We walked on the crackling snow.
The frozen puddles creaked musically under the sun with the charming sound, that’s like no other, of ice breaking up.
Claire whispered about her mild flirtations with the boys at the dance on Sunday over at Trouillard’s; rough, clumsy boys.
I quivered with excitement as I listened to her.
‘You know, Claudine, Montassuy was there too and he danced the polka with me, holding me tight against him.
At that very minute, my brother, Eugene, who was dancing with Adele Tricotot, let go of his partner, and jumped up in the air and banged his head against one of the hanging lamps. The lamp-glass turned upside down and that put out the lamp.
While everyone was staring and saying “Ooh!” whatever d’you think happened? That fat Fefed turned off the other lamp and everything was as black as black … nothing but one candle right at the very far end of the little bar.
My dear, all the time old mother Trouillard was fetching some matches, you heard nothing but screams and laughs and the sound of kisses.
My brother was holding Adele Tricotot just beside me and she kept on sighing like anything and saying
“Let go of me, Eugene” in a muffled voice as if she’d got her skirts over her head.
And that fat Fefed and his partner had fallen over on the floor. They were laughing and laughing, so much that they simply couldn’t get up again!’
‘What about you and Montassuy?’
Claire turned red with belated modesty.
‘Ah, that’s just what I was going to tell you … The first minute, he was so surprised to see the lamps go out that he only kept on holding my hand.
Then he put his arm round my waist again and said very quietly:
“Don’t be frightened.”
I didn’t say a word and I could feel him bending over me and kissing my cheeks.
Ever so gently, feeling his way, and it was actually so dark that he made a mistake (Claire, you little hypocrite!) and kissed my mouth.
I enjoyed it so much – it made me feel simply marvellous … In fact I was so excited that I nearly fell over and he had to hold me up by hugging me tighter still.
Oh! he’s nice, I love him!’
‘Well, what happened after that, you slut?’
‘After that, old mother Trouillard lit the lamps again, grumbling like anything. She swore that if such a thing ever happened again, she’d bring a complaint and they’d have the dances stopped.’
‘The fact is, it really was going a bit far! … Ssh … be quiet … Who’s that coming?’
We were sitting behind the briar-hedge, quite near the road that ran a couple of yards below us. There was a bench on the edge of the ditch so it was a marvellous hide-out for listening without being seen.
‘It’s those two masters!’
Yes, it was Rabastens and the gloomy Armand Duplessis who were walking along and talking.
What an unhoped-for bit of luck!
The coxcomb, Antonin, wanted to sit down on that bench because of the pale sunshine that had warmed him a little.
We were about to hear their conversation and we shuddered with joy in our field, right above their heads.
‘Ah!’ said the southerner with satisfaction, ‘one’s quite warrm here. Don’t you agree?’
Armand muttered some vague remark.
The man from Marseilles started up again. He was going to do all the talking, I was certain!
‘You know, I like this part of the world.
Those two schoolmistress ladies are extremely pleasant. I admit Mademoiselle Sergent is ugly!
But that little Mademoiselle Aimee is a smart girl!
I feel decidedly pleased with myself when she looks at me.’
The sham Richelieu sat up straight; his tongue was loosened:
‘Yes, she’s attractive, and so charming! She’s always smiling and she chatters away like a hedge-sparrow.’
But he promptly regretted his expansiveness and added in a different voice:
‘She’s a very charming young lady. You’re certainly going to turn her head, Don Juan!’
I nearly burst out laughing.
Rabastens as Don Juan!
I had a vision of him with his round head and plump cheeks adorned with a plumed hat … Up there, straining towards the road, the two of us laughed at each other with our eyes, without moving a muscle of our faces.
‘But, goodness me,’ went on the heartbreaker of the elementary school, ‘she’s not the only pretty girl round here. Anyone would think you hadn’t noticed them!
The other day, in the classroom, Mademoiselle Claudine came in and sang quite charmingly (I may say that I know what I’m talking about, eh?) and she’s not a girl you’d overlook, with that hair flowing down her back and all round her and those very naughty brown eyes!
My dear chap, I believe that girl knows more about things she oughtn’t to know than she does about geography!’
I gave a little start of astonishment and we might easily have been discovered for Claire let off a laugh like a gas-escape which might have been overheard.
Rabastens fidgeted on his bench beside the absorbed Duplessis and whispered something in his ear, laughing in a ribald way.
The other smiled; they got up; they went away.
The two of us up there were in ecstasies. We danced a war-dance of joy, as much to warm ourselves as to congratulate ourselves on this delicious piece of spying.