I have said that the philosopher never read a newspaper. If by chance he had opened one a fortnight before he would have found allusions to this history of the young Greslon which more recent trials have caused to be forgotten. For want of this information the summons and the note of the mother had no definite meaning for him. However, by the relation between them he concluded that they were probably connected, and he thought they concerned a certain Robert Greslon, whom he had known the preceding year, in quite simple circumstances. But these circumstances contrasted too strongly with the idea of a criminal process, to guide the conjectures of the savant, and he remained a long time looking at the summons turn by turn with the card, a prey to that almost painful anxiety which the least event of an unexpected nature does inflict on men of fixed habits.
Robert Greslon? M. Sixte had read this name for the first time two years before, at the bottom of a note accompanying a manuscript. This manuscript bore the title: “Contribution to the Study of the Multiplication of Self,” and the note modestly expressed the wish that the celebrated writer would glance at the first essay of a very young man. The author had added to his signature: “Veteran pupil of philosophy at the Clermont-Ferrand Lyceum.”
This work of almost sixty pages revealed an intellect so prematurely subtle, an acquaintance so exact with the most recent theories of contemporaneous psychology, and finally such ingenuity of analysis, that M. Sixte had believed it a duty to respond by a long letter.
A note of thanks had come back immediately, in which the young man announced that, being obliged to go to Paris for the oral examination of the normal school he would have the honor to present himself, to the master.
The latter had then seen enter his study one afternoon, a young man of about twenty years with fine black eyes, lively and changeable, which lighted up a countenance which was almost too pale. This was the only detail of physiognomy which remained in the memory of the philosopher. Like all other speculative persons, he received only a floating impression of the visible world and he retained but a remembrance as vague as this impression. His memory of ideas was, however, surprising, and he recalled to the smallest detail his conversation with Robert Greslon.
Among the young men whom his renown attracted to him, none had astonished him more by the truly extraordinary precocity of his erudition and his reasoning. No doubt there floated in the mind of this youth much of the effervescence of mind which assimilates too quickly vast quantities of diverse knowledge; but what marvelous facility of deduction! What natural eloquence, and what visible sincerity of enthusiasm.
The savant could see him gesticulating a little and saying: “No, monsieur, you do not know what you are to us, nor what we feel in reading your books. You are the one who accepts the whole truth, the one in whom we can believe. Why, the analysis of love in your “Theory of the Passions” is our breviary. The book is forbidden at the Lyceum. I had it at home and two of my comrades copied certain chapters during the holidays.”
As there is the author’s vanity hidden in the soul of every man who has had his prose printed, be he even so absolutely sincere as M. Adrien Sixte certainly was, this worship of a group of scholars, so ingenuously expressed by one of them, had particularly flattered the philosopher.
Robert Greslon had solicited the honor of a second visit, and then while confessing a failure at the normal school, he disclosed a little of his projects.
M. Sixte, contrary to all his habits, had questioned him upon the most minute details. He had thus learned that the young man was the only son of an engineer who had died without leaving a fortune, and that his mother had made many sacrifices in order to educate him. “But I will accept no more,” said Robert, “it is my intention to take my degree next year, then I shall ask for a chair of philosophy in some college, and I will write an extended work on the variation of personality, of which the essay that I submitted to you is the embryo.” And the eyes of the young psychologist grew more brilliant as he formulated this programme of life.