The Event (2.2)
Annie Ernaux
Translated by xia23
O., a dorm girl, offered me her teaching job on the French course in the Saint-Dominique institute. It was a good occasion to get a little money on top of my scholarship. The superior welcomed me with the Literature Collection of the 16th Century by Lagarde and Michard [6] in her hand. I told her that I had never taught and that scared me. That was normal, she said herself, in two years, had never been able to enter the philosophy class without lowering her head to look at floor. Sitting on a chair opposite to me, she mimed this souvenir. I only saw her veiled head. On leaving with the Lagarde and Michard she had given me, I saw myself in the 10th grade class [7] under the girls’ gazes and I wanted to vomit. Later, I called the superior for refusing the courses. She talked to me coldly and tookt the textbook back.
On Friday, November 8, while I headed for a location in l’Hôtel-de-Ville by bus and went to see Dr. N., in La Fayette street, I came across Jacques S., a student majoring in French, the son of a regional factory head. He wanted to know if I would spend some time on the Left Bank [8]. I said that I was sick in my stomach and was going to see a stomatologist. He categorically corrected me: the stomatologist does not take care of stomach but only for infections of the mouth. For fear that he might suspect something due to my blunder and he might want to accompany me to the doctor’s office, I abruptly left him when the bus arrived.
Just at the moment when I went down from the table, my big green sweater fell again over my thighs, the gynecologist told me that I was surely pregnant. What I thought to be once for stomach was actually nausea. He prescribed injections for me for letting my periods come back even though it didn’t look like that he believed that would have any effect. At the door step, he smiled joyfully, “the children of love are always the most beautiful thing". It was an awful phrase.
I went back to the university dorm on foot. In the agenda, there is “I am pregnant. It is horrible”.
[6]. Anthology of literature of 16th century, by Lagarde and Michard
[7]. La classe de seconde: seconde, 10th grade (sophomore) in high schools in America.
p.177, p. 898. Harrap’s French and English College Dictionary, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2006.
[8]. The Left Bank:
The Right (north) Bank of the Seine is traditionally associated with business and trade. And has a reputation for being more conservative than the Left Bank.
The Left (south) Bank includes districts traditional favored by artists, students, and intellectuals, and has a reputation for being Bohemian and unconventional.
p. 878, ibid.
