Instead, he conceived the notion of brewing chocolate insidehis desk with a spirit-lamp and a silver patty-pan. Jean lefthim in peace and reopened his Sophocles with a sigh of relief.
But the Superintendent, going by in the court, caught a smell ofcooking, searched the desks and unearthed the patty-pan, which heoffered, still warm, for the Reverend the Director's inspection,with the words: "There! that's what goes on in Monsieur Servien'sclass-room." The Director slapped his forehead, declared theywould be the death of him and ordered the patty-pan to be restoredto its owner. Then he sent for the Assistant in charge andadministered a severe reprimand, because he believed it to behis bounden duty to do so.
The next day was a whole holiday, and Jean went to spend theday at his father's. The latter asked him if he was ready forhis professorial examination.
"My lad," he adjured him, "be quick and find a good post if youwant me to see you in it. One of these days your aunt and I willbe going out at yonder door feet foremost. The old lady had afit of dizziness last week on the stairs. _I_ am not ill, butI can feel I am worn out. I have done a hard life's work in theworld."He looked at his tools, and walked away, a bent old man!
Then Jean gathered up in both hands the old work-worn tools, allpolished with use, scissors, punches, knives, folders, scrapers,and kissed them, the tears running down his cheeks.
At that moment his aunt came in, looking for her spectacles.
Furtively, in a whisper, she asked him for a little money. Inold days she used to save the halfpence to slip them into the"little lad's " hand; now, grown feebler than the child, shetrembled at the idea of destitution; she hoarded, and asked charityof the priests. The fact is, her wits were weakening. Very oftenshe would inform her brother that she did not mean to let theweek pass without going to see the Brideaus. Now the Brideaus,jobbing tailors at Montrouge in their lifetime, had been dead,both husband and wife, for the last two years. Jean gave her alouis, which she took with a delight so ugly to see that thepoor lad took refuge out of doors.
Presently, without quite knowing how, he found himself on the_Quai_ near the _Pont d'Iéna_. It was a bright day, but thegloomy walls of the houses and the grey look of the river banksseemed to proclaim that life is hard and cruel. Out in thestream a dredger, all drab with marl, was discharging one afterthe other its bucket-fuls of miry gravel. By the waterside astout oaken crane was unloading millstones, wheeling backwardsand forwards on its axis. Under the parapet, near the bridge,an old dame with a copper-red face sat knitting stockings asshe waited for customers to buy her apple-puffs.
Jean Servien thought of his childhood; many a time had his aunttaken him to the same spot, many a time had they watched togetherthe dredger hauling aboard, bucketful by bucketful, the muddydregs of the river. Very often his aunt had stopped to exchangeideas with the old stallkeeper, while he examined the counterwhich was spread with a napkin, the carafe of liquorice-waterthat stood on it, and the lemon that served as stopper. Nothingwas changed, neither the dredger, nor the rafts of timber, northe old woman, nor the four ponderous stallions at either endof the _Pont d'Iéna_.
Yes, Jean Servien could hear the trees along the _Quai_, thewaters of the river, the very stones of the parapet calling tohim:
"We know you; you are the little boy his aunt, in a peasant'scap, used to bring here to see us in former days. But we shallnever see your aunt again, nor her print shawl, nor her umbrellawhich she opened against the sun; for she is old now and doesnot take her nephew walks any more, for he is a grown man now.
Yes, the child is grown into a man and has been hurt by life,while he was running after shadows."