uy 
 
 fflarpuerite Tludoux 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Class 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 MARGUERITE AUDOUX 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGUERITE AUDOUX 
 
 Translated by 
 JOHN N. RAPHAEL 
 
 With an Introduction 
 By ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 1911, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 220917 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE origins of this extraordinary book 
 are sufficiently curious and sufficiently 
 interesting to be stated in detail. They 
 go back to some ten years ago, when the 
 author, after the rustic adventures which she 
 describes in the following pages, had defi- 
 nitely settled in Paris as a working sempstress. 
 The existence of a working sempstress in 
 Paris, as elsewhere, is very hard; it usually 
 means eleven hours' close application a day, 
 six full days a week, at half a crown a day. 
 But already Marguerite Audoux's defective 
 eyesight was causing anxiety, and upsetting 
 the regularity of her work, so that in the even- 
 ings she was often less fatigued than a semp- 
 stress generally is. She wanted distraction, 
 and she found it in the realisation of an old 
 desire to write. She wrote, not because she 
 could find nothing else to do, but because at 
 last the chance of writing had come. That 
 she had always loved reading is plain from 
 certain incidents in this present book; her 
 
 vii 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 opportunities for reading, however, had been 
 limited. She now began, in a tentative and 
 perhaps desultory fashion, to set down her 
 youthful reminiscences. About this time she 
 became acquainted, through one of its mem- 
 bers, and by one of those hazards of destiny 
 which too rarely diversify the dull industrial 
 life of a city, with a circle of young literary 
 men, of whom possibly the most important 
 was the regretted Charles Louis Philippe, 
 author of "Bubu de Montparnasse," and other 
 novels which have a genuine reputation 
 among the chosen people who know the dif- 
 ference between literature and its counterfeit. 
 This circle of friends used to meet at Phi- 
 lippe's flat. It included a number of talented 
 writers, among whom I should mention MM. 
 lehl (the author of "Cauet"), Francis Jour- 
 dam, Paul Fargue, Larbaud, Chanvin, Mar- 
 cel Ray, and Regis Gignoux (the literary and 
 dramatic critic). Marguerite Audoux was 
 not introduced as a literary prodigy. No- 
 body, indeed, was aware that she wrote. She 
 came on her merits as an individuality, and 
 she took her place beside several other women 
 who, like herself, had no literary pretensions. 
 I am told by one of the intimates of the fel- 
 lowship that the impression she made was pro- 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 found. And the fact is indubitable that her 
 friends are at least as enthusiastic about her 
 individuality as about this book which she 
 has written. She was a little over thirty, and 
 very pretty, with an agreeable voice. The 
 sobriety of her charm, the clear depth of her 
 emotional faculty, and the breadth of her gen- 
 tle interest in human nature handsomely con- 
 quered the entire fellowship. The working 
 sempstress was sincerely esteemed by some of 
 the brightest masculine intellects in Paris. 
 
 This admiring appreciation naturally en- 
 couraged her to speak a little of herself. And 
 one evening she confessed that she, too, had 
 been trying to write. On another evening 
 she brought some sheets of manuscript the 
 draft of the early chapters of "Marie-Claire" 
 and read them aloud. She read, I am told, 
 very well. The reception was enthusiastic. 
 One can imagine the ecstatic fervour of these 
 young men, startled by the apparition of such 
 a shining talent. She must continue the writ- 
 ing of her book, but in the meantime she must 
 produce some short stories and sketches for 
 the daily papers ! Her gift must be presented 
 to the public instantly! She followed the ad- 
 vice thus urgently offered, and several mem- 
 bers of the circle (in particular Regis Gignoux 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 and Marcel Ray) gave themselves up to the 
 business of placing the stories and sketches; 
 Marcel Ray devoted whole days to the effort, 
 obtaining special leave from his own duties 
 in order to do so. In the result several stories 
 and sketches appeared in the Matin, Paris 
 Journal (respectively the least and the most 
 literary of Paris morning papers), and other 
 organs. These stories, and sketches, by the 
 way, were republished in a small volume, 
 some time before "Marie-Claire," and at- 
 tracted no general attention whatever. 
 
 Meanwhile the more important work pro- 
 ceeded, slowly; and was at length finished. 
 Its composition stretched over a period of six 
 years. Marguerite Audoux never hurried 
 nor fatigued herself, and though she re-wrote 
 many passages several times, she did not carry 
 this revision to the meticulous excess which is 
 the ruin of so many ardent literary beginners 
 in France. The trite phrase, "written with 
 blood and tears," does not in the least apply 
 here. A native wisdom has invariably saved 
 Marguerite Audoux from the dangerous ex- 
 treme. In his preface to the original French 
 edition, M. Octave Mirbeau appositely points 
 out that Philippe and her other friends ab- 
 stained from giving purely literary advice to 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 the authoress as her book grew and was read 
 aloud. With the insight of artists they per- 
 ceived that hers was a talent which must be 
 strictly let alone. But Parisian rumour has 
 alleged, not merely that she was advised, but 
 that she was actually helped in the writing by 
 her admirers. The rumour is worse than 
 false it is silly. Every paragraph of the 
 work bears the unmistakable and inimitable 
 work of one individuality. And among the 
 friends of Marguerite Audoux, even the most 
 gifted, there is none who could possibly have 
 composed any of the passages which have been 
 singled out as being beyond the accomplish- 
 ment of a working sempstress. The whole 
 work and every part of the work is the un- 
 assisted and untutored production of its 
 author. This statement cannot be too clearly 
 and positively made. Doubtless the spelling 
 was drastically corrected by the proof-readers ; 
 but to have one's spelling drastically corrected 
 is an experience which occurs to nearly all 
 women writers, and to a few male writers. 
 
 The book completed, the question of its 
 proper flotation arose. I use the word "flota- 
 tion" with intent. Although Marguerite 
 Audoux had originally no thought of pub- 
 lishing, her friends were firmly bent not sim- 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 ply on publishing, but on publishing with the 
 maximum of eclat. A great name was neces- 
 sary to the success of the enterprise, a name 
 which, while keeping the sympathy of the 
 artists, would impose itself on the crowd. 
 Francis Jourdain knew Octave Mirbeau. And 
 Octave Mirbeau, by virtue of his feverish 
 artistic and moral enthusiasm, of his notori- 
 ous generosity, and of his enormous vogue, 
 was obviously the heaven-appointed man. 
 Francis Jourdain went to Octave Mirbeau 
 and offered him the privilege of floating 
 "Marie-Claire" on the literary market of 
 Paris. Octave Mirbeau accepted, and he 
 went to work on the business as he goes to 
 work on all his business; that is to say, with 
 flames and lightnings. For some time Octave 
 Mirbeau lived for nothing but "Marie- 
 Claire." The result has been vastly credit- 
 able to him. "Marie-Claire" was finally 
 launched in splendour. Its path had been 
 prepared with really remarkable skill in the 
 Press and in the world, and it was an exceed- 
 ingly brilliant success from the start. It ran 
 a triumphant course as a serial in one of the 
 "great reviews," and within a few weeks of 
 its publication as a book thirty thousand 
 copies had been sold. The sale continues more 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 actively than ever. Marguerite Audoux lives 
 precisely as she lived before. She is writing 
 a further instalment of her pseudonymous 
 autobiography, and there is no apparent rea- 
 son why this new instalment should not be 
 even better than the first. 
 
 Such is the story of the book. 
 
 My task is not to criticise the work. I will 
 only say this. In my opinion it is highly dis- 
 tinguished of its kind (the second part in par- 
 ticular is full of marvellous beauty) ; but it 
 must be accepted for what it is. It makes no 
 sort of pretence to display those constructive 
 and inventive artifices which are indispen- 
 sable to a great masterpiece of impersonal 
 fiction. It is not fiction. It is the exquisite 
 expression of a temperament. It is a divine 
 accident. 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT. 
 
PART I 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 ONE day a number of people came to 
 the house. The men came in as 
 though they were going into church, 
 and the women made the sign of the cross as 
 they went out. 
 
 I slipped into my parents' bedroom and 
 was greatly surprised to see that my mother 
 had a big lighted candle by her bedside. 
 My father was leaning over the foot of the 
 bed looking at my mother. She was asleep 
 with her hands crossed on her breast. 
 
 Our neighbour, la mere Colas, kept us 
 with her all day. As the women went out 
 again she said to them, "No, she would not 
 kiss her children good-bye." The women, 
 looking at us, blew their noses, and la mere 
 Colas added, " That sort of illness makes one 
 unkind, I suppose." A few days afterwards 
 we were given new dresses with big black 
 and white checks. 
 
 La mere Colas used to give us our meals 
 and send us out to play in the fields. My 
 sister, who was a big girl, scrambled into the 
 
2 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 hedges, climbed the trees, messed about in the 
 ponds, and used to come home at night with 
 her pockets full of creatures of all kinds, 
 which frightened me and made la mere Colas 
 furiously angry. 
 
 What I hated most were the earthworms. 
 The red elastic things made me shiver with 
 horror, and if I happened to step on one it 
 made me quite ill. When I had a pain in my 
 side la mere Colas used to forbid my sister to 
 go out. But my sister got tired of remaining 
 indoors and wanted to go out and take me 
 with her. So she used to go and collect 
 earthworms, and hold them up close to my 
 face. Then I said that I wasn't in pain any 
 more, and la mere Colas used to send us both 
 out of doors. One day my sister threw a 
 handful of earthworms on to my dress. I 
 jumped back so quickly that I fell into a tub 
 of hot water. La mere Colas was very angry 
 while she undressed me. I was not very 
 much hurt. She promised my sister a good 
 slapping, and called to the sweeps, who were 
 passing, to come in and take her away. All 
 three of them came in, with their black bags 
 and their ropes. My sister howled and cried 
 for mercy. I was very much ashamed at 
 being all undressed. 
 
MY father often took us to a place where 
 there were men who drank wine. 
 He used to put me on a table among 
 the glasses, and make me sing. The men 
 would laugh and kiss me, and try and make 
 me drink wine. It was always dark when we 
 went home. My father took long steps, and 
 rocked himself as he walked. He nearly 
 tumbled down lots of times. Sometimes he 
 would begin to cry and say that his house had 
 been stolen. Then my sister used to scream. 
 It was always she who used to find the house. 
 One morning la mere Colas loaded us with 
 reproaches, telling us that we were children 
 of misfortune, and that she would not feed us 
 any longer. We could go, she said, and look 
 for our father, who had gone away, nobody 
 knew where. When her anger had passed 
 she gave us our breakfasts as usual, but a few 
 days afterwards we were put into pere Chi- 
 con's cart. The cart was full of straw and 
 bags of corn. I was tucked away behind in a 
 little hollow between the sacks. The cart 
 
 3 
 
4 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 tipped down at the back, and every jolt made 
 me slip on the straw. 
 
 I was very frightened all the way along. 
 Every time I slipped I thought that the cart 
 was going to drop me, or that the sacks were 
 going to fall on me. We stopped at an inn. 
 A woman lifted us down, shook the straw off 
 our dresses, and gave us some milk to drink. 
 While she was fondling us I heard her say 
 to pere Chicon, "You really think their 
 father will take care of them, then?" Pere 
 Chicon shook his head, and knocked his pipe 
 against the table. Then he made a funny face 
 and said, "He may be anywhere. Young Gir- 
 ard told me he had met him on the Paris 
 road." After a while pere Chicon took us to 
 a big house with a lot of steps leading up to 
 the door. He had a long talk with a gentle- 
 man who waved his arms about and talked 
 about the dignity of labour. The gentleman 
 put his hand on my head and patted it, and 
 I heard him say several times, " He did not 
 tell me that he had any children." I under- 
 stood that he was talking of my father, and I 
 asked if I could see him. The gentleman 
 looked at me without answering, and then 
 asked pere Chicon, "How old is she?" "About 
 five," the old man replied. All this time my 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 5 
 
 sister was playing up and down the steps with 
 a kitten. We went back in the cart to mere 
 Colas again. She received us crossly and 
 pushed us about. A few days afterwards she 
 took us to the railway station, and that even- 
 ing we went to a big house, where there were 
 a lot of little girls. 
 
 Sister Gabrielle separated us at once. She 
 said that my sister was big enough to be with 
 the middle-sized girls, while I was to stay 
 with the little ones. Sister Gabrielle was 
 quite small, quite old, quite thin, and all bent 
 up. She managed the dormitory and the 
 refectory. She used to make the salad in a 
 huge yellow jar. She tucked her sleeves up 
 to her shoulders, and dipped her arms in and 
 out of the salad. Her arms were dark and 
 knotted, and when they came out of the jar, 
 all shining and dripping, they made me think 
 of dead branches on rainy days. 
 
I MADE a chum at once. She came danc- 
 ing up to me and looked impudent, I 
 thought. She did not stand any higher 
 than the bench on which I was sitting. She put 
 her elbows on my knees and said : "Why aren't 
 you playing about?" I told her that I had a 
 pain in my side. "Oh, of course," she said, 
 "your mother had consumption, and Sister 
 Gabrielle said you would soon die." She 
 climbed up on to the bench, and sat down, 
 hiding her little legs under her. Then she 
 asked me my name and my age, told me that 
 her name was Ismerie, and that she was older 
 than I was, and that the doctor said she would 
 never get any bigger. She told me also that 
 the class mistress was called Sister Marie- 
 Aimee, and that she was very unkind, and pun- 
 ished you severely if you talked too much. 
 All of a sudden she jumped down and shouted 
 "Augustine." Her voice was like a boy's, 
 and her legs were a little twisted. At the 
 end of recreation I saw her on Augustine's 
 back. Augustine was rolling her from one 
 shoulder to the other, as if she meant to throw 
 
 6 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 7 
 
 her down. In passing me Ismerie called out 
 in that big voice of hers, "You will carry me 
 too sometimes, won't you?" I soon became 
 friends with Augustine. 
 
MY eyes were not well. At night my 
 eyelids used to close up tight, and I 
 was quite blind until I had them 
 washed. Augustine was told off to take me 
 to the infirmary. Every morning she used to 
 come and fetch me to the little dormitory. 
 I could hear her coming before she got to the 
 door. She used to catch me by the hand and 
 pull me along, and she didn't mind a bit when 
 I bumped against the beds. We flew down 
 the passages like the wind, and rushed down 
 the two flights of stairs like an avalanche. My 
 feet only touched a step now and again. I 
 used to go down those stairs as if I was falling 
 down a well. Augustine had strong hands 
 and held me tight. To go to the infirmary we 
 had to pass behind the chapel and then in 
 front of a little white house. There we hur- 
 ried more than ever. One day when I fell on 
 to my knees, she pulled me up again and 
 smacked my head, saying, "Do be quick, we 
 are in front of the dead house." After that 
 she was always afraid of my falling again, 
 and used to tell me when we got in front of 
 
 8 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 9 
 
 the dead house. I was frightened chiefly 
 because Augustine was frightened. If she 
 rushed along like that there must be danger. 
 I was always out of breath when I got to the 
 infirmary. Somebody pushed me on to a 
 little chair, and the pain in my side had been 
 gone a long time when they came and washed 
 my eyes. It was Augustine who took me into 
 Sister Marie-Aimee's classroom. She put on 
 a timid kind of voice, and said, "Sister, here 
 is a new girl." I expected to be scolded; but 
 Sister Marie-Aimee smiled, kissed me seyeral 
 times, and said, "You are too small to sit on 
 a bench, I shall put you in here." And she 
 sat me down on a stool in the hollow of her 
 desk. It was ever so comfortable ; the warmth 
 of her woollen petticoat soothed my body, 
 which was bruised all over by tumbling about 
 on the wooden and stone staircases. Often 
 two feet hemmed me in on each side of my 
 stool, and two warm legs made a back for me. 
 A groping hand pressed my head on to the 
 woollen skirt between the knees, and the soft- 
 ness of the hand and the warmth of the pil- 
 low used to send me to sleep. When I woke 
 up again the pillow became a table. The 
 same hand put bits of cake on it and morsels 
 of sugar and sweets sometimes. And all 
 
10 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 round me I heard the world living. A voice 
 with tears in it would say, "No, Sister, I didn't 
 do it." Then shrill voices would say, "Yes, 
 she did, Sister." Above my head a full warm 
 voice called for silence. Then there would 
 be a rap of a ruler on the desk. It would 
 make an enormous noise down in my hollow. 
 Sometimes the feet would be drawn away from 
 my little stool, the knees would be drawn to- 
 gether, the chair would move, and I would 
 see coming down to my nest a white veil, a 
 narrow chin, smiling lips with little white 
 pointed teeth behind them, and last of all two 
 eyes which seemed to cuddle me and make me 
 feel comfortable. 
 
WHEN my eyes got better I used to get 
 an alphabet as well as sweets and 
 cakes. It was a little book with pic- 
 tures next to the words. I often used to look 
 at a great big strawberry which I fancied as 
 big as a bun. When it was not cold in the 
 classroom, Sister Marie-Aimee put me on a 
 bench between Ismerie and Marie Renaud, 
 who slept in the two beds next to mine. Now 
 and then she used to let me go back to my 
 hollow again, and I loved that. I used to 
 find books there with pictures, which made 
 me forget all about the time. 
 
 One morning Ismerie took me into a corner, 
 and told me with great secrecy that Sister 
 Marie-Aimee was not going to take the class 
 any more because she was going to take Sis- 
 ter Gabrielle's place in the dormitory and the 
 refectory. She did not tell me who had told 
 her this, but she was very grieved about it. She 
 was very fond of Sister Gabrielle, who used 
 to treat her like a little child. She did not 
 like "that Sister Marie-Aimee," as she used 
 to call her when she knew that nobody heard 
 
 11 
 
12 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 her but ourselves. She said that Sister Marie- 
 Aimee would not let her climb on to our 
 backs, and that we should not be able to make 
 fun of her as we used to of Sister Gabrielle, 
 who always went upstairs sideways. In the 
 evening after prayers Sister Gabrielle told us 
 that she was going. She kissed us all, begin- 
 ning with the smallest of us. We went up to 
 the dormitory making a dreadful noise. The 
 big girls whispered together and said they 
 would not put up with Sister Marie- Aimee. 
 The little ones snivelled as though they were 
 going into danger. Ismerie, whom I was 
 carrying upstairs on my back, was crying 
 noisily. Her little fingers strangled me, and 
 her tears fell down my neck. Nobody thought 
 of laughing at Sister Gabrielle, who went up- 
 stairs slowly, saying, "Hush, hush," all the 
 time, without making the noise any less. The 
 servant in the dormitory was crying too. 
 She shook me a little while she was undressing 
 me and said, "I'm sure you are pleased at hav- 
 ing that Sister Marie-Aimee of yours." We 
 used to call the servant Bonne Esther. I liked 
 her best of the three servants. She was rather 
 rough sometimes, but she was fond of us. In 
 the night she would waken those who had un- 
 fortunate habits that they might be spared the 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 13 
 
 cane in the morning. When I coughed she 
 used to get up and put a piece of sugar in my 
 mouth. And often she took me out of my bed 
 when I was cold, and warmed me in her own. 
 
NEXT morning we went down to the re- 
 fectory in dead silence. The servants 
 told us to remain standing. Several 
 of the big girls stood very straight and looked 
 proud. Bonne Justine stood at one end of 
 the table. She looked sad and bent her head. 
 Bonne Neron, who looked like a gendarme, 
 walked up and down in the middle of the re- 
 fectory. Now and then she looked at the 
 clock, and shrugged her shoulders. Sister 
 Marie-Aimee came in, leaving the door open 
 behind her. She seemed to me to be bigger 
 than usual, in her white apron and white cuffs. 
 She walked slowly, looking at us all. The 
 rosary, which hung at her side, made a little 
 clickety sound, and her skirt swung slightly 
 as she walked. She went up the three steps 
 to her desk, and made a sign to us to sit down. 
 In the afternoon she took us out for a walk in 
 the country. It was very hot. I went and 
 sat down near her on a little hillock. She 
 was reading a book, and every now and then 
 looked at the little girls who were playing in 
 a field below us. She looked at the sun which 
 
 14 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 15 
 
 was setting, and kept on saying, "How lovely 
 it is, how lovely it is." 
 
 That evening the birch which Sister Ga- 
 brielle kept in the dormitory was put away in 
 a cupboard, and in the refectory the salad was 
 turned with two long wooden spoons. These 
 were the only changes. We went into class 
 from nine o'clock till twelve, and in the after- 
 noon we cracked nuts, which were sold to an 
 oil merchant. The bigger girls used to crack 
 them with a hammer, and the little ones took 
 them out of the shells. We were forbidden 
 to eat them, and it wasn't at all easy. One of 
 the girls would always sneak if we did, 
 because she was greedy too, and jealous. 
 Bonne Esther used to peep into our mouths. 
 Sometimes she caught a very greedy girl. 
 Then she used to roll her eyes at her, give her 
 a little smack, and say, "I've got my eye on 
 you." Some of us she trusted. She would 
 make us turn round and open our mouths and 
 pretend to look at them, and then she said, 
 "Shut your beaks, birdies," and laughed. 
 
 I often wanted to eat the nuts. But I would 
 look at Bonne Esther and blush at the idea 
 of cheating her, because she trusted me. But 
 after a time I wanted to eat nuts so badly that 
 I could not think of anything else. Every 
 
16 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 day I tried to think of some way of eating them 
 without being caught. I tried to slip some 
 into my sleeves, but I was so awkward that I 
 always dropped them. Besides, I wanted to 
 eat a lot of them, a great big lot. I thought 
 I should like to eat a sackful. One day I 
 managed to steal some. Bonne Esther, who 
 was taking us up to bed, slipped on a nutshell 
 and dropped her lantern, which went out. I 
 was close to a big bowl of nuts, and I took a 
 handful and put them in my pocket. As soon 
 as everybody was in bed I took the nuts out 
 of my pocket, put my head under the sheets 
 and crammed them into my mouth. But it 
 seemed to me at once as though everybody in 
 the dormitory must hear the noise that my 
 jaws were making. I did all I could to 
 munch slowly and quietly, but the noise 
 thumped in my ears like the blows of a mallet. 
 Bonne Esther got up, lit the lamp, stooped 
 clown and looked under the beds. When she 
 came to mine I looked out at her trembling. 
 She whispered, "Aren't you asleep yet?" and 
 went on looking. She went down to the end 
 of the dormitory, opened the door, and closed 
 it again ; but she was hardly back in bed with 
 the light out before the latch of the door made 
 a little sound as though somebody were open- 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 17 
 
 ing it. Bonne Esther lit her lamp again and 
 said, "Whatever is it? It cannot be the cat 
 opening the door by itself." It seemed to me 
 that she was afraid. I heard her moving 
 about in her bed, and all of a sudden she called 
 out "Oh dear, oh dear." Ismerie asked her 
 what the matter was. She said that a hand 
 had opened the door, and she had felt a breath 
 on her face. In the twi-darkness we saw the 
 door half open. I was very frightened. I 
 thought it was the devil who had come to fetch 
 me. We waited a long, long time, but we 
 heard nothing more. Bonne Esther asked 
 if one of us would get up and put the light out, 
 although it was not very far from her own bed. 
 Nobody answered. Then she called me. I 
 got up and she said, "You are such a good 
 little girl that ghosts won't do any harm to 
 you." She put her head under the bedclothes, 
 and I blew the lamp out. And directly it 
 was put out I saw thousands of shining specks 
 of light, and felt something cold on my cheeks. 
 I was sure that there were green dragons, with 
 mouths aflame, under the beds. I could feel 
 their claws on my feet, and lights were jump- 
 ing about on each side of my head. I wanted 
 to sit down, and when I got to my bed I was 
 quite sure that my two feet had gone. When 
 
18 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 I dared, I stooped down and felt for them. 
 They were very cold. I went to sleep at last 
 holding them in my two hands. 
 
 In the morning Bonne Esther found the cat 
 on a bed near the door. She had had kittens 
 during the night. When Sister Marie- Aimee 
 was told about it, she said that the cat had cer- 
 tainly opened the door by jumping at the 
 latch. But we never felt sure about that, and 
 the little girls used to talk about it in low 
 voices for a long time. 
 
