Part I, Book 7, Chapter 1
Soeur Simplice
We begin Book 7 with an introduction to the two nuns who run Madeleine’s hospital: Sister Perpétue and Sister Simplice. EXCELLENT names for a pair of girl cats.
Perpétue is a nun of the hardy peasant type, and Hugo doesn’t waste much time painting a word portrait of her as efficiently as possible. Simplice, though—Hugo loves her, you can tell. How do I love thee, Hugo seems to be saying about his made-up nun, and then counts the ways.
Simplice is “the clear white of candle wax,” calm and gentle in manner. She is physically incapable of telling a lie—so she’s basically Ana de Armas in Knives Out—and her innate truthfulness gives her an air of divine radiance. As with the bishop, Hugo is not subtle about the imagery around his most morally admirable characters. If Bishop Myriel and Sister Simplice were main characters in the musical, they’d have to wear halos and have soft white spotlights shining on them the entire time.
The stark difference between how Hugo writes about Perpétue and then goes into raptures about Simplice reminds me of all the great memes about how Denethor feels about his sons.
But Simplice isn’t perfect, Hugo wants us to know, just as the bishop had his own “failings.” She has “two shortcomings: […] she had a sweet tooth and she liked to receive letters.”
How. Are these actual shortcomings. Wanting a cupcake every once in a while doesn’t make you a lesser person, much less a worse nun, and how is liking correspondence a “shortcoming”??? Everyone likes getting letters! Why is everyone here so weird about getting letters—am I missing something?? Hugo being all, “this lady isn’t perfect, she likes sweets and letters” is big “I gave my Mary Sue clumsiness to make her relatable” energy.
Anyway. Simplice grows very fond of Fantine—virtue recognizes virtue—and is her near-exclusive caretaker. Madeleine’s daily visits, with his promise of Cosette’s arrival, are basically the only thing keeping Fantine going: “I’m alive only when monsieur le maire is here,” she tells the nuns.
On the particular day depicted in this chapter, Madeleine stays with Fantine for a whole hour instead of his usual half-hour and tells her Cosette will be there soon, and he pulls Sister Simplice aside to ask her to look after Fantine in a tone of voice that Simplice finds significant. The doctor tells Madeleine that Fantine is “fading fast.” Big uh-ohs all around.
After visiting Fantine, Madeleine is spotted at town hall studying a map of the roads in France and taking notes. I have a feeling we’re about to go on a road trip.
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