The Aspirations of Jean Servien | Page 5

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.

VI
Before long Jean's whole mind was given over to the catechizings and
sermons and hymns preparatory to the First Communion. Intoxication
with the music of chants and organ, drowned in the scent of incense
and flowers, hung about with scapularies, rosaries, consecrated medals,
and holy images, he, like his companions, assumed a certain air of
self-importance and wore a smug, sanctified look. He was cold and
unbending towards his aunt, who spoke with far too much unconcern
about the "great day." Though she had long been in the habit of taking

her nephew to Mass every Sunday, she was not "pious." Most likely
she confounded in one common detestation the luxury of the rich and
the pomps of the Church service. She had more than once been
overheard informing one of the cronies she used to meet on the
boulevards that she was a religious woman, but she could not abide
priests, that she said her prayers at home, and these were every bit as
good as the fine ladies' who flaunted their crinolines in church. His
father was more in sympathy with the lad's new-found zeal; he was
interested and even a little impressed. He undertook to bind a missal
with his own hands against the ceremony.
When the days arrived for retreats and general confessions, Jean
swelled with pride and vague aspirations. He looked for something out
of the ordinary to happen. Coming out at evening from Saint-Sulpice
with two or three of his schoolfellows, he would feel an atmosphere of
miracle about him; some divine interposition must be forthcoming. The
lads used to tell each other strange stories, pious legends they had read
in one of their little books of devotion. Now it was a phantom monk
who had stepped out of the grave, showing the stigmata on hands and
feet and the pierced side; now a nun, beautiful as the veiled figures in
the Church pictures, expiating in the fires of hell mysterious sins. Jean
had his favourite tale. Shuddering, he would relate how St. Francis
Borgia, after the death of Queen Isabella, who was lovely beyond
compare, must have the coffin opened wherein she lay at rest in her
robe embroidered with pearls; in imagination he pictured the dead
Queen, invested her form with all the magic hues of the unknown,
traced in her lineaments the enchantments of a woman's beauty in the
dark gulf of death. And as he told the tale, he could hear, in the twilight
gloom, a murmur of soft voices sighing in the plane trees of the
Luxembourg.
The great day arrived. The bookbinder, who attended the ceremony
with his sister, thought of his wife