nickname; I had soon as many names and titles as a Spanish grandee. I
suffered all the bullying that timid little boys endure at the hands of
their bigger schoolfellows. And, shame be it to me to say it, even
babies of eight and nine years old were not afraid to run after me, and
join in any tricks that were played me. These children would troop after
me when we came out of school, shrieking and yelling, driving me before
them, brandishing their wallets as if they were tomahawks, and I used to
fly! I, who was taller by a head than any of them! yes, I flew before
them like a great, stupid stag hunted by a parcel of little curs. People
would come to their doors to watch us and would laugh at me for a
coward, and call me all sorts of names. And once, I remember, Colonel
Boissot happened to see us, and he stood watching the hunt with his hat
all on one side and a smile of contempt upon his face.
There was a little fellow at the college called Lehardy, he was only
nine, but I had taken a great fancy to him because I thought I saw a
likeness between him and Marc: we were great friends. He never joined
the other little boys in chasing me, or behaving rudely to me, and as he
lived near where I did we often walked to the college together.
[Illustration:Decoration]
One day when we were walking side by side and talking together, a little
wretch of seven came up to Lehardy, and, seizing him by the ear, pulled
it cruelly merely for the pleasure of hearing the poor little boy
scream. I saw his eyes, filled with great tears, raised to me as if
imploring my protection. Pity and indignation fought a fierce battle
with cowardice, I trembled from head to foot, and was on the point of
throwing myself upon Lehardy’s aggressor. But, unfortunately, my heart
failed me, and I ran away, stopping my ears not to hear the cries of my
poor little friend.
All school-time I was haunted by those pleading eyes, I heard those
screams of pain, and I felt a kind of horror of myself. For the first
time in my life I knew what it was to feel remorse. I could not attend
to my lessons; all the professor’s explanations were lost upon me, and
it was impossible for me to answer a single question. When we came out
of school I kept behind, I would not have found myself face to face with
little Lehardy for anything in the world. He had trusted to me to help
him, and I had failed him.
I avoided him the next day and the day following. By chance we met, and
I then saw that the good little fellow bore me no malice. This only
increased my contempt for myself. No one accused me, but my conscience
gave me no peace. I was miserable, the thought of what I had done was
insupportable to me.
It is very difficult to make up one’s mind to have a tooth pulled out
(at least when one is a bit of a coward). No amount of reasoning or
advice seems to have much effect. One is always inclined to reply to
kind friends, “I know you are right to advise me to have it out, but I
dare not.” However, when toothache once sets in badly, it has more
effect than all the advice in the world, and, much as we dread the
operation, we fly to the dentist and have the tooth out, painful as it
is. Now that was very like the situation in which I found myself. I felt
now that I really could have the courage to fight with a boy of five or
six, if by that means I could wipe out the recollection of my cowardice
from my own memory and the memory of my poor little friend.
Unfortunately for my good resolutions, nobody else seemed inclined to
torment Lehardy, and I felt that if I had to wait to display my courage,
it would all evaporate like smoke.
------------------
XXXVII.
INCONSISTENCY.
MY courage did not go the length of making me cry out to my
schoolfellows: “Whoever wishes to have a fight has only to touch
Lehardy!” I only waited, determined that another time, should he need my
protection, he would not have to look for it in vain.
My good resolutions, I need not say, had no effect in changing my
appearance. My nose had always excited laughter, and it did so no less
now; when the boys made jokes about me, and gave me nicknames, such as
Azor and Toucan, I did not dream of using my fists against them. No; my
courage, if you could call it courage at all, had nothing aggressive in
it; it was expectant only. My schoolfellows saw no change in the
unfortunate Bicquerot, at whom they were accustomed to poke their fun.
Still, come what might, I was decided that if any boy attempted to
molest Lehardy, I would interfere, and would fight with all my strength
in the cause of the poor little fellow whom I had deserted in such a
cowardly way before. It was very strange that I should have felt so
brave upon this one subject, and that my courage should have stopped
there. The idea of resenting attacks upon myself never occurred to me.
My thoughts were all taken up with the punishment of Lehardy’s
aggressors.
