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.