THE BOHEMIAN AT SCHOOL

Waking up next morning was painful. At half-past eight, just as M. Seurel was giving the signal to enter school, we arrived, quite out of breath, to line up. As we were late, we crept in wherever we could, though generally, during M. Seurel’s inspection, Admiral Meaulnes headed the long row of boys who stood elbow to elbow, loaded with lesson-books and pencil-boxes.

It surprised me to see the silent alacrity which every one displayed to make room for us in the middle of the column; and while M. Seurel delayed opening school by a few seconds to inspect Meaulnes, I inquisitively looked around to right and left to see the faces of our enemies of the previous day.

The first one I noticed was that same fellow who had been in my mind ever since, but who was the very last person I expected to see here. He was in Meaulnes’ usual place, at the head, one foot on the stone step, one shoulder and the corner of the satchel he carried on his back, resting against the doorpost. His fine face, very pale and slightly freckled, was turned towards us with a sort of disdainful and amused interest. The top of his head and one side of his face were bandaged in white linen. I recognised the leader of the gang, the young bohemian who had robbed us on the preceding night.

But we were now entering the classroom and each one took his seat. The new pupil sat close to the pillar, on the left of the long bench where Meaulnes occupied the first seat on the right. Giraudat, Delouche, and the three other first-bench boys sat quite close to each other to make room for him, as if this had been arranged beforehand....

The winter often brought us in this way casual pupils, lads in apprenticeship, sons of bargees held up by the ice on the canal, or of pedlars delayed by the snow. They remained at school from two days to a month, rarely more.... Objects of great interest at first, they were soon unheeded and quickly forgotten in the crowd of ordinary pupils.

But this one was not to be forgotten so soon. I still remember that strange fellow and the queer treasures he used to bring, in the satchel strapped on his back. First there were ‘sight-seeing’ penholders which he took out to write his dictation with. Through a peephole in the handle, by shutting one eye you could see the church of Lourdes or some unknown building, dim and magnified. He chose one, and the others passed from hand to hand. Then came a Chinese pencil-box, full of compasses and exciting implements which travelled along the bench on the left, being silently and furtively thrust on from hand to hand under the desks, so that M. Seurel might not see.

Then came round some perfectly new books, the titles of which I had often read with longing on the covers of the few books in our library: ‘The Blackbirds on the Heath,’ ‘The Seagull’s Rock,’ ‘My Friend Benedict.’ ... Some of the boys, resting a story-book on their knees, used one hand to turn over the pages of these volumes procured no one knew how, probably by theft, and with the other hand wrote their dictation. Others played with compasses inside their lockers. Others, while M. Seurel’s back was turned and he dictated walking from desk to window, quickly closed one eye and applied the other to the greenish hollow view of Notre Dame of Paris. And the unknown pupil, pen in air and his refined profile outlined against the grey pillar, winked his eyes, happy at all the furtive play which had started around him.

Little by little, however, the class became anxious: the objects which were passed round had one by one come to Meaulnes’ hands, but absent-mindedly and without looking at them, he carelessly placed them by his side. They soon mounted up to an angular and diversely coloured heap such as may be seen at the feet of the woman symbolising Science in allegorical pictures. M. Seurel would inevitably discover this unusual display and notice the game. Then he would remember to inquire into the events of the night. The presence of the bohemian would facilitate his task.

Soon, indeed, he stopped, surprised, in front of Admiral Meaulnes.

‘To whom does all this belong?’ he asked, pointing to ‘all this’ with the back of the book folded over his forefinger.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Meaulnes surlily and without raising his head.

But the unknown pupil intervened. ‘They are mine,’ he said.

And at once he added, with a young aristocrat’s ease and freedom of manner which the old schoolmaster could not resist: ‘But I place them at your disposal, sir, if you wish to look at them.’

Then, in a few seconds, without any noise, as if not to disturb the new atmosphere just created, the whole class gathered inquisitively around the master whose head, half bald, half curly, bowed over the treasures, while the pale youth, serenely triumphant in the middle of the group, gave all necessary explanations. Meanwhile, seated silently at his desk and completely forsaken, Admiral Meaulnes had opened his rough notebook and with brow knitted was absorbed in a difficult problem....

