The oddest of Philip’s masters was his teacher of French. Monsieur
Ducroz was a citizen of Geneva. He was a tall old man, with a sallow
skin and hollow cheeks; his gray hair was thin and long. He wore shabby
black clothes, with holes at the elbows of his coat and frayed
trousers. His linen was very dirty. Philip had never seen him in a
clean collar. He was a man of few words, who gave his lesson
conscientiously but without enthusiasm, arriving as the clock struck
and leaving on the minute. His charges were very small. He was
taciturn, and what Philip learnt about him he learnt from others: it
appeared that he had fought with Garibaldi against the Pope, but had
left Italy in disgust when it was clear that all his efforts for
freedom, by which he meant the establishment of a republic, tended to
no more than an exchange of yokes; he had been expelled from Geneva for
it was not known what political offences. Philip looked upon him with
puzzled surprise; for he was very unlike his idea of the revolutionary:
he spoke in a low voice and was extraordinarily polite; he never sat
down till he was asked to; and when on rare occasions he met Philip in
the street took off his hat with an elaborate gesture; he never
laughed, he never even smiled. A more complete imagination than
Philip’s might have pictured a youth of splendid hope, for he must have
been entering upon manhood in 1848 when kings, remembering their
brother of France, went about with an uneasy crick in their necks; and
perhaps that passion for liberty which passed through Europe, sweeping
before it what of absolutism and tyranny had reared its head during the
reaction from the revolution of 1789, filled no breast with a hotter
fire. One might fancy him, passionate with theories of human equality
and human rights, discussing, arguing, fighting behind barricades in
Paris, flying before the Austrian cavalry in Milan, imprisoned here,
exiled from there, hoping on and upborne ever with the word which
seemed so magical, the word Liberty; till at last, broken with disease
and starvation, old, without means to keep body and soul together but
such lessons as he could pick up from poor students, he found himself
in that little neat town under the heel of a personal tyranny greater
than any in Europe. Perhaps his taciturnity hid a contempt for the
human race which had abandoned the great dreams of his youth and now
wallowed in sluggish ease; or perhaps these thirty years of revolution
had taught him that men are unfit for liberty, and he thought that he
had spent his life in the pursuit of that which was not worth the
finding. Or maybe he was tired out and waited only with indifference
for the release of death.
One day Philip, with the bluntness of his age, asked him if it was true
he had been with Garibaldi. The old man did not seem to attach any
importance to the question. He answered quite quietly in as low a voice
as usual.
“Oui, monsieur.”
“They say you were in the Commune?”
“Do they? Shall we get on with our work?”
He held the book open and Philip, intimidated, began to translate the
passage he had prepared.
One day Monsieur Ducroz seemed to be in great pain. He had been
scarcely able to drag himself up the many stairs to Philip’s room: and
when he arrived sat down heavily, his sallow face drawn, with beads of
sweat on his forehead, trying to recover himself.
“I’m afraid you’re ill,” said Philip.
“It’s of no consequence.”
But Philip saw that he was suffering, and at the end of the hour asked
whether he would not prefer to give no more lessons till he was better.
“No,” said the old man, in his even low voice. “I prefer to go on while
I am able.”
Philip, morbidly nervous when he had to make any reference to money,
reddened.
“But it won’t make any difference to you,” he said. “I’ll pay for the
lessons just the same. If you wouldn’t mind I’d like to give you the
money for next week in advance.”
Monsieur Ducroz charged eighteen pence an hour. Philip took a ten-mark
piece out of his pocket and shyly put it on the table. He could not
bring himself to offer it as if the old man were a beggar.
“In that case I think I won’t come again till I’m better.” He took the
coin and, without anything more than the elaborate bow with which he
always took his leave, went out.
“Bonjour, monsieur.”
Philip was vaguely disappointed. Thinking he had done a generous thing,
he had expected that Monsieur Ducroz would overwhelm him with
expressions of gratitude. He was taken aback to find that the old
teacher accepted the present as though it were his due. He was so
young, he did not realise how much less is the sense of obligation in
those who receive favours than in those who grant them. Monsieur Ducroz
appeared again five or six days later. He tottered a little more and
was very weak, but seemed to have overcome the severity of the attack.
He was no more communicative than he had been before. He remained
mysterious, aloof, and dirty. He made no reference to his illness till
after the lesson: and then, just as he was leaving, at the door, which
he held open, he paused. He hesitated, as though to speak were
difficult.
“If it hadn’t been for the money you gave me I should have starved. It
was all I had to live on.”
He made his solemn, obsequious bow, and went out. Philip felt a little
lump in his throat. He seemed to realise in a fashion the hopeless
bitterness of the old man’s struggle, and how hard life was for him
when to himself it was so pleasant.