The Martian: A Novel. Du Maurier George

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СКАЧАТЬ first who lifts his eyes from his desk to stare at 'le nouveau' shall be au piquet for half an hour!" (To be au piquet is to stand with your back to a tree for part of the following play‐time; and the play‐time which was to follow would last just thirty minutes.)

      Presently I looked up, in spite of piquet, and caught the new boy's eye, which was large and blue and soft, and very sad and sentimental, and looked as if he were thinking of his mammy, as I did constantly of mine during my first week at Brossard's, three years before.

      Soon, however, that sad eye slowly winked at me, with an expression so droll that I all but laughed aloud.

      Then its owner felt in the inner breast pocket of his Eton jacket with great care, and delicately drew forth by the tail a very fat white mouse, that seemed quite tame, and ran up his arm to his wide shirt collar, and tried to burrow there; and the boys began to interest themselves breathlessly in this engaging little quadruped.

      M. Bonzig looked up again, furious; but his spectacles had grown misty from the heat and he couldn't see, and he wiped them; and meanwhile the mouse was quickly smuggled back to its former nest.

      Josselin drew a large clean pocket‐handkerchief from his trousers and buried his head in his desk, and there was silence.

      "La! – ré, fa! – la! – ré" —

      So strummed, over and over again, poor Chardonnet in his remote parlor – he was getting tired.

      I have heard "L'Invitation à la Valse" many hundreds of times since then, and in many countries, but never that bar without thinking of Josselin and his little white mouse.

      "Fermez votre pupitre, Josselin," said M. Bonzig, after a few minutes.

      Josselin shut his desk and beamed genially at the usher.

      "What book have you got there, Josselin – Cæsar or Cornelius Nepos?"

      Josselin held the book with its title‐page open for M. Bonzig to read.

      "Are you dumb, Josselin? Can't you speak?"

      Josselin tried to speak, but uttered no sound.

      "Josselin, come here – opposite me."

      Josselin came and stood opposite M. Bonzig and made a nice little bow.

      "What have you got in your mouth, Josselin – chocolate? – barley‐sugar? – caoutchouc? – or an India‐rubber ball?"

      Josselin shrugged his shoulders and looked pensive, but spoke never a word.

      "Open quick the mouth, Josselin!"

      And Monsieur Bonzig, leaning over the table, deftly put his thumb and forefinger between the boy's lips, and drew forth slowly a large white pocket‐handkerchief, which seemed never to end, and threw it on the floor with solemn dignity.

      The whole school‐room was convulsed with laughter.

      "Josselin – leave the room – you will be severely punished, as you deserve – you are a vulgar buffoon – a jo‐crisse – a paltoquet, a mountebank! Go, petit polisson – go!"

      The polisson picked up his pocket‐handkerchief and went-quite quietly, with simple manly grace; and that's the first I ever saw of Barty Josselin – and it was some fifty years ago.

      At 3.30 the bell sounded for the half‐hour's recreation, and the boys came out to play.

      Josselin was sitting alone on a bench, thoughtful, with his hand in the inner breast pocket of his Eton jacket.

      M. Bonzig went straight to him, buttoned up and severe – his eyes dancing, and glancing from right to left through his spectacles; and Josselin stood up very politely.

      "Sit down!" said M. Bonzig; and sat beside him, and talked to him with grim austerity for ten minutes or more, and the boy seemed very penitent and sorry.

      Presently he drew forth from his pocket his white mouse, and showed it to the long usher, who looked at it with great seeming interest for a long time, and finally took it into the palm of his own hand – where it stood on its hind legs – and stroked it with his little finger.

      Soon Josselin produced a small box of chocolate drops, which he opened and offered to M. Bonzig, who took one and put it in his mouth, and seemed to like it. Then they got up and walked to and fro together, and the usher put his arm round the boy's shoulder, and there was peace and good‐will between them; and before they parted Josselin had intrusted his white mouse to "le grand Bonzig" – who intrusted it to Mlle. Marceline, the head lingère, a very kind and handsome person, who found for it a comfortable home in an old bonbon‐box lined with blue satin, where it had a large family and fed on the best, and lived happily ever after.

      But things did not go smoothly for Josselin all that Saturday afternoon. When Bonzig left, the boys gathered round "le nouveau," large and small, and asked questions. And just before the bell sounded for French literature, I saw him defending himself with his two British fists against Dugit, a big boy with whiskers, who had him by the collar and was kicking him to rights. It seems that Dugit had called him, in would‐be English, "Pretty voman," and this had so offended him that he had hit the whiskered one straight in the eye.

      Then French literature for the quatrième till six; then dinner for all – soup, boiled beef (not salt), lentils; and Gruyère cheese, quite two ounces each; then French rounders till half past seven; then lesson preparation (with Monte Cristos in one's lap, or Mysteries of Paris, or Wandering Jews) till nine.

      Then, ding‐dang‐dong, and, at the sleepy usher's nod, a sleepy boy would rise and recite the perfunctory evening prayer in a dull singsong voice – beginning, "Notre Père, qui êtes aux cieux, vous dont le regard scrutateur pénêtre jusque dans les replis les plus profonds de nos cœurs," etc., etc., and ending, "au nom du Père, du Fils, et du St. Esprit, ainsi soit‐il!"

      And then, bed – Josselin in my dormitory, but a long way off, between d'Adhémar and Laferté; while Palaiseau snorted and sniffed himself to sleep in the bed next mine, and Rapaud still tried to read the immortal works of the elder Dumas by the light of a little oil‐lamp six yards off, suspended from a nail in the blank wall over the chimney‐piece.

      The Institution F. Brossard was a very expensive private school, just twice as expensive as the most expensive of the Parisian public schools – Ste.‐Barbe, François Premier, Louis‐le‐Grand, etc.

      These great colleges, which were good enough for the sons of Louis Philippe, were not thought good enough for me by my dear mother, who was Irish, and whose only brother had been at Eton, and was now captain in an English cavalry regiment – so she had aristocratic notions. It used to be rather an Irish failing in those days.

      My father, James Maurice, also English (and a little Scotch), and by no means an aristocrat, was junior partner in the great firm of Vougeot‐Conti et Cie., wine merchants, Dijon. And at Dijon I had spent much of my childhood, and been to a day school there, and led a very happy life indeed.

      Then I was sent to Brossard's school, in the Avenue de St.‐Cloud, Paris, where I was again very happy, and fond of (nearly) everybody, from the splendid head master and his handsome son, Monsieur Mérovée, down to Antoine and Francisque, the men‐servants, and Père Jaurion, the concierge, and his wife, who sold croquets and pains d'épices and "blom‐boudingues," and sucre‐d'orge and nougat and pâte de guimauve; also pralines, dragées, СКАЧАТЬ