NEXT week all the girls who were eight 
 years old went down to the big dormi- 
 tory. I had a bed near the window, 
 quite close to Sister Marie- Aimee's room. 
 Marie Renaud and Ismerie again had their 
 beds on each side of me. When we were in 
 bed Sister Marie-Aimee often used to come 
 and sit by me. She would take one of my 
 hands and pat it, and look out of the window. 
 One night there was a big fire in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and the whole dormitory was lit up. 
 Sister Marie-Aimee opened the window wide, 
 shook me and said, "Wake up, come and see 
 the fire." She took me in her arms, passed 
 her hands over my face to wake me, and said 
 again, "Come and see the fire; see how beauti- 
 ful it is." I was so sleepy that I let my head 
 fall on her shoulder. Then che boxed my 
 ears, and called me a little silly, and I woke 
 up and began to cry. She took me in her 
 arms again, sat down, and rocked me, holding 
 me close to her. She bent her head forward 
 towards the window. Her face looked trans- 
 parent, and her eyes were full of light. Is- 
 
 19 
 
20 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 merie hated Sister Marie-Aimee to come to 
 the window. It prevented her from talking, 
 and she always had something to say. Her 
 voice was so loud that one heard it at the other 
 end of the dormitory. Sister Marie-Aimee 
 used to say, "There's Ismerie talking again" ; 
 and Ismerie used to answer, "There's Sister 
 Marie-Aimee scolding again." Her daring 
 frightened me, but Sister Marie-Aimee used 
 to pretend not to hear her. But one day she 
 said, "I forbid you to answer me, little dwarf." 
 Ismerie answered "Nosums." This was a 
 word which we had made up ourselves. It 
 meant "Look at my nose and see if I care." 
 Sister Marie-Aimee reached for the cane. I 
 was dreadfully afraid she was going to whip 
 Ismerie. But Ismerie threw herself down flat 
 on her stomach and wriggled about and made 
 funny noises. Sister Marie-Aimee pushed her 
 away with her foot in disgust, threw the cane 
 away, and said, "Oh, you horrible little thing!" 
 Afterwards I noticed that she used to avoid 
 looking at her, and never seemed to hear the 
 rude things she said. But she forbade us to 
 carry her about on our backs. 
 
 That never prevented Ismerie from climb- 
 ing on to mine like a monkey. I hadn't the 
 courage to push her away, and I used to stoop 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 21 
 
 down a little to let her get well up. She al- 
 ways wanted to ride when we went up to the 
 dormitory. It was very hard for her to get up 
 the stairs. She used to laugh about it herself, 
 saying that she hopped up like an old hen 
 going to roost. As Sister Marie-Aimee al- 
 ways went upstairs first, I used to wait and go 
 up among the last girls. But sometimes Sis- 
 ter Marie-Aimee would turn round suddenly. 
 Then Ismerie slipped down my body to the 
 ground with wonderful quickness and skill. 
 I always felt a little bit awkward when I 
 caught Sister Marie- Aimee's eye, and Ismerie 
 always said, "See what a fool you are. You 
 were caught again." Marie Renaud would 
 never let her climb up on to her back. She 
 used to say that she wore her dress out and 
 made it dirty. 
 
1SMERIE was a little chatterbox, but 
 Marie Renaud hardly ever talked at all. 
 Every morning she used to help me to 
 make my bed. She would pass her hands over 
 the sheets to smooth them out, and always re- 
 fused my help in making her bed, because she 
 said I rolled the sheets all kinds of ways. I 
 never could understand why her bed was so 
 smooth when she got up. One day she told 
 me that she pinned her sheets and her blankets 
 to the mattress. She had all kinds of little hid- 
 ing places full of all kinds of things. At 
 table she always used to eat some of yester- 
 day's dessert. The dessert of the day went 
 into her pocket. She used to finger it there, 
 and would munch a little bit of it from time to 
 time. I often found her sitting in corners 
 making lace with a pin. Her great pleasure 
 was brushing, folding, and putting things in 
 order. That was why my shoes were always 
 well brushed and my Sunday dress carefully 
 folded. But one day a new servant came, 
 whose name was Madeleine. She soon found 
 out that I did not take care of my- own things. 
 
 22 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 23 
 
 She got excited, and said I was a great big 
 lazy girl, and that I made other people wait 
 on me as though I were a countess. She said 
 it was a shame to make poor little Marie 
 Renaud work. Bonne Neron agreed with 
 her, and said I was puffed up with pride, that 
 I thought I was better than anybody else, that 
 I never did anything like other girls. They 
 both said, together, that they had never seen a 
 girl like me, and both of them leaned over me 
 and shouted at me together. They made me 
 think of two noisy fairies, a black one and a 
 white one. Madeleine was fresh and fair, 
 with full open lips, and teeth which were wide 
 apart. Her tongue was broad and thick, and 
 moved about into the corners of her mouth 
 when she talked. Bonne Neron raised her 
 hand to me, and said, "Drop your eyes this 
 minute!" As they went away, I heard her say 
 to Madeleine: "She makes you ashamed of 
 yourself when she looks at you like that." I 
 had known for a long time that Bonne Neron 
 looked like a bull, but I could not find 
 out what animal Madeleine resembled. I 
 thought it over for several days, thinking of 
 all the animals I knew, and at last I gave it 
 up. She was fat, and her hips swayed when 
 she walked. She had a piercing voice, which 
 
24 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 surprised everybody. She asked leave to sing 
 in church, but as she did not know the hymns, 
 Sister Marie-Aimee told me to teach her. Af- 
 ter that Marie Renaud was allowed to brush 
 and smooth out my things without anybody 
 taking any notice of it. She was so pleased 
 that she gave me a safety-pin as a present, so 
 as to fasten up my handkerchief, which I was 
 always losing. Two days later I lost both the 
 safety-pin and the handkerchief. Oh, that 
 handkerchief! It was a perfect nightmarel 
 I used to lose one regularly every week. Sis- 
 ter Marie-Aimee gave us a clean pocket-hand- 
 kerchief in return for the dirty one which we 
 had to throw down on to the ground in front 
 of her. I never thought of mine till the last 
 moment. And then I turned out all my pock- 
 ets, and ran about like a mad thing, into the 
 dormitory, up and down the passages, and up 
 to the garret hunting for it everywhere. Oh 
 dear, oh dear! if I could only find a handker- 
 chief somewhere! As I passed in front of the 
 picture of the Virgin, I would put my hands 
 together and pray fervently, "Admirable 
 Mother, make me find a handkerchief." But 
 I never did find one, and I went downstairs 
 again red in the face, out of breath, feeling 
 dreadfully unhappy, and not daring to take 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 25 
 
 the clean handkerchief which Sister Marie- 
 Aimee handed to me. Before she spoke, I 
 could hear the scolding which I knew I de- 
 served. And even when Sister Marie-Aimee 
 said nothing at all I could see her frown, and 
 her eyes looked crossly at me and followed me 
 about. I felt crushed with shame, so crushed 
 that I could scarcely lift my feet. I tried to 
 hide in the corners as I walked; and, in spite 
 of it all, next time I had lost my handkerchief 
 again. Madeleine used to look at me with 
 sham compassion. But she could not always 
 prevent herself from telling me that I de- 
 served to be punished severely. She seemed 
 very fond of Sister Marie-Aimee. She waited 
 on her always, and she would burst into tears 
 at her slightest word. Then Sister Marie- 
 Aimee had to soothe her by patting her cheeks, 
 and she would laugh and cry at the same time, 
 and move her shoulders about, showing her 
 white neck. Bonne Neron used to say that 
 she looked like a cat 
 
BONNE NERON left one day after a 
 scene in the middle of luncheon. It 
 happened during a dead silence. All of 
 a sudden she shouted out, "Yes; I want to 
 go, and I am going!" Sister Marie-Aimee 
 looked at her in astonishment, and Bonne 
 Neron faced her, putting her head down, shak- 
 ing it, butting at her almost, and shouting all 
 the time that she would not be ordered about 
 by a bit of a baby. She walked backwards 
 as she shouted, got to the door, and pulled it 
 open. Before she went out of the room she 
 threw one of her long arms out at Sister 
 Marie-Aimee, and shrieked, "She isn't even 
 twenty-five!" Some of the little girls were 
 frightened, others burst out laughing. Made- 
 leine got quite hysterical. She threw herself 
 on to the floor at Sister Marie-AimeVs knees, 
 kissing her dress, and winding her arms round 
 her legs. She got hold of her two hands and 
 mumbled over them with her big, moist 
 mouth, screaming all the time as though some 
 terrible catastrophe had happened. Sister 
 Marie-Aimee could not shake her off. At 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 27 
 
 last she got angry. Then Madeleine fainted, 
 and fell on her back. As she was undoing her 
 Sister Marie- Aimee made a sign towards the 
 part of the room where I was. Thinking she 
 wanted me, I ran to her; but she sent me back 
 again. "No; not you. Marie Renaud," she 
 said. She gave her keys to Marie, and, al- 
 though she had never been in Sister Marie- 
 Aimee's room, she found the bottle of salts 
 which Sister Marie-Aimee wanted without 
 any loss of time. 
 
MADELEINE soon got better, and 
 took Bonne Neron's place. She got 
 more authority over us. She was still 
 timid and submissive to Sister Marie- Aimee, 
 but she made up for that by shouting at us, for 
 any reason and no reason, that she was "there 
 to look after us," and was "not our servant." 
 The day she fainted I had seen her bosom. I 
 had never dreamt of anything so beautiful. 
 But she was a stupid girl, and I never minded 
 what she said to me. That used to make her 
 very angry. She used to say all kinds of rude 
 things to me, and always finished up by call- 
 ing me "Miss Princess." She could not for- 
 give me for Sister Marie-Aimee's affection for 
 me, and whenever she saw the Sister kissing 
 me she got quite red with annoyance. 
 
 I began to grow, and my health was pretty 
 good. Sister Marie-Aimee said that she was 
 proud of me. She used to squeeze me so tight 
 when she kissed me that she sometimes hurt 
 me. Then she would say, putting her fingers 
 on my forehead, "My little girl; my little 
 child." During recreation I often used to sit 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 29 
 
 near her, and listen to her reading. She read 
 in a deep voice, and when the people in the 
 book displeased her more than usual, she used 
 to shut it up violently, and come and play 
 games with us. 
 
 She wanted me to be quite faultless. She 
 would say: "I want you to be perfect. Do 
 you hear, child? Perfect." One day she 
 thought I had told a lie. There were three 
 cows which used to graze on some land in the 
 middle of which was a great big chestnut tree. 
 The white cow was wicked, and we were 
 afraid of it, because it had knocked a little 
 girl down once. That day I saw the two red 
 cows, and just under the chestnut tree I saw 
 a big black cow. I said to Ismerie: "Look; 
 the white cow has been sent away because she 
 was wicked, I expect." Ismerie, who was 
 cross that day, screamed, and said that I was 
 always laughing at the others, and trying to 
 make them believe things which were not true. 
 I showed her the cow. She said it was a 
 white one. I said, "No, it is a black one." 
 Sister Marie-Aimee heard us. She was very 
 angry, and said, "How dare you say that the 
 cow is black?" Then the cow moved. She 
 looked black and white now, and I understood 
 that I had made a mistake because of the 
 
30 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 shadow of the chestnut tree. I was so sur- 
 prised that I could not find anything to say. 
 I did not know how to explain it. Sister 
 Marie-Aimee shook me. "Why did you tell 
 a lie?" she said. I answered that I did not 
 know. She sent me into a corner in the 
 shed, and told me that I should have nothing 
 but bread and water that day. As I had not 
 told a lie, the punishment did not worry me. 
 The shed had a lot of old cupboards in it, and 
 some garden tools. I climbed from one thing 
 on to the other, and got right up and sat on the 
 top of the highest cupboard. I was ten years 
 old, and it was the first time that I had ever 
 been alone. I felt pleased at this. I sat there, 
 swinging my legs, and began to imagine a 
 whole invisible world". The old cupboard 
 with rusty, locks became the entrance gate to 
 a magnificent palace. I was a little girl who 
 had been left on the top of a mountain. A 
 beautiful lady dressed like a fairy had seen 
 me up there and had come to fetch me. Three 
 or four lovely ducks ran in front of her. They 
 had just come up to me when I saw Sister 
 Marie-Aimee standing in front of the cup- 
 board with the rusty locks and looking about 
 for me everywhere. I did not know that I 
 was sitting on the cupboard. I still believed 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 31 
 
 myself to be on the top of the mountain, and I 
 felt cross because Sister Marie- Aimee's arrival 
 had made the palace and the lovely lady dis- 
 appear. She saw my legs swinging, and just 
 as she saw me I remembered that I was sitting 
 on the cupboard. She stood there for a mo- 
 ment looking up at me. Then she took a 
 piece of bread, a piece of sausage, and a little 
 bottle of wine out of the pocket of her dress, 
 showed me one thing after the other, and in 
 an angry voice said, "This was for you. 
 There!" And she put it all back into her 
 pocket and went away. A moment after- 
 wards Madeleine brought me some bread and 
 water, and I remained in the shed till evening. 
 
SISTER MARIE-AIMEE ha'd been 
 growing sadder and sadder for some 
 time. She never played with us any 
 more, and often she used to forget our dinner 
 time. Madeleine would send me to the 
 chapel to fetch her, and I would find her there 
 on her knees with her face hidden in her 
 hands. I had to pull at her dress before she 
 took any notice of me. Often I thought that 
 she had been crying, but I never dared to look 
 at her closely for fear she would get angry. 
 She seemed to be lost in thought, and when we 
 spoke to her, she answered "Yes" or "No" 
 quite sharply. 
 
 But she took a great interest in the little 
 feast which we had at Easter every year. She 
 had the cakes brought in, and we put them on 
 a table and covered them with a white cloth, 
 so that the greedy girls should not see them 
 all at the same time. On feast days we were 
 allowed to talk as much as we liked at table, 
 and we made a tremendous noise. Sister 
 Marie- Aimee waited on us with a smile and a 
 word for each of us. That day she was going 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 33 
 
 to serve the cakes, and Madeleine, who was 
 helping her, was taking off the cloth which 
 covered them. Then a cat, which had been 
 under the cloth, jumped down and ran away. 
 Sister Marie-Aimee and Madeleine both said 
 "Oh," and Madeleine said, "The dirty beast 
 has been nibbling all the cakes." Sister 
 Marie-Aimee did not like the cat. She stood 
 perfectly still for a minute, then ran to the 
 corner, took a stick and ran after it. It was 
 horrible. The cat was frightened out of its 
 wits, and jumped this way and that out of the 
 way of the stick with which Sister Marie- 
 Aimee kept hitting the benches and the walls. 
 All the little girls were frightened, and 
 ran towards the door. Sister Marie-Aimee 
 stopped them. "Nobody is to go out," she 
 said. I hardly knew her. Her lips were 
 pressed together, her cheeks were as white as 
 her cap, and her eyes, which seemed to flame, 
 frightened me so that I hid my face in the 
 hollow of my arm. I did not want to do so, 
 but I soon looked up again. The cat hunt 
 was still going on. Sister Marie-Aimee, with 
 her stick in the air, ran after the cat without 
 saying a word. Her lips were open, and I 
 could see her little pointed teeth. She ran 
 about, jumping over the benches, and climbed 
 
34 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 up on to the table, lifting her petticoats as she 
 did so. When she was going to hit the cat it 
 jumped and ran up a curtain right on to the 
 top of the window. Madeleine, who had 
 been following Sister Marie-Aimee about, 
 wanted to go and fetch a longer stick, but Sis- 
 ter Marie-Aimee stopped her, and said, "It is 
 lucky to have got away." Bonne Justine, who 
 svas standing near me, hid her eyes and mur- 
 mured, "Oh, it is shameful, shameful!" and I 
 thought it was shameful, too. I felt as though 
 Sister Marie-Aimee had grown smaller. I 
 had always thought her quite faultless. I 
 compared this scene with another one, which 
 had happened one day when there was a big 
 thunder-storm. That day Sister Marie- 
 Aimee had been wonderful. While she was 
 chasing the cat I could see her, that other day, 
 as she stood on a bench, and closed the win- 
 dows quietly, lifting her lovely arms. Her 
 wide sleeves fell down on her shoulders, and 
 while we shivered and shook in terror at the 
 lightning and the buffeting of the wind she 
 said quietly, "It is quite a hurricane." Sister 
 Marie-Aimee made the little girls stand on 
 the other side of the room. She opened the 
 door wide ? and the cat rushed out. 
 
ONE afternoon I was surprised to see that 
 it was not our old priest who was say- 
 ing vespers. This one was a tall, fine 
 man. He sang with a strong, jerky voice. 
 We talked about him all the evening. Made- 
 leine said he was a handsome man, and Sister 
 Marie-Aimee thought, she said, that he had 
 a young voice, but that he pronounced his 
 words like an old man, and that he was dis- 
 tinguished looking. When he came to pay us 
 a visit two or three days afterwards, I saw 
 that he had white hair in little curls round his 
 neck, and that his eyes and his eyebrows were 
 very black. He asked for those of us who 
 were preparing their catechism, and wanted 
 to know everybody's name. Sister Marie- 
 Aimee answered for me. She put her hand 
 on my head and said, "This is our Marie- 
 Claire." When Ismerie came up in her turn 
 he looked at her in surprise, and made her turn 
 round and walk for him to see. He said that 
 she was no bigger than a child of three, and 
 when he asked Sister Marie-Aimee if she was 
 intelligent^ Ismerie turned round sharply and 
 
36 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 said that she was not as stupid as the rest of 
 us. He burst out laughing, and I saw that his 
 teeth were very white. When he spoke he 
 jerked himself forward as though he wanted 
 to catch his words again. They seemed to 
 drop out of his mouth in spite of himself. 
 Sister Marie-Aimee took him as far as the 
 gate of the courtyard. She never used to 
 take any visitors farther than the door of the 
 room. She came back, climbed up to her 
 desk again, and after a moment she said, with- 
 out looking at anybody, "He really is a very 
 distinguished man." 
 
 Our new priest lived in a little house near 
 the chapel. In the evening he used to walk 
 in the avenue of linden trees. He often passed 
 close to the playground where we were play- 
 ing, and he always used to bow very low to 
 Sister Marie-Aimee. Every Thursday after- 
 noon he came to see us. He sat down, leaning 
 against the back of his chair, and crossing his 
 legs, told us stories. He was very pleasant, 
 and Sister Marie-Aimee used to say that he 
 laughed as though he enjoyed it. Sometimes 
 Sister Marie-Aimee was ill. Then he used to 
 go up and see her in her room. We would 
 see Madeleine passing with a teapot and two 
 cups. She was red in the face and very busy. 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 37 
 
 When the summer was over, M. le Cure 
 came to see us after dinner and spent the even- 
 ings with us. When nine o'clock struck he 
 used to go, and Sister Marie-Aimee always 
 went with him down the passage to the big 
 front door. 
 
HE had been with us for a year, and I 
 could never get used to making con- 
 fession to him. He often used to 
 look at me and laugh in a way that made me 
 think that he remembered my faults. We 
 went to confession on fixed days. Each one 
 of us took her turn. When there were only 
 one or two to go in before me I began to trem- 
 ble. My heart beat dreadfully fast, and I got 
 cramp in my stomach, which prevented me 
 from breathing properly. When my turn 
 came I got up and felt my legs trembling 
 under me. My head buzzed, and my cheeks 
 turned cold. I fell on my knees in the con- 
 fessional and M. le Cure's voice, which 
 sounded as though it came from a long way 
 off, gave me confidence. But he always had 
 to help me to remember my faults. If he 
 hadn't, I should have forgotten half of them. 
 At the end of confession he always asked me 
 what my name was. I longed to tell him an- 
 other name, but while I was wondering if I 
 dare, my; own name used to slip out of my 
 mouth. 
 
 38 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 39 
 
 It was getting near the time for our Com- 
 munion. It was to be in May, and prepara- 
 tions for it were beginning. Sister Marie- 
 Aimee composed some new hymns. She had 
 made one, which was a sort of thanksgiving 
 for M. le Cure. A 'fortnight before the cere- 
 mony they separated us from the others. We 
 had prayed all day long. Madeleine was 
 supposed to see that we were not disturbed at 
 prayer, but she often used to disturb us herself 
 by quarrelling with one of us. My fellow 
 communicant was called Sophie. She was 
 a quiet little girl, and we always kept out of 
 the quarrels. We used to talk over serious 
 matters. I often told her how much I hated 
 confession, and how frightened I was that I 
 should pass through my communion badly. 
 She was very good, and she did not understand 
 what I had to be afraid of. She thought that 
 I was not pious enough, and she had noticed 
 that I used to go to sleep during prayers. She 
 confessed to me that she was very frightened 
 of death. She used to talk about it in a low 
 voice, and looked very frightened. Her eyes 
 were green, and her hair was so lovely that 
 Sister Marie-Aimee would never have it cut 
 short like that of the other girls. 
 
 At last the great day came. My general 
 
40 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 confession had passed off all right. It gave 
 me the same feeling that a bath does. I felt 
 very clean after it, but I trembled so when I 
 was given the holy wafer that a bit of it stuck 
 in my teeth. A sort of dizziness came over 
 me, and I felt as though a big black curtain 
 had dropped in front of my eyes. I thought 
 I heard Sister Marie-Aimee's voice asking 
 "Are you ill," and I seemed to know that she 
 went with me as far as my prie-dieu, and that 
 she put my taper into my hand and said "Hold 
 it tight." My throat had grown so tight that 
 I could not swallow, and I felt a liquid drop- 
 ping from my mouth into my throat. Then 
 I was wildly frightened, for Madeleine had 
 warned us repeatedly that if we bit the holy 
 wafer the blood of Christ would trickle from 
 our mouths, and that nobody would be able to 
 stop it. Sister Marie-Aimee wiped my face 
 and whispered quite low, "Take care, dear. 
 Are you ill?" My throat loosened, and I 
 quickly swallowed the wafer. Then at last I 
 dared to look down to see the blood on my 
 dress, but I saw only a little grey spot like a 
 'drop of water. I put my handkerchief to my 
 lips and wiped my tongue. There was not a 
 particle of blood on it. I did not feel quite 
 sure yet, but when we got up to sing I tried 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 41 
 
 to sing with the others. When M. le Cure 
 came to see us later in the day Sister Marie- 
 Aimee told him that I had almost fainted at 
 Communion. He took my chin in his hand 
 and tipped my face up towards him. Then, 
 after looking into my eyes, he began to laugh, 
 and said that I was a very sensitive little girl. 
 
AFTER our first communion we did not 
 attend class any more. Bonne Justine 
 taught us to sew. We made caps for 
 peasant women. It was not very difficult, and 
 as it was something new I worked hard. 
 Bonne Justine said that I should make a very 
 good needle-woman. Sister Marie-Aimee 
 used to kiss me and say, "So you would, if you 
 could only get over your laziness." But when 
 I had made a few caps and had to go on doing 
 the same thing over and over again, my lazi- 
 ness got the better of me. The work bored 
 me, and I could not make up my mind to do 
 it. I could have remained for hours and 
 hours without moving, watching the others 
 work. Marie Renaud never spoke to us 
 while she was sewing. Her stitches were so 
 small and so close together that one needed 
 good eyes to see them. Ismerie sang all the 
 time she sewed, and nobody ever scolded her. 
 Some of the girls sewed with bent backs 
 and a frown on their foreheads. Their fingers 
 were moist, and their needles squeaked. 
 Others sewed slowly and carefully, without 
 
 42 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 43 
 
 getting tired or bored, counting their stitches 
 under their breath. That is the way I 
 should have liked to sew. I used to growl 
 at myself for not doing so, and then I used 
 to imitate them for a few minutes. But 
 the least sound disturbed me, and I would 
 stop and listen, or look at what was going on 
 all round me. Madeleine said that my nose 
 was always in the air. I spent most of my 
 time imagining needles which would sew all 
 by themselves. For a long time I hoped that 
 an old woman, whom nobody would see but I, 
 would come out of the big fireplace and sew 
 my cap for me very quickly. At last I took 
 no notice of Sister Marie-Aimee's scolding, 
 and she didn't know what to do to make me 
 work. One day she decided that I was to 
 read aloud twice a day. It was a great joy for 
 me. The time to begin reading never seemed 
 to come quickly enough, and I was always 
 sorry when I closed the book. 
 
WHEN I had finished reading Sister 
 Marie-Aimee used to make Colette 
 the cripple sing to us. She always 
 sang the same songs, but her voice was so 
 lovely that we never got tired of listening to 
 it. She sang quite simply, without stopping 
 her work, and she kept time with her head as 
 she sang. Bonne Justine, who knew all about 
 everybody, told us that Colette had been 
 brought in with both legs broken, when she 
 was quite a tiny child. She was twenty now. 
 She walked laboriously, helping herself with 
 two sticks; she would never use crutches be- 
 cause she was afraid of looking like an old 
 woman. During recreation I always used to 
 see her alone on a bench. She kept on throw- 
 ing herself back and stretching. Her dark 
 eyes had such big pupils that one hardly 
 saw the whites at all. I felt drawn towards 
 her. I should have liked to have been her 
 friend. She seemed very proud, and when- 
 ever I did any little thing for her she had a 
 way of saying, "Thank you, little one," which 
 made me remember that I was only twelve 
 
 44 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 45 
 
 years old. Madeleine told me, mysteriously, 
 that we were not allowed to talk to Colette 
 alone, and when I wanted to know why, she 
 reeled out a long complicated story which told 
 me nothing at all. I asked Bonne Justine, 
 who used a lot of words which I didn't under- 
 stand, but told me that a little girl like me 
 must not be alone with Colette. I could 
 never understand why. I noticed that every 
 time one of the big girls gave her her arm to 
 help her to walk about a little, three or four 
 other girls always came up and talked and 
 laughed with them. I thought that she had 
 no friends. A feeling of great pity drew me 
 to her, and one day when she was all alone I 
 asked her to take my arm for a little walk. I 
 was standing in front of her timidly, but I 
 knew that she would not refuse. She looked 
 at me and said, "You know it is not allowed." 
 I nodded "Yes." She looked at me again. 
 "Aren't you afraid of being punished?" she 
 said. I shook my head to say "No." I 
 wanted to cry and it made my throat feel tight. 
 I helped her to get up. She leaned on her 
 stick with one hand and put all her weight 
 on my shoulder. I could see how difficult it 
 was for her to walk. She did not say a word 
 to me while we were walking, and when I had 
 
46 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 taken her back to her bench she looked at me 
 and said, "Thank you, Marie-Claire." When 
 she saw me with Colette, Bonne Justine raised 
 her arms to heaven and made the sign of the 
 cross. At the other end of the playground 
 Madeleine shook her fist at me and shouted. 
 
