the kitchen. Dolly was always to remember this as the smell of childhood. The memory was alternately resented and cherished.
In the street Fanny Schiff greeted the ladies who walked up and down with a timid
‘Bonjour, Madame’
. I think she hardly knew that they were prostitutes: she thought of them as young girls in search of a husband, as she had once been. Now all that was over: she only wanted the child to grow up beautiful and healthy. She also wanted her business to prosper, as it had begun to do. Her sore eyes, her few hours of sleep on the couch in the workroom, and the eternal smell ofsoup were a small price to pay for solvency, a solvency she had never previously known.
She soon had a clientele among the girls, cheerful, stoical, good-natured creatures who petted the baby and took to spending their off-duty moments in the workroom with Fanny. There was nothing downtrodden about these girls; they regarded ordinary married women with scorn and pity. All were actively saving up for their retirement. Those who had a man were planning to open a bar or a small restaurant, somewhere in the south. Nice, they said, Saint-Raphaël, Fréjus. Fanny listened as she stitched away. The child Dolly, of whom they made a great fuss, also listened. Another life! A better life! She loved her mother, could see her tired eyes at the end of the day. As soon as she was old enough she was sent downstairs to buy
mille-feuilles
and éclairs: one of the girls, Lucette or Michèle, always brought a present of good coffee. They were kind and generous, felt sorry for Fanny and Dolly, knew that there would be no time for them to have more than soup for their supper, as the machine whirred on late into the night. Their diet was irregular: a great deal of coffee, cakes when the girls came, on Sunday a couple of slices of ham with potatoes in oil, sometimes a cutlet followed by a spoonful of preserves. Nevertheless Dolly grew up beautiful.
She was dark haired, with a taut faintly gleaming French complexion. She held her head high, even as a child: her dark eyes, her direct gaze challenged all who came within her field of vision. She went to school, where she made no friends; in any case she preferred the company of Lucetteand Michèle and others like them. Sometimes she dropped into a church on her way home but left again discontented; there was nothing there to feed her solitude and her longings. Moreover she resented the atmosphere of self-denial she encountered among the shabby women in the pews, and took her resentment to the highest authority. Who was Jesus to say that she must not lay up treasures on earth? Where else could she enjoy them? Even at a young age she had strong desires, impulses, movements; she had nothing in common with those women in headscarves, their knotted hands patiently joined. She felt murderously towards them, as if they were undermining her own existence. Jesus she held directly responsible for her mother’s uncomplaining nature and also for her hard life, the one being a consequence of the other. She resolved to be different, not knowing, or if suspecting not believing, that her slender resources might not take her as far as she wished to go.
She had more ambition than her mother, but less application, knew only that she did not want to work as her mother continued to work, did not as yet connect her idea of a better life with a man. The men she saw passing up and down the street she considered far less important than the women. When she was sixteen, seventeen, she began to attract attention, but the word went out that she was not to be touched. She already considered her future to lie elsewhere, away from the rue Saint-Denis. She was determined, but dreamy: she wanted to live in a better house, with better food, and for her mother not to work so hard. Her heart was rudimentary. She was only prepared to love one or two people, one ofwhom would almost certainly be her mother, and the other probably herself.
Her
In the street Fanny Schiff greeted the ladies who walked up and down with a timid
‘Bonjour, Madame’
. I think she hardly knew that they were prostitutes: she thought of them as young girls in search of a husband, as she had once been. Now all that was over: she only wanted the child to grow up beautiful and healthy. She also wanted her business to prosper, as it had begun to do. Her sore eyes, her few hours of sleep on the couch in the workroom, and the eternal smell ofsoup were a small price to pay for solvency, a solvency she had never previously known.
She soon had a clientele among the girls, cheerful, stoical, good-natured creatures who petted the baby and took to spending their off-duty moments in the workroom with Fanny. There was nothing downtrodden about these girls; they regarded ordinary married women with scorn and pity. All were actively saving up for their retirement. Those who had a man were planning to open a bar or a small restaurant, somewhere in the south. Nice, they said, Saint-Raphaël, Fréjus. Fanny listened as she stitched away. The child Dolly, of whom they made a great fuss, also listened. Another life! A better life! She loved her mother, could see her tired eyes at the end of the day. As soon as she was old enough she was sent downstairs to buy
mille-feuilles
and éclairs: one of the girls, Lucette or Michèle, always brought a present of good coffee. They were kind and generous, felt sorry for Fanny and Dolly, knew that there would be no time for them to have more than soup for their supper, as the machine whirred on late into the night. Their diet was irregular: a great deal of coffee, cakes when the girls came, on Sunday a couple of slices of ham with potatoes in oil, sometimes a cutlet followed by a spoonful of preserves. Nevertheless Dolly grew up beautiful.
She was dark haired, with a taut faintly gleaming French complexion. She held her head high, even as a child: her dark eyes, her direct gaze challenged all who came within her field of vision. She went to school, where she made no friends; in any case she preferred the company of Lucetteand Michèle and others like them. Sometimes she dropped into a church on her way home but left again discontented; there was nothing there to feed her solitude and her longings. Moreover she resented the atmosphere of self-denial she encountered among the shabby women in the pews, and took her resentment to the highest authority. Who was Jesus to say that she must not lay up treasures on earth? Where else could she enjoy them? Even at a young age she had strong desires, impulses, movements; she had nothing in common with those women in headscarves, their knotted hands patiently joined. She felt murderously towards them, as if they were undermining her own existence. Jesus she held directly responsible for her mother’s uncomplaining nature and also for her hard life, the one being a consequence of the other. She resolved to be different, not knowing, or if suspecting not believing, that her slender resources might not take her as far as she wished to go.
She had more ambition than her mother, but less application, knew only that she did not want to work as her mother continued to work, did not as yet connect her idea of a better life with a man. The men she saw passing up and down the street she considered far less important than the women. When she was sixteen, seventeen, she began to attract attention, but the word went out that she was not to be touched. She already considered her future to lie elsewhere, away from the rue Saint-Denis. She was determined, but dreamy: she wanted to live in a better house, with better food, and for her mother not to work so hard. Her heart was rudimentary. She was only prepared to love one or two people, one ofwhom would almost certainly be her mother, and the other probably herself.
Her
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