word of the day: de haut en bas

word of the day: de haut en bas

Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have traveled to The Orient (an otherwise unnamed version of India) to rescue a boy who has been condemned to be trampled by elephants. 

Miss Bianca and Bernard have been separated, with Miss Bianca in the harem with the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and Bernard in the stables with some jolly local mice into polo. 

Bernard is surprised to find that Miss Bianca is on a mission by herself. Not wholly by herself, actually, as Miss Bianca has enlisted the help of two of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. But Bernard feels left out.

‘[Y]ou might have told me you were coming,’ said Bernard.

He sounded not only huffish but hurt. Miss Bianca ran lightly down Vanilla’s sari, to be able to talk to him face to face instead of de haut en bas. 

‘I thought you’d be playing polo,’ she explained. … ‘Isn’t it the Finals?’

definition (Cambridge Dictionary): If you look at someone or speak to someone de haut en bas, you do it in a way that shows you think you are superior to them. De haut en bas is French for "from high to low."

Margery Sharp seems to be using the literal meaning of de haut en bas, that is Miss Bianca is speaking to her friend Bernard from the arms of a human standing above him, while suggesting that Miss Bianca doesn’t want Bernard to feel she is speaking to him from the figurative meaning. Miss Bianca doesn’t want Bernard to think she’s talking down to him in any way, so she meets him at his level.

source:

Miss Bianca in the Orient

by Margery Sharp

illustrations by Erik Blegved

1970. Little, Brown, & Co., New York