Claudine at School

by Colette

  To end up with, Rabastens ‘gave himself the pleasure’, as he said, of hearing me sing. He asked me to read the most boring things at sight, ghastly sentimental songs and airs adorned with gargling runs and trills whose out-of-date coloratura seemed to him the last word in art. From vanity, because Mademoiselle Sergent was there, and Anaïs too, I sang my best. And the unspeakable Antonin went into ecstasies; he got himself completely tied up in tortuous compliments, in labyrinthine sentences from which I deliberately did not try to extricate him. I was enjoying myself too much listening to him with my eyes riveted on his with earnest attention. I don’t know how he would have got to the end of a sentence crammed full of parentheses if Mademoiselle Sergent had not come up to us and asked:

  ‘Have you given these girls some pieces to study for homework during the week?’

  ‘No,’ he had given them nothing at all. He could not get it into his head that he had not been summoned here to sing duets with me!

  But whatever had become of little Aimée? I simply had to know. So I deftly overturned an inkpot, taking care to get plenty of ink on my fingers. Then I let out an ‘Oh!’ of desolation, spreading out all my fingers like spiders. Madame Sergent took the time to remark that this was typical of me and sent me off to wash my hands under the pump.

  Once outside, I wiped my fingers with the blackboard sponge to take off the worst of it, then I searched about, peering into every corner. Nothing in the house. I went outside again and walked as far as the little wall that separated us from the Headmaster’s garden. Still nothing. But no! There were people talking on the other side. Who? I leant over the wall to look down into the garden which is a yard or two lower than our playground and there, under the leafless hazels, in the pallid sunshine, so faint you could hardly feel it, I saw the sombre Richelieu talking to Mademoiselle Aimée Lanthenay. Two or three days ago I’d have stood on my head and waved my feet in astonishment at this spectacle, but my recent betrayal had slightly inured me to shocks.

  That shy, unsociable Duplessis! At the moment, he had found his tongue and no longer kept his eyes lowered. He had burnt his boats then?

  ‘Tell me, Mademoiselle, didn’t you suspect? Oh, do say you did!’

  Aimée, her face quite pink, was quivering with joy. Her eyes were more golden than ever and they kept alertly watching and listening all about her as she spoke. She gave a charming laugh to indicate that she hadn’t suspected anything at all, the liar!

  ‘Come, you must have suspected when I used to spend my evenings under your windows. But I love you with all my might … not just to flirt for a term and then go off on my holidays and forget you. Will you listen to me seriously, as I am speaking to you now?’

  ‘Is it as serious as all that?’

  ‘Yes, I assure you it is. Will you authorize me to come and talk to you tonight in the presence of Mademoiselle?’

  Oh bother! I heard the door of the classroom opening: they were coming to see what had become of me. In two bounds I was far from the wall and almost beside the pump. I flung myself on my knees on the ground and when the Headmistress, accompanied by Rabastens, came up to me, she found me energetically rubbing the ink on my hands with sand, ‘because water won’t take it off’.

  This was a great success.

  ‘Leave off doing that,’ said Mademoiselle Sergent, ‘you can take it off at home with pumice-stone.’

  The handsome Antonin addressed a ‘Good-bye’ to me that was both gay and melancholy. I had stood up and I gave him my most undulating toss of the head which makes my curls ripple softly all down my cheeks. Behind his back, I laughed: the great hobbledehoy, he thought he had completed my conquest! I returned to the classroom to fetch my hood and I walked home brooding over the conversation I had overhead behind the little wall.

  What a pity I hadn’t been able to hear the end of their amorous dialogue! Aimée would have consented, without being pressed, to accept the attentions of this inflammable but honest Richelieu and he was capable of asking her to marry him. What is it that makes people so infatuated with this little woman who, strictly speaking, isn’t even pretty? She’s fresh, it’s true, and she has magnificent eyes; but, after all, there are plenty of beautiful eyes in really pretty faces, yet all the men stare at her! The builders stop mixing mortar when she passes by, winking at each other and clicking their tongues. (Yesterday, I heard one of them say to his mate as he pointed her out: ‘Strewth, I wouldn’t half like to be a flea in her bed!’) The boys in the streets put on swank for her and the old gentlemen who frequent the Café de la Perle and take their Vermouths there every evening discuss with interest ‘that little girl who teaches at the school, who makes your mouth water like a fruit tart that isn’t sugared enough’. Builders, retired businessmen, headmistress, schoolmaster, why do they all fall for her? As for myself, I’m not quite so interested in her since I’ve discovered what a traitress she is. And I feel quite empty; empty of my tenderness; empty of my fierce misery of that first evening.

