Marie Claire | Page 9

she said. She gave her keys to Marie, and,
although she had never been in Sister Marie-Aimée's room, she found
the bottle of salts which Sister Marie-Aimée wanted without any loss of
time.

Madeleine soon got better, and took Bonne Néron's place. She got more
authority over us. She was still timid and submissive to Sister
Marie-Aimée, 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 neck. 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
calling me "Miss Princess." She could not forgive me for Sister
Marie-Aimée's affection for me, and whenever she saw the Sister
kissing me she got quite red with anger.
I began to grow, and my health was pretty good. Sister Marie-Aimée
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 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 angrily, 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 Ismérie:
"Look; the white cow has been sent away because she was wicked, I
expect." Ismérie, 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-Aimée 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 shadow of the chestnut tree. I was
so surprised that I could not find anything to say. I did not know how to
explain it. Sister Marie-Aimée 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 came 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-Aimée standing in front of the cupboard with
the rusty locks and looking about for me everywhere. I did not know
that I was sitting on the cupboard. I still believed myself to be on the
top of the mountain, and I felt cross because Sister Marie-Aimée's
arrival had made the palace and the lovely lady disappear. 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 moment 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