Claudine at School

by Colette

  She could not call my bluff but her eyes remained incredulous.

  Re-enter Mademoiselle Sergent who took one look at what we had written.

  ‘Claudine!’ she expostulated. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of dictating such absurdities to them? You’d do better to learn some arithmetic theorems by heart, that would be more useful to everyone!’

  But there was no conviction behind her scolding, for in her secret heart, she’s rather amused by these hoaxes. All the same, I listened without a smile and my resentment returned at feeling her so near me, this woman who had forced the affections of that unreliable little Aimée … Heavens! It was half past three and in half an hour she would be coming to my home for the last time.

  Mademoiselle Sergent rose from her seat and said:

  ‘Shut your exercise-books. The big ones who are taking their Certificate, stay behind, I have something to say to you.’

  The others went off, deliberately dawdling over putting on their hoods and shawls. They were annoyed at not being able to stay and listen to the announcement, obviously bristling with interest, that was about to be made to us. The red-haired Headmistress addressed us and, in spite of myself, I had to admire, as always, her clear-cut voice and the decision and precision of her phrases.

  ‘Girls, I imagine you have no illusions about your apparent inability to grasp even the rudiments of music. I make an exception of Claudine, who plays the piano and reads fluently at sight. I might well let her give you lessons, but you are too lacking in discipline to obey one of your classmates. As from tomorrow, you will come on Sundays and Thursdays at nine o’clock to practise tonic sol-fa and sight-reading under the direction of Monsieur Rabastens, the assistant-headmaster, as neither Mademoiselle Lanthenay nor myself is in a position to give you lessons. Monsieur Rabastens will be assisted by Mademoiselle Claudine. Try not to behave too disgracefully. And be here at nine o’clock tomorrow.’

  I added a muttered: ‘Dis-miss!’ that was caught by her redoubtable ear. She frowned, only to smile afterwards, in spite of herself. Her little speech had been delivered in such a peremptory tone that it practically called for a military salute – and she had realized it. But, to tell the truth, it looked as if I could no longer annoy her. This was discouraging. She must be very sure indeed of her triumph to display such magnanimity!

  She went away and everyone began excitedly talking at once. Marie Belhomme simply could not get over it.

  ‘Really, I say, making us have lessons with a young man! It’s a bit thick! Still, it’ll be amusing all the same. Don’t you think so, Claudine?’

  ‘Yes. One’s got to have some slight distraction.’

  ‘Won’t you be simply terrified, giving us singing-lessons with one of the masters?’

  ‘It doesn’t mean a thing to me. I don’t care twopence either way.’

  I didn’t listen much. I was waiting, with inward trepidation, wondering why Mademoiselle Aimée Lanthenay did not come at once. Anaïs was in raptures. Her face wore a sneering grin; she was clutching her ribs, as if she were convulsed with laughter, and jostling Marie Belhomme who groaned without knowing how to defend herself. ‘Ha, ha!’ mocked Anaïs, ‘you’ll make a conquest of the handsome Antonin Rabastens. He won’t be able to resist them long – those long, slim hands of yours, those midwife’s hands! And your dainty waist and your eloquent eyes! Aha! my dear – this romantic story’s going to end in a marriage!’ She grew wildly excited and began to dance about in front of Marie whom she had harassed into a corner and who was hiding her unlucky hands and protesting at the unseemly remarks.

  Still Aimée did come! My nerves were so much on edge that I could not keep still and went and prowled as far as the door of the staircase leading to the ‘temporary’ (still!) rooms of the mistress. Ah! I had been right to come and look! Up there on the landing, Mademoiselle Lanthenay was all ready to set off. Mademoiselle Sergent was holding her by the waist and talking to her very low, with an air of tender insistence. Then she gave Aimée, whose veil was pulled down, a long kiss. Aimée let herself be kissed and yielded graciously; she even stopped and turned back as she went down the stairs. I escaped without their having noticed me but, once again, I felt very unhappy. Wicked, wicked little thing to have broken away from me so quickly to bestow her caresses and her golden eyes on the woman who had been our common enemy! … I no longer knew what to think . . She joined me in the classroom where I had remained rooted to the spot in a brown study.

