s one whom nobody expected." She put
her head into the kitchen again, and said, "It is Sister Marie-Aimee."
The big spoon which I had in my hand slipped through my fingers and
dropped into the copper. I rushed to the door, pushing past Veronique,
who wanted to keep me back. Melanie rushed after me. "Don't," she
said, "the Mother Superior can see you." But I rushed out to Sister
Marie-Aimee. I rushed into her arms with such force that we nearly
fell over together. She clasped me tight and held me. 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. Melanie was
right, the Mother Superior saw me. She came out of the chapel and came
towards us. Sister Marie-Aimee saw her. She stopped kissing me, and
put her hand on my shoulder. I put my arm round her, fearing that she
would be taken away from me, and the two of us stood and watched the
Mother Superior. She passed in front of us without raising her eyes,
and didn't seem to see Sister Marie-Aimee, who bowed gravely to her.

As soon as she had gone I dragged Sister Marie-Aimee off to the old
bench. She stopped a moment, and before sitting down she said, "It is
as though things were waiting for us." She sat down. She leaned
against the linden tree, and I kneeled down in the grass at her feet.
There were no more rays in her eyes. It was as though the colours in
them had all been mixed up together. Her dear little face had grown
smaller, and seemed to have gone further back into her cap. Her
stomacher had not the beautiful curve on her chest that it used to
have, and her hands were so thin that the blue veins in them showed up
quite clearly. She hardly glanced at the window of her room, but
looked out on the linden trees and round the courtyard, and as she
caught sight of the Mother Superior's house, these words fell from her
like a sigh, "We must forgive others if we wish to be forgiven." Then
she looked at me again, and said, "Your eyes are sad." She passed the
palms of her hands over my eyes, as if she wanted to wipe out something
which displeased her, and, keeping them there so that my eyes remained
shut, "How we suffer,"' she said. Then she took her hands away and
clasped mine, and, with her eyes on my face, she said, as though she
wer