‘You’ll sing them tomorrow, before the Minister.
Now, vanish!’
This speech had caused consternation to quite a number of little girls who looked forward to the prizegiving as a unique festive occasion in the year; they went off perplexed and discontented, under arches of flower-decked greenery.
The people of Montigny, exhausted but proud, were taking a rest, sitting on their doorsteps and contemplating their labours; the girls used the rest of the dying day to sew on a ribbon or to put some lace round an improvised low neck – for the great ball at the Town Hall, my dear!
Tomorrow morning, as soon as it was light, the boys would strew the route of the procession with cut grass and green leaves, mingled with flowers and rose-petals.
And if the Minister Jean Dupuy wasn’t satisfied, he must be extremely hard to please, so he could go to blazes!
The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to run to the looking-glass; goodness, one never knew, suppose I’d grown a boil overnight?
Reassured, I made my toilet very carefully: I was admirably early, it was only six o’clock: I had time to be meticulous over every detail.
Thanks to the dryness of the air, my hair went easily into a ‘cloud’.
My small face is always rather pale and peaky, but, I assure you, my eyes and mouth are not at all bad.
The dress rustled lightly; the underskirt of plain unspotted muslin swayed to the rhythm of my walk and brushed softly against my pointed shoes.
Now for the wreath. Ah, how well it suited me!
A little Ophelia, hardly more than a child, with those amusing dark shadows round the eyes! … Yes, they used to tell me, when I was little, that I had a grown-up person’s eyes; later, it was eyes that were ‘not quite respectable’: you can’t please everyone and yourself as well.
I prefer to please myself first of all …
The tiresome thing was that tight around bouquet which was going to ruin the whole effect.
Pooh! it didn’t matter since I was to hand it over to His Excellency …
All white from head to foot, I set off to the School through the cool streets; the boys, in process of ‘strewing’ called out coarse, monstrous compliments to the ‘little bride’ who fled in shyness.
I arrived ahead of time, but I found about fifteen of the juniors already there, little things from the surrounding countryside and the distant farms; they were used to getting up at four in summer.
They were comical and touching; their heads looked enormous with their hair frizzed out in harsh twists and they remained standing up so as not to crumple their muslin dresses, rinsed out in too much blue, that swelled out stiffly from waists encircled by currant-red or indigo sashes.
Against all this white their sunburnt faces appeared quite black.
My arrival had provoked a little ‘ah!’ from them, hastily suppressed. Now they stood silent, greatly awed by their fine clothes and their frizzed hair, rolling an elegant handkerchief, on which their mother had poured some ‘smell-nice’, in their white-cotton-gloved hands.
Our two lady mistresses had not appeared but, from the upper floor, I could hear little footsteps running … Into the playground came pouring a host of white clouds, beribboned in pink, in red, in green and in blue; in ever-increasing numbers the girls arrived – silent for the most part, because they were extremely busy eyeing each other, comparing themselves and pinching their lips disdainfully.
They looked like a camp of female Gauls, those flying, curly, frizzy, overflowing manes, nearly all of them golden … A clattering troop poured down the staircase; it was the boarders – always a hostile and isolated band – for whom their First Communion dresses still did duty on festive occasions. Behind them came Luce, dainty as a white Persian, charming with her soft, fluttering curls and her complexion like a newly-opened rose.
Didn’t she only need a happy love-affair, like her sister, to make her altogether beautiful?
‘How love you look, Claudine!
And your wreath isn’t a bit like the two others.
Oh, you are lucky to be so pretty!’
‘But, kitten, do you know I find you amusing and desirable in your green ribbons?
You certainly are an extremely odd little animal!
Where’s your sister and her Mademoiselle?’
‘Not ready yet.
Aimee’s dress does up under the arm, just fancy!
It’s Mademoiselle who’s hooking it up for her.’
‘I see. That may take quite a time.’
From above, the voice of the elder sister called:
‘Luce, come and fetch the pennants!’
The playground was filled with big and little girls and all this white, in the sunlight, hurt one’s eyes. (Besides, there were too many different whites that clashed with each other.)
There was Liline, with her disturbing Gioconda smile under her golden waves, and her sea-green eyes; and that young beanpole of a
‘Matilde’, covered to the hips in a cascade of hair the colour of ripe corn; there was the Vignale family, five girls ranging from eight to fourteen, all tossing exuberant manes that looked as if they had been dyed with henna. There was Nannette, a little sly-boots with knowing eyes, walking on two deep blonde plaits as long as herself and as heavy as dull gold – and so many, many others. Under the dazzling light, all these fleeces of hair blazed like burning bushes.
Marie Belhomme arrived, appetizing in her cream frock and blue ribbons, quaint under the crown of cornflowers.
But, good heavens, how big her hands were under the white kid!
At last, here came Anais, and I sighed with relief to see how awful her hair looked in stiff, corrugated waves; her wreath of crimson poppies, too close to her forehead, made her complexion look like a corpse’s.
With touching accord, Luce and I ran to meet her and burst out into a concert of compliments:
‘My dear, how nice you look!
Honest, my dear – definitely – there’s nothing so becoming to you as red! It’s a complete success!’
A little mistrustful at first, Anais dilated with pleasure and we staged a triumphal entry into the classroom where the children, their numbers now complete, greeted the living tricolour flag with an ovation.
A religious silence descended: we were watching our two mistresses walk slowly and deliberately, step by step, down the stairs, followed by two or three boarders loaded with pennants on the end of long, gilded lances.
As to Aimee, frankly I had to admit it; one could have eaten her alive, she was so attractive in her white dress of glistening mohair (merely a slim sheath with no seam at the back!) and her rice-straw hat trimmed with white gauze.
Away with you, little monster!
And Mademoiselle looked at her with fond, brooding eyes, moulded, herself, in the black dress embroidered with mauve sprays that I have already described to you.