Claudine at School

by Colette

  When school was over at four o’clock, I did not go straight home. Instead, I astutely forgot an exercise-book and came back. I knew that, during the time for sweeping, the boarders took turns to carry water up to their dormitory. I did not know that dormitory yet; I wanted to visit it and Luce had told me: ‘Today, I’m doing the water.’ Treading like a cat, I climbed upstairs, carrying a full pail in case of awkward encounters. The dormitory had white walls and a white ceiling and was furnished with eight white beds. Luce showed me hers but I hadn’t the faintest interest in her bed! I went straight to the windows which did, indeed, let one see into the boys’ dormitory. Two or three big boys of fourteen or fifteen were prowling about it and looking in our direction: as soon as they saw us, they laughed and gesticulated and pointed to their beds. A lot of scamps! All the same, how tempting they are! Luce, shocked or pretending to be, hurriedly shut the window. But I’m pretty sure that, at bedtime, she displays less prudishness. The ninth bed, at the end of the dormitory, was placed under a kind of canopy that shrouded it in white curtains.

  ‘That,’ explained Luce, ‘that’s the mistress on duty’s bed. The assistant-mistresses are supposed to take it in turn, week by week, to sleep in our dormitory.’

  ‘Ah! So it’s sometimes your sister Aimée, sometimes Mademoiselle Griset?’

  ‘Well, of course … that’s how it ought to be … but up to now, it’s always Mademoiselle Griset … I don’t know why.’

  ‘Ah, so you don’t know why? Hypocrite!’

  I gave her a bang on the shoulder; she complained, but without conviction. Poor Mademoiselle Griset!

  Luce went on enlightening me:

  ‘At night, Claudine, you simply can’t imagine what fun we have when we to go bed. We laugh, we run about in our chemises, we have pillow-fights. Some of the girls hide behind the curtains to get undressed because they say it embarrasses them. The oldest one, Rose Raquenot, washes so little that her underclothes are grey by the end of the three days she wears them. Yesterday, they hid my nightdress so I had to stay in the wash-room, absolutely naked. Luckily Mademoiselle Griset came along! Then we make fun of one of them who’s so plump she had to powder herself all over with starch so as not to chafe herself. Oh, and I’d forgotten Poisson who wears a nightcap that makes her look like an old woman and who won’t undress till we’ve left the wash-room. Oh, believe me, we have heaps of fun!’

  The wash-room was scantily furnished with a big zinc-covered table on which stood a row of eight basins, eight tablets of soap, pairs of towels and eight sponges. All these objects were exactly alike: the linen was marked in indelible ink. It was all very neatly kept.

  I inquired:

  ‘Do you have baths?’

  ‘Yes … and that’s something else that’s frightfully funny! In the new wash-house they heat up a huge wine-vat full of water … as big as a room. We all get undressed and we cram ourselves into it to soap ourselves.’

  ‘Quite naked?’

  ‘Of course – how’d we manage to soap ourselves otherwise? Rose Raquenot didn’t want to strip, of course, because she’s too thin. If you could only see her,’ added Luce, lowering her voice. ‘She’s got practically nothing on her bones, and it’s absolutely flat on her chest, like a boy! But Jousse is just the reverse. She’s like a wet-nurse, they are as big as that! And the one who wears an old woman’s nightcap – you know, Poisson – she’s got hair all over her like a bear, and she’s got blue thighs.’

  ‘What do you mean, blue?’

  ‘Yes, really blue. Like when it’s freezing and your skin’s blue with cold.’

  ‘It must be most engaging!’

  ‘Oh, no, it certainly isn’t. If I were a boy, I wouldn’t be a bit keen on having a bath with her!’

  ‘But mightn’t it have more effect on her, having a bath with a boy?’

  We giggled. But I started at the sound of the voice and the footsteps of Mademoiselle Sergent in the corridor. So as not to be caught, I hid myself under the canopy reserved for the unique occupation of Mademoiselle Griset. Then, when the danger had passed, I escaped and dashed downstairs, calling out ‘Good-bye’ under my breath.

