Moreover, it all soon came to an end. The weather turned rainy, and we spent most of our time indoors. In the garden the first form smoked freely enough, but when we were indoors the smoking club was ‘the tower.’ It was kept beautifully clean, and a fire was always burning there. The pages de chambre severely punished any of the other boys whom they caught smoking, but they themselves sat continually at the fireside chattering and enjoying cigarettes. Their favourite smoking time was after ten o’clock at night, when all were supposed to have gone to bed; they kept up their club till half-past eleven, and, to protect themselves from an unexpected interruption by Girardot, they ordered us to be on the watch. The small boys of the fifth form were taken out of their beds in turn, two at a time, and they had to loiter about the staircase till half-past eleven, to give notice of the approach of the Colonel.
We decided to put an end to these night watches. Long were the discussions, and the higher forms were consulted as to what was to be done. At last the decision came: ‘Refuse, all of you, to keep the watch; and when they begin to beat you, which they are sure to do, go, as many of you as you can, in a block, and call in Girardot. He knows it all, but then he will be bound to stop it.’ The question whether that would not be ‘reporting’ was settled in the negative by experts in matters of honour: the pages de chambre did not behave towards the others like comrades.
The turn to watch fell that night to a Prince Shahovskóy, an old hand, and to Selánoff, a new-comer, an extremely timid boy, who even spoke in a girlish voice. The old hand was called upon first, but refused to go, and was left alone. Then two pages de chambre went to the timid new-comer, who was in bed; and as he refused to obey, they began to flog him brutally with heavy leather braces. Shahovskóy woke up several comrades who were near at hand, and they all ran to find Girardot.
I was also in bed when the two came upon me, ordering me to take the watch. I refused. Thereupon, seizing two pairs of braces—we always used to put our clothes in perfect order on a bench by the bedside, braces uppermost, and the necktie across them—they began to flog me. Sitting up in bed, I fenced with my hands, and had already received several heavy blows, when a command resounded, ‘The first form to the Colonel!’ The fierce fighters became tame at once, and hurriedly put my things in order.
‘Don’t say a word,’ they whispered.
‘The necktie across, in good order,’ I said to them, while my shoulders and arms burned from the blows.
What Girardot’s talk with the first form was we did not know; but next day, as we stood in the ranks before marching downstairs to the dining-room, he addressed us in a minor key, saying how sad it was that pages de chambre should have fallen upon a boy who was right in his refusal. And upon whom? A new-comer, and so timid a boy as Selánoff was! The whole school was disgusted at this Jesuitic speech.
It surely was also a blow to Girardot’s authority, and he resented it very much. He regarded our form, and me especially, with great dislike (the roundabout affair had been reported to him), and he manifested it at every opportunity.
During the first winter I was a frequent inmate of the hospital. After suffering from typhoid fever, during which the director and the doctor bestowed on me a really parental care, I had very bad and persistently recurring gastric attacks. Girardot, as he made his daily rounds of the hospital, seeing me so often there, began to say to me every morning, half-jokingly, in French, ‘Here is a young man who is as healthy as the New Bridge, and loiters in the hospital.’ Once or twice I replied jestingly, but at last, seeing malice in this constant repetition, I lost patience and grew very angry.
‘How dare you say that?’ I exclaimed. ‘I shall ask the doctor to forbid your entering this room,’ and so on.