‘Don’t behave like little geese!
There must be one in pure white, one in white with blue ribbons, one in white with red ribbons, to symbolize a flag of honour. Sh! Eh! not a bad little flag at all!
You’re in it, of course, in the flag, you (that was me) … you’re decorative and besides I want you to be seen.
What are your ribbons for the prizegiving like?’
‘As it happens, this year, I’m white all over.’
‘That’s fine, you little virginal type, you’ll be the middle of the flag.
And you’ll recite a speech to my friend the Minister.
He won’t be bored looking at you, you know!’ (He was completely crazy to let out things like that here!
Mademoiselle Sergent would kill me!)
‘Who’s got red ribbons?’
‘Me!’ shrieked Anais who was palpitating with hope.
‘Right, you then.
I’m quite agreeable.’
It was a half-lie on the part of Anais, who was determined at all costs to be in the picture, since her ribbons were striped.
‘Who’s got blue ones?’
‘Me, S-sir,’ stammered Marie Belhomme, choking with terror.
‘That’s fine, you won’t make a repulsive trio.
By the way, about the ribbons, don’t spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar, let yourselves go, I’m doing the paying! (Hum!) Magnificent sashes, fine dashing bows – and I’m buying you bouquets to match your colours!’
‘So far ahead!’ I observed. ‘They’ll have plenty of time to get faded.’
‘Be quiet, you little hoyden, you’ll never develop the bump of reverence.
I like to think you’ve already developed two others more pleasantly situated!’
The entire class burst into enthusiastic giggles; Mademoiselle gave a sickly smile.
As to Dutertre, I could have sworn he was drunk.
They threw us out before he left.
I was bombarded with cries of:
‘My dear, there’s no denying it, you’re always the lucky one!’
‘All the honours for you, as usual!’
‘It wouldn’t have been anyone else, no fear!’ I did not answer a word but went off to comfort poor little Luce who was heartbroken at not having been chosen as one of the flag.
‘There, there, green will suit you better than anything … And, besides, it’s your own fault. Why didn’t you put yourself forward like Anais?’
‘Oh,’ sighed the little thing, ‘it doesn’t matter. I lose my head in front of lots of people and I should have done something silly.
But I’m glad that you’re reciting the compliment and not that great gawk Anais.’
Papa, when informed of the glorious part I was to play in the opening of the schools, wrinkled his Bourbon nose and inquired:
‘Ye gods! Am I going to have to show myself over there?’
‘Certainly not, Papa. You remain in the shadow!’
‘Then you really mean I haven’t got to bother about you?’
‘Really and truly not, Papa. Don’t change your usual ways!’
The town and the School are upside down.
If it goes on like this, I shall no longer have time to describe anything in my diary.
This morning we were in class by seven o’clock, though class was hardly the word!
The Headmistress had had enormous parcels of tissue-paper sent over from the main town; pink, pastel blue, red, yellow, and white. In the central classroom, we gutted the parcels – the biggest girls were constituted chief assistants – and off we went, counting the huge flimsy sheets, folding them in six lengthwise, cutting them into six strips and tying these strips in little bundles which were carried to Mademoiselle’s desk.
She scalloped them along the edges with pinking-shears, then Mademoiselle Aimee distributed them to the entire First Class and the entire Second Class.
Nothing to the Third; those kids were too little – they would ruin the paper, the pretty paper of which every strip would become a crumpled, bloated rose at the end of a wire stalk.
We lived in a state of ecstasy!
Text-books and exercise-books slept in closed desks and it was a question of who could get up first and rush off at once to the School, now transformed into a florist’s workroom.
I no longer lingered lazily in bed and I was in such a hurry to get there in good time that I fastened my belt in the street.
Sometimes we were all assembled in the classrooms already when their Ladyships came down at last.
They were taking things easy too, in the matter of costume!
Mademoiselle Sergent displayed herself in a red cotton dressing-gown (without any corsets, proudly); her winsome assistant followed her, in bedroom slippers, her eyes sleepy and tender.
The atmosphere has become completely homely; the day before yesterday, Mademoiselle Aimee, having washed her hair, appeared in the morning with her hair down and still damp. Her golden hair was as fine as silk, rather short and curling softly at the ends; she looked like a scamp of a little page and her Headmistress, her kind Headmistress, devoured her with her eyes.
The playground was deserted; the drawn serge curtains enveloped us in a blue, fantastic twilight.