Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the one hundred twenty-second chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Brie Carlisle: Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight M at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

to give word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to bite at a time books where we read you your

favorite classics, one byte at a time. my name is

Bre Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to

share my passion with listeners like you. If you

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les miserables by Victor Hugo

chapter four gaieties

nonetheless, these young girls filled this grave house

with charming souvenirs. At certain

hours, childhood sparkled in that cloister.

The recreation hour struck. A door, swung

on its hinges. The birds said, good. Here

come the children. An eruption of youth inundated

that garden, intersected with a cross like a shroud.

Radiant faces, white foreheads,

innocent eyes full of merry light.

All sorts of auroras were scattered about amid these

shadows. After the psalmodies, the

bells, the peals and knells and offices, the

sound of these little girls burst forth on a sudden,

more sweetly than the noise of bees.

A hive of joy was opened, and each one

brought her honey. they played. They called to each

other. They formed into groups. They ran

about pretty little. White teeth chattered in the

corners. The veils superintended the

laughs. From a distance, shades kept watch of

the sunbeams, but what mattered

it still they beamed and

laughed. Those four lugubrious walls

had their moment of dazzling brilliancy.

They looked on vaguely, blanched with the

reflection of so much joy. At the sweet swarming of the

hives. It was like a shower of

roses falling athwart this house of mourning.

The young girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns.

The gaze of impeccability does not embarrass

innocents. Thanks to these children,

there was, among so many austere hours. 1

hour of ingeniousness. The little

one skipped about. The elder ones

danced in this cloister. Play was

mingled with heaven. Nothing is so

delightful and so August. As all these fresh, expanding

young souls. Homer would have come thither to

laugh with peralt. And there was in that black

garden, youth, health,

noise, cries, giddiness,

pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles of all their

ancestresses. Those of the

epic as well as those of the fairy tale, those

of the throne. As well as those of the thatched cottage from Jacuba,

to le mer Grande. In that

house, more than anywhere else, perhaps,

arise those childrens sayings. Which are so graceful.

And which evoke a smile that is full of thoughtfulness.

It was between those four gloomy walls. That a child of

five years exclaimed one day. Mother, one of

the big girls just told me that I have only nine years and ten months

longer to remain here. What happiness.

It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took

place. A vocal mother,

why are you weeping, my child? The child,

aged six. I told Alex that I knew my

french history. She says that I do not know it, but

I do. Alex, the big girl aged

nine. No, she does not know it. The

mother. How is that, my child?

Alexe. She told me to open the book at random. And ask

her any question in the book, and she would answer it.

Well, she did not answer it.

Let us see about it. What did you ask her?

I opened the book at random as she proposed. And

I put the first question that I came across.

And what was the question? It was

what happened after that? It

was there that the profound remark was made anent.

A rather greedy paraquet which belonged to a

lady boarder. How well bred it eats the

top of the slice of bread and butter, just like a person.

It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was

once picked up a confession. Which had been written out in

advance. In order that she might not forget it by a sinner

of seven years. Father, I accused

myself of having been avaricious. Father,

I accused myself of having been an adulteress

father. I accused myself of having raised my eyes to the

gentleman. It was on one of the

turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth, six

years of age improvised the following tale,

which was listened to by blue eyes, aged four

and five years. There were three

little cocks who owned a country where there were a great many

flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them

in their pockets. After that, they plucked the

leaves and put them in their playthings. There was a wolf

in that country. There was a great deal of forest, and the

wolf was in the forest, and he ate the little cocks.

In this other poem, there came a blow with a

stick. It was Punchinello who bestowed it on the

cat. It was not good for her. It hurt

her. Then a lady put punchinello in prison.

It was there that a little abandoned child,

a foundling, whom the convent was bringing up out of charity,

uttered this sweet and heartbreaking saying.

She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured in

her corner as, for me, my mother was not there when

I was born. There was a stout

portress who could always be seen hurrying through the corridors with her

bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha.

The big, big girls, those over

ten years of age, called her agathocles.

The refectory, a large apartment of an

oblong square form, which received no light except

through a vaulted cloister on a level with the garden,

was dark and damp, and, as

the children say, full of beasts. All

the places roundabout furnished their contingent of

insects. each of its four corners had received, in the

language of the pupils, a special and expressive

name. There was spider corner,

caterpillar corner, woodlouse corner and cricket

corner. Cricket corner was near the kitchen

and was highly esteemed. It was not so

cold there as elsewhere. From the refectory,

the names had passed to the boarding school, and there

served, as in the old college Mazarin, to distinguish four

nations. Every pupil belonged to one

of these four nations. According to the corner of the refectory in

which she sat at meals. One day,

Monsignor the archbishop, while making his pastoral

visit, saw a pretty little rosy girl

with beautiful golden hair enter the classroom through which he was

passing. He inquired of another

pupil, a charming brunette with rosy

cheeks, who stood near him.

Who is that? She is a spider,

monseigneur. Bah. In that one yonder

she is a cricket. In that one she is a

caterpillar. Really? And

yourself? I am a wood louse,

monseigneur. Every house of this

sort has its own peculiarities at the beginning

of this century. Ecoin Washington as one of those strict

and graceful places where young girls pass

their childhood in a shadow that is almost August

at Ekwin, in order to take rank in the procession of the holy

Sacrament, a distinction was made between

virgins and florists. There were also

the dais and the censors, the first who

held the cords of the dais and the other who carried incense before the

Holy Sacrament. The flowers belonged by right

to the florists. Four

virgins walked in advance on

the morning of that great day. It was no rare thing to hear the question put

in the dormitory. who is the virgin?

Madame Kempen used to quote this saying of a little one of

seven years to a big girl of 16

who took the head of the procession while she,

the little one, remained at the rear. You are a

virgin, but I am not.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while

we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlisle,

and I hope you come back tomorrow, for the next

bite of le Miserable.

>> Brie Carlisle: Don't forget to sign up for our

newsletter@biteoutimebooks.com, comma. And check

out the shop. You can check out the show notes or

our website, byteadatimebooks.com, for

the rest of the links for our show. we'd love to hear from you on

social media as well.

>> Brie Carlisle: Take it chapter by chapter one

line at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

take it word.

>> Brie Carlisle: Forward, line by line one

bite at a time.