by Colette
The main street – nearly ten feet wide – runs down so steeply that Renaud asked where they sold alpenstocks here. But Claudine danced on, her straw boater over one eye, dragging him along by his little finger. As the two strangers passed by, the doorways filled with familiar and rather malevolent faces; I could put a name to all of them, check up all their wrinkles and blemishes.
‘I’m living in a drawing by Huard,’ declared Renaud.
An angrily exaggerated Huard, he might even have said. I had not remembered that the slope of the whole village was so abrupt and steep, or the streets so flinty, or old Sandré’s hunting costume so aggressively warlike . . . Had the aged Lourd really been as smiling and drooling in his dotage when I saw him last? At the corner of the rue Bel-Air, I stopped and laughed out aloud:
‘Good Lord! Madame Armand is still wearing her curl-papers! She twists them up at night when she goes to bed, forgets to take them out in the morning and then it’s too late, it’s not worth the bother, so she keeps them in the following night. Next morning, the same thing happens and so it goes on. I’ve never seen her without them, writhing like worms on her greasy forehead! . . . For ten years, Renaud, just here, where these three streets meet, I used to admire a wonderful man called Hébert who was Mayor of Montigny, though he could hardly sign his name. He used to attend all the Council meetings, nodding his fine official head – he had a red face and almost white flaxen hair – and making speeches that have remained famous. For example: “To make a gutter in the rue des Fours-Baneaux? Tattistykestion, as the English say.” Between sessions he used to stand here at the crossroads, looking purple in winter and scarlet in summer, and observing – what? Nothing! It was his entire occupation. He died of it . . .’
My husband’s indulgent laugh was growing a trifle strained. Was he beginning to find me a bore? No; he was only feeling a jealous resentment at seeing me completely reabsorbed in the past.
And then, at the bottom of the hill, the street opened out into a roughly cobbled square. A stone’s-throw away, behind iron-grey railings, loomed the huge square block of the slate-roofed School, its whiteness hardly soiled by three winters and four summers.
‘Claudine, is that the barracks?’
‘No, of course not! It’s the School!’
‘Poor kids . . .’
‘Why “poor kids”? I assure you we were anything but bored there.’
‘You weren’t, you little she-devil. But the others! Are we going in? Is one allowed to visit the prisoners at any time?’
‘Wherever were you brought up, Renaud? Don’t you know that this is the holidays?’
‘No! You mean to say you dragged me here just to see this empty gaol? Was that the exciting prospect all the throbbing and panting was about, you fussy little steam-engine?’
‘You lumbering old push-cart!’ I said triumphantly. A year of foreign travel has been enough to enrich my native vocabulary with ‘typically Parisian’ insults.
‘Suppose I deprived you of pudding?’
‘Suppose I put you on a diet?’
Suddenly serious, I fell silent. As I put my hand on the latch of the heavy gate, I had felt it resist, just as in the old days . . .
By the pump in the courtyard, the little rusty mug – the same one – hung from its chain. Two years ago, the walls had been all white and chalky; now they were scratched, shoulder-high, as if by the nails of restive prisoners. But the thin grass of the summer holidays was pushing up between the bricks of the gutter.
Not a soul in sight.
With Renaud following meekly behind me, I climbed the little flight of six steps, opened a glass-topped door, and walked along the paved, echoing corridor that runs from the playground to the three downstairs classrooms. That gust of fetid coolness – hasty sweeping, ink, chalk-dust, blackboards washed with dirty sponges – stifled me with a very strange feeling. Surely at any moment, the importunate, loving little ghost of Luce, in her black apron, would slip round the corner of that wall, swift and light on her rope-soled shoes, and bury her face in my skirts?
I gave a start and felt my cheeks quiver; swift and silent on rope-soled shoes, a little ghost in a black apron was pushing open the playground door . . . But no, it was not Luce; a pretty little face that I had never seen before was staring at me with limpid eyes. Reassured, and feeling almost at home, I went forward:
‘Mmmzelle anywhere about?’
‘I don’t know, Mada . . . Mademoiselle. Upstairs, I expect.’
‘Right, thanks. But . . . aren’t you on holiday?’