I leave the trouble of deciding why my courage should have first
appeared in this form, to any profound philosopher who may think it
worth his while to consider the subject. Was it from a want of logic, or
absence of selfishness?
------------------
XXXVIII.
MY PARENTS’ DEVOTION TO ME.
WHEN I first became one of Miss Porquet’s pupils, _The Count_ had
taunted me with the poverty of my parents. This idea once put into my
head made me reflect upon many circumstances which I should have allowed
to pass unnoticed had it not been there.
One evening, I remember, I came home from school earlier than usual as I
was not feeling well, and I found my father and mother at dinner. To my
astonishment I found it consisted only of soup and salad! I understood
now why I had always dined alone: my dinner was always substantial and
most abundant. My father and mother stinted themselves for my sake, and
wished to hide from me that they did so.
My father’s half-pay as a retired officer was all we had to live upon,
and part of that was devoted to helping a friend of his who was in
difficulties.
I was deeply touched; but I dared not make any remarks upon what I had
seen: first of all I should not have known how to express my feelings;
but my love and respect for my father and mother increased each day that
I lived.
Sometimes in the evening, while I was learning my lessons for next day,
at the table close to the little lamp, my father, who would be seated
near me, would fall asleep over his newspaper, and his head lean more
and more forwards as he slept. I remember one night in particular that
he did so, and I then noticed that he had two great hollows at his
temples, and that he had two deep lines down his cheeks. I felt
heartbroken! My father was growing thin, and it was because he stinted
himself in everything for my sake! I forgot my lessons, and I sat
staring at my father as if I could never turn my eyes away from him.
Suddenly he woke up, and lifting his head, looked at me with surprise,
and asked me what I was thinking about.
“Nothing, papa,” I replied, turning very red; and I stooped over my
lesson-book and appeared to be working very hard.
If I had dared I would have thrown my arms round my father’s neck and
have told him how I loved him, how I thanked him, yet how grieved I was.
Sometimes at night, when I had been in bed and asleep for some hours, I
would awake suddenly. I would feel that I had slept a long time, and
that it was very late; yet, through the door which led into my mother
and father’s room and which stood ajar, I could see a light burning, and
by that light I could always see my dear mother seated at a table,
working, mending the household linen, and making or mending my clothes
or my father’s. Then I would cough gently, and my mother coming to my
bedside would ask me if I did not feel well or had been dreaming; then
how I used to throw my arms round her neck and kiss her, twenty times,
one after the other, and tell her how I loved her with all my heart.
------------------
XXXIX.
A HUNTING COAT OF FORMER DAYS.
ONE morning I saw my mother looking at my jacket. She appeared troubled
and anxious. I could read her thoughts: she was thinking that I must
soon have a new one, and of the means of getting it. We were so poor!
She sighed as she looked at my worn-out jacket, and as she did so I
coloured as if I had been found out in some grave fault. She then went
to my father and consulted with him for a long while. After this
consultation she went to her wardrobe—that wardrobe which was full of
mysterious things—and from it she took a parcel, and laid it carefully
on the table.
My father and I both came to the table, curious to see what was in the
parcel: my mother took out the pins from the paper one by one, and put
them in a little box. I felt very impatient to know what _could_ be in
that wonderful parcel, and I thought my mother’s fingers moved very
slowly. At last she uncovered a coat, carefully folded up, which she at
first took to the window to examine, and then spread out upon the table.
This coat was a most wonderful and beautiful garment in my eyes; it was
a green velvet hunting coat, with brass buttons. My mother smoothed it
gently with her hand to get rid of any creases that there might be in
it; then turning to my father she said, “This will do beautifully!”
I had never seen this coat before, it must have lain for many many years
buried in my mother’s wardrobe: it was no doubt a relic of better days:
those days that I had heard my father talk of when some old friend
chanced to come and see him.
When I looked carefully at this wonderful coat, I discovered that it was
made of the richest and softest velvet, and that the head of a fox was
engraved upon each of the brass buttons. The fox was full face, standing
out in relief from each of the buttons, his sharp nose and cunning eyes
wonderfully true to nature. At sight of these buttons my admiration knew
no bounds; my mother, smiling, placed her hand caressingly on my head
and said, “Now thank your father, he is going to let me make this coat
fit you, and it shall be yours!”