* * * * *

The ‘last quarter’ found us thus occupied. The dictation was not finished and disorder reigned in the classroom. To tell the truth, it had been recreation all the morning.

So, at half-past ten, when the dark and muddy playground became invaded by the pupils, a new leader was soon observed to be running the games.

Of all the new plays which the bohemian introduced amongst us that morning, I remember only the most violent: a sort of tournament where the bigger boys were horses with the younger ones hoisted on their shoulders.[5]

Divided into two camps at either end of the playground, they charged each other, seeking to upset the enemy by the force of the shock, and the cavaliers using scarves as lassos or their outstretched arms as spears, tried to unhorse their opponents. Sometimes the charge was dodged, and the cavalier, losing his balance, was sent sprawling in the mud under his mount. Some fellows, half dismounted, were kept up by the horse gripping their legs; they scrambled up again and charged into the fray. The slim cavalier with the bandaged head, mounted on Delage, who had lanky limbs, red hair, and flapping ears, urged on the two rival troops and steered his mount adroitly, shouting with laughter. At first Augustin, in a bad temper, watched from the classroom step as this play started. And I was waiting by his side, uncertain.

‘He’s a clever rascal,’ he said between his teeth, his hands in his pockets. ‘To come here the very next morning, that was the only way to avoid suspicion. And M. Seurel got taken in!’

He remained there a long while, his cropped head bare, fuming at the comedian who would bring to some harm these lads of whom, not so long ago, he, Meaulnes, was the captain. And I, peaceful youngster as I was, entirely agreed with him.

Everywhere on the playground, in the absence of M. Seurel, the fight went on: the smaller boys had now climbed on each other’s backs; they were running and tumbling about even before they received the enemy’s charge.... Soon, in the middle of the playground, there remained only one savage whirling group out of which emerged, now and again, the white bandage of the new leader.

Then Admiral Meaulnes could no longer keep back. Lowering his head and placing his hands on his thighs, he called out: ‘Now for it, François!’

Surprised at this sudden decision, I none the less jumped upon his shoulders without a moment’s hesitation, and in a second we were in the thick of the fray, while most of the combatants, scared, fled away shouting: ‘There’s Meaulnes! There’s Admiral Meaulnes!’

He began to turn sharply round among those who remained, saying to me: ‘Reach out your arms: collar ’em as I did last night.’

And I, intoxicated by the fray and certain of victory, gripped the youngsters as they went by; they struggled a little on the big boys’ shoulders, then toppled off into the mud. In less than no time only the newcomer on Delage remained unthrown; but the latter, not too keen to stand up to Augustin, pulled himself up with a violent jerk of the hips and forced the white rider to dismount....

Thus dismounted, the young fellow, with one hand on his mount’s shoulder as a captain holds his horse’s bridle, looked at Admiral Meaulnes with some astonishment and immense admiration.

‘Good work!’ he said.

But at that very moment the bell rang, dispersing the pupils who had crowded round us in expectation of a queer scene. And Meaulnes, vexed at not having thrown his enemy, turned upon his heels saying with some temper: ‘Next time you’re in for it!’

Up to noon the class went on as at the end of the term, full of comic incidents and chat, the centre of which was the pupil-comedian.

He explained that, being held up by the cold on the square and not even dreaming of arranging evening shows to which no one would come, they had decided he should go to school to amuse himself during the daytime, while his companion looked after the tropical birds and the performing goat. Then he related their wanderings in the neighbourhood, when the rain pelts on the wretched tin roof of the caravan and you have to get out on steep hills and put your shoulder to the wheel. The pupils at the back of the room left their bench to come nearer and listen. The less romantic took that chance of warming themselves at the stove. But soon curiosity got the better of them, and they also drew near the chatting throng to listen, keeping one hand on the top of the stove not to lose their place by it.

‘And what do you live on?’ asked M. Seurel, who had followed the proceedings with the rather childish curiosity of a schoolmaster and was asking a lot of questions.

The youth hesitated a moment as if he had never bothered about that detail.

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘on what we earned last autumn, I suppose. It’s Booby who keeps the accounts.’

No one asked him who Booby was. But I thought of the tall rascal who, on the previous evening, had treacherously attacked Meaulnes from behind and thrown him.