a drink," said he.
Here a remark becomes necessary.Fauchelevent, whatever his anguish, offered a drink, but he did not explain himself on one point; who was to pay?Generally, Fauchelevent offered and Father Mestienne paid. An offer of a drink was the evident result of the novel situation created by the new grave-digger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old gardener left the proverbial quarter of an hour named after Rabelais in the dark, and that not unintentionally. As for himself, Fauchelevent did not wish to pay, troubled as he was.
The grave-digger went on with a superior smile:--
"One must eat.I have accepted Father Mestienne's reversion. One gets to be a philosopher when one has nearly completed his classes.To the labor of the hand I join the labor of the arm. I have my scrivener's stall in the market of the Rue de Sevres. You know? the Umbrella Market.All the cooks of the Red Cross apply to me.I scribble their declarations of love to the raw soldiers. In the morning I write love letters; in the evening I dig graves. Such is life, rustic."
The hearse was still advancing.Fauchelevent, uneasy to the last degree, was gazing about him on all sides.Great drops of perspiration trickled down from his brow.
"But," continued the grave-digger, "a man cannot serve two mistresses. I must choose between the pen and the mattock.The mattock is ruining my hand."
The hearse halted.
The choir boy alighted from the mourning-coach, then the priest.
One of the small front wheels of the hearse had run up a little on a pile of earth, beyond which an open grave was visible.
"What a farce this is!" repeated Fauchelevent in consternation.

     第二天，黄昏的时候，一辆灵车行在梅恩大路上，寥寥几个来往过路的人对它脱帽①，致礼，那灵车是老式的，上面画了骷髅、人骨和泪水，灵车里有一口棺材，棺材上盖着一块白布，布上摊着一个很大的十字架，它象一个高大的死人，向两边垂着两条胳膊，仰卧在那上面。灵车后面是一辆有布帷的四轮轿车，行人可以望见一个穿白袈裟的神甫和一个戴红爪皮帽的唱诗童子坐在那轿车里，灵车的左右两旁走着两个灰色制服上有黑丝带盘花装饰的殡仪执事。后面还有一个穿着工人服装的瘸老头。送葬行列正向伏吉拉尔公墓走去。
    那瘸老头的衣袋里，露出一段铁锤的柄、一把钝口凿和一把取钉钳的两个把手。
    在巴黎的几个公墓中伏吉拉尔公墓是独特的。它有它的特殊习惯，正如它的大车门和侧门在附近一带那些保守而又重视传统的老人们的嘴里还称做骑士门和行人门一样。我们已经说过，小比克布斯的伯尔纳一本笃会的修女们获得许可，可以葬在这个公墓中一小块划开的坟地上，并且可以在傍晚时下葬，因为那块地在过去原是属于她们修道院的。由于这个缘故，在夏季的傍晚和冬季的黑夜如果埋死人的人还得在坟场里工作的话，他就必须遵守一 条特殊的纪律。当年巴黎的所有公墓在太阳落山时都必须关上大门，那是市政机关的规定，和其他公墓一样伏吉拉尔公墓也必须得遵守这一条。骑士门和行人门是两道紧挨着的铁栏门，旁边有个亭子，是建筑家贝隆内修建的，里面住着公墓的看门人。因此那两道铁栏门，必须在太阳落到残废军人院圆顶后面去时毫不留情地双双关闭。假如有个埋死人的工人，到时候还不能离开公墓，他要想出去就只有一个办法，那就是出示他那张殡仪馆行政部门填发的埋葬工人工作证卡片，在门房的窗板上，挂着一个像信箱一样的匣子。埋死人的工人把他的卡片丢在那匣子里，看门人听到了卡片落下的声音，就拉动绳子，打开行人门。假如那埋死人的工人忘了带上他的工作证，他就得报出自己的姓名，那看门人，有时已经睡下了，而且已经睡着了，也得爬起来，走去认清了那个埋死人的工人，这才拿出钥匙来开门；那埋死人的工人可以出去，可是必须交十五法郎的罚金。
    伏吉拉尔公墓，由于它那些不合常规的规定，影响了行政上的管理。它在一八三○年过后不久便被取消了。代替它的是已纳斯山公墓，也叫东坟场，并且接管了伏吉拉尔公墓那官商合营的著名饮料店，那饮料店的房顶上有一 块木招牌，招牌上画了个木瓜，店面在转变处，一面对着客座，一面对着坟墓，招牌上写着：“好木瓜。”几个字。
    伏吉拉尔公墓可以说是一个枯萎了的公墓。它衰落下来了，那里满布苔藓却不见一花一木，有钱人家死了人都不大乐意葬在伏吉拉尔，以免显得寒酸。拉雪兹神甫公墓，①，值得庆幸！葬在拉雪兹神甫公墓就大不一样了，这象有了红木高级家具一样。那地方给人一种豪华高贵的印象。伏吉拉尔公墓是个古色古香的园子，树木是按照法国古老园林格局栽植的。小路条条笔直，两旁种有冬青、侧柏、拘骨叶冬青、古老的水松下面是荒古老地坟墓，草很深。入夜一片悲凉气象。有些景色阴森森的，有些怕人。
①欧俗，看见灵车走过的人都肃然脱帽。
①拉雷兹神甫（Pere—Lachaise），法王路易十四的忏悔神甫，他在巴黎东郊有块地，一八○四年改为公墓，并以他的名字命名。
    当那辆盖了一块白布和一个黑十字架的灵车走进伏吉拉尔公墓大路时，太阳还没有下山，走在车子后面的那个瘸腿老人便是割风。
    事情进行得很顺利，受难嬷嬷被安葬在祭台下面的地窖里，珂赛恃被送出大门，冉阿让溜进太平间，没有发生任何的意外。
    我们顺便说一句，把受难嬷嬷埋葬在修道院祭台下面这件事，在我们看来根本是不足挂齿的，那种错误似乎于为人之道并无大碍。修女们办完这件事，她们不仅没有觉得害怕，反倒觉得内心安谧，在修道院里，一般而言的“政府”，意思是指当局的干涉，这种干涉总是有问题的。主要的是教仪，至于法律，那再说吧，人啊，你们愿意制订多少法律，尽管去制订好了，但只请你们给自己留下用吧．对人的给予一贯是对天主的给予的余物。王子在理性面前也不值一提。
    割风满意地随着灵车跛着脚往前走。他的两个秘密，他那配对的诡计，一个已与修女们串通一气，另一个已与马德兰先生串通一气，一个是朝向修道院的，另一个是背对修道院的，都全部如愿以偿。冉阿让的沉着是一种具有强烈感动力的沉着。割风再也没有不相信成功与否这件事了。剩下的并需要做的事情已不算什么事了。两年以来，他把老实巴交的梅斯千爷爷，一个脸上多肉的埋葬工人的老实人，灌醉过十次。对于梅斯千爷爷，他一贯将他随意摆布，犹如掌中之物。他常把自己的意志和奇思异想强加在他的头上似乎拿一顶帽子给他戴上而梅斯干的脑壳不得不逢迎割风的帽子。割风自以为可以完全控制他。
    当送殡仪队伍转进那条通往公墓的大道时，割风，望着那灵车，搓着一双大手，心里痒痒地细声说道：“这玩笑开得大哩！”忽然，那灵车停住了，大家已来到铁栅门并要交验掩埋尸首的许可证。
    殡仪馆的一个人和那公墓的看门见了面。大家不得不为交涉等上两三分钟，正在交涉的当口，谁也不认识的一个人，走过来站在割风的旁边灵车的后面。这是个看上去象工人的人，穿一件有大口袋的工作服，胳膊下夹着一把十字镐。
    割风望着那个陌生人。
    “您是谁？”他问。那人答道：
    “埋尸人。”如果有个人一颗炮弹炸在胸口而不死，他的面容一定会同割风那时的面容一样。
    “埋尸人？”
    “是的。”
    “您呢？”
    “我。”
    “埋尸人是梅斯千爷爷。”
    “以前是的。”
    “什么！以前是的？”
    “他死了。”
    割风一切都想到了，便没有想到这一点，没想到埋尸人也要死。那却是事实，埋尸人同样会死。人在不断为别人挖掘坟墓时，也慢慢挖开了自己的坟墓。
    割风张开嘴，呆在那里。费了很大劲，他才磕磕绊绊说出一句：“这，这是不可能的事。”
    “现在就可能了。”
    “但是，”他又气喘吁吁地接着说，“埋葬尸人，只是梅斯干爷爷呀。”
    “拿破仑以后，是路易十八。梅斯千以后是格利比埃。我就是格利比埃，你这个乡下佬，”割风面如土色，打量着格利比埃。他是个瘦长、一脸墓色、冷酷无比的汉子。他那样子就如一个行医不得意改业当埋尸人的医生。割风纵声大笑。
    “嘿！真是怪哉！梅斯千爷爷死了。梅斯千小爷爷死了，可是勒诺瓦小爷爷万岁！协诺瓦小爷爷是什么你知道吗？那是柜台上一瓶六法郎的红酒。那是叙雷钠出品的，棒极了！巴黎地道的叙雷讷！哈！他死了，我心里真大不好受了，梅斯千这老头儿！他是个快乐的人。事实上您也是个快乐的人。是吗，伙计？等一会儿，我们去喝一杯。”
    那人答道：“我读过书。我读完了第四班①。我从来不饮酒。”
    灵车又开动了，在公墓的大道上往前走。割风的脚步慢了下来，这并非由于他是瘸腿，而是由于他内心焦燥。埋尸人走在他前面。割风对这个突然出现的格利比埃，又细细打量了一下。他是一个那种又年轻又年老、又干瘪又结实的人。“伙计！”割风叫道。那人回过头来。“我是修道院里的埋尸人。”“老前辈。”那个人答道。割风虽是个粗人但也粗中有细，他明白他碰到了个难以应付的家伙，一个巧言善辩的人物。他嘀咕着：“没想到，梅斯千爷爷死了。”那人答道：“彻底了结。仁慈的天主圈了他的生死牌。梅斯千爷爷的大限到了。梅斯千爷爷自然就死了。”割风生硬地重复说：“仁慈的天主??”“仁慈的天主，”那人庄严他说，“按哲学家的说法，是永恒之父，按雅各派修士①的说法，是上帝，”“难道我们不打算相互介绍一下吗？”割风结结巴巴地问道。“已经作过介绍了。您是乡下佬，我是巴黎人。”
    “喝酒成朋友，千杯就交心。您应与我去喝一杯。这不应推托，”“首要是工作。”割风暗想道：“这下完了。”车轮转完最后几圈，就到达修女们那个角落的小道上了。埋尸人接着说：“我有七个小几靠我养活。他们要吃饭，我也只能不喝酒。”他象个咬文嚼字的书虫似的，还带着自以为是的神情补充道：“他们的饥饿就是我的口渴的死敌。”灵车绕过一株参天古柏，走过了大路，转进了小路，走上了泥地，伸入丛莽。不言而喻马上就要到达那墓地边上了。割风放缓了自己的脚步，那灵车却一个劲地往前走，幸好土质松软，又被冬天的雨水浸透了，阻滞着车轮，灵车减低了速度。
    他靠近那埋尸人。
①法国中小学十年一贯制，第四班即六年级。
①雅各派修士属天主教多明我会体系。
    “有一种非常好的阿尔让特伊小酒。”割风压低声音慢慢说道。
    “乡巴佬，”那人接着说，“我来当埋尸人，那本来是不该发生的事。我父亲是会堂的收发员。他最初希望我从事文学。但是他倒了霉。他在交易所里亏了本。我也就只好放弃当作家的希望，可我还是个摆摊的写字先生。”
    “那么您不是埋尸人了？”割风紧接着问，赶紧抓这一线虽然很微渺的希望。
    “我两行都同时干，我身兼二职。”割风不明白后头那句话。
    “去喝一杯。”他说。有一点值得注意，割风内心万分焦急地想请人喝酒，却没有说明谁付钱？
    先前，时常是割风请人喝酒，而由梅斯千爷爷付钱。这次请人喝酒，起因当然是那个新埋尸人所造成的新局面，那老园丁并非没有考虑，而且是应该请的，只是把人们平常说的“拉伯雷的那一刻钟”①始终不说出来。割风尽管有些慌，却丝毫没有想过要付钱。
    那个埋尸人，带着自傲的笑容，说道：
    “吃饭是大事。我继承了梅斯千爷爷的职业。一个人在差不多快结束学业时，他就有了一个哲学头脑。除以手写字的工作外，我还加上以胳膊挖土的工作。我在塞夫勒街市场上有个写字摊位。您知道吗？在雨伞市常红十 字会所有的女佣人都来找我。我得为她们东拼西凑上一些表达情意的话，写给那些毛头小伙。我早上代写情书，晚上挖坟墓。乡下佬，这就是生活。”灵车一直往前走，割风更加神色慌张地朝四面乱望。颗颗汗水从他的额头上滴下来。
    “但是，”那埋尸人继续说，“一个人不能服伺两个婆婆。我必挑选一 样，笔还是镐。，镐弄坏我的手。”
    灵车停住了。
    唱诗少年从那遮了布帷子的车里钻了出来。接着是那神甫。灵车前面的一个小轮子已经碾到了土堆边，再过去一点，就是那敞开的坟墓了。
    “这玩笑开得太大了！”割风一脸沮丧，又重说了这么一句。
①“拉伯雷的那一刻钟”，通常指没钱付帐的尬尴时刻。拉伯雷要会巴黎，走到里昂，没有钱付旅费。他包了三十小包，上面分别写明，“给国王吃的毒药”、”给王后吃的毒药”、“给太子吃的毒药”，并把这三十包放在他住房的附近。警察发现后，逮捕了拉伯雷，押送到巴黎，报告国王。国王弗朗索瓦一世大笑，立即释放了他。

The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; they do not reach their goal very promptly.Moreover, Fauchelevent was in a dilemma.He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his cottage in the garden.Cosette had waked up.Jean Valjean had placed her near the fire.At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was pointing out to her the vintner's basket on the wall, and saying to her, "Listen attentively to me, my little Cosette. We must go away from this house, but we shall return to it, and we shall be very happy here.The good man who lives here is going to carry you off on his back in that.You will wait for me at a lady's house. I shall come to fetch you.Obey, and say nothing, above all things, unless you want Madame Thenardier to get you again!"
Cosette nodded gravely.
Jean Valjean turned round at the noise made by Fauchelevent opening the door.
"Well?"
"Everything is arranged, and nothing is," said Fauchelevent. "I have permission to bring you in; but before bringing you in you must be got out.That's where the difficulty lies.It is easy enough with the child."
"You will carry her out?"
"And she will hold her tongue?"
"I answer for that."
"But you, Father Madeleine?"
And, after a silence, fraught with anxiety, Fauchelevent exclaimed:--
"Why, get out as you came in!"
Jean Valjean, as in the first instance, contented himself with saying, "Impossible."
Fauchelevent grumbled, more to himself than to Jean Valjean:--
"There is another thing which bothers me.I have said that I would put earth in it.When I come to think it over, the earth instead of the corpse will not seem like the real thing, it won't do, it will get displaced, it will move about.The men will bear it. You understand, Father Madeleine, the government will notice it."
Jean Valjean stared him straight in the eye and thought that he was raving.
Fauchelevent went on:--
"How the de--uce are you going to get out?It must all be done by to-morrow morning.It is to-morrow that I am to bring you in. The prioress expects you."
Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his recompense for a service which he, Fauchelevent, was to render to the community. That it fell among his duties to take part in their burials, that he nailed up the coffins and helped the grave-digger at the cemetery. That the nun who had died that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which had served her for a bed, and interred in the vault under the altar of the chapel.That the police regulations forbade this, but that she was one of those dead to whom nothing is refused. That the prioress and the vocal mothers intended to fulfil the wish of the deceased.That it was so much the worse for the government. That he, Fauchelevent, was to nail up the coffin in the cell, raise the stone in the chapel, and lower the corpse into the vault. And that, by way of thanks, the prioress was to admit his brother to the house as a gardener, and his niece as a pupil.That his brother was M. Madeleine, and that his niece was Cosette.That the prioress had told him to bring his brother on the following evening, after the counterfeit interment in the cemetery.But that he could not bring M. Madeleine in from the outside if M. Madeleine was not outside. That that was the first problem.And then, that there was another: the empty coffin."
"What is that empty coffin?" asked Jean Valjean.
Fauchelevent replied:--
"The coffin of the administration."
"What coffin?What administration?"
"A nun dies.The municipal doctor comes and says, `A nun has died.' The government sends a coffin.The next day it sends a hearse and undertaker's men to get the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. The undertaker's men will come and lift the coffin; there will be nothing in it."
"put something in it."
"A corpse?I have none."
"No."
"What then?"
"A living person."
"What person?"
"Me!" said Jean Valjean.
Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as though a bomb had burst under his chair.
"You!"
"Why not?"
Jean Valjean gave way to one of those rare smiles which lighted up his face like a flash from heaven in the winter.
"You know, Fauchelevent, what you have said:`Mother Crucifixion is dead.'and I add:`and Father Madeleine is buried.'
"Ah! good, you can laugh, you are not speaking seriously."
"Very seriously, I must get out of this place."
"Certainly."
"l have told you to find a basket, and a cover for me also,"
"Well?"
"The basket will be of pine, and the cover a black cloth."
"In the first place, it will be a white cloth.Nuns are buried in white."
"Let it be a white cloth, then."
"You are not like other men, Father Madeleine."
To behold such devices, which are nothing else than the savage and daring inventions of the galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things which surrounded him, and mingle with what he called the "petty course of life in the convent," caused Fauchelevent as much amazement as a gull fishing in the gutter of the Rue Saint-Denis would inspire in a passer-by.
Jean Valjean went on:--
"The problem is to get out of here without being seen.This offers the means.But give me some information, in the first place. How is it managed?Where is this coffin?"
"The empty one?"
"Yes."
"Down stairs, in what is called the dead-room. It stands on two trestles, under the pall."
"How long is the coffin?"
"Six feet."
"What is this dead-room?"
"It is a chamber on the ground floor which has a grated window opening on the garden, which is closed on the outside by a shutter, and two doors; one leads into the convent, the other into the church."
"What church?"
"The church in the street, the church which any one can enter."
"Have you the keys to those two doors?"
"No; I have the key to the door which communicates with the convent; the porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church."
"When does the porter open that door?"
"Only to allow the undertaker's men to enter, when they come to get the coffin.When the coffin has been taken out, the door is closed again."
"Who nails up the coffin?"
"I do."
"Who spreads the pall over it?"
"I do."
"Are you alone?"
"Not another man, except the police doctor, can enter the dead-room. That is even written on the wall."
"Could you hide me in that room to-night when every one is asleep?"
"No. But I could hide you in a small, dark nook which opens on the dead-room, where I keep my tools to use for burials, and of which I have the key."
"At what time will the hearse come for the coffin to-morrow?"
"About three o'clock in the afternoon.The burial will take place at the Vaugirard cemetery a little before nightfall. It is not very near."
"I will remain concealed in your tool-closet all night and all the morning.And how about food?I shall be hungry."
"I will bring you something."
"You can come and nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock."
Fauchelevent recoiled and cracked his finger-joints.
"But that is impossible!"
"Bah!Impossible to take a hammer and drive some nails in a plank?"
What seemed unprecedented to Fauchelevent was, we repeat, a simple matter to Jean Valjean.Jean Valjean had been in worse straits than this.Any man who has been a prisoner understands how to contract himself to fit the diameter of the escape. The prisoner is subject to flight as the sick man is subject to a crisis which saves or kills him.An escape is a cure. What does not a man undergo for the sake of a cure?To have himself nailed up in a case and carried off like a bale of goods, to live for a long time in a box, to find air where there is none, to economize his breath for hours, to know how to stifle without dying-- this was one of Jean Valjean's gloomy talents.
Moreover, a coffin containing a living being,--that convict's expedient,-- is also an imperial expedient.If we are to credit the monk Austin Castillejo, this was the means employed by Charles the Fifth, desirous of seeing the plombes for the last time after his abdication.
He had her brought into and carried out of the monastery of Saint-Yuste in this manner.
Fauchelevent, who had recovered himself a little, exclaimed:--
"But how will you manage to breathe?"
"I will breathe."
"In that box!The mere thought of it suffocates me."
"You surely must have a gimlet, you will make a few holes here and there, around my mouth, and you will nail the top plank on loosely."
"Good!And what if you should happen to cough or to sneeze?"
"A man who is making his escape does not cough or sneeze."
And Jean Valjean added:--
"Father Fauchelevent, we must come to a decision:I must either be caught here, or accept this escape through the hearse."
Every one has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging between the two leaves of a half-shut door.Who is there who has not said to a cat, "Do come in!"There are men who, when an incident stands half-open before them, have the same tendency to halt in indecision between two resolutions, at the risk of getting crushed through the abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The over-prudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes incur more danger than the audacious.Fauchelevent was of this hesitating nature.But Jean Valjean's coolness prevailed over him in spite of himself.He grumbled:--
"Well, since there is no other means."
Jean Valjean resumed:--
"The only thing which troubles me is what will take place at the cemetery."
"That is the very point that is not troublesome," exclaimed Fauchelevent. "If you are sure of coming out of the coffin all right, I am sure of getting you out of the grave.The grave-digger is a drunkard, and a friend of mine.He is Father Mestienne.An old fellow of the old school.The grave-digger puts the corpses in the grave, and I put the grave-digger in my pocket.I will tell you what will take place.They will arrive a little before dusk, three-quarters of an hour before the gates of the cemetery are closed. The hearse will drive directly up to the grave.I shall follow; that is my business.I shall have a hammer, a chisel, and some pincers in my pocket.The hearse halts, the undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down.The priest says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy water, and takes his departure.I am left alone with Father Mestienne. He is my friend, I tell you.One of two things will happen, he will either be sober, or he will not be sober.If he is not drunk, I shall say to him:`Come and drink a bout while the Bon Coing (the Good Quince) is open.'I carry him off, I get him drunk,-- it does not take long to make Father Mestienne drunk, he always has the beginning of it about him,--I lay him under the table, I take his card, so that I can get into the cemetery again, and I return without him.Then you have no longer any one but me to deal with.If he is drunk, I shall say to him:`Be off; I will do your work for you.'Off he goes, and I drag you out of the hole."
Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself upon it with the touching effusion of a peasant.
"That is settled, Father Fauchelevent.All will go well."
"provided nothing goes wrong," thought Fauchelevent."In that case, it would be terrible."

     瘸子走起路来，就好象独眼人送秋波，都是不大容易成功的。割风就是这个样，他此时又正在心烦意乱的时候。几乎花了一刻钟他才回到园里的他的破屋里。珂赛特已经醒来了。冉阿让让她坐在火炉旁。割风进屋子时，冉阿让正把那园丁挂在墙上的背箩指给她看并且说：“好好听我说，我的小珂赛特。我们必须马上离开这里，但是我们还要回来的，这样我们就能很好地住在这里了。这里的那位老大爷会让你待在那背箩里，把你背出去。你到一位太大家里去等我。我会去找你的，最要紧的是，假如你不想让德纳第大娘又把你抓回去，你就得乖乖地听我的话，什么也不能说啊！”
    珂赛特郑重地点了点头。冉阿让听到割风推门的声音，便掉转头问道：“怎么样了？”
    “一切都安排好了，可又没有安排好，”割风说，“我得允许，让您进来，但是在带您进来之前，得先让您出去。麻烦的正是这一点。至于这小姑娘，倒好说。”
    “您答应背她出去吗？”
    “她答应不出声吗？”
    “我保证。”
    “可是您呢，马德兰爷爷？”在一阵令人心焦的沉默之后，割风大声说：“你若从您进来的那条路出去，不就得了！”
    “不可能”。冉阿让像刚才一样，只回答了一声。割风嘴里小声说着话，可并非是在对冉阿让谈话，而是自盲自语道：“还有一件事，使我心里不踏实。我说过，放些泥上在棺村里。可话又说回来那里面装上泥，不会象是装个人，那玩意儿会跑，会动，那样不成。别人会看出问题来的。您知道吗，马德兰爷爷，政府会察觉出来的。”
    冉阿让直瞪瞪地看了割风好一阵，以为他在说胡话。
    割风接着又说：
    “难道您就出不了这??鬼门关？问题是：一切都得在明天办妥！我必须在明天领您进来。院长等着您。”
    这时，割风告诉冉阿让说，让冉阿让在修道院里呆下来是由于他，割风，替修道院办了件事而得来的报酬；办理丧事也是他份内的活，他得把棺材钉好，还得到公墓去帮那埋死人的工人。早上死去的那个修女留下遗言说要把她装殓在她平日拿来当床用的棺村里，并且要把她埋在圣坛祭台下的地窖里，这种做法是警方所禁止的，而死者却又是那样迫切要求这么做，院长和参议嬷嬷们都决定要了死者的愿，即使是政府也不去管它了；他，割风，则要到那矮屋子里钉上棺材，到圣坛里去旋开石板，还得把那死人送到地窖下面去。为了酬谢他，院长同意让他兄弟即马德兰先生到修道院里来当园丁，也让他的侄女那便是珂赛特来寄读。院长说过，要他在明天天快黑时，等到公墓里的假埋葬办妥后，就把他的兄弟带来。可是需是马德兰不在外面的话，他便不能把马德兰先生从外面带进来，这是首先遇到的麻烦，还有一个麻烦，便是那口空棺材。
    “什么空棺材？”冉阿让问。割风回答说：“管理机关的棺材。”
    “什么棺材？什么管理机关。”
    “因为死了一个修女。市政府的医生来检查了并且报告说：‘有个修女已死了。’政府便送来一口棺材。第二天，政府还会派一辆丧车和几个殡仪执事来把那棺材运到公墓去，如果殡仪执事们来了，抬起那棺材，里面却没有东西，那将如何是好。”
    “那就放点东西在里面。”
    “放个死人？我到哪里去找。”
    “不。”
    “那么，放个什么呢。”
    “放个活人。”
    “活人？那是谁？”
    “我。”冉阿让说。割风本是坐着的，听到这句话，他猛地跃起来，好象椅子下面炸了一个爆竹。
    “你！”
    “为什么不呢？”冉阿让脸上现出一种少见的笑容，宛如冬日天上的那种微光。
    “您知道，割风，您刚才说过：受难嬷嬷死了，我补上了一句说，马德兰先生埋了。事情就是这样。”
    “啊，好，您是在开玩笑。您不是在说正经话。”
    “绝对正经。我不是得先从这里出去吗？”
    “当然。”
    “我早和您讲过，要您帮我找一个背箩和一块油布。”
    “那又怎样呢？”
    “找个杉木背和一块黑布就可以了。”
    “我只有白布。修女人葬，用的全是白布。”
    “白布也成。”
    “您这个人，和别人不一样，马德兰爷爷。”马德兰所说的事对割风来讲如同一种幻想，这幻想在修道院那牢狱似的地方出现是一种胆大妄为的创造，割风从来都生活在平静的圈子中，他平日见到的，按照他的说法，“只是修道院里的一些琐碎平凡的小事儿”，现在忽然有这种奇想出现在他那宁静的环境里，而且要和修遭院牵涉在一起，他当时惊骇万状，就如同一个看见一只海鸥在圣德尼街边溪流里捕鱼的行人的神情一样。
    冉阿让接着说：
    “要想从这里偷跑出去。现在只有这个办法。但是您必须把所有情况告诉我。事情怎样进行？棺材在哪里？”
    “空的那口吗？”
    “对。”
    “在下面的太平间里。放在两个木架上，上面盖一块盖棺布。”
    “那棺材有多长？”
    “六尺。”
    “太平间是怎样的？”
    “那是底层的一间屋子，有一扇窗开向园子，窗口安有铁栅栏，窗板从外面开关，另外还有两扇门：一扇通向惨道院，一扇通向礼拜堂。”
    “什么礼拜堂？”
    “街上的礼拜堂，大众的礼拜堂，”
    “您有那两扇门的钥匙吗？”
    “没有，我只有通向修道院那扇门的钥匙，通向礼拜堂那扇门的钥匙在看门人的手里。”
    “看门人一般何时才开那扇门呢？”
    “当殡仪执事要进去抬棺材的时候，他才打开那扇门。棺材出去了，门又得关上。”
    “谁来钉棺材？”
    “我钉。”
    “谁盖那块布？”
    “我盖。”
    “只您一个人吗？”
    “除了警署的医生之外，任何男人都不允许进入太平间，那是写好在墙上的。”
    “今天晚上，等到修道院里人全睡了，您能不能把我藏在那屋子里？”
    “不行。可是我可以把您藏在一间紧邻太平间的小黑屋子里，那是我放埋葬工具的地方，它是归我管的，我有那屋子的钥匙。”
    “明天几点钟灵车来取棺材？”
    “下午三点钟左右。在傍晚的时候，它将被葬在吉拉尔公墓，那地方有些远。”
    “我就在您放工具的小屋子里躲上一整夜和整个半天。可是吃的东西呢？我会饿的。”
    “吃的，我会送给您的。”
    “到两点钟时，我就去躺在空棺材里，你来把它钉上，”割风朝后退了退，把两只手捏来捏去的，骨节里被他捏得嘎嘎的响。
    “这，我办不到。”
    “这算得了什么！拿一个铁钉锤，把几个钉子钉到木板里面去就行了！”在割风眼里是荒唐的事，我们再说一遍，在冉阿让的眼里，却是平凡的，冉阿让已冒过比这更大的风险。凡是当过囚犯的人都有一套技术，他们可以按照逃生的路的大小来缩小自己的身体。囚犯要逃命，正如病人去求医，是生是死，在所不顾，逃命如同治玻为了治好病，有什么不能接受的呢？让别人把自己钉在一个匣子里，当作一个包裹运出去，在盒子里慢慢地与死亡抗争，在没有空气的地方找空气，连续几个小时里屏住口呼吸，气息淹淹却还没死去，这是冉阿让忍受多种惨痛的本领之一。其实，棺村里藏活人，苦役犯所采用的这种逃主办法，也是帝王曾采用过的。假使奥斯丹?加迪莱约的记载可靠的话，查理五世①在逊位以后，想和卜隆白见最后一面时，便用这种方法把她抬进圣茹斯特修院，继又把她抬出①查理五世是十六世纪德意志皇帝，逊位后出家修道。
    去的。稍稍镇静之后，割风大声问道：
    “可是您怎么能呼吸呢？”
    “我会呼吸的。”
    “在那盒子里！我，只要想一想，就已经感到窒息了。”
    “您一定有一个螺丝锥吧，您在棺材靠近我嘴的地方，随便锥几个小孔，棺材上面的木板，也不要钉得太紧了。”
    “好！万一您要咳嗽或打喷嚏。”冉阿让又说了一句：“割风大爷，得打定主意了：要么我在这里等人家来捉，要么接受由灵车逃出去的办法。”
    人们都知道，猫儿有一种癖性，它爱在半开着的门边徘徊不前。有些人在半开着的机会面前也一样会有左思右想，打不定主意的表现，冒着让自己被压在陡然截断生路的命运下面。那些处事大小心的人，就有那样的猫性，并且正因为他们有猫性，有时他们遇到的危险反而比大胆的人所遇到的危险更多更大。割风正是那种具有瞻前顾后性格的人。但是冉阿让的冷静态度，使他不由自主地转变过来了，他嘟嘟嚷嚷他说：“总之，除这之外，没有别的办法了。”
    冉阿让接着说：
    “我所担心的便是不知道到了公墓怎么办。”
    “这倒正是我放心的地方，”割风大声说，“要是您有把握能让自己活着走出棺材，那我也有把握让您能活着出坟坑。那个埋死人的工人是个大酒鬼，他也是我的朋友。梅斯千爷爷。一个爱喝酒的老头儿。埋死人的工人把死人放在坟坑里，而我可把埋死人的工人放在我的口袋里。到了公墓怎么办，让我先来告诉您。我们到了那里，天还没有黑，离坟场关铁栅栏的时间还有四十五分钟。灵车要一直开到坟坑边。我的任务是跟在灵车后，我衣袋里带着一个铁锤、一把凿子、一个取钉钳。灵车停下后，殡仪执事们将在您的棺材结上一根绳子，把您吊下坟坑去。神甫走来念些经，画一个十字，洒上圣水，然后离开。留下来的便只有我一个人和梅斯千爷爷。那是我的朋友，我告诉您。事情只有两种情况，要不是他喝醉了，要不是他没有喝醉，要是他没有喝醉，我就对他说：‘我们来喝一杯，趁现在好本爪酒馆还开着。’我把他带到那里去灌醉他，梅斯千爷爷酒量不大用不着喝几杯便会醉倒的，他平时就带着几分醉意的，我为了救你要让他醉得直躺在桌子底下，然后拿了他那张进公墓的工作证，把他甩下，我自个儿回来。您就只有我一个要对付了。要是他已经醉了，我就对他说：‘去你的，让我来干你的活。’他走后，我就把您从坟里拖上来。”
    冉阿让向他伸出一只手，割风冲上去，一把握住了，乡下人的那种热心肠真叫人感动。
    “我同意，割风大爷，但愿一切顺利。”
    “要是不发生意外，那就太好了。”割风心里这么想，“可这是多么大的一场风险呵！”

