Article
Museum as Muse: The Schoolgirl
THE SCHOOLGIRL
The head mistress has asked her to come into her office this Wednesday afternoon, when school is closed. She knows why she has been summoned. The schoolgirl strides onwards with determination, her long plait bouncing up and down on her back, her satchel in her hand. She pushes her hat down firmly, tilts her snub nose to the uncertain French sky.
She will be questioned, she is aware, as will be, eventu¬ally, the rest of the class or anyway those that were on the walk across the park. She imagines entering the head mis¬tress's hushed study with its book cases and paneled walls, its mauve velvet curtains and muffled light. The policeman will be sitting stolidly at the round mahogany table in the corner waiting for her, trying to look kind in his blue uniform, his kepi by his side. The headmistress will be wearing her old-fashioned black dress, the white fichu on her shoulders. She will finger the wart on her chin and say, whistling on the s's "Now, Diane dear, don't be alarmed. This gentleman would just like to ask you a few questions. I would like you to listen carefully and answer them as candidly you can."
She will listen carefully but she has no intention of telling the police anything they do not already know. None of the girls will tell the police anything they do not already know. She will go over the facts calmly: the hot day, the walk across the park in double file, the way the Italian girl lingered alone at the back of the line, the unex¬pected thunder and lightning, the stop they were obliged to make in the pavilion because of the downpour. She may even tell him that they had played a game, though she won't say anything about Truth. She might mention the fact that Miss, the English teacher, too, seemed to have disappeared for a while, perhaps to smoke a cigarette--¬ everyone knows Miss smokes in secret-- before she called them all to line up and then set them all searching for the Italian girl, in the trees.
The matter, in all probability, will eventually be hushed up, as her own father's suicide was: for the good of their school, they will say. The Cours Victor Hugo is an old and reputable establishment, after all. No one need know what happened to the Italian girl. The schoolgirl is sorry that the Italian girl has disappeared (that's how she thinks about it as she strides onwards in the uncertain French sunshine.) There was something, she will admit, quite unusual about the Italian girl. There were moments in a certain light when she glowed rather like the Madonna in the painting over the side altar in the school chapel, but the school girl does not consider herself responsible. And she is certainly not going to tell anyone where the Italian girl is.
The schoolgirl strides down the street, swinging her satchel, aware of the consequences of her silence, as they all are. Miss has acted foolishly, and will probably be dis¬missed, but that is no one's fault but her own. It's always a mistake for a teacher to have a favourite pupil, or anyway a mistake to make it so blatantly obvious that she has a favourite. Miss-- they always call the pretty young English teacher, whom everyone had a crush on, Miss-- should have shown some restraint, been more circumspect, hidden her feelings. She should have had the good sense to realize how the other girls in the class would feel when she singled out the Italian girl in that way. It was obvious how she felt about her, how she watched her with her pale-blue passionate eyes.
And how were they to know that the Italian girl's asthma was as serious as it turned out to be, that when they held her down, on the Queen's marble tomb, playing the game they played, that she would suddenly stop breathing?
Fortunately, between the twelve of them, they were able to move the lid of the old tomb and slip her body inside. A convenient hiding place, the schoolgirl thinks and marches on, nose tilted to the sky.
--Sheila Kohler
The head mistress has asked her to come into her office this Wednesday afternoon, when school is closed. She knows why she has been summoned. The schoolgirl strides onwards with determination, her long plait bouncing up and down on her back, her satchel in her hand. She pushes her hat down firmly, tilts her snub nose to the uncertain French sky.
She will be questioned, she is aware, as will be, eventu¬ally, the rest of the class or anyway those that were on the walk across the park. She imagines entering the head mis¬tress's hushed study with its book cases and paneled walls, its mauve velvet curtains and muffled light. The policeman will be sitting stolidly at the round mahogany table in the corner waiting for her, trying to look kind in his blue uniform, his kepi by his side. The headmistress will be wearing her old-fashioned black dress, the white fichu on her shoulders. She will finger the wart on her chin and say, whistling on the s's "Now, Diane dear, don't be alarmed. This gentleman would just like to ask you a few questions. I would like you to listen carefully and answer them as candidly you can."
She will listen carefully but she has no intention of telling the police anything they do not already know. None of the girls will tell the police anything they do not already know. She will go over the facts calmly: the hot day, the walk across the park in double file, the way the Italian girl lingered alone at the back of the line, the unex¬pected thunder and lightning, the stop they were obliged to make in the pavilion because of the downpour. She may even tell him that they had played a game, though she won't say anything about Truth. She might mention the fact that Miss, the English teacher, too, seemed to have disappeared for a while, perhaps to smoke a cigarette--¬ everyone knows Miss smokes in secret-- before she called them all to line up and then set them all searching for the Italian girl, in the trees.
The matter, in all probability, will eventually be hushed up, as her own father's suicide was: for the good of their school, they will say. The Cours Victor Hugo is an old and reputable establishment, after all. No one need know what happened to the Italian girl. The schoolgirl is sorry that the Italian girl has disappeared (that's how she thinks about it as she strides onwards in the uncertain French sunshine.) There was something, she will admit, quite unusual about the Italian girl. There were moments in a certain light when she glowed rather like the Madonna in the painting over the side altar in the school chapel, but the school girl does not consider herself responsible. And she is certainly not going to tell anyone where the Italian girl is.
The schoolgirl strides down the street, swinging her satchel, aware of the consequences of her silence, as they all are. Miss has acted foolishly, and will probably be dis¬missed, but that is no one's fault but her own. It's always a mistake for a teacher to have a favourite pupil, or anyway a mistake to make it so blatantly obvious that she has a favourite. Miss-- they always call the pretty young English teacher, whom everyone had a crush on, Miss-- should have shown some restraint, been more circumspect, hidden her feelings. She should have had the good sense to realize how the other girls in the class would feel when she singled out the Italian girl in that way. It was obvious how she felt about her, how she watched her with her pale-blue passionate eyes.
And how were they to know that the Italian girl's asthma was as serious as it turned out to be, that when they held her down, on the Queen's marble tomb, playing the game they played, that she would suddenly stop breathing?
Fortunately, between the twelve of them, they were able to move the lid of the old tomb and slip her body inside. A convenient hiding place, the schoolgirl thinks and marches on, nose tilted to the sky.
--Sheila Kohler