  Next morning, how good my dear countryside looked! How gaily my pretty Montigny was sunning itself in this warm, precocious spring! Last Sunday and Thursday, I’d already ranged through the delicious woods, full of violets, with my co-First Communicant, my gentle Claire. She told me all about her flirtations … ever since the weather had turned mild her ‘follower’ arranged for them to meet in the evening at the corner of the Fir Plantation. Who knows if she won’t end up by going too far! But it’s not that which attracts her. Provided someone pours out choice words she doesn’t quite understand, provided someone kisses her and goes down on his knees, and everything happens like it does in books … well, she’s perfectly satisfied.

  In the classroom, I found little Luce collapsed over a table, sobbing fit to choke herself. I raised her head by main force and saw that her eyes were swollen as big as eggs, she’d dabbed them so much.

  ‘Oh! Really! You look far from beautiful like that! What’s the matter, little thing? What are you blubbing about?’

  ‘She … she … b-beat me!’

  ‘Do you mean, your sister?’

  ‘Yee-es!’

  ‘What had you done to her?’

  She dried her eyes a little and began to tell her story.

  ‘You see, I hadn’t understood my problems, so I hadn’t done them. That put her in a temper, so she said I was a dolt, that it wasn’t worth while our parents’ paying my fees, that she was disgusted with me, and so on and so on … So I answered back: “Oh, you bore me stiff.” Then she beat me, she slapped my face. She’s a beastly, horrible scold. I loathe her.’

  There was a fresh deluge.

  ‘My poor Luce, you’re a goose. You shouldn’t have let yourself be beaten, you should have thrown her ex-Armand in her teeth …’

  The sudden scare in the little thing’s eyes made me turn round: I caught sight of Mademoiselle Sergent listening to us from the doorway. Help! What was she going to say?

  ‘My compliments, Mademoiselle Claudine. You are giving this child some pretty advice.’

  ‘And you a pretty example!’

  Luce was terrified by my reply. As for me, I didn’t care in the least. The Headmistress’s fiery eyes were glittering with rage and emotion! But this time, too subtle to lose her temper openly, she shook her head and merely observed:

  ‘It’s lucky the month of July is not far off, Mademoiselle Claudine. You realize, don’t you, that it’s becoming more and more impossible for me to keep you here?’

  ‘Apparently. But, you know, it’s due to our misunderstanding each other. Our relationship got off on the wrong foot.’

  ‘Go off to recreation, Luce,’ she said, without answering me.

  The little thing did not wait to be told twice. She left the room at a run, blowing her nose. Mademoiselle Sergent went on:

  ‘It’s entirely your own fault, I assure you. You showed yourself full of ill-will towards me when I first arrived and you have repelled all my advances. For I made you plenty of them, though it was not my place to do so. All the same, you seemed to me intelligent – and pretty enough to interest me … who have neither sister nor child.’

  Hanged if I’d ever thought of it … I couldn’t have been more clearly told that I would have been ‘her little Aimée’ if I’d been willing. Well, well! No, that meant nothing to me, even in retrospect. Nevertheless, it would have been me of whom Mademoiselle Lanthenay would have been jealous at this very moment … What a comedy!

  ‘That’s true, Mademoiselle. But, as fate would have it, it would have turned out badly all the same, on account of Mademoiselle Aimée Lanthenay. You put so much fervour into acquiring her … friendship – and into destroying any she might have for me!’

  She averted her eyes.

  ‘I did not seek, as you pretend I did, to destroy … Mademoiselle Aimée could have gone
on giving you her English lessons without my preventing her …’

  ‘For goodness’ sake don’t say that! I’m not quite an idiot and there are only the two of us here! For a long time I was furious about it, devastated even, for I’m very nearly as jealous as you are … Why did you take her? I’ve been so unhappy, yes, there, you can be pleased, I’ve been so unhappy! But I realize now that she didn’t care for me – who does she care for? I’ve realized too that she’s not really worth much: that was enough for me. I’ve thought that I’d do quite enough foolish things without committing the folly of wanting to take her away from you. There! Now the only thing I want is that she shouldn’t become too much the little queen of this school and that she shouldn’t over-torment that little sister of hers who’s fundamentally no better – and no worse – than she is, I assure you … I never tell tales at home – never – about anything I may see here. I shan’t come back again after the holidays and I shall sit for the Certificate because Papa’s got it into his head that he’s keen on it and because Anaïs would be only too delighted if I didn’t pass the exam … You might leave me in peace till then – I don’t torment you at all nowadays …’

  I could have gone on talking for a long time, I think, but she was no longer listening to me. I was not going to contend with her for her little darling, that was all that she had been interested to hear. Her gaze had become introspective: she was pursuing an idea of her own. She roused herself, suddenly becoming the Headmistress again, after this conversation on an equal footing, and said to me:

  ‘Hurry out to the playground, Claudine. It’s after eight, you must get into line.’

