OF ALL THE THINGS that she can do with her fingers, what Madeleine enjoys most is counting on them. She also likes to use them while giving orders. For instance, she can put her index finger to very imperious purposes, such as when she points at a high-backed chair and says, Move it over there. Then she can hold up her fingers and count, nine chairs—plus a milking stool, a piano bench, a daybed—after which she loudly announces, We need thirty-six more.
The children have thrown themselves entirely into the spirit of the enterprise. Among the items that Madeleine counts are four curtain rods, two chests of drawers, seven candlesticks, a cuspidor and, unrequested, eight brittle teacups from Limoges. Perhaps refreshments should be served during the intermission. The more sensitive audience members might require it, weakened as they will be after laughing so helplessly at the feats performed onstage. After shouting, howling, writhing, staggering; and some will probably begin to suffocate.
Madeleine counts the number of tickets she must supply, then counts the little footlights that will illuminate the stage. But no matter how many times she figures it, one calculation continues to escape her. Girl, photographer, flatulent man. Any lesser number will not suffice. For she and the flatulent man are exquisitely shy, incapable of looking one another in the face. While she and the photographer are capable only of groping. And the two men, together, do not exist unless she is there to gaze on them. What does that leave her with? The intractable number three.
As she counts it once more on her fingers, she is comforted unexpectedly by the arrival of a wonderful thought. She holds her fingers up to the light.