  ‘Are you coming, Claudine?’

  ‘Yes, Mademoiselle. I’m ready.’

  Out in the street, I no longer dared to question her – what would she reply? I preferred to wait till we got home and merely to make conventional conversation on the way. I observed that it was cold, foretold that we should have more snow and that the singing-lessons on Sundays and Thursdays would probably be amusing … But I spoke without conviction, and she too realized that all this chatter meant nothing at all.

  When we were settled under the lamp in the library, I opened my exercise-books and I looked at her. She was prettier than she had been the other evening; a little paler, and there were shadows round her eyes that made them look larger.

  ‘Are you tired? You look as if you were.’

  She was embarrassed by all my questions. Whyever should she be? She turned quite pink again and looked everywhere but at me. I was certain she felt vaguely guilty about me. I went on remorselessly:

  ‘Tell me, is she still being so frightfully friendly towards you, the loathsome Redhead? Have the rages and the kisses of the other night started up again?’

  ‘No, of course not … She’s being very kind to me … I assure you she takes tremendous care of me …’

  ‘She hasn’t “mesmerized” you again?’

  ‘Oh no, there’s no question of that … I think I exaggerated a little the other evening because my nerves were rather on edge.’

  As she said it, her face became very confused. I didn’t care – I wanted to know the truth. I went up close to her and took her hands – her tiny little hands.

  ‘Oh darling, do tell me what else! Don’t you want to say anything more to your poor Claudine who was so wretched the day before yesterday?’

  But anyone would have said that she had managed to restrain herself and had suddenly decided to say nothing. By degrees she assumed a calm little expression, artificially natural, and looked at me with those clear, untruthful cat’s eyes of hers.

  ‘No. Look, Claudine, I assure you that she leaves me completely in peace and that she’s even gone out of her way to be very kind. You and I made her out to be much nastier than she is, you know …’

  What was that cold voice and those eyes that were shuttered in spite of being open to their widest extent? It was her classroom voice and that I couldn’t stand. I thrust back my desire to cry, so as not to make a fool of myself. So it was all over between us then? And if I tormented her with questions, shouldn’t we part at loggerheads? … I took up my English Grammar; there was nothing else to do. She opened my exercise-book with marked alacrity.

  That was the first – and the only – time I took a serious lesson with her. With a heart swelling and ready to burst, I translated whole pages of:

  ‘You have some pens but he had not a horse.’

  ‘We should have your cousin’s apples if he had plenty of pen-knives.’

  ‘Have you any ink in your ink-pot? No, but I have a table in my bedroom, etc., etc.’

  Towards the end of the lesson, that extraordinary Aimée asked me point-blank:

  ‘My little Claudine, you aren’t angry with me?’

  I was not altogether lying when I answered:

  ‘No. I’m not angry with you.’

  It was almost true. I did not feel angry, only unhappy and exhausted. I escorted her to the door and I kissed her, but she turned her head so much away as she held out her cheek that my lips almost touched her ear. The heartless little thing! I watched her go off under the lamp-post with a vague desire t
o run after her. But what would have been the good?

  I slept pretty badly and my eyes proved it. There were shadows under them that reached to the middle of my cheeks. Luckily, that rather becomes me. I noticed this in the looking-glass as I was fiercely brushing my hair (quite golden this morning) before setting off for the singing-lesson.

  I arrived half an hour too early and I couldn’t help laughing when I found two out of my four classmates already installed in the school! We inspected each other closely and Anaïs gave an approving whistle at my blue dress and my charming apron. She had trotted out for the occasion the apron she wears on Thursdays and Sundays. It’s red, embroidered in white and makes her look paler than ever. Her hair was done in a ‘helmet’ with the puff in front pushed well forward, almost overhanging her forehead, and she’d squeezed herself till she could hardly breathe into a new belt. Charitably, she observed out loud that I looked ill but I replied that it suited me to look tired. Marie Belhomme came running in, harum-scarum and scatter-brained as usual. She too had adorned herself, in spite of being in mourning. Her big frilly collar of ruched crêpe made her look like a bewildered black Pierrot. With her long, velvety eyes and her lost, innocent expression, she was quite charming. The two Jauberts arrived together, as always, ready to behave irreproachably and never to raise their eyes and to speak ill of all the rest of us after the lesson. We warmed ourselves, clustered round the stove, as we teased the handsome Antonin in advance. Attention! Here he was … A noise of voices and laughter sounded nearer and nearer, then Mademoiselle Sergent opened the door, followed by the irresistible assistant-master.

