I easily recognised the absurd nose which had been so often drawn in imitation of my own. And now my coat, my beautiful coat, was caricatured too! I knew it was intended for my coat, but how shamefully caricatured! The buttons were made to look the size of dessert plates, and the whole coat appeared like the shell of a large green beetle with my face at the top. To prevent any mistakes upon the subject, the artist had written under the drawing—Bicquerot, or the Green Beetle!
Have you ever received a sudden and totally unexpected blow? If so, you know the feeling of stupefaction that follows—as if one were completely overpowered; then comes the pain which nearly makes one scream. And this is followed by a feeling of blind rage and a thirst for vengeance.
These are the sensations which I experienced on seeing the caricature and afterwards, while my schoolfellows were muttering their lessons round me.
I was astounded! that jacket which I was so proud of—which I thought so much of for many reasons—was caricatured and laughed at by everyone. I felt, too, acute pain at the thought that my mother’s work—that work which was one of the proofs of her great love for me—was made a subject of contemptuous ridicule. I was now wounded in the most sensitive part of my nature.
I felt the great tears rush to my eyes; I would not let them fall, but courageously forced them back. I would not betray the pain and humiliation I was suffering. I buried my head in my hands, and kept my eyes fixed upon my Latin grammar; but, with my mind’s eye, I saw over again my mother seated at work, busy over my jacket, smiling to herself as she stitched away so indefatigably, forgetting all her own weariness in the thought of the pleasure she would give me. Then, beside that picture, rose before me the laughing, the grimacing faces of the insolent boys!
The contrast made me furious! I was so wretched that I determined I would no longer bear it. At that moment my hand, unknown to myself, clenched the leg of the table nearest to me with such violence that the whole table shook; the boys raised their heads in surprise, and the professor begged the pupil “Bicquerot” to keep still.
The pupil Bicquerot said nothing; but when school was over, he walked out of college with his head in the air; his knees trembled with nervous emotion, but his heart was strong and determined.
XLII.
A FIGHT AT LAST.
“Hish! Swish! there goes the Beetle!” cried an impudent voice in my ear.