“You interpret the bosses on the shield of Æneas and yet your own tie is crumpled. You are ridiculous on both counts. You are no man of the world. You should teach yourself, then, at least, how to live the inner life and should cultivate within yourself a wealthy kingdom.”
On New Year’s Day he had always grounds for bewailing his destiny, before he set out to pay his respects to two vulgar, offensive fellows, for such were the rector and the dean. The rector, M. Leterrier, could not bear him. This feeling was a natural antipathy that grew as regularly as a plant and brought forth fruit every year. M. Leterrier, a professor of philosophy and the author of a text-book which summed up all systems of thought, had the blind dogmatic instincts of the official teacher. No doubt whatever remained in his mind touching the questions of the good, the beautiful and the true, the characteristics of which he had summarised in one chapter of his work (pages 216 to 262). Now he regarded M. Bergeret as a dangerous and misguided man, and M. Bergeret, in his turn, fully appreciated the perfect sincerity of the dislike he aroused in M. Leterrier. Nor, in fact, did he make any complaint against it; sometimes he even treated it with an indulgent smile. On the other hand, he felt abjectly miserable whenever he met the dean, M. Torquet, who never had an idea in his head, and who, although he was crammed with learning, still retained the brain of a positive ignoramus. He was a fat man with a low forehead and no cranium to speak of, who did nothing all day but count the knobs of sugar in his house and the pears in his garden, and who would go on hanging bells, even when one of his professional colleagues paid him a visit. In doing mischief he showed an activity and a something approaching intelligence which filled M. Bergeret with amazement. Such thoughts as these were in the professor’s mind, as he put on his overcoat to go and wish M. Torquet a happy New Year.
Yet he took a certain pleasure in being out of doors, for in the street he could enjoy that most priceless blessing, the liberty of the mind. In front of the Two Satyrs at the corner of the Tintelleries, he paused for a moment to give a friendly glance at the little acacia which stretched its bare branches over the wall of Lafolie’s garden.
“Trees in winter,” thought he, “take on an aspect of homely beauty that they never show in all the pomp of foliage and flowers. It is in winter that they reveal their delicate structure, that they show their charming framework of black coral: these are no skeletons, but a multitude of pretty little limbs in which life slumbers. If I were a landscape-painter....”
As he stood wrapt in these reflections, a portly man called him by name, seized his arm and walked on with him. This was M. Compagnon, the most popular of all the professors, the idolised master who gave his mathematical lectures in the great amphitheatre.
“Hullo! my dear Bergeret, happy New Year. I bet you’re going to call on the dean. So am I. We’ll walk on together.”
“Gladly,” answered M. Bergeret, “since in that way I shall travel pleasantly towards a painful goal. For I must confess it is no pleasure to me to see M. Torquet.”
On hearing this uncalled-for confidence, M. Compagnon, whether instinctively or inadvertently it was hard to say, withdrew the hand which he had slipped under his colleague’s arm.
“Yes, yes, I know! You and the dean don’t get on very well. Yet in general he isn’t a man who is difficult to get on with.”
“In speaking to you as I have done,” answered M. Bergeret, “I was not even thinking of the hostility which, according to report, the dean persists in keeping up towards me. But it chills me to the very marrow whenever I come in contact with a man who is totally lacking in imagination of any kind. What really saddens is not the idea of injustice and hatred, nor is it the sight of human misery. Quite the contrary, in fact, for we find the misfortunes of our fellows quite laughable, if only they are shown to us from a humorous standpoint. But those gloomy souls on whom the outer world seems to make no impression, those beings who have the faculty of ignoring the entire universe—the very sight of them reduces me to distress and desperation. My intercourse with M. Torquet is really one of the most painful misfortunes of my life.”