Operations on the Bourse drive me frantic: there are brokerages of 1/8 per cent that I have all the torment in the world not to forget.
‘Second Question. – The Theory of Divisibility by 9.
You have one hour.’
My goodness, that was none too much.
Luckily I’d learnt divisibility by 9 for so long that it had finally stuck in my mind.
Once again I’d have to put in order all the necessary and sufficing conditions – what a bore!
The other candidates were already absorbed and alert; a faint whispering of numbers, of muttered calculations, arose above the bent heads.
The first problem was finished.
After having begun each calculation all over again twice (I so often make mistakes!) I obtained a result of 22,850 francs as the gentleman’s profit: a pretty profit!
I had confidence in this round and reassuring number but all the same, I wanted the support of Luce who conjures with figures in a masterly way.
Several competitors had finished and I could see none but satisfied faces.
In any case most of these little daughters of grasping peasants or shrewd seamstresses are gifted for arithmetic to an extent that has often amazed me.
I might have asked my dark-haired next-door neighbour, who had also finished, but I mistrusted her discreet and serious eyes, so I therefore concocted a ball, which flew off and fell under Luce’s nose, bearing the figure 22,850.
The child joyfully signalled me a ‘Yes’ with her head.
Satisfied, I then asked my neighbour:
‘How much have you got?’
She hesitated and murmured, with reserve:
‘I’ve over 20,000 francs.’
‘So’ve I, but how much more?’
‘I told you … more than 20,000 francs …’
‘All right, I’m not asking you to lend me them!
Keep your 22,850 francs, you’re not the only one who’s got the right result. You’re like a black ant – for various reasons!’
A few girls near us laughed; my interlocutor, not even offended, folded her hands and lowered her eyes.
‘Have you finished, young ladies?’ bellowed Roubaud. ‘I restore you your liberty. Be in good time for the drawing test.’
We returned at five minutes to two to the ex-Rivoire Institute.
What disgust, what a desire to run away the sight of that dilapidated prison induced in me!
In the best-lit part of the classroom, Roubaud had disposed two circles of chairs; in the centre of each, a stand.
What were they going to put on it?
We were all eyes.
The examiner-cum-factotum disappeared and returned bearing two glass jugs with handles.
Before he had placed them on the stand, all the girls were whispering:
‘My dear, it’s going to be frightfully difficult, because of being transparent!’
Roubaud announced:
‘Young ladies, for the drawing test, you are at liberty to sit where you choose.
Reproduce these two utensils (utensil yourself!) in line, the sketch in charcoal, the finished outline in drawing-pencil.
You are strictly forbidden to use a ruler or anything whatever that resembles one.
The sheets of cardboard that you should all have brought with you will serve you as drawing-boards.’
He had not finished speaking before I had already flung myself into the chair I had my eye on, an excellent place from which one saw the jug in profile, with the handle at the side.
Several followed my example and I found myself between Luce and Marie Belhomme.
‘Strictly forbidden to use a ruler for the lines of construction?’ Nonsense, everyone knew what that meant! My companions and I had in reserve strips of stiff paper a decimetre long and marked off in centimetres, very easy to conceal.
We had permission to talk, but we made little use of it; we preferred to make grimaces, arm outstretched and one eye shut, in order to take measurements with the charcoal-holder.
With a little dexterity, nothing was simpler than to draw the construction-lines with a ruler (two strokes which divided the sheet cross-wise and a rectangle to enclose the belly of the jug).
From the other circle of chairs came a sudden small commotion, stifled exclamations and Roubaud’s severe voice:
‘It wouldn’t need more than that, Mademoiselle, to have yourself excluded from the examination!’
It was a wretched girl, a skimpy, puny little thing, who had got caught, ruler in hand, and was now sobbing into her handkerchief.
Roubaud became extremely nosy and examined us at close quarters, but the marked strips of paper had disappeared as if by magic.
In any case, we didn’t need them any more.
My jug was coming on beautifully, with a well-curved belly.
While I was complacently considering it, our invigilator, distracted by the timid entry of the schoolmistresses who had come to find out ‘if the French composition had been good on the whole’, left us alone, Luce gave me a gentle tug:
‘Do tell me if my drawing’s all right; it looks to me as if something’s wrong with it.’