WHEN evening came I saw that Sister 
 Marie- Aimee knew what I had done, 
 but she never said a word of blame. 
 At recreation next day she drew me towards 
 her, took my head in her two hands and bent 
 towards me. She didn't say anything to me, 
 but her eyes plunged right into my face. I 
 felt as though I were wrapped up in her eyes. 
 I felt as though a soft warmth was all round 
 me, and I felt comfortable. She gave me a 
 long kiss on the forehead, then smiled at me 
 and said, "There. You are my beautiful 
 white lily." I thought her so beautiful, and 
 her eyes shone so with several colours in them, 
 that I said to her, "And you, too, mother; you 
 are a lovely flower." She said in an off-hand 
 way, "Yes ; but I don't count among the lil- 
 ies now." Then she asked almost roughly, 
 "Don't you love Ismerie any more?" "Yes, 
 mother." "Really. Then what about Co- 
 lette?" "I love Colette too," "Oh, you love 
 everybody!" she said. 
 
I USED to give Colette my arm nearly 
 every day. She never talked to me 
 much, and then only about the other 
 girls. When I sat down next to her she used 
 to look at me curiously. She said she thought 
 I was a queer little thing. One day she asked 
 me if I thought her pretty. Directly she said 
 it, I remembered that Sister Marie- Aimee said 
 that she was as black as a mole. I saw, how- 
 ever, that she had a broad forehead, fine big 
 eyes, and the rest of her face was small and re- 
 fined. Whenever I looked at her, I didn't 
 quite know why, but I thought of a well, deep 
 and dark, and full of hot water. No, I didn't 
 think her pretty, but I wouldn't tell her so be- 
 cause she was a cripple. I said she would be 
 much prettier if her skin were whiter. Little 
 by little I became her friend. She told me 
 that she hoped to go away and get married 
 like Nina had done. Nina used to come and 
 see us on Sundays with her child. Colette 
 took hold of my arm and said, "You see, 
 I must get married. I must." Then she 
 stretched herself, bending her whole body f or- 
 
 48 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 49 
 
 ward. Sometimes she used to cry, and was 
 in such deep trouble that I could not find 
 anything to say to her. She would look at 
 her poor twisted legs, and groan out, "There 
 would have to be a miracle for me to get away 
 from here." 
 
 All of a sudden I got the idea that the Vir- 
 gin could bring this miracle about. Colette 
 thought it a splendid idea. She was quite 
 surprised that she had never dreamed of it. 
 It was only fair that she should have legs like 
 the others. She wanted to see about it at 
 once. She explained to me that several girls 
 would be necessary for the nine days' prayer, 
 and said that we must go and purify ourselves 
 at communion, and that during nine days we 
 would pray all the time, so as to get help from 
 Our Lady in heaven. This had to be done in 
 the greatest secrecy. It was arranged that 
 my friend Sophie should be one of us because 
 she was so very religious, and Colette said she 
 would talk to some of the big girls who were 
 good, too. Two days afterwards it was all 
 arranged. Colette was to fast during the nine 
 days. On the tenth day, which would be a 
 Sunday, she would go to communion as usual, 
 leaning on her stick and the arm of one of 
 us. Then, when she had taken the holy wafer, 
 
50 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 she would make a vow to bring up her chil- 
 dren in the love of the Virgin, and after that 
 she would rise up straight and would sing the 
 "Te Deum" in her beautiful voice, and we 
 would all sing it with her. 
 
 For nine days I prayed with more fervour 
 than I had ever prayed before. The ordinary 
 prayers seemed insipid. I recited the Vir- 
 gin's Litany. I hunted up the most beautiful 
 hymns of praise that I could find, and repeated 
 them without getting tired. "Star of the 
 Morning, make Colette whole." The first 
 time, I remained on my knees for so long 
 that Sister Marie-Aimee scolded me. No- 
 body noticed the little signs which we made 
 to one another, and the nine days of prayer 
 passed off without any one knowing anything 
 about them. 
 
was very pale when she came 
 to mass. Her cheeks were thinner 
 than ever, and she stood with her eyes 
 cast down. Her eyelids were deep violet. I 
 thought to myself that the end of her martyr- 
 dom had come, and I was filled with a deep 
 joy. Quite close to me, the picture of the 
 Virgin in a flowing white robe smiled as it 
 looked at me, and in an outburst of all my 
 faith my thoughts cried out, "Oh, Mirror of 
 Justice, make Colette whole." My tem- 
 ples were stretched tightly. I was strain- 
 ing every nerve to keep my thoughts from 
 wandering, and I went on saying, "Oh, Mir- 
 ror of Justice, make Colette whole!" Colette 
 went up to the communion table. Her stick 
 made a little clickety noise on the flagstones. 
 When she was on her knees the girl who had 
 gone up to the table with her came back to 
 us with the stick. She knew that it would be 
 of no further use. 
 
 Colette tried to get up, and fell back again 
 on to her knees. Her hand groped after her 
 stick, and when she didn't find it by her side, 
 
 51 
 
52 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 she tried again to raise herself without it. 
 She clung to the Holy Table and caught hold 
 of the arm of one of the Sisters, who was tak- 
 ing communion with her. Then her shoul- 
 ders rocked and she fell over, pulling the Sis- 
 ter down with her. Two of us dashed for- 
 ward and dragged poor Colette to her bench. 
 But I was still hoping against hope, and until 
 mass was over I was hoping to hear the Te 
 Deum. As soon as I could, I went back to 
 Colette. The big girls were round her try- 
 ing to console her, and advising her to give 
 herself to God for ever. She was crying 
 gently, not sobbing. Her head was bent a 
 little forward, and her tears fell on her hands, 
 which were crossed one over the other. I 
 kneeled down in front of her, and when she 
 looked at me, I said: "Perhaps you can get 
 married even though you are a cripple." Co- 
 lette's story was soon known to everybody. 
 Everybody felt so sad about it that we stopped 
 playing noisy games. Ismerie thought she 
 was telling me a tremendous piece of news 
 when she told me all about it. Sophie told 
 me that we must submit to the will of Our 
 Lady, because she knew what was necessary 
 for Colette's happiness better than we did. 
 
I SHOULD have liked to have known 
 whether Sister Marie-Aimee knew 
 about Qolette. I did not see her till 
 the afternoon, when we were out walking. 
 She did not look sad. She looked almost 
 pleased. Never had I seen her look so pretty. 
 Her whole face shone. While we were out 
 I noticed that she walked as though some- 
 thing was lifting her up. I never remem- 
 bered to have seen her walk like that. 
 Her veil fluttered a little at the shoul- 
 ders, and her stomacher didn't hide all her 
 neck. She paid no attention to us. She was 
 looking at nothing, but she seemed to be see- 
 ing something. Every now and then she 
 smiled as though somebody were talking to 
 her from inside. 
 
 In the evening after dinner I found her sit- 
 ting on the old bench under the big linden 
 tree. M. le Cure was sitting next to her with 
 his back against the tree. They looked seri- 
 ous. I thought they were talking about Co- 
 lette, and I remained standing some distance 
 from them. Sister Marie-Aimee was saying, 
 
 S3 
 
54 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 as though she were answering a question, 
 "Yes, when I was fifteen." M. le Cure said, 
 "You had no vocation at fifteen." I didn't 
 hear what Sister Marie-Aimee answered, but 
 M. le Cure went on, "Or, rather, at fifteen you 
 had every possible vocation. A kind word, 
 or a little indifference would be enough to 
 change your whole life." He said nothing 
 for a moment, and then, in a lower tone, 
 added, "Your parents were very much to 
 blame." Sister Marie-Aimee answered, "I re- 
 gret nothing." They remained for a long 
 time without saying a word. Then Sister 
 Marie-Aimee raised one finger as though she 
 were impressing something on him, and said, 
 "Everywhere, in spite of everything, and al- 
 ways." M. le Cure stretched his hand out a 
 little way, laughed, and repeated, "Every- 
 where, in spite of everything, and always." 
 
 The good night bell sounded all of a sud- 
 den, and M. le Cure went off down the avenue 
 of linden trees. For a long time afterwards 
 I used to repeat the words I had heard them 
 say, but I could never fit them in to poor Co- 
 lette's story. 
 
had given up all hopes of a 
 \j miracle to take her away, and yet she 
 could not make up her mind to remain. 
 When she saw all the girls of her own age 
 go one by one, she began to rebel. She would 
 not go to confession any more, and she would 
 not take holy communion. She used to go to 
 mass because she sang there, and she was fond 
 of music. I often stopped with her and con- 
 soled her. She explained to me that marriage 
 meant love. 
 
SISTER MARIE-AIMEE, who had not 
 been well for some time, became quite 
 ill. Madeleine nursed her devotedly 
 and treated us dreadfully badly. She was 
 particularly unkind to me, and when she saw 
 me tired of sewing she would say, trying to 
 turn her nose up, "If mademoiselle objects 
 to sewing, she had better take a broom and 
 sweep." One Sunday she hit upon the idea 
 of making me clean the stairs during mass. 
 It was January. A damp cold, which came 
 up from the passages, climbed the steps and 
 got under my dress. I swept as hard as I 
 could to keep warm. The sound of the har- 
 monium came from the chapel out to me. 
 From time to time I recognized Madeleine's 
 thin piercing tones, and M. le Cure's jerky 
 notes. I could follow mass by the singing. 
 All of a sudden Colette's voice rose above all 
 the others. It was strong and pure. It 
 broadened, drowned the sound of the har- 
 monium, drowned everything else, and then 
 seemed to fly away over the linden trees, over 
 the house, and over the church spire itself. 
 
 56 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 57 
 
 It made me tremble, and when the voice came 
 down to earth, trembling a little as it went 
 back into the church and was swept up by 
 the sound of the harmonium again, I began 
 to cry, sobbing as though I were quite a little 
 girl. Then Madeleine's sharp voice pierced 
 through the others once more, and I swept 
 and swept hard as though my broom could 
 scratch out the voice which was so disagree- 
 able to me. 
 
THAT was the day Sister Marie-Aimee 
 called me to her. She had been up 
 in her room for two months. She 
 was getting a little better, but I noticed that 
 her eyes did not shine at all. They made me 
 think of a rainbow which had almost melted 
 away. She made me tell her funny little 
 stories about what had been going on. She 
 tried to smile while she was listening to me, 
 but her lips only smiled on one side of her 
 mouth. She asked me if I had heard her 
 screaming. "Oh, yes," I said, I had heard her 
 during her illness. She had screamed so 
 dreadfully in the middle of the night that the 
 whole dormitory had been kept awake. Made- 
 leine was coming and going. We heard her 
 splashing water about, and when I asked her 
 what was the matter with Sister Marie-Aimee, 
 she said, as she hurried past, "The pains." I 
 remembered at once that Bonne Justine used 
 to have pains too, but she had never screamed 
 like that, and I wondered whether poor Sister 
 Marie-Aimee's legs were swollen to three 
 times their size, like those of Bonne Justine. 
 
 58 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 59 
 
 Her cries got worse and worse. One of them 
 was so terrible that it seemed to come from 
 her innermost depths. Then we heard her 
 moaning; that was all. A few moments 
 afterwards Madeleine came up and whis- 
 pered to Marie Renaud. Marie Renaud 
 put on her dress, and I heard her go down- 
 stairs. Directly afterwards she came back 
 with M. le Cure. He rushed into Sister 
 Marie-Aimee's room, and Madeleine closed 
 the door behind him. He did not remain 
 very long, but he went away again much more 
 slowly than he had come. He walked with 
 his head sunk down between his shoulders, 
 and his right hand was holding his cloak over 
 his left arm, as though he were carrying some- 
 thing valuable. I thought to myself that he 
 was taking away the holy oils, and I did not 
 dare ask whether Sister Marie-Aimee were 
 dead. I have never forgotten the blow I got 
 from Madeleine's fist when I clung to her 
 dress. She knocked me right over and whis- 
 pered, as she ran past, "She is better." As 
 soon as Sister Marie-Aimee was well again, 
 Madeleine lost her arrogance, and everything 
 went on as before. 
 
1 DISLIKED sewing as much as ever, 
 and my hatred for it began to make Sis- 
 ter Marie-Aimee uneasy. She men- 
 tioned it in front of me to M. le Cure's sister. 
 M. le Cure's sister was an old maid with a 
 long face and big faded eyes. We called her 
 Mademoiselle Maximilienne. Sister Marie- 
 Aimee told her how anxious she was about my 
 future. She said that I learned things easily, 
 but that no kind of sewing interested me. She 
 had noticed for some time that I was fond of 
 study, and she had made inquiries to find out 
 whether I had no distant relatives who would 
 look after me, she said. But the only relation 
 I had was an old woman who had adopted my 
 sister, but refused to take me. Mademoiselle 
 Maximilienne offered to take me into her 
 dressmaking business. M. le Cure thought 
 that was a very good idea, and said that he 
 would be pleased to go and teach me a little, 
 twice a week. Sister Marie-Aimee seemed 
 really happy at this. She did not know what 
 to say to thank them. It was agreed that I 
 should go to Mademoiselle Maximilienne as 
 
 60 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 61 
 
 soon as M. le Cure returned from a journey 
 to Rome which he had to make. Sister Marie 
 Aimee would get my outfit ready for me, and 
 Mademoiselle Maximilienne would go to the 
 Mother Superior and ask her permission, she 
 said. I felt dreadfully uncomfortable at the 
 idea that the Mother Superior was to have 
 anything to do with it. I could not forget the 
 unkind look she always gave me when she 
 passed the old bench and saw me sitting there 
 with Sister Marie- Aimee and M. le Cure. So 
 I waited impatiently to hear what she would 
 say to Mademoiselle Maximilienne. M. le 
 Cure had been away for a week, and Sister 
 Marie-Aimee used to talk to me every day 
 about my new work. She told me how glad 
 she would be to see me on Sundays. She gave 
 me all kinds of good advice, told me to be 
 good and to take care of my health. 
 
THE Mother Superior sent for me one 
 morning. When I went into her room 
 I noticed that she was sitting in a big 
 red armchair. I began to remember some 
 ghost stories which I had heard the girls tell 
 about her, and when I saw her sitting there, 
 all black in the middle of all that red, I com- 
 pared her in my mind to a huge poppy which 
 had grown in a cellar. She opened and closed 
 her eyelids several times. She had a smile on 
 her face which was like an insult. I felt 
 myself blushing, but I did not turn my eyes 
 away. She gave a little sneering chuckle, and 
 said, "You know why I sent for you?" I an- 
 swered that I thought it was to talk to me about 
 Mademoiselle Maximilienne. She sneered 
 again, "Oh, yes; Mademoiselle Maximili- 
 enne," she said. "Well, my child, you must 
 undeceive yourself. We have made up our 
 minds to place you on a farm in Sologne." 
 She half closed her eyes and snapped out, 
 "You are to be a shepherdess, young woman." 
 Then she added, rapping the words out, "You 
 will look after the sheep." I simply said, 
 "Yery well, mother." She pulled herself up 
 
 62 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 63 
 
 out of the depths of her armchair and asked 
 me, "Do you know what looking after the 
 sheep means?" I answered that I had seen 
 shepherdesses in the fields. She bent her yel- 
 low face towards me and went on, "You will 
 have to clean the stables. They smell very un- 
 pleasantly, and the shepherdesses are dirty. 
 You will help in the work of the farm, and 
 be taught to milk the cows and look after the 
 pigs." She spoke very loud, as though she 
 were afraid I should not understand her. I 
 answered as I had answered before, "Very 
 well, mother." She pulled herself up by the 
 arms of her chair, fastened her shining eyes 
 on me, and said, "You don't mean to tell me 
 that you are not proud?" I smiled, and said, 
 "No, mother." She seemed very much sur- 
 prised, but, as I went on smiling, her voice 
 grew softer. "Really, my child?" she said. 
 "I always thought you were proud." She 
 dropped back into her chair again, hid 
 her eyes under their lids, and began talking 
 quickly in a monotonous voice, as she did when 
 she said prayers. She said that I must obey 
 my masters, that I must never forget my re- 
 ligious duties, and that the farmer's wife 
 would come and fetch me the day before the 
 feast of St. John. 
 
64 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 I went out of her room with feelings that 
 I cannot express. But I felt horribly afraid 
 of hurting Sister Marie- Aimee's feelings. 
 How could I tell her? I had no time to 
 think. Sister Marie-Aimee was waiting for 
 me in the passage. She took hold of my two 
 shoulders, bent her face towards me, and said, 
 "Well?" She looked anxious. I said, "She 
 wants me to be a shepherdess." She did not 
 understand, and frowned, "A shepherdess," 
 she said. "What do you mean?" I hurried 
 on, "She has found a place for me in a farm, 
 and I am to milk cows and look after the 
 pigs." Sister Marie-Aimee pushed me away so 
 roughly that I bumped against the wall. She 
 ran towards the door. I thought she was go- 
 ing to the Mother Superior's room, but she 
 went out, and came back again, and began 
 walking up and down the passage, taking 
 long steps. Her fists were clenched, and she 
 kept tapping with her foot on the floor. She 
 was breathing hard. Then she leaned up 
 against the wall, let her arms fall as though 
 she were overcome, and, in a voice which 
 seemed to come from a long way off, she said : 
 "She is revenging herself. Yes, she is re- 
 venging herself." She came back to me, 
 took my two hands affectionately in hers, and 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 65 
 
 asked, "Didn't you tell her that you would 
 not go? Didn't you beg her to let you go to 
 Mademoiselle Maximilienne?" I shook my 
 head and repeated in her own words ex- 
 actly what the Mother Superior had said to 
 me. She listened without interrupting me. 
 Then she told me to say nothing about it to 
 the other girls. She thought that everything 
 would be all right when M. le Cure came 
 back. 
 
NEXT Sunday, as we were getting into 
 line to go to mass, Madeleine ran into 
 the room like a mad thing. She 
 threw her arms in the air, and cried out, "M. 
 le Cure is dead I" and fell right down across the 
 table near her. Everybody stopped talking, 
 and we all ran to Madeleine, who was scream- 
 ing and crying. We wanted to know all 
 about it. But she rocked herself up and down 
 on the table, and kept on repeating, "He is 
 dead! he is dead!" I could not think at all. 
 I did not know whether I was sorry or not, 
 and all the time mass was going on. Made- 
 leine's voice sounded in my ears like a bell. 
 There was no walk that day. Even the little 
 girls kept quite quiet. I went to look for Sis- 
 ter Marie- Aimee. She had not been at mass, 
 and I knew from Marie Renaud that she was 
 not ill. I found her in the refectory. She 
 was sitting on her little platform. She was 
 leaning her head sideways on the table, and 
 her arms were hanging down beside her 
 chair. I sat myself down some distance away 
 from her. But when I heard her moaning I 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 67 
 
 began to sob too, hiding my face in my hands. 
 But I did not sob long, and I knew that I was 
 not as sorry as I wanted to be. I tried to cry, 
 but I could not shed a single tear. I was a 
 little bit ashamed of myself because I believed 
 that one ought to cry when somebody died, 
 and I didn't dare uncover my face for fear 
 that Sister Marie-Aimee should think that I 
 was hard hearted. I listened to her crying. 
 Her moaning reminded me of the wind at 
 winter-time in the big fireplace. It went up 
 and down as if she were trying to compose a 
 kind of song. Then her voice stumbled and 
 broke, and ended up in deep trembling notes. 
 A little before dinner-time, Madeleine came 
 into the refectory. She took Sister Marie- 
 Aimee away with her, putting her arm round 
 her, and taking care of her as they walked. 
 In the evening she told us that M. le Cure 
 had died in Rome, and that he would be 
 brought back to be buried with his family. 
 
NEXT day Sister Marie-Aimee looked 
 after us as usual. She didn't cry any 
 more, but she would not let us talk to 
 her. She walked along with her eyes on the 
 ground, and seemed to have forgotten me. I 
 had only one day more, as the Mother Su- 
 perior had told me I should be fetched next 
 day, for the day after was the feast of St. 
 John. In the evening, at the end of prayers, 
 when Sister Marie-Aimee had said, "Lord, be 
 pitiful to exiles and give your aid to prison- 
 ers," she added, in a loud voice, "We will say 
 a prayer for one of your companions who is 
 going out into the world." I understood at 
 once that she was talking of me, and I felt 
 that I was as much to be pitied as the exiles 
 and the prisoners. I could not get to sleep 
 that night. I knew that I was going next day, 
 but I didn't know what Sologne was like. I 
 imagined it to be a country very far off, where 
 there were large plains with flowers on them. 
 I pictured myself the shepherdess of a troop 
 of beautiful white sheep, with two dogs by 
 my side which kept the sheep in order at a 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 69 
 
 sign from me. I would not have dared to tell 
 Sister Marie-Aimee so, but just then I liked 
 the idea of being a shepherdess much better 
 than the idea of being in a shop. Ismerie, 
 who was snoring loud, next to me, reminded 
 me of my comrades again. 
 
 It was such a bright night that I could see 
 all the beds quite distinctly. I looked at one 
 after the other, stopping a little at those of 
 the girls I was fond of. Almost opposite me 
 I saw my friend Sophie, with her magnificent 
 hair. It was scattered about over the pillow, 
 and lighted up the bed quite brightly. A little 
 further down the room were the beds of 
 Chemineau the Proud, and her twin sister, 
 the Fool. Chemineau the Proud had a big 
 smooth white forehead and gentle eyes. She 
 never said it was not true when she was ac- 
 cused of doing anything wrong. She simply 
 shrugged her shoulders and looked round her 
 with contempt. Sister Marie-Aimee used to 
 say that her conscience was as white as her 
 forehead. Chemineau the Fool was half as 
 tall again as her sister. Her hair was coarse, 
 and came down nearly to her eyebrows. Her 
 shoulders were square, and her lips were 
 broad. We used to call her the sister's watch- 
 dog. And down at the other end of the dor- 
 
70 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 mitory was Colette. She still believed that I 
 was going to Mademoiselle Maximilienne. 
 She was quite sure that I should get married 
 very young, and she had made me promise to 
 come and fetch her as soon as I was married. 
 I thought about her for a long time. Then I 
 looked at the window and the shadows of the 
 linden trees lengthened about me. It was as 
 though they had come to say good-bye to me, 
 and I smiled at them. On the other side of 
 the lindens I could see the infirmary. It 
 looked as though it were trying to hide itself, 
 and its little windows made me think of weak 
 eyes. I looked at the infirmary for some time, 
 thinking of Sister Agatha. She was so bright 
 and so good that the little girls always 
 laughed when she scolded them. She did the 
 doctoring. When one of us went to her with 
 a hurt finger, she always had something funny 
 to say, and she always knew whether we were 
 greedy or vain, and would promise us a cake 
 or a ribbon accordingly. She used to pre- 
 tend to look for it, and while we were looking 
 to see where it was, the bad place on the finger 
 would be pricked, washed, and tied up. I re- 
 member a chilblain that I had on my foot 
 which would not get well. One morning Sis- 
 ter Agatha said to me solemnly, "Listen, 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 71 
 
 Marie-Claire. I must put something miracu- 
 lous on this, and if your foot is not better in 
 three days, we shall have to have it cut off." 
 For three days I was very careful not to walk 
 on that foot so as not to disturb this miracu- 
 lous something. I thought it must be a piece 
 of the true cross, or perhaps a piece of the veil 
 of the Holy Virgin. On the third day my 
 foot was completely cured, and when I asked 
 Sister Agatha what the miraculous remedy 
 was that she had put on it, she replied with 
 a mischievous laugh, "Little silly, it's the 
 miraculous ointment." 
 
IT was late at night when I went to sleep, 
 and I began to expect the farmer's wife 
 directly morning came. I wanted her to 
 come, and I was afraid of her coming. Sister 
 Marie-Aimee raised her head quickly every 
 time the door opened. Just as we were finish- 
 ing dinner, the porteress came and asked if I 
 were ready to go. Sister Marie-Aimee said 
 that I should be ready in a moment. She got 
 up and beckoned me to go with her. She 
 helped me to dress, gave me a little bundle of 
 linen, and all of a sudden she said, "They will 
 bring him back to-morrow, and you will not 
 be here." Then she looked into my eyes, 
 "Swear to me," she said, "that you will say 
 a De Profundls for him every night." I 
 promised to do so. Then she pulled me to 
 her quite roughly, pressed me to her hard, 
 and ran off to her room. I heard her saying 
 as she went, "My God ! this is too much !" I 
 crossed the courtyard by myself, and the far- 
 mer's wife, who was waiting for me, took me 
 away. 
 
