The Ink-Stain | Page 5

time, just eighteen months ago, I became a licentiate, and "in the said
capacity"--as my uncle would say took an oath that transformed me
into a probationary barrister. Every Monday, regularly, I go to sign my
name among many others on an attendance list, and thereby, it appears,
I am establishing a claim upon the confidence of the widow and the
orphan.
In the intervals of my legal studies I have succeeded in taking my Arts
Degree. At present I am seeking that of Doctor of Law. My
examinations have been passed meritoriously, but without brilliance;
my tastes run too much after letters. My professor, M. Flamaran, once
told me the truth of the matter: "Law, young man, is a jealous mistress;
she allows no divided affection." Are my affections divided? I think not,
and I certainly do not confess any such thing to M. Mouillard, who has
not yet forgotten what he calls "that freak" of a Degree in Arts. He
builds some hopes upon me, and, in return, it is natural that I should
build a few upon him.
Really, that sums up all my past: two certificates! A third diploma in
prospect and an uncle to leave me his money--that is my future. Can
anything more commonplace be imagined?
I may add that I never felt any temptation at all to put these things on
record until to-day, the tenth of December, 1884. Nothing had ever
happened to me; my history was a blank. I might have died thus. But
who can foresee life's sudden transformations? Who can foretell that
the skein, hitherto so tranquilly unwound, will not suddenly become
tangled? This afternoon a serious adventure befell me. It agitated me at
the time, and it agitates me still more upon reflection. A voice within
me whispers that this cause will have a series of effects, that I am on
the threshold of an epoch, or, as the novelists say, a crisis in my
existence. It has struck me that I owe it to myself to write my Memoirs,
and that is the reason why I have just purchased this brown
memorandum- book in the Odeon Arcade. I intend to make a detailed

and particular entry of the event, and, as time goes on, of its
consequences, if any should happen to flow from it.
"Flow from it" is just the phrase; for it has to do with a blot of ink.
My blot of ink is hardly dry. It is a large one, too; of abnormal shape,
and altogether monstrous, whether one considers it from the physical
side or studies it in its moral bearings. It is very much more than an
accident; it has something of the nature of an outrage. It was at the
National Library that I perpetrated it, and upon-- But I must not
anticipate.
I often work in the National Library; not in the main hall, but in that
reserved for literary men who have a claim, and are provided with a
ticket, to use it. I never enter it without a gentle thrill, in which respect
is mingled with satisfied vanity. For not every one who chooses may
walk in. I must pass before the office of the porter, who retains my
umbrella, before I make my way to the solemn beadle who sits just
inside the doorway--a double precaution, attesting to the majesty of the
place. The beadle knows me. He no longer demands my ticket. To be
sure, I am not yet one of those old acquaintances on whom he smiles;
but I am no longer reckoned among those novices whose passport he
exacts. An inclination of his head makes me free of the temple, and
says, as plainly as words, "You are one of us, albeit a trifle young.
Walk in, sir."
And in I walk, and admire on each occasion the vast proportions of the
interior, the severe decoration of the walls, traced with broad foliated
pattern and wainscoted with books of reference as high as hand can
reach; the dread tribunal of librarians and keepers in session down
yonder, on a kind of judgment-seat, at the end of the avenue whose
carpet deadens all footsteps; and behind again, that holy of holies
where work the doubly privileged--the men, I imagine, who are
members of two or three academies. To right and left of this avenue are
rows of tables and armchairs, where scatters, as caprice has chosen and
habit consecrated, the learned population of the library. Men form the
large majority. Viewed from the rear, as they bend over their work,
they suggest reflections on the ravages wrought by study upon hair-clad

cuticles. For every hirsute Southerner whose locks turn gray without
dropping off, heavens, what a regiment of bald heads! Visitors who
look in through the