She said nothing and took the envelope mechanically.
‘Crazy girl.
Besides, whatever were you doing up there … I mean up there on the first floor … behind the locked doors of Mademoiselle Sergent’s room?
That’s where that leads you!
I can’t do anything for you.’
‘Oh!’ she said, prostrated.
‘But yes, my poor child.
It isn’t from virtue, you can be sure.
My virtue’s still far too small, I don’t trot it out and about yet.
But you see, in my green youth I was consumed by a great love. I adored a man who died making me swear on his deathbed never to …’ She interrupted me, moaning:
‘There, there, you’re laughing at me again. I didn’t want to write to you, you’ve no heart.
Oh, how unhappy I am! Oh, how cruel you are!’
‘And besides, you’re deafening me!
What a row!
What d’you bet I give you a few kicks to bring you back to the straight and narrow path?’
‘Oh, what do I care?
Oh, I could almost laugh!’
‘Take that, you little bad lot!
And give me a receipt.’
She had just been dealt a heavy slap which had the effect of promptly silencing her.
She looked at me stealthily with gentle eyes and began to cry, already comforted, as she rubbed her head.
How she loves to be beaten; it’s astounding.
‘Here come Anais and lots of the others, try and look more or less respectable.
They’ll be coming in to class in a moment, the two turtle-doves are on their way down.’
Only a fortnight till the Certificate!
June oppresses us. We bake, half asleep, in the classrooms; we’re silent from listlessness; I’m too languid to keep my diary.
And in this furnace heat, we still have to criticize the conduct of Louis XV, explain the role of the gastric juices in the process of digestion, sketch acanthus leaves, and divide the auditory apparatus into the inner ear, the middle ear, and the outer ear.
There’s no justice on the earth!
Louis XV did what he wanted to do, it’s nothing to do with me!
Oh Lord, no! With me less than anyone!
It was so hot that it made one lose one’s desire to make oneself look attractive – or rather, the fashion palpably changed. Now we displayed our skin.
I inaugurated dresses with open square necks, something on medieval lines, with sleeves that stopped at the elbow.
My arms were still rather thin, but nice all the same, and, as to my neck, I back it against anyone’s.
The others imitated me; Anais did not wear short sleeves but she profited by mine to roll her own up to the shoulders; Marie Belhomme displayed unexpectedly plump arms above her bony hands and a fresh neck that would be fat later on.
Oh Lord, what wouldn’t one display in a temperature like this!
With immense secrecy, I replaced my stockings with socks.
By the end of three days, they all knew it and told each other about it and implored me under their breath to pull my skirt up.
‘Let’s see your socks … are you really wearing them?’
‘Look!’
‘Lucky devil!
All the same, I wouldn’t dare.’
‘Why? Respect for the decencies?’
‘No … but …’
‘Shut up, I know why … You’ve got hair on your legs!’
‘Oh, you liar of all liars!
You can look … I haven’t any more than you have.
Only I’d be ashamed to feel my legs quite bare under my dress!’
Little Luce exhibited some skin shyly – skin that was marvellously white and soft.
The gawky Anais envied this whiteness to such an extent that she pricked her arms with needles on sewing-days.
Farewell to repose!