PART II 
 

1WAS tucked in among a lot of old 
 baskets in a cart covered with a hood, 
 and when the horse stopped of his own 
 accord at the farm it had been dark for a long 
 time. 
 
 The farmer came out of the house carrying 
 a lantern which he held high up in the air, 
 and which only lit up the toes of his wooden 
 shoes. He came and helped us to get out of 
 the cart, then he lifted his lantern up to my 
 face, stood back a little and said, "What a 
 funny little servant girl." 
 
 His wife took me to a room where there 
 were two beds. She showed me mine, and 
 told me that I should be all alone on the farm 
 with the cowherd next day, because every 
 one was going to the feast of St. John. As 
 soon as I was up next morning, the cowherd 
 took me to the stables to help him give the 
 fodder to the cattle. He showed me the sheep 
 pens, and told me that I was going to look 
 after the lambs instead of old Bibiche. He 
 explained to me that the lambs were taken 
 from their mothers every year, and that a 
 
 75 
 
76 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 special shepherdess was needed to look after 
 them. He also told me that the name of the 
 farm was Villevieille, and that nobody was 
 unhappy there because Master* Silvain the 
 farmer, and Pauline, his wife, were kind peo- 
 ple. 
 
 When he had seen to all the animals the 
 cowherd made me sit down next to him in 
 the chestnut avenue. Sitting there we could 
 see the bend in the lane which went up to- 
 wards the high-road, and the whole of the 
 farm. The farm buildings formed a square 
 and the huge dunghill in the middle of the 
 yard gave off a warm smell which mixed with 
 the smell of the half-dried hay. The farm 
 was wrapped in silence. I sat and looked all 
 round me. I could see nothing but pine-trees 
 and cornfields. I felt as though I had sud- 
 denly been dropped into a forgotten country, 
 where I should always remain, along with the 
 cowherd, and the animals which I could hear 
 moving in their stables. It was very hot. I 
 was numb with a heavy longing to go to sleep, 
 but fear of all the new things which were 
 round me prevented me from letting my- 
 self drop off. Flies of all possible colours 
 whizzed round me with a little snoring noise. 
 
 *On a French farm the farmer is always called "Master." 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 77 
 
 The cowherd was making a basket of rushes, 
 and the dogs lay at our feet fast asleep. 
 
 Just as the sun was setting, the farmer's cart 
 turned slowly round the bend in the lane. 
 There were five people in it, two men and three 
 women. As they passed us, the farmer's wife 
 smiled down at me, and the others leaned for- 
 ward to see me. Soon afterwards the farm 
 filled with noise, and as it was too late to 
 make soup for supper we all supped off a piece 
 of bread and a bowl of milk. 
 
NEXT day the farmer's wife gave me a 
 rough cloth cloak, and I went out with 
 old Bibiche to learn how to look after 
 the lambs. Old Bibiche and her dog Castille 
 were so like one another that I always thought 
 they must belong to the same family. They 
 looked about the same age, and their eyes were 
 about the same colour. Whenever the lambs 
 ran off the path Bibiche would say "Bark, Cas- 
 tille, bark." She said it very quickly, almost 
 in one word, and even when Castille did not 
 bark the lambs got back into line again, the 
 old woman's voice was so like that of her dog. 
 When harvesting began it seemed to me as 
 though I were taking part in something full 
 of mystery. Men <went up to the corn and 
 laid it on the ground with regular sweeping 
 strokes, while others picked it up again in 
 sheaves, which they stacked one against the 
 other. The cries of the harvesters seemed to 
 come from above sometimes, and every now 
 and then I looked up quickly, expecting to see 
 golden corn-laden chariots fly past above my 
 head. 
 
 78 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 79 
 
 We all had our evening meal together. 
 Everybody sat down where they pleased at the 
 long table, and the farmer's wife filled 
 our plates to the brim. The younger ones 
 munched with appetite, while the older ones 
 cut each mouthful as though it were something 
 precious. Everybody ate in silence, and the 
 brown bread looked whiter in their black 
 hands. At the end of the meal the elder ones 
 talked about harvests with the farmer, while 
 the younger ones chatted and laughed with 
 Martine, the shepherdess. She answered 
 everybody's jokes, and laughed heartily at 
 them; but if one of the men stretched out a 
 hand towards her she skipped out of the way, 
 and never let him get hold of her. Nobody 
 paid any attention to me. I sat on a pile of 
 logs a little way distant from the rest of them, 
 and looked at all their faces. Master Silvain 
 had big brown eyes which looked at each one 
 in turn, and rested quietly on them as he 
 looked. He never raised his voice, and leaned 
 his open hands on the table when he spoke. 
 His wife's voice was serious and preoccupied. 
 She always looked as though she were ex- 
 pecting some misfortune to happen and she 
 scarcely smiled at all, even when all the others 
 were roaring with laughter. 
 
80 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 Old Bibiche always thought that I was fall- 
 ing asleep. She would come and pull my 
 sleeve, and take me off to bed. Her bed was 
 next to mine. She mumbled her prayers 
 while she was undressing, and always blew 
 the lamp out without waiting to see whether 
 I was ready. 
 
DIRECTLY after the harvest, Bibiche 
 let me go to the fields alone with her 
 dog. Old Castille didn't care for my 
 company. She used to leave me whenever 
 she could and go back to the farm to Bibiche. 
 I had a lot of trouble in keeping my lambs to- 
 gether. They ran every way at once. I com- 
 pared myself with Sister Marie-Aimee, who 
 always said that her little flock was hard to 
 manage. And yet she used to get us together 
 at one stroke of the bell and she could always 
 make us perfectly quiet by raising her voice a 
 little. But I might raise my voice or crack 
 my whip as much as I liked, the lambs did not 
 understand me, and I was obliged to run about 
 all round the flock as though I were a sheep 
 dog. One evening two lambs were missing. 
 I always stood in the doorway every evening 
 to let them in one by one so that I could count 
 them easily. I went into the pen and tried to 
 count them again. It was not so easy and I 
 had to give it up at last, for every time I 
 counted them again I made their number more 
 than there really were. At last I made up my 
 
 81 
 
82 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 mind that I must have counted them wrong 
 the first time, and I did not say anything to 
 anybody. 
 
 Next morning when I let them out I counted 
 them once more. There really were two miss- 
 ing. I felt very uneasy. All day long I 
 hunted about the fields for them, and in the 
 evening, when I was quite certain that they 
 were missing, I told the farmer's wife. We 
 searched high and low for those lambs for 
 several days, but we could not find them. The 
 farmer first, and then his wife took me apart, 
 and tried to make me confess that men had 
 come and taken the lambs away. They prom- 
 ised me that I should not be scolded if I 
 would tell the truth. It was no good my say- 
 ing that I really did not know what had be- 
 come of them, I could see that they did not 
 believe me. 
 
 After this I was frightened when I went 
 into the fields because I knew now that there 
 were men who hid themselves and came and 
 stole the sheep. I was always thinking that 
 I saw someone moving about behind the 
 bushes. I very soon learned to count my 
 lambs by glancing at them, and whether they 
 were all together or scattered about I knew in 
 a minute whether all of them were there. 
 
AUTUMN came and I began to feel 
 unhappy. I missed the kindness of 
 Sister Marie-Aimee. I longed so to 
 see her that I used to shut my eyes and believe 
 that she was coming up the path. When I 
 did this I could really hear her steps and the 
 rustling of her dress on the grass. When I 
 felt her quite close to me I opened my eyes 
 and she disappeared at once. For a long time 
 I had the idea of writing to her, but I did not 
 dare to ask for pen and paper. The farmer's 
 wife did not know how to write, and nobody 
 at the farm ever got any letters. I plucked 
 up courage one day and asked Master Silvain 
 if he would take me to town with him that 
 morning. He didn't answer at once. His 
 big quiet eyes rested on me for a time, and 
 then he said that a shepherdess ought never to 
 leave her flock. He said that he didn't mind 
 taking me to mass in the village now and then, 
 but that I must not expect him to take me to 
 the town. This answer quite stunned me. 
 It was as though I had learned of a great mis- 
 fortune. And every time I thought of it I 
 
 83 
 
84 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 could see Sister Marie-Aimee. She was like 
 some precious thing which the farmer had 
 smashed all to pieces by accident. 
 
 On the following Saturday Master Silvain 
 and his wife left in the morning as usual, but 
 instead of remaining in town until evening 
 they came back in the afternoon with a dealer 
 who wanted to buy some of the lambs. I had 
 never thought that one could go to the town 
 and come back again in so short a time. The 
 idea occurred to me that one day I would leave 
 my lambs in the meadow and would run into 
 the town for one kiss from Sister Marie- 
 Aimee. I soon found that that would not be 
 possible, and I decided to go off in the night. 
 I hoped that I should not take much longer 
 than the farmer's horse did, and that by leav- 
 ing in the middle of the night I could be back 
 in time to take the lambs to pasture in the 
 morning. 
 
 That evening I went to bed in my clothes, 
 and when the big clock sounded twelve I 
 slipped out on tip-toe with my shoes in my 
 hand. I leaned against a cart and laced them 
 up, and ran off as fast as I could into the dark. 
 I soon got past the outbuildings of the farm, 
 and then I saw that the night was not very 
 dark. The wind was blowing very hard, and 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 85 
 
 big black clouds were rolling across the sky 
 under the moon. It was a long way to the 
 high-road, and to get there I had to cross a 
 wooden bridge which was out of repair. The 
 rain of the last few days had swelled the little 
 river and the water splashed up on to the 
 bridge through the rotten planks. I began to 
 get nervous because the water and the wind 
 between them made a noise that I had never 
 heard before. But I refused to be frightened, 
 and ran across the slippery bridge as quickly 
 as I dared. 
 
 I got to the high-road sooner than I had ex- 
 pected, and turned to the left as I had seen 
 the farmer turn when he went to market. But 
 a little further along the road divided into 
 two and I didn't know which road to take. I 
 ran a little way up one road and then a little 
 way up another. It was the road to the left 
 that seemed to be the likely one. I took it, 
 and walked fast to make up for lost time. 
 
 In the distance I saw a black mass which 
 covered the whole country. It seemed to be 
 coming slowly towards me, and for a moment 
 I wanted to turn back and run. A dog began 
 to bark and that gave me a little confidence, 
 and almost directly afterwards I saw that the 
 black mass in front of me was a wood through 
 
86 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 which the road passed. When I got into it 
 the wind seemed to be rougher than ever. It 
 blew in squalls, and the trees struck at one an- 
 other and rattled their branches and moaned 
 and stooped down to get out of its way. I 
 heard long whistling sounds as the branches 
 cracked and clattered and fell. 
 
 Then I heard steps behind me and felt a tap 
 on my shoulder. I turned round quickly, but 
 I saw nobody. Yet I was sure that somebody 
 had touched me with his finger, and the steps 
 went on as though some invisible person were 
 walking round and round me. I began to 
 run so fast that I didn't know whether my feet 
 were touching the ground or not. 
 
 The stones sprang out under my shoes and 
 rattled behind me like a little hailstorm. I 
 had only one idea, and that was to run and run 
 until I got out of the forest. 
 
 At last I came to a clearing. It was lit up 
 by a pale moon and the tearing wind whirled 
 heaps of leaves up and threw them down 
 again, then rolled them about and about, and 
 turned them over in all directions. 
 
 I wanted to stop to get my breath, but the 
 big trees were swinging backwards and for- 
 wards with a deafening noise. Their shad- 
 ows, which looked like great black animals, 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 87 
 
 threw themselves flat along the road and then 
 slipped away and hid behind the trees. Some 
 of these shadows had shapes which I recog- 
 nized. But most of them hovered and jumped 
 about in front of me as though they wanted 
 to prevent me from passing. Some of them 
 frightened me so that I took a little run, and 
 jumped over them. I was dreadfully afraid 
 (that they would catch at my feet. 
 
 The wind went down a little, and rain be- 
 gan to fall in large drops. I had got to the 
 other side of the clearing, and when I came to 
 a little path which disappeared into the wood 
 again, I seemed to see a white wall at the end 
 of it. I went a little way along the path, and 
 saw that it was a house. Without thinking at 
 all I knocked at the door. I wanted to ask 
 the people to shelter me until the wind 
 stopped. I knocked a second time, and heard 
 somebody moving. I thought the door was 
 going to be opened, but a window was opened 
 on the first floor. A man in a night-cap called 
 out, "Who's there?" I answered, "A little 
 girl." He seemed surprised. "A little girl?" 
 he said, and asked me where I came from, 
 where I was going, and what I wanted. I had 
 not expected all these questions, and I said 
 that I was coming from the farm, but told a 
 
88 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 lie, and said that I was going to see my mother 
 who was ill. Then I asked him to let me into 
 the house until the rain stopped. He told me 
 to wait, and I heard him talking to somebody 
 else. Then he came back to the window, and 
 asked me if there was anybody with me. He 
 asked me how old I was; and when I said I 
 was thirteen, he said I must be a brave girl to 
 come through the wood alone at night. He 
 remained leaning out of the window a mo- 
 ment, trying to see my face, which was look- 
 ing up towards him. Then he turned his head 
 to right and left trying to look into the dark- 
 ness of the wood, and advised me to go on a 
 little further. There was a village at the 
 other side of the wood, he said, and I should 
 find houses there where I could dry my 
 clothes. 
 
 I went on into the night. The moon had 
 hidden itself altogether, and a drizzling rain 
 was falling. I had to walk a long time before 
 I got to the village. All the houses were shut 
 up, and I could hardly see them in the dark. 
 A blacksmith was the only person up. When 
 I got to his house I went up the two steps, 
 meaning to rest there. He was busy with a 
 great iron bar, which he was heating in a fire 
 of red coal, and when his arm went up with 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 89 
 
 the bellows he looked like a giant. Every 
 time the bellows came down the coal flew up 
 and crackled. That made a glimmering light 
 which lit up the walls, on which scythes, saws, 
 and all kinds of knives were hanging. The 
 man's forehead was wrinkled, and he was 
 staring at the fire. I dared not talk to him, 
 and I went away without making any noise. 
 
 When it became quite light I saw that I 
 was not very far from the town. I began to 
 recognize the places where Sister Marie- 
 Aimee used to take us when we went for our 
 walks. I was walking very slowly now, and 
 dragged my feet after me because they hurt 
 me. I was so tired that it was all I could do 
 not to sit down on one of the heaps of stone 
 which were on each side of the road. 
 
 The sound of a horse and cart rattling along 
 the road as fast as they could go made me turn 
 round, and I remained standing quite still 
 with my heart beating fast. I had recognized 
 the bay mare and the farmer's black beard. 
 He stopped the mare quite close to me, leaned 
 out of the cart, and lifted me up into it by the 
 belt of the dress. He sat me down next to 
 him on the seat, turned the horse round and 
 drove off again at full speed. When we got 
 to the wood Master Silvain made the horse 
 
90 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 slow down. He turned to me, looked at me, 
 and said, "It is lucky for you that I caught 
 you up. Otherwise you would have been 
 brought back to the farm between two gen- 
 darmes." As I didn't answer, he said again, 
 "Perhaps you don't know that there are gen- 
 darmes who bring little girls back, when they 
 run away." I said, "I want to go and see 
 Sister Marie-Aimee." "Are you unhappy 
 with us?" he asked. I said again, "I want 
 to go and see Sister Marie-Aimee." He 
 looked as though he didn't understand, and 
 went on asking me questions, going over the 
 names of everybody on the farm, and asking 
 me if they were kind to me. I made the same 
 answer every time. At last he lost patience 
 with me, sat straight up, and said, "What an 
 obstinate child." I looked up at him and 
 said that I should run away again if he would 
 not take me to Sister Marie-Aimee. I went 
 on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and 
 I could see quite well that he didn't know 
 what to say. He kept still, and thought for 
 several minutes. Then he put his hand on 
 my knee and said, "Listen to me, child, and 
 try and understand what I am going to tell 
 you." And when he had finished speaking I 
 understood that he had promised to keep me 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 91 
 
 until I was eighteen without ever letting me 
 go to the town. I understood, too, that the 
 Mother Superior could do what she liked 
 with me, and that if I ran away again she 
 would have me locked up, because I ran 
 about the woods during the night. Then the 
 farmer said that he hoped I should forget the 
 convent and that I should grow fond of him, 
 and of his wife, because they wished me to be 
 happy with them. I was very miserable, and 
 it was all I could do not to cry. "Come," 
 said the farmer holding out his hand. "Let 
 us be good friends, shall we?" I put my 
 hand into his, and he held it rather tight. 
 I said I should like to be friends. He cracked 
 his whip, and we soon got through the wood. 
 Rain was still falling in a fine shower like a 
 fog, and the ploughed fields looked drearier 
 than ever. In a field by the road a man came 
 towards us waving his arms. I thought he 
 was threatening me at first, but when he was 
 quite close to us I saw that he was holding 
 something in his left arm, and that his right 
 arm was moving up and down as though he 
 were working a scythe. I was so puzzled that 
 I looked at Master Silvain. As though he 
 were answering a question, he said, "It is 
 Gaboret, sowing." A few minutes after- 
 
92 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 wards we got to the farm. The farmer's wife 
 was waiting for us in the doorway. When 
 she saw me she opened her mouth wide as 
 though she had been a long time without 
 breathing, and her serious face looked a little 
 less anxious for a moment. I ran past her, 
 went into the room to fetch my cloak, and 
 went straight out to the pens. The sheep 
 rushed out, tumbling over one another. They 
 ought to have been in the fields a long time 
 before. 
 
ALL day long I thought over what the 
 farmer had said to me. I could not 
 understand why the Mother Superior 
 wanted to prevent me from seeing Sister 
 Marie- Aimee. But I understood that Sister 
 Marie-Aimee could do nothing, and I made 
 my mind up to wait, thinking that a day would 
 come when nobody could prevent me from 
 seeing her again. At bedtime the farmer's 
 wife went up with me to put an extra blanket 
 on my bed, and when she had said "good- 
 night," she told me not to call her "madame" 
 any more. She wanted me to call her Paul- 
 ine. Then she went away after telling me 
 that both she and her husband looked upon me 
 as a child of the house, and that she would do 
 all she could to make me happy at the farm. 
 Next day Master Silvain made me sit next 
 to his brother at table. He told me with a 
 laugh that he was not to let me want for any- 
 thing, because he wanted me to grow. The 
 farmer's brother was called Eugene. He 
 spoke very little, but he always looked at each 
 person who spoke, and his small eyes often 
 
94 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 seemed to be laughing at them. He was 
 thirty years old, but he did not look more than 
 twenty. He always had an answer to any 
 question he was asked, and I felt no awkward- 
 ness at sitting next to him. He squeezed him- 
 self against the wall so as to give me more 
 room at the table, and when the farmer told 
 him to look after me, all he said was, "You 
 need not worry." 
 
 Now, after all the fields had been ploughed 
 Martine took her sheep a long way off to some 
 pasture land called the common. The cow- 
 herd and I took our flock down the meadows 
 and into the woods where there was fern. I 
 suffered from the cold although I had a big 
 woollen cloak which covered me down to my 
 feet. The cowherd often had to light a fire. 
 He would bake potatoes and chestnuts in the 
 ashes and share them with me. He taught 
 me how to know from which side the wind 
 was coming, so as to make use of the least 
 shelter against the cold. And as we sat over 
 the fire and tried to keep ourselves warm he 
 would sing me a song about "Water and 
 Wine." It was a song which had about 
 twenty verses in it. Water and Wine ac- 
 cused one another of ruining the human race, 
 and at the same time praised themselves tre- 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 95 
 
 mendously. As far as I could see Water was 
 right, but the cowherd said that Wine was by 
 no means wrong. We used to sit and talk to- 
 gether for hours. He would tell me of his 
 country, which was a long way off from 
 Sologne. He told me that he had always 
 been a cowherd, and that when he was a child 
 a bull had knocked him down and hurt him. 
 He had been ill a long time after that, and the 
 pains in his limbs had made him scream. 
 Then the pains had gone away, but he had be- 
 come all twisted up as I saw him now. He 
 remembered the names of all the farms where 
 he had been cowherd. Some of the farmers 
 were kind, and some were not, but he had 
 never come across such kind masters as at 
 Villevieille. He said, too, that Master Sil- 
 vain's cows were not a bit like those of his 
 own country, which were small, and had horns 
 like pointed spindles. The Villevieille cows 
 were big, strong animals with rough crumpled 
 horns. He was very fond of them and used 
 to call each one by name when he talked to 
 them. The one he liked best was a beautiful 
 white cow which Master Silvain had bought 
 in the spring. She was always lifting her 
 head and looking into the distance, and then 
 all of a sudden she would start off at a run. 
 
96 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 The cowherd used to call out, "Stop where you 
 are, Blanche! Stop!" She usually obeyed 
 him, but sometimes he had to send the dog 
 after her. Sometimes, too, she used to try and 
 run even when the dog stopped her, and would 
 only come back to the herd when he bit her 
 muzzle. The cowherd used to pity her be- 
 cause, he said, he couldn't say what or whom 
 she was regretting. 
 
IN the month of December the cows re- 
 mained in the stables. I thought that we 
 should keep the sheep in, too, but the 
 farmer's brother explained to me that Sologne 
 was a very poor country, and that the farmers 
 could not make enough forage to feed the 
 sheep as well. So now I used to go off all 
 by myself with the sheep down the meadows 
 and into the woods. All the birds had gone. 
 Mist spread over the ploughed fields and the 
 woods were full of silence. 
 
 There were days when I felt so lonely that 
 I began to believe that the earth had fallen all 
 to pieces round me, and when a crow cawed 
 as it flew past in the grey sky its great hoarse 
 voice seemed to me to be singing of the mis- 
 fortunes of the world. Even the sheep were 
 quiet. A dealer had taken away all the lambs, 
 and the little ewes did not know how to play 
 alone. They went along pressing up close to 
 each other, and even when they were not crop- 
 ping what grass there was, their heads were 
 bent. Some of them made me think of little 
 girls I had known. I used to pass them and 
 
 97 
 
98 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 stroke them, and make them raise their heads, 
 but their eyes looked down again at once, and 
 the pupils were like glass without a gleam 
 in it. 
 
 One day I was surprised by such a thick fog 
 that I could not see my way. All of a sudden 
 I found myself near a big wood which I didn't 
 know. The tops of the trees were lost in the 
 fog, and the ferns looked as though they were 
 all wrapped in wool. White shadows came 
 down from the trees and glided with long 
 transparent trains over the dead leaves. I 
 pushed the sheep towards the meadow which 
 was quite near, but they clustered together and 
 refused to go on. I went in front of them to 
 see what was preventing them from going any 
 further, and I recognized the little river which 
 flowed at the bottom of the hill. 
 
 I could scarcely see the water. It seemed 
 to be sleeping under a thick white woollen 
 blanket. I stood looking at it for one long 
 minute, then I got my sheep together and took 
 them back along the road. While I was trying 
 to find out where the farm was, the sheep ran 
 round the wood and got into a lane with a 
 hedge on each side of it. The fog was getting 
 thicker than ever, and I thought I was walking 
 between two high walls. I followed the sheep 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 09 
 
 without knowing where they were taking me. 
 Suddenly they left the lane and turned to the 
 right; but I stopped them. I saw a church 
 just in front of us. The doors were wide open, 
 and on either side I could see two red lamps 
 which lit up a grey vaulted roof. There were 
 two straight lines of huge pillars, and at the 
 other end one could just see the windows with 
 their small panes on which a light was shin- 
 ing. It was all I could do to keep the sheep 
 from going into the church, and as I was push- 
 ing them away I noticed that they were 
 covered with little white beads. They shook 
 themselves every moment and the beads made 
 a tinkling sound. I got very anxious, for I 
 knew that Master Silvain must be waiting for 
 us, and wondering where we were. I felt 
 sure that if I were to go back the way I had 
 come I must soon find the farm, so making 
 as little noise as I could I pushed the sheep 
 back into the lane, which led to the church. 
 As I was going into the lane a man's voice 
 sounded right over my head. The voice said, 
 "Let the poor brutes go home." As he spoke 
 the man turned the sheep back towards the 
 church again, and I recognized Eugene, the 
 farmer's brother. He passed his hand over 
 the back of one of the sheep and said, "How 
 
100 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 pretty they are with their little frost balls. But 
 it is not good for them." 
 
