We warmed ourselves, clustered round the stove, as we teased the handsome Antonin in advance.
Attention! Here he was … A noise of voices and laughter sounded nearer and nearer, then Mademoiselle Sergent opened the door, followed by the irresistible assistant-master.
Rabastens was a splendid sight!
He wore a fur cap and a dark blue suit under his overcoat.
He removed his cap and coat on entering, after a ‘Young ladies!’ accompanied by a low bow.
He had decorated his green jacket with a rust-red chrysanthemum in the best of taste, and his grey-green tie, patterned with interlacing white circles, was highly impressive. He had obviously knotted it with studious care in front of the mirror.
In a flash, we were all demurely lined up, our hands surreptitiously pulling down our blouses to smooth out the faintest trace of unalluring creases.
Marie Belhomme was already enjoying herself so whole-heartedly that she gave a loud giggle and then stopped, frightened at her own audacity.
Mademoiselle Sergent knitted her terrible eyebrows and was obviously annoyed.
She had given me a look as she came in. I thought: ‘I bet her little friend already tells her every single thing!’
I kept obstinately assuring myself that Aimee was not worth so much misery but I was not in the least convinced by my own arguments.
‘Young ladies,’ said Rabastens in his guttural voice. ‘Would one of you be good enough to lend me her book?’
The lanky Anais hurriedly offered her a copy of Marmontel’s piano pieces so as to get herself noticed and was rewarded with an exaggeratedly affable ‘Thank you’.
That hulking fellow must practise his manners in front of that long mirror of his wardrobe.
It is true that he doesn’t possess a wardrobe with a long mirror.
‘Mademoiselle Claudine,’ he said to me with a fascinating ogle (fascinating for him, I mean), ‘I am charmed and extremely honoured to become your colleague.
For you give singing-lessons to these young ladies, do you not?’
‘Yes, but they are not in the least obedient to one of their own classmates,’ Mademoiselle Sergent cut in sharply. She was becoming impatient with all this chit-chat. ‘With your assistance, Monsieur, she will obtain better results.
Otherwise they will fail in their Certificate, for they do not seem to have grasped even the rudiments of music.’
Well done!
That would teach the gentleman to spin out meaningless phrases!
My companions listened with unconcealed astonishment; no one had ever displayed such gallantry towards them before. What reduced them to stupefaction were the compliments lavished on me by the fulsome Antonin.
Mademoiselle Sergent took the
‘Marmontel’ and indicated the gulf his new pupils refused to cross, some from inattentiveness, some from sheer inability to understand. The one exception was Anais, whose memory allowed her to learn all the sol-fa exercises by heart without having to beat time and without distorting them.
How true it was that they ‘had not grasped even the rudiments of music’, those little duffers! And, as they made it a kind of point of honour not to obey me, they were certainly going to be marked ‘zero’ in the forthcoming exam.
This prospect enraged Mademoiselle Sergent, who could not sing in tune and so could not act as a singing-teacher, any more than could Mademoiselle Lanthenay, who had never properly recovered from a long-ago attack of laryngitis.
‘Make them sing one by one to begin with,’ I said to the southerner (he was beaming and preening himself like a peacock at being in our midst). ‘They all make mistakes in time, every single one of them, but not the same mistakes. And, up to now, I haven’t been able to stop them.’
‘Let’s see, Mademoiselle …?’
‘Marie Belhomme.’
‘Mademoiselle Marie Belhomme, would you do this exercise for me in tonic sol-fa?’
It was a little polka in G, totally innocent of any nasty traps, but poor Marie, who couldn’t be less musical, has never been able to sol-fa it correctly.
Under this direct attack, she was seized with tremors; her face turned crimson and her eyes swam.
‘I’ll bet one silent bar, then you’ll begin on the first beat: Ray, te, te, lah, soh, fah, fah … Not awfully difficult, is it?’
‘Yes, Sir,’ answered Marie who had quite lost her head from shyness.
‘Good. I’ll begin … One, two, one …’
‘Ray, te, te, lah, soh, fah, fah,’ twittered Marie in a voice like a hen with a sore throat.
She had not missed the opportunity of beginning on the second beat!
I stopped her.
‘No, do listen! One, two, Ray, te, te … have you got it?
Monsieur Rabastens is beating one empty bar.
Start again.’
‘One, two, one …’
‘Ray, te, te …’ she began again fervently, making the same mistake!
To think that, for three whole months, she’s been singing that polka out of time!
Rabastens intervened, patient and discreet.
‘Allow me, Mademoiselle Belhomme. Would you please beat time along with me?’
He took her wrist and guided her hand.
‘You’ll understand better this way: one, two, one … But, come on!
Sing!’
She did not begin at all, this time.