The Marquis Tudesco returned in due course, smiled at Mademoiselle
Servien, who darted poisonous looks at him, greeted the bookbinder
with a discreet air of patronage, and had a supply of grammars
and dictionaries bought.
At first he gave his lessons with exemplary regularity. He had
taken a liking to these repetitions of nouns and verbs, which he
listened to with a dignified, condescending air, slowly unrolling
his screw of snuff the while; he only interrupted to interject
little playful remarks with a geniality just touched with a trace
of ferocity, that bespoke his real nature as an unctuous, cringing
bully. He was jocular and pompous at the same time, and always
made a pretence of being a long time in seeing the glass of wine
put on the table for his refreshment.
The bookbinder, regarding him as a clever man of ill-regulated
life, always treated him with great consideration, for faults
of behaviour almost cease to shock us except among neighbours,
or at most fellow-countrymen. Without knowing it, Jean found a
fund of amusement in the witticisms and harangues of his old
teacher, who united in himself the contradictory attributes of
high-priest and buffoon. He was great at telling a story, and
though his tales were beyond the child's intelligence, they did
not fail to leave behind a confused impression of recklessness,
irony, and cynicism. Mademoiselle Servien alone never relaxed her
attitude of uncompromising dislike and disdain. She said nothing
against him, but her face was a rigid mask of disapproval, her
eyes two flames of fire, in answer to the courteous greeting
the tutor never failed to offer her with a special roll of his
little grey eyes.
One day the Marquis Tudesco walked into the shop with a staggering
gait; his eyes glittered and his mouth hung half open in anticipation
of racy talk and self-indulgence, while his great nose, his pink
cheeks, his fat, loose hands and his big belly, gallantly carried,
gave him, beneath his jacket and felt hat, a perfect likeness to
a little rustic god his ancestors worshipped, the old Silenus.
Lessons that day were fitful and haphazard. Jean was repeating
in a drawling voice: _moneo, mones, monet ... monebam, monebas,
monebat..._ Suddenly Monsieur Tudesco sprang forward, dragging
his chair along the floor with a horrid screech, and clapping
his hand on his pupil's shoulder:
"Child," he said, "to-day I am going to give you a more profitable
lesson than all the pitiful teaching I have confined myself to
up to now.
"It is a lesson of transcendental philosophy. Hearken carefully,
child. If one day you rise above your station and come to know
yourself and the world about you, you will discover this, that
men act only out of regard for the opinion of their fellows--and
_per Bacco!_ they are consummate fools for their pains. They
dread other folks' blame and crave their approval.
"The idiots fail to see that the world does not care a straw
for them, and that their dearest friends will see them glorified
or disgraced without missing one mouthful of their dinner. This
is my lesson, _caro figliuolo_, that the world's opinion is not
worth the sacrifice of a single one of our desires. If you get
this into your pate, you will be a strong man and can boast you
were once the pupil of the Marquis Tudesco, of Venice, the exile
who has translated in a freezing garret, on scraps of refuse
paper, the immortal poem of Torquato Tasso. What a task!"
The child listened to the tipsy philosopher without understanding
one word of his rigmarole; only Monsieur Tudesco struck him as
a strange and alarming personage, and taller by a hundred feet
than anybody he had ever seen before.
The professor warmed to his subject:
"Ah!" he cried, springing from his seat, "and what profit did
the immortal and ill-starred Torquato Tasso win from all his
genius? A few stolen kisses on the steps of a palace. And he
died of famine in a madhouse. I say it: the world's opinion,
that empress of humankind, I will tear from her her crown and
sceptre. Opinion tyrannizes over unhappy Italy, as over all the
earth. Italy! what flaming sword will one day come to break her
fetters, as now I break this chair?"
In fact, he had seized his chair by the back and was pounding
it fiercely on the floor.
But suddenly he stopped, gave a knowing smile, and said in a low
voice:
"No, no, Marquis Tudesco, let be, let Venice be a prey to Teuton
savagery. The fetters of the fatherland are daily bread to the
exiled patriot."