 I was not at all surprised at meeting him 
 there. I showed him the church and asked 
 him what it was. "It was for you," he said. 
 "I was afraid that you would not find the 
 avenue of chestnut trees, and I hung up a lan- 
 tern on each side." I felt all confused. It was 
 only a few moments afterwards that I under- 
 stood that the great pillars, blackened and 
 worn by centuries, were simply the trunks of 
 the chestnut trees, and then I recognized the 
 small-paned windows of the farm-house 
 kitchen, which the fire lit up from inside. 
 Eugene counted the sheep himself. He 
 helped me to make them a warm litter of 
 straw, and as we left the pen together he asked 
 me if I really didn't know what had become of 
 the two lambs that had been lost. I felt dread- 
 fully ashamed at the thought that he could be- 
 lieve that I had told a lie, and I could not 
 help crying, and told him that they had dis- 
 appeared without my having seen how or 
 where they went. Then he told me that he 
 had found them drowned in a water-hole. I 
 thought he was going to scold me for not hav- 
 ing watched them better, but he said gently, 
 "Go and get warm ; you have got all the rime 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 101 
 
 of Sologne in your hair." I made up my 
 mind that I would go and see the water-hole 
 instead. But during the night snow fell so 
 quickly that we couldn't go out to the fields 
 next day. 
 
 I helped old Bibiche to mend the household 
 linen; Martine sat down to her spinning 
 wheel, and I sang to them while we sewed 
 and Martine span. 
 
^C Tf THILE we sat at work that evening the 
 y \ dogs never stopped barking furiously. 
 Martine seemd anxious. She lis- 
 tened to the dogs, and then turning to the 
 farmer she said, "I am afraid this weather will 
 bring the wolves down." The farmer got up 
 to go out and talk to the dogs, and took his 
 lantern to make a round of the outhouses. 
 During the week that the snow lasted hun- 
 dreds of crows came to the farm. They were 
 so hungry that nothing frightened them. They 
 went into the cowhouse and the pens and into 
 the granary, and they made very free with the 
 corn ricks. The farmer killed a lot of them. 
 We cooked some of them with bacon and cab- 
 bage. Everybody thought them very good, 
 but the dogs wouldn't eat them. 
 
THE first day we let the sheep and cows 
 out, the pine trees were still heavy with 
 snow. The hill was all white too. It 
 seemed to have come closer to the farm. All 
 this white dazzled me. I could not find things 
 in their places, and every moment I was afraid 
 that I should not see the blue smoke curling 
 up over the farm roofs any longer. The sheep 
 could not find anything to eat, and ran about 
 searching. I did not let them scatter too 
 much. They looked like moving snow, and 
 I was obliged to watch them closely so as not 
 to lose sight of them. I managed to get them 
 together in a meadow which skirted a big 
 wood. The whole forest was busy getting rid 
 of the snow which weighed it down. The big 
 branches threw the snow off at one shake, 
 while the others which were not so strong, 
 stooped and bent themselves to make it slip 
 down. I had never been into this forest. I 
 only knew that it was a very big one, and that 
 Martine sometimes took her sheep there. The 
 pine trees were very tall, and the ferns grew 
 very high. 
 
 103 
 
104 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 I had been watching a big clump of ferns 
 for a long time. I thought I had seen it move, 
 and I heard a sound come out of it as though 
 a bit of stick had broken under a footstep. I 
 felt frightened. I thought there was some- 
 body there. Then I heard the same sound 
 again much nearer, but without seeing any- 
 thing move. I tried to reassure myself by say- 
 ing to myself that it was a hare, or some other 
 little animal which was looking for food ; but 
 in spite of all I could try to think, I felt there 
 was somebody there. I felt so nervous that 
 I made up my mind to go nearer the farm. 
 I had taken two steps towards my sheep when 
 they huddled together and moved away from 
 the wood. I was looking about to see what 
 had frightened them, when quite close to me, 
 in the very middle of the flock, I saw a yellow 
 dog carrying off one of the sheep in his mouth. 
 My first idea was that Castille had gone mad ; 
 but at the same moment Castille tumbled up 
 against my dress and howled plaintively. 
 Then I guessed that it was a wolf. It was 
 carrying off a sheep which it held by the mid- 
 dle of its body. It climbed up a hillock with- 
 out any difficulty, and as it jumped the broad 
 ditch which separated the field from the for- 
 est its hind-legs made me think of wings. At 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 105 
 
 that moment I should not have thought it at 
 all extraordinary if it had flown away over 
 the trees. I stood there for a few moments, 
 without knowing whether I was frightened. 
 Then I felt that I could not take my eyes away 
 from the ditch. My eyelids had become so 
 stiff that I thought I should never be able to 
 close them again. I wanted to call out, so 
 that they should hear me at the farm, but I 
 could not get my voice out of my throat. I 
 wanted to run, but my legs were trembling so 
 that I was obliged to sit down on the wet 
 grass. Castille went on howling as though 
 she were in pain, and the sheep remained 
 huddled together. 
 
 When I got them back to the farm at last, I 
 ran to look for Master Silvain. As soon as he 
 saw me he guessed what had happened. He 
 called his brother and took down their two 
 guns, and I tried to show him which way the 
 wolf had gone. They both came back at 
 nightfall without having found him. We 
 talked of nothing else all the evening. Eu- 
 gene wanted to know what the wolf looked 
 like; and old Bibiche got angry when I said 
 that he had a long yellow coat like Castille, 
 but that he was much handsomer than she was. 
 
A FEW days afterwards it was Martinets 
 turn. She had just taken her sheep 
 out, and she had hardly reached the 
 end of the avenue of chestnut trees when we 
 heard her shouting. Everybody rushed out 
 of the house. I got to Martine first. She 
 was stooping down and pulling as hard as she 
 could at a sheep which a wolf had just killed, 
 and was trying to carry off. The wolf had the 
 sheep by the throat, and was pulling as hard 
 as Martine was. Martinets dogs bit the wolf's 
 legs, but he didn't seem to feel it, and when 
 Master Silvain fired full at him he rolled over 
 with a piece of the sheep's throat between his 
 teeth. Martine's eyes were staring and her 
 mouth had become quite white. Her cap had 
 slipped off her head, and the parting which 
 divided her hair into two made me think of a 
 broad path on which one could walk without 
 any danger. The usual strong expression of 
 her face had changed into a sad little grimace, 
 and her hands kept opening and closing, the 
 two of them keeping time. She had been lean- 
 ing against the chestnut tree, and she went up 
 
 106 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 107 
 
 to Eugene, who was looking at the wolf. She 
 stood by him for a moment looking at the dead 
 wolf too, and said aloud: "Poor brute! How 
 hungry he must have been!" The farmer put 
 the wolf and the sheep on the same wheelbar- 
 row, and wheeled them back to the farm. The 
 dogs followed, sniffing at the barrow, and 
 looking frightened. 
 
 For several days the farmer and his brother 
 went out shooting in the neighbourhood. 
 Whenever Eugene came anywhere near me he 
 would stop and say a kind word. He told me 
 that the noise they made with their guns drove 
 the wolves away, and that one very rarely saw 
 any in that part of the country. But although 
 he said that there was little or no danger I 
 didn't care to go back to the big forest. I pre- 
 ferred to go up on to the hill which was 
 covered only with brooms and ferns. 
 
AT the beginning of the spring the farm- 
 er's wife taught me how to milk the 
 cows and look after the pigs. She 
 said she wanted to make a good farmer of me. 
 I could not help thinking of the Mother Su- 
 perior and the disdainful tone in which she 
 had said to me, "You will milk the cows and 
 look after the pigs." When she said that she 
 said it as though she were giving me a pun- 
 ishment, and here I was delighted at having 
 them to look after. I used to lean my fore- 
 head against a cow's flank to get a better pur- 
 chase, and I very soon filled my pail. At the 
 top of the milk a foam used to form which 
 caught all kinds of changing colours, and 
 when the sun passed over it it become so mar- 
 vellously beautiful that I was never tired of 
 looking at it. 
 
 Looking after the pigs never disgusted me. 
 Their food was boiled potatoes and curdled 
 milk. I used to dip my hands into the bucket 
 to mix it all up, and I loved making them wait 
 for their food a few minutes. Their eager 
 cries and the way they wiggled their snouts 
 about always amused me. 
 
 108 
 
WHEN May came Master Silvain 
 added a she-goat to my flock. He 
 had bought it to help Pauline to feed 
 the little baby she had got after they had been 
 married ten years. This goat was more diffi- 
 cult to take care of than all the rest of the 
 flock. It was always her fault when my flock 
 got into the standing oats, which were pretty 
 high. The farmer saw what had happened 
 and scolded me. He said that I must have 
 been asleep in a corner while my sheep were 
 trampling his oats down. Every day I had to 
 pass near a wood of young pine trees. The 
 goat used to get there in three jumps, and it 
 was while I was looking for her that my lambs 
 got into the oats. 
 
 The first time I waited ever so long for 
 her to come back by herself. I made my 
 voice as soft as I could and called to her. At 
 last I made up my mind to go and fetch her, 
 but the young pines were so close together 
 that I didn't know how to get after her. On 
 the other hand, I could not go away without 
 knowing what had happened to the goat. I 
 
 109 
 
110 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 thought I remembered the place where she 
 had disappeared, and I went in there, putting 
 my hands in front of my face to keep the 
 thorns off. I saw her almost at once through 
 my fingers. She was quite near me. I 
 stretched my hands out to get hold of one of 
 her horns, but she backed through the 
 branches, which flew back and struck me in 
 the face. At last, however, I got hold of her 
 and brought her back to the flock. She began 
 again next day, and every day she did the 
 same thing. I got my sheep as far away as I 
 could from the oats, and rushed after her. 
 She was a white goat, and when she had first 
 come I thought she was like Madeleine. She 
 had the same kind of eyes, set far away from 
 each other. When I forced her to come out 
 of the pine trees, she looked at me for a long 
 time without moving her eyes, and I thought 
 that Madeleine must have been turned into a 
 goat. Sometimes I told her not to do it again, 
 and I was quite sure that she understood me 
 when I told her how unkind she was. As I 
 was struggling out of the pine wood my hair 
 fell all about me, and I shook my head to 
 throw it forward. The goat sprang to one 
 side bleating with fear. She lowered her 
 horns and came at me, but I lowered my head 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 111 
 
 and shook my hair at her. My hair was long 
 and dragged along the ground. She rushed 
 off, leaping this way and that. Every time 
 she went into the pine wood I took my re- 
 venge on her by frightening her with my hair. 
 Master Silvain surprised us one morning when 
 I was butting at her. He laughed and laughed 
 till I didn't know which way to look. I tried 
 to throw my hair back quickly. The she-goat 
 came close up to me. She looked at me, 
 stretching her neck and wriggling her back 
 about in the funniest way. The farmer could 
 not stop laughing. He bent almost double, 
 holding his sides and simply roared with 
 laughter. All I could see of him were his 
 eyebrows, his beard, and his big hat. His 
 shouts of laughter made me want to cry. 
 When he had stopped laughing he asked me 
 all about it. I told him how wicked the goat 
 had been, and he shook his finger at her and 
 laughed again. Martine took her out next 
 day; but the day after she said that she would 
 rather leave the farm than take out that she- 
 goat again. It was possessed of the devil, she 
 said. 
 
 Old Bibiche used to say that goats ought to 
 be beaten, but I remembered the only time I 
 had beaten her. Her ribs had made such a 
 
112 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 strange hollow sound that I never dared touch 
 her again. She was left free to run about the 
 farm, and one day she disappeared. We never 
 found out what had become of her. 
 
 The feast of St. John was drawing near, 
 and to celebrate the anniversary of my arrival 
 on the farm Eugene said that I must be taken 
 to the village. In honour of this feast day 
 the farmer's wife gave me a yellow dress 
 which she used to wear when she was a girl. 
 The village was called Sainte Montagne. It 
 only had one street, at the end of which was a 
 church. Martine took me into mass, which 
 had already begun. She pushed me on to a 
 bench and she sat down on the one in front 
 of me. There were two women behind me 
 who never stopped talking about yesterday's 
 market, and the men near the door talked out 
 loud without seeming to mind. They only 
 stopped talking when the priest mounted the 
 pulpit. I thought he was going to preach, 
 but he only gave out notices of the weddings. 
 Every time he mentioned a name the women 
 leaned to right and left and smiled. I never 
 even thought of praying. I looked at Mar- 
 tine, who was on her knees. Her dark curls 
 had got out from under her embroidered cap. 
 Her shoulders were broad, and her white 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 113 
 
 bodice was fastened at the waist with a black 
 ribbon. The whole of her made one think of 
 something fresh and new, and yet the Mother 
 Superior had told me that shepherdesses were 
 dirty. I thought of Martine and how smart 
 she always looked in her short striped petti- 
 coat, her stockings, which were always tightly 
 drawn, and her wooden shoes covered with 
 leather, which she blacked like boots. She 
 was always very careful of her flock, and the 
 farmer's wife used to say that she knew every 
 one of her sheep. When we came out of mass 
 she left me and ran up to an old woman, whom 
 she kissed tenderly. Then I lost sight of her 
 and remained all by myself, not knowing 
 where to go. A little way off I saw the inn 
 of the "White Horse." There was a noise 
 of voices there and I could hear dishes and 
 plates rattling. People went in in crowds, and 
 presently there was nobody left outside. I 
 was going back into the church to wait for 
 Martine to come and fetch me when I saw 
 Eugene. He took me by the hand, and said, 
 laughing as he spoke, "If your dress had not 
 been as yellow as it is I should certainly have 
 forgotten you." He looked at me as though 
 he were making fun of me and as though he 
 were amused at something. He took me to 
 
114 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 the schoolmaster and asked him to give me 
 luncheon, and to take me for a walk with the 
 children. The schoolmaster was dressed like 
 the gentlemen of the town. Eugene wore a 
 blue blouse, and I was very much surprised to 
 see them so friendly together. While we were 
 waiting for lunch the schoolmaster lent me a 
 book of fairy tales, and when the time came 
 for the walk I would much rather have been 
 left alone to finish the book. 
 
 On the village green the boys and girls were 
 dancing in the sunshine and the dust. I 
 thought that they danced too roughly, and 
 that they were too noisy. 
 
 I felt very sad, and when the cart drove us 
 back to the farm at nightfall I felt really glad 
 to be back in the silence and the sweet smell of 
 the meadows again. 
 
A FEW days after that, on our way home 
 from the forest, a sheep which had 
 been grazing near the hedge, jumped 
 right up into the air. I went to see what was 
 the matter, and saw that his nose was bleed- 
 ing. I thought that he must have pricked 
 himself with a big thorn, and after having 
 washed him I didn't think anything more 
 about it. Next day I was terrified to see that 
 his head had swollen up till it was almost as 
 big as his body. It frightened me so much 
 that I screamed. Martine came running up, 
 and she began screaming too, and everybody 
 came. I explained what had happened the 
 day before, and the farmer said that the sheep 
 must have been bitten by a viper. He would 
 have to be cared for, and must be left in the 
 stable until the swelling had gone down. I 
 asked nothing better than to look after the poor 
 brute, but when I was alone with it I felt 
 frightened to death. That enormous head, 
 which wobbled on the little body, made me 
 half crazy with terror. The great big eyes, 
 the enormous mouth and the ears, which stood 
 
 115 
 
116 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 straight up, made a monster almost impossible 
 to imagine. The poor beast always remained 
 in the middle of the stable, as though he were 
 afraid of bumping himself against the wall. 
 I tried to go to him, telling myself that it was 
 only a sheep after all, but I could not. But 
 directly he turned towards me I felt dread- 
 fully sorry for him. Sometimes I used to 
 think that this dreadful face which wobbled 
 from right to left was reproaching me. Then 
 something seemed to wobble inside my head, 
 and I felt as though I were going mad. I quite 
 understood that I was perfectly capable of 
 letting him die of hunger. I told the cow- 
 herd about it, and he said that he would look 
 after the sheep as long as the inflammation 
 lasted. He laughed at me a little, and said 
 he could not understand how I could be afraid 
 of a sick sheep. 
 
 I was able to do him a good turn afterwards, 
 and I was very glad. When he let the bull 
 out one morning, he had slipped and fallen in 
 front of him. The bull had sniffed and smelt 
 at him. He was a young bull, which had been 
 brought up on the farm, and was a little bit 
 wild. The cowherd was afraid of him, and 
 felt quite certain that he would remember 
 that he had seen him on the ground in front of 
 him. I should have liked to make him under- 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 117 
 
 stand that there was nothing to be afraid of, 
 but I didn't know what to say to prevent his 
 being frightened. I was quite surprised at 
 noticing all of a sudden how old he was. His 
 hat had dropped on to the ground, and I 
 noticed for the first time that his hair was 
 quite grey. I thought about him all day long, 
 and next day, while the cows were going out 
 one by one, I went into the stable. The cow- 
 herd was looking at the bull, who was pulling 
 at the chain. I went up to him, patted him, 
 and let him loose. The cowherd stood on one 
 side, and the bull rushed out as if he were 
 mad. The herd looked at him in surprise, 
 and limped after him. I was not nearly so 
 frightened of the bull as I had been of the 
 sheep with the swollen face, and I used to go 
 into the stable every day, slipping in quietly 
 so as not to be seen. But Eugene had seen me. 
 He took me aside one morning, and looking 
 right into my eyes with his little eyes, he said, 
 "Why did you let the bull loose?" I was 
 afraid the cowherd would be scolded if I told 
 the truth, and tried to find something to say 
 to him. I began to say that I didn't let him 
 loose. Then Eugene gave a little chuckle, 
 and said, "You don't mean to tell me that you 
 tell lies, do you?" I told him everything, and 
 they sold the bull next Saturday. 
 
I HAD often noticed how kind Eugene was 
 to everybody. Whenever the farmer had 
 any difficulties with his men he always 
 used to call his brother, who would settle 
 everything with a few words. Eugene did the 
 same work on the farm as Master Silvain did, 
 but he always refused to go to market. He 
 said that he would not know how to sell even 
 a cheese. He walked slowly, rocking himself 
 a little as he walked, as though he were trying 
 to keep time with his oxen. He went to Sainte 
 Montagne nearly every Sunday. When the 
 weather was bad he would remain in the liv- 
 ing-room at the farm-house and read. I used 
 to hope that he would leave his book behind 
 him one day; but he never forgot it, and al- 
 ways took it to his room with him. One of 
 my great troubles was that I could not find 
 anything to read in the farm, and I used to 
 pick up any bits of printed paper that I saw 
 lying about. The farmer's wife had noticed 
 this, and said that I should become a miser 
 some day. One Sunday, when I had screwed 
 up my courage and asked Eugene for a book, 
 
 118 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 119 
 
 he gave me a book of songs. All through the 
 summer I took it with me to the fields. I 
 made up tunes for the songs which I liked 
 best. Then I got tired of them, and when I 
 was helping Pauline to clean up the farm for 
 All Saints Day, I found several almanacks. 
 Pauline told me to take them up to the garret, 
 but I pretended to forget, and carried them 
 off to read in secret, one after the other. They 
 were full of amusing stones, and the winter 
 went by without my ever noticing the cold. 
 
 When I took them up to the garret at last, 
 I hunted about up there to see if I could not 
 find any others. The only thing I found was 
 a little book without any cover. The corners 
 of the leaves were rolled up as if it had been 
 carried about in somebody's pocket for a long 
 time. The two first pages were missing, and 
 the third page was so dirty that I could not 
 read the print. I took it under the skylight, 
 to see a little better, and I saw that it was 
 called "The Adventures of Telemachus." I 
 opened it here and there, and the few words 
 that I read interested me so much that I put 
 it in my pocket at once. 
 
 While I was on my way down from the gar- 
 ret, it suddenly occurred to me that Eugene 
 might have, put the book there, and that he 
 
120 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 might come and look for it at any time. So 
 I put it back on the black rafter where I had 
 found it. Every time I could manage to go 
 to the garret I looked to see whether it was 
 still in its place, and I read it as much and as 
 often as ever I could. 
 
JUST about that time I had another sick 
 sheep. Its flanks were hollow, as though 
 it had not eaten for a long while. I went 
 and asked the farmer's wife what I ought to 
 do with it. She was plucking a chicken, and 
 asked me whether the sheep was "drawn." I 
 didn't answer at once. I didn't quite know 
 what she meant. Then I thought that prob- 
 ably whenever a sheep was ill it was "drawn," 
 and I said "Yes." And so as to make it quite 
 clear, I added, "It is quite flat." Pauline be- 
 gan to laugh at me. She called Eugene, and 
 said, "Eugene! One of Marie-Claire's sheep 
 is drawn and flat too." That made Eugene 
 laugh. He said I was only a second-hand 
 shepherdess, and explained to me that sheep 
 were "drawn" when their stomachs were swol- 
 len. 
 
 Two days afterwards Pauline told me that 
 she and Master Silvain saw that they would 
 never make a good shepherdess of me, and that 
 they were going to give me work to do in the 
 house. Old Bibiche was not good for much, 
 and Pauline could not do everything herself, 
 
 121 
 
122 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 because of her baby. When they told me this, 
 my first thought was that I should be able to 
 go up to the garret more often, and I kissed 
 Pauline and thanked her. 
 
SO I became a farm servant. I had to kill 
 the chickens and the rabbits. I hated 
 doing it, and Pauline could never under- 
 stand why. She said I was like Eugene, who 
 ran away when a pig was being killed. How- 
 ever, I wanted to try and kill a chicken so as 
 to show that I did my best. I took it into the 
 granary. It struggled in my hands, and the 
 straw all round me got red. Then it got quite 
 still, and I put it down for Bibiche to come and 
 pluck it. But when she came she cackled with 
 laughter because the chicken had got on to its 
 feet again, and was in the middle of a basket 
 of corn. It was eating greedily, as though it 
 wanted to get well as quickly as possible after 
 the way in which I had hurt it. Bibiche got 
 hold of it, and when she had passed the blade 
 of her knife across its neck the straw was 
 much redder than it had been before. 
 
 Instead of going to sleep in the middle of 
 the day, I used to go up to the garret to read. 
 I opened the book anywhere, and every time 
 I read it over again I found something new 
 in it. I loved this book of mine. For me it 
 
 123 
 
124 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 was like a young prisoner whom I went to 
 visit secretly. I used to imagine that it was 
 dressed like a page, and that it waited for me 
 on the black rafter. One evening I went on a 
 lovely journey with it. I had closed the book, 
 and was leaning on my elbows and looking out 
 of the skylight in the garret. It was almost 
 evening, and the pine trees looked less green. 
 The sun was pushing its way into the white 
 clouds which hollowed themselves and then 
 swelled out again like down and feathers do 
 when you push something into a sackful of 
 them. 
 
 Without quite knowing how, I found my- 
 self, all of a sudden, flying over a wood with 
 Telemachus. He held me by the hand, and 
 our heads touched the blue of the sky. Tele- 
 machus said nothing, but I knew that we were 
 going up into the sun. Old Bibiche called to 
 me from below. I recognized her voice, al- 
 though it was so far off. She must be very 
 angry, I thought, to be calling so loud. I 
 didn't care. I saw nothing but the bright 
 flakes of white down which surrounded the 
 sun and which were opening slowly to let us 
 pass in. A tap on my arm brought me back 
 with a rush into the garret. Old Bibiche was 
 pulling me away from the skylight, and say- 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 125 
 
 ing, "Why do you make me shout like that? 
 I have called you at least twenty times to come 
 and get your supper!" A little while later I 
 missed the book from the rafter. But it had 
 become a friend which I carried about in my 
 heart, and I have always remembered it. 
 
FTTWO 'days before Christmas, Master Sil- 
 vain got ready to kill a pig. He sharp- 
 ened two big knives, and after having 
 made a litter of fresh straw in the middle of the 
 yard, he sent for the pig, which made such a 
 noise that I was sure he knew what was going 
 to happen. Master Silvain roped up his four 
 feet, and while he fastened them to pegs which 
 he had hammered into the ground, he said to 
 his wife, "Hide the knives, Pauline. Don't 
 let him see them!" Pauline gave me a sort of 
 deep dish, which I was to hold carefully, so 
 as not to lose a single drop of the blood which 
 I was to catch in it. The farmer went to the 
 pig, which had fallen on its side. He went 
 down on one knee in front of him, and, after 
 having felt his neck, he reached his hand out 
 behind his back to his wife ; she gave him the 
 bigger of the two knives. He put the point 
 on the place he had marked with his finger, 
 and pressed it slowly in. The pig's cries were 
 just like the cries of a baby. A drop of blood 
 came from the wound and rolled slowly down 
 in a long red line. Then two spurts ran up 
 
 126 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 127 
 
 the knife and fell on the farmer's hand. 
 When the blade was right in up to the handle, 
 Master Silvain put his weight on it for a mo- 
 ment and drew it out again as slowly as he 
 had put it in. When I saw the blade come 
 out again all striped with red, I felt my mouth 
 grow cold and dry. My fingers went limp, 
 and the dish toppled over to one side. Mas- 
 ter Silvain saw it. He gave me one look and 
 said to his wife, "Take the dish away from 
 her." I could not say a word, but I shook 
 my head to say "No." The farmer's look had 
 taken my nervousness away, and I held the 
 dish quite steadily under the spurt of blood 
 which came out from the pig's wound. When 
 the pig was quite still, Eugene came up. He 
 looked amazed at seeing me carefully catch- 
 ing the last red drops which were rolling 
 down one by one like tears. "Do you mean 
 to say you caught the blood ?" he asked. "Yes," 
 said the farmer; "that shows that she is not a 
 chicken heart, like you." "It is quite true," 
 said Eugene to me, "I hate seeing animals 
 killed." "Nonsense," said Master Silvain. 
 "Animals are made to feed us just as wood is 
 made to warm us." Eugene turned away a 
 little, as though he were ashamed of his weak- 
 ness. His shoulders were thin, and his neck 
 
128 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 was as round as Martinets. Master Silvain 
 used to say that he was the living portrait of 
 their mother. 
 
