on saturday the third of october, marc, and the rest of his family went to orleans. sunday i spent in tears, and on monday my father took me to college.
the way to the college was through a very long street, called pont street. that monday was very cold, i remember; an autumnal fog came up from the meadows near and seemed to creep into my bones, and i trembled in every limb.
at every step we met college boys of all ages, who were loitering along in the same direction we were going. they called to one another from a distance, and formed into different groups, from several of which i heard chance words escaping, in which very clear allusions were made to a new boy who had “a fine big nose of his own.”
once within the college grounds the boys prepared to enter school, separating into their different classes. after wandering about for some time, uncertain where to go, i found myself in the middle of a group of boys which opened, with apparent good nature, to let me join them, and then closed round me. once in the crowd i discovered that the object of each boy seemed to be to push his neighbour down; three times did i advance with the rest to the school door, and each time i was pushed away from it and knocked up against the wall. the fourth attempt was more successful, i was lifted off my legs and borne with the crowd into school, where, half crushed and quite out of breath, i managed to stumble on to one of the nearest benches.
as i took my school-books one by one out of my satchel, my neighbour jogged my elbow, and so threw them down; and the professor, looking sternly at me, begged that i would not “make so much noise.”
he asked the names of all the pupils, and made me repeat mine very carefully.
“write an exercise!” said he at last.
just as i plunged my pen into the inkstand and brought it out—certainly rather too full of ink—a neighbour who was watching me, gave my elbow another jog, and calculated the effect so well, that the contents of the pen were shot all over the clean white collar of one of the smaller boys, a little red-headed fellow, who turned round to me in a fury. i tried to explain how the misfortune occurred, the professor was very angry, and i made myself as small as possible.
the exercise over, the professor proceeded to question us, that is, to question the new pupils.
“borniquet!” said he, “stand up.”
borniquet did not move. the boys looked at one another with surprise and began whispering, the professor a second time ordered the pupil named borniquet to rise. strange to say, borniquet made no sign: this time there was a regular murmur of surprise among the pupils; the professor became red with indignation. i trembled at the bare idea of the terrible punishment that awaited the luckless borniquet; i would not have been in his place for something.
“i desire you to stand up, borniquet!” cried the professor, turning to the right,—just where i was. i looked now at the boys on each side of me with great curiosity; it must be one of them, thought i.
“but you, you, you!” cried the professor again, pointing his finger right in my direction. i turned round and looked behind me. where was borniquet? the whole class now burst out laughing.
“you, the third boy on the second bench!” cried the professor, now quite losing patience.
the third boy on the second bench was me. the boys near me said, “get up! get up!” as there was certainly some mistake somewhere, i still hesitated, when i felt a sudden and violent push, which came from i knew not where, and i was on my legs. i looked at the professor, feeling very foolish.
he was a worthy man: thinking he had a very stupid and nervous pupil before him he questioned me in a kind, gentle tone to encourage me. presently he stooped over his desk, and then looked up quite surprised. “but, i see,” cried he, “that there is no pupil of the name of borniquet on the list! why what is your name?”
“bicquerot,” i said.
he tapped his forehead and declared that he had made a slip of the tongue. “that might happen to any one,” he remarked, turning towards the laughing boys.
but it was a curious thing that he should have made the mistake in the name so many times. his tongue had a strange way of slipping. during the whole year i was called by the two names, and had to answer sometimes to borniquet, sometimes to bicquerot. and naturally my schoolfellows preferred calling me by my wrong name borniquet.