  *

  They’ve been pulling it down fast and now they’ve nearly pulled it down altogether, poor old school! When they were demolishing the ground floor, we watched, with great curiosity, the discovery of some double walls. We had always thought those walls thick and solid; now they turned out to be as hollow as cupboards with a kind of black passage between them where there was nothing but dust and an appalling, ancient, repulsive stench. I took much pleasure in frightening Marie Belhomme by telling her that these hiding-places had been built in the old days for the walling-up of women who were unfaithful to their husbands and that I’d seen white bones lying among the rubble. She looked at me with wide, scared eyes and asked: ‘Is it really true?’ Then she hurried to the walls to ‘see the bones’. The next minute, she was back at my side.

  ‘I didn’t see a thing. It’s just another of your fibs you’re telling me!’

  ‘May I lose the use of my tongue this instant if those hiding-places in the walls weren’t hollowed out for a criminal end! And, besides, you’re a nice one to tell me I’m fibbing, considering you’ve got a chrysanthemum hidden in your Marmontel – the one Monsieur Antonin Rabastens was wearing in his buttonhole!’

  I shouted this at the top of my voice because I had just caught sight of Mademoiselle Sergent coming into the playground, with Dutertre in her wake. Oh! we see him often enough, to do him justice! And what noble devotion to duty that doctor must have to be incessantly leaving his clinic to come and ascertain whether the state of our school is satisfactory! That school is dispersing, bit by bit at the moment; the first class to the Infants’ School, the second over there to the Town Hall. No doubt he fears that our education may be suffering from these successive displacements, the worthy District Superintendent!

  They had heard, the two of them, what I had just said – naturally, I’d done it on purpose! – and Dutertre seized the opportunity to come over to us. Marie wanted to sink into the ground. She moaned and hid her face in her hands. But he was decent enough to be all smiles as he approached. He slapped the silly noodle on the shoulder and she trembled with alarm:

  ‘Little one, what’s that devilish Claudine saying to you? Do you preserve the flowers our handsome assistant wears? Mademoiselle Sergent, your pupils’ hearts are thoroughly awakened, you know! Marie, do you want me to tell your mother so as to make her realize that her daughter’s no longer a child?’

  Poor Marie Belhomme! Quite incapable of answering one word, she stared at Dutertre, she stared at me, she stared at the Headmistress, with eyes like a startled fawn and was on the verge of tears … Mademoiselle Sergent, who was not entirely delighted at the opportunity the District Inspector had found of gossiping with us, watched him with jealous and admiring eyes. She did not dare carry him off. (I knew him well enough to guess he might easily refuse to go.) As for me, I was rejoicing in Marie’s confusion, in Mademoiselle Sergent’s impatient displeasure (so her little Aimée wasn’t enough for her any more, then?) and also at the sight of our good doctor�
��s obvious pleasure at staying beside us. Apparently my eyes must have expressed my mingled feelings of rage and satisfaction for he laughed, showing his pointed teeth.

  ‘Claudine, what’s making your eyes sparkle like that? Is it devilment?’

  I answered ‘Yes’ with my head, merely tossing my hair without speaking, an irreverence that drew Mademoiselle Sergent’s bushy eyebrows together in a frown … I didn’t care. She couldn’t have everything, that nasty Redhead; her District Superintendent and her little assistant. No, definitely not … More offhandedly than ever, Dutertre came close to me and slipped his arm round my shoulders. The lanky Anaïs watched us with curiosity, screwing up her eyes.

  ‘Are you feeling well?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor, thank you very much.’

  ‘Be serious.’ (As if he were being serious!) ‘Why have you always got those dark shadows under your eyes?’

  ‘Because the good Lord made them like that.’

  ‘You oughtn’t to read so much. I bet you read in bed?’

  ‘A little, not much. Mustn’t one?’

  ‘We-ell … All right, you can read. What do you read? Come on, tell me.’