  Rabastens was a splendid sight! He wore a fur cap and a dark blue suit under his overcoat. He removed his cap and coat on entering, after a ‘Young ladies!’ accompanied by a low bow. He had decorated his green jacket with a rust-red chrysanthemum in the best of taste, and his grey-green tie, patterned with interlacing white circles, was highly impressive. He had obviously knotted it with studious care in front of the mirror. In a flash, we were all demurely lined up, our hands surreptitiously pulling down our blouses to smooth out the faintest trace of unalluring creases. Marie Belhomme was already enjoying herself so whole-heartedly that she gave a loud giggle and then stopped, frightened at her own audacity. Mademoiselle Sergent knitted her terrible eyebrows and was obviously annoyed. She had given me a look as she came in. I thought: ‘I bet her little friend already tells her every single thing!’ I kept obstinately assuring myself that Aimée was not worth so much misery but I was not in the least convinced by my own arguments.

  ‘Young ladies,’ said Rabastens in his guttural voice. ‘Would one of you be good enough to lend me her book?’

  The lanky Anaïs hurriedly offered her a copy of Marmontel’s piano pieces so as to get herself noticed and was rewarded with an exaggeratedly affable ‘Thank you’. That hulking fellow must practise his manners in front of that long mirror of his wardrobe. It is true that he doesn’t possess a wardrobe with a long mirror.

  ‘Mademoiselle Claudine,’ he said to me with a fascinating ogle (fascinating for him, I mean), ‘I am charmed and extremely honoured to become your colleague. For you give singing-lessons to these young ladies, do you not?’

  ‘Yes, but they are not in the least obedient to one of their own classmates,’ Mademoiselle Sergent cut in sharply. She was becoming impatient with all this chit-chat. ‘With your assistance, Monsieur, she will obtain better results. Otherwise they will fail in their Certificate, for they do not seem to have grasped even the rudiments of music.’

  Well done! That would teach the gentleman to spin out meaningless phrases! My companions listened with unconcealed astonishment; no one had ever displayed such gallantry towards them before. What reduced them to stupefaction were the compliments lavished on me by the fulsome Antonin.

  Mademoiselle Sergent took the ‘Marmontel’ and indicated the gulf his new pupils refused to cross, some from inattentiveness, some from sheer inability to understand. The one exception was Anaïs, whose memory allowed her to learn all the sol-fa exercises by heart without having to beat time and without distorting them. How true it was that they ‘had not grasped even the rudiments of music’, those little duffers! And, as they made it a kind of point of honour not to obey me, they were certainly going to be marked ‘zero’ in the forthcoming exam. This prospect enraged Mademoiselle Sergent, who could not sing in tune and so could not act as a singing-teacher, any more than could Mademoiselle Lanthenay, who had never properly recovered from a long-ago attack of laryngitis.

  ‘Make them sing one by one to begin with,’ I said to the southerner (he was beaming and preening himself like a peacock at being in our midst). ‘They all make mistakes in time, every single one of them, but not the same mistakes. And, up to now, I haven’t been able to stop them.’

  ‘Let’s see, Mademoiselle …?’

  ‘Marie Belhomme.’

  ‘Mademoiselle Marie Belhomme, would you do this exercise for me in tonic sol-fa?’

  It was a little polka in G, totally innocent of any nasty traps, but poor Marie, who couldn’t be less musical, has never been able to sol-fa it correctly. Under this direct attack, she was seized with tremors; her face turned crimson and her eyes swam.

  ‘I’ll bet one silent bar, then you’ll begin on the first beat: Ray, te, te, lah, soh, fah, fah … Not awfully difficult, is it?’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ answered Marie who had quite lost her head from shyness.

