Claudine at School

by Colette

  Anaïs showed me a drawing by Gil Baëer of a slim young man, without a moustache, who looked like a woman in disguise. Carried away by reading the Carnet de Lyonette and some amorous pieces by Armand Sylvestre, she said, with troubled eyes: ‘I’ve got a cousin who looks like that. His name’s Raoul. He’s at college and I go and see him in the holidays every summer.’ This revelation explained her relatively virtuous behaviour recently; she hardly ever wrote to boys nowadays. The sisters Jaubert were putting up a great show of being scandalized on account of this naughty magazine while Marie Belhomme overturned her ink-pot to come and have a look. When she had looked at the pictures and read a little, she fled, flinging up her long hands and crying: ‘It’s disgusting! I don’t want to read the rest before recreation!’ She had hardly sat down again and begun to mop up her spilt ink than Mademoiselle Sergent returned, grave but with rapt, sparkling eyes. I stared at that Redhead as if I were not sure she was the same person I had seen kissing upstairs.

  ‘Marie, you will write me a composition on the subject of clumsiness and bring it to me at five o’clock this afternoon. Girls, tomorrow a new assistant-mistress, Mademoiselle Griset, will be arriving. You won’t have anything to do with her; she will only be taking the lower class.’

  I was on the point of asking: ‘And Mademoiselle Aimée – is she leaving then?’ But the answer came of its own accord.

  ‘Mademoiselle Lanthenay is wasting her intelligence in the second class. Henceforward, she will give you history lessons, also drawing and needlework, in here, under my supervision.’

  I looked at her and smiled, nodding my head as if to congratulate her on this decidedly satisfactory arrangement. This roused her temper at once and she said, frowning: ‘Claudine, how much have you done to your tapestry? All that? You certainly haven’t exhausted yourself!’

  I put on my most idiotic expression as I replied:

  ‘But, Mademoiselle, I went to the second class just now to ask if I was to use Number 2 green for the oak-leaf and there wasn’t anyone there. I called up the staircase to you but there wasn’t anyone there either.’

  I spoke slowly and loudly, so that all the noses bent over the knitting and the sewing were raised inquisitively. Everyone was listening avidly; the bigger girls were wondering what the Headmistress could be doing so far away, abandoning the pupils to their own devices. Mademoiselle Sergent turned a darker crimson still and answered hastily: ‘I had gone to see where it would be possible to put the new assistant. The school building is nearly finished – they’re drying it out with big fires – and no doubt we shall soon be able to move into it.’

  I made a gesture of protest and apology which meant:

  ‘Oh! It’s not for me to know where you were … you could only be where your duty called you.’ But I felt a savage satisfaction at the thought that I could have replied: ‘No, zealous teacher, you couldn’t care less about the new assistant. It’s the other one, Mademoiselle Lanthenay, who takes up all your thoughts, and you were up in your room with her, kissing her full on the mouth.’

  While I was hatching rebellious thoughts, the Redhead regained her self-control. Exceedingly calm now, she addressed the class in a precise voice …

  ‘Take your exercise-books. The ones marked: French Composition. Explain and comment on the following thought: “Time does not respect what has been done without him.” You have one hour and a half.’

  Oh, anguish and despair! What ineptitudes have got to be trotted out again now? I don’t care a button whether time respects what is done without inviting him or not! Always subjects like that, or worse! Yes, worse – because it’s almost New Year’s Eve and we shan’t escape the usual little set-piece about New Year gifts: venerable custom of giving and receiving (mem: i before e except after c) same; joy of children, tender emotion of parents; sweets, toys, etc.; – not forgetting the touching note on the little poor children who don’t get any presents and whom we must help on this day so that they have their share of joy! Horror, horror!

  While I inwardly raged, the others were already scribbling their ‘roughs’. That gawk Anaïs was waiting for me to begin so that she could model her opening on mine and Marie Belhomme had already filled a page with ineptitudes – sentences that contradicted one another and reflections quite beside the point. After yawning for quarter of an hour, I made up my mind and wrote straight into my ‘Fair-Copy’ book without doing a rough, much to the indignation of the others.

