by Colette
The most amusing thing, in the few hours that now remained to us, was arriving at the School and going home again through the unrecognizable streets, transformed into forest paths and parklike landscapes, all fragrant with the penetrating smell of cut firs. It was as if the woods that encircled Montigny had invaded it, had come in and almost buried it … One could not have dreamed of a prettier, more becoming decoration for this little town lost among the trees … I cannot bring myself to say more ‘adequate’, it’s a word I simply loathe.
The flags, which will make all these green alleys ugly and commonplace, will all be in place tomorrow, not to mention the Venetian lanterns and the fairy-lights. What a pity!
No one felt embarrassed with us; the women and boys called out to us as we passed: ‘Hi! you there, you’ve got the trick of it! Come on, come and ’elp us a bit sticking in these roses!’
We ‘’elped’ willingly. We climbed up ladders: my companions let themselves – all for the Minister’s sake, of course! – be tickled around the waist and sometimes on the calves: I must say that no one ever allowed themselves those little pranks on the daughter of the ‘Gentleman of the slugs’. In any case, with these boys who don’t give it another thought once their hand is removed, it’s offensive and not even annoying; I can understand the girls from the School falling in with the general behaviour. Anaïs allowed all liberties and yearned after still more; Féfed carried her down from the top of the ladder in his arms. Touchard, known as Zero, stuffed prickly branches of pine under her skirts; she gave little squeaks, like a mouse caught in a door, and half closed swooning eyes, without strength even to pretend to put up a defence.
Mademoiselle let us rest a little, for fear we should be too limp and tired on the great day. Beside, I really could not see what remained to be done; everything was decked with flowers, everything was in place; the cut flowers were soaking their stalks in buckets of cool water in the cellar; they would be scattered all over the place at the last moment. Our three bouquets arrived this morning in a big, fragile packing-case; Mademoiselle did not want us even to unnail it completely: she removed one slat, and slightly lifted up the tissue-paper which shrouded the patriotic flowers and the cotton wool from which came a damp smell: then Old Madame Sergent promptly took the light case, in which rattled crystals of some salt that I don’t know and that prevents flowers from fading, down to the cellar.
Nursing her principal subjects, the Headmistress sent us off, Anaïs, Marie, Luce and me, to rest in the garden under the hazels. Slumped in the shade on the green bench, our minds were almost blank; the garden hummed. As if stung by a fly, Marie Belhomme gave a start and suddenly began to unwind one of the big curl-papers that, for three days, had been quivering round her head.
‘… ’t ’you doing?’
‘Seeing if it’s curled, of course!’
‘And supposing it isn’t curled enough?’
‘Why, I’ll wet it tonight when I go to bed. But you can see – it’s very curly – it’s fine!’
Luce followed her example and gave a little cry of disappointment.
‘Oh! It’s as if I hadn’t done anything to it at all! It corkscrews at the end, and nothing at all higher up – or next to nothing!’
She had, in fact, the kind of hair that is supple and soft as silk and that escapes and slips out of one’s fingers and out of ribbons and will only do what it wants to do.
‘So much the better,’ I told her. ‘That’ll teach you. Look at you … thoroughly miserable at not having a head like a bottle-brush!’
But she refused to be comforted, and, as I was weary of their voices, I went further off and lay down on the gravel, in the shade of the chestnut trees. I hadn’t any distinct notions in my head; I was aware only of heat, of lassitude …
My dress was ready, it was a success … I should look pretty tomorrow, prettier than the gawky Anaïs, prettier than Marie: that wasn’t difficult, but it pleased me all the same … I was going to leave school; Papa was sending me to Paris to a rich, childless aunt; I should make my début in the world, and a thousand blunders at the same time … How should I do without the country; with this hunger for green, growing things that never left me? It seemed insane to me to think that I should never come here again, that I should never see Mademoiselle any more, or her little Aimée with the golden eyes, or the scatterbrained Marie, or the bitch Anaïs, or Luce, always greedy for blows and caresses … I should be unhappy at not living here any more. Moreover, now that I had the time, I might as well admit something to myself; that, in my heart of hearts, Luce attracted me more than I liked to own. It’s no good reminding myself that she has hardly any real beauty, that her caressing ways are those of a treacherous little animal, that her eyes are deceitful; none of this prevents her from possessing a charm of her own, the charm of oddity and weakness and still innocent perversity – as well as a white skin, slender hands, rounded arms and tiny feet. But she will never know anything about it! She suffers on account of her sister whom Mademoiselle Sergent took away from me by main force. Rather than admit anything, I would cut out my tongue!
