Noon had just struck. The school-door opened and the youngsters
streamed out tumbling over one another in their haste to get out
quickly. But instead of promptly dispersing and going home to dinner as
was their daily wont, they stopped a few paces off, broke up into knots
and set to whispering.
The fact was that that morning Simon, the son of La Blanchotte, had,
for the first time, attended school.
They had all of them in their families heard of La Blanchotte; and
although in public she was welcome enough, the mothers among themselves
treated her with compassion of a some what disdainful kind, which the
children had caught without in the least knowing why.
As for Simon himself, they did not know him, for he never went abroad,
and did not play around with them through the streets of the village or
along the banks of the river. So they loved him but little; and it was
with a certain delight, mingled with astonishment that they gathered in
groups this morning, repeating to each other this sentence, concocted
by a lad of fourteen or fifteen who appeared to know all about it, so
sagaciously did he wink: "You know Simon--well, he has no papa."
La Blanchotte's son appeared in his turn upon the threshold of the
school.
He was seven or eight years old, rather pale, very neat, with a timid
and almost awkward manner.
He was making his way back to his mother's house when the various
groups of his schoolfellows, perpetually whispering, and watching him
with the mischievous and heartless eyes of children bent upon playing a
nasty trick, gradually surrounded him and ended by inclosing him
altogether. There he stood amid them, surprised and embarrassed, not
understanding what they were going to do with him. But the lad who had
brought the news, puffed up with the success he had met with, demanded:
"What do you call yourself?"