Accident by Mihail Sebastian Page A

weren’t accustomed, had that small unfamiliar world arisen: the circular square below, the white sign of the corner grocery, the gas station with its two red pumps on the edge of the sidewalk like two immense soda-water bottles, the newspaper stand, the chestnut trees with their slender, frozen branches?
    Everything was dizzying, in part because of the white gleam of the snow, but above all by virtue of its surprising newness.
    Leaning against the window, Nora realized that something in her life had truly changed.
    She thought about how downstairs she would not find the usual porter, who greeted her every morning when she went out to school, nor the letter box, towards which in passing she turned her usual incurious glance. She thought about how she wasn’t going to take her usual route, which she followed every day with mechanical steps, to Strada Donici, where she took the number 16 tram in the direction of the school.
    So many things were starting differently this morning ...
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    She looked at her watch. If she hurried, she might still get to the school in time for the third and fourth hours of class, her French classes with Grade Eight and Grade Four-B.
    She recalled the passage from Bossuet 3 that she had planned to dictate to the girls in Grade Eight before letting them out for the holidays.
    But, given the predicament in which she found herself, she didn’t feel ready to leave. It was out of the question for her to go
out into the street after dressing in a hurry, with her girdle sloppily buttoned, her hair insufficiently brushed: tiny details that no one else would have noticed, but which would have heightened her intimate feeling of disorder. As a teacher, the only condition she forced herself to impose on her pupils was a meticulous, almost maniacal, care in their dress. Out of a sort of female solidarity with the girls who stared at her in the classroom, she demanded that they each have a neatly ironed pinafore and a white collar. She told herself that later they would have broken hearts to hide beneath their well-tailored dresses. She feared moral disorder, which began with a run in a stocking worn with indifference.
    Today more than other days, Nora felt the need to control herself with a disciplined severity.
    She lifted the receiver and dialled the number of the school. It was still a few minutes before the ten o’clock recess so she didn’t risk calling the principal. As it happened, the secretary answered. Nora told her that she might arrive at school late (a migraine, a cousin who was ill ...) and asked her to take care of grades Four-B and Eight and ensure that they were quiet. The secretary, however, reminded her that it was Tuesday, that the Christmas holidays began in two days’ time, that it wasn’t certain whether she would have any more courses, and that her absence would make the principal furious. She advised her, at the very least, not to miss her last class.
    â€œYes, you may be right. I’m going to try to arrive for the fourth hour. Tell the Grade Eight girls to work quietly. I’ll go to see them during the last recess to give them their assignments for the holidays.”
    She hung up the phone and stood there, distracted. She was missing school for the first time since the beginning of the year and this increased her feeling of uneasiness, not so much out of a sense of rectitude as because the loss of old habits troubled her. She looked down at the unfamiliar dressing gown she was wearing. It was blue with small white polka dots, sleeves that were too long for her, ragged lapels, and a small pocket over the left breast. At the same time, she saw the Grade Eight class where she was expected: the girls in their black pinafores seating themselves with
delicate gestures in front of their books, dictionaries and notebooks with red ruler-straight margins, and casting restless glances in the direction of the door through which they awaited the entrance,