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pool . . . coming our way . . .
    "Madame von Dopf! . . . Madame von Dopf! . . ."
    We know her . . . Mademoiselle de Chamarande! . . . It's her and her curves that have thrown them off . . . the whole swimming pool howling and fighting! . . . and it goes on! . . . whoosh! . . . bzing! . . . haymakers! . . . a champion wham! . . . from the diving board! . . . another! . . . they're throwing each other into the pool! . . . they come up punching . . . Mademoiselle de Chamarande . . . here she is . . . she sits down beside us . . . out of breath . . . her bathing suit in tatters . . . she takes Madame von Dopf's hand . . . she bursts into tears . . .
    "Madame! Madame! I implore you . . . they struck me! . . . they're crazy! . . . they want to kill me because their Ftihrer's dead!.. ."they'll come here, Madame von Dopf! . . . they'll kill us all! . . . they said so!"
    "Not at all, my child! . . . the Führer isn't dead! he's lived through worse! . . . just a little plot! you're too exposed, that's all! . . . those bathers see too much! . . . think nothing of it! your bathing suit is far too scanty! cover yourself and stay right where you are! Here, my handkerchief . . . dry your tears! You won't have any eyes left!"
    "But my bathrobe, Madame von Dopf! . . . they tore it off me, my second-best bathrobe! . . . yellow and red! they wouldn't give it back! . . ."
    "I expect not. I'll go and get it! . . . they'll give it to me!"
    "Madame von Dopf, they're furious! Really furious!"
    "Not at me, dear child, old age puts a damper on the wildest . . . just wait. . . they'll be only too glad to give me your bathrobe . . . yellow and red, you say?"
    The four of us stay right there . . . sure enough! . . . she starts off . . . the gravel walk to the swimming pool . . . slowly . . . and comes back almost immediately with the red and yellow bathrobe.
    "They didn't say anything?"
    "Of course not! . . . nothing at all, my dear! . . . and now put it on! . . . we shall go back to the hotel . . . all together."
    And so we did . . . the four of us pass through the crowd of flunkeys . . . a second before, they'd been punching each other, now they're very quiet. . . not a murmur . . . Madame von Dopf looks at them, stops . . .
    "You know, my dear, they're not entirely to blame."
    She could say that again . . . For the last three weeks . . . ever since she arrived . . .our young lady had done her best to drive the swimming-pool males up the wall. . . every day a new bathing suit, more and more provocative . . . oh, a magnificent ass, I admit. . . but the things she did with it! . . . the bobbing and swaying . . . the rear view on the diving board! . . . and swimming . . . a crawl technique that gave her ten buttocks at once . . . lunging through the foam . . . over water, under water . . . enough to turn the pool upside down . . . the customers, I mean . . . barbers, croupiers, bath attendants . . . and the lounge lizards from our hotel . . . convalescent officers . . . yes, of course, their nerves shot to hell . . . that attempt on Hitler's life had raised the temperature . . . plus her and her rear end! if not for Madame von Dopf, she'd have been lynched . . . one word and all was calm again . . . we passed in front of the horde, masseurs, bath masters, cooks, a slimy crew, bowing and scraping. Aside from her deplorable mania for exhibiting her bumpus, Mademoiselle de Chama-rande was a sweet young thing, really pleasant, cultivated . . . a pharmacist at Barcy-sur-Aude . . . a "collaborator" by accident, she'd been in love . . . reciprocated! . . . with a lawyer in thé Milice ° . . . they were going to be married . . . their idyll had been short-lived . . . two days before D-Day the Fifis had gunned him down in the courtroom . . . she'd run away, her house was on fire, her pharmacy, the whole shebang, her grandmother too . . . an SS tank had picked her up in the alfalfa! the whole underground, had been looking for her . . . skin of her teeth . . .