It was nearly the end of the long evening preparation and absolute
quiet reigned in the schoolroom. The broad lamp-shades concentrated
the light on the tangled heads of the boys, who were working at
their lessons or sitting in a brown study with their noses on
the desks. The only sounds were the crackling of paper, the lads'
breathing and the scratch, scratch of steel pens. The youngest
there, his cheeks still browned by the sea-breezes, was dreaming
over his half-finished exercise of a beach on the Normandy coast
and the sand-castles he and his friends used to build, to see
them swept away presently by the waves of the rising tide.
At the top of the great room, at the high desk where the
Superintendent of Studies had solemnly installed him underneath
the great ebony crucifix, Jean Servien, his head between his
two hands, was reading a Latin poet.
He felt utterly sad and lonely; but he had not realized yet that
his new life was an actual fact, and from moment to moment he
expected the schoolroom would suddenly vanish and the desks with
their litter of dictionaries and grammars and the young heads
gilded by the lamp-light melt into thin air.
Suddenly a paper pellet, shot from the far end of the hall, struck
him on the cheek. He turned pale and cried in a voice shaking
with anger:
"Monsieur de Grizolles, leave the room!"
There was some whispering and stifled laughter, then peace was
restored. The scratching of pens began again, and exercises were
passed surreptitiously from hand to hand for cribbing purposes.
He was an usher.
His father had come to this decision by the advice of Monsieur
Marguerite, the _vicaire_ of his parish and a friend of the Abbé
Bordier. The bookbinder, having a high respect for knowledge,
entertained a correspondingly high idea of the status of all its
ministers. Assistant master struck him as an imposing title, and
he was delighted to have his son connected with an aristocratic
and religious foundation.
"Your son," the Abbé Marguerite told him, "will read for his
Master's degree in the intervals of his duties, and the title
of Licencié-ès-Lettres will open the door to the higher walks
of teaching. We have known assistants rise to high positions
in the University and even occupy Monsieur de Fontanes' chair."
These considerations had clenched the bookbinder's resolution,
and this was now the third day of Jean's ushership.