daughter Malinka hoped so. She fervently wanted arrogance, pride, and self-indulgence to play some part in her mother’s ridiculous optimism; she hoped she was just a little blinded by vanity.
Because while the servant was well thought of and evidently even liked by the women who employed her, Malinka realized there were others who didn’t know her, who didn’t always treat her so well.
Malinka had never seen her mother insulted to her face, but couldn’t help fearing, every day, that she might be.
Everything about her—her hopes, her fears, her embarrassments—was a betrayal of the servant.
And so she ardently hoped that a sheath of outrageous self-importance and even inflated, unwholesome pride shielded her mother’s heart with its crystalline hardness, but she doubted it, so humble did the servant continually prove, and, when she wasn’t talking about Malinka’s father, so serene and so sensible.
She doubted it.
Rather, she assumed that her mother patiently endured every affront, and that only her placidity, her slight withdrawal from the world, her inexpressive smile, helped her dismiss such things as of no great importance.
—
When Malinka’s grades began to slip, she effortlessly hid it from her mother, not fearing her anger but wanting to spare the servant any needless anxiety, because there was little her mother could do for her, and less in that realm than in any other.
She took to signing her report cards herself, never showing them to the servant, who seemed to forget there were such things as grades and report cards.
Clarisse Rivière would later recall that Malinka had struggled to keep up, that she’d hung on as best she could, but her downhill slide, starting in ninth grade and at first gradual, uncertain, soon took on the sudden brutality of a verdict handed down at last after a long wait.
She would remember that as a very young girl Malinka had ambitions, that she’d sensed doing well in school would bring her nearer her goals than her mother’s ignorant, vague solicitude, that she’d conscientiously striven to be worthy and, in a sense, perfect.
But she attained only perfection’s outward form, as if the great efforts she made had hidden from her the real reason for those labors.
And so she became a model of application and assiduity, a pupil so polite that her presence was often overlooked.
She turned in her homework on time, written in an elegant and readable hand, always a little longer than required so no one would suspect her of slacking off, although before so serious and so painfully intent a young face not even the sternest teacher would ever think such a thing, and those scrupulous pages, reeking of labor and terror, always drew a regretful, understanding comment and a below-average grade, inflated a little all the same, out of indulgence, in recognition of everything that was sad and unfair in all this.
Malinka never quite seemed to grasp what was asked of her. She understood only the express or unspoken laws governing the relations between pupils and teachers, which she obeyed in a mix of keen pleasure and arduous rigor, and so literally that she could have vanished without anyone noticing, so absolute was her submission to the image of a pupil who was nothing more than a pure receptive mind.
But what they were trying to teach her never found its way into her head, or lingered only a moment, then quickly faded.
Back at home, she sat for long hours at her desk, slightly befogged, trying in vain to connect her memories of the class with the sentences written down in her impeccable notebook.
She vibrantly remembered every detail of the teacher’s face, expression, or dress, and she could picture herself, too, as clearly as if she were studying a photograph, and she deeply admired that girl looking up at the blackboard with her perfectly attentive face.
But what had been said in that classroom, what that exemplary girl had heard and thought she understood, she
Because while the servant was well thought of and evidently even liked by the women who employed her, Malinka realized there were others who didn’t know her, who didn’t always treat her so well.
Malinka had never seen her mother insulted to her face, but couldn’t help fearing, every day, that she might be.
Everything about her—her hopes, her fears, her embarrassments—was a betrayal of the servant.
And so she ardently hoped that a sheath of outrageous self-importance and even inflated, unwholesome pride shielded her mother’s heart with its crystalline hardness, but she doubted it, so humble did the servant continually prove, and, when she wasn’t talking about Malinka’s father, so serene and so sensible.
She doubted it.
Rather, she assumed that her mother patiently endured every affront, and that only her placidity, her slight withdrawal from the world, her inexpressive smile, helped her dismiss such things as of no great importance.
—
When Malinka’s grades began to slip, she effortlessly hid it from her mother, not fearing her anger but wanting to spare the servant any needless anxiety, because there was little her mother could do for her, and less in that realm than in any other.
She took to signing her report cards herself, never showing them to the servant, who seemed to forget there were such things as grades and report cards.
Clarisse Rivière would later recall that Malinka had struggled to keep up, that she’d hung on as best she could, but her downhill slide, starting in ninth grade and at first gradual, uncertain, soon took on the sudden brutality of a verdict handed down at last after a long wait.
She would remember that as a very young girl Malinka had ambitions, that she’d sensed doing well in school would bring her nearer her goals than her mother’s ignorant, vague solicitude, that she’d conscientiously striven to be worthy and, in a sense, perfect.
But she attained only perfection’s outward form, as if the great efforts she made had hidden from her the real reason for those labors.
And so she became a model of application and assiduity, a pupil so polite that her presence was often overlooked.
She turned in her homework on time, written in an elegant and readable hand, always a little longer than required so no one would suspect her of slacking off, although before so serious and so painfully intent a young face not even the sternest teacher would ever think such a thing, and those scrupulous pages, reeking of labor and terror, always drew a regretful, understanding comment and a below-average grade, inflated a little all the same, out of indulgence, in recognition of everything that was sad and unfair in all this.
Malinka never quite seemed to grasp what was asked of her. She understood only the express or unspoken laws governing the relations between pupils and teachers, which she obeyed in a mix of keen pleasure and arduous rigor, and so literally that she could have vanished without anyone noticing, so absolute was her submission to the image of a pupil who was nothing more than a pure receptive mind.
But what they were trying to teach her never found its way into her head, or lingered only a moment, then quickly faded.
Back at home, she sat for long hours at her desk, slightly befogged, trying in vain to connect her memories of the class with the sentences written down in her impeccable notebook.
She vibrantly remembered every detail of the teacher’s face, expression, or dress, and she could picture herself, too, as clearly as if she were studying a photograph, and she deeply admired that girl looking up at the blackboard with her perfectly attentive face.
But what had been said in that classroom, what that exemplary girl had heard and thought she understood, she
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