Madeleine Is Sleeping Read Free

accepted her turn and grabbed hold of M. Jouy without trepidation: she pocketed his pennies, laughed to see his breeches puddled about his ankles, mimicked his lumbering gait. When they dispersed, screeching like crows, she did too. And when they approached the village, suddenly composed and inscrutable, she too fell silent.
    We're gathering flowers, she announced, when Mother asked. It made a lovely picture: a procession of girls, filing homeward in the dusk, hands stained green from their efforts. Locals who dreamed of migrating to the city now paused and marveled, What was I thinking? I could not live without these simple pleasures.

curdled milk
    WHAT HAD FRIGHTENED the others? Something in the tightness of her grip, or the way her eyes fed upon the cock. She had betrayed no distaste for the game. The other girls crowed to see his defeat, to see his idiot's composure dissolve, and then rushed to wipe themselves clean of his ejaculation. But M. Jouy held no fascination for her; she did not feel triumphant when he brayed and snorted; she was occupied only with the soft, stubborn thing clamped in her fists, and grew reluctant to run her fingers through the long grasses. Every Midsummer morning, Mother woke her before dawn and ordered her to kneel down and bathe her face in the dew: it ensures a year's worth of loveliness, she explained. As a child, Mother had performed the same ritual.
    When Madeleine wiped M. Jouy off her hands, she left glistening mollusk trails in the underbrush.

Bureaucracy
    WHEN AROUSED , even the bucolic village moves with unforgiving swiftness, its machinery oiled and eager. Sophie was eating oatmeal when she decided to tell her mother, and by the time she finished her bowl, her mother had already told her father, who told the priest, who told the mayor. And then it was too late to recant. The mayor puzzled for an afternoon, and by supper had sent his oldest son to fetch the gendarmes. The gendarmes arrived before the sun rose, were directed by a hundred silent fingers towards the barn and apprehended M. Jouy with hay sprouting from his hair, his smile still heavy with dreams.

    Madeleine's hands were thrust into a pot of boiling lye.

Host
    CAN I HAVE SOME MORE ? Beatrice asks. She has scrambled down from the bed and planted herself in Mother's way. I prefer the burnt part.
    Doubling over to stoke the fire, Mother grunts before she gives her permission. Save some for your father, she says.
    Beatrice sidles up to the sleeping princess and surveys the devastation: one leg lost, from the knee down. The open wound looks tempting and buttery, but she likes the acrid edges best, where the dough has blackened, and breaks off an entire hand. Before biting, she examines it. It looks exactly like the hand of her sleeping sister: shiny and tempered and mitten-like. The fingers are no longer articulated because baking has sutured them all into one.
    Why did only the hands burn, Maman? she asks through a mouthful of crumbs.
    Because only her hands were wicked, Mother says.
    This makes Beatrice pause and consider. Finally, she objects: She will never be able to sew or play the piano!
    It is no great loss. Mother pats her on top of her head, leaving the floury trace of her five fingertips. And, she adds, they will always remind her of her childhood. As you grow older, it is often easy to forget.
    Mother hitches her skirts up to her thighs. See. Scars are remembrances. This slender, sickle-shaped one—she runs her finger along her shin—reminds me of my best friend, of stealing eggs, of a shard of glass glinting in the sunshine. And these here—she caresses
the white piping that striates the back of her knees—put me in mind of your grandfather.
    Beatrice nods, but secretly she disagrees. When she deposits the last bits into her mouth, she keeps her back turned to Mother. She lowers her eyelids and sticks out her tongue as she has seen the older girls do in church.

She Dreams
    IN AN OLD HOUSE in