father will take
care of them, then?" Pиre Chicon shook his head, and knocked his pipe
against the table. Then he made a funny face and said, "He may be
anywhere. Young Girard told me he had met him on the Paris road."
After a while pиre Chicon took us to a big house with a lot of steps
leading up to the door. He had a long talk with a gentleman who waved
his arms about and talked about the dignity of labour. I wondered what
that was. The gentleman put his hand on my head and patted it, and I
heard him say several times, "He did not tell me that he had any
children." I understood that he was talking of my father, and I asked
if I could not see him. The gentleman looked at me without answering,
and then asked pиre Chicon, "How old is she?" "About five," said pиre
Chicon. All this time my sister was playing up and down the steps with
a kitten. We went back into the cart and to mиre Colas again. She was
cross with us and pushed us about. A few days afterwards she took us
to the railway station, and that evening we went to a big house, where
there were a lot of little girls.

Sister Gabrielle separated us at once. She said that my sister was big
enough to be with the middle-sized girls, while I was to stay with the
little ones. Sister Gabrielle was quite small, quite old, quite thin,
and all bent up. She managed the dormitory and the refectory. She
used to make the salad in a huge yellow jar. She tucked her sleeves up
to her shoulders, and dipped her arms in and out of the salad. Her
arms were dark and knotted, and when they came out of the jar, all
shining and dripping, they made me think of dead branches on rainy days.




I made a chum at once. She came dancing up to me and looked impudent,
I thought. She did not stand any higher than the bench on which I was
sitting. She put her elbows on my knees and said: "Why aren't you
playing about?" I told her that I had a pain in my side. "Oh, of
course," she said, "your mother had consumption, and Sister Gabrielle
said you would soon die." She climbed up on to the bench, and sat
down, hiding her little legs underneath her. Then she asked me my name
and my age, and told me that her name was Ismйrie, that she was older
than I was, and that the doctor said she would never get any bigger.
She told me also that the class mistress was called Sister Marie-Aimйe,
that she was very unkind, and punished you severely if you talked too
much. Then all of a sudden she jumped down and shouted "Augustine."
Her voice was like a boy's voice, and her legs were a little twisted.
At the end of recreation I saw her on Augustine's back. Augustine was
rolling her from one shoulder to the other, as if she meant to throw
her down. When she passed me Ismйrie said in that big voice of hers,
"You will carry me too sometimes, won't you?" I soon became friends
with Augustine.




My eyes were not well. At night my eyelids used to close up tight, and
I was quite blind until I had them washed. Augustine was told off to
take me to the infirmary. She used to come and fetch me from the
dormitory every morning. I could hear her coming before she got to the
door. She caught hold of my hand and pulled me along, and she didn't
mind a bit when I bumped against the beds. We flew down the passages
like the wind and rushed down two flights of stairs like an avalanche.
My feet only touched a step now and again. I used to go down those
stairs as if I was falling down a well. Augustine had strong hands and
held me tight. To go to the infirmary we had to pass behind the chapel
and then in front of a little white house. There we hurried more than
ever. One day when I fell on to my knees she pulled me up again and
smacked my head saying, "Do be quick, we are in front of the dead
house." After that she was always afraid of my falling again, and used
to tell me when we got in front of the dead house. I was frightened
chiefly because