The Story of a Child

CHAPTER XXI.

The time now arrived for me to begin regular lessons and to write exercises in copy-books, which I invariably smeared with ink—ah! what gloom and dreariness suddenly came into my life.

I remember that I performed my tasks spiritlessly and sulkily, and that my lessons bored me inexpressibly. And since I wish to be very sincere, it is necessary for me to add that my teachers also were well-nigh intolerable to me.

Alas! well do I remember the one who first taught me Latin (rosa, the rose; cornu, the horn; tonitru, the thunder). This tutor was very old and bent, and as sad of face as a rainy November day. He is dead now, the poor old fellow—sweet peace to his soul! He was exactly like that “Mr. Ratin” hit off in caricature so neatly by Topffer; he had all the marks, even to the wart with the three hairs, and fine wrinkles beyond number at the end of his old nose; to me his face was the personification of all that was hideous and disgusting.

He arrived every day precisely at noon; and a chill would pass through me when I heard his knock which I would have recognized among a thousand.

Always after his departure, I attempted to purify that part of my table where his elbow had rested by rubbing it hard with the napkin which I had taken clandestinely from the linen-closet. And the repulsion extended itself to the very books, already unattractive enough to me, which he touched; I even tore certain leaves out of them because I suspected that he had handled them a great deal.

My books were always full of ink blots, always stained and covered with smeared sketches and pictures, which one draws idly when his attention wanders from his task. I who was usually so careful and proper a child had such a detestation for the books which I was obliged to learn from, that I abused them in the commonest fashion; altogether I was a miserable pupil. I found—and this is the astonishing part—that all my scruples of conscience deserted me when my teacher questioned me in regard to the time I had spent upon my lessons (I usually studied them in a mad hurry at the last moment); my aversion for study was the first thing that caused me to temporize with my conscience.

In spite, however, of a pricking conscience, I still continued to give only a passing glance at my lessons at the very last moment. But generally “Mr. Ratin” would write “good” or “very good” upon the paper which it was my duty each evening to show to my father.

I believe that if he, or the other professors who succeeded him, could have suspected the truth, could have guessed that out of their presence my mind did not dwell for more than five minutes a day upon what they had taught me, their honest heads would have split with indignation.