At noontime in summer the sun
visited one little corner, where there was a stone bench; but in
winter it never showed itself at all. There were five or six
small, scrubby trees, with moss-grown trunks and feeble branches,
which put forth a few yellow leaves at springtime. We were some
thirty children who assembled in this courtyard--children from
five to eight years old, all clad alike in brown dresses, with a
little blue handkerchief tied about our shoulders. We all wore
blue caps on week-days, and white ones on Sundays, with woollen
stockings, thick shoes, and a black ribbon, with a large metal
cross dangling from our necks. Among us moved the good sisters,
silent and sad, with their hands crossed in their large sleeves,
their faces as white as their snowy caps, and their long strings
of beads, set off with numerous copper medals, clanking when they
walked like prisoners' chains. As a rule, each face wore the same
expression of resignation, unvarying gentleness, and inexhaustible
patience. But there were some who wore it only as one wears a
mask--some whose eyes gleamed at times with passion, and who
vented their cold, bitter anger upon us defenceless children.
However, there was one sister, still young and very fair, whose
manner was so gentle and so sad that even I, with my mere
infantile intelligence, felt that she must have some terrible
sorrow. During play-time she often took me on her knee and
embraced me with convulsive tenderness, murmuring: 'Dear little
one! darling little one!' Sometimes her endearments were irksome
to me, but I never allowed her to see it, for fear of making her
still more sad; and in my heart I was content and proud to suffer
for and with her.
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