‘I’m one of the boarders spending the summer holidays in Montigny.’
She was utterly charming, the boarder spending the summer holidays in Montigny! Her chestnut plait fell forward over her black apron as she drooped her head, hiding a fresh, sweet mouth and reddish-brown eyes that were lovely rather than lively – the eyes of a doe watching a motor-car go by.
A biting voice (oh, how well I recognized it) interrupted us from the staircase:
‘Pomme, whoever are you talking to?’
‘Somebody, Mmmzelle!’ cried the innocent little thing, running off up the stairs that led to the private rooms and dormitory.
I turned round to give Renaud a laughing look. He was interested, his nose was twitching.
‘Hear that, Claudine? Pomme! Someone’ll eat her up with a name like that. Lucky I’m only an old gentleman past the age! . . .’
‘Shut up, schoolgirl’s dream! Someone’s coming.’
A rapid whispering, a brisk step coming downstairs, and Mademoiselle Sergent appeared. Dressed in black, her red hair blazing in the setting sun, she was so like herself that I wanted to bite her and fling myself round her neck for the sake of all the Past she brought back to me in that direct, black gaze of hers.
She paused for a couple of seconds; that was enough, she had seen everything; seen that I was Claudine, that my hair was cut short, that my eyes were bigger and my face smaller, that Renaud was my husband and that he was still (I could read her thoughts!) a fine figure of a man.
‘Claudine! Oh! you haven’t changed a bit . . . Whyever didn’t you warn me you were coming? How d’you do, Monsieur? Fancy this child not telling me a word about your visit! Don’t you think she deserves two hundred lines as a punishment? Is she still as much of a young terror as ever? Are you quite sure she was fit to get married?’
‘No, Mademoiselle, not at all sure. Only I hadn’t enough time ahead of me and I wanted to avoid being married on my death-bed.’
Things were going well; they’d ‘clicked’; they’d get on with each other. Mademoiselle likes handsome males, even if she doesn’t make much use of them. I left them to enjoy each other’s company.
While they were chatting, I went off to ferret about in the Senior Classroom, hunting for my desk, the one Luce used to share with me. I ended by discovering under all the spilt ink, under the new and old scars, the remains of an inscription cut with a knife . . . uce et Claudi . . . 15th February 189 . . .
Did I put my lips to it? I will not admit it . . . Looking at it so close to, my mouth must have brushed that scarred wood. But, if I wanted to be absolutely truthful, I should say, now that I realize it, that I was very harsh in my repudiation of poor Luce’s slavish affection. And I should say that it took me two years, a husband, and the return to that school to understand the true worth of her humility, her freshness, and her gentle, frankly-offered perversity.
The voice of Mademoiselle Sergent roughly banished my dream.
‘Claudine! I presume you’ve taken leave of your senses? Your husband informs me that your suitcases are over at Lange’s!’
‘Well, where else should they be? I couldn’t leave my nightdress in the station cloakroom!’
‘That’s simply absurd! I’ve heaps of empty beds upstairs, not to mention Mademoiselle Lanthenay’s room . . .’
‘What! Isn’t Mademoiselle Aimée here?’ I exclaimed, sounding far too surprised.
‘Now, now, where’s y
our head?’
She came close to me and ran her hand over my hair with thinly veiled irony.
‘During the summer holidays, Madame Claudine, the assistant mistresses return to their own homes.’
Bother! And I’d been counting on the spectacle of the Sergent-Lanthenay ménage to edify and delight Renaud! I had imagined that even the holidays could not separate this exceptionally united couple. Ah, well, that little bitch of an Aimée wouldn’t trail around long with her family! I understood now why Mademoiselle had welcomed us with such surprising affability; it was because Renaud and I were not disturbing any intimate scene . . . what a pity!
‘Thank you for your offer, Mmmzelle; I’d be delighted to recover a little of my lost youth by spending the night at school. Who on earth is the little green apple – I mean that child Pomme – we met just now?’
‘A noodle who’s failed her oral in the elementary exams, after having asked for an exemption. An absurd business. The little fool’s fifteen. She’s spending her holidays here as a punishment, but otherwise she doesn’t seem in the least upset. I’ve got two others like her upstairs, two girls from Paris rusticating here till October . . . You’ll see them all later . . . but come along first and get settled in . . .’