I jumped for joy, I turned head over heels, I thanked my father, I
kissed my mother, I clapped my hands, and I determined that I would try
hard to deserve all the kindness that my parents showed me. Yes, thought
I to myself, I will use my fists even if only to prove that I am worthy
to wear that splendid coat, which my father has worn, and which my dear
mother is going to make fit me, with her own hands, and which has such
grand buttons!
------------------
XL.
THE EFFECT OF MY NEW COAT ON MY CHARACTER.
MY mother first carefully unpicked my father’s hunting coat, and then
measuring me she cut out sundry patterns in grey paper, and then cut out
the pieces of velvet from these patterns. With what anxiety, mingled
with joy, did I watch her operations; it was delightful. The scissors
went crac, crac, crac! as they cut through the velvet. What should I
have done if they had cut too far? But no, there was no fear of that, my
mother was too clever for that. All that she undertook was well done.
Every day when I returned from the college, I walked up softly behind my
mother’s chair as she sat working, to look over her shoulder and see
“how we were getting on” with the wonderful coat. I remember one day a
gentleman called and remained talking to my mother for a long time. I
was indeed wanting in charity towards that visitor! what angry looks I
gave him as I sat in a corner studying my Latin grammar! What angry
words I managed to think, without speaking! All my thoughts were taken
up by that splendid coat. I was longing to wear it, and this tiresome
visitor prevented my mother from working at it for hours.
[Illustration: “WITH THAT COAT A NEW ERA IN MY LIFE BEGAN.”]
With that coat a new era in my life began, with it I seemed somehow to
gain courage and address. The thought of it seemed to make me think
better of myself. At all events I determined to try to be worthy of it.
When I went to bed that night, I did all I could to keep awake, in order
to watch my mother working through the door which stood a little way
open: I said nothing, I lay quiet as a mouse. The bed clothes were
pulled up to my nose and I was perfectly happy; happy to feel myself so
warm and comfortable, happy at seeing the bright lamp in the next room,
which seemed to keep me company, happy at having such kind good parents,
and above all was I not happy at possessing that beautiful velvet coat
with those grand buttons! That night I was indeed a happy boy. Little by
little my eyelids closed, and in spite of my efforts to keep awake, I
was soon fast asleep.
The next morning when I awoke, the first thing I saw was the beautiful
coat hanging on the back of one of the chairs. I sprang out of bed and
soon had it on. Never had I been so delighted with anything before. It
was a little too long and a little too wide; but it was all the better
for that surely? I grew very fast, and this coat _must_ last a long,
long time. Just over the shoulders the velvet was rather loose and
puckered, and appeared somewhat like the wings of a swallow in shape.
But that really made me look broader, and was therefore an improvement
to my figure. The coat had been made considerably smaller, although it
was still rather large for me; but the buttons of course could not be
made smaller in proportion, and they therefore covered far more space
than formerly in proportion to the velvet. I was however only the more
delighted at this: they were so beautiful!
My curiosity satisfied about the fit of my coat, I now thought of my
dear mother, who I feared must have sat up half the night working, in
order to give me pleasure. My heart was touched beyond measure at this
thought, and I was filled with gratitude towards her. I took the coat in
my arms and kissed it. I then went to find my mother that I might thank
her. How happy she was at seeing my delight! and when I started off to
college, she stood at the window that she might watch me walking down
the street dressed in my gorgeous new jacket.
------------------
XLI.
THE BEETLE.
THE first college boy that I met that morning begged me to give him the
address of my tailor. The second came up to me with an expression of the
most intense surprise, and passed his hand over my coat.
When I turned to him and asked him rather indignantly what he was about,
he replied that he considered my jacket admirable! Now according to my
idea this was not too strong an expression to apply to my velvet coat,
but there was something in the tone in which it was said that annoyed
me. Still more was I displeased when he walked round me two or three
times, lifting his hands up in the air. He was joined almost immediately
by half a dozen little rascals, who, following his example, raised their
hands towards heaven, exclaiming in various tones: “Admirable!”