  ‘What were you chattering so long about in there with Mademoiselle?’ demanded the lanky Anaïs. ‘Does that mean you’re matey with her, now?’

  ‘Two girls together, my dear!’

  In the classroom, little Luce squeezed up to me, threw me affectionate looks and clasped my hands. But her caresses irritated me; I only like hitting her and teasing her and protecting her when the others upset her.

  Mademoiselle Aimée came into the classroom like a whirlwind, exclaiming in a loud whisper: ‘The Inspector! The Inspector!’ There was an uproar. Anything is an excuse for disorder here; under cover of arranging our books with impeccable neatness, we opened all our desks and chattered hurriedly behind the lids. The lanky Anaïs sent all the completely distracted Marie Belhomme’s exercise-books flying and prudently thrust a Gil blas illustré, that she had concealed between two pages of her History of France, into her pocket. I myself hid Rudyard Kipling’s marvellously-told stories of animals (there’s a man who really knows about them!) – though they were hardly very reprehensible reading. We buzzed, we stood up, we gathered up papers, we took out the sweets hidden in our desks, for this venerable Blanchot, the Inspector, has eyes that squint but that poke into everything.

  Mademoiselle Lanthenay, in her classroom, was hustling the little girls, tidying her desk, shouting and flapping about. And now, from the Third room, there appeared the wretched Griset, in great dismay, demanding help and protection.

  ‘Mademoiselle Sergent, will the Inspector ask to see the little ones’ exercise-books? They’re dreadfully dirty … the smallest ones can only do pothooks …’ The malicious Aimée laughed in her face; the Headmistress replied with a shrug: ‘You’ll show him whatever he asks to see, but if you think he’ll bother with your urchins’ copy books!’ And the pathetic, dazed creature returned to her classroom where her little beasts were making an appalling din, for she hadn’t a ha’porth of authority.

  We were ready, or as near as maybe. Mademoiselle Sergent exclaimed: ‘Quick, get out your selected pieces. Anaïs, spit it out at once, that slate-pencil you have in your mouth! On my word of honour, I’ll turn you out in front of Monsieur Blanchot if you go on eating those revolting things! Claudine, couldn’t you stop pinching Luce Lanthenay for one single instant! Marie Belhomme, take those off at once, those three scarves you have on your head and round your neck. And also take that stupid expression of your face. You’re worse than the little ones in the Third Class and not one of you is worth the rope to hang you with!’

  She simply had to discharge her nervous irritation. The Inspector’s visits always upset her and because Blanchot was on good terms with the Deputy who detested his possible successor Dutertre, who was Mademoiselle Sergent’s protégé, like poison. (Heavens, how complicated life is!) At last everything was more or less in order; the lanky Anaïs stood up, looking quite alarmingly tall, her mouth still dirty from the grey pencil she had been nibbling, and began The Dress by that maudlin poet Manuel:

  In the wretched garret where daylight scarce could pierce Wife and husband argued in a quarrel fierce …

  Only just in time! A tall shadow passed across the panes giving on to the corridor; the entire class shuddered and rose to its feet – out of respect – at the moment when the door opened to admit old Blanchot. He had a solemn face framed in large pepper-and-salt whiskers and a formidable Franche-Comté accent. He pontificated, he chewed his words enthusiastically like Anaïs chewing india-rubber, he was always dressed with a stiff, old-fashioned correctness; what an old bore! Now we were in for a whole hour of him! He would be sure to ask us idiotic questions and prove to us that we ought all to ‘embrace the career of teaching’. I’d rather do even that than embrace him!

  ‘Your ladies! … Sit down, my children.’