She slipped me a sidelong look and asked in her most natural voice:
‘Would you like to sleep in Mademoiselle Aimée’s room?’
‘I should love to sleep in Mademoiselle Aimée’s room!’
Renaud followed us, alert now and enjoying himself. The crude chalk and charcoal drawings fixed to the passage wall with drawing-pins made his nostrils quiver with amusement and his moustache twitch ironically.
The favourite bedroom! . . . It had been embellished since my time. That white bed for one and a half people, those liberty draperies at the window, those mantelpiece ornaments (ugh!) in copper and alabaster, the shining order everywhere, and the faint perfume that hovered in the folds of the curtains absorbed me so much I could think of nothing else.
When the door had closed behind Mademoiselle, Renaud turned to me.
‘Why, my darling child,’ he said, ‘these staff bedrooms are very pleasant indeed! They quite reconcile me to your secular school.’
I burst out laughing.
‘Oh, my goodness me! You don’t really imagine this is the official furniture? Come on, use your memory! I’ve told you at great length about Aimée and the part that flaunting favourite plays here. The other assistant mistress has to put up with a three-foot iron bedstead, a deal table, and a basin I couldn’t drown one of Fanchette’s kittens in.’
‘Oh! Then you actually mean it’s here, in this very room that . . .’
‘Yes, of course it’s here in this very room that . . .’
‘Claudine, you can’t imagine what a sensational effect this has on me, all that it conjures up . . .’
Oh yes I could; I could imagine it only too well. But I remained resolutely blind and deaf and I studied the scandalous bed with distaste. It might be wide enough for them but not for us. I was going to suffer. Renaud would be unbearably close. I should be hot and I shouldn’t be able to spread my legs. And there was that worn hollow in the middle, ugh!
It took the open window and the beloved landscape it framed to restore my good temper. The woods; the narrow, poor-soiled fields, all stubble after the harvest; the Pottery glowing red in the dusk . . .
‘Oh, Renaud, look – see that tiled roof over there! They make little glazed brown pots there and two-handled pitchers with indecent little tubular navels . . .’
‘Sort of peasant-ware pisspots? I know. Rather charming.’
‘Ages ago, when I was quite a little girl, I used to go and see some of the potters and they’d give me little brown pots and cider-mugs. And they used to tell me proudly, waving their hands all covered with wet clay, like gloves: “It’s us as does all the pottery for the Adret’s Inn in Paris.”’
‘Really, my little curly shepherd-boy? Being an old man, I remember the place. I’ve drunk once or twice from those cider-mugs without realizing that your slim fingers might have brushed against them. I love you . . .’
A tumult of fresh voices and small, trampling feet drove us apart. The steps in the passage slowed down outside the door; the voices lowered to whisperings; there came two timid knocks.
‘Come in!’
Pomme appeared, flushed and overwhelmed with her own importance.
‘It’s us, with your bags. Old Racalin’s just brought these over from Lange’s.’
Behind her was a cluster of black aprons; a red-haired child of about ten with a quaint, amusing little face, and a brunette of fourteen or fifteen with an ivory skin and black, luminous, liquid eyes. Frightened by my stare, she shrank aside, disclosing another brunette of the same age, with the same eyes and the same ivory skin . . . How amusing! I caught hold of her sleeve:
‘How many copies of this model are there?’
‘Only two. She’s my sister.’
‘I had a sort of vague suspicion she might be . . . You don’t come from these parts, I realize that.’
‘Oh no! . . . we live in Paris.
The tone, the little half-suppressed smile of disdainful superiority on the curved mouth – honestly, she was delicious enough to eat!
Pomme was dragging the heavy suitcase. Renaud relieved her of it with zealous eagerness.
‘Pomme, how old are you?’
‘Fifteen and two months, Monsieur.’
‘You’re not married, Pomme?’
They all burst out laughing like clucking hens! Pomme split her sides artlessly; the dark-haired, white-skinned sisters managed their mirth more elegantly. And the little thing of ten, buried in her carroty hair, was definitely going to make herself ill with laughing. Splendid! Here was my school, just as I’d always known it!