 I had never seen Eugene angry. He 
 hummed songs all day long. In the evening 
 he used to come back from the fields sitting 
 sideways on one of the oxen, and he nearly al- 
 ways sang the same song. It was the story 
 of a soldier, who went back to the war after 
 he had learned that his sweetheart had mar- 
 ried another man. He used to dwell on the 
 refrain, which finished like this 
 
 And when a bullet comes and takes 
 
 Away ray precious life, 
 You'll know I died because you were 
 
 Another fellow's wife.* 
 
 Pauline always used to treat Eugene with 
 much respect. She could never understand 
 my freedom with him. The first evening that 
 she saw me sitting next to him on the bench 
 outside the door she made signs to me to come 
 in. But Eugene called me back, saying, 
 "Come and listen to the wood owl." We 
 often used to be sitting on the bench, still, 
 
 * Quand par un tour de raaladresse 
 
 Un boulet m'emportera 
 Aliens adieu chere maitresse 
 Je m'en vais dans les combats. 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 129 
 
 when everybody had gone to bed. The wood 
 owl came quite near to an old elm tree which 
 was by the door, and we used to think that it 
 was saying "good night" to us. Then it would 
 fly away, its great wings passing over us in 
 silence. Sometimes a voice would sing on the 
 hillside. I used to tremble when I heard it. 
 The full voice coming out of the night re- 
 minded me of Colette. Eugene would get up 
 to go in when the voice stopped singing, but 
 I always used to stop, hoping to hear it again. 
 Then he would say, "Come along in; it is 
 all over." 
 
AND now that the winter was with us 
 again, and we could no longer sit on 
 the bench by the door, there seemed 
 to be a sort of secret understanding between 
 us. Whenever he was making fun of any- 
 body, his queer little eyes used to look for 
 mine, and whenever he gave an opinion he 
 used to turn to me as though he expected me 
 to agprove or disapprove. It seemed to me 
 that I had always known him, and deep down 
 in my thoughts I used to call him my big 
 brother. He was always asking Pauline if 
 she was pleased with me. Pauline said that 
 there was no need to tell him the same thing 
 twice. The only thing she reproached me 
 with was that I had no system in my work. 
 She used to say that I was just as likely to be- 
 gin at the end of it as at the beginning. I had 
 not forgotten Sister Marie- Aimee, but I was 
 no longer as sick with longing for her as I 
 used to be. And I was happy on the farm. 
 
 ISO 
 
IN the month of June the men came, as they 
 came every year, to shear the sheep. They 
 brought bad news with them. All over 
 the country the sheep were falling ill as soon 
 as they had been shorn, and numbers of them 
 were dying. Master Silvain took his precau- 
 tions, but in spite of all he could do, a hun- 
 dred of the sheep fell sick. A doctor said 
 that by bathing them in the river a good many 
 of them might be saved. So the farmer got 
 into the water up to his middle, and dipped 
 the sheep in one by one. He was red hot, and 
 the perspiration rolled down his forehead 
 and fell in great drops into the river. That 
 evening when he went to bed he was feverish, 
 and the third day he died of inflammation of 
 the lungs. Pauline could not believe in her 
 misfortune, and Eugene wandered about the 
 stables and the outhouses with frightened eyes. 
 
 131 
 
SOON after the farmer's deatK, tfie land- 
 lord of the farm came to see us. He was 
 a little dry stick of a man, who never kept 
 still for a minute, and if he did stand still he 
 always seemed to be dancing on one foot. His 
 face was clean-shaven, and his name was M. 
 Tirande. He came into the living-room 
 where I was sitting with Pauline. He walked 
 round the room with his shoulders hunched up. 
 Then he said, pointing to the baby, "Take him 
 away. I want to talk with the good wife." 
 I went out into the yard, and managed to pass 
 the window as often as I could. Pauline had 
 not moved from her chair. Her hands lay on 
 her knees, and she was bending her head for- 
 ward as though she were trying to understand 
 something very difficult. M. Tirande was 
 talking without looking at her. He kept 
 walking from the fireplace to the door and 
 back again, and the noise of his heels on the 
 tiled floor got mixed up with his broken little 
 voice. He came out again as fast as he had 
 come in, and I went and asked Pauline what 
 he had said. She took the baby in her arms 
 
 138 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 133 
 
 and, crying as she told me, she said that M. 
 Tirande was going to take the farm away 
 from her and give it to his son, who had just 
 got married. 
 
 At the end of the week M. Tirande came 
 back with his son and his daughter-in-law. 
 They visited the outhouses first, and when 
 they came into the house, M. Tirande stopped 
 in front of me a minute, and told me that his 
 daughter-in-law had made up her mind to 
 take me into her service. Pauline heard him 
 say so, and made a step towards me. But just 
 then Eugene came in with a lot of papers in 
 is hand, and everybody sat down round the 
 table. While they were all reading the 
 papers and signing, I looked at M. Tirande's 
 daughter-in-law. She was a big, dark 
 woman with large eyes and a bored look. She 
 left the farm with her husband without hav- 
 ing glanced at me once. When their cart had 
 disappeared down the avenue of chestnut trees, 
 Pauline told Eugene what M. Tirande had 
 said to me. Eugene, who was leaving the 
 room, turned to me suddenly. He looked 
 very angry, and his voice was quite changed. 
 He said that these people were disposing of 
 me as though I were a bit of furniture which 
 belonged to them. While Pauline was pitying 
 
134 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 me, Eugene told me that it was M. Tirande 
 who had told Master Silvain to take me on the 
 farm. He reminded Pauline how sorry the 
 farmer had been because I was such a weak- 
 ling, and he told me that he was very sorry 
 not to be able to take me with them to their 
 new farm. We were all three standing in the 
 living-room. I could feel Pauline's sad eyes 
 on my head, and Eugene's voice made me 
 think of a hymn. Pauline was to leave the 
 farm at the end of the summer. 
 
 I worked hard every day to put the linen 
 in order. I didn't want Pauline to take away 
 a single piece of torn linen with her. I 
 worked hard with my darning-needle, as 
 Bonne Justine had taught me, and I folded 
 every piece as well as I could. 
 
 In the evening I found Eugene sitting on 
 the bench by the door. The moon was shin- 
 ing on the roofs of the sheep-pens, and there 
 was a white cloud over the dung-heap which 
 looked like a tulle veil. There was no sound 
 whatever from the cowhouse. All that we 
 heard was the squeaking of the cradle which 
 Pauline was rocking to put her child to sleep. 
 
 As soon as the corn had been got in, Eugene 
 began getting ready to go. The cowherd 
 took away the cattle, old Bibiche went off in 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 135 
 
 the cart with all the birds of the poultry-yard. 
 In a few days nothing was left at the farm 
 but the two white oxen, which Eugene would 
 trust to nobody but himself. He fastened 
 them to the cart which was to take Pauline 
 and her child. The little fellow was fast asleep 
 in a basket full of straw, and Eugene put him 
 into the cart without waking him up. Paul- 
 ine covered him with her shawl, made the sign 
 of the cross towards the house, took up the 
 reins, and the cart went slowly off under the 
 chestnut trees. 
 
 I wanted to go with them as far as the high- 
 road, and I followed the cart, walking be- 
 hind the oxen, between Eugene and Martine. 
 None of us spoke. Every now and then Eu- 
 gene gave the oxen a friendly pat. We were 
 quite a long way on the road when Pauline 
 saw that the sun was setting. She stopped 
 the horse, and, when I had climbed on to the 
 step to kiss her good-bye, she said sadly, "God 
 be with you, my girl. Behave well." Then 
 her voice filled with tears, and she added, "If 
 my poor husband were living he would never 
 have given you up." Martine kissed me, and 
 smiled. "We may see one another again," 
 she said. Eugene took his hat off. He held 
 my hand in his for a long time, and said 
 
136 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 slowly, "Good-bye, dear little friend. I shall 
 always remember you." 
 
 I walked a little way back, and turned round 
 to see them again, and, although it was getting 
 jdark, I saw that Eugene and Martine were 
 walking hand in hand. 
 
PART III 
 
THE new farmers came next day. The 
 farm hands and the serving women had 
 come early in the morning, and when 
 the masters arrived in the evening I knew that 
 they were called Monsieur and Madame Al- 
 phonse. M. Tirande remained at Villevieille 
 for two days, and went off after reminding me 
 that I was in his daughter-in-law's service 
 now, and that I should have to do no more 
 outside work on the farm. 
 
 139 
 
THE very first week she was there Ma- 
 dame Alphonse had had Eugene's 
 room turned into a linen- room, and 
 she had set me to work at a big table on which 
 were a number of pieces of linen which I was 
 to make into sheets and other things. She 
 came and sat down next to me, and worked at 
 making lace. She would remain for whole 
 days at a time without saying a word. Some- 
 times she talked to me about the linen presses 
 which her mother had, full of all kinds of 
 linen. 
 
 Her voice had no ring to it, and she scarcely 
 moved her lips when she spoke. M. Tirande 
 seemed very fond of his daughter-in-law. 
 Every time he came he always asked her what 
 she would like him to give her. She cared 
 for nothing but linen, and he went off saying 
 that he would get her some more. 
 
 M. Alphonse never appeared at all except 
 at meal times. I should have found it very 
 difficult to say what he did with his time. 
 His face reminded me of the Mother 
 Superior's face somehow. Like her, he had 
 
 140 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 141 
 
 a yellow skin and his eyes glittered. He 
 looked as though he carried a brazier inside 
 him which might burn him up at any minute. 
 He was very pious, and every Sunday he and 
 Madame Alphonse went to mass in the village 
 where M. Tirande lived. At first they wanted 
 to take me in their cart, but I refused. I 
 preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where 
 I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugene. 
 Sometimes one of the farm hands came with 
 me, but more often I would go alone by a 
 little cross-road, which made the way much 
 shorter. It was a steep and stony bit of road 
 which ran uphill through .the broom. On 
 the very top of it I always used to stop in front 
 of Jean le Rouge's house. This house was 
 low-roofed and spreading. The walls were 
 as black as the thatch which covered it, and 
 it was quite easy to pass by the house without 
 seeing it at all, for the broom grew so high 
 all round it. I used to go in for a chat with 
 Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since 
 I had been at Villevieille farm. He had al- 
 ways worked for Master Silvain, who thought 
 very highly of him. Eugene used to say of 
 him that one could set him to anything, and 
 that whatever he did he did well. 
 
NOW M. Alphonse refused to employ 
 him any more. He spoke of sending 
 him away from the house on the hill. 
 Jean le Rouge was so upset by the idea that 
 he could talk of nothing else. 
 
 Directly after mass I used to go home by 
 the same road. Jean's children would crowd 
 round me to get the consecrated wafer, which 
 I brought out of church for them. There 
 were six of them, and the eldest was not yet 
 twelve years old. There was hardly one 
 mouthful of my consecrated wafer, so I used 
 to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and 
 give to the children in equal shares. While 
 she was doing this, Jean le Rouge would set 
 a Stool for me in front of the fire and would 
 seat himself on a log of wood, which he would 
 roll to the fireplace with his foot. His wife 
 put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy 
 pincers, and as we sat and talked we watched 
 the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot 
 which hung from a hook in the fireplace. 
 
 On the very first Sunday Jean le Rouge had 
 told me, "I too was a foundling." Little by 
 
 142 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 143 
 
 little he had told me that when he was twelve 
 he had been put to work with a woodcutter 
 who used to live in the house on the hill. He 
 had very soon learned how to climb up the 
 trees to fasten a rope to the top branches so 
 as to pull them over. When the day's work 
 was done and he had his faggot of wood on 
 his back, he would go on ahead so as to get 
 to the house first. And there he used to find 
 the woodcutter's little daughter cooking the 
 sop for supper. She was of the same age 
 as ne was, and they had become the best of 
 friends at once. 
 
 Then, one Christmas Eve, came the mis- 
 fortune. The old woodcutter, who thought 
 that the children were fast asleep, went off to 
 midnight mass. But directly he had gone 
 they got up. They wanted to prepare mid- 
 night supper for the old man's return, and 
 they danced with glee at the surprise they were 
 getting ready for him. While the little girl 
 was cooking the chestnuts and putting the pot 
 of honey and the jug of cider on the table, 
 Jean le Rouge heaped great logs on to the 
 fire. Time went on, the chestnuts were 
 cooked, and the woodcutter had not yet come 
 home. It seemed a long time. The chil- 
 dren sat down on the floor in front of the fire 
 
144 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 to keep themselves warm, leaned up against 
 one another, and fell asleep. Jean woke up 
 at the little girl's screams. He could not un- 
 derstand at first why she was throwing her 
 arms about and shrieking at the fire. He 
 jumped to his feet to run away from her, and 
 then he saw that she was ablaze. She had 
 opened the door to the garden, and as she ran 
 out she lit the trees up. Then Jean had 
 caught hold of her and thrown her into the 
 little well. The water had put the flames out, 
 but when Jean tried to pull her out of the 
 well he found her so heavy that he thought 
 she must be dead. She made no movement, 
 and it took him a long time to get her out. 
 At last, when he did get her out, he had to 
 drag her along like a bundle of sticks back 
 to the house. 
 
 The logs had become great red embers. 
 Only the biggest one, which was wet, went 
 on smoking and crackling. The little girl's 
 face was all bloated, and was black with vio- 
 let veins in it. Her body, which was half 
 naked, was covered with big red burns. 
 
 She was ill for many months, and when at 
 last they thought she was cured, they found 
 out that she had become dumb. She could 
 hear perfectly well, she could even laugh like 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 145 
 
 everybody else, but it was quite impossible 
 for her to speak a single word. 
 
 While Jean le Rouge was telling me these 
 things his wife used to look at him and move 
 her eyes as if she were reading a book. Her 
 face still bore deep burn marks, but one soon 
 got accustomed to it, and remembered noth- 
 ing of her face but the mouth with its white 
 teeth, and her eyes, which were never still. 
 She used to call her children with a long, low 
 cry, and they came running up, and always 
 understood all the signs she made to them. I 
 was so sorry that they had to leave the house 
 on the hill. They were the last friends I had 
 left, and I thought of telling Madame Al- 
 phonse about them, hoping that she might get 
 her husband to keep them on. I found an 
 opportunity one day, when M. Tirande and 
 his son had come into the linen-room talking 
 about the changes they were going to make 
 at the farm. M. Alphonse said he didn't want 
 any cattle. He spoke of buying machinery, 
 cutting down the pine trees and clearing the 
 hillside. The stables would do for sheds for 
 the machines, and he would use the house on 
 the hill to store fodder in. I don't know 
 whether Madame Alphonse was listening. 
 She went on making lace, and seemed to be 
 
146 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 giving her full attention to it. As soon as the 
 two men had gone I plucked up courage to talk 
 of Jean le Rouge. I told her how useful he 
 had been to Master Silvain. I told her how 
 sorry he was to leave the house in which he 
 had lived for so long, and when I stopped, 
 trembling for the answer which was coming, 
 Madame Alphonse took her needles out of the 
 thread. "I believe I have made a mistake," 
 she said. She counted up to nineteen, and 
 said again, "What a nuisance it is. I shall 
 have to undo a whole row." When I told 
 Jean le Rouge about this, he was angry, and 
 shook his fist at Villevieille. His wife put 
 her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, 
 and he was quiet at once. 
 
 Jean le Rouge left the house on the hill at 
 the end of January, and I was very sad. 
 
I HAD no friends left now. I hardly rec- 
 ognized the farm any more. All these 
 new people had made themselves quite at 
 home there, and I seemed to myself to be a 
 new-comer. The serving-woman looked at 
 me with distrust, and the ploughman avoided 
 talking to me. The servant's name was Adele. 
 All day long you could hear her grumbling 
 and dragging her wooden shoes after her as 
 she walked. She made a noise even when she 
 was walking on straw. She used to eat her 
 meals standing, and answer her master and 
 mistress quite rudely. 
 
 M. Alphonse had taken away the bench 
 which was by the door, and had put up little 
 green bushes with trellis-work round them. 
 He cut down the old elm tree, too, to which 
 the wood owl used to come on summer even- 
 ings. 
 
 Of course the old tree had not shaded the 
 house for a long time. It only had one tuft 
 of leaves right up on the top. It looked like 
 a head which bent over to listen to what people 
 underneath were saying. The woodcutters 
 
 147 
 
148 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 who came to cut it down said that it would 
 not be an easy thing to do. They said there 
 was some danger that when it fell it would 
 crash through the roof of the house. 
 
 At last, after a lot of talk, they decided to 
 rope it round and pull it over so that it fell on 
 to the dung-heap. It took two men all day 
 to cut it down, and just when we thought that 
 it was going to drop nicely, one of the ropes 
 worked loose, and the old elm jumped and fell 
 to one side. It slipped down the roof, knock- 
 ing down a chimney and a large number of 
 tiles, bumped a piece out of the wall, and fell 
 right across the door. Not one of its branches 
 touched the dung-heap. M. Alphonse yelled 
 with rage. He laid hold of the axe belong- 
 ing to one of the woodcutters, and struck the 
 tree so violent a blow that a piece of bark 
 flew against the linen-room window and broke 
 a pane. 
 
 Madame Alphonse saw the bits of glass 
 fall on me. She jumped up in more excite- 
 ment than I had ever seen her show, and with 
 trembling hands and fearful eyes she exam- 
 ined closely every bit of the table-cloth which 
 I was embroidering. But she did not see me 
 wiping away the blood from my cheek which 
 had been cut by a bit of glass. She was so 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 149 
 
 afraid that something might happen to the 
 piles of linen which were beginning to grow 
 that she took me off next day to her mother's 
 to show me how linen should be put into 
 closets. 
 
MADAME ALPHONSE'S mother 
 was called Madame Deslois, but when 
 the ploughmen talked about her they 
 always said "the good woman of the castle." 
 She had only been to Villevieille once. She 
 had come close up to me and looked at me 
 with her eyes half shut. She was a big woman 
 who walked bent double as if she were look- 
 ing for something on the ground. She lived 
 in a big house called the Lost Ford. 
 
 Madame Alphonse took me along by a path 
 near a little river. It was the end of March, 
 and the meadows were already in flower. 
 Madame Alphonse walked straight along the 
 path, but I got a lot of pleasure out of 
 walking in the soft grass. 
 
 We soon came to the wood where the wolf 
 had taken my lamb. I had always had a mys- 
 terious fear of this wood, and when we left 
 the path by the river to go through it I shook 
 with fear. And yet the road was a broad 
 one. It must even have been a carriage road, 
 for there were deep ruts in it. 
 
 Above our heads heaps of pine needles 
 
 150 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 151 
 
 tickled one another and rustled. They made 
 a gentle noise, not a bit like the whispering 
 with silences in between, which I used to hear 
 in the forest when the snow was on it. But in 
 spite of all I could not help looking behind 
 me. We didn't walk very far through the 
 wood. The road turned to the left and we 
 got to the courtyard of the Lost Ford imme- 
 diately. The little river ran behind the 
 stables as it did at Villevieille, but here the 
 meadows were quite close together, and the 
 buildings looked as though they were trying 
 to hide among the sapling pines. The living 
 house didn't look anything like the farms 
 thereabouts. The ground floor was built of 
 very thick old walls, and the first floor looked 
 as though it had been put on top of them as a 
 makeshift. The house did not look a bit like 
 a castle to me. It made me think of an old 
 tree trunk out of which a baby tree had 
 sprouted, and sprouted badly. 
 
 Madame Deslois came to the door when she 
 heard us arrive. She winked her little eyes 
 as she looked at me and said at once in a loud 
 voice that she had dropped a halfpenny in the 
 straw, and that it was very funny that nobody 
 had found it, as it had been lost for a week. 
 While she spoke she moved her foot about and 
 
152 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 stirred the straw which was in front of the 
 door. Madame Alphonse cannot have heard 
 her. Her big eyes were staring into the 
 house, and she was almost excited when she 
 said why we had come. Madame Deslois said 
 that she would take me to the linen-room her- 
 self. She put the keys into the locks of the 
 cupboards, and after having told me to be very 
 careful, and to disarrange nothing, she left me 
 alone. 
 
 It didn't take me long to open and close the 
 great shining cupboards. I should have liked 
 to go away at once. This big cold linen-room 
 frightened me like a prison. My feet 
 sounded on the tiles as though there were deep 
 vaults underneath them. All of a sudden it 
 seemed to me that I should never get out of 
 this linen-room again. I listened to see 
 whether I could hear any animals stirring, but 
 I only heard Madame Deslois's voice. It 
 was a rough, strong voice which went right 
 through the walls, and could be heard every- 
 where. I was going to the window so as to 
 feel a little less lonely, when a door which I 
 had not noticed suddenly opened behind me. 
 I turned my head and saw a young man come 
 in. He wore a long white smock and a grey 
 cap. He stood standing as though he were 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 153 
 
 surprised to see anybody there, and I went 
 on looking at him without being able to take 
 my eyes away. He walked right across the 
 linen-room, and he and I stared and stared at 
 one another. Then he went out, banging him- 
 self against the woodwork of the door. A 
 moment afterwards he passed by the window 
 and our eyes met again. I felt quite uncom- 
 fortable, and without knowing why I went 
 and shut the doors which he had left open. 
 
 Presently Madame Alphonse came and 
 fetched me, and I went back to Villevieille 
 with her. 
 
 Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline's 
 place I had got into the habit of going and 
 sitting in a bush which had grown into the 
 shape of a chair. It was in the middle of 
 a shrubbery not far from the farm. Now that 
 spring was beginning I used to go and sit 
 there when the ploughmen were smoking their 
 pipes at the stable doors. I used to sit there 
 listening to the little noises of the evening, 
 and I longed to be like the trees. That even- 
 ing I thought of the man I had seen at Lost 
 Ford. But every time I tried to remember 
 the exact colour of his eyes they pierced into 
 my own eyes so that they seemed to be light- 
 ing me all up inside. 
 
THE next Sunday was Easter Sunday. 
 Adele had gone to mass in M. Al- 
 phonse's cart I remained alone to 
 look after the farm with one of the plough- 
 men. After luncheon the ploughman went to 
 sleep on a heap of straw in front of the door, 
 and I went to my shrubbery to spend the after- 
 noon. I tried to hear the bells ringing, but 
 the farm was too far from the villages round, 
 and I could hear none of them. 
 
 I began to think about Sister Marie- Aimee, 
 and my thoughts went back to Sophie, who 
 used to come and wake me up every year so 
 that I should hear all the bells ringing in 
 Easter together. One year she didn't wake 
 up. She was so upset at that that next 
 year she put a big stone in her mouth to keep 
 herself from sleeping. Every time she 
 nodded off her teeth met on the stone, and she 
 woke up. 
 
 I sat and thought about High Mass where 
 Colette used to sing in her beautiful voice, 
 and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, 
 
 154 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 155 
 
 and Sister Marie-Aimee busy with the special 
 dinner which they gave us on feast days. And 
 that evening when dinner time came I should 
 see, instead of Sister Marie- Aimee's sweet lov- 
 ing face, Madame Alphonse's hard face and 
 her husband's glittering eyes, which frightened 
 me so. And as I sat and thought how long I 
 should still have to stay on the farm I felt 
 deeply discouraged. 
 
 When I was tired of crying I saw with 
 astonishment that the sun was quite low. 
 Through the branches of my shrubbery I 
 watched the long thin shadows of the poplar 
 trees growing longer than ever on the grass, 
 and quite close to me I saw a long shadow 
 which was moving. It came forward, then 
 stopped, and then came forward again. 
 I understood at once that somebody was going 
 to pass my hiding-place, and almost immedi- 
 ately the man in the white smock walked into 
 the shrubbery, stooping to get out of the way 
 of the branches. I felt cold all over. I soon 
 got control of myself, but I could not help 
 trembling nervously. He remained standing 
 in front of me without saying a word. I sat 
 and looked at his eyes, which were very gen- 
 tle, and began to feel warm again. I no- 
 ticed that, as Eugene used to, he wore a col- 
 
156 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 cured shirt and a cravat tied under the collar, 
 and when he spoke it seemed to me that I had 
 known his voice for a long time. He leaned 
 against a big branch opposite me, and asked 
 me if I had no relations. I said "No." His 
 eye ran along the branch covered with young 
 shoots, and without looking at me he said 
 again, "Then you are all alone in the world." 
 I answered quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister 
 Marie- Aimee!" And without leaving him 
 time to ask any more questions I told him how 
 I had longed for her, and how impatiently 
 I was waiting and hoping to see her again. 
 Talking about her made me so happy that I 
 could not stop talking. I told him of her 
 beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed 
 to me to be above everything in the world. I 
 told him, too, how sorry she had been when 
 I went away, and of the joy that I knew she 
 would feel when she saw me come back. 
 
