Marie Claire | Page 6

were sold to an oil merchant. The bigger girls used to crack them
with a hammer, and the little ones took them out of the shells. We were
forbidden to eat them, and it was not easy, anyhow. One of the girls
would always sneak if we did, because she was greedy too, and jealous.
Bonne Esther used to peep into our mouths. Sometimes she caught a
very greedy girl. Then she used to roll her eyes at her, give her a little
smack, and say, "I've got my eye on you." Some of us she trusted. She
would make us turn round and open our mouths and pretend to look at
them, and then she said, "Shut your beaks, birdies," and laughed.
I often wanted to eat the nuts. But I would look at Bonne Esther and
blush at the idea of cheating her, because she trusted me. But after a
time I wanted to eat nuts so badly that I could not think of anything else.
Every day I tried to think of some way of eating them without being
caught. I tried to slip some into my sleeves, but I was so awkward that I
always dropped them. Besides, I wanted to eat a lot of them, a great big
lot. I thought I should like to eat a sackful. One day I managed to steal
some. Bonne Esther, who was taking us up to bed, slipped on a nutshell
and dropped her lantern, which went out. I was close to a big bowl of
nuts, and I took a handful and put them in my pocket. As soon as
everybody was in bed I took the nuts out of my pocket, put my head
under the sheets and crammed them into my mouth. But it seemed to
me at once as though everybody in the dormitory must hear the noise
that my jaws were making. I did all I could to munch slowly and
quietly, but the noise thumped in my ears like the blows of a mallet.
Bonne Esther got up, lit the lamp, stooped down and looked under the
beds. When she came to mine I looked out at her trembling. She
whispered, "Aren't you asleep yet?" and went on looking. She went
down to the end of the dormitory, opened the door, and closed it again;
but she was hardly back in bed with the light out before the latch of the

door made a little sound as though somebody were opening it. Bonne
Esther lit her lamp again and said, "Whatever is it? It cannot be the cat
opening the door by itself." It seemed to me that she was afraid. I heard
her moving about in her bed, and all of a sudden she called out, "Oh
dear, oh dear." Ismérie asked her what the matter was. She said that a
hand had opened the door, and she had felt a breath on her face. In the
twi-darkness we saw the door half open. I was very frightened. I
thought it was the devil who had come to fetch me. We waited a long,
long time, but we heard nothing more. Bonne Esther asked if one of us
would get up and put the light out, although it was not very far from her
own bed. Nobody answered. Then she called me. I got up and she said,
"You are such a good little girl that ghosts won't do any harm to you."
She put her head under the bedclothes, and I blew the lamp out. And
directly it was put out I saw thousands of shining specks of light, and
felt something cold on my cheeks. I was sure that there were green
dragons, with mouths aflame, under the beds. I could feel their claws
on my feet, and lights were jumping about on each side of my head. I
wanted to sit down, and when I got to my bed I was quite sure that my
two feet had gone. When I dared, I stooped down and felt for them.
They were very cold. I went to sleep at last holding them in my two
hands.
In the morning Bonne Esther found the cat on a bed near the door. She
had had kittens during the night. When Sister Marie-Aimée was told
about it, she said that the cat had certainly opened the door by jumping
at the latch. But we never felt sure about that, and the little girls used to
talk about it in low voices for a long time.

Next week all the girls who were eight years old went down to the big
dormitory. I had a bed near the window, quite close to Sister
Marie-Aimée's room. Marie Renaud and Ismérie again had their beds