About a quarter of an hour elapsed.The prioress returned and seated herself once more on her chair.
The two interlocutors seemed preoccupied.We will present a stenographic report of the dialogue which then ensued, to the best of our ability.
"Father Fauvent!"
"Reverend Mother!"
"Do you know the chapel?"
"I have a little cage there, where I hear the mass and the offices."
"And you have been in the choir in pursuance of your duties?"
"Two or three times."
"There is a stone to be raised."
"Heavy?"
"The slab of the pavement which is at the side of the altar."
"The slab which closes the vault?"
"Yes."
"It would be a good thing to have two men for it."
"Mother Ascension, who is as strong as a man, will help you."
"A woman is never a man."
"We have only a woman here to help you.Each one does what he can. Because Dom Mabillon gives four hundred and seventeen epistles of Saint Bernard, while Merlonus Horstius only gives three hundred and sixty-seven, I do not despise Merlonus Horstius."
"Neither do I."
"Merit consists in working according to one's strength.A cloister is not a dock-yard."
"And a woman is not a man.But my brother is the strong one, though!"
"And can you get a lever?"
"That is the only sort of key that fits that sort of door."
"There is a ring in the stone."
"I will put the lever through it."
"And the stone is so arranged that it swings on a pivot."
"That is good, reverend Mother.I will open the vault."
"And the four Mother precentors will help you."
"And when the vault is open?"
"It must be closed again."
"Will that be all?"
"No."
"Give me your orders, very reverend Mother."
"Fauvent, we have confidence in you."
"I am here to do anything you wish."
"And to hold your peace about everything!"
"Yes, reverend Mother."
"When the vault is open--"
"I will close it again."
"But before that--"
"What, reverend Mother?"
"Something must be lowered into it."
A silence ensued.The prioress, after a pout of the under lip which resembled hesitation, broke it.
"Father Fauvent!"
"Reverend Mother!"
"You know that a mother died this morning?"
"No."
"Did you not hear the bell?"
"Nothing can be heard at the bottom of the garden."
"Really?"
"I can hardly distinguish my own signal."
"She died at daybreak."
"And then, the wind is not blowing in my direction this morning."
"It was Mother Crucifixion.A blessed woman."
The prioress paused, moved her lips, as though in mental prayer, and resumed:--
"Three years ago, Madame de Bethune, a Jansenist, turned orthodox, merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion at prayer."
"Ah! yes, now I hear the knell, reverend Mother."
"The mothers have taken her to the dead-room, which opens on the church."
"I know."
"No other man than you can or must enter that chamber.See to that. A fine sight it would be, to see a man enter the dead-room!"
"More often!"
"Hey?"
"More often!"
"What do you say?"
"I say more often."
"More often than what?"
"Reverend Mother, I did not say more often than what, I said more often."
"I don't understand you.Why do you say more often?"
"In order to speak like you, reverend Mother."
"But I did not say `more often.'"
At that moment, nine o'clock struck.
"At nine o'clock in the morning and at all hours, praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar," said the prioress.
"Amen," said Fauchelevent.
The clock struck opportunely.It cut "more often" short. It is probable, that had it not been for this, the prioress and Fauchelevent would never have unravelled that skein.
Fauchelevent mopped his forehead.
The prioress indulged in another little inward murmur, probably sacred, then raised her voice:--
"In her lifetime, Mother Crucifixion made converts; after her death, she will perform miracles."
"She will!" replied Father Fauchelevent, falling into step, and striving not to flinch again.
"Father Fauvent, the community has been blessed in Mother Crucifixion. No doubt, it is not granted to every one to die, like Cardinal de Berulle, while saying the holy mass, and to breathe forth their souls to God, while pronouncing these words:Hanc igitur oblationem. But without attaining to such happiness, Mother Crucifixion's death was very precious.She retained her consciousness to the very last moment.She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels. She gave us her last commands.If you had a little more faith, and if you could have been in her cell, she would have cured your leg merely by touching it.She smiled.We felt that she was regaining her life in God.There was something of paradise in that death."
Fauchelevent thought that it was an orison which she was finishing.
"Amen," said he.
"Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done."
The prioress took off several beads of her chaplet.Fauchelevent held his peace.
She went on:--
"I have consulted upon this point many ecclesiastics laboring in Our Lord, who occupy themselves in the exercises of the clerical life, and who bear wonderful fruit."
"Reverend Mother, you can hear the knell much better here than in the garden."
"Besides, she is more than a dead woman, she is a saint."
"Like yourself, reverend Mother."
"She slept in her coffin for twenty years, by express permission of our Holy Father, pius VII.--"
"The one who crowned the Emp--Buonaparte."
For a clever man like Fauchelevent, this allusion was an awkward one. Fortunately, the prioress, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, did not hear it.She continued:--
"Father Fauvent?"
"Reverend Mother?"
"Saint Didorus, Archbishop of Cappadocia, desired that this single word might be inscribed on his tomb:Acarus, which signifies, a worm of the earth; this was done.Is this true?"
"Yes, reverend Mother."
"The blessed Mezzocane, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried beneath the gallows; this was done."
"That is true."
"Saint Terentius, Bishop of port, where the mouth of the Tiber empties into the sea, requested that on his tomb might be engraved the sign which was placed on the graves of parricides, in the hope that passers-by would spit on his tomb.This was done. The dead must be obeyed."
"So be it."
"The body of Bernard Guidonis, born in France near Roche-Abeille, was, as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the church of the Dominicans in Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was Bishop of Tuy in Spain.Can the contrary be affirmed?"
"For that matter, no, reverend Mother."
"The fact is attested by plantavit de la Fosse."
Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The prioress resumed:--
"Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be interred in the coffin in which she has slept for the last twenty years."
"That is just."
"It is a continuation of her slumber."
"So I shall have to nail up that coffin?"
"Yes."
"And we are to reject the undertaker's coffin?"
"precisely."
"I am at the orders of the very reverend community."
"The four Mother precentors will assist you."
"In nailing up the coffin?I do not need them."
"No. In lowering the coffin."
"Where?"
"Into the vault."
"What vault?"
"Under the altar."
Fauchelevent started.
"The vault under the altar?"
"Under the altar."
"But--"
"You will have an iron bar."
"Yes, but--"
"You will raise the stone with the bar by means of the ring."
"But--"
"The dead must be obeyed.To be buried in the vault under the altar of the chapel, not to go to profane earth; to remain there in death where she prayed while living; such was the last wish of Mother Crucifixion.She asked it of us; that is to say, commanded us."
"But it is forbidden."
"Forbidden by men, enjoined by God."
"What if it became known?"
"We have confidence in you."
"Oh!I am a stone in your walls."
"The chapter assembled.The vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted again, and who are now deliberating, have decided that Mother Crucifixion shall be buried, according to her wish, in her own coffin, under our altar.Think, Father Fauvent, if she were to work miracles here!What a glory of God for the community! And miracles issue from tombs."
"But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the sanitary commission--"
"Saint Benoit II., in the matter of sepulture, resisted Constantine pogonatus."
"But the commissary of police--"
"Chonodemaire, one of the seven German kings who entered among the Gauls under the Empire of Constantius, expressly recognized the right of nuns to be buried in religion, that is to say, beneath the altar."
"But the inspector from the prefecture--"
"The world is nothing in the presence of the cross.Martin, the eleventh general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis."
"Amen," said Fauchelevent, who imperturbably extricated himself in this manner from the dilemma, whenever he heard Latin.
Any audience suffices for a person who has held his peace too long. On the day when the rhetorician Gymnastoras left his prison, bearing in his body many dilemmas and numerous syllogisms which had struck in, he halted in front of the first tree which he came to, harangued it and made very great efforts to convince it.The prioress, who was usually subjected to the barrier of silence, and whose reservoir was overfull, rose and exclaimed with the loquacity of a dam which has broken away:--
"I have on my right Benoit and on my left Bernard.Who was Bernard? The first abbot of Clairvaux.Fontaines in Burgundy is a country that is blest because it gave him birth.His father was named Tecelin, and his mother Alethe.He began at Citeaux, to end in Clairvaux; he was ordained abbot by the bishop of Chalon-sur-Saone, Guillaume de Champeaux; he had seven hundred novices, and founded a hundred and sixty monasteries; he overthrew Abeilard at the council of Sens in 1140, and pierre de Bruys and Henry his disciple, and another sort of erring spirits who were called the Apostolics; he confounded Arnauld de Brescia, darted lightning at the monk Raoul, the murderer of the Jews, dominated the council of Reims in 1148, caused the condemnation of Gilbert de porea, Bishop of poitiers, caused the condemnation of Eon de l'Etoile, arranged the disputes of princes, enlightened King Louis the Young, advised pope Eugene III., regulated the Temple, preached the crusade, performed two hundred and fifty miracles during his lifetime, and as many as thirty-nine in one day.Who was Benoit?He was the patriarch of Mont-Cassin; he was the second founder of the Saintete Claustrale, he was the Basil of the West.His order has produced forty popes, two hundred cardinals, fifty patriarchs, sixteen hundred archbishops, four thousand six hundred bishops, four emperors, twelve empresses, forty-six kings, forty-one queens, three thousand six hundred canonized saints, and has been in existence for fourteen hundred years.On one side Saint Bernard, on the other the agent of the sanitary department! On one side Saint Benoit, on the other the inspector of public ways! The state, the road commissioners, the public undertaker, regulations, the administration, what do we know of all that? There is not a chance passer-by who would not be indignant to see how we are treated.We have not even the right to give our dust to Jesus Christ!Your sanitary department is a revolutionary invention. God subordinated to the commissary of police; such is the age. Silence, Fauvent!"
Fauchelevent was but ill at ease under this shower bath. The prioress continued:--
"No one doubts the right of the monastery to sepulture.Only fanatics and those in error deny it.We live in times of terrible confusion. We do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which we should ignore.We are ignorant and impious.In this age there exist people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good ecclesiastic who lived in the thirteenth century. Others are so blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI. to the cross of Jesus Christ.Louis XVI.was merely a king. Let us beware of God!There is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not the name of Cesar de Bus. Nevertheless, Cesar de Bus is a man of blessed memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory.The last arch-bishop, the Cardinal de perigord, did not even know that Charles de Gondren succeeded to Berulle, and Francois Bourgoin to Gondren, and Jean-Francois Senault to Bourgoin, and Father Sainte-Marthe to Jean-Francois Senault. The name of Father Coton is known, not because he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but because he furnished Henri IV., the Huguenot king, with the material for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint Francois de Sales, is that he cheated at play.And then, religion is attacked. Why?Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of Gap, was the brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of them followed Mommol.What has that to do with the question?Does that prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint, and giving half of his cloak to a beggar?They persecute the saints.They shut their eyes to the truth.Darkness is the rule.The most ferocious beasts are beasts which are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality.Oh! how wicked people are! By order of the king signifies to-day, by order of the revolution. One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead.A holy death is prohibited.Burial is a civil matter.This is horrible. Saint Leo II.wrote two special letters, one to pierre Notaire, the other to the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the supremacy of the Emperor.Gauthier, Bishop of Chalons, held his own in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy. The ancient magistracy agreed with him.In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on matters of the day.The Abbot of Citeaux, the general of the order, was councillor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy.We do what we please with our dead. Is not the body of Saint Benoit himself in France, in the abbey of Fleury, called Saint Benoit-sur-Loire, although he died in Italy at Mont-Cassin, on Saturday, the 21st of the month of March, of the year 543?All this is incontestable.I abhor psalm-singers, I hate priors, I execrate heretics, but I should detest yet more any one who should maintain the contrary.One has only to read Arnoul Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemus, Maurolics, and Dom Luc d'Achery."
The prioress took breath, then turned to Fauchelevent.
"Is it settled, Father Fauvent?"
"It is settled, reverend Mother."
"We may depend on you?"
"I will obey."
"That is well."
"I am entirely devoted to the convent."
"That is understood.You will close the coffin.The sisters will carry it to the chapel.The office for the dead will then be said. Then we shall return to the cloister.Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you will come with your iron bar.All will be done in the most profound secrecy.There will be in the chapel only the four Mother precentors, Mother Ascension and yourself."
"And the sister at the post?"
"She will not turn round."
"But she will hear."
"She will not listen.Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns not."
A pause ensued.The prioress went on:--
"You will remove your bell.It is not necessary that the sister at the post should perceive your presence."
"Reverend Mother?"
"What, Father Fauvent?"
"Has the doctor for the dead paid his visit?"
"He will pay it at four o'clock to-day. The peal which orders the doctor for the dead to be summoned has already been rung. But you do not understand any of the peals?"
"I pay no attention to any but my own."
"That is well, Father Fauvent."
"Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required."
"Where will you obtain it?"
"Where gratings are not lacking, iron bars are not lacking. I have my heap of old iron at the bottom of the garden."
"About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not forget."
"Reverend Mother?"
"What?"
"If you were ever to have any other jobs of this sort, my brother is the strong man for you.A perfect Turk!"
"You will do it as speedily as possible."
"I cannot work very fast.I am infirm; that is why I require an assistant.I limp."
"To limp is no sin, and perhaps it is a blessing.The Emperor Henry II., who combated Antipope Gregory and re-established Benoit VIII., has two surnames, the Saint and the Lame."
"Two surtouts are a good thing," murmured Fauchelevent, who really was a little hard of hearing.
"Now that I think of it, Father Fauvent, let us give a whole hour to it.That is not too much.Be near the principal altar, with your iron bar, at eleven o'clock. The office begins at midnight. Everything must have been completed a good quarter of an hour before that."
"I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community. These are my orders.I am to nail up the coffin.At eleven o'clock exactly, I am to be in the chapel.The Mother precentors will be there.Mother Ascension will be there.Two men would be better.However, never mind!I shall have my lever. We will open the vault, we will lower the coffin, and we will close the vault again.After which, there will be no trace of anything. The government will have no suspicion.Thus all has been arranged, reverend Mother?"
"No!"
"What else remains?"
"The empty coffin remains."
This produced a pause.Fauchelevent meditated.The prioress meditated.
"What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent?"
"It will be given to the earth."
"Empty?"
Another silence.Fauchelevent made, with his left hand, that sort of a gesture which dismisses a troublesome subject.
"Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I will cover the coffin with the pall."
"Yes, but the bearers, when they place it in the hearse and lower it into the grave, will be sure to feel that there is nothing in it."
"Ah! the de--!" exclaimed Fauchelevent.
The prioress began to make the sign of the cross, and looked fixedly at the gardener.The vil stuck fast in his throat.
He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath.
"I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother.That will produce the effect of a corpse."
"You are right.Earth, that is the same thing as man.So you will manage the empty coffin?"
"I will make that my special business."
The prioress's face, up to that moment troubled and clouded, grew serene once more.She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to him.Fauchelevent went towards the door.As he was on the point of passing out, the prioress raised her voice gently:--
"I am pleased with you, Father Fauvent; bring your brother to me to-morrow, after the burial, and tell him to fetch his daughter."

     大约十五分钟后。院长回来了，走到椅子旁坐下。那两个对话的人仿佛各有各的想法，我们把他们的谈话尽量逐字逐句地记录下来。
    “割大爷。”
    “崇高的嬷嬷？”
    “您见过圣坛吧？”
    “做弥撒和日课时我在那里有间小隔扇，”“您到唱诗台里去做过活吧？”
    “去过两三次。”
    “现在我们要撬起一块石头。”
    “重吗？”
    “祭台旁边那块铺地的石板。”
    “盖地吝的那块石板吗？”
    “对。”
    “在这种情况下，最好是有两个男人。”
    “登天嬷嬷会来帮忙的，她和男人一样壮。”
    “一个女人始终不如一个男人。”
    “我们只有一个女人来帮您忙。尽力而为吧。马比容神甫根据圣伯尔纳的遗教写了四百十七篇论文，梅尔洛纽斯?奥尔斯修斯只写了三百六十七篇，我绝不至于因此就轻视梅尔洛纽斯。奥尔斯修斯。”
    “我也不至于。”
    “可贵的是各尽自己的力量来工作。一座修道院并非一个工“一个女人并一个男人。我那兄弟的力气才大呢！”“您还得准备好一根撬棍。”“象那样的门也只能用那样的钥匙。”“石板上有个铁环。”“我把撬棍套进去。”
    “而且那石板是会转动的，”“那就好了，崇高的嬷嬷，我一定能开那地窖。”
    “还会有四个唱诗嬷嬷来帮你忙的。”“地窖打开之后呢？”“再盖上。”
    “就这样吗？”
    “不。”“请您告诉我该怎么办，崇高的嬷嬷。”“割大爷，我们认为您是值得信赖的。”“我在这里从来都是克尽己任。”“而且您什么都不要说出去。”“是，崇高的嬷嬷。”“开了地窖以后??”“我再盖上。”“可是在这之前??”“得怎样呢，崇高的嬷嬷？”“得把件东西抬下去。”讲到这里，大家都不做声了。院长好象有些犹犹豫豫，她咂了一下嘴之后就打破了沉默道：“割大爷？”“崇高的嬷嬷？”“您知道今天早晨死了位嬷嬷吗。”“我不知道。”
    “难道您没有听见敲钟？”
    “在园子里什么也听不见。”
    “真的吗？”
    “叫我的钟，我也听不大清楚。”
    “她是黎明的时候死去的。”
    “而且，今天早上的风不是向我那边吹的。”
    “是那位受难嬷嬷。一个有福之人。”院长停住不出声了，只见她的嘴唇时开时合，仿佛是在默念什么经文，接着她又说：“三年前，有个冉森派①的教徒，叫做贝都纳夫人，她只因看到受难嬷嬷做祷告，就皈依了正教。”
    “可不是，我现在听见报丧钟了，高尚的嬷嬷。”
    “嬷嬷们已把她抬进礼拜堂里的太平间里了。”
    “我知道。”
    “除了您，任何男人都不许也不该进那间屋子的。您要好好留心着。假如在女人的太平间里发现一个男人！那才会出笑话呢。”
    “走出走进！”
    “嗯？”
    “走出走进！”
    “您说什么？”
    “走出走进干什么？”
    “崇高的嬷嬷，我没说走出走进干什么，我说的是走出走进。”
    “我不明白您的话。您为什么要说走出走进呢？”
    “我跟着您说的，崇高的嬷嬷。”
    “可是我并没有说走出走进。”
    “您没有说，可是我是跟您说的。”这时候，时钟敲了九下，已是九点了。
    “在清早九点钟和所有的钟点，愿祭台上最崇高的圣体受到赞叹和崇拜。”院长说。
    “阿们。”割风说。那口钟敲得正凑巧，它一下打断了关于走出走进的争执。如果不是这钟声，院长和割风就很可能还要说下去，说他一辈子也说不清。
    割风擦了擦额头。院长重又念了一阵经，也许是神圣的祈祷，随后就大声说：“受难嬷嬷生前感化过许多人，她死后还要显圣。”
    “她一定会显圣的！”割风一面说，一面挪挪他的腿，好站得稳一些。
    “割大爷，修道院因为受难嬷嬷，受到了神的恩宠。当然，并不是所有的人都能象贝律尔红衣主教那样，一面念弥撤经，一面断气，在魂归天主时口中还念着‘因此我作此贡献。’不过，受难嬷嬷虽然没有那样大的福份，她的死却也是难能可贵的。直到最后一刻，她的头脑还是清楚的。她和我们谈话，然后又与天使们谈话。她把她最后的话留给了我们。假如您平常心更诚一些，要是您能待在她的静室里，她只要摸摸您的腿，您的病就会好了的。她一直微笑着。我们感到她在天主的心里复活了。在她的死里我们到了天国。”
    割风以为院长在念一段经文的末尾。
    “阿们。”他说。
    “割大爷，我们应当满足死者的愿望。”院长又开始数动念珠，割风却没有说话。她接着说：“为了这个问题，我向好几个忠心耿耿的教士请教过，他们都在宗教人事部门担任职务，而且也都是卓有成就的。”
①冉森派是十七世纪荷兰天主教反正派的一支，被罗马教皇英诺森十世斥为异端，下谕禁绝，但各国仍有不少人信从。
    “崇高的嬷嬷，在这里听那报丧钟比在园子里听清楚多了。”
    “而且，死者不是一个女人，她是位圣女。”
    “就跟您一样，崇高的嬷嬷。”
    “她在她的棺材里躺了二十年，那是我们的圣父庇护七世特别恩准的。”
    “就是替皇??替波拿巴加冕的那位。”对聪明的割风来说，他这时的回答是不合时宜的。幸好那位院长，一心想她自己的事，没有听见割风所讲的，她继续说：“割大爷？”
    “崇高的嬷嬷？”
    “卡巴多斯的大主教，圣迪奥多尔，曾经叮嘱人家在他的墓上只刻这么一个字：Acarus，意思是疥虫，后来果然就只刻了那个字。这是真事吗？”
    “是真的，崇高的嬷嬷。”
    “那个有福的梅佐加纳，亚基拉修院院长，叫人把他埋在绞刑架下面，后来也真的那样做了。”
    “确是如此。”
    “台伯河入海处港口的主教，圣泰朗斯，要人家把插在犯了拭君罪的犯人坟上的那种标志，刻在他的墓碑上，希望过路的人看见那坟墓都来吐唾沫。那也是照办了的，我们必须遵守死者的遗命。”
    “但愿如此。”
    “伯尔纳?吉端尼出生在法国蜜蜂岩附近，他在西班牙的图依做主教，尽管卡斯蒂利亚国王不同意，可他的遗体，仍按他本人的遗愿运回到里摩日①的多明我教堂。我们能说这不对吗？”
①里摩日（Limoges）．法国中部的一个城市。
    “千万不能，崇高的嬷嬷，”
    “这件事是由普朗达维?德?拉弗斯确证了的。”院长一边继续数着念珠，一边又接着说：“割大爷，我们打算把受难嬷嬷装殓在她已经睡了二十年的那口棺材里。”“那是应当的。”“这意味着她继续睡着。”“那么，我得把她钉在那棺材里吗？”“对。”“我们把殡仪馆的那口棺材放在一边吗？”“没错。”
    “我总是照至高无上的修道院的命令行事。”“那四个唱诗嬷嬷会来帮助您的。”“为了钉棺材吗？用不着她们帮忙。”“不是，帮您把棺材抬下去。”
    “抬到哪儿．”“地窖里。”“哪儿的地窖？”“祭台下面。”割风跳了起来。“祭台下面的地窖！”“祭台下面的地窖。”“但是??”“您带一根铁棒来。”“行，可是??”“您用铁棒套在那铁环里，把石板旋开来。”
    “可是??”“必须照死者的愿望办。受难嬷嬷临终时希望将她葬在圣坛祭台下的地窖里，不染世俗人的泥上，死了还留在她生前析祷的地方。她对我们提出了这样的要求，就是说，发出了那样的命令。”“这是被禁止的。”
    “人禁止，天主命令。”“万一被人家知道了呢？”
    “我们相信您。”
    “呵，我，我是您墙上的一块石头。”
    “我们已召开过了院务会议。刚才我还和参议嬷嬷们商量过，她们现在还在开会，她们已经作出决定，依照受难嬷嬷的遗言，把她装殓在她的棺材里，埋在我们的祭台下面。您想想，割大爷，这里会不会出现奇迹！对这修道院来说，这是多么大的一种神恩！坟墓里总是有奇迹的。”
    “可是，崇高的嬷嬷，万一卫生委员会的人员??”“圣伯努瓦二世在丧葬问题上曾违抗君士但丁?波戈纳①。”
    “可是那警署署长??”
    “君士但丁②帝国时代进入高卢的七个日耳曼国王之一，消诺德美尔，他确认教士有按照宗教仪式举行丧葬的特权，那即是说，受难嬷嬷可以葬在祭台下面。”
    “可是那警察署的侦察员??”
    “十字架高于一切。查尔特勒修院第七任院长玛尔丹曾替他的修会订下这样的格言：‘天翻地覆时十字架巍然不动。’”“阿们。”割风说。他每次听见人家说拉丁语③，总是一本正经地用这个方法来摆脱窘境。
    长久没有讲话的人能从任何一种谈话对象那里得到满足。雄辩大师吉姆纳斯托拉斯出狱的那天由于心中积压了大多的两段论法和三段论法，又很长时间没有运用过，便在他最先遇到的一棵大树跟前停下来，对着它高谈阔论，并且他使出全力想要说服它。这位院长，大概也是沉默得太久了，就象水库里的水受着堤坝的阻挡，不得畅泄，积蓄过满；她站起身来，象座打开了的水闸，滔滔不绝地说个不停：“我，我右边有伯努瓦，左边有伯尔纳，伯尔纳是谁？是明谷隐修道院的第一任院长。勃艮第一枫丹是个有福的地方。他出生在那里所以也有福。他的父亲叫德塞兰，母亲叫亚莱特。他在西多创业，在明俗定居，他是由索恩河畔夏龙的主教纪尧姆?德?香浦，任命为修道院院长的，他有过七百名初学生，创立了一百六十座修道院。一一四○年在桑城的主教会议上击败了阿伯拉尔①皮埃尔?德?勃吕依和他的弟子享利，以及一些所谓使徒派的追随者。他曾把阿尔诺德?德?布雷西亚②驳到哑口无言，痛击过屠杀犹太人民的拉乌尔和尚，他还主持过一一四八年在兰斯城举行的主教会议，曾要求判处普瓦蒂埃的主教吉尔贝?德?波雷，曾要求判处艾翁?德?爱特瓦勒，调解过亲王间的矛盾，开导过青年路易王③，辅佐过教皇尤琴尼乌三世，整顿过圣殿骑士团，倡导过十字军，他在一生中创造过二百五十次奇迹，一天中甚至显过三十九次灵。伯努瓦又是谁呢？他是蒙特卡西诺的教父，是隐修院的二 祖师，是西方的大巴西勒④。在他创建的修会里产生过教皇四十位、红衣主教二百位、教父五十位、大主教一千六百位、主教四千六百位、皇帝四个、皇后十二个、国王四十六个、王后四十一人、三千六百个受了敕封的圣者，这修会存在了一千四百年。一边是圣伯尔纳，一边是什么卫生委员会的人员！
①君士坦丁波戈纳（Constantin Pogonat），七世纪东罗马帝国的皇帝。
②君士坦丁（Denscancc），三 0六年至三三七年为罗马帝国皇帝。
③“天翻地覆时十字架屹立”原文是拉丁文。
①阿伯拉尔（PserreAlx11ed，1079—1142）．中世纪法国经院哲学家、神学家。
②阿尔诺德德布雷西亚（Arntedde Bresce,约 1100—11s5），罗马人民起义领袖，阿伯拉尔的弟子。一一四 三年回意大利起义，建立罗马共和政权，——五五年失败后被绞死。
③青年路易王（LOUlsVlejunhe，112O－1180）,即路易七世。
④大巴西勒（Baailc Magnus，约 330—379）．古代基督教希腊教父。
    一边是圣伯努瓦，一边又是什么清洁委员会的侦察员！国家、清洁委员会、殡仪馆、规章、行政机关，我们用得着管那些东西吗？任何人看见他们对我们指手划脚都会愤慨的。我们把自己的尘土献给耶稣基督，难到连这样的权利也没有了！你那卫生委员会是属于革命党的，警署署长管辖天主教，这时代真是糟透了。不用谈了，割大爷！”
    割风听了院长的这篇宏论，很不自在。院长接着又说，“谁也不应该怀疑修道院对处理丧葬问题有自己的权力。只有狂热派和怀疑派才否认这种权力。我们生活在一个思想混乱不堪的时代。应当知道的东西大家全不知道，不应当知道的，大家又全知道。卑鄙，下流，一个是极其伟大的圣伯尔纳，另外还有一个伯尔纳①,他是十三世纪的一个仁慈善良的教士，所谓‘穷苦天主教徒们的伯尔纳’，而今天居然还有很多人分不清这两个人。还有些人，他们把路易十六的断头台和那稣基督的十字架拿来相提并论，真是故意，路易十六只是个国王。多想一想天主吧！现在已没有什么公道可讲了。大家知道伏尔泰，大家却全不知道凯德撒?德?布斯②这名字。然而凯撒?德?布斯是幸运的，伏尔泰是不幸的，佩里戈尔红衣主教，虽是前任大主教不知道贝律尔的继承者是查理?德?贡德朗，贡德朗的继承者是弗朗索瓦?布尔戈安，布尔戈安的继承者是弗朗索瓦?色诺，而让?弗朗索瓦?色诺的继承者是圣马尔泰的父亲。人们知道戈东③神甫这名字，不是因为他是争取建立经堂④的三个倡议者之一，而是因为他的名字成了信奉新教的国王享利四世骂人的字眼。圣方济各?德?撒助之所以受到富贵人家的爱戴，是因为他能惩恶扬善。为什么今天有人攻击宗教呢？因为曾出现过一些坏神甫，因为加普的主教萨吉泰尔是昂布伦的主教萨乐纳的兄弟，而且他们俩全跟随过摩未尔。那又怎么样呢？能阻止玛尔丹?德?图尔不让他成圣者，不让他把半件袍子送给一 个受苦人吗？他们迫害圣者。他们对真理视而不见。黑暗常常来临。最凶残的野兽是瞎了眼的野兽。没有人仔细想想地狱。呵！丧失良心的人！奉国王的命令，在今天的解释是奉革命的命令。人们已经忘了对活人和死人自己所负的责任。清净的死去也不被允许，丧葬成了公家的事务。这真使人伤心。圣莱翁二世曾写过两封信，一封给皮埃尔?诺泰尔，一封给西哥特人的国王，专就丧葬问题针对钦差总督的大权和皇帝的专断进行了斗争和驳斥。在这个问题上，夏龙的主教戈蒂埃也曾和勃良第公爵奥东对抗过。从前在会议席上，即使世俗的事务我们也有发言权。西多修道院的院长，这一修会的会长，是勃艮第法院的当然顾问。我们可以随意处理自己的死人。圣伯努瓦本人的遗体难道没有送回法国，葬在弗勒利修道院，即所谓的卢瓦尔河畔圣伯努瓦修道院里吗？虽然他是在五四三年三年三月二十一日，一个礼拜六，在意大利的蒙特卡西诺去世的，这一切都是不能否认的。我蔑视那些假装尊重教会的人，我痛恨那些低着脑袋做祈祷的人，我唾弃一切异端教派，但是我尤其厌恶那些和我唱反调的人。只要读几本阿尔努?维翁、加白利埃?布斯兰?特里泰姆、摩洛利古斯和唐?吕克?达舍利的①书，你就明白了，”院长停了一停，然后又回转头来对着割风说：“割大爷，说妥了吧？”
①还有一个怕尔纳，应指克吕尼的伯尔纳（13crnarddeCtuny），据考证此伯尔纳约生于十二 世纪上半叶。
②凯撒德布斯（Ccs8rdcBus，1544一 1607），起初在军队和宫廷里供职，不得志，三十 岁上出家修行，创立兄弟会。
③戈东（bowion），法王享利四世和路易十三的忏悔神甫。享利四世原是法国新教徒的领袖，为了平息内战并夺取王位，便改信旧教（天主教），并准许新旧两教并存。他骂人时常说”我是否认天主”，后来接受戈东的建议，改说“我否认戈东”。戈东因而出了名。
④经堂是未出家的信徒们修行的寺院。
    “说妥了，崇高的嬷嬷。”
    “我们可以依靠您吧？”
    “我服从命令。”
    “这就好了。”
    “我是全心全意忠于修道院的。”
    “就这么办。您把棺材钉好。嬷嬷们将把它抬进圣坛。大家要举行超亡祭仪式。接着大家回到静室。晚上十一点以后十二点以前，您带着铁棒来。一切都不能让任何人知道。圣坛里除了那四个唱诗嬷嬷、登天嬷嬷和您外，再没有别的人了。”
    “还有那柱子跟前的嬷嬷呢。”
    “她不会转过头来的。”
    “可是她会听见。”
    “她不会注意的，而且修道院中的事，外面不会知道。”又停了停。院长继续说：“您把您的铃解下来。不能让柱子跟前的嬷嬷知道您也在常”“崇高的嬷嬷？”
    “什么事，割大爷？”
    “验尸的医生来检查过了吗？”
    “他今天四点钟来检查。我们已经敲过钟，叫人去找他来。怎么您什么钟响也听不见？”
    “我只注意叫我的钟。”
    “这很好，割大爷。”
    “崇高的嬷嬷，那橇开地窖的铁棒至少需要六尺长。”
    “您到哪里去找呢？”
    “到有铁栅栏的地方去找，有的是铁棒。在我那园子里有一大堆废铁。”
    “在午夜前三刻钟左右，别忘了。”
    “崇高的嬷嬷？”
    “什么事？”
    “假如您还有这一类的其他工作，我那兄弟的力气可大呢，就象个大力士。”
    “您要尽可能快地办完事。”
    “我快不起来的，我是个残废人，我的腿是瘸的，就因为这，我需要有个帮手。”
    “腿瘸算不上是缺点，或许还是福相呢。打倒伪教皇格列高利以及重立伯努瓦八世纪的那位皇帝享利二世就有两个外号：圣人和瘸子。”
    “那太好了，有两件外套。”割风嘀咕着，他耳朵有点聋，将“两个外号”错听成“两件外套。”
    “割大爷，我想起来了，还是准备花整整一小时吧。这并不算大多。您①这些都是本笃会体系的神学家。
    准十一点带着铁棒到大祭台旁边来。祭礼夜间十二点开始。你要在开始前一 刻把一切都办好。”
    “我总尽力做好一切，用行动来表明我对修道院的忠忱。这些都是说定了的，我去钉棺材。十一点正，我到圣坛里面。唱诗嬷嬷们会在那里，登天嬷嬷也会在那里。不过再有两个男人，事情会更好办。算了，不用管那些！我带着我的撬棍。我们打开地窖后，就把棺材放下去，再盖好地窖。在这以后，什么事也没有了。政府不会怀疑到。崇高的嬷嬷，这么办总算行了吧？”
    “不。”
    “那么还有什么事呢？”
    “还有那空棺材。”
    “谈到这个问题，割风和院长都想了好一阵。
    “割大爷，他们把那棺材拿去，会怎么办？”
    “埋进土中。”
    “空埋？”又是一阵沉默。割风左手打了个手势，似乎想赶走疑难。
    “崇高的嬷嬷，是我到札拜堂的那间矮屋子里去钉那棺材，除了我，别的人都不能进去，我用一块盖棺布将那棺材遮上就是了。”
    “好，可是那些抬棺材的人在把棺材抬进灵车，送进坟坑时，一定会感到棺材是空空的，里面没有尸体。”
    “啊！见了??！”割风叫了起来。院长开始画十字，瞪眼望着那园叮他把“鬼”字吞了回去。他连忙胡乱找到个借口，来掩盖他那句亵渎的话。
    “崇高的嬷嬷，我再放些泥土在那棺村里，就象有个人在里面了。”
    “您说得有道理。泥上和人，原是一样的东西。您就这么办吧。”
    “我一定做到。”院长本来一直阴沉沉的，又有些烦燥的样子。现在脸色平静了。她做了个上级叫下级退去的那种表示，割风便走向房门去。当他快要出门时，院长又略略提高了声音说：“割大爷，我对您很满意，等明天，出殡之后，您就把您的兄弟带来吧，并且要他把他的姑娘也带来。”

