COLETTE

Tbe Little Bouillo ux Girl

The little bouilloux girl was so lovely that even we children noticed it. It is
unusual for small girls to tecognize beauty in one of themselves and pay
homage to it. But there could be no disputing such undeniable loveliness
as hers. Whenever my mother met the little Bouilloux girl in the street, she
would stop her and bend over her as she was wont to bend over her yellow
tca rose, her red flowering cactus or her Azure Blue butterfly trustfully asleep
on the scaly bark of the pine tree. She would stroke her curly hair, golden and
ahalf-ripe chestnut, and her delicately tinted cheeks, and watch the incredible
lashes flutter over her great dark eyes. She would observe the glimmer of the
perfect teeth in her peerless mouth, and when, at last, she let the child go on
her way, she would look after her, murmuring, It's prodigious!
Several years passed, bringing yet further graces to the little Bouilloux
girl. There werecertain occasions recorded by our admiration: aprizegiving
at which, shyiy murmuring an unintelligible recitation, she glowed through
girl's
her tears like a peach under a summer shower. The little Bouilloux
first communion caused a scandal: the same evening, after vespers, she
with her father,
was seen drinkinga half pint at the Café du Commerce,
feminine and flirtatious, a
the sawyer, and that night she danced, already
little unsteady in her white slippers, at the public ball.
us, she informed us
With an arrogance to which she had accustomed
later, at school, that she was to be apprenticed.
Oh! Who to?"
To Madame Adolphe.
Oh! And are you to get wages at oncer
year.
No. I'm only thirteen, I shall start earning next
let her go. Already her
She left us without emotion, and coldly we
school, where she leatned
beauty isolated her and she had no friends at
brought no intimacy with
very little. Her Sundays and her Thursdaysconsidered unsuitable, with
was
us; they were spent with a family that
cousins of eighteen well known for their brazen behavior, and with
girl
ties at fourteen and smoked
brothers, cartwright apprentices, who sported shooting gallery at the fair
Parisian
when they escorted their sister to the
43
 Colette
44
thc widow Pimolie had made so popalar.
or to the cheerful bar that to school I metthe
httle Bouillu
The very next morning on my way andI remaincdmotóonless
dressmakersworkrooms,
girl setting out for the
admiration, at the cofnerof the Rue des Soeur
thunderstruck with jcalous form. She had exchanged her blaci
retreating
watching Nana Bouillous's for a long skirt and a pleated bloue
pinafore and short childish frock exuberant lock
black alpaca apron and her
of pink sateen. She wore a 'figure of cight, lay close as a helmet abrar
disciplined and rwisted into a imperious head that retained nothina
shape of a round
the charming new not yet calculated impudence of :
childish except its freshness and the
little village adventuress.
hummed ike a hive.
That morning the upper forms beieveit And
Tve seen Nana Bouilloux! In alongdress, mydear,woudyou
her belt too?
from
her hair in achignon! She had a pair of scissors hanging
Imet Nana
At noon Iflew home to announce breathlessly: Mother
Bouilloux inthe street! She was passing our door. And she had on a long
dress! Mother, just imagine, a long dress! And her hair ina chignon! And
she had high heels and apair of.."
Eat, Minet-Chéri, eat, your cutlet will be cokd.
And an apron, mother, such alovely alpaca apron that looked like silk
Couldn't I possibly.."
No, Minet-Chéri, you certainly couldn't
But if Nana Bouilloux can
Yes, Nana Bouilloux, at thirteen, can, in fact she should, wear a chignon.
ashort apron and along skirt it's the uniform of all little Bouilloux girs
throughout the world, at thirteen more's the pity:
But..
Yes, I know you would like to wear the complete uniform of a litte
Bouilloux girl. It includes allthat you've seen, and a bit more
letter safely hidden in the apron pocket, an besides: 2
and of cheap cigars; two admirers, three admirer who smells of wine
of tears. and a sickly child admirers and a little later on plenty
hidden away, a
crushed by constricting stays. There it is, child that has lain for months
of the little
Bouilloux girls. Do you still want Minet-Chéri, the entire uniform
'Of course not, mother. I only it?
But my mother shook her wanted to see if a chignon ...
No, no! You can't head, mocking but serious.
have
withoutthe letter, theletter the chignon without the apron, the apron
without.. all the rest of it! Itswithout the
high-heeled
just a matter of slippers, or theslippers
choice!
 The Littke Boulkx Gr!