  ‘Good. I’ll begin … One, two, one …’

  ‘Ray, te, te, lah, soh, fah, fah,’ twittered Marie in a voice like a hen with a sore throat.

  She had not missed the opportunity of beginning on the second beat! I stopped her.

  ‘No, do listen! One, two, Ray, te, te … have you got it? Monsieur Rabastens is beating one empty bar. Start again.’

  ‘One, two, one …’

  ‘Ray, te, te …’ she began again fervently, making the same mistake! To think that, for three whole months, she’s been singing that polka out of time! Rabastens intervened, patient and discreet.

  ‘Allow me, Mademoiselle Belhomme. Would you please beat time along with me?’

  He took her wrist and guided her hand.

  ‘You’ll understand better this way: one, two, one … But, come on! Sing!’

  She did not begin at all, this time. Scarlet as a result of this unexpected gesture, she had completely lost countenance. I was immensely amused. But the handsome baritone, highly flattered at the poor little thing’s distress (she was as fluttered as a linnet), made a point of insisting. That gawk Anaïs had her cheeks puffed out with suppressed laughter.

  ‘Mademoiselle Anaïs, may I ask you to sing this exercise, to show Mademoiselle how it should be done?’

  That one needed no pressing! She cooed her little piece ‘with expression’, lingering on the high notes and being none too correct in her time. Still, she knew it by heart and her rather absurd way of singing a sol-fa exercise as if it were a sentimental song pleased the southerner who congratulated her. She tried to blush, couldn’t manage to, and was obliged to confine herself to lowering her eyes, biting her lips and drooping her head.

  I said to Rabstens:

  ‘Sir, would you make us go through some of the two-part exercises? I’ve done everything I could but they still don’t even begin to know them.’

  I was in a serious mood that morning: firstly, because I didn’t feel much like laughing; secondly, because, if I played the fool too much during this first lesson, Mademoiselle Sergent would stop the others. Moreover, I was thinking of Aimée. Wasn’t she going to come downstairs this morning? Only a week ago, she’d never have dared lie in bed so late!

  With my mind on all this, I gave out the parts; the firsts to Anaïs, reinforced by Marie Belhomme; the seconds to the two new boarders. As for myself, I would come to the rescue of whichever turned out to be the weaker. Rabastens supported the seconds.

  Then we executed the little duet, I standing by the handsome An
tonin who trolled out ‘Ah! Ahs!’ full of expression in his baritone as he leant over in my direction. We must have made an extraordinarily funny group. That incorrigible southerner was so preoccupied in displaying his charms that he made mistake after mistake, without anyone noticing it, of course. The stylish chrysanthemum he wore in his buttonhole fell out and dropped on the floor. When he had sung his piece, he picked it up and threw it on the table, saying, as if he were appealing for personal compliments: ‘Well, I think that didn’t go too badly, do you?’

  Mademoiselle Sergent dampened his enthusiasm by replying:

  ‘Yes, but let them sing by themselves without you or Claudine. Then you’ll see.’

  (I could have sworn, from his discomfited looks, that he had forgotten what he was here for. He’s going to be a first-class teacher, that Rabastens! So much the better! When the Headmistress doesn’t come to the lessons, we’ll be able to do exactly what we like with him.)

  ‘Yes, I’m sure, Mademoiselle. But if these young ladies will take a little trouble, I’m sure they’ll soon come to know enough to satisfy the examiners. The standard in music is very low indeed, as you must be the first to realize.’

  Well, well, so he was getting his own back now, was he? He couldn’t have found a better way of bringing home to the Redhead that she was incapable of singing a scale. She understood the spite behind the remark and averted her sombre eyes. Antonin went up a little in my esteem, but he had antagonized Mademoiselle Sergent who said sharply:

  ‘I wonder if you would be good enough to make these children practise some more? I should rather like them to sing one by one so as to acquire a little self-possession and confidence.’

  It was the turn of the twins who possessed non-existent, uncertain voices without much sense of rhythm, but those two plodders always get by, they work with such exemplary diligence! I can’t stand those Jauberts, so virtuous and so modest. And I could just see them working at home, going over each exercise fifty times, before coming to the Thursday lessons, the irreproachable sneaks.