There’s one just going to fall!
You’re losing something, pick it up!’
Everyone knew each other; everyone addressed each other familiarly as tu …
Today and yesterday, the boys went off in the carts at dawn and did not come back till sunset, buried under branches of box, larch and arbor vitae, under cartloads of green moss that smelt of the bogs; afterwards they went off drinking, as usual.
I have never seen these gangs of ruffians in such a state of excitement; normally they don’t care a fig about anything, even politics.
Now they emerged from their woods, their hovels, from the bushes where they spied on the girls who looked after the cows, to embower Jean Dupuy!
It was beyond all comprehension!
Louchard’s gang, six or seven ne’er-do-wells who had pillaged the forests, went by, singing, invisible under heaps of ivy that trailed behind them, rustling softly.
The streets fought among themselves in rivalry; the Rue du Cloitre erected three triumphal arches because the Grande-Rue had planned two, one at each end.
But the Grande-Rue, put on its mettle, constructed a marvellous affair, a medieval castle, all in pine-branches trimmed even with shears, with pepper-pot turrets.
The Rue des Fours-Barraux, just by the School, came under the rural-arty influence of Mademoiselle Sergent. It confined itself to covering the houses on either side with a complete tapestry of long-tressed, dishevelled branches and then putting battens across from each house to the one opposite and covering this roof with hanging masses of intertwining ivy. The result was a delicious arbour, dusky and green, in which voices were muted as if in a thickly-curtained room; people walked to and fro under it for sheer pleasure.
Furious at this, the Rue du Cloitre lost all restraint and linked its three triumphal arches together with clusters of mossy garlands stuck with flowers so as to have its arbour too.
Whereupon, the Grande-Rue calmly set to and took up its pavements and erected, in their stead, a wood! Yes, honestly, a real little wood on either side with young trees that had been uprooted and replanted.
It would only have needed a fortnight of this furious emulation for everyone to be cutting each other’s throats.
The masterpiece, the jewel, was our School – rather our Schools.
When it was all finished, not a square inch of wall would be visible under the greenery, the flowers, and the flags.
Mademoiselle had requisitioned an army of young men; the bigger boys and the assistant-masters, all of whom she directed with a rod of iron; they obeyed her without a murmur.
The triumphal arch at the entrance had now seen the light of day; standing on ladders, the two mistresses and the four of us had spent three hours ‘writing’ in pink roses on the pediment:
WELCOME TO OUR VISITORS!
while the boys amused themselves by ogling our calves.
From up above, from the roofs and windows and all the rough surfaces of the walls, there flowed and rippled such a cascade of branches, of red, white, and blue material, of ropes masked with ivy, of hanging greenery and trailing roses, that the huge building seemed to undulate from base to summit in the light wind and to be gently swaying.
You entered the School by lifting a rustling curtain of flower-decked ivy and the fairy-like atmosphere continued inside. Ropes of roses outlined the corners, were festooned from wall to wall and hung at the windows: it was adorable.
In spite of our activity, in spite of our bold incursions on garden-owners, this morning we saw ourselves on the point of being short of flowers.
General consternation!
Curl-papered heads bent forward agitatedly around Mademoiselle who was brooding, with knitted brows.
‘All the same, I’ve got to have some!’ she exclaimed. ‘The whole stand on the left hasn’t any at all; we must have flowers in pots.
You Rovers, come here at once!’
‘Here, Mademoiselle!’
We sprang up, all four of us (Anais, Marie, Luce, Claudine); we sprang forth from the buzzing throng, ready to dash away.
‘Listen.
You’re to go and see old Caillavaut …’
‘Oh!!! …’
We hadn’t let her finish.
You must realize that old Caillavaut is a miser, a regular Harpagon, slightly mad, spiteful as the plague and immensely rich. He owns a magnificent house and grounds which no one is allowed to enter but himself and his gardener.
He is feared for being extremely malicious, hated for being a miser, and respected as a living mystery.
And Mademoiselle wanted us to go and ask him for flowers!
She couldn’t have realized what she was doing!
‘… Now, now, now! anyone would think I was sending off lambs to the slaughterhouse!
You’ll soften his gardener’s heart and you won’t even see old Caillavaut himself.
Anyway, what if you do? You’ve got legs to run away with, haven’t you?
Off you go!’
I took the three others off, though they were far from enthusiastic, for I was conscious of a burning desire, tinged with vague apprehension, to penetrate into this old maniac’s domain.
I urged them on:
‘Come on, Luce, come on, Anais!
We’re going to see terrific things, we’ll be able to tell the others all about it … Why, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, the people who’ve been inside old Caillavaut’s place!’
Confronted with the great green door, where flowering, over-scented acacias overhung the wall, no one dared to pull the bell-chain.
Finally, I gave it a violent tug, thereby setting off a terrifying tocsin; Marie took three steps towards flight, and Luce, trembling, hid bravely behind me. Nothing happened; the door remained shut.
A second attempt was equally unsuccessful.
I then lifted the latch, which yielded, and, like mice, we crept in one by one, uneasily, leaving the door ajar.
A great gravel courtyard, beautifully kept, lay in front of the fine white house whose shutters were closed against the sun; the courtyard expanded into a green garden, rendered deep and mysterious by its thick clumps of trees … Rooted to the spot, we stared without daring to move; still no one to be seen and not a sound.