  At four o’clock, as we came out of school, I realized, without regret, that it was my turn to sweep up with Anaïs. Naturally this chore revolts me but today I didn’t care. Actually, I would rather do it than not. As I was going off to fetch the watering-can, I ran at last into Mademoiselle Aimée. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mademoiselle. When’s the wedding?’

  ‘What! But … these children always know everything! But it’s not decided yet … at least, the date isn’t. It’ll be in the long vacation, probably … Tell me, you don’t think he’s ugly, Monsieur Duplessis?’

  ‘Ugly – Richelieu ugly? No, of course not. He’s much better than the other one, ever so much better! Do you love him?’

  ‘But, naturally I do, since I’m taking him for my husband!’

  ‘As if that were a reason! Don’t give me silly answers like that – do you think you’re talking to Marie Belhomme? You don’t love him in the least – you think he’s nice and you want to get married to see what it’s like. And out of vanity, too, to annoy your friends at the Training College who’ll stay old maids. That’s all there is to it! Don’t play too many tricks on him, that’s the best I can wish him, because he certainly deserves to be loved better than you’ll ever love him.’

  It came out slap! And I promptly turned on my heels and ran off to fetch water to sprinkle the floor. She stayed there rooted to the spot, abashed. At last she went off to supervise the sweeping of the junior classroom or to tell her dear Mademoiselle Sergent what I had just said. Let her go! I didn’t want to bother any more about those two crazy women, one of whom wasn’t crazy at all. I was so excited that I sprinkled recklessly; I even sprinkled Anaïs’s feet and the geography maps, then I swept till my arms ached. It was a relief to tire myself out like that.

  Singing-lesson. Enter Antonin Rabastens wearing a sky-blue tie. ‘Hail, fair sun!’ as the Provençal girls used to say to Roumestan. Goodness, Mademoiselle Aimée Lanthenay was there too, followed by a little creature even smaller than herself, who moved with unusual suppleness and seemed to be about thirteen. She had a rather flat face, green eyes, a fresh complexion and silky, dark hair. This little girl suddenly stopped in the doorway, overcome with shyness. Mademoiselle Aimée turned towards her, laughing: ‘Now then, come along, don’t be frightened: Luce, do you hear?’

  So it was her sister! I had completely forgotten this detail. She had talked to me about this sister, who would probably be coming to school, in the days when we were friends … It struck me as so funny, her bringing along this little sister, that I pinched Anaïs, who clucked, and I tickled Marie Belhomme, who miaowed, and I executed a silent two-step behind Mademoiselle Sergent’s back. Rabastens found these pranks charming and little sister Luce stared at me with her slit-like eyes. Mademoiselle Aimée began to laugh (she laughs at everything these days, she’s so happy!) and said to me:

  ‘Now please Claudine, don’t frighten her out of her wits as a start. She’s shy enough by nature as it is.’

  ‘Mademoiselle, I will protect her like my own personal virtue. How old is she?’

  ‘She was fifteen last month.’

  ‘Fifteen? Well, after that, I’ll never trust anyone again! I thought she was a good thirteen.’

  The little thing, who had turned quite red, looked down at her feet – they were pretty, too. She nestled against her sister and clutched her arm for reassurance. Aha! I’d give her courage!

  ‘Come along, little girl, come over here to me. Don’t be afraid. This gentlem
an, who displays such intoxicating ties in our honour, is our good singing-master. You’ll only see him on Thursdays and Sundays, unfortunately. Those big girls there are some of your classmates – you’ll soon get to know them. As for me, I’m the model pupil, the rarest of all birds. I never get scolded (’strue, isn’t it, Mademoiselle?) and I’m always good, like I am today. I’ll be a second mother to you!’

  Mademoiselle Sergent was amused though she tried not to show it; Rabastens was admiring, and the eyes of the new girl expressed doubts of my sanity. But I let her alone; I’d had all the fun I wanted with that Luce. She stayed close to her sister who called her ‘little silly’ and I had lost interest in her. I asked right out, making no bones about it:

  ‘Where are you going to put this child to sleep, as nothing’s finished yet?’

  ‘With me,’ replied Aimée.