His chin buried in his cravat, he stood chuckling to himself,
and his red waistcoat rose and fell in jerks.
Mademoiselle Servien, who sat by at the lesson knitting a stocking
and for some moments had been watching the tutor, her spectacles
pushed half-way up her forehead, with a look of amazement and
suspicion, exclaimed, as if talking to herself:
"If it isn't abominable to come to people's houses in drink!"
Monsieur Tudesco did not seem to hear her. His manner was quiet
and jocular again.
"Child," he ordered, "write down the theme for an essay. Write
down: 'The worst thing... yes, the worst thing of all,' write
it down... 'is an old woman with a spiteful temper.'"
And rising with the gracious dignity of a Prince of the Church,
he bowed low to the aunt, gave the nephew's cheek a friendly
tap, and marched out of the room.
However, beginning with the very next lesson, he lavished every
mark of respect on the old lady, and treated her to all his choicest
airs and graces, rounding his elbows, pursing his lips, strutting
and swaggering. She would not relax a muscle, and sat there as
silent and sulky as an owl.
But one day when she was hunting for her spectacles, as she was
always doing, Monsieur Tudesco offered her his and persuaded her
to try them; she found they suited her sight and felt a trifle
less unamiable towards him. The Italian, pursuing his advantage,
got into talk with her, and artfully turned the conversation upon
the vices of the rich. The old lady approved his sentiments, and
an exchange of petty confidences ensued. Tudesco knew a sovereign
remedy for catarrh, and this too was well received. He redoubled
his attentions, and the _concierge_, who saw him smiling to himself
on the doorstep, told Aunt Servien: "The man's in love with you."
Of course she declared: "At my time of life a woman doesn't want
lovers," but her vanity was tickled all the same. Monsieur Tudesco
got what he wanted--to have his glass filled to the brim every
lesson. Out of politeness they would even leave him the pint jug
only half empty, which he was indiscreet enough to drain dry.
One day he asked for a taste of cheese--"just enough to make
a mouse's dinner," was his expression. "Mice are like me, they
love the dark and a quiet life and books; and like me they live
on crumbs."
This pose of the wise man fallen on evil days made a bad impression,
and the old lady became silent and sombre as before.
When springtime came Monsieur Tudesco vanished.
V
The bookbinder, for all his scanty earnings, was resolved to
enter Jean at a school where the boy could enjoy a regular and
complete course of instruction. He selected a day-school not
far from the Luxembourg, because he could see the top branches
of an acacia overtopping the wall, and the house had a cheerful
look.
Jean, as a little new boy (he was now eleven), was some weeks
before he shook off the shyness with which his schoolfellows'
loud voices and rough ways and his masters' ponderous gravity
had at first overwhelmed him. Little by little he grew used to
the work, and learned some of the tricks by means of which
punishments were avoided; his schoolfellows found him so inoffensive
they left off stealing his cap and initiated him in the game of
marbles. But he had little love for school-life, and when five
o'clock came, prayers were over and his satchel strapped, it
was with unfeigned delight he dashed out into the street basking
in the golden rays of the setting sun. In the intoxication of
freedom, he danced and leapt, seeing everything, men and horses,
carriages and shops, in a charmed light, and out of sheer joy of
life mumbling at his Aunt Servien's hand and arm, as she walked
home with him carrying the satchel and lunch-basket.
The evening was a peaceful time. Jean would sit drawing pictures
or dreaming over his copy-books at one end of the table where
Mademoiselle Servien had just cleared away the meal. His father
would be busy with a book. As age advanced he had acquired a
taste for reading, his favourites being La Fontaine's _Fables_,
Anquetil's _History of France_, and Voltaire's _Dictionnaire
Philosophique_, "to get the hang of things," as he put it.
His sister made fruitless efforts to distract his attention with
some stinging criticism of the neighbours or a question about
"our fat friend who had not come back," for she made a point
of never remembering the Marquis Tudesco's name.