At once I was surrounded and everyone made a fuss of me.
The two Jauberts conscientiously asked me whether I was completely cured before coming near me.
I was a little stunned by all this noise.
At last they let me breathe and I hastily asked the lanky Anais the latest news.
‘I’ll tell you all. Armand Duplessis has left, to begin with.’
‘Sacked or sent somewhere else, poor old Richelieu?’
‘Only sent somewhere else.
Dutertre got busy finding him another post.’
‘Dutertre?’
‘Naturally!
If Richelieu had talked, that would have stopped the District Superintendent from ever becoming a Deputy.
Dutertre has been solemnly saying all over town that the unfortunate young man had had a very dangerous attack of brain-fever and that they’d called him in, as school doctor, just in time.’
‘Ah! So they called him in just in time?
Providence had planted the remedy next door to the ill … And Mademoiselle Aimee? Sent away too?’
‘Certainly not!
Oh, she’s in no danger!
By the end of a week, he didn’t appear any more. And she was giggling with Mademoiselle Sergent just as usual.’
It was too much!
That odd little creature who had neither heart nor brain, who lived without memory and without remorse, would begin all over again.
She would humbug an assistant-master and romp with the District Superintendent until there was another crisis and she would live quite contentedly with that jealous, violent woman who was going to pieces as a result of these adventures.
I hardly heard Anais telling me that Rabastens was still there and was constantly inquiring after me.
I’d forgotten him, that pathetic lout Antonin!
The bell rang but it was the new school that we trooped into now. And the central building that linked the two wings was almost finished.
Mademoiselle Sergent installed herself at the desk that was all new and shining.
Farewell the old rickety, scarred, uncomfortable tables; now we sat down at handsome sloping ones, provided with benches with backs to them and desks with hinged lids.
We were only two to a bench now; instead of the lanky Anais, I now had as my neighbour … little Luce Lanthenay.
Luckily the tables were extremely close together and Anais was near me, at a table parallel to mine, so that we could gossip together as comfortably as before.
They had put Marie Belhomme beside her for Mademoiselle Sergent had intentionally placed two ‘lively’ ones (Anais and me), next to two ‘torpid’ ones (Luce and Marie) so that we should shake them up a little.
We certainly would shake them up!
At least I would, for I could feel all the rebelliousness that had been suppressed during my illness boiling up in me.
I took in my new surroundings and arranged my books and exercise-books, while Luce sat down and watched me with a sidelong, timid glance.
But I didn’t deign to speak to her yet: I merely exchanged remarks about the new school with Anais who was avidly nibbling some unknown substance that looked to me like green buds.
‘Whatever are you eating – old crab-apples?’
‘Lime buds, old thing. Nothing so good.
Now’s just the moment, when it’s getting on for March.’
‘Give us a bit? … Really, it’s awfully good.
It’s sticky like the gum on fruit-trees.
I’ll get some off the limes in the playground.
And what other hitherto unknown delicacies are you stuffing yourself with nowadays?’
‘Oh, nothing startling.
I can’t even eat coloured pencils any more. This year’s lot are gritty. Beastly – absolute rubbish.
However, to make up for that, the blotting-paper’s excellent.
There’s also something good to chew, but not to swallow … the samples of handkerchief linen that the Bon Marche and the Louvre send out.’
‘Ugh!
That doesn’t appeal to me in the least … I say, young Luce, are you going to try and be good and obedient sitting here beside me? Otherwise, I promise you slaps and pinches. So beware!’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle,’ answered the little thing, looking none too reassured, with her lashes downcast on her cheeks.
‘You can say tu to me.
Look at me, so as I can see your eyes?
That’s right. Now, you know that I’m mad, I’m sure you’ve been told that.
Well, if anyone annoys me, I become furious and I bite and scratch, especially since my illness.