第一百二十四章 第六章 小修院
小比克布斯围墙里有三座完全分开的建筑物——大修院、寄读学校、和所谓小修院。小修院是一座带有园子的楼房，里面住着各式各样的老修女，她们是各修会经过革命后残存下来的，是各种黑色、灰色、白色的杂拌儿。我们可以说，如果可以用得上这样一个配合词的话，那是一个五花八门的修女院。
从帝国时期起，所有那些流离失所的可怜老修女，都得到允许，到那儿去躲到贝尔纳－本笃会修女们的翅膀下。政府津贴她们一点点补助，小比克布斯的女修院们却热忱款待她们。那是一种杂拌儿。各人遵守各人的规则。有时寄读学校的学生们获得许可去拜访她们，那也是一种消遣活动。因此，在那些年轻学生的记忆里，留下了圣巴西勒嬷嬷、圣斯科拉斯蒂克嬷嬷、雅各嬷嬷等等人物。
应当提到，其中有一个避难者，她住在那儿，几乎像在自己家里一样。她是一个圣奥尔会的修女，那一个修会除她一人以外，早就没有第二人（注：1772年解散的圣奥尔会是圣奥古斯丁的后代）。她是一个老修女，名叫圣巴西勒嬷嬷，她在过去所属的修会中是省会长。她有圣奥尔会两个男修会的记事簿。她常拿本会的会袍给寄读学校的女学生们看，那是一件黑袍短袖宽身袍。院长太太称她作“圣奥尔嬷嬷”。
但是，在这些可敬的老修女中，最突出的是一个四十二岁的修女，她住在小修院里，名叫洛亚尔嬷嬷（注：洛亚尔，意为忠诚）。她着役的红棕色，她的牙齿白白的，是她自己时常露出来咬指尖的。她生得高大，肥胖，愉快，和颜悦色，大脸盘，按我们说的，是个乡下神甫那种粉红脸蛋，我们可以引一句成语来形容她，那是话多的让纳。她的性格，开头儿就给人一种印象。她为人和蔼可亲，后来发现，她善良博爱；她对别人关怀，穷人们得到她的接济，病人得到她的护理，死人得到她收殓出葬，她简直身兼数职。她原是一个公爵小姐，卡尼伯爵夫人，在天主教修会里，她把她的财产、她的高贵身份、她的嫁妆、以及她作为王族萨伏依（注：萨伏依，意大利北部一个公爵家族，曾统治一王国）家族亲戚的地位，全部抛弃了，她所保留的只是富裕，她住在贫民窟，煮药汤，做手术，送茶饭，送葬。她后来更进了修道院，她在那里，她不修边幅，每天只做两小时的祷告，其余时间都为小姑娘们做衬衫、补袜子、绣东西。她说话的声音悦耳，如果她不是一个修女，我们会称它为“在谈话时她的声音是柔和的，但还要响亮”。她在这方面也保存了让纳的腔调。她的教名是贞德，但她说话时却带有一些法国南方的口音。总之，这个可爱的修女使得整个修院充满生气。每年照样给学生们开冰淇淋会。她从不生病。她是那么健康，所以她在修院里的那些年，一年到尾都在过她的大斋期。她只在星期六晚上才睡觉，星期五早上起就开始做晨祷，并且一天只吃一块黑面包，喝白开水。
除了那些退职的贵妇外，还有些老年的资产阶级妇女，和阿尔贝丁夫人一起，请求住进小修院。阿尔贝丁夫人是发过愿的修女。她们后来也都住进去了。还有博福尔多·多波尔夫人和迪弗雷纳侯爵夫人，后者因为爱用大鼻烟壶，在修院出名，每次打喷嚏都惊天动地。学生们叫她“哗啦啦妈妈”。
大约在1820或1821年，德·让利斯夫人（注：德·让利斯夫人（1746—1830），法国女作家，写过一些感伤小说和剧本）当时正发行一份叫作《无畏》的文艺小报，她要求进小比克布斯修院作一个独居修女。奥尔良公爵替她申请了。修院里一片惊慌；那些议事嬷嬷们都很怕德·让利斯夫人，因为她写过小说。但是她声明，她是第一个憎恨小说的人。而且她虔诚到了可怕的程度。她得了上帝和亲王的帮助，进去了。她在住了六个月或八个月后走了，理由是园子里没有树荫，大家高兴极了。虽然她年纪很大了，但她还弹竖琴，非常好听。
她走时，在她住过的静室里留下了她写的拉丁文诗句。她用红墨水写在一张黄色的纸上，贴在小柜子里，那锁她自己配的，我认为那是她藏金银细软的地方，她认为，那些诗句有驱贼的作用。以下是那首诗：
悬着三具尸体不等的树枝，两个：狄斯马斯和热斯塔斯，中间的是神的力量。高的狄斯马斯，不幸的，最低的是热斯塔斯；我们和我们的事务由最高的力量保护。你可以背诵这些诗句，以免你被偷。
这首诗是六世纪的拉丁文，引起了这样一个问题：髑髅地的两个强盗的名字，一般认为是狄斯马斯和热斯塔斯呢，还是狄斯马斯和热斯塔斯。这个写法也许是要混淆上世纪的德·热斯塔斯子爵提出的夸夸其谈的说法，他认为自己同那个坏蛋是亲戚。此外，那诗句里所说的驱贼功效，是天主教的信条。
那教堂的修建是为了把大修院和寄读学校隔开，成为真正的防御工事，教堂当然是由寄读学校、大修院和小修院共用的。此外，还有一道由街上进入的入口，好像医院大门。但一切安排得那样妥帖，修院里的居民谁也无法望见外面的世界。可是你要想象一个教堂，它的唱诗台被一只巨大的手抓住，折成现在这个样子，那就不像人们普通的教堂了。唱诗台的后面不是一条走道，而是在神甫的右边，一块七尺高的帷幕挡住了视线。这个帷幕后面，是一个大厅，阴森森的，像地窖；把木条凳堆在帷幕的阴影里，让修女们在左边做祷告，让女学生们在右边做，让女仆和初学生伏在下面。你这样就对小比克布斯修女们做弥撒有了一个概念。我们所称作唱诗台的那个厅堂，通过一条过道和修院相通。教堂的亮光是从园子那边来的。修女们在做祷告时，假如她们的规则是禁止说话的，旁人对她们的存在便只听见她们那张折凳起落时发出的声音。
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’Intrépide_, asked to be allowed
to enter the convent of the Petit-Picpus as lady resident. The Duc
d’Orléans 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:
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
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.