Under the hazels, Anaïs was describing her dress for tomorrow to Luce. I walked towards them, in an ill-natured mood, and I heard:
‘The collar? There isn’t any collar! It’s open in a V in front and at the back, edged with a runner of silk muslin and finished with a cabbage-bow of red ribbon …’
‘“Red cabbages, known as curly cabbages, demanded a meagre, stony soil”, the ineffable Bérillon teaches us. That fills the bill perfectly, eh, Anaïs? Scarlet runners, cabbages … that’s not a dress, it’s a kitchen-garden.’
‘My lady Claudine, if you’ve come here to say such witty things, you can stay on your gravel. We weren’t pining for your company!’
‘Don’t get in a temper. Tell us how the skirt’s made, what vegetables are being used to give it a relish? I can see it from here – there’s a fringe of parsley all round!’
Luce was highly amused; Anaïs wrapped herself in her dignity and stalked off; as the sun was getting low, we got up too.
Just as we were shutting the garden gate, we heard bursts of silvery laughter. They came nearer and Mademoiselle Aimée passed us, giggling as she ran, pursued by the amazing Rabastens who was pelting her with flowers fallen from the bignonia bush. This ceremonial opening by the Minister authorizes pleasant liberties in the streets – and in the School too, apparently! But Mademoiselle followed behind, frowning and turning pale with jealousy: further on, we heard her call out: ‘Mademoiselle Lanthenay, I’ve asked you twice whether you’ve told your class to assemble at half past seven.’ But the other, in wild spirits, enchanted to be playing with a man and annoying her friend, ran on without stopping and the purple flowers caught in her hair and glanced off her dress … There would be a scene tonight.
At five o’clock, the two ladies assembled us with considerable difficulty, scattered all over the building as we were. The Headmistress decided to ring the dinner-bell, thereby interrupting a furious galop that Anaïs, Marie, Luce and I were dancing in the banqueting-room under the flower-decked ceiling.
‘Girls,’ she cried, in the voice she used for great occasions, ‘you’re to go home at once and get to bed in good time! Tomorrow morning, at half past seven, you’re all to be assembled here, dressed and your hair done, so that we don’t have to bother about you any more! You will be given your streamers and banners; Claudine, Anaïs, and Marie will take their bouquets … All the rest … you’ll see when you get here. Be off with you now, don’t ruin the flowers as you go through the doors and don’t let me hear so much as a mention of you till tomorrow morning!’
She added:
‘Mademoiselle Claudine, you know your complimentary speech?’
‘Do I know it! Anaïs has made me rehearse it three times today.’
‘But … what about the prizegiving?’ risked a timid voice.
‘Oh! the prizegiving, we’ll fit that in when we can! In any case, it’s probable
that I shall just give you the books here and that this year there will be no public prizegiving, on account of the opening.’
‘But … the songs, the Hymn to Nature?’
‘You’ll sing them tomorrow, before the Minister. Now, vanish!’
This speech had caused consternation to quite a number of little girls who looked forward to the prizegiving as a unique festive occasion in the year; they went off perplexed and discontented, under arches of flower-decked greenery.
The people of Montigny, exhausted but proud, were taking a rest, sitting on their doorsteps and contemplating their labours; the girls used the rest of the dying day to sew on a ribbon or to put some lace round an improvised low neck – for the great ball at the Town Hall, my dear!