There were different groups of boys standing about in the street, and in
one of these groups I heard a boy holding forth, apparently much to the
amusement of the others, about a certain green coat which had been cut
out by a carpenter with a few strokes of his hatchet. In another group a
boy said that “some one” was a wonderful hand at making coats! And in a
third group one of the scholars declared that “_somebody_, not a hundred
miles off, was exactly like a great green beetle!” And then on every
side I heard “Beetle, Beetle!” sung out to the tune of a polka.
This pastime, which began to cause no little annoyance to the
passers-by, was suddenly put a stop to by the striking of the college
clock, and in a few seconds the boys were all hard at work at their
studies,—or supposed to be so.
During lesson-time I could not help asking myself what they could mean
about the beetle? and alas! wounding as it was to my pride, I could not
but come to the conclusion that Beetle was now to be added to the list
of my nicknames. One more or less, what did it matter? so I reasoned:
still, I could not help the feeling of annoyance this new name caused
me. All doubt upon the subject was put an end to by the sight of a
caricature which was passed from hand to hand along the forms, and which
my eyes soon caught a glimpse of.
I easily recognised the absurd nose which had been so often drawn in
imitation of my own. And now my coat, my beautiful coat, was caricatured
too! I knew it was intended for my coat, but how shamefully caricatured!
The buttons were made to look the size of dessert plates, and the whole
coat appeared like the shell of a large green beetle with my face at the
top. To prevent any mistakes upon the subject, the artist had written
under the drawing—_Bicquerot, or the Green Beetle!_
Have you ever received a sudden and totally unexpected blow? If so, you
know the feeling of stupefaction that follows—as if one were completely
overpowered; then comes the pain which nearly makes one scream. And this
is followed by a feeling of blind rage and a thirst for vengeance.
These are the sensations which I experienced on seeing the caricature
and afterwards, while my schoolfellows were muttering their lessons
round me.
I was astounded! that jacket which I was so proud of—which I thought so
much of for many reasons—was caricatured and laughed at by everyone. I
felt, too, acute pain at the thought that my mother’s work—that work
which was one of the proofs of her great love for me—was made a subject
of contemptuous ridicule. I was now wounded in the most sensitive part
of my nature.
I felt the great tears rush to my eyes; I would not let them fall, but
courageously forced them back. I would not betray the pain and
humiliation I was suffering. I buried my head in my hands, and kept my
eyes fixed upon my Latin grammar; but, with my mind’s eye, I saw over
again my mother seated at work, busy over my jacket, smiling to herself
as she stitched away so indefatigably, forgetting all her own weariness
in the thought of the pleasure she would give me. Then, beside that
picture, rose before me the laughing, the grimacing faces of the
insolent boys!
The contrast made me furious! I was so wretched that I determined I
would no longer bear it. At that moment my hand, unknown to myself,
clenched the leg of the table nearest to me with such violence that the
whole table shook; the boys raised their heads in surprise, and the
professor begged the pupil “Bicquerot” to keep still.
The pupil Bicquerot said nothing; but when school was over, he walked
out of college with his head in the air; his knees trembled with nervous
emotion, but his heart was strong and determined.
------------------
XLII.
A FIGHT AT LAST.
“HISH! Swish! there goes the Beetle!” cried an impudent voice in my ear.
I turned round quickly, and grinding my teeth, asked: “Who said that?”
Brideau, nicknamed “Cock of the Walk,” who was walking just behind me,
was so surprised at the expression of my face, that he retreated a step
or two.
“Was it you?” I demanded.
He did not dare to deny it before all the other boys, lest they should
think that he was afraid of me. So he replied in an insolent tone of
voice, “Yes it _was_ me!”
I threw myself upon him with clenched fists and my eyes shut. I dashed
myself against something, and something was dashed against me. I felt a
violent shock. My left eye suddenly became extremely painful, felt very
heavy, and seemed to see ten thousand lighted candles at once. It seemed
as though my knees gave way, that I staggered two or three steps
backwards and leant against something hard. I soon opened my eyes, or
rather the right eye,—for the left was still tightly closed—and the ten
thousand candles had turned into a number of bright circles which
twisted about in the dark. I discovered that I had backed into a
grocer’s shop, between a barrel of herrings and a case of dried figs.
