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She explained to me that marriage meant love. Sister Marie-Aimée, who had not been well for some time, became quite ill. Madeleine nursed her devotedly and treated us dreadfully badly. She was particularly unkind to me, and when she saw me tired of sewing she would say, trying to turn her nose up, "If mademoiselle objects to sewing, she had better take a broom and sweep."
I didn't answer, so she said again, "Sister Marie-Aimée is not here." I heard what she said quite well, but I didn't pay any attention to it. It was like a dream where the most extraordinary things happen without seeming to be of any importance at all. I looked at her great big eyes and said, "I have come back."
A little further down the room were the beds of Chemineau the Proud, and her twin sister, the Fool. Chemineau the Proud had a big smooth white forehead and gentle eyes. She never said it was not true when she was accused of doing anything wrong. She simply shrugged her shoulders and looked round her with contempt. Sister Marie-Aimée used to say that her conscience was as white as her forehead.
I hurried on, "She has found a place for me in a farm, and I am to milk cows and look after the pigs." Sister Marie-Aimée pushed me away so roughly that I bumped against the wall. She ran towards the door. I thought she was going to the Mother Superior's room, but she went out, and came back again, and began walking up and down the passage, taking long steps.
She was trembling and almost crazy with joy. She took my head in her hands, and, as if I had been quite a little child, she kissed me all over my face. Her stiff linen cap made a noise like paper when you crumple it up, and her broad sleeves fell back to her shoulders. Mélanie was right, the Mother Superior saw me. She came out of the chapel and came towards us. Sister Marie-Aimée saw her.
I hadn't the courage to push her away, and I used to stoop down a little to let her get well up. She always wanted to ride when we went up to the dormitory. It was very hard for her to get up the stairs. She used to laugh about it herself, saying that she hopped up like an old hen going to roost. As Sister Marie-Aimée always went upstairs first, I used to wait and go up among the last girls.
"Nobody is to go out," she said. I hardly knew her. Her lips were pressed together, her cheeks were as white as her cap, and her eyes, which seemed to flame, frightened me so that I hid my face in the hollow of my arm. I did not want to do so, but I soon looked up again. The cat hunt was still going on. Sister Marie-Aimée, with her stick in the air, ran after the cat without saying a word.
When Ismérie came up in her turn he looked at her in surprise, and made her turn round and walk for him to see. He said that she was no bigger than a child of three, and when he asked Sister Marie-Aimée if she was intelligent, Ismérie turned round sharply and said that she was not as stupid as the rest of us. He burst out laughing, and I saw that his teeth were very white.
The man's forehead was wrinkled, and he was staring at the fire. I dared not talk to him, and I went away without making any noise. When it became quite light I saw that I was not very far from the town. I began to recognize the places where Sister Marie-Aimée used to take us when we went for our walks. I was walking very slowly now, and dragged my feet after me because they hurt me.
She got hold of her two hands and mumbled over them with her big, moist mouth, screaming all the time as though some terrible catastrophe had happened. Sister Marie-Aimée could not shake her off. At last she got angry. Then Madeleine fainted, and fell on her back. As she was undoing her Sister Marie-Aimée made a sign towards the part of the room where I was.
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