wasson exhausted. The resplendent lttie Boxalkoux

My envy lI
O Orethanna daily passerbywom scarcely noticd Bareheaed
bean
winterandsumner,
her gaily cokrad bbkouses varicd trum wrek to weck,
in
very okdI weather
she swathed her clegant shoukders in a uscess
andin radiant as a thorny ose, her cyelashes sweeping her
Erect,
irtlescarf. ther dark and dewy eyes,she grew ctaly more worthy
checksorhaltfrevealing at, adomed and bodecked wth
over crowds, of beinggazed
ofqueeningit crinkliness ofher chestnut hair coukd stl be
The severeysmoothed
discemedinliceewaves that caught the hght in the
golden mist at the nape
and round heher cas. She awars lkookod vaguetr otfended
with
of herneck
smaall, vety nostns reminding one ofa doc.
her she lauaed too
She was hfteen or sixteen noand so was l. Except that
frecly on Sundays, in
order to show her white tecth, as she hung on the arms
was behaving tariy wel
ofher brothers or her gind cousins, Nana Bounlloux
public vendict.
Fora ltde Boullous gind, very well indeed!' was the
ike a peach on
She was seventeen, then cighteen; her complexion was she had the
challenge of hers and
asouth wall, no eyes could mcet the
fetes and tairs, to dance
bearing of agoddess. She began to take the tloor at
wandering ìn the lanes with a
with abandon, to stay out very late at night,
laughter, provoking
man's arm round her waist. Always unkind, but full of
to love her.
boldness in those who would have been content merely
dance loor that
Then came a St. John's Eve when she appeared on the
melanchol ight ot
was laid down on the Place du Grand-Jeu under the beruen the
malodorous oillamps. Hobnailed boots kicked up the dust
kept their hats
planks of the 'loor.' Althe young men, as was customary,
in their tight botices
on while dancing. Blonde girls became claretcolored
the fiekds koked
while the dark ones, sunburned from their work in
Bouilloux, in
black. But there, among a band of haughty workgirls, Nana
drinking lemonade acad
asummer dress sprigged with little flowers, was
with red wine when the Parisians arrived on the scene.
the country in summer,
Ihey were two Parisians such as one sees in
supremely bored; Parisians
Inends of a neighboring landowner, and moment to mock at a village
u ussah and white serge, come for a
Nana Bouilkoux
hcsummer fete. They stopped laughing when they saw voies they
and sat down near the bar in order to see her better. In low
comments which she pretended not to hear, since her prde as
AAnged inthem direction and
a beauiful would not let her turn her eyes
creature among g
ggglelike her Companions. She heard the words: Aswan
A bury herself here. ..Whenthe
Greuze! A crime to let such a wonder
 46 Colette
Bouillouxgirl for a waltz she
young man in the white suit askedthe little silence. From
him gravely, in
got up without surprise and danced with
than aglance, brushed agains
time to time her eyelashes, more beautiful
her partners fair mustache. and Nana Bouilloux $at
After the waltzthe two Parisians went away,
fanning herself. There she was sOon approached by young
down by the bar, even by Possy the
even by Honce the chemist, and
Leriche, by Houette, a good dancer. To all of
cabinctmaker, who was aging, but nonetheless she left the ball at half
tired,' and
them she replied, Thank you, but I'm
past ten o'clock.
the little Bouilloux gil
And after that, nothing more ever happened to
like them. Houette
The Parisians did not return,neither they, nor others
watch chains
Honce, young Leriche, the commercial travelers with their gold
soldiers on leave and sheriff's clerks vainly climbed our steep street at the
hours when the beautifully coiffed seamstress, oh her way down it, passed
them by siffly with adistant nod. They looked out for her at dances, where
she sat drinking lemonade with an air of distinction and answered their
importunitieswith "Thank you very much, but I'm not dancing, I'm tired'
Taking offense, they soon began to snigger: "Tired! Her kind of tiredness
lasts for thirty-six weeks! and they kept a sharp watch on her figure.
But nothing happened to the litde Bouilloux girl, neither that nor anything
else. She was simply waiting, possessed by an arrogant faith, conscious of the
debt owed by the hazard that had armed her too well.
She was awaiting..
not the return of the Parisian in whíte serge, but a
stranger, a ravisher. Her
proud anticipation kept her silent and pure; with alittle smile of surprise, she
rejected Hence, who would have raised her to the rank of chenmist's lawful
wife, and she would have nothing to say to the sheriffs
chief clerk.
With never another lapse, taking back, once and for
glances, the glowing bloom of her cheeks, the red youngall, the smiles, the
lips, the
had so prodigally lavished shadowy
blue cleft of her breasts which she
rustics, she awaited her kingdom and the on mere
Years later, when I passed through myprince without a name.
the shade of her who had so native village, I could not hnd
uniform of little Bouillouxxgirls:lovingy refused me what she called 'the
But as the car bore me
Slowlyenough-never slowly slowly, though not
teason to stop,,a woman
her hair well drew
enoughup astreet where I
backto avoid the wheel. Aslender have now
from asteel dressed in a bygone fashion, woman,
chatelaine dressmaker's
mouth sealed by long on her black apton. Large, vindictive scissors hanging
eyes, atight
silence, the sallow
cheeks and temples of those
 The Little Bouilloux Girl
47
ork by lamplight; a woman of forty-tive o... Not at
all; a woman
Ethirty-eight, a woman o my own age, of xactly my age, there was no
rOom for doubt. As soon as the car allowed her room to pass,
the little
Olloux girl' went on her way down the street, erect and indifferent.
Gone anxious, bitter glance had told her that the car did not contain
the long-awaited ravisher.