Everyone looked at me with surprise. Some of my schoolfellows cried out
“Bravo!” (most likely in derision) and others asked me, “if it hurt me
much.”
“Not at all,” I answered; I was so excited, that I very nearly said, “on
the contrary I feel the better for it!” Strange to say, nobody laughed
at me. One boy kindly bathed my eye with cold water. To tell the truth I
was very much surprised to find that a blow from my fist struck just by
chance, in that way, should seem to change so entirely the conduct of my
schoolfellows towards me.
Casting my sound eye round me, I tried to find out what had become of
Brideau. I expected to see him come rushing at me; imagine my
astonishment at seeing him going off with a crest-fallen and discomfited
air. He had had one of his eyes much damaged, and his nose was bleeding
into the bargain. It seemed that I had knocked him down. Someone said to
me: “You’ve beaten him!” And, then only, I discovered to my intense
surprise, that I was the conqueror.
Fancy! me the conqueror! Could it be so? It seemed so strange that I
could scarcely believe it! A conqueror, and gloriously wounded. I smiled
involuntarily as I bathed my eye, which now saw black circles revolving
in the light, and which seemed to me to be tremendously swelled! However
I did not mind a black eye or anything else: I had fought in a good
cause, and had conquered.
------------------
XLIII.
MY FATHER IS SATISFIED.
WHEN I discovered that my coat had not suffered in the fray I was quite
contented, and I returned home whistling as I went, for the first time
since I had been to college. What balm victory spreads upon our wounds!
By the time I reached our house I merely seemed to feel a little
stiffness in my left eye. My father was quite right when he said that
nothing was easier than to give a blow with your fist. Nothing is
easier, and nothing easier than to receive one. In the twinkling of an
eye I had given one and had it returned; though, for the life of me, I
could not say how it came about: and I do not therefore intend to give a
lecture upon the subject.
I would not have told my parents what had taken place for anything in
the world: they would have been sure to ask what I had fought about, and
they would have felt hurt had they known the reason. My mother, seeing
that I appeared troubled at her anxious inquiries about my black eye,
and that my replies were evasive, thought it wiser not to question me
further; and my father dreamed so little that his poor coward of a son
could have received his wounds in battle that he imagined every possible
reason for them rather than the true one.
The news was now spread in the college that Bicquerot was decidedly
eccentric, that he had curious fancies, and this was why they thought
so. I had allowed them all, even the very little boys, to call me all
sorts of names and I had taken no notice, but had appeared meek and
gentle to a fault: I had been called Azor, Toucan and Borniquet, and had
not stirred, but being once called a beetle! my nature was changed, I
became furious, and hit out right and left, in the blindness of my rage.
At the end of the term my father almost fell off his chair when reading
my report from the college. All was well enough till he arrived at the
remarks upon my general conduct, and then came the words “Very bad.”
“What does this mean?” inquired my father in an angry tone of voice,
marking, with his thumb, the objectionable adjective. As I did not
reply, he read on the next page the following words, “quarrelsome and
fond of fighting.” He appeared stupefied. Could it be possible that my
conduct was described as very bad, because of my love of fighting? He
turned to me, and resting his first finger on my chest, exclaimed, “You!
You have fought! Is it true?”
“Yes, papa,” I answered.
“Were you beaten?” he then inquired.
“No,” said I; “I gave some blows with my fist, and had some given back
to me.”
“Real good blows?” cried my father, “bang, bang?”
“Real good blows,” I answered.
“Often?” he asked.
“Well, yes, pretty often,” said I.
“What a young rascal!” said my father, pretending to pinch my ear; and
in a whisper he continued: “kiss me, my boy!”
------------------
XLIV.
EXTREMES ARE BAD.
IT is often difficult for men—then how much more so for boys—to avoid
running into extremes. I ought to have been contented with being no
longer a coward, but alas! I was not, for I now became somewhat of a
bully. I grew excited and furious at very little. It did not require the
opprobrious name of beetle to be applied to me now in order to make me
angry. The time arrived when the least word would make me begin a fight
at once. I began to amuse myself by frightening the smaller boys and
making them fly before me. And the big boys, even, were very careful how
they approached me.
[Illustration:Decoration]