  He was getting excited and he gripped my shoulders with a brusque gesture. But I’m not so stupid as I was the other day and I didn’t blush – at least, not yet. The Headmistress had decided to go and scold the little ones who were playing with the pump and drenching themselves. How she must be boiling inwardly! My heart danced at the thought!

  ‘Yesterday, I finished Aphrodite. Tonight I shall begin La Femme et le pantin.’

  ‘Indeed? You are going the pace! Pierre Loüys? The deuce! Not surprising that you … I should very much like to know how much you understand of all that. Everything?’

  (I don’t think I’m a coward, but I shouldn’t have liked to continue this conversation alone with him in a wood or on a sofa; his eyes glittered so! Besides, he obviously imagined I was about to confide smutty secrets to him …)

  ‘No, I don’t understand it all, unfortunately. But quite a lot of things, all the same. Then I’ve also read, last week, Susanne by Léon Daudet. And I’m just finishing L’Année de Clarisse. It’s one of Paul Adam’s and I simply adore it!’

  ‘Yes, yes. And do you get to sleep afterwards? … But you’ll tire yourself, if you go on like that. Take a little care of yourself, it would be a pity to wear yourself out, you know.’

  What was he really thinking? He looked at me from so close to, with such a visible desire to caress me – to kiss me – that, suddenly, a shameful burning flush covered my face like rouge and I lost my self-assurance. Perhaps he was frightened too – of losing his self-possession – for he let me go, breathing hard. He left me after giving my hair a stroke right down from my head to the tip of my longest curls, as if he were stroking the back of a cat. Mademoiselle Sergent came up to us again, her hands shaking with jealousy, and the two of them went off together. I saw them talking very fast to each other: she seemed to be anxiously imploring him while he lightly shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

  They ran into Mademoiselle Aimée and Dutertre stopped, lured by her seductive eyes, and joked with her familiarly. She looked flushed, and a little embarrassed, but pleased. This time Mademoiselle Sergent displayed no jealousy; on the contrary … Whereas my heart always jumps a trifle when that little creature appears. Ah! How badly that’s all turned out!

  I buried myself so deep in my thoughts that I didn’t notice that gawk Anaïs executing a war-dance round me.

  ‘Will you leave me in peace, you filthy monster! I don’t feel like playing today.’

  ‘Oh yes, I know! You’ve got the District Superintendent on your mind … My goodness me, you don’t know which one to listen to these days – Rabastens, Dutertre, who else? Have you made your choice? And what about Mademoiselle Lanthenay?’

  She whirled round me, her eyes diabolical in a face that was motionless but secretly furious. For the sake of getting some peace, I flung myself on her and pounded her arms with my fists: she yelled at once, like a coward, and made her escape. I pursued her and hemmed her in in the corner by the pump where I poured some water on her head, not much, just the dregs of the communal drinking-cup. She lost her temper completely.

  ‘You know, that’s idiotic. That’s not the thing to do. I happen to have a cold. You’re making me cough!’

  ‘Cough away! Doctor Dutertre will give you a free consultation … and throw in a little something extra!’

  The arrival of the lovelorn Duplessis interrupted our quarrel. He was transfigured, since two days ago, that Armand! His radiant eyes proclaimed that Aimée had granted him her hand, along with her heart and her faith, all tied up in one parcel! But when he observed his sweet fiancée joking and laughing over there between Dutertre and the Headmistress, with the Superintendent teasing her and Mademoiselle Sergent encouraging her, his eyes clouded. Aha! So I wasn’t the only one who was jealous! I really believe he would have turned round and gone away if the Redhead herself hadn’t called out to him. He ran up to them with great strides and bowed low to Dutertre who shook his hand familiarly, as if congratulating him. The pale Armand blushed, became radiant once more and looked at his little fiancée with tender pride. Poor Richelieu, I feel distressed about him! I don’t know why, but I’ve an idea that this Aimée, who half-pretends to be unconscious and who commits herself so hastily, will bring him no happiness. Anaïs was so busy watching the group, determined not to miss a single gesture, that she forgot all about abusing me.

  ‘I say,’ she whispered to me very low, ‘what are they doing all together like that? Whatever’s up?’