  I pinched my lips, I looked the Headmistress straight in the face and I said, very distinctly:

  ‘Frightful bore for you, that!’

  Rabastens laughed behind his hand (did he know something?) and emitted the opinion that perhaps we might begin to sing. Yes, we might; and we actually did sing. The little new girl dissociated herself completely and remained obstinately mute.

  ‘You don’t know this music well, Mademoiselle Lanthenay Junior?’ inquired the exquisite Antonin, smiling like a commercial traveller.

  ‘I know it a little, Sir,’ answered little Luce in a faint, lilting voice that must have been pleasant to hear when it was not strangled with terror.

  ‘Very well, then?’

  Very well, then, nothing. Why couldn’t he leave the child in peace, that dandy of the Canebière?

  At that very moment, Rabastens whispered to me: ‘Anyway, if these young ladies are tired, I think the singing-lessons are a waste of time!’

  I glanced all round me, startled at his audacity in speaking to me under his breath. But he was right; my companions were occupied with the new girl, coaxing her and speaking gently to her and she was answering happily, quite reassured by finding herself kindly received. As to that cat Lanthenay and her beloved tyrant, huddled together in the embrasure of the window that looked on to the garden, they had completely forgotten us. Mademoiselle Sergent had put her arm round Aimée’s waist; they were talking very low – or not talking at all, which came to the same thing. Antonin, whose gaze had followed mine, could not stop himself from laughing.

  ‘They get on tremendously well together!’

  ‘They certainly do. It’s touching, this friendship, isn’t it, Sir?’

  The big simpleton did not know how to hide his feelings and blurted out, very low:

  ‘Touching? I’d call it embarrassing for the others! Sunday night, I went to take back the music books and those ladies were here in the classroom, with no light on. I came in – after all it’s a public place, this classroom – and, in the dusk, I caught sight of Mademoiselle Sergent and Mademoiselle Aimée, close together kissing like hot cakes. Do you imagine they moved aparrt? Not a bit of it! Mademoiselle Sergent just turned round and lannguidly asked: “Who’s there?” Well, I’m hardly what you’d call shy, but all the same, I just stood there, looking at them like a dumb ox.’

  (Let him talk as much as he liked, our candid assistant-master; I had nothing to learn from him! But I was forgetting the most important thing.)

  ‘What about your colleague, Sir? I imagine he’s awfully happy now he’s engaged to Mademoiselle Lanthenay?’

  ‘Yes, poorr boy. But, to my mind, it’s nothing to be so happy about.’

  ‘Oh? Why ever not?’

  ‘Hmm. The Headmistress does anything she likes with Mademoiselle Aimée – not very pleasant for a future husband. I’d be annoyed if my wife were dominated like that by someone other than myself.’

  I privately agreed with him. But the others had finished interviewing the newcomer and it was prudent for us to stop talking. Back to singing then, but no … it was no good. Who should dare to enter at that moment but Armand, disturbing the tender whispering of the two women? He stood enraptured beside Aimée who flirted with him, fluttering her eyelids with their curling lashes, while Mademoiselle Sergent watched them with the tender eyes of a mother-in-law who has married off her daughter. My classmates resumed their conversations and carried them on till the clock struck the hour. Rabastens was right. What queerr, sorry, what queer singing-lessons!

  This morning, on coming to school, I saw a pale young girl standing in the entrance. She had dull hair, grey eyes and a skin with no bloom on it, and she was hugging a woollen shawl over her shoulders with the heart-rending air of a thin, cold, frightened cat. Anaïs pointed her out to me with a thrust of her chin, making a grimace of displeasure. I shook my head pityingly and said to her, very low: ‘There’s someone who’s going to be unhappy here, you can see that at a glance. The two others get on too well together not to make her life a misery.’

  Little by little, the other pupils arrived. Before going inside, I observed that the two school buildings were being finished at a prodigious pace; apparently Dutertre had promised a large bonus to the contractor if everything was ready on the date he had fixed. He must do a good deal of underhand jobbery, that creature!

