Once Colette’s full dose of backside pain had been delivered, she would be let up and sent to her room to say her prayers and go to bed. As she made her way up the rickety stairs to her sparse garret, Maman would be left bent over the dining room table with her own much more inflamed buttocks still on display. Her daughter wondered why this was so, and why the crock of butter was always left on the table when all else was cleared away after supper. When Colette was about ten, she became curious enough to investigate the rhythmic noises that penetrated the flimsily constructed floor separating her bedroom from the dining room below after she was sent to bed. She pulled her threadbare carpet aside and discovered that a small knothole in a floorboard actually afforded a very clear view of wha
