UPROAR IN THE CLASSROOM



1



"Simone, are you aware of how much you're provoking Professor Bougle?" Simone Weil's classmate, Petre, asked as she heaved three philosophy books close under her arm, her brow furrowing. "That old codger may expel you from the class."

"I always say what I must say, Petre. You know, with me, its a matter of duty. Don't you listen to Professor Alain's lectures on duty and free-will?" Simone Weil stared through the thick lenses of her glasses at her friend whom she called Petre. Since Petre's name was also Simone, the nickname Petre helped distinguish the two Simones.

Simone Adolphine Weil realized she had been a touch abrasive with Petre. She had to remind herself from time to time that patience was a virtue and that it was better not to blurt out the first words that slipped to the edge of one's tongue. Nevertheless, Petre didn't seem to be irritated by the brash remark which questioned her scholastic virtues. After all, Petre had placed second from the top on the list of those taking the Henry IV College Entrance Examination, the top name being, Simone Weil.

Simone Weil glanced at Petre's face, framed in its sculpted short bob of l928. Petre's college-girl skirt and blouse fit her perfectly. A whiff of her delicate perfume touched Simone Weil's nostrils.

I'm Hans Christian Andersen's ugly duckling. Simone Weil glanced down at her loose-fitting jumper with the huge patch pockets on the sides where she kept her matches and a sack of tobacco in one pocket and an ink bottle and a fountain pen along with various bits of paper upon which she had scribbled notes in the other. Then, too, from time to time the pockets served as receptacles for the Communist newspaper L' Humanite, though Simone wasn't an actual member of the party.

There were only three young women students at the College of Henry IV, a part of the Paris University: Simone Weil, Petre (Simone Petrement) and Lucienne Cervieres sat side by side in the old amphitheater with its board walls and high arched ceiling which served as a classroom.

"Make way for The Gleaners," their male classmates called out from time to time as they referred to Millet's painting of three country women, backs bent, gleaning grain in the fields.

"I like being compared to country folks. They couldn't come up with a better name," Simone told Petre. "Country folk and factory workers are quite capable of sainthood. I plan to be a farm worker some day, you'll see.

"But you're preparing to teach philosophy, Simone," Petre said.

Simone Weil turned her lean face toward Petre, "Therell be room in my life for both," she replied. "Look at Tolstoy, a noble philosopher and at the same time one of the ordinary people."

Classes over, the two college girls strolled down the winding walk through the carefully-groomed university grounds. Ahead, a clipped hedge half-circled a marble bench.

"Let's rest awhile on this bench and study the lilacs, Petre," Simone said. "I refuse to be driven the live-long day by university professors, especially that unsettling Professor Bougle who keeps on attacking my beloved Professor Alain."

They rested as the late-spring winds caught the edges of Simone Weil's unruly hair and caused it to stand out like a crow's wing from her face. Though she took a small chapped hand and attempted to rake back the stray hair, it readily bounced out of place as if to defy her.

"Well, I have to admit I've never been so bored as when Professor Bougle kept lecturing us on 'patriotism', Simone. I think he fooled himself into thinking that he was the savior of France." Petre glanced up at Simone Weil's eighteen-year-old face weighed down by the heavy, dark-rimmed glasses.

"Well, patriotism must march hand in hand with conscience. No one is patriotic who is not first honorable," said Simone Weil. "What good is patriotism among those whose eyes are closed to seeking truth? Truth, my friend, isn't found in rationalizations of history." Simone realized she was glaring at her friend.

"I get the point, Simone," Petre said. "You were raised in an honorable home with loving parents and your brother Andr. Petre glanced at a squirrel chattering at a robin. So many ideas pull at you, Simone.

They could hear the chime of the Notre Dame bells as well as the muffled blaring of a taxi horn as the wind swept the tops of the giant tulip trees across the cobblestone walk.

At Petre's mention of her family, Simone felt the tug of emotion. She thought of her beloved brother, Andr, now a college mathematics professor in Switzerland.

Traces of depression she had experienced two years ago when she agonized over feeling cut off from the world of Andr's genius nudged her spirit--the feelings of inferiority when in Andr's presence. Genius. Gifted, he was. "What about me?" she had often whispered to herself. "Why did such gifts as his mathematics genius pass me by?"

Simone Weil realized that a smile touched her lips as she thought of her and Andr's idyllic childhood. Of course there was the exception of the frequent moves, illnesses, and upheavals due to the war. She could see her parents' faces, Doctor Bernard, her father, whom they all called, Biri, and her mother, Selma, whom they called Mime, a gifted vocalist and pianist. Darling grandparents. One set, the Reinherzs, orthodox in their Jewish beliefs, the other, the Weils, liberal agnostics.

A vision came to Simone's mind of the drawing room in their spacious Paris apartment, she standing before Andr when they were children.

"You have not recited it correctly, Simone."

Andr had referred to the passage from Cyrano de Bergerac. Love filled her heart at the memory. How they'd howled with laughter whenever they got to the passage, "Farewell Roxanne, I go to die! I think it will be this evening, my beloved."

And, what fun they'd had as privileged children when she and Andr sneaked out of their spacious apartment with its gold and white Louis XIV furnishings to roam the neighborhood streets where they knocked on doors and unsettled the startled openers with the plea: "We're starving. Our parents aren't feeding us. Please, give us something to eat."

How she and Andr had choked back the laughter as they sat behind a hedge to eat the cupcakes and cookies wheedled from the neighbors.