I have never given another thought to his sudden attack in the glass-paned corridor; the impression had been sharp, but short – and besides, with him, one knows perfectly well that it means nothing!
I am probably the three hundredth little girl he has tried to lure to his house; the incident is of no interest either to him or to me.
It would have been if the attempt had succeeded, that’s all.
Already, we were giving a great deal of thought to what we should wear for the prizegiving.
Mademoiselle was getting herself a black silk dress embroidered by her mother, an exquisite needlewoman, who was working a design all over it, in satin-stitch; a pattern of big bundles of flowers and slender garlands that ran round the hem of the skirt and branches that climbed over the bodice – all in subtle, muted shades of violet silk.
It was an extremely distinguished affair, a little ‘old-ladyish’ perhaps, but impeccably cut.
Always dressed in dark, simple things, the chic of our Headmistress’s clothes eclipses all the lawyers’ and tax-collectors’ and shopkeepers’ and retired businessmen’s wives’ in the place!
It is her little revenge – the revenge of an ugly woman with an excellent figure.
Mademoiselle Sergent was also concerned about dressing her little Aimee charmingly for this great day.
They had ordered samples of stuff from the Louvre and the Bon Marche and the two friends, deeply absorbed, made their selection together in our presence, in the playground where we sat working in the shade.
I thought that this was going to be a dress that would not cost Mademoiselle Aimee much; really, she would be very wrong to act otherwise.
It was not with her seventy-five francs a month – from which she had to deduct thirty francs for her board (which she did not pay), another thirty for her sister’s (which she saved), and twenty francs she sent to her parents, as I knew from Luce – it was not, I declare, with these emoluments that she would pay for the charming dress of white mohair of which I had seen the pattern.
Among the schoolgirls, it was very much the thing not to seem in the least concerned about what one was going to wear for the prizegiving.
All of them were brooding over it a month in advance and tormenting their Mamas to be allowed ribbons or lace or at least alterations which would bring last year’s dress up to date – but it was considered good taste to say nothing about it.
We asked each other with detached curiosity, as if out of politeness:
‘What’s your dress going to be like?’ And we appeared hardly to listen to the answer, made in the same off-hand contemptuous tone.
The gawky Anais had asked me the routine question, her eyes elsewhere and her face vacant.
With an absent-minded look, and sounding quite indifferent, I explained:
‘Oh, nothing startling … white muslin … a crossed fichu on the bodice, with the neck cut down to a point … and Louis XV sleeves with a muslin frill, stopping at the elbows … That’s all.’
We were always all in white for the prizegiving, but the dresses were trimmed with light ribbons; these rosettes, bows and sashes whose colour, which we insisted on changing every year, greatly preoccupied us.
‘The ribbons?’ inquired Anais in an artificial manner.
(I had been expecting that.)
‘White too.’
‘My dear, a real bride then!
You know, lots of them are going to look as black in all that white as fleas on a sheet.’
‘True.
Luckily, white suits me quite well.’ (Fume, dear child!
Everyone knows that with your yellow skin, you’re forced to put red ribbons or orange ones on your white frock so as not to look like a lemon.)
‘What about you? Orange ribbons?’
‘Goodness, no! I had them last year!
Louis XV ribbons, striped, in two materials, faille and satin, ivory and scarlet.
My dress is cream wool.’
‘Me,’ announced Marie Belhomme, who had not been asked anything. ‘It’s white muslin with periwinkle-blue ribbons, a mauvey blue, awfully pretty!’
‘Me,’ said Luce, as usual, nestling in my skirts or couched in my shadow, ‘I’ve got the dress, only I don’t know what ribbons to put on it; Aimee would like them blue …’
‘Blue?
Your sister’s a dolt, saving the respect I owe her.
With green eyes like yours, one doesn’t choose blue ribbons – that sets one’s teeth on edge.
The hat-shop in the square sells very pretty ribbons, in green and white glace … your dress is white?’
‘Yes … white muslin.’
‘Good!
Now, bully your sister into buying you green ribbons.’
‘No need to. I’m the one who’s buying them.’
‘Better still.
You’ll see, you’ll look charming; there won’t be three who’ll dare risk green ribbons, they’re too difficult to wear.’
That poor kid!
At the least kind thing I say to her without meaning to, her face lights up …
Mademoiselle Sergent, in whom the forthcoming exhibition inspired certain anxieties, hustled us and hurried us up; it snowed punishments, punishments that consisted in doing twenty centimetres of lace, a metre of hem or twenty rows of knitting after class.
She herself was working, too, at a pair of magnificent muslin curtains which she embroidered very prettily indeed: when her Aimee left her time to.
That charming sluggard of an Assistant, lazy as a cat as she is, sighed and yawned over fifty tapestry stitches, in front of all the pupils and Mademoiselle told her, without daring to scold her, that ‘it was a deplorable example to us’.
Whereupon the insubordinate tossed her work in the air, looked at her friend with sparkling eyes and flung herself on her, nibbling her hands.