Chapter 141 Difficulties facing Erfafeng

A tense and gloomy expression in an emergency is peculiar to certain personalities and professions, especially to priests and believers.The Abbess, Sister Pure-Chastity, was the gifted and beautiful Mademoiselle de Bremeyer, who was always relaxed and lively, but when Fauchelevent came into the room, she had two expressions on her face that showed that she was uneasy. look. The gardener bowed cautiously and stood at the door of the house.The dean was flicking the rosary in his hand, raised his eyes and said: "Ah, it's you, Master Chiu." This abbreviation was customary in that monastery.

Fauchelevent saluted again. "Master Chiu, I asked someone to bring you here." "Here I come, noble mother." "I have something to talk to you about." "I too, for my part, have something I would like to talk to the most sublime mother," said Fauchelevent boldly, but first he was afraid. The dean opened his eyes and looked at him. "Ah! You have something to report to me." "I want to ask you." "Okay then, tell me." Fauchelevent, an old man who had once been a notary, was one of those firm and sure peasants.A smooth and ignorant expression is an advantage, and people are often captured without warning.Fauchelevent had lived in that monastery for more than two years, and got along very well with everyone.Year-round solitude, with little to do but garden, fostered his curiosity.He looked at the women with black veils on their heads from a distance, coming and going in front of his eyes. At first, he saw almost only black shadows. After a long time, due to paying attention and observing deeply from time to time, he gradually became able to Restoring the bodies of those ghosts, those dead people became living people in his eyes.He seemed to be a dumb man with better vision and a blind man with better hearing.He carefully discriminated the meanings of the various bells, so that there was nothing in the silent monastery like a gourd that could hide from him, and the riddle god had already poured all its secrets into his ears. .Fauchelevent knew everything, but said nothing, that was his cleverness.The whole house thought he was an idiot.This is a great advantage in the church.The Sisters of the Council took Fauchelevent very seriously.He is a rare dumb man, and he has won everyone's trust.Besides, he can obey the rules.He never leaves the house unless he has something to do in the orchard or vegetable patch.This prudence was valued, but he did not stop him from looking for people to talk to. The two people he often talked to were in the convent and the porter, so he knew some special situations in the drawing room; There were burial workers in the field, so he knew something unique about the cemetery, just as if he had two lamps shining on the nuns for him, one for the living side and the other for the dead side.But he wasn't fooling around at all.Everyone in the monastery respected him.Old, crippled, blinded, maybe a little deaf, all the good things!No one can replace him.

The old man himself knew that he had been valued by others, so he spoke with confidence in front of the lofty abbot, a rather messy and very profound countryman's words.He talks a lot about his age, his physical imperfections, the growing threat of age, the increasing demands of his job, how big the garden is, and sometimes having to spend the night in it, like last night , when the moon came up, he had to lay straw mats in the melon fields, and finally he turned to this point, he had a brother (the dean moved a little), and his brother was not very young (the dean moved a little , but this is a sign of reassurance), and if the abbot allows, his brother can come and live with him and help him work, he is a good gardener, and he will do a better service for the seminary than he himself has done. but if, if the convent did not allow his brother to come, he, the elder brother, felt himself too weak to fulfill his task, and had to say sorry and ask for his resignation; There is a little girl, he wants to bring her, and ask God to bless her, let her grow up in the monastery, who knows, maybe she will one day become a monk.

When he had finished talking, the abbot stopped turning the beads between her fingers, and she said to him: "Can you find a thick iron bar before tonight?" "What is it for?" "Use it as a crowbar." "Yes, noble mamma," replied Fauchelevent. The abbot said nothing else, and she got up and went to the next room, which was the meeting room, where the councilors might be meeting.Fauchelevent was left alone.