At one o'clock I returned to the college: all the lads had had their dinner sent in to them from their homes; the greater number of these dinners, let it be said, to the parents' honour, consisted of a simple slice of dry bread.
The complaints and groans had stopped, but the threatenings had increased, the clouds were lowering and full of lightnings. I could not raise my nose from the paper upon which I was declining rosa but I caught sight of a fist which had nothing in common with the declension I was writing out.
I realised that, when I went out, I was going to be beaten to pulp. The bigger boys were too conscious of their superior strength to threaten the most, for they felt they could not take revenge on a child: the worst were those of about my own age, specially a lad called Bligny, the son of a draper, living in the place de la Fontaine, who was so angry with me that by common consent the task of taking a general vengeance on me was consigned to him. Bligny was two years older than I, so that I had been used to look upon him as a big lad, although I was really as tall as he.
I was therefore not too well at ease at the prospect of a duel with him.
Still, I had so often heard the story of the three duels my father had fought when he first entered the army, on behalf of the honour of the king and the queen, that I knew I must not shirk my first fight.
I was so preoccupied that I made quite a dozen mistakes in the three or four declensions I had to do during school hours.
I do not know how long the time may have seemed to my companions, but I know that never before had it seemed to me to fly so fast. Four o'clock struck, and the Abbé Grégoire said his prayer before I thought half the class was over.
There was nothing to be done but to leave, and I decided upon my line of action. I tied up my books in as leisurely a fashion as possible, hoping that, if I went down the staircase last, the torrent would have flown by and I should find a free passage; yet I knew in my inmost heart that I had brought too great a punishment down on my head by my denunciation to get off so cheaply.
I could have spoken to the Abbé Grégoire, and he would himself have taken me home or sent his sister Alexandrine with me; but I felt that that would be cowardly, and would only defer matters. M. Grégoire or his sister could not always conduct me home; there would come a day when I should be obliged to go by myself, and then I should be certain to have a brush with one or other of my schoolfellows.
I resolved, therefore, to face the danger and to take the bull by the horns.