It is the peculiarity of certain persons and certain professions, notably priests and nuns, to wear a grave and agitated air on critical occasions.At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, this double form of preoccupation was imprinted on the countenance of the prioress, who was that wise and charming Mademoiselle de Blemeur, Mother Innocente, who was ordinarily cheerful.
The gardener made a timid bow, and remained at the door of the cell. The prioress, who was telling her beads, raised her eyes and said:--
"Ah! it is you, Father Fauvent."
This abbreviation had been adopted in the convent.
Fauchelevent bowed again.
"Father Fauvent, I have sent for you."
"Here I am, reverend Mother."
"I have something to say to you."
"And so have I," said Fauchelevent with a boldness which caused him inward terror, "I have something to say to the very reverend Mother."
The prioress stared at him.
"Ah! you have a communication to make to me."
"A request."
"Very well, speak."
Goodman Fauchelevent, the ex-notary, belonged to the category of peasants who have assurance.A certain clever ignorance constitutes a force; you do not distrust it, and you are caught by it. Fauchelevent had been a success during the something more than two years which he had passed in the convent.Always solitary and busied about his gardening, he had nothing else to do than to indulge his curiosity.As he was at a distance from all those veiled women passing to and fro, he saw before him only an agitation of shadows. By dint of attention and sharpness he had succeeded in clothing all those phantoms with flesh, and those corpses were alive for him. He was like a deaf man whose sight grows keener, and like a blind man whose hearing becomes more acute.He had applied himself to riddling out the significance of the different peals, and he had succeeded, so that this taciturn and enigmatical cloister possessed no secrets for him; the sphinx babbled all her secrets in his ear. Fauchelevent knew all and concealed all; that constituted his art. The whole convent thought him stupid.A great merit in religion. The vocal mothers made much of Fauchelevent.He was a curious mute. He inspired confidence.Moreover, he was regular, and never went out except for well-demonstrated requirements of the orchard and vegetable garden.This discretion of conduct had inured to his credit. None the less, he had set two men to chattering:the porter, in the convent, and he knew the singularities of their parlor, and the grave-digger, at the cemetery, and he was acquainted with the peculiarities of their sepulture; in this way, he possessed a double light on the subject of these nuns, one as to their life, the other as to their death.But he did not abuse his knowledge. The congregation thought a great deal of him.Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the bargain,--what qualities! They would have found it difficult to replace him.
The goodman, with the assurance of a person who feels that he is appreciated, entered into a rather diffuse and very deep rustic harangue to the reverend prioress.He talked a long time about his age, his infirmities, the surcharge of years counting double for him henceforth, of the increasing demands of his work, of the great size of the garden, of nights which must be passed, like the last, for instance, when he had been obliged to put straw mats over the melon beds, because of the moon, and he wound up as follows: "That he had a brother"--(the prioress made a movement),--"a brother no longer young"--(a second movement on the part of the prioress, but one expressive of reassurance),--"that, if he might be permitted, this brother would come and live with him and help him, that he was an excellent gardener, that the community would receive from him good service, better than his own; that, otherwise, if his brother were not admitted, as he, the elder, felt that his health was broken and that he was insufficient for the work, he should be obliged, greatly to his regret, to go away; and that his brother had a little daughter whom he would bring with him, who might be reared for God in the house, and who might, who knows, become a nun some day."
When he had finished speaking, the prioress stayed the slipping of her rosary between her fingers, and said to him:--
"Could you procure a stout iron bar between now and this evening?"
"For what purpose?"
"To serve as a lever."
"Yes, reverend Mother," replied Fauchelevent.
The prioress, without adding a word, rose and entered the adjoining room, which was the hall of the chapter, and where the vocal mothers were probably assembled.Fauchelevent was left alone.

     对某些性格和某些职业的人，尤其是对神职人员来说，在紧急时刻显出不安与慌乱是令人吃惊的。院长纯贞嬷嬷，本是那位，才貌双全的德。勃勒麦尔小姐，她平日素来性格开朗，可是当割风走进屋子时，她脸上却露出了那两种显示心神不定的神情。
    园丁小心翼翼地行了个礼，站在房门边。院长正数着手里的念珠，抬起眼睛说道：“啊，是您，割大爷。”这个简称是在那修道院里用惯了的。割风又行了个礼。
    “割大爷，我有事找你来。”
    “我来了，崇高的嬷嬷。”
    “我有话要对您说。”
    “我也，对我来说，也有件事想和极崇高的嬷嬷谈谈。”割风壮着胆子说，内心却已惴惴不安了。
    院长定睛望着他。
    “啊！您有事要告诉我。”
    “要向您请求。”
    “那好，您说吧。”割风这老汉，以前当过公证人，遇事颇自信而很坚定。那些表面无知而内心圆滑的人是会占便宜的，人们往往不能提防他们，在不知不党中被他们征服。割风在那修道院里已住了两年多，和大家也相处得很好。他终年一个人生活，除忙于园艺之外几乎没有别的事可做，于是也滋长了好奇心。他从远处望着那些头上蒙了黑纱的妇女，在他面前来来往往，开始他只看到一些幢幢黑影，时间久了，由于经常看到并留心观察，他也渐渐能看到那些鬼影后的肉身了，那些死人在他眼中了就成为活人了。他仿佛是个哑巴，虽然不能讲话，但看得比常人清楚，又仿佛是一个瞎子，虽然看不见却听得比常人清楚，他细心分辨各种钟声所表示的意思，于是那座不闻人声的修道院没有什么事能瞒得过他的了，修道院中全部的哑谜他都能听出来，割风知道一切，却什么也不说，那是他的乖巧处。全院的人都以为他是个傻瓜。这在教会里是一大优点。参议嬷嬷们非常器重割风。他是个不可多得的哑人，他获得了大家的信任。此外，他能守规矩。除了果园菜地上有非办不可的事之外他从不出大门。这种谨慎的作风是为人重视的，割风虽说谨慎也要找人聊天，他常找的有两个人，一个是修道院的看门人，他因而知道会客室里的一些特别情形；另一个坟场中埋死人的工人，因而他也能知道墓地里的一些独特之处，正好象他有两盏灯在替他照着那些修女们，一盏照着生的一面，一盏照着死的一面。但是他从不会乱来。修道院里的人都看重他。年老，腿瘸，眼花，也许耳朵还有点聋，数不尽的长处！谁也替代不了他。
    老头子自己也明白他在这里是被看重的，因而在那崇高的院长面前，相当自信，洋洋洒洒他讲了一通极其混乱但又不乏深刻的乡下人的话。他大谈特谈自己的年纪、身体上的缺陷、以后年龄的增大对他造成日益加重的威胁、工作量也会不断增加、园地真够大，有时他还得在园里过夜，例如昨晚，月光上来了，他就得到瓜田里去铺上草席，最后兜来转去他谈到，他有个兄弟（院长动了一下），兄弟的年纪也不怎么年轻了（院长又动了一下，但这是表示安心的），假如院长允许，他这兄弟想和他住在一起，帮他工作，他是个出色的园艺工，他会替修道院作出好些有益的工作，比他本人所作的还会更好些；要是，假如修道院不允许他兄弟来，那么，他，做大哥的，觉身体已经不行了，工作太多做不了，就只好说句对不起人的话，请求退休了；他兄弟有个小姑娘，他想也把她带来，求天主保估，让她在修道院里成长起来，谁知道，也许她还会有出家修行的一天呢。
    割风谈完后，院长停止了数念珠，她对他说：“您能在今晚以前找到一根粗铁杠吗？”
    “干什么用？”
    “当撬棍用。”
    “行，崇高的嬷嬷。”割风回答。院长没有再说什么，她起身到隔壁屋子里去了，隔壁的那间屋子便是会议室，参议嬷嬷们也许正在那里开会。割风一个人呆着。

It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed it, "fallen from the sky."
He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue polonceau.That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle of the night, was the nuns chanting matins; that hall, of which he had caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That phantom which he had seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making reparation; that bell, the sound of which had so strangely surprised him, was the gardener's bell attached to the knee of Father Fauchelevent.
Cosette once put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fauchelevent had, as we have already seen, supped on a glass of wine and a bit of cheese before a good, crackling fire; then, the only bed in the hut being occupied by Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw.
Before he shut his eyes, Jean Valjean said:"I must remain here henceforth."This remark trotted through Fauchelevent's head all night long.
To tell the truth, neither of them slept.
Jean Valjean, feeling that he was discovered and that Javert was on his scent, understood that he and Cosette were lost if they returned to paris.Then the new storm which had just burst upon him had stranded him in this cloister.Jean Valjean had, henceforth, but one thought,-- to remain there.Now, for an unfortunate man in his position, this convent was both the safest and the most dangerous of places; the most dangerous, because, as no men might enter there, if he were discovered, it was a flagrant offence, and Jean Valjean would find but one step intervening between the convent and prison; the safest, because, if he could manage to get himself accepted there and remain there, who would ever seek him in such a place? To dwell in an impossible place was safety.
On his side, Fauchelevent was cudgelling his brains.He began by declaring to himself that he understood nothing of the matter. How had M. Madeleine got there, when the walls were what they were? Cloister walls are not to be stepped over.How did he get there with a child?One cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one's arms.Who was that child?Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had lived in the convent, he had heard nothing of M. sur M., and he knew nothing of what had taken place there. Father Madeleine had an air which discouraged questions; and besides, Fauchelevent said to himself:"One does not question a saint." M. Madeleine had preserved all his prestige in Fauchelevent's eyes. Only, from some words which Jean Valjean had let fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference that M. Madeleine had probably become bankrupt through the hard times, and that he was pursued by his creditors; or that he had compromised himself in some political affair, and was in hiding; which last did not displease Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the North, had an old fund of Bonapartism about him. While in hiding, M. Madeleine had selected the convent as a refuge, and it was quite simple that he should wish to remain there. But the inexplicable point, to which Fauchelevent returned constantly and over which he wearied his brain, was that M. Madeleine should be there, and that he should have that little girl with him. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and still did not believe it possible.The incomprehensible had just made its entrance into Fauchelevent's hut.Fauchelevent groped about amid conjectures, and could see nothing clearly but this: "M. Madeleine saved my life."This certainty alone was sufficient and decided his course.He said to himself:"It is my turn now." He added in his conscience:"M. Madeleine did not stop to deliberate when it was a question of thrusting himself under the cart for the purpose of dragging me out."He made up his mind to save M. Madeleine.
Nevertheless, he put many questions to himself and made himself divers replies:"After what he did for me, would I save him if he were a thief?Just the same.If he were an assassin, would I save him?Just the same.Since he is a saint, shall I save him? Just the same."
But what a problem it was to manage to have him remain in the convent! Fauchelevent did not recoil in the face of this almost chimerical undertaking; this poor peasant of picardy without any other ladder than his self-devotion, his good will, and a little of that old rustic cunning, on this occasion enlisted in the service of a generous enterprise, undertook to scale the difficulties of the cloister, and the steep escarpments of the rule of Saint-Benoit. Father Fauchelevent was an old man who had been an egoist all his life, and who, towards the end of his days, halt, infirm, with no interest left to him in the world, found it sweet to be grateful, and perceiving a generous action to be performed, flung himself upon it like a man, who at the moment when he is dying, should find close to his hand a glass of good wine which he had never tasted, and should swallow it with avidity. We may add, that the air which he had breathed for many years in this convent had destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good action of some kind absolutely necessary to him.
So he took his resolve:to devote himself to M. Madeleine.
We have just called him a poor peasant of picardy.That description is just, but incomplete.At the point of this story which we have now reached, a little of Father Fauchelevent's physiology becomes useful.He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added trickery to his cunning, and penetration to his ingenuousness. Having, through various causes, failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a carter and a laborer.But, in spite of oaths and lashings, which horses seem to require, something of the notary had lingered in him.He had some natural wit; he talked good grammar; he conversed, which is a rare thing in a village; and the other peasants said of him:"He talks almost like a gentleman with a hat."Fauchelevent belonged, in fact, to that species, which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last century qualified as demi-bourgeois, demi-lout, and which the metaphors showered by the chateau upon the thatched cottage ticketed in the pigeon-hole of the plebeian:rather rustic, rather citified; pepper and salt. Fauchelevent, though sorely tried and harshly used by fate, worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was, nevertheless, an impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions; a precious quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his vices, for he had some, were all superficial; in short, his physiognomy was of the kind which succeeds with an observer.His aged face had none of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead, which signify malice or stupidity.
At daybreak, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes, after having done an enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss of straw, and watching Cosette's slumbers. Fauchelevent sat up and said:--
"Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to enter?"
This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his revery.
The two men took counsel together.
"In the first place,"' said Fauchelevent, "you will begin by not setting foot outside of this chamber, either you or the child. One step in the garden and we are done for."
"That is true."
"Monsieur Madeleine," resumed Fauchelevent, "you have arrived at a very auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment; one of the ladies is very ill.This will prevent them from looking much in our direction.It seems that she is dying.The prayers of the forty hours are being said.The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them.The one who is on the point of departure is a saint.In fact, we are all saints here; all the difference between them and me is that they say `our cell,' and that I say `my cabin.'The prayers for the dying are to be said, and then the prayers for the dead.We shall be at peace here for to-day; but I will not answer for to-morrow."
"Still," observed Jean Valjean, "this cottage is in the niche of the wall, it is hidden by a sort of ruin, there are trees, it is not visible from the convent."
"And I add that the nuns never come near it."
"Well?" said Jean Valjean.
The interrogation mark which accentuated this "well" signified: "it seems to me that one may remain concealed here?"It was to this interrogation point that Fauchelevent responded:--
"There are the little girls."
"What little girls?" asked Jean Valjean.
Just as Fauchelevent opened his mouth to explain the words which he had uttered, a bell emitted one stroke.
"The nun is dead," said he."There is the knell."
And he made a sign to Jean Valjean to listen.
The bell struck a second time.
"It is the knell, Monsieur Madeleine.The bell will continue to strike once a minute for twenty-four hours, until the body is taken from the church.--You see, they play.At recreation hours it suffices to have a ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to hunt and rummage for it all about here. Those cherubs are devils."
"Who?" asked Jean Valjean.
"The little girls.You would be very quickly discovered. They would shriek:`Oh! a man!'There is no danger to-day. There will be no recreation hour.The day will be entirely devoted to prayers.You hear the bell.As I told you, a stroke each minute. It is the death knell."
"I understand, Father Fauchelevent.There are pupils."
And Jean Valjean thought to himself:--
"Here is Cosette's education already provided."
Fauchelevent exclaimed:--
"pardine!There are little girls indeed!And they would bawl around you!And they would rush off!To be a man here is to have the plague.You see how they fasten a bell to my paw as though I were a wild beast."
Jean Valjean fell into more and more profound thought.--"This convent would be our salvation," he murmured.
Then he raised his voice:--
"Yes, the difficulty is to remain here."
"No," said Fauchelevent, "the difficulty is to get out."
Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart.
"To get out!"
"Yes, Monsieur Madeleine.In order to return here it is first necessary to get out."
And after waiting until another stroke of the knell had sounded, Fauchelevent went on:--
"You must not be found here in this fashion.Whence come you? For me, you fall from heaven, because I know you; but the nuns require one to enter by the door."
All at once they heard a rather complicated pealing from another bell.
"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "they are ringing up the vocal mothers. They are going to the chapter.They always hold a chapter when any one dies.She died at daybreak.people generally do die at daybreak. But cannot you get out by the way in which you entered?Come, I do not ask for the sake of questioning you, but how did you get in?"
Jean Valjean turned pale; the very thought of descending again into that terrible street made him shudder.You make your way out of a forest filled with tigers, and once out of it, imagine a friendly counsel that shall advise you to return thither! Jean Valjean pictured to himself the whole police force still engaged in swarming in that quarter, agents on the watch, sentinels everywhere, frightful fists extended towards his collar, Javert at the corner of the intersection of the streets perhaps.
"Impossible!" said he."Father Fauchelevent, say that I fell from the sky."
"But I believe it, I believe it," retorted Fauchelevent. "You have no need to tell me that.The good God must have taken you in his hand for the purpose of getting a good look at you close to, and then dropped you.Only, he meant to place you in a man's convent; he made a mistake.Come, there goes another peal, that is to order the porter to go and inform the municipality that the dead-doctor is to come here and view a corpse.All that is the ceremony of dying. These good ladies are not at all fond of that visit.A doctor is a man who does not believe in anything.He lifts the veil. Sometimes he lifts something else too.How quickly they have had the doctor summoned this time!What is the matter?Your little one is still asleep.What is her name?"
"Cosette."
"She is your daughter?
You are her grandfather, that is?"
"Yes."
"It will be easy enough for her to get out of here.I have my service door which opens on the courtyard.I knock.The porter opens; I have my vintage basket on my back, the child is in it, I go out. Father Fauchelevent goes out with his basket--that is perfectly natural. You will tell the child to keep very quiet.She will be under the cover. I will leave her for whatever time is required with a good old friend, a fruit-seller whom I know in the Rue Chemin-Vert, who is deaf, and who has a little bed.I will shout in the fruit-seller's ear, that she is a niece of mine, and that she is to keep her for me until to-morrow. Then the little one will re-enter with you; for I will contrive to have you re-enter. It must be done. But how will you manage to get out?"
Jean Valjean shook his head.
"No one must see me, the whole point lies there, Father Fauchelevent. Find some means of getting me out in a basket, under cover, like Cosette."
Fauchelevent scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of his left hand, a sign of serious embarrassment.
A third peal created a diversion.
"That is the dead-doctor taking his departure," said Fauchelevent. "He has taken a look and said:`She is dead, that is well.' When the doctor has signed the passport for paradise, the undertaker's company sends a coffin.If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out; if she is a sister, the sisters lay her out.After which, I nail her up.That forms a part of my gardener's duty.A gardener is a bit of a grave-digger. She is placed in a lower hall of the church which communicates with the street, and into which no man may enter save the doctor of the dead.I don't count the undertaker's men and myself as men.It is in that hall that I nail up the coffin. The undertaker's men come and get it, and whip up, coachman! that's the way one goes to heaven.They fetch a box with nothing in it, they take it away again with something in it.That's what a burial is like.De profundis."
A horizontal ray of sunshine lightly touched the face of the sleeping Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an angel drinking in the light.Jean Valjean had fallen to gazing at her.He was no longer listening to Fauchelevent.
That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence. The good old gardener went on tranquilly with his babble:--
"The grave is dug in the Vaugirard cemetery.They declare that they are going to suppress that Vaugirard cemetery.It is an ancient cemetery which is outside the regulations, which has no uniform, and which is going to retire.It is a shame, for it is convenient. I have a friend there, Father Mestienne, the grave-digger. The nuns here possess one privilege, it is to be taken to that cemetery at nightfall.There is a special permission from the prefecture on their behalf.But how many events have happened since yesterday! Mother Crucifixion is dead, and Father Madeleine--"
"Is buried," said Jean Valjean, smiling sadly.
Fauchelevent caught the word.
"Goodness! if you were here for good, it would be a real burial."
A fourth peal burst out.Fauchelevent hastily detached the belled knee-cap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again.
"This time it is for me.The Mother prioress wants me.Good, now I am pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle.Monsieur Madeleine, don't stir from here, and wait for me.Something new has come up. If you are hungry, there is wine, bread and cheese."
And he hastened out of the hut, crying:"Coming! coming!"
Jean Valjean watched him hurrying across the garden as fast as his crooked leg would permit, casting a sidelong glance by the way on his melon patch.
Less than ten minutes later, Father Fauchelevent, whose bell put the nuns in his road to flight, tapped gently at a door, and a gentle voice replied:"Forever!Forever!" that is to say:"Enter."
The door was the one leading to the parlor reserved for seeing the gardener on business.This parlor adjoined the chapter hall. The prioress, seated on the only chair in the parlor, was waiting for Fauchelevent.