Tomorrow morning, as soon as it was light, the boys would strew the route of the procession with cut grass and green leaves, mingled with flowers and rose-petals. And if the Minister Jean Dupuy wasn’t satisfied, he must be extremely hard to please, so he could go to blazes!
The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to run to the looking-glass; goodness, one never knew, suppose I’d grown a boil overnight? Reassured, I made my toilet very carefully: I was admirably early, it was only six o’clock: I had time to be meticulous over every detail. Thanks to the dryness of the air, my hair went easily into a ‘cloud’. My small face is always rather pale and peaky, but, I assure you, my eyes and mouth are not at all bad. The dress rustled lightly; the underskirt of plain unspotted muslin swayed to the rhythm of my walk and brushed softly against my pointed shoes. Now for the wreath. Ah, how well it suited me! A little Ophelia, hardly more than a child, with those amusing dark shadows round the eyes! … Yes, they used to tell me, when I was little, that I had a grown-up person’s eyes; later, it was eyes that were ‘not quite respectable’: you can’t please everyone and yourself as well. I prefer to please myself first of all …
The tiresome thing was that tight around bouquet which was going to ruin the whole effect. Pooh! it didn’t matter since I was to hand it over to His Excellency …
All white from head to foot, I set off to the School through the cool streets; the boys, in process of ‘strewing’ called out coarse, monstrous compliments to the ‘little bride’ who fled in shyness.
I arrived ahead of time, but I found about fifteen of the juniors already there, little things from the surrounding countryside and the distant farms; they were used to getting up at four in summer. They were comical and touching; their heads looked enormous with their hair frizzed out in harsh twists and they remained standing up so as not to crumple their muslin dresses, rinsed out in too much blue, that swelled out stiffly from waists encircled by currant-red or indigo sashes. Against all this white their sunburnt faces appeared quite black. My arrival had provoked a little ‘ah!’ from them, hastily suppressed. Now they stood silent, greatly awed by their fine clothes and their frizzed hair, rolling an elegant handkerchief, on which their mother had poured some ‘smell-nice’, in their white-cotton-gloved hands.
Our two lady mistresses had not appeared but, from the upper floor, I could hear little footsteps running … Into the playground came pouring a host of white clouds, beribboned in pink, in red, in green and in blue; in ever-increasing numbers the girls arrived – silent for the most part, because they were extremely busy eyeing each other, comparing themselves and pinching their lips disdainfully. They looked like a camp of female Gauls, those flying, curly, frizzy, overflowing manes, nearly all of them golden … A clattering troop poured down the staircase; it was the boarders – always a hostile and isolated band – for whom their First Communion dresses still did duty on festive occasions. Behind them came Luce, dainty as a white Persian, charming with her soft, fluttering curls and her complexion like a newly-opened rose. Didn’t she only need a happy love-affair, like her sister, to make her altogether beautiful?
‘How love you look, Claudine! And your wreath isn’t a bit like the two others. Oh, you are lucky to be so pretty!’
‘But, kitten, do you know I find you amusing and desirable in your green ribbons? You certainly are an extremely odd little animal! Where’s your sister and her Mademoiselle?’
‘Not ready yet. Aimée’s dress does up under the arm, just fancy! It’s Mademoiselle who’s hooking it up for her.’
‘I see. That may take quite a time.’
From above, the voice of the elder sister called: ‘Luce, come and fetch the pennants!’
The playground was filled with big and little girls and all this white, in the sunlight, hurt one’s eyes. (Besides, there were too many different whites that clashed with each other.)
There was Liline, with her disturbing Gioconda smile under her golden waves, and her sea-green eyes; and that young beanpole of a ‘Matilde’, covered to the hips in a cascade of hair the colour of ripe corn; there was the Vignale family, five girls ranging from eight to fourteen, all tossing exuberant manes that looked as if they had been dyed with henna. There was Nannette, a little sly-boots with knowing eyes, walking on two deep blonde plaits as long as herself and as heavy as dull gold – and so many, many others. Under the dazzling light, all these fleeces of hair blazed like burning bushes.
