After examining it, I explained to her:
‘Why, of course – it’s got the handle too low.
It makes it look like a whipped dog that’s tucking its tail in.’
‘What about mine?’ asked Marie from the other side.
‘Yours is hunchbacked on the right side: put an orthopaedic corset on it.’
‘A what?’
‘I’m telling you you ought to put some cottonwool on the left, it’s only got “advantages” on one side.
Ask Anais to lend you one of her false bosoms.’ (For the lanky Anais inserts two handkerchiefs in the gussets of her stays and all our gibes haven’t succeeded in making her decide to give up this childish padding.)
This back-chat threw my neighbours into a state of uncontrolled gaiety. Luce flung herself back in her chair, exposing all the fresh teeth in her little cat-like jaw as she laughed. Marie blew out her cheeks like the bellows of a bagpipe.
Then suddenly they both stopped, petrified in the midst of their joy – for the terrible pair of blazing eyes belonging to Mademoiselle Sergent had cast a Medusa look at them from the far end of the room.
And the session was concluded in irreproachable silence.
They put us out, feverish and noisy at the thought that, this very evening, we should read, on a big list nailed to the door, the names of the candidates who had qualified for the Orals next day.
Mademoiselle Sergent had difficulty in restraining us: we were making an intolerable noise chattering.
‘Are you coming to look at the names, Marie?’
‘Gracious, no!
If I wasn’t on it, the others would jeer at me.’
‘I’m coming,’ said Anais. ‘I want to see the faces of those who haven’t qualified.’
‘And suppose you were one of them yourself?’
‘All right then, I don’t have my name written on my forehead. I’d know how to put on a beaming expression so that the others wouldn’t look pitying.’
‘That’s enough!
You’re bursting my eardrums,’ said Mademoiselle Sergent sharply. ‘You’ll see what you’ll see – and take care I don’t come alone, this evening, to read the names on the door.
To begin with, we’re not going back to the hotel; I’ve no desire to make that trek twice more; we’ll dine at the restaurant.’
She asked for a private room.
In the species of bathroom they allotted to us where the light fell drearily from above, our effervescence petered out.
We ate like so many little wolves, without saying a word.
Our hunger appeased, we took it in turn to ask, every ten minutes, what time it was.
Mademoiselle tried vainly to calm our jangled nerves by assuring us there were too many entrants for their Lordships to have been able to read all the essays before nine o’clock; we went on seething all the same.
We did not know what to do with ourselves in this cellar!
Mademoiselle Sergent would not take us out of doors; I knew why: the garrison was off duty at that hour and the red-trousered soldiers, out to cut a dash, did not stand on ceremony.
Already on the way to dinner, our little band had run the gauntlet of smiles, tongue-clickings, and the sound of blown kisses; these manifestations had exasperated the Headmistress who had machine-gunned these audacious infantrymen with her scowls, but it would have needed more than that to reduce them to order!
The declining day, and our impatience, made us peevish and ill-natured; Anais and Marie had already exchanged spiteful remarks, their feathers ruffled like two fighting hens; the two Jauberts appeared to be meditating on the ruins of Carthage and I had thrust little Luce away with a sharp elbow when she wanted to be cuddled.
Luckily, Mademoiselle, whose nerves were almost as much on edge as ours, rang, and asked for some light and two packs of cards.
Good idea!
The brightness of the two gas-jets restored our morale a little and the packs of cards made us smile.
‘I say, let’s play trente-et-un!”
‘Come on, then!’
The two Jauberts did not know how to play!
All right, they could go on reflecting the frailty of human destiny; we others were going to play cards while Mademoiselle read the papers.
We had quite fun.
We played badly and Anais cheated.
And, every now and then, we stopped in the middle of a game, our elbows on the table and our faces strained, to ask:
‘Whatever time is it?’
Marie gave vent to the opinion that, as it was dark, we shouldn’t be able to read the names; we should have to take matches with us.
‘Silly, there’ll be street-lamps.’
‘So there will! … But suppose that, just in that very place, there wasn’t one?’
‘All right,’ I said very low, ‘I’ll steal a candle from the candlesticks on the mantelpiece and you bring the matches … Let’s go on playing … Knave of Clubs and two aces!’
Mademoiselle Sergent drew out her watch; we did not take our eyes off her.
She stood up; we followed her example so abruptly that chairs fell over.
All our excitement surged up again, we danced over to get our hats, and, while I was looking in the glass to put mine on, I pinched a candle.
Mademoiselle Sergent put herself to unheard-of trouble to prevent us from running; passers-by laughed at this swarm of girls which was forcing itself not to gallop and we laughed back at the passers-by.