     冉阿让，照割风所说的，“从天上掉下来”时，正是掉在那修道院里。他从彼隆梭街的转角处翻进了园子的围墙。他半夜听到的那阵美妙之间，是修女们做早弥撒的歌声；他在黑暗中窥探过的那个大厅，是小礼拜堂；他看见伏在地上的那个鬼影，是一个正在行补赎礼的修女；使他惊奇的那阵铃声，是园丁割风大爷膝弯上的铜铃发出来的。珂赛特睡了之后，冉阿让和割风俩便守着一炉好火进晚餐，他俩喝了一杯葡萄酒，吃了一块干酪之后；由于那破屋里唯一的一张床已由珂赛特占用，他们便分头睡在一堆麦秸上面，冉阿让人睡之前说道：“从今以后，我得住在这里了。”割风想这句话想了一整夜。
    其实，他们俩，谁也没有睡着。冉阿让觉得自己已被人发现了，而且沙威紧追在他身后，他明白假如他回到巴黎城里，他和坷赛特就没命了。刚刮的那阵风既然已把他吹到这修道院里来，冉阿让唯一的想法便是在那里待下去。对一个处在他那种情况下的苦命人来讲，那惨道院是个最危险也最安全的地方，说它最危险，是因为那里不允许任何男人子进入，万一彼人发现了，就得给人当作现行犯，冉阿让只要走一步路，便又会从修道院回到监牢中；说它最安全，是因为如果能得到许可，在那里住下来，谁又会找那里去呢？呆在一个不可能呆的地方，正是万全之策。
    割风的心中此刻也翻腾不已。起先，他承认自己什么也闹不清楚。围墙那么高，马德兰先生怎么进来的呢？修道院的围墙是没有人敢翻的。怎么又会有个孩子呢？手里抱个孩子，就翻不了那样一道笔直的高墙。那孩子究竟是谁？他们俩是从哪里来的？割风自从来到这修道院以后，就再也没有听人谈到过海滨的蒙特勒伊，也完全不知道外界曾发生过什么事。马德兰爷爷的表情又使人不敢多问他，此外割凤心里还想：“在圣人面前不能瞎问。”马德兰先生在他的心中仍和往日一样崇高，不过，从冉阿让的闪烁其词里，那园了断定情况一定是这样：由于时局艰难，马德兰先生做生意亏了本，正受到债主们的追逼，或许他又与什么政治问题有牵连，不得不隐藏起来。割风想到这里，心中也就释然了，因为，他和北部的许多农民一样，在思想深处是早已靠拢波拿巴①的。马德兰先生既然要躲起来，并且已把这修道院当作他的避难所，那么，他要在此地待下去，那也是极肯定的事了。但割风想来想去也想不通的一点是“马德兰是怎样进来的，他又怎么会带个小姑娘。”割风看得见他们，摸得着他们，和他们谈过话，却无法相信他们的到来。割风陷入迷惑不解中，象盲人摸路似的，胡乱猜想了一阵，越想越糊涂，但有一 点他是明白的：马德兰先生曾救过我的命，这唯一可以肯定下来的一点足已使他下定决心了。他背着他想道：“现在轮到我来救他的命了。”他心里还加上这么一句：“当初马德兰先生钻进车子底下救我出来时，却没有象我这样思前想后。”他决定搭救马德兰先生。
    但是割风心里仍很不安，他想到许多事情：“他从前对我那么好，万一①就是说，对当时的王朝不清。
    他是匪徒，我该不该救他呢？还是应该救他。假使他是个杀人犯，我该不该救他呢？还是应该救他。他既然是个圣人，我救不救他呢？当然救他。”
    但是要让马德兰能留在修道院里那可是个麻烦事！割风想到这一点就觉得很荒唐，但他却没动摇自己的决心。那个来自庇卡底的可怜的农民决计要突破修道院的种种难关的圣伯努瓦的教规所设下的重重障碍，但是他除了赤忱的心、坚定的意志和为乡下老头子所常有而那次打算用来扶危济困的那一 点点小聪明外，便没有其他的辅助物了。割风大爷，这个老汉，生来一向私心重，晚年腿也瘸了，身体也残废了，对人间已没什么留恋了，这时他觉得感恩图报是一件颇有兴味的事，当他看见有件善事可做时便连忙扑了上去，正如一个从来没有尝过好酒的人临死前忽然发现手边有一杯美酒，便想拿来痛饮一番一样。我们还可以说，许多年来他在那修道院里吸取的空气已改变了他固有的性格，最后使他觉得他有必要去做任何一件善事。
    因此他打定主意，要帮助马德兰先生。我们刚才称他为“来自庇卡底的可怜的农民”。这种称呼是恰当的，不过不全面。在故事发展到现阶段，有必要把割风的面貌叙述一下。他原来是一个农民，但是他当过公证人，因此他在原有的精明以外又添上了辩才，在原有的质朴以外又添上了分析力。
    由于种种的原因，她的事业没成功，后来便沦为车夫和手工工人。但是，虽然他经常说粗话挥鞭子——据说那样做对牲口是必要的——在内心深处他却仍是个公证人。他生来就有些小聪明，说话没语病，能言健谈，那是乡下少见的事，农民都说他谈起话来俨然象个戴帽的老爷。割风正是上一世纪那种华而不实的文词所指的那种“半绅士半平民”的人，也就是达官贵人在对待贫寒人家时所用的那些形容平民的隐语所注明的“既像乡民，又似市民，胡椒和盐”。割风是那种衣衫褴楼的穷老汉，他虽然饱经苍桑和折磨，却还是一个正直爽快的人，那是一种使人从来不生恶念的宝贵品质。因而他有过的缺点和短处全是表面的，总之，他的形象在人们看来是不错的。老人的额上绝没有那种暗示凶恶、愚蠢或惹人厌恶的皱纹。
    黎明时分，割风已把事情想透了，他睁开眼睛看见马德兰先生坐在他的麦秸堆上，看望珂赛特睡觉。割风翻身坐起来说：“您现在既已来到这里，您如何解释你的到来呢？”一句话概括了当时的处境，把冉阿让从梦幻中惊醒过来了。两个人开始商量。
    “首先，”割风说，“您应当注意的第一件事，使是小姑娘和您，不要走出这间屋子。跨进园子一步，我们便完了。”
    “对。”
    “马德兰先生，”割风又说，“您到这儿来，适逢一个极好的日子，我是说，拣了一个极坏的日子，我们有个嬷嬷正害着重病，因此大家都不大注意我们这里的事。听说她快死了。她们正在做长达四十小时的祈祷。整个修道院都动荡不宁。她们全在为那件事忙乱着。马上就要死去的那位嬷嬷是位圣女。其实，我们这儿的人都是圣人。在她们和我之间，唯一的区别便是：她们说‘我们的静室，’而我说‘我的窝。’马上就要为濒死的人做祷告了，接着又得为死人做祷告。今天一天，我们这里不会有什么事，明天，我就不敢保证了。”
    “但是，”冉阿让说，“这所房子是在角落里，又被破房子遮掩住了，外面还有树木，修道院那些的人看不见。”
    “而且，我告诉您，修女们也从来不到这边来的。”
    “那岂不更好？”冉阿让说。你这样的语气是不是想说：“我认为可以偷偷在此地住下来。”割风针对这疑问回答说：“还有那些小姑娘呢。”
    “哪些小姑娘？”冉阿让问。割风张着嘴正要解释他刚出的那句话，就传来了一声钟响。
    “嬷嬷死了，”他说，“这是报丧的钟。”同时他打个手势叫冉阿让也听。钟又敲了一下。
    “这是报丧钟，马德兰先生。这钟将要一分钟一分钟地敲下去，连续敲上二十四小时，直到那尸首被抬出礼拜堂为止。您瞧，又是一下。在课间游戏时，只要有个皮球滚来了，她们就会全都追上来，跑到这儿来毫无规矩地乱找乱翻的。这些小天使全是些小鬼。”
    “谁？”冉阿让问。
    “那些小姑娘们。您马上会被她们发现的，她们会高叫道：‘嘿！一个男人！’不过您放心好了。今天不会有危险。因为今天她们没有游戏的时间。整整一天她们都要做祷告。您听这钟声。我早告诉过您了，一分钟敲一下。这是报丧钟。”
    “我懂了，割风大爷。您说的是寄读学校的孩子们。”
    冉阿让心里又独自想道：
    “这样，珂赛特的教养问题也全解决了。”割风嚷着说：“妈的！小姑娘也真的多！她们会围着您起哄！她们会逃走！在这儿做个男人，就等于害了瘟玻您知道她们在我的蹄子上系了一个铃，把我看成野兽一般。”
    冉阿让深入地想着。“这修院能救我们，”他嘀咕着，接着他大声说：“对。问题在于怎样才能待下来。”
    “不对。问题在于怎样才能出去。”冉阿让觉得心潮激荡。
    “出去！”
    “对呀，马德兰先生。为了回来，您得先出去埃”等到那钟又敲了一下，割风才接着说：“她们不会就这样让您留在此地。您是从哪里来的？对我来说，您上从天上掉下来的，因为我认识您，但是那些修女们，她们只让人从大门走进修道院。”
    忽然，另一口钟敲出了一阵相当复杂的声音。
    “啊！”割风说，“这是召集参议嬷嬷们的。她们要开会。每次死了人后，她们都要开会。她是天亮时死的，人死多半是在天亮的时候。难道您就不能从您进来的那条路出去吗？我们来谈谈，我不是有意来问您，您是从什么地方进来的？”
    冉阿让的脸色变白了。想到要重新回到那条令人恐怖的街上去，他便浑身发抖。你刚从虎豹出没的深山者林里逃出来，却又有一个朋友要你回到那里去，你想想那种滋味儿吧。冉阿让一闭上眼就仿佛看见那些警察还在附近的地方东寻西找，密探在侦察，到处都布置了便衣，无数只手伸向他的衣领，沙威也许就在那岔路口的角上。
    “不行！”冉阿让说，“割风大爷，您就把我看成是从天上掉下来的吧。”
    “那没有问题，我就是这么想的，”割风接着说，“您不再向我解释了。慈悲的天主也许曾把您捏在他的手掌中，要把您看清楚，随即又把您放生，不过他原是要把您放在一个男人的修道院里，结果他搞错了。您听，又是一 阵钟声。这是敲给看门人听的，要他通知市政机关去叫那位验尸的医生到这儿为看看死人。这些都是死了人以后的麻烦事。那些好嬷嬷们，她们并不见得怎么喜欢这种访问。一个医生，也许是满不在乎的人。他可能会揭开面罩。有时还要揭开别的什么东西。她们这次这么快就通知了医生！这里难道是有些什么名堂不成？您的小姑娘还没有睡醒。她叫什么名字？”
    “珂赛特。”
    “是您的女儿？看情形，您是她的爷爷吧？”
    “对。”
    “她要想从这里出去是好办的。我这里有一扇通向大门院子的便门。我若敲了门．看门人就会把门找开。我背个背箩在背上，小姑娘放在其中，从大门出去。割风大爷背着背箩出大门，那再寻常没有的事了。您嘱咐一声，要小姑娘待在箩里不出声就成。她上面盖着块油布。要不了多久，我把她带到绿径街寄托在一个卖水果的老朋友家里，要住多久就住多久，她是个聋子，她家里有张小床。我会对着那卖水果的老太婆的耳朵大声说，说这是我的侄女，要她关照一下，我明天就会来领的。这之后，小姑娘再和您一道回来。但是，您怎样才能出去呢？”
    冉阿让点点头。
    “只要不让人看见。关键就在这儿，割风大爷。您想个办法让我也和珂赛特一样躲在背箩里和油布下面，再把我送出去。”
    割风左手的中指搔着耳垂，好像十分为难。
    第三阵钟声打断了他们的思路。
    “验尸医生走了，”割风说，“他看过了，并且说：‘她死了，好的。’医生签了去天国的护照以后，殡仪馆就会送进一口棺材来。如果是个老嬷嬷，就由老嬷嬷们入殓，如果是个小嬷嬷，就由小嬷嬷们入殓。殓过以后，我就要去钉钉子，这是我做园丁份内的事。园丁有时也要埋死人。这修女的尸体将停放在礼拜堂的一间临街的矮厅里，那里除了验尸的医生外，其余的男人都不许进去。我不算男人，殡仪馆的执事们和我都不算男人。我到那厅里去把棺材钉上，殡仪馆的执事们将它抬走，车夫扬鞭催马，人就是这样上天的。抬进来的是个空木匣，抬走时却装了个东西，这就叫送葬。‘入土碍安息。’”一线阳光扫射到珂赛特的脸上，她还没有醒来，嘴微微张着，就象一个饮光的天使。冉阿让久久看着她，不再去听割风的唠叨了。虽然没有人听他讲话，可他仍还不歇嘴，这个管园子的老好人仍啰啰嗦嗦说下去：“到伏吉拉尔公墓去挖一个坑。据说那伏吉拉尔公墓不久就要发除了。那是个很老的公墓，不合章程，没有制服，快要退休了。真可惜，有这么一 个公墓多方便。我有一个朋友在那里，他叫梅斯千爷爷，是个埋葬工。这里的修女有种特权，省公署特别为她们订了这样一条规则。她们可在墓色渐浓时彼送进那公墓。可是，昨天以来又发生了好多事啊！受难嬷嬷死了，马德兰爷爷??”“完了。”冉阿让苦笑着说。割风把那个字吞了回去：“圣母！假如您要在这儿长期待下去，那可就是埋葬自己了”突然，传来第四阵钟声。割风连忙把那第系铃铛的带于从钉子上取下来，捆在自己的膝弯上。
    “这一次，钟声是叫我。院长嬷嬷要我去。好家伙，这皮带上的扣针扎了我一下。马德兰先生，等我回来，您不要动。还会有事的。您要是饿了，我这儿有酒、面包、干酪，随便取用吧。”
    接着，他走了出去，边走边说着：“来啦！来啦！”冉阿让看见他匆匆穿过园子，迈开瘸腿大步走着，边走边望两旁的瓜田。割风一路走去，他膝弯上的铃子响个不停，听到铃声的修女们都跑开了，不到十分钟，他走到一扇门旁轻轻敲了一下，一个温和的声音回答说：“永远如此。永远如此，”那即是说：“请进。”
    那扇门是接待室的门，接待室是由于工作需要留下来接待园丁的。隔壁就是会议室。院长正坐在接待室里唯一的一张椅子上等待着割风。

History and philosophy have eternal duties, which are, at the same time, simple duties; to combat Caiphas the High-priest, Draco the Lawgiver, Trimalcion the Legislator, Tiberius the Emperor; this is clear, direct, and limpid, and offers no obscurity.
But the right to live apart, even with its inconveniences and its abuses, insists on being stated and taken into account. Cenobitism is a human problem.
When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error, but of innocence, of aberration but of good-will, of ignorance but of devotion, of torture but of martyrdom, it always becomes necessary to say either yes or no.
A convent is a contradiction.Its object, salvation; its means thereto, sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme abnegation.
To abdicate with the object of reigning seems to be the device of monasticism.
In the cloister, one suffers in order to enjoy.One draws a bill of exchange on death.One discounts in terrestrial gloom celestial light. In the cloister, hell is accepted in advance as a post obit on paradise.
The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide paid for with eternity.
It does not seem to us, that on such a subject mockery is permissible. All about it is serious, the good as well as the bad.
The just man frowns, but never smiles with a malicious sneer. We understand wrath, but not malice.

     历史和哲学有许多恒久的责任，同时也是简单的责任，斗争大祭司该亚法①、法官德拉孔②、立法官特利马尔西翁③、皇帝提比利乌斯④，毫无疑义，都是明显、直接而清楚的。但是独居的权利以及它的一些不方便之处和各种弊端，却应该加以研究和严肃对待。寺院生活属于人类社会的一个重大问题。修道院是这样一类地方，既荒诞而又清净无为，既使人误人歧境却又劝勉人以心向善，既使人愚昧又使人虔信，即使人饱受苦痛又使人为之殉道，当我们说到它时，差不多每次都要说或许对或许不对。修道院是一个矛盾，它的目的是为了幸福，方式是为了牺牲。修道院表现出来的是非常自私，而结果是非常的克己。采取守势但为进攻，这好象是僧侣制度的座右铭。在修道院里，人们以受折磨来通达欢乐之途。人们签发由死神发出的传票。人们在人间的黑暗中预领天庭的光明。在修道院里，地狱生活是当作来日得到天堂的代价而彼人接受的。
    一种取得永生的自杀是戴上面纱或穿上僧衣。在这样一个问题前，我们觉得嘲讽是绝不允许的。这里不论好坏全是严肃的。
    公正的人眉头紧锁，但绝不会有那种恶毒的笑容。我们能明白人的愤恨，而不能明白恶毒的中伤。  
①该亚法（caiphe．），迫害耶稣的犹太大祭司。
②德拉孔（Dracon），公元前七世纪末雅典酷吏。
③特利马尔西翁（Trimalcion），一世纪拉丁作家伯特洛尼所作小说《萨蒂尼翁》里的一个色情人物。
④提比利乌斯（Tibere，前 42—37）．罗马帝国暴君。

A few words more.
We blame the church when she is saturated with intrigues, we despise the spiritual which is harsh toward the temporal; but we everywhere honor the thoughtful man.
We salute the man who kneels.
A faith; this is a necessity for man.Woe to him who believes nothing.
One is not unoccupied because one is absorbed.There is visible labor and invisible labor.
To contemplate is to labor, to think is to act.
Folded arms toil, clasped hands work.A gaze fixed on heaven is a work.
Thales remained motionless for four years.He founded philosophy.
In our opinion, cenobites are not lazy men, and recluses are not idlers.
To meditate on the Shadow is a serious thing.
Without invalidating anything that we have just said, we believe that a perpetual memory of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree.We must die. The Abbe de la Trappe replies to Horace.
To mingle with one's life a certain presence of the sepulchre,-- this is the law of the sage; and it is the law of the ascetic. In this respect, the ascetic and the sage converge.There is a material growth; we admit it.There is a moral grandeur; we hold to that.Thoughtless and vivacious spirits say:--
"What is the good of those motionless figures on the side of mystery? What purpose do they serve?What do they do?"
Alas!In the presence of the darkness which environs us, and which awaits us, in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of us, we reply:"There is probably no work more divine than that performed by these souls."And we add: "There is probably no work which is more useful."
There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never pray at all.
In our opinion the whole question lies in the amount of thought that is mingled with prayer.
Leibnitz praying is grand, Voltaire adoring is fine.Deo erexit Voltaire.
We are for religion as against religions.
We are of the number who believe in the wretchedness of orisons, and the sublimity of prayer.
Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,--a minute which will not, fortunately, leave its impress on the nineteenth century,-- at this hour, when so many men have low brows and souls but little elevated, among so many mortals whose morality consists in enjoyment, and who are busied with the brief and misshapen things of matter, whoever exiles himself seems worthy of veneration to us.
The monastery is a renunciation.Sacrifice wrongly directed is still sacrifice.To mistake a grave error for a duty has a grandeur of its own.
Taken by itself, and ideally, and in order to examine the truth on all sides until all aspects have been impartially exhausted, the monastery, the female convent in particular,--for in our century it is woman who suffers the most, and in this exile of the cloister there is something of protestation,--the female convent has incontestably a certain majesty.
This cloistered existence which is so austere, so depressing, a few of whose features we have just traced, is not life, for it is not liberty; it is not the tomb, for it is not plenitude; it is the strange place whence one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain, on one side the abyss where we are, on the other, the abyss whither we shall go; it is the narrow and misty frontier separating two worlds, illuminated and obscured by both at the same time, where the ray of life which has become enfeebled is mingled with the vague ray of death; it is the half obscurity of the tomb.
We, who do not believe what these women believe, but who, like them, live by faith,--we have never been able to think without a sort of tender and religious terror, without a sort of pity, that is full of envy, of those devoted, trembling and trusting creatures, of these humble and august souls, who dare to dwell on the very brink of the mystery, waiting between the world which is closed and heaven which is not yet open, turned towards the light which one cannot see, possessing the sole happiness of thinking that they know where it is, aspiring towards the gulf, and the unknown, their eyes fixed motionless on the darkness, kneeling, bewildered, stupefied, shuddering, half lifted, at times, by the deep breaths of eternity.

     另外几句话。我们批判尽是阴谋的教会，无视专权的教权，然而我们处处尊重那种具有思想的人。我们向跪拜的人致敬。
    人人都需要信仰。不信任何东西的人不会有幸福。人并非因静思默想而成为一个闲人。人类有有形的劳动和无形的劳动。静默是劳动，思想是行动。交叉着的双臂能工作，合起的手掌也能有所作为，连注视天空也是一种伟业。泰勒斯①静修四年，他奠定了哲学。
    在我们看来，静修者不是无所事事的人，遁世避俗的人也不是懒虫。神游冥晦无极是一件严肃的事。假如不有意扭曲我们刚才说过的那些话，我们认为对坟墓孜孜不忘，对世人是恰当的。在这点上，神甫和哲学家的意见完全一致。“人终归一死。”特拉帕苦修会①的修道院院长与贺拉斯②所见一致。
    生不忘死，不仅是先哲的法则，也是苦修僧的法则。在这点上，修士和哲人的见解相同。
    我们需要物质的繁荣，我们坚守意识的崇高。
    浮躁的人说：
    “我们为何要那些一动不动待在死亡边缘上的偶像？他们有何用？他们干些什么？”
    唉！一团黑暗在围绕我们和等待我们，我们也无从知道那无垠的散射将如何对付我们，因此我们回答：“也许那些人的建树是无与伦比的。”这里我们还得补充道：“或许没有更加有效的工作了。”
    总要有那么一些人来为不愿祈祷的人不断地祈祷。
    我们觉得关键问题是蕴含在祈祷中的思想究竟有多少。祈祷中的莱布尼茨③是伟大的，祈祷中的伏尔泰是壮丽的。“伏尔泰高仰上帝。”
    我们为维护宗教而反对各种宗教。我们坚信经文的无聊和祈祷的伟大。
    除此之外，在我们身临其境的这会儿——这偶然没留下十九世纪痕迹的一会儿，这大多人低下头了无精神的一会儿，在这充塞以享乐为荣、以追求短暂无聊的物质享受为任务的行尸走肉的环境中，只要是离群索居的人都是可敬的。修道院是退避之所，意义模糊的自我牺牲仍然是牺牲。即使把严重的错误当作天职来执行，这其中也有它伟大的地方。
    假如我们把修道院，特别是女修道院——因为在我们的社会中妇女受难最深，而且在那与世隔绝的修道院主活里，也存在隆重的诺言——位于真理的光明，就其本质，用理想的尺度，从任何角度予以正直和全面的分析，我们便会感到妇女的修道院，不用怀疑，确有其庄严的地方。
①泰勒斯（Thalea），第一个史学上可考察的古希腊哲学的代表，自发唯物主义米利都学派的奠基人，生于公元前六世纪。
①特拉帕苦修会（Trappe），天主教隐修院修会之一，一六六四年创立。该会教规章格外严厉，主张终身食素，永久缄目，只以手势示意，足不出院，故有“哑巴会”和”苦修会”之称。
②贺拉斯（Hcrace）纪元前一世纪罗马著名诗人。
③莱布尼茨（Lcibniue，1646一 1716），伟大的德国教学家、唯心主义哲学家。
    我们一鳞半爪地指出了那种非常严酷惨淡的修道院生活，那绝非人生，因为毫无自由，也非坟墓，因为还不圆满，那是一种奇特之地，在那里人们有如来到高山之巅，朝这一面可以看见我们身临其境的世界，朝另一面可以看见我们即将前往的世界，那正是凡界与冥界相连接的狭窄地带，那里茫茫雾霭，依稀隐逸在两个世界之中，生命的残阳和死亡的夜色交相混溶，这是墓地明暗不定的光。
    至于我们，虽然不信这些妇女所信这事，却也和她们一样是生活在信仰中的，这些颤颤微微而充满信念和忠诚的女性，这些廉卑严肃的灵魂，她们勇敢地生活在神秘世界的边缘，坚守在已经凋谢的尘世和尚未开启的天堂之间，朝向那看不见的清辉，仅凭心中那点所谓自知之明而引为无边的幸福，一心向往着万丈深渊和未知世界，双眼凝视着沉沉不动的黑暗，双腿跪下，内心激动，惊愕，战粟，偶尔一阵来自长空的大风粑她们吹得飘然欲起。当我们想她们，想到那些情形时，总不免欣然动容，惊叹与崇敬，有如见了神明，悲悯和钦慕之情油然而生。

They pray.
To whom?
To God.
To pray to God,--what is the meaning of these words?
Is there an infinite beyond us?Is that infinite there, inherent, permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infinite; and because, if it lacked matter it would be bounded; necessarily intelligent, since it is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would end there?Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we can attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is it not the absolute, of which we are only the relative?
At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not an infinite within us?Are not these two infinites (what an alarming plural!) superposed, the one upon the other?Is not this second infinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first?Is it not the latter's mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another abyss?Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think?Does it love?Does it will?If these two infinities are intelligent, each of them has a will principle, and there is an _I_ in the upper infinity as there is an _I_ in the lower infinity. The _I_ below is the soul; the _I_ on high is God.
To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought, with the infinity on high, is called praying.
Let us take nothing from the human mind; to suppress is bad. We must reform and transform.Certain faculties in man are directed towards the Unknown; thought, revery, prayer.The Unknown is an ocean.What is conscience?It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, revery, prayer,--these are great and mysterious radiations. Let us respect them.Whither go these majestic irradiations of the soul?Into the shadow; that is to say, to the light.
The grandeur of democracy is to disown nothing and to deny nothing of humanity.Close to the right of the man, beside it, at the least, there exists the right of the soul.
To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree of creation, and to the contemplation of its branches full of stars. We have a duty to labor over the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd, to admit, as an inexplicable fact, only what is necessary, to purify belief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God of caterpillars.

     他们祈祷。朝谁？上帝。
    朝上帝祈祷，这话的意思是什么？在我们身外，不是有一个无极吗？那个无极是否统一，自在，永远呢，它是无极，是否肯定物质的，而且以物质结束的地点为其止境呢？它是无极，是否肯定有理智，而且以理智消失的地点其终结呢？那个无极会不会在我们内心唤起本体的概念，而我们只能予以自己以存在的概念呢？换句话说，难道它不是绝对而我们则是它的相对吗？
    在我们的身外既然有一个无极，是否在我们的内心也同样有一个无极呢？这两个无极（这复数太吓人了！）是否重叠着的呢？第二个无极是不是第一个的内层呢？它是不是另外一个虚无的翻版、反射、回音、有同一个中心的虚无吗？这第二个无极是否也有智慧呢？它会思想吗？它有意愿吗？如果那两个无极都有智慧，那么，每个都会有一种将产生意愿的本真，而且，恰如在下面的这个无极里有我那样，在上面的那个无极里也会有一个我。下面的这个我就是魂灵，上面的那个我就是那和华。
    让下面的这个无级经过思想和上面的那个无极产生接触，那就是析祷。
    无须从人的意识里剔除任何东西，消解是一件坏事情，应该改正和转变。人的有些感官是指向未知世界的，那是思想、做梦和祈祷。未知世界浩大无涯。良知是什么呢？是未知世界的指甫针。思想、做梦、祈祷是神秘光辉的辐射。我们应该给予尊重。灵魂的那种伟大光芒将发射到什么地方去？到黑暗中去，换句话说，就是到光明中去。
    民主的伟大就是什么也不否认，对人类任何东西也不放弃。紧随人的权利，至少在它身边，还有感情的权利。克制狂热，崇拜无极，这才是正途。如果仅跪在造物主的功德面前，仰视八方围绕的星群是不够的。我们要尽责任来为人类的灵魂劳作，保护正义，反对诡奇，崇尚未知，摈弃邪教，在不可理喻的事物面前是只接受必须的，使信念健康壮大，除掉宗教上的迷信，同时除掉上帝周围的丑恶之徒。

With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are sincere.Turn your book upside down and be in the infinite.
There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.
To erect a sense which we lack into a source of truth, is a fine blind man's self-sufficiency.
The curious thing is the haughty, superior, and compassionate airs which this groping philosophy assumes towards the philosophy which beholds God.One fancies he hears a mole crying, "I pity them with their sun!"
There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists.At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God.
We salute them as philosophers, while inexorably denouncing their philosophy.
Let us go on.
The remarkable thing about it is, also, their facility in paying themselves off with words.A metaphysical school of the North, impregnated to some extent with fog, has fancied that it has worked a revolution in human understanding by replacing the word Force with the word Will.
To say:"the plant wills," instead of:"the plant grows": this would be fecund in results, indeed, if we were to add: "the universe wills."Why?Because it would come to this: the plant wills, therefore it has an _I_; the universe wills, therefore it has a God.
As for us, who, however, in contradistinction to this school, reject nothing a priori, a will in the plant, accepted by this school, appears to us more difficult to admit than a will in the universe denied by it.
To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible on any other conditions than a denial of the infinite.We have demonstrated this.
The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything becomes "a mental conception."
With nihilism, no discussion is possible; for the nihilist logic doubts the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists itself.
From its point of view, it is possible that it may be for itself, only "a mental conception."
Only, it does not perceive that all which it has denied it admits in the lump, simply by the utterance of the word, mind.
In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all end in the monosyllable, No.
To No there is only one reply, Yes.
Nihilism has no point.
There is no such thing as nothingness.Zero does not exist. Everything is something.Nothing is nothing.
Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread.
Even to see and to show does not suffice.philosophy should be an energy; it should have for effort and effect to ameliorate the condition of man.Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius; in other words, the man of wisdom should be made to emerge from the man of felicity.Eden should be changed into a Lyceum. Science should be a cordial.To enjoy,--what a sad aim, and what a paltry ambition!The brute enjoys.To offer thought to the thirst of men, to give them all as an elixir the notion of God, to make conscience and science fraternize in them, to render them just by this mysterious confrontation; such is the function of real philosophy. Morality is a blossoming out of truths.Contemplation leads to action. The absolute should be practicable.It is necessary that the ideal should be breathable, drinkable, and eatable to the human mind. It is the ideal which has the right to say:Take, this is my body, this is my blood.Wisdom is a holy communion. It is on this condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of science and becomes the one and sovereign mode of human rallying, and that philosophy herself is promoted to religion.
philosophy should not be a corbel erected on mystery to gaze upon it at its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to curiosity.
For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand man as a point of departure nor progress as an end, without those two forces which are their two motors:faith and love.
progress is the goal, the ideal is the type.
What is this ideal?It is God.
Ideal, absolute, perfection, infinity:identical words.

     说到祈祷的方法，只要诚实，任何方法都是好的。关上你的书本，到无极里去。
    我们明白有一种否定无极的哲学。按照病理学分类，还有一种否定太阳的哲学，这种哲学被称为瞎眼论。
    把人们从来没有的一种感觉确认为真理的本真，那简直是盲人的一种斗胆的杰作。
    奇怪的是这种四处乱摸的哲学在寻找上帝的哲学面前所采用的那种自以为是而又悲天悯人的傲慢姿态。人们好象听见一只田鼠在叫喊：“他们太可怜，总说有太阳！”
    我们知道某些人是赫赫有名的非常有力的无神论者。事实上，那些以自己的力量找回真理的人，倒底是不是无神论者也还无法十分肯定，对他们来讲这只是一个下定义的问题，而且，无论如何，纵便他们不信上帝，他们的高超才华已经证明上帝的存在。
    我们毫不留情地批驳他们的哲学，但却不得把他们当作皙学家来崇敬。让我们继续往下谈。那种卖弄文字的娴熟技巧是可钦佩的，北方有一个形而上学的派别，并不都被乌烟瘴气搞糊涂了，以为只要意愿二字替代力度就可改变人们的意识。
    不说“草木长”，却说“草木要”，确实，只要再加上“世界要”，意义便更为丰富了。为什么？因为能够得到这样的结论：草木既能“要”，草木就有一个我；世界“要”，世界就有一个上帝。
    我们与那个派别不同，不会无中生有地反对旁人的任何意见，可是那个派别所接受的所谓草木有意愿的说法，据我们所知与他们所否定的世界有意愿的说法相比更难成立。
    否定无极的意愿就是否定上帝，这只在否定无极的前提下才有可能。那是我们已经阐明过了的。对无极的否定会直接向指虚无主义。一切都变成了“精神上的概念”。和虚无主义没有论辩的可能性。因为讲逻辑的虚无主义者怀疑与他进行争辩的对手是否存在，从而也就无法肯定他自己是否存在。
    从他的观点看，他本身，对他本身来讲，也只能是“他精神的一个概念”。但是，他一点没有发觉，他所否定的一切在他一提到“精神”一词时，又全被他全盘接受了。总而言之，将所有都归结为虚无的哲学思想是绝无出路的。认同虚无的人也最终有个虚无要认同。虚无主义我是无法自圆其说的。
    没有什么虚空。无是不存在的。任何东西都是东西。没有什么东西不是东西。
    人靠肯定来生活超过靠面包来生活。眼瞧和手指，这也是不够的。哲学应是一种能量，它的努力方向应是卓越有成效地改造人类。苏格拉底可以与亚当身心合一，并且产生马可?奥里略，也就是说，要使享受的人转为明智的人。把乐园变为学园。科学是一种强心针。享受，那是多么可悲的目的，一种多么卑微的愿望！混子才享乐。
    只有思想才是心灵的真正的胜利。用人类解渴思想，就象以美酒相劝来教他们认识上帝，使良知和科学在他们心中水乳交融，让那种神圣的对话把他们变为正派的人，那才是哲学的真正作用。道德是真理之花，静观志向行动，绝对可以起作用。理想可以是人类精神在呼吸和吃喝的。理想有权说：“请吧，这就是我的肉，这就是我的血。”智力是一种神秘的相互交感。在这种情形下智力不再是对科学的乏味的爱好，而是唯一与至高无上的团结人类的方式，并可从哲学升为宗教。
    宗教不仅是为了观赏神秘事物而建筑在它之上的除了满足好奇心外别无一用的一座花园。
    等待以后再有机会时我们将进一步发表我们的意见，目前我们只想说：“如果没有信仰和爱情这两股力量的推动，我们就无法了解怎样以人为出发点，而又以进步为目的。”
    进步是目的而理想是标准。什么是理想呢？上帝是理想。理想，绝对完美，无极，全是些同义词。

Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in Thibet, is a sort of phthisis for civilization.It stops life short.It simply depopulates.Claustration, castration. It has been the scourge of Europe.Add to this the violence so often done to the conscience, the forced vocations, feudalism bolstered up by the cloister, the right of the first-born pouring the excess of the family into monasticism, the ferocities of which we have just spoken, the in pace, the closed mouths, the walled-up brains, so many unfortunate minds placed in the dungeon of eternal vows, the taking of the habit, the interment of living souls. Add individual tortures to national degradations, and, whoever you may be, you will shudder before the frock and the veil,--those two winding-sheets of human devising.Nevertheless, at certain points and in certain places, in spite of philosophy, in spite of progress, the spirit of the cloister persists in the midst of the nineteenth century, and a singular ascetic recrudescence is, at this moment, astonishing the civilized world.The obstinacy of antiquated institutions in perpetuating themselves resembles the stubbornness of the rancid perfume which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the spoiled fish which should persist in being eaten, the persecution of the child's garment which should insist on clothing the man, the tenderness of corpses which should return to embrace the living.
"Ingrates!" says the garment, "I protected you in inclement weather. Why will you have nothing to do with me?""I have just come from the deep sea," says the fish."I have been a rose," says the perfume. "I have loved you," says the corpse."I have civilized you," says the convent.
To this there is but one reply:"In former days."
To dream of the indefinite prolongation of defunct things, and of the government of men by embalming, to restore dogmas in a bad condition, to regild shrines, to patch up cloisters, to rebless reliquaries, to refurnish superstitions, to revictual fanaticisms, to put new handles on holy water brushes and militarism, to reconstitute monasticism and militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication of parasites, to force the past on the present,-- this seems strange.Still, there are theorists who hold such theories. These theorists, who are in other respects people of intelligence, have a very simple process; they apply to the past a glazing which they call social order, divine right, morality, family, the respect of elders, antique authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy, religion; and they go about shouting, "Look! take this, honest people." This logic was known to the ancients.The soothsayers practise it. They rubbed a black heifer over with chalk, and said, "She is white, Bos cretatus."
As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead.If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it.
Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms all forms as they are, are tenacious of life; they have teeth and nails in their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must be made on them, and that without truce; for it is one of the fatalities of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms.It is difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth.
A convent in France, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, is a college of owls facing the light.A cloister, caught in the very act of asceticism, in the very heart of the city of '89 and of 1830 and of 1848, Rome blossoming out in paris, is an anachronism. In ordinary times, in order to dissolve an anachronism and to cause it to vanish, one has only to make it spell out the date. But we are not in ordinary times.
Let us fight.
Let us fight, but let us make a distinction.The peculiar property of truth is never to commit excesses.What need has it of exaggeration?There is that which it is necessary to destroy, and there is that which it is simply necessary to elucidate and examine.What a force is kindly and serious examination! Let us not apply a flame where only a light is required.
So, given the nineteenth century, we are opposed, as a general proposition, and among all peoples, in Asia as well as in Europe, in India as well as in Turkey, to ascetic claustration. Whoever says cloister, says marsh.Their putrescence is evident, their stagnation is unhealthy, their fermentation infects people with fever, and etiolates them; their multiplication becomes a plague of Egypt.We cannot think without affright of those lands where fakirs, bonzes, santons, Greek monks, marabouts, talapoins, and dervishes multiply even like swarms of vermin.
This said, the religious question remains.This question has certain mysterious, almost formidable sides; may we be permitted to look at it fixedly.

