A Romance of Youth | Page 7

Francois Coppée
of itself.
It was a very unjust fate for an inoffensive tree which never had harmed
anybody; only expanding, at one side of the gymnasium portico, in a
perfect rectangle formed by a prison wall, bristling with the glass of
broken bottles, and by three buildings of distressing similarity, showing,
above the numerous doors on the ground floor, inscriptions which
merely to read induced a yawn: Hall 1, Hall 2, Hall 3, Hall 4, Stairway
A, Stairway B, Entrance to the Dormitories, Dining-room, Laboratory.
The poor sycamore was dying of ennui in this dismal place. Its only
happy seasons--the recreation hours, when the court echoed with the
shouts and the laughter of the boys--were spoiled for it by the sight of
two or three pupils who were punished by being made to stand at the
foot of its trunk. Parisian birds, who are not fastidious, rarely lighted
upon the tree, and never built their nests there. It might even be
imagined that this disenchanted tree, when the wind agitated its foliage,
would charitably say, "Believe me! the place is good for nothing. Go
and make love elsewhere!"
In the shade of this sycamore, planted under an unlucky star, the greater
part of Amedee's infancy was passed.
M. Violette was an employe of the Ministry, and was obliged to work

seven hours a day, one or two hours of which were devoted to going
wearily through a bundle of probably superfluous papers and
documents. The rest of the time was given to other occupations as
varied as they were intellectual; such as yawning, filing his nails,
talking about his chiefs, groaning over the slowness of promotion,
cooking a potato or a sausage in the stove for his luncheon, reading the
newspaper down to the editor's signature, and advertisements in which
some country cure expresses his artless gratitude at being cured at last
of an obstinate disease. In recompense for this daily captivity, M.
Violette received, at the end of the month, a sum exactly sufficient to
secure his household soup and beef, with a few vegetables.
In order that his son might attain such a distinguished position, M.
Violette's father, a watch-maker in Chartres, had sacrificed everything,
and died penniless. The Silvio Pellico official, during these
exasperating and tiresome hours, sometimes regretted not having
simply succeeded his father. He could see himself, in imagination, in
the light little shop near the cathedral, with a magnifying-glass fixed in
his eye, ready to inspect some farmer's old "turnip," and suspended
over his bench thirty silver and gold watches left by farmers the week
before, who would profit by the next market-day to come and get them,
all going together with a merry tick. It may be questioned whether a
trade as low as this would have been fitting for a young man of
education, a Bachelor of Arts, crammed with Greek roots and
quotations, able to prove the existence of God, and to recite without
hesitation the dates of the reigns of Nabonassar and of Nabopolassar.
This watch-maker, this simple artisan, understood modern genius better.
This modest shopkeeper acted according to the democratic law and
followed the instinct of a noble and wise ambition. He made of his
son--a sensible and intelligent boy--a machine to copy documents, and
spend his days guessing the conundrums in the illustrated newspapers,
which he read as easily as M. Ledrain would decipher the cuneiform
inscriptions on an Assyrian brick. Also--an admirable result, which
should rejoice the old watch-maker's shade--his son had become a
gentleman, a functionary, so splendidly remunerated by the State that
he was obliged to wear patches of cloth, as near like the trousers as
possible, on their seat; and his poor young wife, during her life, had

always been obliged, as rent-day drew near, to carry the soup-ladle and
six silver covers to the pawn-shop.
At all events, M. Violette was a widower now, and being busy all day
was very much embarrassed with the care of his little son. His
neighbors, the Gerards, were very kind to Amedee, and continued to
keep him with them all the afternoon. This state of affairs could not
always continue, and M. Violette hesitated to abuse his worthy friends'
kindness in that way.
However, Amedee gave them little trouble, and Mamma Gerard loved
him as if he were her own. The orphan was now inseparable from little
Maria, a perfect little witch, who became prettier every day. The
engraver, having found in a cupboard the old bearskin cap which he
had worn as a grenadier in the National Guard, a headdress that had
been suppressed since '98, gave it to the children. What a magnificent
plaything it was, and how well calculated to excite their imagination! It
was immediately transformed in their minds into a frightfully large and
ferocious
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