Shut up in his room, he was filled with a great pity for himself and longed to recover the peace of mind, the calm of the senses, the happy life that had vanished along with the leaf he had abandoned that evening to the drifting current. He opened a novel, but at the first mention of love he pitched the volume down, and fell to reading a book of travel, following the steps of an English explorer into the reed palace of the King of Uganda. He ascended the Upper Nile to Urondogami; hippopotamuses snorted in the swamps, waders and guinea-fowl rose in flight, while a herd of antelopes sped flying through the tall grasses. He was recalled from far, far away by his aunt shouting up the stairs:
"Jean! Jean! come down into the shop; your father wants you."
A stout, red-faced man, with the bent shoulders that come of much stooping over the desk, sat beside the counter. Monsieur Servien's eyes rested on his face with a deprecating air.
When the boy appeared, the stranger asked if this was the young man in question, adding in a scolding voice:
"You are all the same. You work and sweat and wear yourselves out to make your sons bachelors of arts, and you think the day after the examination the fine fellows will be posted Ambassadors. For God's sake! no more graduates, if you please! We can't tell what to do with 'em…. Graduates indeed! Why, they block the road; they are cab-drivers, they distribute handbills in the streets. You have 'em dying in hospital, rotting in the hulks! Why didn't you teach your son your own trade? Why didn't you make a bookbinder of him? … Oh! I know why; you needn't tell me,—out of ambition! Well, then! some day your son will die of starvation, blushing for your folly—and a good job too! The State! you say, the State! it's the only word you can put your tongues to. But it's cluttered up, the State is! Take the Treasury; you send us graduates who can't spell; what d'ye expect us to do with all these loafers?"
He drew his hand across his hot forehead. Then pointing a finger to show he was addressing Jane:
"At any rate, you write a good hand?"
Monsieur Servien answered for his son, saying it was legible.
"Legible! Legible!" repeated the great man—throwing his fat hands about. "A copying clerk must write an even hand. Young man, do you write an even hand?"
Jean said he did not know, his handwriting might have been spoilt, he had never thought very much about it. His questioner frowned: