morning at six, just after the morning prayer, M. Mérovée came into the school‑room and made us a most straightforward, manly, and affecting speech; in which he told us he meant to keep on the school, and thanked us, boys and masters, for our sympathy.
We were all moved to our very depths—and sat at our work solemn and sorrowful all through that lamp‑lit hour and a half; we hardly dared to cough, and never looked up from our desks.
Then 7.30—ding‑dang‑dong and breakfast. Thursday—bread‑and‑butter morning!
I felt hungry and greedy and very sad, and disinclined to fight. Barty and I had sat turned away from each other, and made no attempt at reconciliation.
We all went to the réfectoire: it was raining fast. I made my ball of salt and butter, and put it in a hole in my hunk of bread, and ran back to the study, where I locked these treasures in my desk.
The study soon filled with boys: no masters ever came there during that half‑hour; they generally smoked and read their newspapers in the gymnastic ground, or else in their own rooms when it was wet outside.
D'Orthez and Berquin moved one or two desks and forms out of the way so as make a ring—l'arène, as they called it—with comfortable seats all round. Small boys stood on forms and window‑sills eating their bread‑and‑butter with a tremendous relish.
"Dites donc, vous autres," says Bonneville, the wit of the school, who was in very high spirits; "it's like the Roman Empire during the decadence—'panem et circenses!'"
"What's that, circenses? what does it mean?" says Rapaud, with his mouth full.
"Why, butter, you idiot! Didn't you know that?" says Bonneville.
Barty and I stood opposite each other; at his sides as seconds were d'Orthez and Berquin; at mine, Jolivet trois (the only Jolivet now left in the school) and big du Tertre‑Jouan (the young marquis who wasn't Bonneville).
We began to spar at each other in as knowing and English a way as we knew how—keeping a very respectful distance indeed, and trying to bear ourselves as scientifically as we could, with a keen expression of the eye.
When I looked into Barty's face I felt that nothing on earth would ever make me hit such a face as that—whatever he might do to mine. My blood wasn't up; besides, I was a coarse‑grained, thick‑set, bullet‑headed little chap with no nerves to speak of, and didn't mind punishment the least bit. No more did Barty, for that matter, though he was the most highly wrought creature that ever lived.
At length they all got impatient, and d'Orthez said:
"Allez donc, godems—ce n'est pas un quadrille! Nous n'sommes pas à La Salle Valentino!"
And Barty was pushed from behind so roughly that he came at me, all his science to the winds and slogging like a French boy; and I, quite without meaning to, in the hurry, hit out just as he fell over me, and we both rolled together over Jolivet's foot—Barty on top (he was taller, though not heavier, than I); and I saw the blood flow from his nose down his lip and chin, and some of it fell on my blouse.
Says Barty to me, in English, as we lay struggling on the dusty floor:
"Look here, it's no good. I can't fight to‑day; poor Mérovée, you know. Let's make it up!"
"All right!" says I. So up we got and shook hands, Barty saying, with mock dignity:
"Messieurs, le sang a coulé; l'honneur britannique est sauf;" and the combat was over.
"Cristi! J'ai joliment faim!" says Barty, mopping his nose with his handkerchief. "I left my crust on the bench outside the réfectoire. I wish one of you fellows would get it for me."
"Rapaud finished your crust [ta miche] while you were fighting," says Jolivet. "I saw him."
Says Rapaud: "Ah, Dame, it was getting prettily wet, your crust, and I was prettily hungry too; and I thought you didn't want it, naturally."
I then produced my crust and cut it in two, butter and all, and gave Barty half, and we sat very happily side by side, and breakfasted together in peace and amity. I never felt happier or hungrier.
"Cristi, comme ils se sont bien battus," says little Vaissière to little Cormenu. "As‑tu vu? Josselin a saigné tout plein sur la blouse à Maurice." (How well they fought! Josselin bled all over Maurice's blouse!)
Then says Josselin, in French, turning to me with that delightful jolly smile that always reminded one of the sun breaking through a mist:
"I would sooner bleed on your blouse than on your tomb." (J'aime mieux saigner sur ta blouse que sur ta tombe.)
So ended the only quarrel we ever had.
Part Third
"Que ne puis‑je aller où s'en vont les roses,
Et n'attendre pas
Ces regrets navrants que la fin des choses
Nous garde ici‑bas!"—Anon.
Barty worked very hard, and so did I—for me! Horace—Homer—Æschylus—Plato—etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and all there was to learn in that French school-boy's encyclopædia—"Le Manuel du Baccalauréat"; a very thick book in very small print. And I came to the conclusion that it is good to work hard: it makes one enjoy food and play and sleep so keenly—and Thursday afternoons.
The school was all the pleasanter for having fewer boys; we got more intimate with each other, and with the masters too. During the winter M. Bonzig told us capital stories—Modeste Mignon, by Balzac—Le Chevalier de Maison‑rouge, by A. Dumas père—etc., etc.
In the summer the Passy swimming‑bath was more delightful than ever. Both winter and summer we passionately fenced with a pupil (un prévôt) of the famous M. Bonnet, and did gymnastics with M. Louis, the gymnastic master of the Collège Charlemagne—the finest man I ever saw—a gigantic dwarf six feet high, all made up of lumps of sinew and muscles, like. …
Also, we were taught equitation at the riding‑school in the Rue Duphot.
On Saturday nights Barty would draw a lovely female profile, with a beautiful big black eye, in pen and ink, and carefully shade it; especially the hair, which was always as the raven's wing! And on Sunday morning he and I used to walk together to 108 Champs Élysées and enter the rez‑de‑chaussée (where my mother and sister lived) by the window, before my mother was up. Then Barty took out his lovely female pen‑and‑ink profile to gaze at, and rolled himself a cigarette and lit it, and lay back on the sofa, and made my sister play her lightest music—"La pluie de Perles," by Osborne—and "Indiana," a beautiful valse by Marcailhou—and thus combine three or four perfect blisses in one happy quart d'heure.
Then my mother would appear, and we would have breakfast—after which Barty and I would depart by the window as we had come, and go and do our bit of Boulevard and Palais Royal. Then to the Rue du Bac for another breakfast with the Rohans; and then, "au petit bonheur"; that is, trusting to Providence for whatever turned up. The programme didn't vary very much: either I dined with him at the Rohans', or he with me at 108. Then, back to Brossard's at ten—tired and happy.
One Sunday I remember well we stayed in school, for old Josselin the fisherman came to see us there—Barty's grandfather, now a widower; and M. Mérovée asked him to lunch with us, and go to the baths in the afternoon.
Imagine old Bonzig's delight in this "vieux loup de mer," as he called him! That was a happy day for the old fisherman also; I shall never forget his surprise at M. Dumollard's telescope—and how clever he was on the subject.
He came to the baths, and admired and criticised the good swimming of the boys—especially Barty's,