  I blurted out:

  ‘What’s up is that Monsieur Armand – the compass – Richelieu – has gone and asked for Mademoiselle Lanthenay’s hand and she’s bestowed it on him and they’re engaged! And, at this particular moment, Dutertre is congratulating them. That’s what’s up!’

  ‘Ah … Is that really true? You mean, he’s asked for her hand, to get married?’

  I couldn’t help laughing; she had let the word out so naturally, with a guilelessness that was quite unlike her! But I did not let her vegetate in her innocent surprise.

  ‘Run – run and fetch something – it doesn’t matter what – from the classroom and listen to what they say. If I go, they’ll be suspicious at once!’

  She dashed off. As she passed the group, she adroitly lost her wooden sabot (we all wore sabots in the winter) and kept her ears stretched as she put it on again, taking as long as possible. Then she vanished and reappeared, ostentatiously carrying her mittens which she slipped on her hands as she returned to me.

  ‘What did you overhear?’

  ‘Monsieur Dutertre was saying to Armand Duplessis: “I am not going to wish you good luck, Monsieur. That would be superfluous when you’re marrying such a girl as this.” And Mademoiselle Aimée Lanthenay lowered her eyes – like this. But, honestly, I’d never have believed it was all fixed up – as definite as all that!’

  I was astonished too, but for a different reason! Aimée was going to get married and this no longer produced any effect on Mademoiselle Sergent? There must certainly be something behind all this that I knew nothing about! Why should she have gone to such lengths to conquer Aimée, why make those tearful scenes, only to hand her over now, with no further regrets, to this Armand Duplessis whom she hardly knew? The devil take them both! Now, once again, I’d got to wear myself to a frazzle to discover what was at the bottom of all this. After all, it may well be that she’s only jealous of women.

  To clear my mind, I organized a big game of ‘he’ with my classmates and the ‘country bumpkins’ of the second division who were becoming sufficiently grown-up to be allowed to play with us. I drew two lines about three yards apart, stationed myself in the middle as ‘he’ and the game began, punctuated by shrill cries and by a certain number of falls for which I was responsible.

  The bell rang and we went in for the deadly boring needlework lesson. I too
k up my tapestry with disgust. After ten minutes, Mademoiselle Sergent left us, on the pretext of having to give out some material to the ‘little class’ which, homeless once again, was temporarily (of course!) installed in an empty room near us in the Infants’ School. I was quite ready to bet that, in point of fact, the Redhead was going to spend more time on her little Aimée than on handing out supplies.

  After I’d done about twenty stitches in my tapestry, I was seized with a sudden access of stupidity which prevented me from knowing whether I should change the shade to fill in an oak-leaf or whether I should keep the same wool with which I had just finished a willow leaf. So I went out, work in hand, to ask advice from the omniscient Headmistress. I crossed the corridor and went into the little classroom. The fifty small girls shut up in there were squealing, pulling each other’s hair, laughing, dancing about and drawing funny men on the blackboard. And not a sign of Mademoiselle Sergent, not a sign of Mademoiselle Lanthenay! This was becoming very queer! I went out again and pushed open the door of the staircase: no one on the stairs! Suppose I went up? Yes, but whatever could I say if I were found there? Pooh! I would say that I was coming to look for Mademoiselle Sergent because I’d heard her old peasant of a mother calling her.

  Ssh! I went upstairs in my gym shoes, very quietly, leaving my sabots below. Nothing at the top of the stairs. But the door of one room stood slightly ajar and, promptly, my one thought was to look through the opening. Mademoiselle Sergent, sitting in her big armchair, luckily had her back to me. She was holding her assistant on her lap, like a baby. Aimée was sighing softly and fervently kissing the Redhead who was clasping her tight. Well done! No one could say this Headmistress bullied her subordinates! I could not see their faces because the back of the chair was too high, but I didn’t need to see them. My heart pounded in my ears and, suddenly, I dashed down the staircase in my silent rubber shoes.

  Three seconds later, I was back in my place next to the lanky Anaïs who was busy reading the Supplément and looking at the picture with much delectation. So that she shouldn’t notice I was upset, I asked to look too, as if I were really interested! There was a seductive story by Catulle Mendès which I should have enjoyed, but my mind was not much on what I was reading; it was still far too full of what I had spied on up there! I had got more than I asked for and I certainly had not believed their caresses were as ardent as that …