‘No doubt you know a great many interesting things.
And I realized at once, the other day – when you sang so charmingly – that you had ideas far beyond your age.’
(Heavens, what an idiot!
Why couldn’t he take himself off?
Ah! I was forgetting he was a little in love with me.
I decided to be more amiable.)
‘But you yourself, Sir, I’ve been told you have a beautiful baritone voice.
We hear you singing in your room sometimes when the builders aren’t making a din.’
He turned red as a poppy with pleasure and protested with enraptured modesty.
He wriggled as he exclaimed:
‘Oh, Mademoiselle! … As it happens, you’ll soon be able to judge for yourself, for Mademoiselle Sergent has asked me to give singing-lessons to the older girls who are studying for their certificate. On Thursdays and Sundays.
We’re going to begin next week.’
What luck!
If I had not been so preoccupied, it would have been thrilling to tell the news to the others who knew nothing about it as yet.
How Anais would drench herself in eau-de-Cologne and bite her lips next Thursday! How she would pull in her leather belt and coo as she sang!
‘What?
But I know nothing whatever about it!
Mademoiselle Sergent hasn’t said a word to us.’
‘Oh! Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it?
Would you be good enough to pretend you don’t know?’
He implored me with ingratiating movements of his torso and I shook my head to fling back my curls which weren’t in the least in my way.
This hint of a secret between us threw him into ecstasies. It was obviously going to serve as a pretext for glances full of understanding – exceedingly commonplace understanding on his part.
He went off, carrying himself proudly, with a farewell that already had a new touch of familiarity.
‘Good-bye, Mademoiselle Claudine.’
‘Good-bye, Sir.’
At half past twelve, the rest of the class arrived and there was still no sign of Aimee.
I refused to play, pretending that I had a headache, and, inwardly, I chafed.
Oh! Oh! Whatever did I see?
The two of them had come down, Aimee and her redoubtable chief; they had come down and were crossing the playground. And the Redhead had taken Mademoiselle Lanthenay’s arm – an unheard-of proceeding! Mademoiselle Sergent was talking very softly to her assistant who, still a little scared, was raising her eyes towards the other who was much taller than herself. Those eyes already looked reassured and pretty again.
The spectacle of this idyll turned my anxiety to chagrin.
Before they had quite reached the door, I rushed outside and hurled myself into the midst of a wild game of ‘Wolf’, yelling
‘I’m playing!’ as if I were yelling
‘Fire!’
And, until the bell rang for class, I galloped till I was out of breath, now chasing, now being chased, doing all I could to stop myself from thinking.
During the game, I caught sight of the head of Rabastens. He was watching over the wall and enjoying the sight of these big girls running about and showing – some, like Marie Belhomme, unconsciously and others, like the gawky Anais, very consciously indeed – calves that were pretty or ludicrous.
The amiable Antonin honoured me with a gracious smile, an excessively gracious one. I did not think it necessary to return it, on account of my companions, but I arched my chest and tossed my curls.
It was essential to keep this young man entertained. (In any case, he seems to me a born blunderer and destined to put his foot in it on every conceivable occasion.) Anais, who had noticed him too, took to kicking up her skirts as she ran so as to exhibit legs which, however, were far from attractive, also to laughing and uttering bird-like cries.
She would have acted flirtatiously in the presence of a plough-ox!
We went indoors and opened our exercise-books, still panting from our exertions.
But, after a quarter of an hour, Mademoiselle Sergent’s mother appeared and announced to her daughter, in a barbaric dialect, that two new girls had arrived.
The class bubbled over with excitement: two ‘new ones’ to tease!
And Mademoiselle left the room, very politely asking Mademoiselle Lanthenay to look after the class.
Aimee arrived and I sought her eyes so as to smile at her with all my anxious tenderness. But she gave me back a far from confident look and my heart swelled absurdly as I bent over my knitting … I’ve never dropped so many stitches!
I dropped so many that I had to go and ask Mademoiselle Aimee for help.
While she was trying to remedy my mistakes, I whispered to her:
‘Good afternoon, my sweet darling little Mademoiselle … Heavens, whatever’s the matter!
I’m worn to shreds with not being able to speak to you.’
She looked round her uneasily and answered, very low:
‘I can’t tell you anything now.
Tomorrow, at our lesson.’