  Drawing lesson, under the direction of Mademoiselle Aimée Lanthenay. ‘Reproduction in line of any everyday object.’ This time it was a cut-glass decanter, placed on Mademoiselle’s desk, that we had to draw. These drawing lessons were invariably gay, since they furnished a thousand pretexts for getting up: one discovered ‘impossibilities’; one made blots of Indian ink wherever they were least desirable. Promptly, the usual storm of complaints broke out. I opened the attack:

  ‘Mademoiselle Aimée, I can’t draw the decanter from where I am – the stove-pipe hides it!’

  Mademoiselle Aimée, deeply occupied in tickling the red hair on the nape of the Headmistress’s neck (the latter was writing a letter), turned towards me.

  ‘Bend your head forward. You can see it then, I think.’

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ took up Anaïs, ‘I can’t see the model at all, because Claudine’s head gets in the way!’

  ‘Oh, how irritating you are! Turn your table round a little, then you can both see.’

  It was Marie Belhomme’s turn now. She moaned:

  ‘Mademoiselle, I haven’t any more charcoal. And the sheet of paper you’ve given me has got a tear in the middle and so I can’t draw the decanter.’

  ‘Oh!’ grated Mademoiselle Sergent, exasperated. ‘Have you finished bothering us, all of you? Here’s a sheet of paper, here’s some charcoal and now, don’t let me hear one more word from any of you or I’ll make you draw an entire dinner-service!’

  There was a terrified silence. You could have heard a fly breathe … for five whole minutes. At the sixth minute, a faint buzzing began again; someone dropped a sabot; Marie Belhomme coughed; I got up to go and measure the height and breadth of the decanter with outstretched arm. The lanky Anaïs did the same, as soon as I had finished, and took advantage of the fact that one had to shut one eye to crumple her face into frightful grimaces that made Marie laugh. I finished sketching the decanter in charcoal and I got up to go and fetch the Indian ink from the cupboard behind the desk where the two mistresses sat. They had forgotten us; they were talking to each other in low voices and laughing. Now and then Mademoiselle Aimée drew back with a shocked little grimace which became her very prettily. In fact, they were now so little inhibited by our presence that it wasn’t worth restraining ourselves either. Very well, now was our chance!

  I shout out an inviting ‘Psst!’ that brought all the heads up, and, indicating the loving Sergent–Lanthenay couple to the class, I stretched out my hands in benediction over their two heads, from behind. Marie Belhomme burst out laughing with delight, the Jauberts lowered reproving noses, and, without having been seen by the interested parties, I buried myself once more in the cupboard, took out the Indian ink and brought it back to my place.

  In passing, I looked at A
naïs’s drawing. Her decanter resembled herself; it was too tall and had too long and thin a neck. I wanted to warn her of this but she didn’t hear me; she was too absorbed in preparing some ‘goonygoonya’ in her lap to send to the new arrival in a pencil-box, the great pest! (Goonygoonya is charcoal pounded into Indian ink so as to make an almost dry mortar that stains unwary fingers deeply, likewise frocks and exercise-books.) That poor little Luce was going to blacken her hands and dirty her drawing, when she opened the box, and would get scolded. To avenge her, I snatched Anaïs’s drawing and drew, in ink, a belt, with a buckle, encircling the waist of the decanter. Underneath, I wrote: Portrait of the Lanky Anaïs. She raised her head at the very moment I finished writing and pushed her box of goonygoonya over to Luce with a gracious smile. The little thing turned red and thanked her. Anaïs bent once more over her drawing and let out a resounding ‘Oh!’ of indignation which recalled our cooing teachers to reality.

  ‘What’s all this? Anaïs, you’ve gone mad, I presume?’

  ‘Mademoiselle, look what Claudine’s done to my drawing!’

  Swelling with rage, she took it up to the desk and laid it down. Mademoiselle Sergent cast a stern eye over it, then, suddenly, burst out laughing. Rage and despair on the part of Anaïs who would have wept with spleen if tears didn’t come so hard to her. Resuming her gravity, the Headmistress declared: ‘This kind of joke isn’t going to help you to get satisfactory marks in your exam, Claudine. But you’ve made quite an accurate criticism of Anaïs’s drawing for it was indeed too tall and too narrow.’ The great weedy thing returned to her place, frustrated and embittered. I told her: