Marie Claire | Page 7

on each side of me. When we were in bed Sister Marie-Aimée 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
neighbourhood, and the whole dormitory was lit up. Sister
Marie-Aimée 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
beautiful it is." I was so sleepy that my head fell on her shoulder. Then
she 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 transparent, and her eyes were full of light. Ismérie
hated Sister Marie-Aimée 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-Aimée
used to say, "There's Ismérie talking again;" and Ismérie used to answer,
"There's Sister Marie-Aimée scolding again." Her daring frightened me,
but Sister Marie-Aimée used to pretend not to hear her. But one day she
said, "I forbid you to answer me, little dwarf." Ismérie answered,
"No-sums." This was a word which we had made up ourselves. It
meant, "Look at my nose and see if I care." Sister Marie-Aimée
reached for a cane. I was dreadfully afraid she was going to whip
Ismérie. But Ismérie threw herself down flat on her stomach and
wriggled about and made funny noises. Sister Marie-Aimée pushed her
away with her foot, 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 Ismérie from climbing on to mine like a monkey.
I hadn't the courage to push her away, and I used to stoop down a little
to let her get well up. She always 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-Aimée always went upstairs first, I used to
wait and go up among the last girls. But sometimes Sister Marie-Aimée
would turn round suddenly. Then Ismérie slipped down my body to the
ground with wonderful quickness and skill. I always felt a little bit
awkward when I caught Sister Marie-Aimée's eye, and Ismérie 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.

Esmérie 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 refused
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 hiding-places full
of all kinds of things. At table she always used to eat some of
yesterday'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. 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 Néron
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