His words opened superb vistas before the old priest’s
eyes; he was enchanted, ravished, yet full of doubts
and fears. Alas! Monsieur Schuver was quite
helpless if it came to designing anything more ambitious
than his paper roses. Then Jean must needs take
a look round in the shed where the properties were
stored, and the two discussed together how the stage
must be set and the side-scenes worked. Jean
took measurements, drew up a plan, worked out an estimate.
He manifested a passionate eagerness that was surprising,
albeit the old priest took it all as a matter of course.
A batten would come here, a practicable door there.
The actor would enter there...
But the worthy priest checked him:
“Say the reciter, my dear boy; actor
is not a word for self-respecting people.”
Barring this trifling misunderstanding, they were
in perfect accord. The sun was setting by this
time and the Abbe Bordier’s shadow, grotesquely
elongated, danced up and down the sandy floor of the
shed, while the old, broken voice declaimed tags of
verse that echoed to the furthest recesses of the
court. But Jean Servien was smiling at the vision
only his eyes could see of Gabrielle, the inspirer
of all his enthusiasm.
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 Abbe 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.