 While I talked his eyes were fixed on my 
 face, but they seemed to look much further. 
 After a silence he asked again, "Have you no 
 friends here?" "No," I said; "all those 
 whom I loved have gone" ; and I added rather 
 angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le 
 Rouge." "And yet," he said "Madame Al- 
 phonse is not unkind?" I told him that she 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 157 
 
 was neither unkind nor kind, and that I should 
 leave her without any regret. 
 
 Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse's 
 cart-wheels, and I got up to go. He stood 
 aside a little to let me pass him, and I left him 
 alone in the shrubbery. 
 
 That evening I took advantage of the un- 
 usually good humour of Adele to ask her if 
 she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost 
 Ford. She said she only knew some of the 
 old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been 
 a widow the new ones never stayed with her. 
 A sort of fear which I could not have ex- 
 plained kept me from mentioning the young 
 man in the white smock, and Adele added 
 with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her 
 eldest son has come back from Paris. The 
 farm hands will be happier." 
 
 Next day while Madame Alphonse was 
 working at her lace, I sewed and thought 
 about the ploughman in the white smock. I 
 could not in my mind help comparing him 
 to Eugene. He spoke like Eugene did, and 
 they seemed like one another somehow. 
 
 That evening I thought I saw him near the 
 stables, and a moment later he came into the 
 linen-rdom. His eyes just glanced at me and 
 then he looked straight at Madame Alphonse. 
 
158 MABIE-CLAIKE 
 
 He held his head high and the left side of his 
 mouth dropped a little. Madame Alphonse 
 said, in a happy voice, when she saw him, 
 "Why, there's Henri!" and she let him kiss 
 her on both cheeks, and told him to bring a 
 chair up next to her. But he sat sideways on 
 the table, pushing the linen to one side. Adele 
 came into the room, and Madame Alphonse 
 said, "If you see my husband, tell him that 
 my brother is here." 
 
 It was some minutes before I understood. 
 Then I realized suddenly that the young man 
 in the white smock was Madame Deslois's 
 eldest son. A sense of shame which I had 
 never felt before made me blush fiercely, and 
 I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about 
 Sister Marie- Aimee. I felt that I had thrown 
 the thing that I loved best to the winds, and 
 do what I could, I could not keep back two 
 big tears which tickled the corners of my 
 mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was 
 hemming. Henri Deslois remained sitting 
 on the corner of the table for a long time. I 
 could feel that he was looking at me, and his 
 eyes were like a heavy weight which pre- 
 vented me from lifting up my head. 
 
f I 1WO days afterwards I found him in the 
 shrubbery. When I saw him sitting 
 there my legs felt weak under me, and 
 I stood still. He got up at once so that I 
 should sit down ; but I remained standing and 
 looking at him. He had the same gentleness 
 in his eyes that I had noticed the first time, 
 and, as if he expected me to tell him another 
 story, "Have you nothing to tell me this even- 
 ing?" he asked. Words danced across my 
 brain, but they did not seem to be worth speak- 
 ing, and I shook my head to say no. He said, 
 "I was your friend the other day." Recollec- 
 tion of what I had said the other day made me 
 feel worse than ever, and I only said, "You 
 are Madame Alphonse's brother." I left him 
 and did not dare to go back to the shrubbery 
 again. He often came back to Villevieille. 
 I never used to look at him, but his voice al- 
 ways made me feel very uncomfortable. 
 
 159 
 
SINCE Jean le Rouge had gone I had 
 never known what to do with my time 
 after mass. Every Sunday I used to 
 pass the house on the hill. Sometimes I would 
 look in through the gaps in the shutters, and 
 when, as I sometimes did, I bumped my head, 
 the noise it made used to frighten me. One 
 Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on 
 the door. I put my finger on the latch and 
 the door fell open with a loud noise. I had 
 not expected it to open so quickly, and I 
 stood there longing to shut it and go away. 
 Then as there was no more noise, and as the 
 sun had streamed into the house making a big 
 square of light, I made up my mind to go in, 
 and went, after leaving the door open. The 
 big fireplace was empty. There was no hook, 
 there was no pot, and the big andirons had 
 gone. The only things left in the room were 
 the logs of wood which Jean le Rouge's chil- 
 dren used as stools. The bark was worn off 
 them, and the tops of them were polished, as 
 if with wax, from the children sitting on them. 
 The second room was quite empty. There 
 
 160 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 161 
 
 were no tiles on the floor, and the feet of the 
 beds had made little holes in the beaten earth. 
 There was no lock to the other door either, 
 and I went out into the garden. There were 
 a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and 
 the fruit trees were all in flower. Most of 
 them were very old. Some of them looked 
 like hunchbacks, and their branches bent to- 
 wards the ground, as though they found that 
 even the flowers were too heavy for them ,to 
 carry. At the bottom of the garden the hill 
 ran down to an immense plain where the cattle 
 used to graze, and right at the end a row of 
 poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the 
 sky out of the meadow land. Little by little 
 I recognized one place after another. There 
 was a little river at the bottom of the hill. I 
 could not see the water, but the willows looked 
 as though they were standing on one side to 
 let it pass. The river disappeared behind 
 the buildings of Villevieille farm. There the 
 roofs were of the same colour as the chestnut 
 trees, and the river went on on the other side 
 of them. Here and there I could see it shin- 
 ing between the poplar trees. Then it plunged 
 into the great pine wood, which looked quite 
 black, in which the Lost Ford was hidden. 
 That was the road I had taken with Madame 
 
162 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 Alphonse, when we went to her mother's 
 house. Her brother must have come that way 
 that day when he found me in the shrubbery. 
 There was nobody on the road to-day. 
 Everything was tender green, and I could see 
 no white smock among the clumps of trees. 
 I tried to see the shrubbery, but the farm hid 
 it Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery 
 several times since Easter. I could not have 
 told how I knew that he was there, but on 
 those days I could never prevent myself from 
 walking round that way. 
 
 Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the 
 linen-room while I was there alone. He had 
 opened his mouth as though he were going to 
 talk to me. I had looked at him as I had 
 done the first time, and he went away without 
 saying anything. And now that I was in the 
 open garden surrounded by broom in flower 
 I longed to be able to live there always. 
 There was a big apple tree leaning over me, 
 dipping the end of its branches in the spring. 
 The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a 
 tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks 
 over the beds. This garden of flowers and 
 clear water seemed to me to be the most beau- 
 tiful garden in the world. And when I 
 turned my head towards the house, which 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 163 
 
 stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect 
 extraordinary people to come out of it. The 
 house seemed full of mystery to me. Queer 
 little sounds came out of it, and a few mo- 
 ments ago I thought that I had heard the 
 same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made 
 when he stepped into the linen-room at Ville- 
 vieille. 
 
 I had been listening as though I expected 
 to see him coming, but I had not heard his 
 footstep again, and presently I noticed that 
 the broom and the trees were making all kinds 
 of mysterious sounds. I began to imagine 
 that I was a little tree, and that the wind 
 stirred me as it liked. The same fresh breeze 
 which made the broom rock passed over my 
 head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like 
 the other tree did I stooped down and dipped 
 my fingers in the clear waters of the spring. 
 
 Another sound made me look at the house 
 again, and I was not in the least surprised 
 when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed 
 in the doorway. His head was bare, and his 
 arms were swinging. He stepped out into 
 the garden and looked far of! into the plain. 
 His hair was parted on the side, and was a 
 little thin at the temples. He remained per- 
 fectly still for a long minute, then he turned 
 
164 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 to me. There were only two trees between us. 
 He took a step forward, took hold of the 
 young tree in front of him with one hand, and 
 the branches in flower made a bouquet over 
 his head. It grew so light that I thought the 
 bark of the trees was glittering, and every 
 flower was shining. And in Henri Deslois's 
 eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went 
 to him without any shame. He didn't move 
 when I stopped in front of him. His face be- 
 came whiter than his smock, and his lips 
 quivered. He took my two hands and pressed 
 them hard against his temples. Then he said 
 very low, "I am like a miser who has found 
 his treasure again." At that moment the bell 
 of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring. 
 The sound of the bell ran up the hillsides, and 
 after resting over our heads for a moment ran 
 on and died away in the distance. 
 
 The hours passed, the day grew older, and 
 the cattle disappeared from the plain. A 
 white mist rose from the little river, then a 
 stone slipped behind the barrier of poplar 
 trees, and the broom flowers began to grow 
 darker. Henri Deslois went back towards 
 the farm with me. He walked in front of me 
 on the narrow path, and when he left me just 
 before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 165 
 
 I knew that I loved him even more than Sis- 
 ter Marie-Aimee. 
 
 The house on the hill became our house. 
 Every Sunday I found Henri Deslois waiting 
 there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge 
 lived there, I took my consecrated wafer to 
 the house on the hill after mass and we used 
 to laugh as we divided it. 
 
 We both had the same kind of frolic of 
 liberty which made us run races round the 
 garden and- wet our shoes in the brooklets 
 from the spring. Henri Deslois used to say, 
 "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old." 
 Sometimes we would go for long walks in the 
 woods which skirted the hill. Henri Deslois 
 was never tired of hearing me talk about my 
 childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimee. Some- 
 times we talked about Eugene, whom he knew. 
 He used to say that he was one of those men 
 whom one liked to have for a friend. I told 
 him what a bad shepherdess I had been, and 
 although I felt sure he would laugh at me, 
 I told him the story of the sheep which was 
 all swollen up. He didn't laugh. He put a 
 finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the 
 only thing that will cure that." 
 
ONE day we stopped near an immense 
 field of corn. It was so big that we 
 could not see the end of it. Thou- 
 sands of white butterflies were floating about 
 over the corn-ears. Henri Deslois didn't 
 speak, and I watched the ears of corn which 
 were stooping and stretching as though they 
 were getting ready to fly. It looked as though 
 the butterflies were bringing them wings to 
 help them, but it was no good for the corn-ears 
 to get excited. They could not get away 
 from the ground. I told my idea to Henri 
 Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long 
 time, and then, as though he were speaking to 
 himself, and dragging the words out, he said, 
 "It is much the same kind of thing with a man. 
 Sometimes a woman comes to him. She looks 
 like the white butterflies of the plain. He 
 doesn't know whether she comes up from the 
 earth or whether she comes down from the 
 sky. He feels that with her he could live 
 on the wind which passes, and the fresh young 
 flowers. But like the root which holds the 
 corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to 
 
 166 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 167 
 
 his duty, which is as strong as the earth." I 
 thought that his voice had an accent of suffer- 
 ing, and that the corners of his mouth drooped 
 more than usual. But almost immediately his 
 eyes looked into mine, and he said in a 
 stronger voice, "We must have confidence in 
 ourselves." 
 
SUMMER passed and the Autumn, and in 
 spite of the bad weather of December we 
 could not make up our minds to leave the 
 house on the hill. Henri Deslois used to 
 bring books with him which we would read, 
 sitting on the logs of wood in the back room 
 which looked into the garden. I went back 
 to the farm at nightfall, and Adele, who 
 thought I was spending my time dancing in 
 the village, was always surprised that I looked 
 so sad. 
 
 Almost every day Henri Deslois came to 
 Villevieille. I could hear him from a long 
 way off. He rode a great white mare which 
 trotted heavily, and he rode her without saddle 
 or bridle. She was a patient and gentle brute. 
 Her master used to let her run loose in the 
 yard while he went in to say "good day," to 
 Madame Alphonse. As soon as M. Alphonse 
 heard him, he would come into the linen- 
 room. The two of them would speak of 
 improvements on the farm or about people 
 they knew. But there was always a word or 
 a sentence in their conversation which came 
 
 168 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 169 
 
 straight to me from Henri Deslois. I often 
 used to catch M. Alphonse looking at me, and 
 I could not always keep from blushing. 
 
 One afternoon as Henri Deslois came into 
 the room smiling, M. Alphonse said, "You 
 know I have sold the house on the hill." 
 The two men looked at one another. They 
 both grew so pale that I was afraid they were 
 igoing to die where they stood. Then M. Al- 
 phonse got out of his chair and stood leaning 
 against the chimney-piece, while Henri Des- 
 lois went to the door and tried to close it. 
 Madame Alphonse put her lace down on her 
 knee and said, as though she were repeating 
 a lesson, "The house was of no particular 
 good, and I am very pleased that it has been 
 sold." Henri Deslois came and stood by the 
 table so close to me that he could have touched 
 me. He said in a voice that was not quite 
 firm, "I am sorry you have sold it without 
 having mentioned it to me, for I intended to 
 buy it." M. Alphonse wriggled like an earth- 
 worm. He made a great effort to laugh out 
 loud, and as he laughed he said, "You would 
 have bought it? You would have bought it? 
 But what would you have done with it?" 
 Henri Deslois put his hand on the back of my 
 chair and answered, "I would have lived in it 
 
170 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 as Jean le Rouge did." M. Alphonse walked 
 up and down in front of the chimney. His 
 face had changed into a yellow earthy colour. 
 His hands were in his trouser pockets, and he 
 picked up his feet so quickly that it looked as 
 though he were pulling at them with a cord 
 which he held in each hand. Then he came 
 and leaned on the table opposite us, and look- 
 ing at us one after the other with his glitter- 
 ing eyes, he bent forward and said, "Well, I 
 have sold it now, so it's all over." During the 
 silence which followed we could hear the 
 white mare pawing the ground with her shoe 
 as though she were calling her master. Henri 
 Deslois went towards the door. Then he 
 came back to me and picked up my work 
 which had fallen from my hands without my 
 having noticed it. He kissed his sister, and 
 before he went he said, looking at me, "I shall 
 see you to-morrow." 
 
NEXT morning Madame Deslois came 
 into the linen-room. She came straight 
 to me, and was very rude. But M. Al- 
 phonse told her to be quiet, and, turning to me, 
 he said, "Madame Alphonse has asked me to 
 tell you that she would like to keep you in her 
 service. But she wants you in future to come 
 to mass with us." He tried to smile, and 
 added, "We will drive you there and back." 
 It was the first time that he had ever spoken 
 directly to me. His voice was rather husky, 
 as though he felt some awkwardness in saying 
 these things to me. I don't know what made 
 me think that he was lying, and that Madame 
 Alphonse had not said anything of the kind. 
 Besides, he looked so much like the Mother 
 Superior that I could not help defying him. 
 I told him that I didn't care about driving, 
 and that I should go to mass at Sainte Mon- 
 tagne as before. He sucked in his lower lip 
 and began biting it. Then Madame Deslois 
 stepped forward threateningly, and told me 
 that I was insolent. She kept on repeating 
 this word as though she could not find any 
 
 171 
 
172 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 others. She shouted it more and more loudly, 
 and lost all control of herself. The white of 
 her eyes was becoming quite red, and she 
 raised her hand to strike me. I stepped back 
 quickly behind my chair. Madame Deslois 
 bumped into the chair and knocked it over, 
 and caught at the table so as not to fall down. 
 Her harsh voice terrified me. I wanted to 
 leave the linen-room, but M. Alphonse had 
 placed himself in front of the door, and I 
 came back into the room and faced Madame 
 Deslois across the table. She began to speak 
 again in a strangled sort of voice. She used 
 words which I didn't understand, but there 
 was something about what she said and the 
 way in which she said it which I hated. At 
 last she stopped speaking, and shouted at the 
 top of her voice, "I am his mother. Do you 
 hear me?" 
 
 M. Alphonse came towards me. He took 
 hold of my arm and said, "Come, now, listen 
 to me." I shook myself loose, pushed him 
 away and ran out of the house. The last 
 words that Madame Deslois had said ham- 
 mered on my brain as though they really were 
 a hammer with one end of it pointed. "I am 
 his mother, do you hear? his mother." Oh, 
 mother Marie- Aimee, how beautiful you were 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 173 
 
 when compared to this other mother, and how 
 I loved you! How your many-coloured eyes 
 beamed and lit up your black dress, and how 
 pure your face was under your white cap ! I 
 could see you as clearly as though you were 
 really in front of me. 
 
I WAS quite astonished to find myself in 
 front of the house on the hill, and when 
 I got there I saw that snow was falling 
 in a regular hurricane. I went into the house 
 for shelter, and went straight into the room 
 which looked out on the garden. I tried to 
 think, but my ideas whirled round in my head 
 like the snow-flakes, which looked as though 
 they were climbing up from the ground and 
 falling from the sky at the same time. And 
 every time that I made an effort to think, the 
 only things I could think of were little bits 
 of a song which the children used to sing in 
 the convent, and which ran 
 
 The old girl jumped and jumped about 
 
 And jumped until she died. 
 The old girl jumped and jumped about 
 
 And jumped until she died. * 
 
 I felt less unhappy in this silent house. 
 The softly falling snow was pretty, and the 
 trees were as beautiful as on that day when I 
 
 *On a tant fait sauter la vieille, 
 Qu'elle est morte en sautillant, 
 
 Tireli, 
 
 Sautons, sautons, la vieille! 
 174 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 175 
 
 had seen them all in bloom. Then suddenly 
 I remembered quite clearly all that had just 
 happened. I saw Madame Deslois's hand 
 with its square fingers, and shivered all over. 
 What an ugly hand it was, and what a large 
 one! Then I remembered the expression on 
 M. Alphonse's face when he took hold of my 
 arm, and I remembered as I thought of it 
 that I had seen the same expression once be- 
 fore on a little girl's face. It was one day 
 when I had picked up a pear which had fallen 
 from the tree. She had rushed at me, say- 
 ing, "Give me half of it, and I won't tell." 
 I felt so disgusted at the idea of sharing it 
 with her that, although Sister Marie-Aimee 
 might have seen me, I had gone back to the 
 tree and put the pear down where it had 
 fallen. 
 
 Thinking of all these things, I longed and 
 longed to see Sister Marie-Aimee again. I 
 should have liked to have gone to her at once, 
 but I remembered that Henri Deslois had 
 said as he went, "I shall see you to-morrow." 
 Perhaps he was at the farm already, waiting 
 for me, and wondering what had become of 
 me. I went out of the house to run back to 
 Villevieille. I had only gone a few steps 
 when I saw him coming up. The white mare 
 
176 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 didn't find it very easy to climb the snow- 
 covered path. Henri Deslois was bare- 
 headed as he had been the first time he came. 
 His smock billowed out with the wind, and 
 he had a hand on the mane of the mare. The 
 mare stood in front of me. Her master 
 leaned down and took my two hands which I 
 held up to him. There was on his face a 
 harassed expression which I had never seen 
 before. I noticed, too, that his eyebrows met, 
 like those of Madame Deslois. He was a 
 little out of breath and said, "I knew that I 
 should find you here." He opened his mouth 
 again, and I felt quite certain that his words 
 were going to bring me happiness. He held 
 my hands tighter, and said in the same breath- 
 less voice as before, "Don't hate me." Turn- 
 ing his eyes away from mine he added, " I can 
 no longer be your friend." I thought that 
 somebody had struck me a violent blow on 
 the head. There was a noise of a saw in my 
 ears. I could see Henri Deslois trembling, 
 and I heard him say, "How cold I am!" 
 Then I no longer felt the warmth of his hand 
 on mine. And when I realized that I was 
 standing all alone in the path, I saw nothing 
 but a great white shape which was slipping 
 noisily across the snow. 
 
I WENT slowly down the other side of 
 the hill, walking in the snow, which 
 squeaked under my feet. About half- 
 way a peasant offered me a lift in his cart. 
 He was going to town too, and it was not long 
 before we got to the Orphanage. I rang the 
 bell, and the porteress looked out at me 
 through the peep-hole. I recognized her. 
 It was "Ox Eye" still. We had named her 
 Ox Eye because her eyes were big and round 
 like a daisy. She opened the gate when she 
 recognized me, and told me to come in; but 
 before she shut the gate behind me she said, 
 "Sister Marie-Aimee is not here." I didn't 
 answer, so she said again, "Sister Marie- 
 Aimee is not here." I heard what she said 
 quite well, but I didn't pay any attention to 
 it. It was like a dream where the most ex- 
 traordinary things happen without seeming 
 to be of any importance at all. I looked at 
 her great big eyes and said, "I have come 
 back." She closed the gate behind me and 
 left me standing under the eaves of her little 
 house in the gateway, while she went to tell 
 
 177 
 
178 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 the Mother Superior. She came back, say- 
 ing that the Mother Superior wanted to speak 
 to Sister Desiree-des-Anges before she saw 
 me. 
 
 A bell rang. Ox Eye got up and told me 
 to go with her. It was snowing again. It 
 was almost dark in the Mother Superior's 
 room. At first I saw nothing but the fire, 
 which was whistling and flaming. Then I 
 heard the Mother Superior's voice. "So you 
 have come back?" she said. I tried to think 
 steadily, but I was not quite sure whether I 
 had come back or not. She said "Sister 
 Marie-Aimee is not here." I thought that my 
 bad dream was coming on again, and coughed 
 to try and wake myself. Then I looked at 
 the fire and tried to find out v/hy it whistled 
 like that. The Mother Superior spoke again. 
 "Are you ill?" she said. I answered "No." 
 The heat did me good, and I felt better. I 
 was beginning to understand at last that I had 
 come back to the Orphanage, and that I was 
 in the Mother Superior's room. My eyes 
 met hers, and I remembered everything. She 
 laughed a little, and said, "You have not 
 changed much. How old are you now?" I 
 told her that I was eighteen years old. 
 "Really," she said. "Going out into the 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 179 
 
 world has not made you grow much." She 
 leaned one elbow on the table, and asked me 
 why I had come back. I wanted to tell her 
 that I had come back to see Sister Marie- 
 Aimee, but I was afraid of hearing her say 
 once more that Sister Marie-Aimee was not 
 there, and I remained silent. She opened a 
 drawer, took out a letter, which she covered 
 with her open hand, and said in the weary 
 voice of a person who has been bothered un- 
 necessarily, "This letter had already told me 
 that you had become a bold, proud girl." She 
 pushed the letter from her as though she were 
 tired, and in a long breath she said, "You can 
 work in the kitchen here until we find you 
 something else to do." The fire went on whist- 
 ling. I went on looking at it, but I could 
 not make out which of the three logs was mak- 
 ing the noise. The Mother Superior raised 
 her monotonous voice to draw my attention. 
 She warned me that Sister Desiree-des-Anges 
 would watch me very closely, and that I 
 should not be allowed to talk to my former 
 companions. I saw her point to the door, and 
 I went out into the snow. 
 
 On the other side of the yard I could see 
 the kitchens. Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who 
 was tall and slim, was waiting for me at the 
 
180 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 door. I could see nothing of her but her cap 
 and her black dress, and I imagined her to 
 be old and withered. I thought of running 
 away. I need only run to the gate and tell 
 Ox Eye that I had come on a visit. She 
 would let me out, and that would be all. 
 
 Instead of going to the gate I went towards 
 the buildings where I had lived when I was 
 a child. I didn't know why I went there, 
 but I could not help it. I felt very tired, and 
 I should have liked to lie down and sleep 
 for a long time. 
 
 The old bench was in the same place. I 
 wiped some of the snow off it with my hands, 
 and sat down leaning against the linden tree 
 as M. le Cure used to do. I was waiting for 
 something, and I didn't know what. I looked 
 up at the window of Sister Marie- Aimee's 
 room. The pretty embroidered curtains were 
 no longer there, and although the window 
 was just like the other windows now, I 
 thought it quite different. And though the 
 thick calico curtains were the same in this 
 room as in the others, they seemed to me to 
 make that window look like a face with its 
 eyes shut. 
 
