We had to push our way through the hedge of people who were looking on and cluttering up the main doorway. Both the double doors were flung open for it was here, you realize, that a self-constituted vigilance committee took up its station!
It was here that disapproving remarks and cackles were exchanged about the young girls’ dresses and the frequency with which certain couples danced together.
‘My dear! Fancy showing as much of one’s skin as that! What a little hussy!’
‘Yes, and showing what?
Just bones!’
‘Four times, four times running she’s danced with Monmond!
If only I were her mother, I’d give her what-for to teach her a lesson, I’d send her straight home to bed!’
‘Those gentlemen from Paris, they don’t dance like we do here.’
‘They certainly don’t!
You’d think they were afraid of getting themselves broken, they exert themselves so little. Now, our boys here, that’s something like! They enjoy themselves without minding how hard they go at it!’
It was the truth, even though Monmond, a brilliant dancer, was restraining himself from doing flying leaps with outspread legs, ‘with reference to’ the presence of the people from Paris.
A dashing young spark, Monmond, over whom there was fierce rivalry!
A lawyer’s clerk, with a girl’s face and black curly hair, how could you expect anyone to resist him!
We made a timid entrance, between two figures of a quadrille, and we walked slowly and deliberately across the room to go and seat ourselves on a sofa against the wall – three model little girls.
I had been fairly sure, in fact, I had seen for myself that my dress suited me and that my hair and my wreath made my little face look very far from contemptible – but the sly glances and the suddenly rigid countenances of the girls who were resting and fanning themselves made me quite convinced of it and I felt more at ease.
I could examine the room without apprehension.
The ‘dress-suits’, ah! there weren’t many of them!
All the official group had taken the six o’clock train; farewell to the Minister, the General, the Prefect and their suite.
There remained some five or six young men, mere secretaries, but pleasant and civilized, who were standing in a corner and seemed to be prodigiously amused at this hall, the like of which they had obviously never seen before.
The rest of the male dancers?
All the boys and young men of Montigny and its neighbourhood, two or three in badly cut evening clothes, the rest in morning-coats; paltry accoutrements for this evening’s party that was supposed to be an official occasion.
The female dancers consisted entirely of young girls, for, in this primitive countryside, a woman ceases to dance as soon as she is married.
They had spared no expense tonight, the young ones!
Dresses of pink muslin and blue muslin that made the swarthy complexions of these little country girls look almost black, hair that was too sleek and not puffed out enough, white cotton gloves, and, in spite of the assertions of the gossips in the doorway, necks that were not cut nearly low enough; the bodices stopped their decolletage too soon, just where the flesh became white, firm, and rounded.
The orchestra warned the couples to set to partners and, amidst the fan-strokes of the skirts that brushed our knees, I saw my First Communion partner, Claire, languid and altogether charming, pass by in the arms of the handsome assistant-master, Antonin Rabastens, who was waltzing furiously, wearing a white carnation in his buttonhole.
Our lady mistresses had still not come down (I was keeping assiduous watch on the little door of the secret staircase, through which they would appear) when a gentleman, one of the ‘dress-suits’, came and made his bow to me.
I let myself be swept off; he was not unattractive; too tall for me, but solidly built, and he waltzed well, without squeezing me too tight, and looking down at me with an amused expression …
How idiotic I am!
I ought to have been aware of nothing else but the pleasure of dancing, of the pure joy of being invited before Anais who was staring at my partner with an envious eye … and, yet, during that waltz, I was conscious only of unhappiness, of a sadness, foolish perhaps, but so acute that I could only just keep back my tears … Why?
Ah, because … – no, I can’t be utterly sincere, I can only give a hint or two … I felt my soul overwhelmed with sorrow because, though I’m not in the least fond of dancing, I should have liked to dance with someone whom I adored with all my heart. I should have liked that someone there so that I could relieve my tension by telling him everything that I confided only to Fanchette or to my pillow (and not even to my diary) because I so wildly needed that someone, and this humiliated me, and I would never surrender myself except to the someone whom I should completely love and completely know – dreams, in short, that would never be realized!
My tall waltzer did not fail to ask me:
‘You like dancing, Mademoiselle?’
‘No, Monsieur.’
‘But then … why are you dancing?’
‘Because I’d rather be doing even that than nothing at all.’
We went twice round the room in silence and then he began again:
‘May one observe that your two companions serve you as admirable foils?’
‘Oh, heavens, yes, you may!
All the same Marie is quite attractive.’
‘You said?’
‘I said that the one in blue isn’t ugly.’
‘I … don’t much appreciate that type of beauty … Will you allow me to ask you here and now for the next waltz?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘You haven’t a dance-programme?’
‘That doesn’t matter: I know everyone here, I shan’t forget.’
He took me back to my seat and had hardly turned his back before Anais complimented me with one of her most supercilious
‘My dears!’
‘Yes, he really is charming, isn’t he?
And you’d never believe how amusing it is to hear him talk!’
‘Oh! Everyone knows your luck’s right in today!