  ‘His children’ sat down, modest and mild. I wished to goodness I could get away. Mademoiselle Sergent danced attendance on him with an expression at once respectful and malevolent, while her assistant, the virtuous Lanthenay, shut herself up in her own classroom.

  Monsieur Blanchot placed his silver-headed cane in a corner and promptly began to exasperate the Headmistress (well done!) by drawing her over to the window to talk about Certificate syllabuses, zeal, assiduity and all that sort of thing! She listened, she replied: ‘Yes, Inspector.’ Her eyes had retreated under her brows; she was obviously longing to hit him. He had finished boring her; now it was our turn.

  ‘What was the girl reading when I came in?’

  Anaïs, the ‘girl’ in question, hid the pink blotting-paper she was chewing and broke off the narrative, obviously a scandalous one, she was pouring into the ears of Marie Belhomme. The latter, shocked and crimson but attentive, rolled her birdlike eyes with a modest dismay. Smutty Anaïs! What could those stories possibly be?

  ‘Come, my child, tell me what you are reading.’

  ‘The Dress, Sir.’

  ‘Kindly continue.’

  She began again, with an air of mock intimidation, while Blanchot examined us with his dirty-green eyes. He was severe on any hint of coquetry and he frowned when he saw a black velvet ribbon on a white neck or curly tendrils escaping over forehead and temples. He always scolded me every time he visited us about my hair, which was always loose and curly, and also about the big white pleated collars I wore on my dark dresses. Although these had the simplicity I like, they were attractive enough for him to find my clothes appallingly reprehensible. The lanky Anaïs had finished The Dress and he was making her logically analyse (oh, my goodness!) five or six lines of it. Then he asked her:

  ‘My child, why have you tied that black velvet about your neck?’

  Now we were in for it! What did I tell you? Anaïs, flummoxed, answered idiotically that it was ‘to keep her warm’. Cowardly fat-head!

  ‘To keep you warm, you say? Don’t you think a scarf would have served that purpose better?’

  A scarf! Why not a woollen muffler, you doddering old bore? I couldn’t help laughing and this drew his attention to myself.

  ‘And you, my child, why is your hair not properly done and hanging all loose instead of being twisted up on your head and secured with hairpins?’

  ‘Sir, that gives me migraines.’

  ‘But you could at least plait it, I presume?’

  ‘Yes I could, but Papa doesn’t like me to.’

  I can’t tell
you how he irritated me! After a disapproving little smack of his lips, he went and sat down and tormented Marie Belhomme about the War of Secession, one of the Jauberts about the coastline of Spain and the other about right-angled triangles. Then he sent me to the blackboard and ordered me to draw a circle. I obeyed. It was a circle … if you chose to call it one.

  ‘Inside it, inscribe a rose-window with five lights. Assume that it is lit from the left and indicate with heavy strokes the shadows the petals receive.’

  That didn’t bother me at all. If he’d wanted to make me calculate figures, I’d have been in a hopeless mess but I knew all about rose-windows and shadows. I got through it quite well, much to the annoyance of the Jauberts who were sneakily hoping to see me scolded.

  ‘That’s … good. Yes, that’s not bad at all. You’re sitting for the Certificate Examination this year?’

  ‘Yes, Sir, in July.’

  ‘Then, no doubt, you wish to enter the Training College afterwards?’

  ‘No, Sir. I shall go back home.’

  ‘Indeed? As a matter of fact, in my opinion, you have not the slightest vocation for teaching. Very regrettable.’

  He said that exactly as if he were saying: ‘In my opinion, you are an infanticide.’ Poor man, let him keep his illusions! But I could only wish he had been able to see the Armand Duplessis drama or the way we were left on our own for hours while our two mistresses were upstairs, billing and cooing …

  ‘Be so good as to show me your Second Class, Mademoiselle.’

  Mademoiselle Sergent took him off to the Second classroom where she remained with him to protect her little darling against inspectorial severity. I profited by his absence to sketch a caricature of old Blanchot and his huge whiskers on the blackboard. This sent the girls into ecstasies. I added donkey’s ears, then I quickly rubbed it out and went back to my place. Little Luce slipped her arm coaxingly under mine and tried to kiss me. I pushed her away with a light slap and she pretended that I was ‘simply horrid’!