Let’s be off.’
Our little squad crossed the bridge, mounted through various steep streets and lanes, and eventually arrived in front of a battered old porch, on whose door an almost-effaced inscription proclaimed it to be the Rivoire Institute.
It had once been the Girls’ Boarding-School, but had been deserted for the past two or three years on account of its decrepitude. (Why did they park us there?) In the courtyard that had lost half its paving-stones, some sixty girls were chattering vivaciously, in well split-off groups; the schools didn’t mix with each other.
There were some from Villeneuve, from Beaulieu, and from a dozen country-towns in the district; all of them clustered in little groups round their respective Headmistresses and making copious and far from charitable remarks about the other schools.
The moment we arrived, we were stared out of countenance and criticized from top to toe. I was singled out for particularly sharp scrutiny on account of my white dress with blue stripes and my big floppy lace hat which stood out against the black of the uniforms.
As I smiled insolently at the candidates who were glaring at me, they turned away in the most contemptuous way imaginable.
Luce and Marie flushed under the stares and shrank back into their shells: the gawky Anais exulted in the consciousness of being so hypercritically examined.
The examiners had not arrived yet; we were merely marking time.
I was getting bored.
A little door without a latch yawned open on a dark corridor, lit at the far end by a luminous pane.
While Mademoiselle Sergent was exchanging icily polite remarks with her colleagues, I slipped quietly into the passage: at the end was a glass door – or the remains of one – I lifted the rusty latch and found myself in a little square courtyard, by a shed.
It was overgrown with jasmine and clematis, and there was a little wild plum-tree and all sorts of charming weeds, growing unchecked.
On the ground – admirable find! – some strawberries had ripened and smelt delicious.
I promptly decided to call the others to show them these marvels!
I went back to the playground without attracting attention and I informed my companions of the existence of this unknown orchard.
After nervous glances at Mademoiselle Sergent who was talking to an elderly headmistress, at the door which had still not opened on the examiners (they sleep late, those chaps), Marie Belhomme, Luce Lanthenay, and the lanky Anais made up their minds, but the Jauberts refrained.
We ate the strawberries, we plundered the clematis, we shook the plum-tree; then, hearing an even louder hullabaloo in the front courtyard, we guessed that our torturers had arrived.
As fast as our legs could carry us, we dashed back along the corridor; we arrived just in time to see a file of black-clad gentlemen, by no means handsome ones, entering the ancient building in solemn silence.
In their wake, we climbed the staircase, the sixty-odd of us making a noise like a squadron of cavalry. But, on the first floor, they halted us on the threshold of a deserted study-room; we had to allow their Lordships to instal themselves.
They sat down at a big table, mopped their brows, and deliberated.
What about? the advisability of allowing us to enter?
But no, I was certain they were exchanging observations about the weather and chatting about their trifling affairs while we were held back with difficulty on the landing and the stairs on to which we overflowed.
Being in the front rank, I was able to observe these great men: a tall, greying one with a gentle, grandfatherly expression – kind old Salle, twisted and gouty, with his hands like gnarled vines – a fat short one, his neck swathed in a shot-silk cravat worthy of Rabastens himself – that was Roubaud, the terrible, who would question us tomorrow in ‘science’.
At last, they decided to tell us to come in.
We filled this ugly old room, with its indescribably dirty plaster walls, scored all over with inscriptions and pupils’ names. The tables were appalling too, scarred with penknives and black and purple from inkpots upset over them in former days.
It was shameful to intern us in such a hovel.
One of the gentlemen proceeded to allot us our places; he held a big list in his hand and carefully mixed all the schools, separating the girls from the same district as widely as possible, so as to avoid any communication between them. (Didn’t he realize one could always convey information?) I found myself at the end of a table, by a small girl, in mourning, with large, serious eyes.
Where were my classmates?
Far away, I caught sight of Luce who was sending me despairing signs and looks; Marie Belhomme was fidgeting about at a table just in front of her.
They would be able to pass information to each other, those two weak vessels … Roubaud was going round distributing large sheets of writing-paper, stamped in blue on the top left-hand corner, and sealing-wafers.
We all understood the routine; we had to write our names in the corner, along with that of the school where we had done our studies, then to fold over this corner and seal it. (The idea was to reassure everyone about the impartiality of the criticisms.)
This little formality over, we waited for them to be kind enough to dictate something to us.
I looked about me at the little unknown faces, several of which made me feel sorry for them, they were already so strained and anxious.
Everyone gave a start; Roubaud had broken the silence and spoken:
‘Spelling test, young ladies, be ready to take it down.
I shall repeat the sentence I dictate only once.’
There was a great hush of concentration. No wonder!
Five-sixths of these little girls had their whole future at stake.
And to think that all of those would become schoolmistresses, that they would toil from seven in the morning till five in the afternoon and tremble before a Headmistress who would be unkind most of the time, to earn seventy-five francs a month!
Out of those sixty girls, forty-five were the daughters of peasants or manual labourers; in order not to work in the fields or at the loom, they had preferred to make their skins yellow and their chests hollow and deform their right shoulders.
They were bravely preparing to spend three years at a Training College, getting up at five a.m. and going to bed at eight-thirty p.m. and having two hours recreation out of the twenty-four and ruining their digestions, since few stomachs survived three years of the college refectory.
But at least they would wear hats and would not make clothes for other people or look after animals or draw buckets from the well, and they would despise their parents.
And what was I, Claudine, doing here?
I was here because I had nothing else to do and so that, while I was undergoing the ordeal of being questioned by these professors, Papa could mess about in peace with his slugs. I was also there ‘for the honour of the School’, to obtain one more Certificate for it, one more glory for this unique, incredible, delightful School …
They had crammed this dictation with so many participles and laid so many traps of ambiguous plurals and all the sentences were so twisted and inverted that the piece ended by making no sense at all.
It was puerile!
I was pretty sure I had made no mistakes; all I had to do was to be careful about the accents, for they counted stray accents hovering in the wrong place over words as half-mistakes and quarter-mistakes.
While I was reading it through again, a little ball of paper, very deftly aimed, landed on my exam sheet; the lanky Anais had written to me asking:
‘Should there be an s to trouves, in the second sentence?’
She hadn’t the faintest idea, that Anais!