     对文化来说，象存在于西班牙和西藏那样的僧侣制一样，那是一种痨玻它干净利落地扼杀了生命，简而言之，它减少了人口。进修道院，等于当太监，在欧洲那成了灾难。除此之外，还碍加上常常附在信念上的暴虐手法，言不由衷的心愿，以修道院为主干的封建势力，使人口大多家庭的子女出家的宗子制，我们刚才谈到的那些野蛮作风——“地下室”，紧闭的嘴，密锁的大脑，许多终身在地牢里受煎熬的智慧，服装的变化，灵魂的活埋。除了民族的堕落之外，还要加上个人所受的磨难，在僧衣和面纱——人类发明的两件装殓死人的服饰面前，无论你是谁，你都会不寒而栗。
    但是，在有些角落和有些地方，出家修道之风居然无视哲学，无视进步，继续流行在十九世纪青天白日之下，更怪诞的是苦修风气目前竟有一浪逐一 浪的趋势，使文明世界为之震撼。一些本已作古的团体还想永存下去，那种顽固的想法，尤如要人把哈喇了的头油朝头发上抹的那种偏执，把腥臭的鱼吃进的肚子的那种狂想，要大人穿小孩衣服的那种蠢动，也象回到家的死尸要与活人相拥的那种慈爱。
    衣服：“你这忘恩负义之人！我在风雨中袒护过你。现在你为什么就扔下我了呢？”鱼说：“我出自大海。”头油说：“我是从玫瑰花炼出来的。”僵尸说：“我曾爱过你们。”修道院说：“我教育过你们。”
    对这一切，我们唯有一个回答：那是过去的事。
    无限期地存在下去的是梦想死亡的东西，并采取以香料防止尸体腐朽的办法来管理人们，修订腐朽的教条，在法宝箱上再次涂上金漆，把修道院修缮一新，重新净化圣器匣，补写迷信上的漏洞，鼓吹信教狂蛮劲，替圣水瓶的马刀重新上柄，重新建立僧侣制度和军事制度，相信社会的幸福系于寄生虫的繁衍，把过去强加于现在，这一切，好象很奇怪。可是竟然还有支持那些理论的理论家。那些理论家，而且还是一些具有才智的人，他们用一套极简便的办法，为过去涂上一层色彩，这就是他们所说的社会秩序、神权、道德、家庭、敬考、古代礼法、神圣传统、合法地位、宗教，于是见人就嚷：“快啊！接受这些东西吧，忠诚的，人们。”那种逻辑是古人早已知道的。
    罗马的祭司就能运用那种逻辑。他们为一头小黑牛涂上白膏粉，就说：“你已经白了。”
    对于我们，我们每每都心怀警意，也无论何时都避免受过去的影响，只要过去愿意承认它已死了。假如它还要表示它活着，我们就打它，而且要把它打死。
    迷信、过度虔诚，口是心非、成见，那些牛鬼蛇神，尽管全是妖魔，却有强大的生命力，它们的鬼影是有爪牙，必须与它们肉搏，与它们打仗，不停顿地与它们搏斗，和与邪魔进行常久的争斗是人类必然的顺应天命的思想之一。要扣住邪魔的喉咙，把它降伏在地，那可不是容易的事。
    法国的修道院，在十九世纪太阳当头照时，是些阳光下面果鸟的巢，修道院在一七八九、一八三○和一八四八年革命发源地的中心鼓动出家修行，让罗马的亡灵回荡在巴黎，那是违反时代精神的现象。在正常的时代，假如要阻止一种作古的事物，要使它消灭我们就只让它说说公元年代的阿拉伯数字就可以了。但是我们现在绝非处在正常的时代。
    我们只能斗争。
    我们必须斗争，也必须有所区分。真理的核心从不过分。真理难道需要矫在过正吗？某些东西是必须灭亡的，某些东西却只需要带到阳光下看清楚就行了。不苟言笑而与人为善的检查，是一种多么强大的力量！阳光朗照的地方根本不需要我们燃起的火炬。
    因此，现在既然是十九世纪，那么，不论是在亚洲或欧洲，不论是在印度或土耳其，一般而言，我们都会反对那种出家修行的制度。修道院等于藏垢纳污之地。那些地方的恶臭是明摆着的，淤积是有害的，发酵腐烂能使里面的生物得热病，并促使死亡。它们的增长成了埃及的祸患，我们想到那些国家里的托钵憎、比丘尼、苦行僧、圣巴西勒会修士、隐修士、和尚、行脚僧都在纷坛攒动，如蚁似蛆，禁不住使人毛骨惊然。
    说完这些后，宗教问题还是存在。这问题在有些方面是神秘的，也几乎是吓人的，望能让我们仔细检视一下。

Men unite themselves and dwell in communities.By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right of association.
They shut themselves up at home.By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right which every man has to open or shut his door.
They do not come forth.By virtue of what right?By virtue of the right to go and come, which implies the right to remain at home.
There, at home, what do they do?
They speak in low tones; they drop their eyes; they toil. They renounce the world, towns, sensualities, pleasures, vanities, pride, interests.They are clothed in coarse woollen or coarse linen. Not one of them possesses in his own right anything whatever. On entering there, each one who was rich makes himself poor. What he has, he gives to all.He who was what is called noble, a gentleman and a lord, is the equal of him who was a peasant. The cell is identical for all.All undergo the same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black bread, sleep on the same straw, die on the same ashes.The same sack on their backs, the same rope around their loins.If the decision has been to go barefoot, all go barefoot.There may be a prince among them; that prince is the same shadow as the rest.No titles.Even family names have disappeared.They bear only first names.All are bowed beneath the equality of baptismal names.They have dissolved the carnal family, and constituted in their community a spiritual family. They have no other relatives than all men.They succor the poor, they care for the sick.They elect those whom they obey.They call each other "my brother."
You stop me and exclaim, "But that is the ideal convent!"
It is sufficient that it may be the possible convent, that I should take notice of it.
Thence it results that, in the preceding book, I have spoken of a convent with respectful accents.The Middle Ages cast aside, Asia cast aside, the historical and political question held in reserve, from the purely philosophical point of view, outside the requirements of militant policy, on condition that the monastery shall be absolutely a voluntary matter and shall contain only consenting parties, I shall always consider a cloistered community with a certain attentive, and, in some respects, a deferential gravity.
Wherever there is a community, there is a commune; where there is a commune, there is right.The monastery is the product of the formula:Equality, Fraternity.Oh! how grand is liberty! And what a splendid transfiguration!Liberty suffices to transform the monastery into a republic.
Let us continue.
But these men, or these women who are behind these four walls. They dress themselves in coarse woollen, they are equals, they call each other brothers, that is well; but they do something else?
Yes.
What?
They gaze on the darkness, they kneel, and they clasp their hands.
What does this signify?

    一些人聚集起来，住在一起。凭什么这么做？凭结社的权利。他们闭门不出。凭什么这么做？凭每个人都有开门或关门的权利。他们不出门。凭什么这么做？凭每个人都有的来去自由的权利，这里也含有呆在自己室内的权利。他们呆在自己的室内干什么？
    他们低声细语，他们眼睛朝下，我们做公课。他们拒绝社交、城市、官能的享乐、欢快、虚荣、傲慢和利益。他们穿粗呢或粗布。他们中间的所有人没有任何财产。进了这扇大门后有钱人都立即自动变成了穷人。他得将自己一切的东西分给大家。先前被称作贵族、世家子弟、大人物的人和先前被称作乡巴佬的人，现在都完全平等了。每个人的静修室是完全一样的。大家的发式都剃成一样的，还穿一样的僧衣，吃一样的黑面包，睡在一样的麦秸上，死于一样的柴灰上。肩背一个同样的口袋，腰围一条同样的绳子，倘若决定要赤脚行走，大家便一起赤脚而行。其中或许有一个玉子，玉子和其他人一样也仅是个影子。不再有什么称谓，连姓也没有了。他们只有名字。大家都在除名的平等面前低下头去。他们远离了家庭温暖，在修道会里结成精神上的家庭。除了全体人类，他们便没有其他亲人。他们帮助穷人，他们照看病人，他们选择自己服从的人，他们相互以朋友相称。
    你拉住我，兴奋他说：“这才真是理想的修道院啊！”
    只要那是可能存在的修道院，就足已让我予以重视了。因此，在前一卷书里，我曾以尊敬的口气谈到一个修道院的情形。除中世纪，与亚洲以外，在保留历史和政治问题之后，从纯哲学观点出发，站在宗教辩论的约束之外，基于进修道院完全出自志愿、完全处于协议的情况下，我对修道组织就可以以关切严肃的态度对待，甚至在有些方面以尊敬的态度对待，只要有组织的地方都会有共同生活，有共同生活的地方也会有权利。修道院是从“平等、博爱”一个公式中诞生的。哦！自由真伟大！改变真璀灿！自由已足够使修道院转变为共和国。
    让我们继续说下去。
    可这些男人，这些女人，住在四面高墙里，身穿棕色租呢服，相互平等，以兄弟姊妹相称，这多好，不过他们是不是还做别的事呢？
    做。
    做什么呢？他们凝视着阴影，他们双腿跪下，合掌。那指的是什么？

This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite.
Man is the second.
Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it has been our duty to enter it.Why?Because the convent, which is common to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to Christianity, is one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to the Infinite.
This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain ideas; nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves, our restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we encounter man in the Infinite, either well or ill understood, we feel ourselves overpowered with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate, and a sublime side, which we adore.What a contemplation for the mind, and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation of God upon the human wall!

     此书是一出剧，其问主角是无极。人是配角。
    既便如此，我们在路上又遇到了一个修道院，我们理应走进去。为什么？那是因为修道院，西方有，东方也有，现代有，古代也有，基督教有，异教、佛教、伊斯兰教全都有，它是人类指向无极的测量器。
    这儿不是过份发挥某些思想的地方，但是，在完全坚守我们的保留姿态时，我们的宽容，甚至我们的愤怒，我们理应如此说，每次当我们遇见无极存于某个人的心中时，不论他的理解程度怎样，我们总会觉得顿生敬意。圣殿、清真寺、寺庙、神舍，所有这些地方都有其丑陋的一面，是我们所不容的，同时也有崇高的一面，是我们所敬仰的。人类心中的静察和冥想是永无止境的，是照射在人类之上的上帝的清辉。

From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism is condemned.Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in its circulation, cumbrous establishments, centres of idleness where centres of labor should exist.Monastic communities are to the great social community what the mistletoe is to the oak, what the wart is to the human body.Their prosperity and their fatness mean the impoverishment of the country.The monastic regime, good at the beginning of civilization, useful in the reduction of the brutal by the spiritual, is bad when peoples have reached their manhood.Moreover, when it becomes relaxed, and when it enters into its period of disorder, it becomes bad for the very reasons which rendered it salutary in its period of purity, because it still continues to set the example.
Claustration has had its day.Cloisters, useful in the early education of modern civilization, have embarrassed its growth, and are injurious to its development.So far as institution and formation with relation to man are concerned, monasteries, which were good in the tenth century, questionable in the fifteenth, are detestable in the nineteenth. The leprosy of monasticism has gnawed nearly to a skeleton two wonderful nations, Italy and Spain; the one the light, the other the splendor of Europe for centuries; and, at the present day, these two illustrious peoples are but just beginning to convalesce, thanks to the healthy and vigorous hygiene of 1789 alone.
The convent--the ancient female convent in particular, such as it still presents itself on the threshold of this century, in Italy, in Austria, in Spain--is one of the most sombre concretions of the Middle Ages. The cloister, that cloister, is the point of intersection of horrors. The Catholic cloister, properly speaking, is wholly filled with the black radiance of death.
The Spanish convent is the most funereal of all.There rise, in obscurity, beneath vaults filled with gloom, beneath domes vague with shadow, massive altars of Babel, as high as cathedrals; there immense white crucifixes hang from chains in the dark; there are extended, all nude on the ebony, great Christs of ivory; more than bleeding,--bloody; hideous and magnificent, with their elbows displaying the bones, their knee-pans showing their integuments, their wounds showing their flesh, crowned with silver thorns, nailed with nails of gold, with blood drops of rubies on their brows, and diamond tears in their eyes.The diamonds and rubies seem wet, and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep, their sides bruised with the hair shirt and their iron-tipped scourges, their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles, their knees excoriated with prayer; women who think themselves wives, spectres who think themselves seraphim. Do these women think?No. Have they any will?No. Do they love? No. Do they live?No. Their nerves have turned to bone; their bones have turned to stone.Their veil is of woven night.Their breath under their veil resembles the indescribably tragic respiration of death.The abbess, a spectre, sanctifies them and terrifies them. The immaculate one is there, and very fierce.Such are the ancient monasteries of Spain.Liars of terrible devotion, caverns of virgins, ferocious places.
Catholic Spain is more Roman than Rome herself.The Spanish convent was, above all others, the Catholic convent.There was a flavor of the Orient about it.The archbishop, the kislar-aga of heaven, locked up and kept watch over this seraglio of souls reserved for God.The nun was the odalisque, the priest was the eunuch. The fervent were chosen in dreams and possessed Christ. At night, the beautiful, nude young man descended from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one.Lofty walls guarded the mystic sultana, who had the crucified for her sultan, from all living distraction.A glance on the outer world was infidelity. The in pace replaced the leather sack.That which was cast into the sea in the East was thrown into the ground in the West. In both quarters, women wrung their hands; the waves for the first, the grave for the last; here the drowned, there the buried. Monstrous parallel.
To-day the upholders of the past, unable to deny these things, have adopted the expedient of smiling at them.There has come into fashion a strange and easy manner of suppressing the revelations of history, of invalidating the commentaries of philosophy, of eliding all embarrassing facts and all gloomy questions.A matter for declamations, say the clever.Declamations, repeat the foolish. Jean-Jacques a declaimer; Diderot a declaimer; Voltaire on Calas, Labarre, and Sirven, declaimers.I know not who has recently discovered that Tacitus was a declaimer, that Nero was a victim, and that pity is decidedly due to "that poor Holofernes."
Facts, however, are awkward things to disconcert, and they are obstinate. The author of this book has seen, with his own eyes, eight leagues distant from Brussels,--there are relics of the Middle Ages there which are attainable for everybody,--at the Abbey of Villers, the hole of the oubliettes, in the middle of the field which was formerly the courtyard of the cloister, and on the banks of the Thil, four stone dungeons, half under ground, half under the water. They were in pace.Each of these dungeons has the remains of an iron door, a vault, and a grated opening which, on the outside, is two feet above the level of the river, and on the inside, six feet above the level of the ground.Four feet of river flow past along the outside wall.The ground is always soaked. The occupant of the in pace had this wet soil for his bed. In one of these dungeons, there is a fragment of an iron necklet riveted to the wall; in another, there can be seen a square box made of four slabs of granite, too short for a person to lie down in, too low for him to stand upright in.A human being was put inside, with a coverlid of stone on top.This exists.It can be seen. It can be touched.These in pace, these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklets, that lofty peep-hole on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here was a living being, that soil which is but mud, that vault hole, those oozing walls,-- what declaimers!

     从历史、理念和真理的视角出发，僧侣制应该受到谴责。修道院在一个国家，如果发展大多，它就成为行动的羁绊，缚脚的机构，它本该是劳动的中心但却成为怠情的中心。修道组织，对于广大的人类社会来说，恰如檞树上寄生虫，人身体上的瘤子。它们的兴旺和肥硕正是地方上的贫困，僧侣制对于早期的文明是有益处的，在精神上它可以减少暴力的风气，但到了人的精力饱满的时刻它却只能有害了。而且当它已衰亡时，当它已进入腐烂时，尤如无穷的事迹所显现的那样，所有这一切在它纯洁阶段使它成为有益的因素，在此都使它变成有害的因素。
    修道院制度早已成就了它的历史使命。修道院对于现代文明的初步形成是有好处的，可也会阻碍其的成长，更能毒害其发展。从组织和教育人的方法着手，修道院在十世纪是好的，在十五世纪开始出现了问题，到十九世纪就已令人厌恶了。意大利和西班牙在许多世纪中，一个是欧洲的辉煌，另一 个是欧洲的奇彩，僧侣制这一麻疯病人侵这两个缤纷的国家的骨髓后，到我们这个时代，这两个卓越的民族只是在一七八九年那次健康而有效的医治中才开始恢复。
    修道院，尤其是古代的女修道院，正如本世纪初还不断在意大利、奥地利、西班牙存在，这确是一种最悲伤的中世纪的活现。修道院，这种修道院，是各类恐惧的集中地。地道的天主教修院是充分溢满了灭亡的暗光的。
    西班牙的修道院最是阴惨，在那儿，有一座座大得象教堂、高得象宝塔那样的祭坛伸入幽暗的天空，烟雾檬檬的圆拱，暗影重重的穹窿；在那儿，黑暗中条条铁链上挂着无数白色的又高又大的那稣受难像；在那儿，有魁悟赤裸的基督，一个个全用象牙雕成，安放在乌木架子上；那些像，不仅是血腥的，而且是血肉模糊的，既恶心，又富丽，时间露出白骨，骸骨翻着外皮，伤口有血肉，戴一顶银白荆棘冠，用金钉钉上十字架，额问有一串串以红宝石雕琢的血珠，眼中有金刚钻凝成的泪珠，金刚钻的红宝石看上去象是润泽的，一些女人戴着面纱，腰身被毡毛内衣的铁针制成的鞭子扎得伤痕体，乳房被柳条网紧紧困住，膝盖因祷告而皮开肉绽血流如注，爬在雕像下的幽暗中哭泣，那些凡妇以神妻自居，那些幽灵以天女自居。那些女人在想些什么？没有。有所欲求吗？没有。有所爱恋吗？没有。可是活着的吗？不是。她们的神经早成骨头，她们的胄头早成瓦砾。夜神织成了她们的面纱。而她们面纱下的呼吸恰如死人那种无以名扰的悲惨气息，修道院的女院长，一个恶魔，在圣化她们，恐骇她们，神圣的主在她们之上，冷冰冰的。那正是西班牙古老修道院的样子。残酷的苦行地，处女们的地狱，绝不讲理的地方。
    和罗马相比信仰天主教的西班牙，实有过之而无不及，西班牙修道院是天主教修道院的典型。它具有东方趣味。大主教，天国的宦官头头，他紧密封锁，时时注视着为上帝留下的后宫。修女是嫔妃，神甫是太监，满含幽怨的信女们常在睡梦中被遴选，并受到基督的宠幸。夜间，那赤身裸体的美少年从十字架上下来，这时静室里就会神迷心醉。沉沉高墙使那个把十字架上人当作苏丹的苏丹妃子幽闭起来，不准她得到一丁点人生的快乐。往墙外看一下就是不守教规，“地下室”替代革囊。东方扔进海里去的，西方抛在坑里。东西方的妇女都同样扼腕长叹，这面是波涛，那面是黄土，这里水淹，那边土埋，同出一辙，惨不忍睹。
    崇古的人们到今天，在无法否认那些事的情形下，便决定一笑了之了，并且还流行一种神奇简便的方法，用来消解历史的警示，抵毁哲学的批判，掩饰所有恼人的事实和模棱两可的问题。灵巧的人说，“这是提供花言巧语的好材料。”笨蛋却说：“这是花言巧语。”这样卢梭成了花言巧语的人，伏尔泰在卡拉斯、拉巴尔①和西尔旺②的问题上也成了一个花言巧语的人。不知是谁，最近还有所发明，说塔西伦是个花言巧语的人，而尼禄③却是被中伤，并且无用置疑，我们应该同情“那位可悲的奥勒非④。”
    事实并非如此轻易被击退的，它不会动遥笔者曾去过离布鲁塞尔八法里的维莱修道院，那是放在大家面前中世纪的缩影，我曾亲眼看过乡野中的那个古修道院遗址上的土牢洞，又在迪尔河边，亲眼看过四个一半在地下一 半在水下的石砌地牢。那就是所说的“地下室”。每个那样的地牢都还残留下一扇钦门、一个粪坑和一个装有铁条的通风洞，那洞，在墙外高过河面两尺，在墙内离地下有六尺。四尺深的河水从墙外边流过。地面终年潮湿。住在“地下室”里的人只能以湿土为床。在那些地牢中，有一个还留下一段固定在石壁间的一段颈镣；在另外一个地牢中，能够看见一种用四块花岗石砌成的四方盒子，长还不够躺下一个人，高也不够站直一个人。当年竟有人把一个活人拘束在那里，上面再压上一块石板。那确是踏实得很啊，大家全看见了，大家全摸到了，那些“地下室”，那些地牢，那些铁门，那些颈镣，那些开得很高、却有河水顺着洞口流过的通风洞，那种花岗石盖子的石板盖，象不埋死人只埋活人的墓穴，那种污泥地面，那种粪坑，那种湿透的墙壁，这些东西难道也能花言巧语！
①拉巴尔（Labarre）。十八世纪法国的世家子弟，因折断了一个耶稣受难像被判处斩首，又被焚尸，伏尔泰曾替他申诉，但无效。
②西尔旺（Sirven),十八世纪法国新教徒，因不准其女儿信天主教，并迫害她，被判处死刑。伙尔泰代为申诉，死后五年，改判无罪。
③尼禄（Nercn），一世纪罗马帝国暴君。
④奥勒非（Holopherne）．公元前六世纪新巴比伦王国的大将，在进犯犹太人对被一个犹太美女所诱杀。

However, this almost sepulchral parlor, of which we have sought to convey an idea, is a purely local trait which is not reproduced with the same severity in other convents.At the convent of the Rue du Temple, in particular, which belonged, in truth, to another order, the black shutters were replaced by brown curtains, and the parlor itself was a salon with a polished wood floor, whose windows were draped in white muslin curtains and whose walls admitted all sorts of frames, a portrait of a Benedictine nun with unveiled face, painted bouquets, and even the head of a Turk.
It is in that garden of the Temple convent, that stood that famous chestnut-tree which was renowned as the finest and the largest in France, and which bore the reputation among the good people of the eighteenth century of being the father of all the chestnut trees of the realm.
As we have said, this convent of the Temple was occupied by Benedictines of the perpetual Adoration, Benedictines quite different from those who depended on Citeaux.This order of the perpetual Adoration is not very ancient and does not go back more than two hundred years. In 1649 the holy sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart, in two churches in paris, at Saint-Sulpice and at Saint-Jean en Greve, a rare and frightful sacrilege which set the whole town in an uproar.M. the prior and Vicar-General of Saint-Germain des pres ordered a solemn procession of all his clergy, in which the pope's Nuncio officiated.But this expiation did not satisfy two sainted women, Madame Courtin, Marquise de Boucs, and the Comtesse de Chateauvieux.This outrage committed on "the most holy sacrament of the altar," though but temporary, would not depart from these holy souls, and it seemed to them that it could only be extenuated by a "perpetual Adoration" in some female monastery. Both of them, one in 1652, the other in 1653, made donations of notable sums to Mother Catherine de Bar, called of the Holy Sacrament, a Benedictine nun, for the purpose of founding, to this pious end, a monastery of the order of Saint-Benoit; the first permission for this foundation was given to Mother Catherine de Bar by M. de Metz, Abbe of Saint-Germain, "on condition that no woman could be received unless she contributed three hundred livres income, which amounts to six thousand livres, to the principal." After the Abbe of Saint-Germain, the king accorded letters-patent; and all the rest, abbatial charter, and royal letters, was confirmed in 1654 by the Chamber of Accounts and the parliament.
Such is the origin of the legal consecration of the establishment of the Benedictines of the perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament at paris.Their first convent was "a new building" in the Rue Cassette, out of the contributions of Mesdames de Boucs and de Chateauvieux.
This order, as it will be seen, was not to be confounded with the Benedictine nuns of Citeaux.It mounted back to the Abbe of Saint-Germain des pres, in the same manner that the ladies of the Sacred Heart go back to the general of the Jesuits, and the sisters of charity to the general of the Lazarists.
It was also totally different from the Bernardines of the petit-picpus, whose interior we have just shown.In 1657, pope Alexander VII. had authorized, by a special brief, the Bernardines of the Rue petit-picpus, to practise the perpetual Adoration like the Benedictine nuns of the Holy Sacrament.But the two orders remained distinct none the less.

     此外，我们刚才提到的那间像坟墓一样的会客室，只是极个别的，在其他修院里还没有这么严厉。尤其是在大庙街，老实说在属于另一系统的那个修道院里，那种不见光明的板窗是由栗黄色帘幕替代的，会客室也是一间装了镶花地板的小厅，窗上挂着雅致的白纱窗帘，墙上挂着各种各样的玻璃框，有一幅露出了脸的本笃会修女的画像、几幅油画花卉，甚至还有一个土耳其人的头像。
    被看成法国全国最美最大并在十八世纪善良的人民口中誉为“王国一切栗树之父”的那棵印度栗树，正是栽在大庙街上那个修道院的园子里的。
    我们说过，大庙街上的这座修院是属于永敬会一本笃会的修女的，那里的本笃会修女不同于西多的本笃会修女。永敬会的历史并不长久，没有超过两百年。一六四九年，在巴黎的两个礼拜堂里，圣稣尔比斯和格雷沃的圣约翰，圣体曾两次被亵读，前后两次相差不过几天，那种少见的读神罪发生后全城的人都十分震惊。圣日耳曼?德?勃雷的大助理主教兼院长先生传谕给他的全体圣职人员，举行了一次盛大的迎神游行仪式，那次仪式由罗马教皇使臣主持。两个高贵的妇人，古尔丹夫（即布克侯爵夫人）和沙多维安伯爵夫人，感到游行赎罪还不够。那种对“神坛上是崇高的圣体”所犯下的罪行，虽是偶然发生的，但在那两位圣女看来，却认不该就此算完，她们认为只有在某个女修道院里进行“永久的敬礼”才能补赎罪过。她们俩，一个在一六 五二年，一个在一六五三年，为这虔诚的心愿捐献了大笔的钱给一个叫卡特琳?德，巴尔的嬷嬷，又名圣体嬷嬷的本笃会修女，要她替圣件努瓦系创建一个修道院，圣日耳曼修院院长梅茨先生首先允许卡特琳?德?巴尔嬷嬷建院，“约定申请入院的女子必须每年缴纳住院费三百利弗，也就是六千利弗的本金，否则不许入院。继圣耳曼修院院长之后，国王又颁发了准许状，到一六五四年，修院的许可证和国王的准许证又一并经财务部门和法院通过批准。
    这就是本笃会修女们在巴黎建立圣体永敬会的起源和法律根据。她们的第一个修道院是用布克夫人和沙多维安夫人的钱在卡塞特街“修筑一新”的。由此我们明白，那个修道会不可以和西多的本笃会修女搅在一起。它从属于圣日耳曼?德?勃雷的修道院院长，尤如圣心会的嬷嬷从属于耶稣会会长，仁爱会的嬷嬷从属于辣匝禄会一样。
    它与小比克布斯的伯尔纳修女们也绝对是另一码事，小比克布斯内部情形是我先前已谈过的了。罗马教皇亚历山大七世一六五七年有过专令，允许小比克布斯伯尔修女和圣体会的本笃系的修女一样，修持永敬教规。可是那两个修道会并不为此而属于同一系统。

At the beginning of the Restoration, the convent of the petit-picpus was in its decay; this forms a part of the general death of the order, which, after the eighteenth century, has been disappearing like all the religious orders.Contemplation is, like prayer, one of humanity's needs; but, like everything which the Revolution touched, it will be transformed, and from being hostile to social progress, it will become favorable to it.
The house of the petit-picpus was becoming rapidly depopulated. In 1840, the Little Convent had disappeared, the school had disappeared. There were no longer any old women, nor young girls; the first were dead, the latter had taken their departure.Volaverunt.
The rule of the perpetual Adoration is so rigid in its nature that it alarms, vocations recoil before it, the order receives no recruits.In 1845, it still obtained lay-sisters here and there. But of professed nuns, none at all.Forty years ago, the nuns numbered nearly a hundred; fifteen years ago there were not more than twenty-eight of them.How many are there to-day? In 1847, the prioress was young, a sign that the circle of choice was restricted. She was not forty years old.In proportion as the number diminishes, the fatigue increases, the service of each becomes more painful; the moment could then be seen drawing near when there would be but a dozen bent and aching shoulders to bear the heavy rule of Saint-Benoit. The burden is implacable, and remains the same for the few as for the many.It weighs down, it crushes.Thus they die. At the period when the author of this book still lived in paris, two died.One was twenty-five years old, the other twenty-three. This latter can say, like Julia Alpinula:"Hic jaceo.Vixi annos viginti et tres."It is in consequence of this decay that the convent gave up the education of girls.
We have not felt able to pass before this extraordinary house without entering it, and without introducing the minds which accompany us, and which are listening to our tale, to the profit of some, perchance, of the melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this community, full of those old practices which seem so novel to-day. It is the closed garden, hortus conclusus. We have spoken of this singular place in detail, but with respect, in so far, at least, as detail and respect are compatible. We do not understand all, but we insult nothing.We are equally far removed from the hosanna of Joseph de Maistre, who wound up by anointing the executioner, and from the sneer of Voltaire, who even goes so far as to ridicule the cross.
An illogical act on Voltaire's part, we may remark, by the way; for Voltaire would have defended Jesus as he defended Calas; and even for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix represent?The assassinated sage.
In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis.people are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that, while unlearning them they learn this:There is no vacuum in the human heart.Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions.
In the meantime, let us study things which are no more.It is necessary to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them.The counterfeits of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let us inform ourselves of the trap.Let us be on our guard. The past has a visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy.Let us denounce the visage and let us tear off the mask.
As for convents, they present a complex problem,--a question of civilization, which condemns them; a question of liberty, which protects them.

