The Martian: A Novel. Du Maurier George

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      "Ah! mon cher! ce que je donnerais, moi, pour voir le retour d'un baleinier à Ouittebé! Quelle 'marine' ça ferait! hein? avec la grande falaise, et la bonne petite église en haut, près de la Vieille Abbaye – et les toits rouges qui fument, et les trois jetées en pierre, et le vieux pont‐levis – et toute cette grouille de mariniers avec leurs femmes et leurs enfants – et ces braves filles qui attendent le retour du bien‐aimé! nom d'un nom! dire que vous avez vu tout ça, vous – qui n'avez pas encore seize ans … quelle chance!.. dites – qu'est‐ce que ça veut bien dire, ce

      'Ouïle mé sekile rô!'

      Chantez‐moi ça encore une fois!"

      And Barty, whose voice was breaking, would raucously sing him the good old ditty for the sixth time:

      "Weel may the keel row, the keel row, the keel row,

      Weel may the keel row

      That brings my laddie home!"

      which he would find rather difficult to render literally into colloquial seafaring French!

      He translated it thus:

      "Vogue la carène,

      Vogue la carène

      Qui me ramène

      Mon bien aimé!"

      "Ah! vous verrez," says Bonzig – "vous verrez, aux prochaines vacances de Pâques – je ferai un si joli tableau de tout ça! avec la brume du soir qui tombe, vous savez – et le soleil qui disparait – et la marée qui monte et la lune qui se lève à l'horizon! et les mouettes et les goëlands – et les bruyères lointaines – et le vieux manoir seigneurial de votre grand‐père … c'est bien ça, n'est‐ce pas?"

      "Oui, oui, M'sieur Bonzig – vous y êtes, en plein!"

      And the good usher in his excitement would light himself a cigarette of caporal, and inhale the smoke as if it were a sea‐breeze, and exhale it like a regular sou'‐wester! and sing:

      "Ouïle – mé – sekile rô,

      Tat brinn my laddé ôme!"

      Barty also brought back with him the complete poetical works of Byron and Thomas Moore, the gift of his noble grandfather, who adored these two bards to the exclusion of all other bards that ever wrote in English. And during that year we both got to know them, possibly as well as Lord Whitby himself. Especially "Don Juan," in which we grew to be as word‐perfect as in Polyeucte, Le Misanthrope, Athalie, Philoctète, Le Lutrin, the first six books of the Æneid and the Iliad, the Ars Poetica, and the Art Poétique (Boileau).

      Every line of these has gone out of my head – long ago, alas! But I could still stand a pretty severe examination in the now all‐but‐forgotten English epic – from Dan to Beersheba – I mean from "I want a hero" to "The phantom of her frolic grace, Fitz‐Fulke!"

      Barty, however, remembered everything – what he ought to, and what he ought not! He had the most astounding memory: wax to receive and marble to retain; also a wonderful facility for writing verse, mostly comic, both in English and French. Greek and Latin verse were not taught us at Brossard's, for good French reasons, into which I will not enter now.

      We also grew very fond of Lamartine and Victor Hugo, quite openly – and of De Musset under the rose.

      "C'était dans la nuit brune

      Sur le clocher jauni,

      La lune,

      Comme un point sur son i!"

      (not for the young person).

      I have a vague but pleasant impression of that year. Its weathers, its changing seasons, its severe frosts, with Sunday skatings on the dangerous canals, St.‐Ouen and De l'Ourcq; its genial spring, all convolvulus and gobéas, and early almond blossom and later horse‐chestnut spikes, and more lime and syringa than ever; its warm soft summer and the ever‐delightful school of natation by the Isle of Swans.

      This particular temptation led us into trouble. We would rise before dawn, Barty and Jolivet and I, and let ourselves over the wall and run the two miles, and get a heavenly swim and a promise of silence for a franc apiece; and run back again and jump into bed a few minutes before the five‐o'clock bell rang the réveillé.

      But we did this once too often – for M. Dumollard had been looking at Venus with his telescope (I think it was Venus) one morning before sunrise, and spied us out en flagrant délit; perhaps with that very telescope. Anyhow, he pounced on us when we came back. And our punishment would have been extremely harsh but for Barty, who turned it all into a joke.

      After breakfast M. Mérovée pronounced a very severe sentence on us under the acacia. I forget what it was – but his manner was very short and dignified, and he walked away very stiffly towards the door of the étude. Barty ran after him without noise, and just touching his shoulders with the tips of his fingers, cleared him at a bound from behind, as one clears a post.

      M. Mérovée, in a real rage this time, forgot his dignity, and pursued him all over the school – through open windows and back again – into his own garden (Tusculum) – over trellis railings – all along the top of a wall – and finally, quite blown out, sat down on the edge of the tank: the whole school was in fits by this time, even M. Dumollard – and at last Mérovée began to laugh too. So the thing had to be forgiven – but only that once!

      Once also, that year, but in the winter, a great compliment was paid to la perfide Albion in the persons of MM. Josselin et Maurice, which I cannot help recording with a little complacency.

      On a Thursday walk in the Bois de Boulogne a boy called out "À bas Dumollard!" in a falsetto squeak. Dumollard, who was on duty that walk, was furious, of course – but he couldn't identify the boy by the sound of his voice. He made his complaint to M. Mérovée – and next morning, after prayers, Mérovée came into the school‐room, and told us he should go the round of the boys there and then, and ask each boy separately to own up if it were he who had uttered the seditious cry.

      "And mind you!" he said – "you are all and each of you on your 'word of honor' —l'étude entière!"

      So round he went, from boy to boy, deliberately fixing each boy with his eye, and severely asking – "Est‐ce toi?" "Est‐ce toi?" "Est‐ce toi?" etc., and waiting very deliberately indeed for the answer, and even asking for it again if it were not given in a firm and audible voice. And the answer was always, "Non, m'sieur, ce n'est pas moi!"

      But when he came to each of us (Josselin and me) he just mumbled his "Est‐ce toi?" in a quite perfunctory voice, and didn't even wait for the answer!

      When he got to the last boy of all, who said "Non, m'sieur," like all the rest, he left the room, saying, tragically (and, as I thought, rather theatrically for him):

      "Je m'en vais le cœur navré – il y a un lâche parmi vous!" (My heart is harrowed – there's a coward among you.)

      There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

      Presently Rapaud got up and went out. We all knew that Rapaud was the delinquent – he had bragged about it so – overnight in the dormitory. He went straight to M. Mérovée and confessed, stating that he did not like to be put on his word of honor before the whole school. I forget whether he was punished or not, or how. He had to make his apologies to M. Dumollard, of course.

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