‘Pomme,’ went on Renaud, without moving a muscle, ‘I’m sure you like sweets!’
Pomme gazed at him with her reddish-brown eyes as if she were yielding up her soul to him.
‘Oh yes, Monsieur!’
‘Good, I’ll go and get some. Don’t bother, darling. I’ll find them perfectly well on my own.’
I remained with the little girls, who scanned the passage nervously, terrified of getting caught in the lady’s bedroom. I wanted them to feel relaxed and at home.
‘What are your names, you little black-and-white ones?’
‘Hélène Jousserand, Madame.’
‘Isabelle Jousserand, Madame.’
‘Don’t call me Madame, silly infants. I’m Claudine. You don’t know who Claudine is, do you?’
‘Oh, yes we do!’ cried Hélène (the younger and prettier). ‘Mademoiselle always tells us, when we’ve done something naughty . . .’
Her sister nudged her; she stopped.
‘Go on, go on. You intrigue me! Don’t listen to your sister.’
‘All right, then; she says: “My word, it’s enough to make me wash my hands of the whole place! Anyone would think we were back in the days of Claudine!” Or else: “That, young ladies, is worthy of Claudine!”’
I broke into an exultant ‘goat dance’.
‘What luck! I’m the scarecrow, I’m the monster, the legendary terror! . . . Am I as ugly as you expected me to be?’
‘Oh no,’ said little Hélène, tenderly and shyly, quickly veiling her soft eyes behind a double fence of lashes.
The caressing spirit of Luce haunted this house. It was possible, too, there were other examples . . . I’d make them talk, these two little girls. We must get the other one out of the way.
‘I say, you, go and look outside in the passage and see if I’m there.’
The red-head, devoured with curiosity, looked sullen and refused to budge.
‘Nana, will you do as the lady tells you!’ cried Hélène Jousserand, quite pink with fury. ‘Listen, old thing, if you stay in here, I’ll tell Mademoiselle that you take letters from the girl who shares your desk over to the boys’ playground. All for fi
lthy bribes in the shape of chocolates!’
The little girl had already vanished. With my arms round the shoulders of the two sisters, I looked at them from close to. Hélène was the more charming, Isabelle the more serious; she had a barely visible down of moustache that would be troublesome later on.
‘Hélène, Isabelle, is it a long time since Mademoiselle Aimée went away?’
‘It’s . . . twelve days,’ replied Hélène.
‘Thirteen,’ corrected Isabelle.
‘Tell me, just between us, does she still get on well, very well, with Mademoiselle?’
Isabelle blushed, Hélène smiled.
‘Right. I don’t need to ask any more. That’s how things were in my time; this . . . friendship . . . has lasted three years, my children!’
‘Oh!’ they exclaimed simultaneously.
‘Exactly, it’s about two years since I left the School, and I saw them together for a whole year . . . a year I’m not likely to forget . . . And, do tell me, is she still pretty, that loathsome little Lanthenay?’
‘Yes,’ said Isabelle.
‘Not as pretty as you,’ murmured Hélène, who was beginning to eat out of my hand.
By way of caress, I dug my nails into the nape of her neck, as I used to do to Luce. She did not blink. The atmosphere of this School where I could still assert my power intoxicated me.
Pomme, her arms dangling and her mouth half-open, listened affably, but without real interest. Her mind was elsewhere. Every other second, she leant forward to look through the window and see whether the sweets were coming.
I wanted to know more.
‘Hélène, Isabelle, tell me a little of the School news. Who are the seniors in the First Division now?’
‘There’s . . . Liline, and Mathilde.’
‘No! Already? Yes, of course, it’s two years . . . Is Liline still good-looking? I used to call her the Gioconda. Her green and grey eyes, that silent mouth with the tight corners . . .’
‘Oh!’ broke in Hélène, pouting her moist pink lips. ‘She’s not as beautiful as all that – anyway, not this year.’
‘Don’t you believe her,’ Isabelle-the-Downy snapped very quickly. ‘She’s the best-looking of them all.’