 The yard began to get dark, and the lights 
 lit up the rooms inside. I meant to get up 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 181 
 
 from the bench, thinking, "Ox Eye will open 
 the gate for me" ; but my body felt crushed, 
 and I seemed to have two broad, hard hands 
 weighing heavily on my head. And, as 
 though I had spoken them aloud, the words, 
 "Ox Eye will open the gate for me," repeated 
 themselves over and over again. All of a 
 sudden a voice with pity in it said quite close 
 to me, "Please, Marie-Claire, don't sit out 
 here in the snow." I raised my head, and 
 standing in front of me was a young, quite 
 young, sister, whose face was so beautiful that 
 I could not remember ever to have seen such 
 a face before. She bent over me to help me 
 up, and, as I could hardly stand upright, she 
 put my arm under hers, and said, "Lean on 
 me." Then I saw that she was taking me to 
 the kitchen, the great glass door of which was 
 bright with light. I didn't think of anything. 
 The snow pricked my face, and my eyelids 
 were burning. When I went into the kitchen, 
 I recognized the two girls who were stand- 
 ing by the big square oven. They were Vero- 
 nique the Minx, and Melanie the Plump, and 
 I seemed to hear Sister Marie-Aimee talking 
 to them by these names. Melanie nodded to 
 me as I passed her, and leaning on the young 
 sister's arm, I went into a room in which there 
 
182 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 was a night-light burning. The room was 
 divided into two by a big white curtain. The 
 young sister made me sit down on a chair, 
 which she took from behind the curtain, and 
 went out without saying a word. A little 
 while afterwards Melanie the Plump and 
 Veronique the Minx came in to put clean 
 sheets on the little iron bed beside me. When 
 they had finished, Veronique, who had not 
 looked at me at all till then, turned to me and 
 said that nobody had ever thought that I 
 should come back. She said it as though she 
 were reproaching me for something shameful. 
 Melanie put her hands together under her 
 chin, and put her head on one side, just as 
 she used to do when she was a little girl. She 
 smiled affectionately at me, and said, "I am 
 very glad that you have been sent to the 
 kitchen." Then she patted the bed, and said, 
 "You are taking my place. I used to sleep 
 here." She pointed to the curtain, and in a 
 low voice she said, "This is where Sister 
 Desiree-des-Anges sleeps." When they had 
 gone out, closing the door behind them, I sat 
 closer to the bed. The big white curtain 
 made me feel uncomfortable. I thought I 
 could see shadows moving in the folds which 
 the night-light left in darkness. Then I 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 183 
 
 heard the dinner-bell. I recognized it, and 
 without knowing what I was doing I counted 
 the strokes. Everything was quite still for 
 some time, and then the young sister came into 
 the room bringing me a bowl of steaming 
 soup. She pulled the big curtain back and 
 said, "This is your room, and that is mine." 
 I felt quite reassured when I saw that her 
 little iron bedstead was exactly the same as 
 my own. I began to wonder whether she was 
 Sister Desiree-des-Anges, but I dared not be- 
 lieve it, and asked her. She nodded "Yes," 
 and drawing her chair close to mine, she put 
 her face in the full light and said, "Don't you 
 recognize me?" I looked at her without 
 answering. No, I didn't recognize her. In 
 fact, I was certain that I had never seen her; 
 for I was certain that one could never forget 
 her face if one had seen it once. She made a 
 funny little grimace, and said, "I can see you 
 don't remember poor Desiree Joly." Desiree 
 Joly? Of course I remembered her. She 
 was a girl who had become a novice. Her 
 face was rosier than roses. She had a beauti- 
 ful, slim figure, and used to laugh all day 
 long. We all loved her. She used to jump 
 about so when she played with us that Sister 
 Marie-Aimee often used to say to her, "Come 
 
184 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 now, come now, not so high, please, Made- 
 moiselle Joly ! You are showing your knees 1" 
 Even now, when I was looking at her, I could 
 not remember her. She said "Yes, the dress 
 makes a lot of difference." She pulled up 
 her sleeves, and making the same funny little 
 face again, she said, "Forget that I am Sis- 
 ter Desiree-des-Anges, and remember that 
 Desiree Joly used to be very fond of you." 
 Then she went on quickly, "I recognized you 
 at once," she said. "You still have the same 
 baby face." When I told her I had imagined 
 Sister Desiree-des-Anges to be old and cross, 
 she answered, "We were both wrong. I had 
 been told that you were vain and proud; but 
 when I saw you crying in the middle of the 
 snow, I thought only that you were suffering, 
 and I went to you." When she had helped 
 me to bed, she divided the room again with 
 the curtain, and I went to sleep at once. 
 
 But I didn't sleep well. I woke up every 
 minute. There was a heavy stone on my 
 chest still, and when I managed to throw it 
 off, it split up into several pieces, which fell 
 back on me and crushed my limbs. Then I 
 dreamed that I was on a road full of sharp 
 pointed stones which cut me. I walked along 
 it with difficulty. On both sides of the road 
 there were fields, vines and houses. All the 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 185 
 
 houses were covered with snow, but the trees 
 were laden with fruit, and were in bright sun- 
 shine. I left the road and went into the 
 fields, stopping at all the trees to taste the 
 fruit. But all the fruit was bitter, and I 
 threw it away. I tried to go into the snow- 
 covered houses, but they had no doors. I 
 went back on to the road and the stones 
 gathered round me so fast that I could not go 
 on. Then I called for help. I called as loud 
 as I could, but nobody heard me. And when 
 I felt I was going to be buried under a huge 
 heap of stones, I struggled so hard to get 
 away from them that I woke myself up. For 
 a moment I thought I was still dreaming. 
 The ceiling of the room seemed to be a tre- 
 mendous height. The rod from which the 
 white curtain was hanging glittered here and 
 there, and the branch of boxwood which was 
 nailed to the wall threw a shadow on the 
 statue of the Virgin which was in the corner. 
 Then a cock crowed. He crowed several 
 times, as though he wanted to make me forget 
 his first crow, which had stopped short, as if 
 he were in pain. The night-light began to 
 flicker. It sputtered for a long time be- 
 fore it went out, and when the room was 
 quite dark I heard Sister Desiree-des-Anges 
 breathing gently and regularly. 
 
LONG before daybreak I got up to begin 
 my work in the kitchen. Melanie 
 showed me how to lift the big coppers. 
 It was a matter of skill as well as of strength. 
 It took me more than a week before I could 
 even move one of them. Melanie taught me 
 how to ring the heavy waking bell. She 
 showed me how to put my shoulders into the 
 work so as to pull the rope, and I soon got 
 into the way of it. And every morning, 
 whether it were cold or raining, I used 
 to enjoy ringing the bell. It had a clear 
 sound which the wind increased or lessened, 
 and I never got tired of hearing it. There 
 were days when I rang so long that Sister 
 Desiree-des-Anges would open her window 
 and would say pleadingly, "That'll do, that'll 
 do." 
 
 Since I had come to the kitchen, Veronique 
 the Minx used to look away from me when 
 she spoke, and if I asked her where anything 
 was, she would point to it without speaking. 
 Sister Desiree-des-Anges used to watch her, 
 and would curl her lip as she watched. She 
 
 186 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 187 
 
 was not as quick-tempered as she used to be 
 when she was a novice, but she was full of 
 life still and full of fun. Every evening we 
 used to meet in our room, and she would 
 make me laugh at her remarks at what had 
 been going on during the day. Sometimes 
 my laughter ended in a sob. Then she used 
 to put her hands together as the saints do in 
 the pictures, raise her eyes and say, "Oh, how 
 I wish that your sorrow would leave you." 
 Then she would kneel on the ground and 
 pray, and I often used to go to sleep before 
 she got up again. 
 
 Work in the kitchen was very hard. I used 
 to help Melanie polish up the coppers, and 
 wash the tiled floors. She did most of the 
 work herself. She was as strong as a man, 
 and was always ready to help me. As soon 
 as she found that I was tired, she used to force 
 me to sit down on a chair, and would say 
 smilingly, "Recreation time." A few days 
 after I had arrived, she reminded me of the 
 difficulties she used to have in learning her 
 catechism. 
 
 She had not forgotten that during a whole 
 season I had spent all my recreation time try- 
 ing to teach her to learn it by heart. And 
 now she delighted in making me rest. 
 
188 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 Veronique's work was the preparation of 
 the vegetables, and she also took the meat in 
 from the butcher. She used to stand stiffly 
 by the scales until the butcher's boys put the 
 meat on. She was always grumbling at them, 
 saying that the meat was cut too small or cut 
 too big. The butcher boys used to get angry 
 with her and were rude to her sometimes, and 
 Sister Desiree-des-Anges told me at last to take 
 the meat in instead of her. She came to the 
 scales just the same next day; but I was there 
 with Sister Desiree-des-Anges, who was tell- 
 ing me how to weigh the meat. 
 
ONE morning one of the two butchers 
 looked at me and spoke my name. 
 Sister Desiree-des-Anges and I looked 
 at the butcher boy in surprise. He was a new 
 one, but I soon recognized him. He was the 
 eldest son of Jean le Rouge. He was de- 
 lighted to see me again, and told me that his 
 parents had got a good place at the Lost Ford. 
 He himself didn't care about working in the 
 fields, and had found work with a butcher in 
 the town. Then he told me that the Lost 
 Ford was quite near Villevieille, and asked 
 me if I knew it. I nodded my head to say 
 that I did. He went on to say that his father 
 and mother had been there for some months, 
 and that there had been feasting there last 
 week because Henri Deslois was married. I 
 heard him say a few words more which I 
 didn't understand, then the daylight in the 
 kitchen turned into black night, and I felt 
 the tiles give way under my feet and drag me 
 down into a bottomless hole. I remember 
 Sister Desiree-des-Anges coming to help me, 
 but an animal had fastened itself on my chest. 
 
 189 
 
190 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 It made a dreadful sound which it hurt me to 
 hear. It was like a horrible sob which al- 
 ways stopped at the same place. Then the 
 light came back again, and I could see above 
 me the faces of Sister Desiree-des-Anges and 
 Melanie. Both were smiling anxiously, and 
 Melanie's broad, red face looked like Sister 
 Desiree-des-Anges's pointed pale one. I sat 
 up in bed, wondering why I was there by day- 
 light, but I didn't get up. I remembered 
 little Jean le Rouge, and for hours and hours 
 I fought with my pain. 
 
 When Sister Desiree-des-Anges came into 
 the room at bedtime she sat down on the foot 
 of my bed. She put her two hands together 
 like the saints did. "Tell me of your sor- 
 row," she said. I told her, and it seemed to 
 me that every word I spoke took some of my 
 suffering away with it. 
 
 When I had told her everything, Sister 
 Desiree-des-Anges fetched "The Imitation of 
 Jesus Christ," and began to read aloud. She 
 read in a gentle and resigned voice, and there 
 were words which sounded like the end of a 
 moan. 
 
 On the days which followed, I saw little 
 Jean le Rouge again. He told me some more 
 about the Lost Ford, and while he said how 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 191 
 
 happy his parents were and how kind the 
 master was to them, I could see the house on 
 the hill with its garden in flower, and its 
 spring from which the little brooklets crawled 
 down to the river, hiding themselves under 
 the broom. I often spoke of it to Sister 
 Desiree-des-Anges, who listened to me medi- 
 tatively. She knew the neighbourhood and 
 every corner of the place, and one evening, 
 when she sat dreaming and I asked her what 
 she was thinking about, she said, "Summer 
 will be over soon, and I was thinking that the 
 trees were full of fruit." 
 
DURING the month of September a 
 number of nuns paid visits to the 
 Mother Superior. Ox Eye used to ring 
 the bell to announce them. Every time she 
 rang Veronique went out to see who was com- 
 ing in. She always had something disagree- 
 able to say about each one of the sisters whom 
 she recognized. One evening the bell 
 sounded. Veronique, who was looking out, 
 said, "Well, here's one whom nobody ex- 
 pected." She put her head into the kitchen 
 again, and said, "It is Sister Marie- Aimee." 
 The big spoon which I had in my hand 
 slipped through my fingers and dropped into 
 the copper. I rushed to the door, pushing 
 past Veronique, who wanted to keep me back. 
 Melanie rushed after me. "Don't," she said, 
 "the Mother Superior can see you." But I 
 rushed out to Sister Marie-Aimee. I rushed 
 into her arms with such force that we nearly 
 fell over together. She clasped me tight and 
 held me. She was trembling and almost 
 crazy with joy. She took my head in her 
 hands, and, as if I had been quite a little child, 
 
 192 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 193 
 
 she kissed me all over my face. Her stiff 
 linen cap made a noise like paper when you 
 crumple it up, and her broad sleeves fell back 
 to her shoulders. Melanie was right, the 
 Mother Superior saw me. She came out of 
 the chapel and came towards us. Sister 
 Marie-Aimee saw her. She stopped kissing 
 me, and put her hand on my shoulder. I put 
 my arm round her, fearing that she would be 
 taken away from me, and the two of us stood 
 and watched the Mother Superior. She 
 passed in front of us without raising her eyes, 
 and didn't seem to see Sister Marie-Aimee, 
 who bowed gravely to her. 
 
 As soon as she had gone I dragged Sister 
 Marie-Aimee off to the old bench. She 
 stopped a moment, and before sitting down 
 she said, "It is as though things were waiting 
 for us." She sat down. She leaned against 
 the linden tree, and I kneeled down in the 
 grass at her feet. There were no more rays 
 in her eyes. It was as though the colours in 
 them had all been mixed together. Her 
 dear little face had grown smaller, and seemed 
 to have gone further back into her cap. Her 
 stomacher had not the beautiful curve on her 
 breast that it used to have, and her hands 
 were so thin that the blue veins in them 
 
194 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 showed up quite clearly. She hardly glanced 
 at the window of her room, but looked out on 
 the linden trees and round the courtyard, and 
 as she caught sight of the Mother Superior's 
 house, these words fell from her like a sigh, 
 "We must forgive others if we wish to be for- 
 given." Then she looked at me again, and 
 said, "Your eyes are sad." She passed the 
 palms of her hands over my eyes, as if she 
 wanted to wipe out something which dis- 
 pleased her, and, keeping them there so that 
 my eyes remained shut, "How we suffer," she 
 said. Then she took her hands away and 
 clasped mine, and, with her eyes on my face, 
 she said, as though she were praying, "My 
 sweet daughter, listen to me. Never become 
 a poor nun." She heaved a long sigh of re- 
 gret, and said, "Our dress of black and white 
 tells others that we are creatures of strength 
 and of brightness. At our bidding all tears 
 are dried, and all who suffer come to us for 
 consolation, but nobody thinks of our own suf- 
 fering. We are like women without faces." 
 Then she spoke of the future. She said, "I 
 am going where the missionaries go. I shall 
 live there in a house full of terror. Before 
 my eyes will pass unceasingly everything that 
 is hideous, everything that is ugly, everything 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 195 
 
 that is bad." I listened to her deep voice. 
 There was a note of passion in it. It was as 
 though she were taking on to her shoulders 
 all the suffering of the world. Her fingers 
 loosed mine. She passed them over my 
 cheeks, and speaking very gently, said, "The 
 purity of your face will always remain graven 
 on my mind." Then she looked out, away 
 and past me, and added, "God has given us 
 remembrance, and it is not in anybody's 
 power to take that away from us." She got 
 up from the bench. I went with her across 
 the yard, and when Ox Eye had closed the 
 heavy gate behind her, I stood and listened to 
 the echo of its closing. 
 
 That evening Sister Desiree-des-Anges 
 came into the room later than usual. She 
 had been taking part in special prayer for Sis- 
 ter Marie- Aimee, who was going away to 
 nurse the lepers. 
 
WNTER came again. Sister Desiree- 
 des-Anges had soon guessed my love 
 of reading, and she brought me all 
 the books in the sisters' library, one after the 
 other. Most of the books were childish books, 
 and I read quickly, turning over several pages 
 at a time. I preferred stories of travel, and 
 I used to read at night by the night-light. 
 Sister Desiree-des-Anges used to scold me 
 when she woke up ; but as soon as she went to 
 sleep I took up the book again. Little by 
 little we became great friends. The white 
 curtain was no longer drawn between our beds 
 at night time. All sense of constraint had dis- 
 appeared between us, and all our thoughts 
 were in common. She was cheerful and 
 bright always. The one thing that annoyed 
 her in her life was her nun's costume. She 
 found it heavy and uncomfortable, and she 
 used to say that it hurt her. "When I dress," 
 she said, "I always feel as though I were put- 
 ting myself into a house where it is always 
 night." She was always glad to get out of 
 her dress in the evening, and loved walking 
 
 196 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 197 
 
 about the room in her night-dress. She used 
 to say, making that funny little face, "I am 
 beginning to get used to it, but at first that 
 cap crushed my cheeks and the dress weighed 
 my shoulders down." 
 
 When the spring came she began to cough. 
 She had a little dry cough which used to 
 make itself heard from time to time. Her 
 long slim body seemed to become more fragile 
 than ever. She was as bright and cheerful as 
 before, but she complained that her heavy 
 dress became heavier and heavier. 
 
ONE night in May she tossed about and 
 dreamed aloud. I had been reading 
 all night, and noticed all of a sudden 
 that daylight was coming. I blew out the 
 night-light and tried to sleep a little. I was 
 just dropping off when Sister Desiree-des- 
 Anges said, "Open the window, he is coming 
 to-day." I thought that she was still dream- 
 ing, but she said again quite clearly, "Open 
 the window that he may enter." I looked to 
 see whether she was asleep, and saw that she 
 was sitting up in bed. She had drawn back 
 her blanket, and was untying the strings of 
 her night-cap. She took it off and threw it 
 to the foot of the bed. Then she shook her 
 head, her short hair rolled into curls on her 
 forehead, and I recognized Desiree Joly at 
 once. I was a little bit frightened, and got 
 up. She repeated, "Open the window that 
 he may enter." I opened the window wide, 
 and when I turned round Sister Desiree-des- 
 Anges was holding out her clasped hands 
 towards the rising sun, and in a voice which 
 had suddenly grown weaker, she said, "I have 
 
 198 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 199 
 
 taken off my dress. I could not stand it any; 
 longer." She lay down quietly, and her face 
 became quite motionless. I held my breath for 
 a long time to listen to hers. Then I breathed 
 hard, as though I could give her my breath, 
 but when I looked at her more closely I saw 
 that she had breathed her last. Her eyes 
 were wide open, and seemed to be looking at 
 a sunbeam which was coming towards her 
 like a long arrow. Swallows flew past the 
 window and flew back again, chirruping like 
 little girls, and my ears were filled with sounds 
 which I had never heard before. I looked 
 up to the windows of the dormitories, hoping 
 that somebody would hear what I had to say, 
 but I saw nothing but the face of the big 
 clock which seemed to be looking down into 
 the room over the linden trees. 
 
 It was five o'clock. I pulled the blanket 
 up over Sister Desiree-des-Anges and went 
 out and rang the bell. I rang for a long 
 time. The notes went far, far away. They 
 went right away to where Sister Desiree- 
 des-Anges had gone. I went on ringing be- 
 cause it seemed to me that the bells were tell- 
 ing the world that Sister Desiree-des-Anges 
 was dead. I went on ringing, too, because I 
 hoped that she would pop her beautiful face 
 
200 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 out of the window and say, "That'll do, that'll 
 r do, Marie-Claire." 
 
 Melanie pulled the rope out of my hands. 
 The bell, which was up, fell back all wrong, 
 and gave a sort of groan. "Silly, you have 
 been ringing for a quarter of an hour or 
 more," Melanie said. I answered, "Sister 
 Desiree-des-Anges is dead." Veronique went 
 into the room after us. She noticed that the 
 white curtain was not drawn between the two 
 beds, and said that she thought it was dis- 
 graceful for a nun to let her hair be seen. 
 Melanie passed her finger over a tear which 
 was rolling down each of her cheeks. Her 
 head was more on one side than ever, and she 
 whispered quite low, "She is even prettier 
 than she was before." The sunshine bathed 
 the bed, and covered the dead woman from 
 head to foot. 
 
 I remained with her all day. Some of the 
 sisters came to see her. One of them covered 
 her face with a napkin, but as soon as she had 
 gone, I uncovered it again. Melanie came 
 and spent the night by the bedside with me. 
 When she had closed the window she lit the 
 big lamp, "so that Sister Desiree-des-Anges 
 should not be in the dark," she said. 
 
A WEEK afterwards Ox Eye came to the 
 kitchen. She told me to get ready to 
 go the same day. In the hollow of 
 her hand she held two gold pieces, which she 
 put side by side on the corner of the oven, and, 
 touching one after the other with her finger, 
 she said, "Our Mother Superior sends you 
 forty francs." I did not want to go away 
 without saying good-bye to Colette and to 
 Ismerie, whom I had often seen at the other 
 side of the lawn ; but Melanie assured me that 
 they didn't care for me any more. Colette 
 could not understand why I was not married 
 yet, and Ismerie could not forgive me for be- 
 ing so fond of Sister Marie-Aimee. 
 
 Melanie went to the gate with me. As we 
 passed the old bench, I saw that one of its 
 legs was broken, and that one end of it had 
 fallen into the grass. At the gate I found a 
 woman waiting. Her eyes were hard. She 
 said authoritatively, "I am your sister." I 
 didn't recognize her. It was twelve years 
 since I had seen her. Directly we got out- 
 side she caught hold of my arm, and in a voice 
 
 901 
 
202 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 as hard as her eyes, she asked me how much 
 money I had. I showed her the two gold 
 pieces which I had just received. Then she 
 said, "You will do better to remain in the 
 town, where you will find it easier to get some- 
 thing to do." As we walked on she told me 
 she was married to a gardener in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and that she didn't intend to give 
 herself any particular trouble over me. We 
 got to the railway station. She took me on to 
 the platform because she wanted me to help 
 her carry some parcels. She said "good- 
 bye" when her train went off, and I remained 
 there and watched it go. Almost immedi- 
 ately another train stopped. The railway 
 men ran up and down the platform calling to 
 the passengers for Paris to cross over. In 
 that one moment I saw Paris with its great 
 houses like palaces, with roofs so high that 
 they were lost in the clouds. A young man 
 bumped into me. He stopped and said, "Are 
 you going to Paris, mademoiselle?" I 
 scarcely hesitated, and said, "Yes ; but I have 
 no ticket." He held out his hand. "Give 
 me the money," he said, "and I will go and 
 get it for you." I gave him one of my two 
 gold coins, and he ran off. I put the ticket 
 and the change in copper which he had 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 203 
 
 brought me into my pocket, went across the 
 line with him, and climbed into the train. 
 
 The young man stood at the carriage door 
 for a minute, and went off, turning back once 
 as he went. His eyes were full of gentleness, 
 like those of Henri Deslois. 
 
 The train whistled once, as though to warn 
 me, and as it moved off it whistled a second 
 time, a long whistle like a scream. 
 
AFTERWORD 
 
AND now may I tell you what I know 
 about Marguerite Audoux, the author 
 of the book you have just read? I 
 know very little more of her than you do, for 
 you have read the book, and Marguerite 
 Audoux is Marie-Claire. If Marie-Claire in 
 English does not please you, the fault is mine. 
 I have tried hard to translate into English 
 the uneducated, unspoilt purity of language, 
 the purity of thought which are the charac- 
 teristics of the French; but the task was no 
 easy one, much as I loved it in the doing. 
 
 Marguerite Audoux herself is a plump and 
 placid little woman, of about thirty-five. She 
 lives in a sixth-floor garret in the Rue Leo- 
 pold Robert, in Paris. From her window 
 she has a view of roof-tops and the Montpar- 
 nasse cemetery. When she learned of the 
 success of her book, with which she had lived 
 for six years, she cried. "I felt dreadfully 
 frightened at first," she said. "I felt very un- 
 easy. I felt as though I had become known 
 too quickly, as though I were a criminal of 
 note. Now my one wish is to work again," 
 
208 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 She reads a good deal. Her favourite authors 
 are Chateaubriand and Maeterlinck. In 
 Maeterlinck she loves the mystery. "We 
 never know people properly," she says. 
 "They are just as difficult to understand as 
 things that happen are. We never know 
 whose fault it is when good or bad things 
 happen, and we don't really know whether 
 we ought to be angry or to be sorry with peo- 
 ple who do harm. Wicked people are like a 
 thunderstorm, don't you think? And a lazy 
 woman is like a hot room. Both are un- 
 healthy, but they cannot help it." 
 
 Marguerite Audoux does not say these 
 things to be clever. She says them quite 
 simply, and they express her natural way 
 of thought, which is simplicity and purity 
 itself. 
 
 She wrote her book when and how she 
 could, on scraps of cheap paper, and she does 
 not know herself now whether she hoped to 
 have it published when she wrote it. She 
 did hope for publication when she had fin- 
 ished it, but that was because she was hun- 
 gry- 
 
 I met a friend just outside Marguerite 
 Audoux's house after my first visit to her. 
 "Tiens," he said, "tu viens de la mansarde de 
 
MARIE-CLAIRE 209 
 
 Genie 1'ouvriere." And the clever little pun 
 was true. Marguerite Audoux is a genius, 
 and she does not understand what people mean 
 when they ask her "how" she "writes." She 
 opens her weak eyes very wide at the ques- 
 tion, laughs as a child laughs when it doesn't 
 understand, and says, "But I don't know. 
 The thoughts come, and I write them down. 
 I only wish that I could spell them better." 
 
 When the committee of the Vie Heureuse 
 was voting on her book before awarding her 
 the 200 prize for the best book of the year, 
 somebody suggested the possibility that she 
 had had help with it. Madame Severine was 
 sent to fetch the manuscript. It was passed 
 round, examined, and no more doubt was pos- 
 sible. 
 
 I hope you will find the pleasure in read- 
 ing Marie-Claire that I found in translating 
 it. I should like to say quite earnestly and 
 perhaps a little shamefacedly, because we hate 
 saying these things out loud that when I 
 had read it I felt awed. The book had 
 worked upon me. Do you remember the im- 
 pression of moonlight upon the snow in the 
 country? You must be quite alone to feel it. 
 The purity of it all makes you wish that you 
 a cleaner man or woman, and, till you 
 
210 MARIE-CLAIRE 
 
 rub shoulders with people again, you mean 
 to try hard to be cleaner and better. Marie- 
 Claire made me feel just exactly like that. 
 
 JOHN N. RAPHAEL. 
 

 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
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 OCT a 
 
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 OCT 28 1918 
 
 9 1919 . 
 
 JAN 29 1921 
 
 FED 
 
 JUL 21 19; 
 UEC 871926 
 
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 MAY 9 
 
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YB 5499