     到了王政复辟时代，小比克布斯修道院已逐渐衰弱下去了，那是它那个支系全部修道会彻底死亡的部分现象，那一支系，到了十八世纪之后，也随着所有其他宗教组织同时进入衰败期。静察与祷告一样，也是人生的一种需求，但是，它和所有一切经革命影响过的事物一样，自己也会改变，而且将由仇视社会的进步，变化为有利于社会的进步。
    小比克布斯院里人口消失得很快，到了一八四○年，小院消亡了，住读学校消亡了。那里不但没有老妇人，也没有小女孩，老的死去了，小的又走了。真是身世飘零。
    永敬会的教规严格到了令人心存恐惧的地步，有祈愿的人裹足不前，会中人找不到后继力量。到一八四五年，担当杂务工作的修女还或许能够找到几个，至于唱诗的修女，就完全没有了。四十年前，修女的总人数几乎有一 百，十五年前，仅有二十八人了。今天还剩多少呢？一八四七年，院长是一 个青年人，这就是说挑选的范围更小了。她当时还不满四十岁。人数锐减，负担就更重，每个人的工作也更加艰难，那时有人已预料到很快就会只余下十多个人、压弯疼痛的肩膀来担负圣伯努瓦的那些沉重的教规。那副重担是始终不变的，不管人的多少，全一样，它压迫着，猛烈地压迫着，于是她们被压迫死了，当本书作者仍住在巴黎时，就死了两个。一个人二十五岁，一 个人二十三岁。后者可以象朱利亚?阿尔比尼拉所说：“我埋在这儿，终年二十三岁。”正是由于这种萧索，修道院才摈弃了对小女孩们的教养。
    我们从那所超凡的无人知晓的黑暗院门前经过，无法不走进去瞧瞧，无法不引着我们的伙伴和听我们讲述冉阿让悲惨史的人的思绪一起走进去，这对有些人来说或许是有益处的。我们已经对那些有着很多古老习俗的组织看了一眼，在今天看来，那些古老习俗是够新鲜离奇的了，那是个紧闭的园子，是一座禁宫。对那奇异之地我们已说得十分详细，但依然是满怀虔敬之心来说的，至少是在详细和虔敬还能相互揉合的范闺内说的。我们并非全面懂得，但是我们不诽谤任何东西。约瑟夫?德。梅斯特尔高声呼吁，他连杀人者也颂扬，伏尔泰却喜笑怒骂，连耶稣受难像也讽刺，而我们站在了他们两人的等距离中间。
    伏尔泰缺乏逻辑，这是随便谈起的，因为伏尔泰极可能用为卡拉斯①一辩的态度同样来为耶稣一辩，而且，对那些绝对否认神化的人，耶稣受难像又能说明什么呢？一个被害死的哲人而已。
    到十九世纪，宗教思想处在危机阶段。人们忘记了某些东西，那是好的，只要在忘却那些东西的时候不能学到别的一些东西就好了。人心多不能怀有空虚。某些破坏行为在进行，进行得不错。但是破坏之后不须有建设。
    在此期间，让我们研究一下那些早已不复存在的东西，认识那些东西是有必要的，即使只是为了回避它们。人们对于复古的行为偏爱加上一个不真实的名字，叫做维新。古，是惜尸还魂，最会制造假护照。我们要防备陷阱，提高警惕。古，有副真面孔，那就是迷信；也有副假面具，那就伪善。让我们揭开它的真面孔，撕下它的假面具。
①卡拉斯（Calas），十八世纪法国商人，被人诬告因不许其儿子摆脱新教而将其杀害，被判处轮刑。死后三年，伏尔泰为他昭雪，改判无罪。
    至于修道院，那是个纷坛复杂的问题。这是一个文化问题，但文化抛弃官；这是一个自由问题，但自由又庇护它。

Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the convent of the petit-picpus was in former times, and since we have ventured to open a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us one other little digression, utterly foreign to this book, but characteristic and useful, since it shows that the cloister even has its original figures.
In the Little Convent there was a centenarian who came from the Abbey of Fontevrault.She had even been in society before the Revolution. She talked a great deal of M. de Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals under Louis XVI.and of a presidentess Duplat, with whom she had been very intimate.It was her pleasure and her vanity to drag in these names on every pretext.She told wonders of the Abbey of Fontevrault,-- that it was like a city, and that there were streets in the monastery.
She talked with a picard accent which amused the pupils.Every year, she solemnly renewed her vows, and at the moment of taking the oath, she said to the priest, "Monseigneur Saint-Francois gave it to Monseigneur Saint-Julien, Monseigneur Saint-Julien gave it to Monseigneur Saint-Eusebius, Monseigneur Saint-Eusebius gave it to Monseigneur Saint-procopius, etc., etc.; and thus I give it to you, father."And the school-girls would begin to laugh, not in their sleeves, but under their veils; charming little stifled laughs which made the vocal mothers frown.
On another occasion, the centenarian was telling stories.She said that in her youth the Bernardine monks were every whit as good as the mousquetaires.It was a century which spoke through her, but it was the eighteenth century.She told about the custom of the four wines, which existed before the Revolution in Champagne and Bourgogne. When a great personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke, and a peer, traversed a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the city fathers came out to harangue him and presented him with four silver gondolas into which they had poured four different sorts of wine. On the first goblet this inscription could be read, monkey wine; on the second, lion wine; on the third, sheep wine; on the fourth, hog wine.These four legends express the four stages descended by the drunkard; the first, intoxication, which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which dulls; and the fourth, that which brutalizes.
In a cupboard, under lock and key, she kept a mysterious object of which she thought a great deal.The rule of Fontevrault did not forbid this.She would not show this object to anyone. She shut herself up, which her rule allowed her to do, and hid herself, every time that she desired to contemplate it. If she heard a footstep in the corridor, she closed the cupboard again as hastily as it was possible with her aged hands.As soon as it was mentioned to her, she became silent, she who was so fond of talking.The most curious were baffled by her silence and the most tenacious by her obstinacy.Thus it furnished a subject of comment for all those who were unoccupied or bored in the convent. What could that treasure of the centenarian be, which was so precious and so secret?Some holy book, no doubt?Some unique chaplet? Some authentic relic?They lost themselves in conjectures. When the poor old woman died, they rushed to her cupboard more hastily than was fitting, perhaps, and opened it.They found the object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures.One of the charming little Loves is already fairly spitted.He is resisting, fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the dancer is laughing with a satanical air.Moral:Love conquered by the colic.This platter, which is very curious, and which had, possibly, the honor of furnishing Moliere with an idea, was still in existence in September, 1845; it was for sale by a bric-a-brac merchant in the Boulevard Beaumarchais.
This good old woman would not receive any visits from outside because, said she, the parlor is too gloomy.

     我们既然在谈小比克布斯修院过去的一些小事，也敢于把那禁宫的一扇窗子敞了开来，读者谅能允许我们再另生一小小枝节，叙述一件与本书实际无关的故事，这故事不但有它特殊之处，而且对帮助我们了解那座修道的一 些奇特现象也有益处。
    在那小院住着一个来自封特弗罗修道院来的百岁老妇人。她在革命前还没有出家。她经常谈到路易十六的掌玺官米罗迈尼尔先生和她所熟悉的一个狄勃拉首席法官夫人。由于爱好，也由于虚荣，她无论谈什么事总要扯到那两个名字上去。她常把那封特弗罗道院说得好上加好，说那里很象个城市，修院里有很多大街。
    她以庇卡底人的风度讲话，使寄读生们听了特别高兴。她每年要郑重发一次誓愿，在发愿时，她总向那神甫说：“圣方济各大人向圣于连大人发过这个愿，圣于连大人向圣欧塞勃大人发过这个愿，圣欧塞勃大人向圣普罗柯帕大人发过这个愿，”等等，“因此我也向您，我的神父，发这个愿。”寄读生们听了，都咯咯地笑，不是在兜帽底下笑，而是在面纱下面笑，多么可爱的压抑着的娇笑啊，这使那些参议嬷嬷都皱起眉来。
    另外一次，这百岁老人讲故事，她说“在她年青的时候，伯尔纳修士不肯在火熗手面前让步”那是一个世纪在谈话，不过，这是十八世纪。她讲了香摈和勃良第人献四道酒的风俗，革命前，如果有一个大人物，法兰西大元帅、亲王、公爵和世卿，经过勃艮第或香槟的某个城市，那城里的文官武官便来向他致欢迎词，并用四个银爵杯，敬给他四种不同味道的酒。在第一个爵杯上刻着“猴酒”两字，第二个上刻着“狮酒”，第三个上刻着“羊酒”，第四个上刻着“猪酒”。那四种铭文标志着人饮酒人醉的四个阶段：第一阶段是活跃阶段，第二，激怒，第三，迟钝，最后，胡涂。
    她有一件非常喜爱的东西，一直锁在一个柜子里，秘不告人。封特弗罗修院的院规并不禁止她那样做。她从不把那件东西给任何人看。她独自关在屋里，那是她的院规允许的，偷偷欣赏那东西。如果她听见过道里有人走动，那双干枯的手便急忙把柜门锁上。一当有人向她谈到这事时，她又立即缄默不语，尽管她平时最爱谈话。最好奇的人在她那种沉默面前，最顽强的人在她那种固执面前也都无能为力。这也就成了修道院中所有一切闲散无聊的人热心关注的东西。那百岁老人如此珍视、那样秘藏的东西究竟是什么宝贝呢？这肯定是本什么天书了？或是某种独一无二的念珠？某种经过考证的遗物？百般猜测也无从解开那个谜，当可怜的老妇人死了之后，大家跑到那柜跟前——按理说，也许不该跑的那么快——打开了柜门。那东西找到了，它裹在三层布当中，好象一个备受呵护的祝福过的祭品盘。那是一个法恩扎①窑的盘子，上面描画着儿个当药剂师的孩子，手里拿着硕大无比的注射器，在追逐一群飞着的爱神。追逐的神情姿态各不相同，但都能使人发笑。在那些小巧美丽的爱神中，已有一个被那注射器扎住了。它挣扎着，拍打着翅膀想飞走，可是那个滑稽的小丑望着它发出淫邪的笑。这情景表达的是爱情在痛苦下面屈服了。那个盘子的确是稀罕的东西，也许曾荣幸地触动过莫里哀的创作灵感，它在一八四五年还在，存放在博马舍林荫大道的一家古董店里待售。
①法恩扎（Faenza），意大利城市。
    那个慈祥的老妇人生前从不接待外来的亲友，“因为，”她说，“那会客室阴森森的，太凄惨了。”

After having sketched its moral face, it will not prove unprofitable to point out, in a few words, its material configuration. The reader already has some idea of it.
The convent of the petit-picpus-Sainte-Antoine filled almost the whole of the vast trapezium which resulted from the intersection of the Rue polonceau, the Rue Droit-Mur, the Rue petit-picpus, and the unused lane, called Rue Aumarais on old plans. These four streets surrounded this trapezium like a moat. The convent was composed of several buildings and a garden. The principal building, taken in its entirety, was a juxtaposition of hybrid constructions which, viewed from a bird's-eye view, outlined, with considerable exactness, a gibbet laid flat on the ground. The main arm of the gibbet occupied the whole of the fragment of the Rue Droit-Mur comprised between the Rue petit-picpus and the Rue polonceau; the lesser arm was a lofty, gray, severe grated facade which faced the Rue petit-picpus; the carriage entrance No. 62 marked its extremity.Towards the centre of this facade was a low, arched door, whitened with dust and ashes, where the spiders wove their webs, and which was open only for an hour or two on Sundays, and on rare occasions, when the coffin of a nun left the convent. This was the public entrance of the church.The elbow of the gibbet was a square hall which was used as the servants' hall, and which the nuns called the buttery.In the main arm were the cells of the mothers, the sisters, and the novices.In the lesser arm lay the kitchens, the refectory, backed up by the cloisters and the church.Between the door No. 62 and the corner of the closed lane Aumarais, was the school, which was not visible from without. The remainder of the trapezium formed the garden, which was much lower than the level of the Rue polonceau, which caused the walls to be very much higher on the inside than on the outside. The garden, which was slightly arched, had in its centre, on the summit of a hillock, a fine pointed and conical fir-tree, whence ran, as from the peaked boss of a shield, four grand alleys, and, ranged by twos in between the branchings of these, eight small ones, so that, if the enclosure had been circular, the geometrical plan of the alleys would have resembled a cross superposed on a wheel. As the alleys all ended in the very irregular walls of the garden, they were of unequal length.They were bordered with currant bushes. At the bottom, an alley of tall poplars ran from the ruins of the old convent, which was at the angle of the Rue Droit-Mur to the house of the Little Convent, which was at the angle of the Aumarais lane. In front of the Little Convent was what was called the little garden. To this whole, let the reader add a courtyard, all sorts of varied angles formed by the interior buildings, prison walls, the long black line of roofs which bordered the other side of the Rue polonceau for its sole perspective and neighborhood, and he will be able to form for himself a complete image of what the house of the Bernardines of the petit-picpus was forty years ago. This holy house had been built on the precise site of a famous tennis-ground of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which was called the "tennis-ground of the eleven thousand devils."
All these streets, moreover, were more ancient than paris.These names, Droit-Mur and Aumarais, are very ancient; the streets which bear them are very much more ancient still.Aumarais Lane was called Maugout Lane; the Rue Droit-Mur was called the Rue des Eglantiers, for God opened flowers before man cut stones.

     在初步描绘了那修道院的精神面貌之后，再把它的物质外形也描述一下也不会是无益的。读者在这方面也早已有个概念了。
    小比克布斯圣安东尼修道院大部分领地位于那个广阔的不等边四边形，这是由波隆梭街、直壁街、比克布斯小街和那条已被堵塞而在旧地图上叫着奥玛莱街的死巷交叉组成的，那四条街就象一道潦沟圈住那不等边四边形。那修道院是由好几栋房屋和一个园子组成的。那栋主要的房屋，就它的整体来说，是由几座不同风格的建筑物凑合起来的，从空中看下去，那一组建筑物就很象一把放在地上的曲尺。曲尺的长臂从比克布斯小街一直延伸到波隆梭街，占有整条直壁街的街边；短臂面临比克布斯小街，那一面的房屋高而灰暗，形象庄严，正面的门窗都装有铁栅栏，六十二号的大车门标志着那一 带房屋的尽头。在那一带房屋的正中。
    有一道老式的矮圆拱门，门上到处是白灰土，门洞里结满了蜘蛛网，那道门只在星期日打开放一两个小时，或在有修女的棺材要抬出修道院时才偶而开一下。那也就是公众进礼拜堂的地方。在曲尺转角的地方，有一间当作储藏室用的方厅，修女们把它叫着“账房”。沿着长臂一带，有厨房、带走廊的食堂和札拜堂。在六十二号大门和关闭了的奥玛莱街巷口之间的地方是寄读学校，人们从外面看去，却看不见那学校，不等边四边形的其余部分便是园子，园子要比波隆梭街的街面低许多，因此围墙在园里的一面和外面比起来要高一些，园里的地面是呈有坡度的，中间有个稍高的部分，长着一株美丽的圆锥形枞树，宛如圆盾中心的突刺，四条大道从那圆心出发，伸向四 方，每一条大道又都有两条小道，一左一右分叉出去，各各相通，因此那片园地，假使是圆的话，这些道路所构成的几何图案就如一个加在轮子上面的十字架。所有道路都抵达院墙，由于那园子的围墙很不整齐，道路的长短也就不一样。醋栗树夹道而立。在直壁街的角上有着老院的遗迹，有条小道，在两行高大的白桦下面，从那里延伸到奥玛莱巷拐弯处的小院。小院的前面有所谓小园。我们在这样一个整体中再加上一个天井，加上由内部各院房屋所形成的各式各样的转角、监狱的围墙、一长列遥遥相望的沿波隆梭街的黑房顶，我们就能想象出四十五年前存在于小比克布斯的伯尔纳女修院的整个面貌了。从十四世纪到十六世纪，那里是个著名的球场，叫“一万一千个魔鬼的俱乐部”，正是日后建造那圣洁的修院的基地。
    这些街道在巴黎，都是最古老的。直壁、奥玛莱这类名称，已够古老的了，以这类名称命名的街道则更为古老。奥玛莱巷原称摩古巷，直壁街原称野蔷薇街，因为上帝使百花开放远在人类开凿石头之前。

During the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the petit-picpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion, was Mother Innocente.She came of the family of Marguerite de Blemeur, author of Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint-Benoit. She had been re-elected. She was a woman about sixty years of age, short, thick, "singing like a cracked pot," says the letter which we have already quoted; an excellent woman, moreover, and the only merry one in the whole convent, and for that reason adored. She was learned, erudite, wise, competent, curiously proficient in history, crammed with Latin, stuffed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and more of a Benedictine monk than a Benedictine nun.
The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost blind.
The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Mother Sainte-Honorine; the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude, the chief mistress of the novices; Mother-Saint-Ange, the assistant mistress; Mother Annonciation, the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only one in the convent who was malicious; then Mother Sainte-Mechtilde (Mademoiselle Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice; Mother des Anges (Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the Filles-Dieu, and in the convent du Tresor, between Gisors and Magny; Mother Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adelaide (Mademoiselle d'Auverney), Mother Misericorde (Mademoiselle de Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion (Mademoiselle de la Miltiere, received at the age of sixty in defiance of the rule, and very wealthy); Mother providence (Mademoiselle de Laudiniere), Mother presentation (Mademoiselle de Siguenza), who was prioress in 1847; and finally, Mother Sainte-Celigne (sister of the sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mother Sainte-Chantal (Mademoiselle de Suzon), who went mad.
There was also, among the prettiest of them, a charming girl of three and twenty, who was from the Isle de Bourbon, a descendant of the Chevalier Roze, whose name had been Mademoiselle Roze, and who was called Mother Assumption.
Mother Sainte-Mechtilde, intrusted with the singing and the choir, was fond of making use of the pupils in this quarter.She usually took a complete scale of them, that is to say, seven, from ten to sixteen years of age, inclusive, of assorted voices and sizes, whom she made sing standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the smallest to the largest.This presented to the eye, something in the nature of a reed-pipe of young girls, a sort of living pan-pipe made of angels.
Those of the lay-sisters whom the scholars loved most were Sister Euphrasie, Sister Sainte-Marguerite, Sister Sainte-Marthe, who was in her dotage, and Sister Sainte-Michel, whose long nose made them laugh.
All these women were gentle with the children.The nuns were severe only towards themselves.No fire was lighted except in the school, and the food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they lavished a thousand cares on their scholars.Only, when a child passed near a nun and addressed her, the nun never replied.
This rule of silence had had this effect, that throughout the whole convent, speech had been withdrawn from human creatures, and bestowed on inanimate objects.Now it was the church-bell which spoke, now it was the gardener's bell.A very sonorous bell, placed beside the portress, and which was audible throughout the house, indicated by its varied peals, which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph, all the actions of material life which were to be performed, and summoned to the parlor, in case of need, such or such an inhabitant of the house.Each person and each thing had its own peal.The prioress had one and one, the sub-prioress one and two.Six-five announced lessons, so that the pupils never said "to go to lessons," but "to go to six-five." Four-four was Madame de Genlis's signal.It was very often heard."C'est le diable a quatre,--it's the very deuce--said the uncharitable. Tennine strokes announced a great event.It was the opening of the door of seclusion, a frightful sheet of iron bristling with bolts which only turned on its hinges in the presence of the archbishop.
With the exception of the archbishop and the gardener, no man entered the convent, as we have already said.The schoolgirls saw two others:one, the chaplain, the Abbe Banes, old and ugly, whom they were permitted to contemplate in the choir, through a grating; the other the drawing-master, M. Ansiaux, whom the letter, of which we have perused a few lines, calls M. Anciot, and describes as a frightful old hunchback.
It will be seen that all these men were carefully chosen.
Such was this curious house.

     在一八一九到一八二五的六年中，小比克布斯修道院的院长是德。勃勒麦尔小姐，宗教界称她为纯贞嬷嬷。她和《圣伯努瓦会诸圣传》的作者玛格丽特?德?勃勤麦尔是一家。她两次担任院长。她是一个六十开外的矮胖妇人，我们在前面提到过的那钵信里说她“唱起诗来象个破罐”，除此之外，人非常好，在那修道院里，只有她一个人是性情开朗的，因此为大家所喜爱。她能承继先人玛格丽特——修会中的泰斗——的遗风。多才多艺，学识渊博，谙悉奇闻异事，满脑子的拉丁文，满肚子的希腊文，希伯来文，虽是女流之辈，却有大丈夫气。副院长是个眼睛半瞎的西班牙者修女，西内莱斯嬷嬷。在那些“参议”中最受重视的是圣奥诺雷嬷嬷，司库；圣热尔特律德嬷嬷，初学生们的第一导师；圣安滇嬷嬷，第二导师；领报嬷嬷，司衣；圣奥西斯丁嬷嬷，护士，她是修道院中唯一的坏人；还有圣梅克蒂尔德嬷嬷（戈梵小姐），很年轻，声音甜美；安滇嬷嬷（德鲁埃小姐），她曾在圣女修院和吉索尔与马尼问的宝藏修院里待过；圣约瑟嬷嬷（柯戈鲁多小姐）；圣阿德拉依德嬷嬷（奥威尔涅小姐）；慈悲嬷嬷（西弗安特小姐，她爱不了艰苦刻板生活）；温情嬷嬷（罗第尼埃小姐）；入庙嬷嬷（西甘查小姐），一八 四七年当院长；最后，圣赛利尼嬷嬷（雕塑家赛拉奇的姐妹），后来疯了；圣尚达尔嬷嬷（苏松小姐），也疯了。
    在那些顶美丽的姑娘里，还有一个芳龄二十三岁的美人，她出生在波旁岛①，是罗兹骑士的后裔，社会上叫她罗兹小姐，在那里名叫升天嬷嬷。圣梅克旁尔德嬷嬷负责指导唱歌和唱诗，她喜欢选用寄读生。她一般选择七个人，年龄从十岁到十六岁，每岁一个，声音和高矮也都要相当，把她们组成一个完整的音阶，她要求她们站着唱，从最小到最大，按照年龄，看去好象一座五彩屏风，一种由天使组成的排萧。
    在那些勤务嬷嬷中，寄读生们最喜欢的是圣欧福拉吉嬷嬷、圣玛格丽特嬷嬷，老糊涂圣玛尔泰嬷嬷和那使人看了便要发笑的长鼻子圣米歇尔嬷嬷。所有那些妇女对孩子们都是很亲热的。修女们只对自己才严厉。只有寄读学校里才生火，她们的伙食，和修道院里的伙食比较起来，就会好得多。其他的照顾也是无微不至的。不过，当孩子从修女身边走过对她讲话时，修女却从来不回答。
    修道院要保持安静。这院规导致这样一种结果，那就是在全院，语言已从人的身上消失并交给了无生命的东西，有时是礼拜堂上的钟在说话，有时是那园丁的铃在说话。在担任传达的嬷嬷身边，挂着一口音色极其洪亮全院都能听到的铜钟，通过各种不同敲法，好象是种有声电报似的，来表达在物质生活中所应进行的全部活动，并且，在必要时，还可把修院里的这个或那个人叫到会客室里去。每个人和每件东西都有一定的敲法。院长是一下接一 下，副院长是一下接两下。六下接五下表示上课，以致小学生们从来不说去上课，而是说去六五。四下接四下是让利斯夫的呼号。大家听到这呼号的次数非常多。“四头鬼又来了，”一些不大厚道的姑娘们时常这样说。十下接九下报告一件大事，就是“围墙大门”的开放，那是一道锈迹斑斑、令人害①波旁岛（I”lle Bourbon），即留尼汪岛，在印度洋。
    怕的铁板大门，只有在迎送大主教时才打开。我们说过，除了主教和园丁，任何男人都不能走进修道院。寄读生还见过另外两个男人，一个是又老又丑的教义导师，巴内斯林甫，这是可以让她们从唱诗台上隔着铁栅栏看看的，另一个是图画教师昂西奥先生，也就是我们在前面见了几行的那封信里所提到的“安西奥先生”和“驼背者妖怪”。
    可以看出，每一个男人都是经过挑选的。这就是那个怪修道院的面貌。

In this enclosure of the petit-picpus there were three perfectly distinct buildings,--the Great Convent, inhabited by the nuns, the Boarding-school, where the scholars were lodged; and lastly, what was called the Little Convent.It was a building with a garden, in which lived all sorts of aged nuns of various orders, the relics of cloisters destroyed in the Revolution; a reunion of all the black, gray, and white medleys of all communities and all possible varieties; what might be called, if such a coupling of words is permissible, a sort of harlequin convent.
When the Empire was established, all these poor old dispersed and exiled women had been accorded permission to come and take shelter under the wings of the Bernardines-Benedictines. The government paid them a small pension, the ladies of the petit-picpus received them cordially.It was a singular pell-mell. Each followed her own rule, Sometimes the pupils of the boarding-school were allowed, as a great recreation, to pay them a visit; the result is, that all those young memories have retained among other souvenirs that of Mother Sainte-Bazile, Mother Sainte-Scolastique, and Mother Jacob.
One of these refugees found herself almost at home.She was a nun of Sainte-Aure, the only one of her order who had survived. The ancient convent of the ladies of Sainte-Aure occupied, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, this very house of the petit-picpus, which belonged later to the Benedictines of Martin Verga.This holy woman, too poor to wear the magnificent habit of her order, which was a white robe with a scarlet scapulary, had piously put it on a little manikin, which she exhibited with complacency and which she bequeathed to the house at her death. In 1824, only one nun of this order remained; to-day, there remains only a doll.
In addition to these worthy mothers, some old society women had obtained permission of the prioress, like Madame Albertine, to retire into the Little Convent.Among the number were Madame Beaufort d'Hautpoul and Marquise Dufresne.Another was never known in the convent except by the formidable noise which she made when she blew her nose.The pupils called her Madame Vacarmini (hubbub).
About 1820 or 1821, Madame de Genlis, who was at that time editing a little periodical publication called l'Intrepide, asked to be allowed to enter the convent of the petit-picpus as lady resident. The Duc d'Orleans recommended her.Uproar in the hive; the vocal-mothers were all in a flutter; Madame de Genlis had made romances. But she declared that she was the first to detest them, and then, she had reached her fierce stage of devotion.With the aid of God, and of the prince, she entered.She departed at the end of six or eight months, alleging as a reason, that there was no shade in the garden.The nuns were delighted.Although very old, she still played the harp, and did it very well.
When she went away she left her mark in her cell.Madame de Genlis was superstitious and a Latinist.These two words furnish a tolerably good profile of her.A few years ago, there were still to be seen, pasted in the inside of a little cupboard in her cell in which she locked up her silverware and her jewels, these five lines in Latin, written with her own hand in red ink on yellow paper, and which, in her opinion, possessed the property of frightening away robbers:--
Imparibus meritis pendent tria corpora ramis:(15) Dismas et Gesmas, media est divina potestas; Alta petit Dismas, infelix, infima, Gesmas; Nos et res nostras conservet summa potestas. Hos versus dicas, ne tu furto tua perdas.
(15) On the boughs hang three bodies of unequal merits: Dismas and Gesmas, between is the divine power.Dismas seeks the heights, Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions; the highest power will preserve us and our effects.If you repeat this verse, you will not lose your things by theft.
These verses in sixth century Latin raise the question whether the two thieves of Calvary were named, as is commonly believed, Dismas and Gestas, or Dismas and Gesmas.This orthography might have confounded the pretensions put forward in the last century by the Vicomte de Gestas, of a descent from the wicked thief. However, the useful virtue attached to these verses forms an article of faith in the order of the Hospitallers.
The church of the house, constructed in such a manner as to separate the Great Convent from the Boarding-school like a veritable intrenchment, was, of course, common to the Boarding-school, the Great Convent, and the Little Convent.The public was even admitted by a sort of lazaretto entrance on the street.But all was so arranged, that none of the inhabitants of the cloister could see a face from the outside world.Suppose a church whose choir is grasped in a gigantic hand, and folded in such a manner as to form, not, as in ordinary churches, a prolongation behind the altar, but a sort of hall, or obscure cellar, to the right of the officiating priest; suppose this hall to be shut off by a curtain seven feet in height, of which we have already spoken; in the shadow of that curtain, pile up on wooden stalls the nuns in the choir on the left, the school-girls on the right, the lay-sisters and the novices at the bottom, and you will have some idea of the nuns of the petit-picpus assisting at divine service.That cavern, which was called the choir, communicated with the cloister by a lobby.The church was lighted from the garden.When the nuns were present at services where their rule enjoined silence, the public was warned of their presence only by the folding seats of the stalls noisily rising and falling.