Marie Belhomme arrived, appetizing in her cream frock and blue ribbons, quaint under the crown of cornflowers. But, good heavens, how big her hands were under the white kid!
At last, here came Anaïs, and I sighed with relief to see how awful her hair looked in stiff, corrugated waves; her wreath of crimson poppies, too close to her forehead, made her complexion look like a corpse’s. With touching accord, Luce and I ran to meet her and burst out into a concert of compliments: ‘My dear, how nice you look! Honest, my dear – definitely – there’s nothing so becoming to you as red! It’s a complete success!’
A little mistrustful at first, Anaïs dilated with pleasure and we staged a triumphal entry into the classroom where the children, their numbers now complete, greeted the living tricolour flag with an ovation.
A religious silence descended: we were watching our two mistresses walk slowly and deliberately, step by step, down the stairs, followed by two or three boarders loaded with pennants on the end of long, gilded lances. As to Aimée, frankly I had to admit it; one could have eaten her alive, she was so attractive in her white dress of glistening mohair (merely a slim sheath with no seam at the back!) and her rice-straw hat trimmed with white gauze. Away with you, little monster!
And Mademoiselle looked at her with fond, brooding eyes, moulded, herself, in the black dress embroidered with mauve sprays that I have already described to you. She can never be pretty, that bad-tempered Redhead, but her dress fitted her like a glove and one was only aware of the eyes that sparkled from under the fiery waves crowned by an extremely smart black hat.
‘Where is the flag?’ she demanded at once.
The flag came forward, modest and pleased with itself.
‘That’s good! That’s … very good! Come here, Claudine … I knew you’d be at your best. And now, seduce that Minister for me!’
She rapidly reviewed her white battalion, arranged a curl here, pulled a ribbon there, did up Luce’s skirt which was gaping, slid a reinforcing hairpin into Anaïs’s chignon and, having scrutinized everything with her redoubtable eye, seized the bundle of various inscriptions: Long live France! Long live the Republic! Long live Liberty! Long live the Minister! … etc., twenty pennants in all which she distributed to Luce, to the Jauberts, to various chosen souls who crimsoned with pride and held the shaft upright like a candle, envied by the mere mortals who were fuming.
Our three bouquets, tied with a shower of red, white and blue ribbons, were taken with infinite precautions out of their cotton wool like jewels. Dutertre had used the money of the secret funds to advantage; I received a bunch of white camellias, Anaïs one of red camellias; the big bouquet of great velvety cornflowers fell to Marie’s share, since nature, not having foreseen ministerial receptions, had neglected to produce blue camellias. The little one
s pushed forward to see and already slaps were being exchanged, along with shrill complaints.
‘That’s enough!’ cried Mademoiselle. ‘Do you think I’ve got time to be a policeman? Come here, flag! Marie on the left, Anaïs on the right, Claudine in the middle, and forward march. Hurry up and get down into the playground! It would be a fine thing if we missed the arrival of the train! Banner-bearers, follow in fours, the tallest in front …’
We descended the steps into the courtyard without waiting to hear more; Luce and the tallest ones walked behind us, the pennants of their lances flapped lightly above our heads; followed by a trampling like sheep, we passed under the arch of greenery – WELCOME TO OUR VISITORS!
The whole crowd which awaited us outside, a crowd in its Sunday best, excited and ready to shout ‘Long live – it doesn’t matter what!’ let out a huge ‘Ah!’ at the sight of us, as if we were fireworks. Proud as little peacocks, our eyes lowered, but inwardly bursting with vanity, we walked delicately, our bouquets in our clasped hands, treading on the strewn leaves and flowers that kept down the dust. It was only after some minutes that we exchanged sidelong looks and rapturous smiles, in a daze of bliss.
‘We’re having a gorgeous time!’ sighed Marie, gazing at the green paths along which we proceeded slowly between two hedges of gaping onlookers, under the leafy arches which filtered the sunshine, letting a charming, artificial daylight sift through, as if in the depths of a wood.