     在小比克布斯的花园中，有三个完全分开的院落：修女们住的大院，小学生们住的寄读学校，最后还有所谓小院。那是个带园子的房屋的小院，一 些在革命中被摧毁了的修道院留下来的、原属不同修会的各式各样的老修女都一起住在那里，那是黑色、灰色、白色的混和物，是形形色色的修会团体和五花人门、应有尽有的品种的汇合，我们可以管它叫——如果词儿可以这样搭配的话——什锦院。
    从帝国时代起，便已允许所有那些可怜的失去家园的姑娘们到这里来，受伯尔纳一本笃会修女们的保护。政府还发给她们一点点钱，小比克布斯的修女们热情地接纳了她们，那是一种稀奇古怪的杂拌儿。各人遵守着各人的教规。寄读的小学生们有时会得准许去拜访她们，这似乎是她们的一大乐趣，因此在那些年轻姑娘的记忆中留下圣巴西尔嬷嬷、对斯柯拉斯狄克嬷嬷、圣雅各嬷嬷和其他一些嬷嬷的形象。
    在那些流亡的修女中，有一个认为自己差不多是回到了老家。那是一个圣奥尔会的修女，她是那修会里唯一活着的人，圣奥尔修女们的修道院旧址，从十八世纪初起，正好是小比克布斯的这所房屋，过后才转到玛尔丹?维尔加支系的本笃会修女们手中。那个修女，因为太穷，穿不起她那修会规定的华美服装：白袍和朱红披肩，便一片诚心地做了一套这样的小衣服穿在一个小小的模特儿身上，高高兴高地把它拿给大家看，临死前，还把它捐给了修道院。那个修会，在一八二四年只剩下一个修女，到今天，只留下一个玩偶。除了这些真正够得上称为嬷嬷的人之外，还有几个世俗中的老妇人也和阿尔贝尔丁夫人一样，获得了院长的许可，隐居在那小院里。在那一批人中，有波弗多布夫人和迪费雷纳侯爵夫人。另外还有一个专以擤鼻涕声响亮震耳而闻名小院，小学生们都管她叫哗啦啦啦夫人的人。
    一人二○或一八二一年间，有个名叫让利斯的夫人，她当时在编一本名为《勇士》的杂志，她要求进入小比克布斯修道院当一个独修修女。她的介绍人是奥尔良公爵。那修道院顿时混乱起来象一个马蜂窝一般，参议嬷嬷们慌到发抖，因为让利斯夫人写过小说。但是她宣布她比任何人都更痛恨小说，并且已经进入了更为痛恨的阶段。承上帝保佑，也承那亲王保佑，她进了修道院。六个月或八个月之后她离开了那里，理由是那园里没有树荫，修女们因而大为高兴。尽管她年纪已经很大，但却仍在弹竖琴，并且弹得相当好。她离开时，她在她的斗室里留下了痕迹。让利斯夫人迷信而且还是个拉丁语学者。这两个特点使她与众不同。在她的斗室中有个小柜，是她平常藏银钱珍宝的地方，几年以前，人们都能看到在那柜子里还贴着一张由她亲笔用红墨水写在黄纸上的这样五句拉丁诗，那些诗句，在她看来，是具有避邪的魔法的：三个善恶悬殊的死尸挂在木架上，狄斯马斯和哲斯马斯，真正在中央，狄斯马斯升天国，哲斯马斯下地狱，析求尊神保护我们和我们的财物，念了这首诗，你的财物再不会被盗贼偷去。这几句用六世纪的拉丁文写成的诗使我们想到这样一个问题，那就是我们想知道受难圣地上的那两个强盗的名字，究竟是象我们通常所承认的那佯，叫狄马斯和哲斯塔斯呢还是叫做狄斯马斯和哲斯马斯。上一世纪的哲斯塔子爵自称是那坏强盗的后代，他如果看见了这种写法，也许不大高兴吧．此外，那几句诗所具有的那种能劈强盗的魔力是仁爱会修女们所深信的。
    那修道院的礼拜堂，从方位上说，位于大院和寄校学校之间，不过它仍是由寄读学校、大院和小院井同使用的。甚至公众也可由一道特设在街旁的大门进去。但是整个布置能使修道院的任何女人看不见外界的一张脸。礼拜堂中唱诗台那一段仿佛被一只大手捏住了，并且被捏走了样——不是变得象一般的礼拜堂那样的祭台后面突出去一段，而是在主祭神甫的右边捏出了一 大间或是一个黑洞。你再想象那间大厅正如我们在前面已经说过的那样，被一道七尺高的哗叽帷幕所遮住，在帷幕后面的阴影中有一排排的活动坐板椅，你把唱诗的修女们放在左侧，寄读生们放在右侧，勤务嬷嬷和初学生们放在底里，你对小比克布斯的修女们参与圣祭的情形便有一个了解了，那个黑洞，大家称它为唱诗台，经过一条地道，和修道院相通。礼拜堂里的阳光来自园中。修女们参加日课，按照规矩是绝对不能出声的，外面的人，如果不听见她们椅子上的活动坐板在起落时相互撞击的声音都不会知道她们在礼拜堂里。

Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was called the white paternoster, and which possessed the property 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 middle, 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 Virgin 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."
In 1827 this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall under a triple coating of daubing paint.At the present time it is finally disappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then, and who are old women now.
A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this refectory, whose only door, as we think we have mentioned, opened on the garden.Two narrow tables, each flanked by two wooden benches, formed two long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory.The walls were white, the tables were black; these two mourning colors constitute the only variety in convents.The meals were plain, and the food of the children themselves severe.A single dish of meat and vegetables combined, or salt fish--such was their luxury.This meagre fare, which was reserved for the pupils alone, was, nevertheless, an exception. The children ate in silence, under the eye of the mother whose turn it was, who, if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum against the rule, opened and shut a wooden book from time to time. This silence was seasoned with the lives of the saints, read aloud from a little pulpit with a desk, which was situated at the foot of the crucifix.The reader was one of the big girls, in weekly turn. At regular distances, on the bare tables, there were large, varnished bowls in which the pupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks, and into which they sometimes threw some scrap of tough meat or spoiled fish; this was punished.These bowls were called ronds d'eau. The child who broke the silence "made a cross with her tongue."Where?On the ground.She licked 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 constitutiones 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 inhabited 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 the closet." That was one of their greatest luxuries.
Once--it was at the epoch of the visit from the archbishop to the convent-- one of the young girls, Mademoiselle Bouchard, who was connected with the Montmorency family, laid a wager that she would ask for a day's leave of absence--an enormity in so austere a community. The wager was accepted, but not one of those who bet believed that she would do it.When the moment came, as the archbishop was passing in front of the pupils, Mademoiselle Bouchard, to the indescribable terror of her companions, stepped out of the ranks, and said, "Monseigneur, a day's leave of absence."Mademoiselle Bouchard was tall, blooming, with the prettiest little rosy face in the world. M. de Quelen smiled and said, "What, my dear child, a day's leave of absence!Three days if you like.I grant you three days." The prioress could do nothing; the archbishop had spoken. Horror of the convent, but joy of the pupil.The effect may be imagined.
This stern cloister was not so well walled off, however, but that the life of the passions of the outside world, drama, and even romance, did not make their way in.To prove this, we will confine ourselves to recording here and to briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact, which, however, bears no reference in itself to, and is not connected by any thread whatever with the story which we are relating.We mention the fact for the sake of completing the physiognomy of the convent in the reader's mind.
About this time there was in the convent a mysterious person who was not a nun, who was treated with great respect, and who was addressed as Madame Albertine.Nothing was known about her, save that she was mad, and that in the world she passed for dead. Beneath this history it was said there lay the arrangements of fortune necessary for a great marriage.
This woman, hardly thirty years of age, of dark complexion and tolerably pretty, had a vague look in her large black eyes. Could she see?There was some doubt about this.She glided rather than walked, she never spoke; it was not quite known whether she breathed.Her nostrils were livid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh.To touch her hand was like touching snow. She possessed a strange spectral grace.Wherever she entered, people felt cold.One day a sister, on seeing her pass, said to another sister, "She passes for a dead woman.""perhaps she is one," replied the other.
A hundred tales were told of Madame Albertine.This arose from the eternal curiosity of the pupils.In the chapel there was a gallery called L'OEil de Boeuf.It was in this gallery, which had only a circular bay, an oeil de boeuf, that Madame Albertine listened to the offices.She always occupied it alone because this gallery, being on the level of the first story, the preacher or the officiating priest could be seen, which was interdicted to the nuns. One day the pulpit was occupied by a young priest of high rank, M. Le Duc de Rohan, peer of France, officer of the Red Musketeers in 1815 when he was prince de Leon, and who died afterward, in 1830, as cardinal and Archbishop of Besancon.It was the first time that M. de Rohan had preached at the petit-picpus convent. Madame Albertine usually preserved perfect calmness and complete immobility during the sermons and services.That day, as soon as she caught sight of M. de Rohan, she half rose, and said, in a loud voice, amid the silence of the chapel, "Ah!Auguste!"The whole community turned their heads in amazement, the preacher raised his eyes, but Madame Albertine had relapsed into her immobility. A breath from the outer world, a flash of life, had passed for an instant across that cold and lifeless face and had then vanished, and the mad woman had become a corpse again.
Those two words, however, had set every one in the convent who had the privilege of speech to chattering.How many things were contained in that "Ah!Auguste!" what revelations!M. de Rohan's name really was Auguste.It was evident that Madame Albertine belonged to the very highest society, since she knew M. de Rohan, and that her own rank there was of the highest, since she spoke thus familiarly of so great a lord, and that there existed between them some connection, of relationship, perhaps, but a very close one in any case, since she knew his "pet name."
Two very severe duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Serent, often visited the community, whither they penetrated, no doubt, in virtue of the privilege Magnates mulieres, and caused great consternation in the boarding-school. When these two old ladies passed by, all the poor young girls trembled and dropped their eyes.
Moreover, M. de Rohan, quite unknown to himself, was an object of attention to the school-girls. At that epoch he had just been made, while waiting for the episcopate, vicar-general of the Archbishop of paris.It was one of his habits to come tolerably often to celebrate the offices in the chapel of the nuns of the petit-picpus. Not one of the young recluses could see him, because of the serge curtain, but he had a sweet and rather shrill voice, which they had come to know and to distinguish.He had been a mousquetaire, and then, he was said to be very coquettish, that his handsome brown hair was very well dressed in a roll around his head, and that he had a broad girdle of magnificent moire, and that his black cassock was of the most elegant cut in the world.He held a great place in all these imaginations of sixteen years.
Not a sound from without made its way into the convent.But there was one year when the sound of a flute penetrated thither. This was an event, and the girls who were at school there at the time still recall it.
It was a flute which was played in the neighborhood.This flute always played the same air, an air which is very far away nowadays,--"My Zetulbe, come reign o'er my soul,"--and it was heard two or three times a day.The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocal mothers were upset by it, brains were busy, punishments descended in showers.This lasted for several months. The girls were all more or less in love with the unknown musician. Each one dreamed that she was Zetulbe.The sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the Rue Droit-Mur; and they would have given anything, compromised everything, attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, if only for a second, of the "young man" who played that flute so deliciously, and who, no doubt, played on all these souls at the same time.There were some who made their escape by a back door, and ascended to the third story on the Rue Droit-Mur side, in order to attempt to catch a glimpse through the gaps.Impossible!One even went so far as to thrust her arm through the grating, and to wave her white handkerchief. Two were still bolder.They found means to climb on a roof, and risked their lives there, and succeeded at last in seeing "the young man." He was an old emigre gentleman, blind and penniless, who was playing his flute in his attic, in order to pass the time.

     在食堂大门的上面，有一篇用大黑字写就的祈祷文，叫做《白色主祷文》，据说有指导正派之人进入天堂的魔力：小小的白色主祷文，天主所创，天主所说，天主曾贴在天堂上，夜晚我去睡，看到三个天使躺在我床上，一个在脚边，两个在头上，仁慈的童贞圣母在中间，她叫我去睡，千万别迟疑。仁慈的天主是我的父，仁慈的圣母是我的母，那三个使徒是我的弟兄，那三个贞女是我的姊妹。天主降世的那件衬衣，现在披裹在我身上，圣玛格丽特十字架已经画的在我胸前；圣母夫人去田里，正想着天主流眼泪，遇见了圣约翰先生。圣约翰先生，您从哪里来？我从祷祝永生来。您没有看见仁慈的天主吗？一定看见了，对吗？他在十字架上，垂着脚，钉着手，一顶白荆棘帽子戴在他头上。谁在晚上念三遍，早上念三遍，最终一定进天堂。
    一八二七年，那篇具有独特风格的祈祷文在墙上已被三层灰浆所遮盖。到现在，它也快从几个当年的年轻姑娘，今天的老太婆的记忆中混灭了。
    我们好象已说过到那食堂只有一扇门，开向园子，墙上挂一个巨大的十 字架，这便是食堂里的装饰。两张窄桌子，每张桌子两旁各有一条木条凳，从食堂的这一端伸到那一端，形成两条长的平行线，墙是白色的，桌子是黑色的，这两种办丧事的颜色是修遭院里唯一的色调。饮食是粗糙的，孩子们的营养也很不好。只有一盘菜，肉和蔬菜拼在一起，要是有咸鱼，就算是打牙祭了。这种为寄读生预备的简单便饭却已是一种特殊优待了，孩子们在一 个值周嬷嬷的监督下，静悄悄地吃站饭，假如有只苍蝇敢于违反院规嗡嗡飞进来的话，嬷嬷便随时打开一本木板书，啪的一声又合上。在那受难十字架的下面有个小讲台，讲台上放了一个独脚架，有个人立在那讲台上宣读圣人的传记好象要为那安静的餐饮，增加一些美味，宣读者是个年龄较大的学生，也是值周生。在那光桌子上，每隔一定距离都放着一个上了漆的尖底盆，学生们在那里自己洗涤她们自己的白铁圆盘和其他餐具，有时也丢进一些吃不下去的东西，硬肉或臭鱼之类，那是要遭惩罚的。她们称那种尖底盆叫圆水钵。
    如果一个孩子吃饭时说了话，她便会被罚用舌头画十字。画在哪里呢？
    画在地板上。她得舐地。灰土，在一切快乐的末尾，负有惩罚那些因一时叽喳讲话而获罪的玫瑰花瓣的责任。
    在那修道院里有本书，从来就只印一册的“孤本”，并且还是禁止阅读的，那就是圣伯努瓦的教规，是俗眼不容窥探的秘密。“我们的规章或我们的制度，不足为外人道也。”
    有一天寄读生们竟然偷出了那本书，聚精会神地读起来，同时又胆颤心惊，惟恐被人发现，几次停下来忙把书合上。她们冒了极大的危险仅获得些少许的快乐，她们觉得“最有趣”的是那几个看不大明白的有关男孩子们犯罪的篇章。
    她们时常在那园中的小路上玩耍，小路旁边栽有几棵长得不好的果树。监视尽管严密，处罚尽管厉害，当大风吹摇了树枝，她们有时能也偷偷摸摸地捡起未成熟的苹果、已烂了的杏子或一个生虫的梨子。现在我让我手边的一封信来说话，这封信是二十五年前的一个寄读生写的，她现在是××公爵夫人，巴黎最风雅的妇人之一。我把原文抄录于下：“我们千方百计把我们的梨或苹果藏起来。我们趁晚饭前上楼去放面罩时把那些东西塞在枕头底下，等到晚上，便在床上吃，如果不便的话，便在厕所里吃。”那是她们感到最惬意的一桩事。
    一次，又是在那大主教先生到那修道院去视察的时候，有个叫布沙尔的小姐，和蒙莫良西①多少有些瓜葛，她打赌说她要请一天假，这在那样严肃的场合里是件办不到的事。很多人跟她打了赌，但是没有一个相信她能请准假，到了时候，当大主教从那些寄读生的面前走过时，布沙尔小姐，在使她的同学们震惊的情况下，走出了队列并且说：“大人，请准我一天假。”布沙尔小姐是个美艳绝伦、亭亭玉立、有着世上最美丽红润的小脸蛋的姑娘。德?桂朗先生笑眯眯他说：“哪里的话，我亲爱的孩子，一天假！三天，成吗？我准三夭假。”院长无可奈何，大主教的话已经说出了口，全体修女觉得有失体统，但是所有的寄读生没有一个不兴高彩烈。试想想那种后果吧。
    然而那面目凶恶的修道院并不是无懈可击，修道院之外的情魔孽障并不是一点也飞不进去的。为了证实这一点，我们只在这里简单陈述和指出一件无法辩驳的真事事件，这件事并非和我们所讲的故事丝毫没有关连。我们把这件事讲出来是要让读者在思想上对那个修道院的情况有个全面的了解。
    当时在那个修道院里有个神秘的人物，她并不是修女，大家对她却非常尊敬，并称她为阿尔贝尔丁夫人。人们仅知道她神经出了问题而不知她的身世，世人也都把她看成个死人。据说在她的个人的经历中，有着一桩由婚事而引起的财产纠纷事件。
    那妇人年近三十岁，皮肤和头发颜色却很深，长得极漂亮，眼睛狭长而秀丽，眼珠深黑，但看起人来却没有神，她能看得见吗？没有人敢肯定。她走起路来象飘而不象走，她人不说话，别人也无法确定她究竟呼吸不呼吸，她的鼻孔，瘦削而青苍，象人已死后的那种样子，碰着她的手就象碰着了雪。她有一种神奇的幽灵般的韵味。她走到哪里，哪里便会有一股冷气。一天，有个修女看见她走过，就对另外一个修女说：“人家都把她看成死人。”“她也许真是死人。”另一个回答说。
    关于阿尔贝尔丁夫人的传说非常的多。她是寄读生们津津乐道的怪人。
    在礼拜堂中有个台子，叫“牛眼台”。台上只有一个圆窗，“牛眼窗”，阿尔贝尔夫人就在这里做日课。她经常独自一人待在上面，因为那个台在楼上，从那里望出去，可以看见宣道甫或主祭神甫，那是修女们禁止观望的。一天，一个年轻的高级神甫来到那讲坛上，他叫罗安公爵先生，法兰西世卿，一八 一五年的红火熗队军官，当时他也是莱翁亲王，一八三○年后在他做了红衣主教兼贝桑松大主教之后才去世的，德?罗安先生到小比克布斯修道院去讲道，那还是第一次。阿尔贝尔丁夫人平日参加听道和日课时总是十分安静，纹丝不动的。那天，当她一看见德?罗安先生，便半站起身，在寂静的礼拜堂中大声说道：“哟！奥古斯特！”所有在场的人都大吃一惊，人们把头掉过去看她，宣道神甫也抬头望了一眼，但阿尔贝尔夫人又已回到她那种木然和无动于衷的神态中去了。外界的一阵微风，人生的一线微光，一时曾在那冷却的冰透了的脸上飘拂过去，但是一切又随即消逝了，疯人又成了尸体。可是那几个字却足已使修道院里的人议论纷纷。“哟！奥古斯特！”这包藏着多少东西！泄露了多少消息！德?罗安先生的小名确是奥古斯特，这①蒙莫朗西（Montmorecy），法国的一个大族。
    说明阿尔贝尔丁夫人出身于上流社会，因为她认得德?罗安先生，也说明她自己在那社会里的地位也很高，因为她用极其亲呢的口吻称呼一个地位高贵的人，也说明他俩之间有某种种关系，也许是亲戚关系，总之肯定是极其密切的关系，因为她知道他的“小名”。
    舒瓦瑟尔夫人和塞朗夫人是两个非常严厉的公爵夫人，她俩经常访问那个修道院，她们以贵妇人的姿态出现在修道院中，使得那些寄读生十分害怕。当那两位老人经过时，那些可怜的年轻姑娘都低着眼睛害怕得浑身发抖。
    德?罗安先生也是那些寄读生注意的对象，他本人却并不知道。当时他被任命为巴黎大主教的大助理主教还不久，并且有升为主教的可能。他到小比克布斯修女们的礼拜堂里来参加日课唱圣诗，那是常有的事。所有那些年轻的修女，谁也看不见他，因为有那条哗叽帷幕遮挡着，但是他的声音柔和而细腻，这是她们能够听得出来的。他当过火熗手，并且他爱打扮，一头漂亮的栗色头发梳成转倚式，很整齐地围绕着脑袋，腰上系一条华美的黑宽带，他的黑道袍也是世上裁剪最好看的，他使那些豆寇年华的少女们春心欲动。外界的声音从来不会到达那修道院里去，但是有一年，有个人的笛声却飞了进去，那是一桩大事，当年的寄读生们都还记得。有人在那附近吹笛子。吹的始终是个老调，到今天那调子已显得相当陈旧了：《我的泽蒂贝姑娘，来弥补我的灵魂吧。》白天里，他总要吹上几次。
    那些年轻姑娘时常长时间倾听这笛声，嬷嬷们气坏了，想方设法，雨点似的处罚落在姑娘们的头上。这情形持续了好几个月。寄读生们对那个不曾露面的吹笛人都多少有些好感，人人都梦想自己是泽蒂贝。笛声是从直壁街那面传来的，她们打算抛弃一切，冒所有危险，想尽方法去看看他，哪怕只是一秒钟，去看一下，去瞄一眼那个以整个身心吹奏着又能把笛子吹得那样美妙动人的“青年”。有几个姑娘从仆人进去的门中偷偷跑出去，爬到临直壁街一面的三楼上，想从那些钉死了的窗口望出去，但却没有成功。有一个姑娘甚至把她的手高高地伸在铁条外面，挥动她的白手帕。另外两个还更大胆，她们找到了办法，一直爬上屋顶，总算看见了那个“青年”。那是一个年老的流亡贵族，眼瞎了人又穷，住在他那间阁楼上，以吹笛子来解闷。

One is a postulant for two years at least, often for four; a novice for four.It is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced earlier than the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years. The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga do not admit widows to their order.
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 her handsomest attire, she is crowned with white roses, her hair is brushed until it shines, and curled.Then she prostrates herself; a great black veil is thrown over her, and the office for the dead is sung.Then the nuns separate into two files; one file passes close to her, saying in plaintive accents, "Our sister is dead"; and the other file responds in a voice of ecstasy, "Our sister is alive in Jesus Christ!"
At the epoch when this story takes place, a boarding-school was attached to the convent--a boarding-school for young girls of noble and mostly wealthy families, among whom could be remarked Mademoiselle de Saint-Aulaire and de Belissen, and an English girl bearing the illustrious Catholic name of Talbot.These young girls, reared by these nuns between four walls, grew up with a horror of the world and of the age.One of them said to us one day, "The sight of the street pavement made me shudder from head to foot." They were dressed in blue, with a white cap and a Holy Spirit of silver gilt or of copper on their breast.On certain grand festival days, particularly Saint Martha's day, they were permitted, as a high favor and a supreme happiness, to dress themselves as nuns and to carry out the offices and practice of Saint-Benoit for a whole day.In the early days the nuns were in the habit of lending them their black garments.This seemed profane, and the prioress forbade it.Only the novices were permitted to lend. It is remarkable that these performances, tolerated and encouraged, no doubt, in the convent out of a secret spirit of proselytism and in order to give these children a foretaste of the holy habit, were a genuine happiness and a real recreation for the scholars. They simply amused themselves with it.It was new; it gave them a change.Candid reasons of childhood, which do not, however, succeed in making us worldlings comprehend the felicity of holding a holy water sprinkler in one's hand and standing for hours together singing hard enough for four in front of a reading-desk.
The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all the practices of the convent.There was a certain young woman who entered the world, and who after many years of married life had not succeeded in breaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever any one knocked at her door, "forever!" Like the nuns, the pupils saw their relatives only in the parlor. Their very mothers did not obtain permission to embrace them. The following illustrates to what a degree severity on that point was carried.One day a young girl received a visit from her mother, who was accompanied by a little sister three years of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embrace her sister. Impossible.She begged that, at least, the child might be permitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she could kiss it. This was almost indignantly refused.

     她们至少要当两年的备修主，时常还是四年，初学生四年。能在二十三 岁或二十四岁以前正式发愿①那是少有的事。玛尔丹?维尔加支系的伯尔纳一 本笃会的修女们绝不容许寡妇加入她们的修会。
    她们在自己的斗室里经受着各种各样的折磨，那是外人无法想象并且她们自己也永远不该说出来的。
    初学生到了发愿的那天，大家要尽量把她打扮得齐齐整整，给她戴上白蔷薇，把她的头发弄得润泽而蜷曲，接着她伏在地上，大家给她搭上一块大黑布，唱着悼亡的诗歌，举行度亡的祭礼。在这时，全体修女排成两队，一 队从她跟前绕过，悲伤他说“我们的姐姐死了”，另一队则用洪亮的声音回 答道“她活在耶稣基督的心中。”
    在本书所讲故事发生时代，这个修院里还设有一个寄读学校。是一所为淑女们设立的寄读的学校，那些淑女中大部分是有钱人，其中有德?圣奥莱尔小姐和德?贝利桑小姐，还有一个英国姑娘，姓德?塔尔波，也是天主教里很有名声的望族。这些年轻的姑娘在那四堵围墙内受的是修女似的教育，在对这个世界的仇视中成长。一天，她们中的一位曾对我们讲了这样一句话：“我看见了街上的石头路面就会头昏脚软。”她们都穿蓝衣，戴白帽；胸前带着一个银质镀金或铜质的圣像。在一些重大的节日里，尤其是在圣玛尔泰节，她们要一整天穿着修女的服装，按照圣伯努瓦规定的仪式做日课，这对她们来讲，是一种恩典和极大的幸福。开始，修女们常把自己的黑衣借给她们穿。后来院长不许她们借用，认为这样是对圣衣的亵渎，只有初学生还可以惜用。让淑女们穿上修女的服装本是道院中一种通融的办法，带有让孩子们预尝圣衣的滋味、吸引她们逐渐走向出家的道路的隐密的目的，值得注意的是，寄读生竟会以此为真正的幸福和真正的快乐。她们只不过是觉得好玩罢了。“这是一种新东西，可以改变她们。”我们这些世俗之人却无法从那些天真雅气的想法中去体会她们为什么会那样自得其乐地拿着一根洒圣水的枝条，四人一排地站在一个谱架跟前，不停地一连唱上好几个小时。
    那些女弟子，除了苦修之外，也同样要遵守修道院里所有的教规。有个少妇，还俗之后，结婚也好多年了，却还不能改变习惯，每当有人敲她的房门时，她总还要赶紧回答：“永远如此！”寄读生和修女一样，只能在会客厅中接待她们的亲人。即使她们的母亲也不能拥抱她们。让我们看看在这方面究竟严格到何种地步。一天，有个年轻的姑娘接待她母亲的来访，她母亲还带着一个三岁的小妹妹。那年轻的姑娘，很想抱抱她的小妹妹，由于不被允许她哭了起来，她央求至少让她的的小妹妹把小手从铁栅栏缝里伸过去让她吻一下，可这也被拒绝了，这件事差点还惹起了一场风波。  ①发愿是当众宣誓出家修行，永不还俗的仪式。

None the less, these young girls filled this grave house with charming souvenirs.
At certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister.The recreation hour struck.A door swung on its hinges.The birds said, "Good; here come the children!"An irruption of youth inundated that garden intersected with a cross like a shroud.Radiant faces, white foreheads, innocent eyes, full of merry light, all sorts of auroras, were scattered about amid these shadows.After the psalmodies, the bells, the peals, and knells and offices, the sound of these little girls burst forth on a sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees. The hive of joy was opened, and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other, they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth chattered in the corners; the veils superintended the laughs from a distance, shades kept watch of the sunbeams, but what mattered it?Still they beamed and laughed. Those four lugubrious walls had their moment of dazzling brilliancy. They looked on, vaguely blanched with the reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives.It was like a shower of roses falling athwart this house of mourning.The young girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns; the gaze of impeccability does not embarrass innocence.Thanks to these children, there was, among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness.The little ones skipped about; the elder ones danced.In this cloister play was mingled with heaven.Nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh, expanding young souls.Homer would have come thither to laugh with perrault; and there was in that black garden, youth, health, noise, cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles of all their ancestresses, those of the epic as well as those of the fairy-tale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage from Hecuba to la Mere-Grand.
In that house more than anywhere else, perhaps, arise those children's sayings which are so graceful and which evoke a smile that is full of thoughtfulness.It was between those four gloomy walls that a child of five years exclaimed one day: "Mother! one of the big girls has just told me that I have only nine years and ten months longer to remain here.What happiness!"
It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took place:--
A Vocal Mother.Why are you weeping, my child?
The child (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French history. She says that I do not know it, but I do.
Alix, the big girl (aged nine). No; she does not know it.
The Mother.How is that, my child?
Alix.She told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question in the book, and she would answer it.
"Well?"
"She did not answer it."
"Let us see about it.What did you ask her?"
"I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first question that I came across."
"And what was the question?"
"It was, `What happened after that?'"
It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy paroquet which belonged to a lady boarder:--
"How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just like a person!"
It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years:--
"Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.
"Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress.
"Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentlemen."
It was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth six years of age improvised the following tale, which was listened to by blue eyes aged four and five years:--
"There were three little cocks who owned a country where there were a great many flowers.They plucked the flowers and put them in their pockets.After that they plucked the leaves and put them in their playthings.There was a wolf in that country; there was a great deal of forest; and the wolf was in the forest; and he ate the little cocks."
And this other poem:--
"There came a blow with a stick.
"It was punchinello who bestowed it on the cat.
"It was not good for her; it hurt her.
"Then a lady put punchinello in prison."
It was there that a little abandoned child, a foundling whom the convent was bringing up out of charity, uttered this sweet and heart-breaking saying.She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured in her corner:--
"As for me, my mother was not there when I was born!"
There was a stout portress who could always be seen hurrying through the corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha.The big big girls--those over ten years of age-- called her Agathocles.
The refectory, a large apartment of an oblong square form, which received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the garden, was dark and damp, and, as the children say, full of beasts. All the places round about furnished their contingent of insects.
Each of its four corners had received, in the language of the pupils, a special and expressive name.There was Spider corner, Caterpillar corner, Wood-louse corner, and Cricket corner.
Cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed. It was not so cold there as elsewhere.From the refectory the names had passed to the boarding-school, and there served as in the old College Mazarin to distinguish four nations.Every pupil belonged to one of these four nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at meals.One day Monseigneur the Archbishop while making his pastoral visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the class-room through which he was passing.
He inquired of another pupil, a charming brunette with rosy cheeks, who stood near him:--
"Who is that?"
"She is a spider, Monseigneur."
"Bah!And that one yonder?"
"She is a cricket."
"And that one?"
"She is a caterpillar."
"Really! and yourself?"
"I am a wood-louse, Monseigneur."
Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities.At the beginning of this century Ecouen was one of those strict and graceful places where young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At Ecouen, in order to take rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament, a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also the "dais" and the "censors,"--the first who held the cords of the dais, and the others who carried incense before the Holy Sacrament.The flowers belonged by right to the florists. Four "virgins" walked in advance.On the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question put in the dormitory, "Who is a virgin?"
Madame Campan used to quote this saying of a "little one" of seven years, to a "big girl" of sixteen, who took the head of the procession, while she, the little one, remained at the rear, "You are a virgin, but I am not."

     那些年轻的姑娘在这严肃的院子里也留下过一些轻快的事情。有些时候，那修道院中也会洋溢起天真的气氛。休息的钟声响了，园门突然打开。小鸟们说：“好啊！孩子们快出来了！”随即就涌出一群孩子，在那片象殓中一样被一个十字架划分的园地上跑散开来，无数容光焕发的面容、白哲的头额、烁亮微笑的眼睛和各种曙光晓色都在那阴沉的园里缤纷飞舞。在歌声、钟声、铃声、报丧钟、日课以后，突然出现了小女孩声音，比蜜蜂群的鸣叫更为动听。欢乐的蜂巢开放了，并且每一个都带来了蜜汁。大家一起游戏，相互打招呼，三五成群地互相追逐；在角落里小巧洁白的牙齿在喃喃私语，而那戴面罩的却躲在远处窃听她们的笑声，黑暗窥伺着光明，但是无关紧要！大家照样欢乐，照样畅笑。那四道沉闷的高墙也有了它们片刻的欢畅。它们处在蜂群的嬉戏攘扰之中，面对那么多的欢笑，也多少受到一点春光的影响，那好象是一阵荡涤忧伤的玫瑰雨。小姑娘们在那些修女的面前痛快地戏嬉，吹毛求疵的目光并能妨碍活泼天真的个性。幸而有这些孩子，这才在那么多的清规戒律中见出一点天真的欢乐，小的跳。大的舞。在那修道院中，游戏的欢乐，使人恍如登上九重天。没有什么能比所有这些欢跃纯洁的灵魂更为优美庄严的了。荷马若是知道了，他也会来这里与贝洛①同乐，在悲惨的园子里有青春，有健康，有人声，有叫嚷，有天真，有乐趣，有幸福，这能使所有的老妈妈笑逐颜开，无论是史诗里的还是童话中的，宫廷中的还是茅屋里的，从赫卡伯②直到老大妈。
①贝洛（P．Ttult）．十七世纪法国诗人和童话作家。
②赫卡伯（Hecute），特洛伊最后一个国王普里阿摩之妻，赫克托尔之母。
    “孩子活”总是很有风趣的，能使人发笑，诱人深思，任何其他地方说的孩子话也许都不如那修道院中的多。下面这句话便是一个五岁的孩子一天在那四道惨不忍睹的墙里说来的：“妈！一个大姐姐刚才对我说，我只需在这里再待上九年零十个月就够了。多好的运气啊！”
    这下面一段难忘的对话也是发生在那里的：一个参议嬷嬷：“你为什么哭，我的孩子？”孩子（六岁）痛哭着说：“我告诉阿利克斯说，我已读熟了法国史。可她说我没有读熟，我读熟了。”
    阿利克斯（大姑娘，九岁）：“不。她没有读熟。”嬷嬷，“怎么会呢，我的孩子？”阿利克斯：“她要我随便打开书，提出一个问题来问她，她说她都能回答。”
    “以后呢？”
    “她没有回答出来。”
    “你说。你向她提了什么问题？”
    “我照她说的随便打开了，把我最先看到的一个问题提出来问她。”
    “那问题是什么样的？”
    “那问题是：后来发生了什么事？”也是在那里，有位太太带着孩子在那里寄读，那小女孩有些贪馋，有人仔细观察她之后发现：
    “这孩子很乖巧！她只吃面包上的那层果酱，简直就象个大人一样！”下面一张仟悔饲是在那修道院中石板地上拾到的，这是一个七岁的犯罪姑娘事先写好以免忘记的：“父啊，我控告我吝啬。”
    “父啊，我控告我淫乱。”
    “父啊，我控告曾抬起眼睛看男人。”下面这个童话是一张六岁的樱红小嘴在那园里草地上临时编出来讲给四五岁的蓝眼睛听的：“从前有三只小公鸡，它们有一块地，那里有很多花。它们采下花，放在它们的口袋中，后来，它们又采了叶子，放在它们的小玩具里。在那地方有只狼，也有许多树，狼在树林中，吃了这些小公鸡。”
    还有这样一首诗：来了一棍。
    那波里希内儿①给猫的一棍。那对猫没有好处，只有难受。于是有位太太就把波里希内儿监禁。
    有一个被遗弃的私生女，修道院为了行善将她收养了，她在那时里说过这样一句幼稚好笑的话。她听到别人在谈她们的母亲，她就在一旁悄悄他说：“我嘛，我出生的时候，我母亲不在我身边！”
    那里有个跑腿的肥胖女佣人，经常带着一大串钥匙，急急忙忙地在那些过道里跑来跑去，她的名叫阿加特嬷嬷。那些“大姑娘”——十岁以上的——称为她阿加多克莱①。
    食堂是一间长方形的大房间，阳光从和花园处于同一水平面的圆拱回廊那里照进去，大厅里黑暗潮湿，按照孩子们的说法，满是虫子。大厅中四处都有昆虫。于是四个墙角用些寄读生的话来说，都得到了一个形象化的专用名词。有蜘蛛角、毛虫角、草鞋虫角和蛐蛐角。蛐蛐角靠近厨房，是极受重视的。那里比别处暖。食堂里的这些名称继又转用一寄读学校，用来区分四 个区，正如从前的马萨林②学院那样。每个学生都按她吃饭时在食堂里所坐的地方而属于某一个区。一天，大主都来巡视，正穿过教室，看见一个金发朱唇的美丽小姑娘走进来，便问他身边的另一个桃腮褐发的漂亮姑娘：“那个小姑娘叫什么？”
    “大人，她叫蜘蛛。”
    “哟！那一个呢？”
    “那是个蛐蛐。”
    “还有那一个呢？”
    “那是条毛虫，”
    “真是奇怪，那么你自己呢？”
    “大人，我是个草鞋虫。”
①波里内儿（Polichinelle），法国木偶剧中的小丑，鸡胸龟背，大长鼻子，声音尖哑，爱吵闹。
①阿加多克莱（AgathOclc．）是公元前三世纪西西里锡腊库扎城的暴君，读音又和 A8athett11 6es（带着许多钥匙的阿加特）相同。
②马萨林（Mborin），红衣主教，路易十三和路易十四的首相，他创立了一个马萨林学院，招收新占领地区的学生并将学院校阴新占领地区分为四区。
    凡是这类性质的团体都自有特色。在本世纪初，艾古安也是一处让小姑娘们阴郁沉闷环境中长大的那种庄严有致的地方。在艾古安参加圣体游行的行列中，有所谓童贞和献花女。也还有幔亭队和香炉队，前者牵慢亭的挽带，后者持香炉熏圣体。鲜花当然由献花女捧着、四个“童贞女”走在前面。在那盛大节日的清晨，寝室里常会听到这样的问话：“谁是童贞女？”康邦夫人曾说到过有一个七岁的小姑娘曾对一个在游行队列前面领头的十六岁大姑娘说过一句话，当时那小姑娘走在行列的最后：“你是童贞女，你；我，我不是童贞女。”

This convent, which in 1824 had already existed for many a long year in the Rue petit-picpus, was a community of Bernardines of the obedience of Martin Verga.
These Bernardines were attached, in consequence, not to Clairvaux, like the Bernardine monks, but to Citeaux, like the Benedictine monks. In other words, they were the subjects, not of Saint Bernard, but of Saint Benoit.
Any one who has turned over old folios to any extent knows that Martin Verga founded in 1425 a congregation of Bernardines-Benedictines, with Salamanca for the head of the order, and Alcala as the branch establishment.
This congregation had sent out branches throughout all the Catholic countries of Europe.
There is nothing unusual in the Latin Church in these grafts of one order on another.To mention only a single order of Saint-Benoit, which is here in question:there are attached to this order, without counting the obedience of Martin Verga, four congregations,-- two in Italy, Mont-Cassin and Sainte-Justine of padua; two in France, Cluny and Saint-Maur; and nine orders,--Vallombrosa, Granmont, the Celestins, the Camaldules, the Carthusians, the Humilies, the Olivateurs, the Silvestrins, and lastly, Citeaux; for Citeaux itself, a trunk for other orders, is only an offshoot of Saint-Benoit. Citeaux dates from Saint Robert, Abbe de Molesme, in the diocese of Langres, in 1098.Now it was in 529 that the devil, having retired to the desert of Subiaco--he was old--had he turned hermit?-- was chased from the ancient temple of Apollo, where he dwelt, by Saint-Benoit, then aged seventeen.
After the rule of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a bit of willow on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, with a guimpe, which, in accordance with the express command of Saint-Benoit, mounts to the chin. A robe of serge with large sleeves, a large woollen veil, the guimpe which mounts to the chin cut square on the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes,--this is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white.The novices wear the same habit, but all in white.The professed nuns also wear a rosary at their side.
The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga practise the perpetual Adoration, like the Benedictines called Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, who, at the beginning of this century, had two houses in paris,-- one at the Temple, the other in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve. However, the Bernardines-Benedictines of the petit-picpus, of whom we are speaking, were a totally different order from the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, cloistered in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve and at the Temple. There were numerous differences in their rule; there were some in their costume.The Bernardines-Benedictines of the petit-picpus wore the black guimpe, and the Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament and of the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve wore a white one, and had, besides, on their breasts, a Holy Sacrament about three inches long, in silver gilt or gilded copper.The nuns of the petit-picpus did not wear this Holy Sacrament.The perpetual Adoration, which was common to the house of the petit-picpus and to the house of the Temple, leaves those two orders perfectly distinct.Their only resemblance lies in this practice of the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament and the Bernardines of Martin Verga, just as there existed a similarity in the study and the glorification of all the mysteries relating to the infancy, the life, and death of Jesus Christ and the Virgin, between the two orders, which were, nevertheless, widely separated, and on occasion even hostile.The Oratory of Italy, established at Florence by philip de Neri, and the Oratory of France, established by pierre de Berulle.The Oratory of France claimed the precedence, since philip de Neri was only a saint, while Berulle was a cardinal.
Let us return to the harsh Spanish rule of Martin Verga.
The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year round, abstain from meat, fast in Lent and on many other days which are peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of silence, speak to each other only during the recreation hours, which are very brief, and wear drugget chemises for six months in the year, from September 14th, which is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. These six months are a modification:the rule says all the year, but this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers and nervous spasms.The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,-- these are their vows, which the rule greatly aggravates.
The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers, who are called meres vocales because they have a voice in the chapter. A prioress can only be re-elected twice, which fixes the longest possible reign of a prioress at nine years.
They never see the officiating priest, who is always hidden from them by a serge curtain nine feet in height.During the sermon, when the preacher is in the chapel, they drop their veils over their faces. They must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the ground and their heads bowed.One man only is allowed to enter the convent,-- the archbishop of the diocese.
There is really one other,--the gardener.But he is always an old man, and, in order that he may always be alone in the garden, and that the nuns may be warned to avoid him, a bell is attached to his knee.
Their submission to the prioress is absolute and passive. It is the canonical subjection in the full force of its abnegation. As at the voice of Christ, ut voci Christi, at a gesture, at the first sign, ad nutum, ad primum signum, immediately, with cheerfulness, with perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, prompte, hilariter, perseveranter et caeca quadam obedientia, as the file in the hand of the workman, quasi limam in manibus fabri, without power to read or to write without express permission, legere vel scribere non addiscerit sine expressa superioris licentia.
Each one of them in turn makes what they call reparation. The reparation is the prayer for all the sins, for all the faults, for all the dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for all the crimes committed on earth.For the space of twelve consecutive hours, from four o'clock in the afternoon till four o'clock in the morning, or from four o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, the sister who is making reparation remains on her knees on the stone before the Holy Sacrament, with hands clasped, a rope around her neck.When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself flat on her face against the earth, with her arms outstretched in the form of a cross; this is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for all the guilty in the universe. This is great to sublimity.
As this act is performed in front of a post on which burns a candle, it is called without distinction, to make reparation or to be at the post.The nuns even prefer, out of humility, this last expression, which contains an idea of torture and abasement.
To make reparation is a function in which the whole soul is absorbed. The sister at the post would not turn round were a thunderbolt to fall directly behind her.
Besides this, there is always a sister kneeling before the Holy Sacrament.This station lasts an hour.They relieve each other like soldiers on guard.This is the perpetual Adoration.
The prioresses and the mothers almost always bear names stamped with peculiar solemnity, recalling, not the saints and martyrs, but moments in the life of Jesus Christ:as Mother Nativity, Mother Conception, Mother presentation, Mother passion.But the names of saints are not interdicted.
When one sees them, one never sees anything but their mouths.
All their teeth are yellow.No tooth-brush ever entered that convent. Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a ladder at whose bottom is the loss of one's soul.
They never say my.They possess nothing of their own, and they must not attach themselves to anything.They call everything our; thus:our veil, our chaplet; if they were speaking of their chemise, they would say our chemise.Sometimes they grow attached to some petty object,-- to a book of hours, a relic, a medal that has been blessed.As soon as they become aware that they are growing attached to this object, they must give it up.They recall the words of Saint Therese, to whom a great lady said, as she was on the point of entering her order, "permit me, mother, to send for a Bible to which I am greatly attached.""Ah, you are attached to something! In that case, do not enter our order!"
Every person whatever is forbidden to shut herself up, to have a place of her own, a chamber.They live with their cells open. When they meet, one says, "Blessed and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar!"The other responds, "Forever."The same ceremony when one taps at the other's door.Hardly has she touched the door when a soft voice on the other side is heard to say hastily, "Forever!"Like all practices, this becomes mechanical by force of habit; and one sometimes says forever before the other has had time to say the rather long sentence, "praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar."
Among the Visitandines the one who enters says:"Ave Maria," and the one whose cell is entered says, "Gratia plena."It is their way of saying good day, which is in fact full of grace.
At each hour of the day three supplementary strokes sound from the church bell of the convent.At this signal prioress, vocal mothers, professed nuns, lay-sisters, novices, postulants, interrupt what they are saying, what they are doing, or what they are thinking, and all say in unison if it is five o'clock, for instance, "At five o'clock and at all hours praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar!"If it is eight o'clock, "At eight o'clock and at all hours!" and so on, according to the hour.
This custom, the object of which is to break the thread of thought and to lead it back constantly to God, exists in many communities; the formula alone varies.Thus at The Infant Jesus they say, "At this hour and at every hour may the love of Jesus kindle my heart!" The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga, cloistered fifty years ago at petit-picpus, chant the offices to a solemn psalmody, a pure Gregorian chant, and always with full voice during the whole course of the office.Everywhere in the missal where an asterisk occurs they pause, and say in a low voice, "Jesus-Marie-Joseph." For the office of the dead they adopt a tone so low that the voices of women can hardly descend to such a depth.The effect produced is striking and tragic.
The nuns of the petit-picpus had made a vault under their grand altar for the burial of their community.The Government, as they say, does not permit this vault to receive coffins so they leave the convent when they die.This is an affliction to them, and causes them consternation as an infraction of the rules.
They had obtained a mediocre consolation at best,--permission to be interred at a special hour and in a special corner in the ancient Vaugirard cemetery, which was made of land which had formerly belonged to their community.
On Fridays the nuns hear high mass, vespers, and all the offices, as on Sunday.They scrupulously observe in addition all the little festivals unknown to people of the world, of which the Church of France was so prodigal in the olden days, and of which it is still prodigal in Spain and Italy.Their stations in the chapel are interminable. As for the number and duration of their prayers we can convey no better idea of them than by quoting the ingenuous remark of one of them: "The prayers of the postulants are frightful, the prayers of the novices are still worse, and the prayers of the professed nuns are still worse."
Once a week the chapter assembles:the prioress presides; the vocal mothers assist.Each sister kneels in turn on the stones, and confesses aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has committed during the week.The vocal mothers consult after each confession and inflict the penance aloud.
Besides this confession in a loud tone, for which all faults in the least serious are reserved, they have for their venial offences what they call the coulpe.To make one's coulpe means to prostrate one's self flat on one's face during the office in front of the prioress until the latter, who is never called anything but our mother, notifies the culprit by a slight tap of her foot against the wood of her stall that she can rise. The coulpe or peccavi, is made for a very small matter--a broken glass, a torn veil, an involuntary delay of a few seconds at an office, a false note in church, etc.; this suffices, and the coulpe is made. The coulpe is entirely spontaneous; it is the culpable person herself (the word is etymologically in its place here) who judges herself and inflicts it on herself.On festival days and Sundays four mother precentors intone the offices before a large reading-desk with four places.One day one of the mother precentors intoned a psalm beginning with Ecce, and instead of Ecce she uttered aloud the three notes do si sol; for this piece of absent-mindedness she underwent a coulpe which lasted during the whole service: what rendered the fault enormous was the fact that the chapter had laughed.
When a nun is summoned to the parlor, even were it the prioress herself, she drops her veil, as will be remembered, so that only her mouth is visible.
The prioress alone can hold communication with strangers. The others can see only their immediate family, and that very rarely. If, by chance, an outsider presents herself to see a nun, or one whom she has known and loved in the outer world, a regular series of negotiations is required.If it is a woman, the authorization may sometimes be granted; the nun comes, and they talk to her through the shutters, which are opened only for a mother or sister. It is unnecessary to say that permission is always refused to men.
Such is the rule of Saint-Benoit, aggravated by Martin Verga.
These nuns are not gay, rosy, and fresh, as the daughters of other orders often are.They are pale and grave.Between 1825 and 1830 three of them went mad.

     到一八二四年这个修道院已经在比克布劳动保护小街存在很多年了，它是从属于玛尔丹?维尔加支系的伯尔纳修道会的修女们的修道院。
    正因为此这些伯尔纳修道会的修女们，和伯尔纳修道会的修士们不同，她们不属于明谷①，而是与本笃会②的修士们一样，属于西多。也就是说，她们并非圣伯尔纳的门徒，而是圣伯努瓦的门徒。
    只要是翻过一些对开本的人都会知道玛尔丹?维尔加在一四二年创建一 个伯尔纳一本笃修道会民并将总会地址设在萨拉曼卡，阿尔卡拉③为分会地址。
    那个修道会的分支遍布了欧洲全部的天主教的国家。一个修道会转移进另一个修道会，这在拉丁教会里也是寻常所见之事。
    这里牵涉到圣伯努瓦的这一系，我们在此谈谈这一系的情况，除了玛尔丹?维尔加这一支不算在内外，和它同一体系的还有四个修道会团体，两个在意大利，蒙特卡西诺和圣查斯丁?德?帕多瓦，两个在法国，克吕尼和圣摩尔；除此之外还有九个修道会也和它同一体系，瓦隆白洛查修道会，格拉蒙修道会，则肋斯定修守，卡玛尔多尔修道会，查尔特勒修道会，下层人修道会，橄榄山派修道会，西尔维斯特修道会和西多修道会；因为西多修道会本来虽然是好几个修道会的发源地，对圣伯努瓦来说，它仅仅是一个分支，西多修道会在圣罗贝尔时代就已经产生了，圣罗贝尔在一○九八年是朗格勒主教区摩莱斯姆修道院的住持。而邪魔是在五二九年从阿波罗庙旧址被驱逐的。当时他已隐居到苏比阿柯沙漠（他已老了，但是他已浪子回头了吗？），他当时是通过圣伯努瓦才住进阿波罗庙里去的，那时圣伯努瓦年仅十七岁。
    圣衣会修女们光着脚走路，颈项上绕一根柳条，而且从来不坐，除圣衣会修女们的教规之外，玛尔丹?维尔加一系的伯尔纳一本笃会修女们的教规应该是最严格的了，她们一身黑衣，遵照圣伯努瓦的特殊规定，头巾必须遮住下巴。一袭宽袖哗叽袍服，一个宽大的毛料面罩，遮住下巴的头巾方方正正地垂在胸前，一条扎额中压齐眼睛，这就是她们的装扮。除扎额帽是白色以外，其它都是黑的。刚来的学生也穿同样的衣服，一色白。那些已经发愿的修女们还外加一串念珠，挂在身旁。
    玛尔丹?维尔加一系的伯尔纳一本笃会修女们，和那些所谓圣事嬷嬷的本笃会修女们相同，全修永敬教规，本笃会的修女们。本世纪初，在巴黎有两所修道院，一所在大庙，一所在圣热纳维埃夫新街。可我们现在所说的小比克布斯的伯尔纳一本笃会修女们，和那些在圣热纳维埃夫新街和大庙出家的圣事嬷嬷们完全不属于同一个修道会，在教规上有很多区别，在服装上也有很多区别。小比克布斯的伯尔纳一本笃会修女们戴黑头巾，圣热纳维埃夫新街的本笃会的圣事嬷嬷们却戴白头巾，胸前还挂一个三寸多高银质镀金或铜质镀金的圣像。小比克布斯的修女们绝对不挂那种圣像。小比克布斯的修道院和大庙的修道一样只修永敬教规，但完全不能因为这件事情而把两个修道院搅在一处，有关这一仪式，圣事嬷嬷们和玛尔丹?维尔加系的伯尔纳会的修女们之间，只是看上去相似，恰如菲力浦?德?内里在佛罗伦萨建立的意大利经堂和皮埃尔?德?贝鲁尔在巴黎建立的法兰西经堂正是两个完全不同的间或甚至不互相愤恨的修道会，可是在关于耶稣基督的幼年、活着和死亡及关于圣母的各种神奇的研究和歌颂方面，这两个修道会之间还是有共同之点的。巴黎经堂自认为处于领先地位，因为菲力浦?德?内里仅是一个圣者，而贝鲁尔却是一个红衣主教。
①伯尔纳修道会是圣伯尔纳（salniDernar）在公元一一一五年创建的。明谷（clairvu）是法国北部奥布省（Aub）的一个小幢，圣伯尔纳在那里创立了一个有名的修道院。
②本笃会是意大利本笃（ffenedictus，约 480—550）．于五二九年在意大利中部蒙特卡西诺（Mont’CassinO）创立的。西多会（CJtestix）由法国罗贝尔（Robert’1027—1111）建立于第戎（Dijon）附近的西多乡野，因此而得名。罗贝尔主张遵守本笃会教规，故西多会又称“重整本笃会”。一一一四年伯尔纳率领三十人加入后迅速壮大起来，故后面的建会人将伯尔纳及本笃之名混称在一起。
③萨拉曼卡（Salamqnque）和阿尔卡拉（Alc81a）均是西班牙城市。
    我们再来到玛尔丹?维尔加的西班牙式的严格的教规上看看。这一支系的伯尔纳—本笃会的修女们常年食素，在封斋节和她们确定的其它很多节日中还要绝食，晚上睡一点觉就得起身，从凌晨一点开始念日课经，唱早祷，一直到三点；常年累月全睡在哗叽被单中和麦秸上，完全不洗澡不生火，每个星期五自行检视纪律，严守坚持肃静的教规，仅在课间休息时才说话，那种休息已是极短暂的，每年要穿六个月的棕色粗呢衬衫，这六 个月也是一种变通办法，按规定是全年，但是那种棕色粗呢衬衫在炙热的夏天是受不了的的，常常引发热病和神经性痉挛症，因此只得限制使用期，即便有了这种关照，修女们在九月十四日穿上这件衬衫，仍要发烧三四天。遵命，清贫，绝欲，安居在修道院里，这是她们所发之愿，教规却把她们的心扭曲为沉沉的负担。
    院长的任期为三年，由嬷嬷们选举，参加选举的嬷嬷叫做“参议嬷嬷”，原因是她们在宗教事务会上有发言权。院长只许连任两届，所以一个院长的任期最长也不过九年。
    她们从不与主祭神甫会面，她们同主祭神甫之间总悬挂着一条七尺高的哗叽。宣讲道士步上圣坛进经时，她们就扯下面罩掩住面孔．无论何时她们全得低声细语，行走时她们也只能低下头，眼望着地下，唯有一个男人可以进入这修道院，那就是这个教区的大主教。
    此外也还有另一个男人，那就是园丁，但那园丁只能是一个老头，而且为了让他独自一人永住在园子里，为了修女们能及时回避他，就在他膝间挂上一个铃铛。
    她们对院长是完全听从的。这是教规所规定的那种逆来顺受的献身精神。恰如亲领基督之命（ut voci Christi）①，体察如微，会意立行（ad nutum，ad primum signum），迅捷，愉悦，坚贞，完全服从（prompte，hilariter，perseveranter，et cecaet quadam obe－dientia），恰如工人手中的挫刀（quasi limam in manibus fabri），没有确切的指示，就不读也不写任何东西（ legere velscribere non adiscerit sine expressa superioris licentia）。
①这儿及以下括孤内的每一句拉丁文的意思都与它前面的译文相同。
    她们中间的每一人都要轮番举行她们的所谓“赎罪礼”，赎罪礼是一种替凡人免去所有过失、所有错误、所有打扰、所有暴力、所有不仁、所有罪行的祷告。举行“赎罪礼”的修女得持续十二个小时，从下午四点到凌晨四 点，或是从凌晨四点到下午四点，跪于圣像面前的一块石板上，双手合上，颈脖上有一根绳索，累得支撑不起时，就全身匍匐于地，两臂伸展，形成十 字，这是唯一的休息办法。在这种姿势里，修女替人间一切罪人祈祷，竟然崇高到了卓越的程度。
    这种仪式是在一木柱前进行的，柱子顶端点上一支白色蜡烛，为此她们随便把它称为“行赎罪礼”或“跪柱子”。修女们，因为内心自卑，所以乐意采取第二种说法，因为它有着受罪和被辱的含意①。
    “行赎罪礼”必须集中精力，柱子面前的修女，即使感到有雷火落于她背后，也绝不回头去看一下的。
    除此之外，圣像前总须有一个修女跪着。每一班跪一小时。她们就象士兵站岗一样，轮流换班，这便是所谓永敬。
    院长的嬷嬷差不多每人都要取一个意义深远的名字，这些名字不是出自于圣者和殉道者的身世，而是出自于耶稣基督一生中的某些事迹，此如诞生嬷嬷、初孕嬷嬷、贡献嬷嬷、受难嬷嬷。但并不禁用圣者的姓名。
    其他人与她们相见时，一贯只能看见她们那一张嘴，她们每个人的牙齿全是黄牙。一直都未有过一把牙刷进过这修道院的门。刷牙，在每级送走灵魂的罪过中是属于最高级别的。
    她们对所有东西从不说“我的”。她们从未有任何属于自己的东西，也没有任何不忍割舍的东西。她们对所有东西都说“我们的”，比如我们的面罩、我们的念珠，如果她们讲到自己的衬衫，也只说“我们的衬衫”。偶尔她们也会爱上一些小东西，一本日课经书、一件遗物，一枚受过祝福的纪念章。她们一旦发觉自己开始对某件东西有点依恋难舍时，便会把它送给别人。她们常常园忆泰雷比的一段话：有个贵妇人在入了圣泰雷丝修道会时对她说：“我的嬷嬷，请让我派人去把一本圣经拿来，我很想保留它。”
    “哦！您还有难以忘怀的东西！如是这样，您就不必到我们这里来呀！”
    任何都不能将自己独自关在房间里，也不能有一个“她的环境”，一间“房子”。她们打开监狱过日子。她们在相互碰面时，一个说：“愿祭坛上最高尚的圣像得到赞扬与崇拜！”另一个人就答道：“唯愿长存。”在叩旁人的房门时，也用相同的礼仪。门还没有太叩响，房间里平和的声音已急忙说出了“唯愿长存！”这与其他所有行为一样，成为习惯以后就变为呆板的动作了，偶尔，这一个的“唯愿长存”早已顺口而出，但对方还没来得及说完那句非常冗长的“愿祭坛上最高尚的圣像得到赞扬与崇拜！”
    访问会的修女们，在进入别人房间时说，“赞美玛莉亚”，在房间里迎接出的人说“仪态万千”。这是她们互相打招呼的方式，倒确实是仪态万千。每到一个钟头，这修道院的礼拜堂上的钟都须多敲三下。听到这信号这后，院长、参议嬷嬷、发愿修女、服务修女、刚来的学生①、备修生②都得将她们所说所作所想的事情一概放下，并且全部一起??如果是五点，就齐声说道：“在五点种和每一点钟，愿祭坛上最高尚的圣像得到赞扬与崇拜！”如果六点钟，就说：“在六点钟和每一点钟??”其余时间、全随着钟点以此类椎。这种习惯，目的在于中断人的思考，任何时候都把它引向上帝，很多教会都有这种习惯，只是方式各有不同而已。比如，在圣子那稣修道会里就如此说：“在这个钟点和每一个钟点，愿天主之爱激奋我心！”
①耶稣曾被绑在柱子上。
①刚来的学生是已结束备修阶段，但还未发愿的修女或修士。
②备修生是请求人院修道的初级修女或修士。
    半个世纪前，在小比克布斯幽居的玛尔丹?维尔加系的伯尔纳一本笃会，修女们在每日念经时，都用一种低低的声调唱着圣歌，地道的平咏颂①，并且还得用饱满的音色从开始念经一直唱到念经完毕，唱到弥撒经本上印着星号处，她们便不唱了只低声说着“耶稣—玛莉亚—约瑟”。在举行葬礼时，她们的声音更加低沉，低到几乎不能再低的地步，那样能产生一种凄凉的动人的效果。
    小比克布斯的修女们曾在她们在正祭台上修建了一个地窖，想把它用于安放棺木。但是“政府”??这是她们说的，不准在地窖里安放棺木。因此她们死后还得被抬出修道院。她们为这事感到难受，好象受了非法的干涉，一直不得安宁。
    她们只得到一种很小的安慰，在从前的伏吉拉尔公墓里，有一块地原是属于她们修道院的，她们得以获准，死后可以在一个特定的时间葬在这公墓里一个指定的地方。
    那些修女们在星期四和在星期日一样，必做大弥撒、晚祷和其他一切日课。除此之外，她们还得严格遵循一切小的节日，那些小的节日几乎是修院以外的人所不知道的，在旧时的法国教会里很流行，到目前只在西班牙和意大利的教会里流行了。她们时时守在圣坛上，为了表明她们祈祷的次数和每次析祷所用的时间，最好是引用她们中某个修女所说的一句单纯的话：“备修生的祈祷能吓死人，初学生的祈祷更能吓死人，发愿修女的祈祷更更要吓死人。”
    她们一星期要集中一次，院长主持，参议嬷嬷们出席。修女一个个依次走去跪在石板上，当着大家的面，高声交代她在这星期里所犯的小大错误。参议嬷嬷们听了一个修女的交代后，便交换意见，然后大声宣布惩处的办法。除了大声交代的错误外，还有所谓补赎微小错误的补赎礼。行补赎礼，就是在每日念经时，全身匍匐在院长的面前，直到院长——她们在任何时候都称她为“我们的嬷嬷”，从来不用别的称呼——在她的神职祷告椅上轻微敲一下，她才能够站起来。因为一个极小的过失修女们也要行补赎礼，如打烂一只玻璃杯，撕破一个面罩，做日课时一不小心迟到了几秒钟，在礼拜堂里唱错了一个音符，诸如此类的事都已够行补赎礼了，行补赎礼完全自发的，由罪人——从字源学出发，这个字①用在这里是恰当的——自己反省，自己处罚，每逢节日和星期日，有四个唱诗嬷嬷要在唱诗台上的四个谱架前面随着日课唱圣诗。一次，有个唱诗嬷嬷在唱一首圣诗时，那首诗本是以“看呵”开始的，可是她没有唱“看呵”而是高声唱了“多，西，梭”这三个者符，因为这一疏忽，她就行了一场和日课同样长短的补赎礼。她的这个过失之所以严重，是由于在场的修女们全都笑起来了。修女被叫到会客室去时，即使是院长，我们记得，也必须放下面罩，只把嘴巴露在外面。只有院长一人可以和外界的人交谈。其它的人都只能接见最亲的家人，见面的时候也极少。万一有个外面的人要拜访一个曾在社交中相识或喜欢的修女，就得千求万求不可，假如这是一个女的，有时还能被允许，那修女便走来和她隔着板窗谈话，除了母女和姊妹相见之外，那板窗是从来不打开的。男人来访当然一概被拒。
①不咏颂（plain—chant），欧洲中世纪的宗教音乐，旋律极少起伏。
①批 cOu1pe（补赎札）和 xoupalbe（罪人）两字同出于拉丁 coulpo。
    这是圣伯努瓦定出的教规，可是已被马尔丹?维尔加改得更加严格了。这里的修女们，与别的修会里的姑娘们不大一样，她们一点也不活泼健康。她们脸色苍白，神情阻郁。从一人二五年到一八三○年就疯掉了三人。