The others deemed it best to let them go, and Jasmin asked Monsieur Gérondif, with a respectful air, if he were willing to give lessons to his young master, who had learned nothing as yet, and to whom it was high time that some attention should be paid if they wished him to have any education.
Monsieur Gérondif received the proposal with delight; he shook Jasmin’s hand warmly and said:
“Trust me, we will make up for lost time. I will make the young marquis work like a horse.”
“Oh, no!” cried the old servant, “my young master is very delicate; he isn’t used to studying and you will make him ill; you must go gently with him.”
“Of course, of course!” replied Gérondif, scratching his nose. “When I say like a horse, I use a figure of speech—a metaphor, if you prefer; we will go piano et sano—ecce rem! In addition to writing and mathematics, I will teach monsieur le marquis his own language, root and branch, so that he may speak it as I do; that is to say, with elegance; also Latin, Greek, Italian, philosophy, history, ancient and modern, mythology, rhetoric, the art of versification, geography, astronomy, a little physics, and chemistry, and mineralogy, and——”
“Oh! that is enough, monsieur le professeur!” cried Jasmin, bewildered by all that he heard, and aghast with admiration at Monsieur Gérondif’s learning. “When my young master knows all those things, he will be quite learned enough.”
“If you wish for anything more, you have only to speak; I venture to say that so far as learning is concerned, I am a well, a genuine well. At the age of five, I took a prize for memory, and at seven I had three wreaths on my head, wreaths of oak, like the Druids, ancient priests of Gaul, who worshipped Teutates, or Mercury, and the mistletoe, a parasite which, according to them, cured all diseases. I don’t agree with them, for I have corns which pain me terribly; I put mistletoe on them, and they hurt me worse than ever.”
Jasmin dared not breathe while Monsieur Gérondif was speaking; the nurse and her husband shared his admiration, and the schoolmaster, well pleased with the effect that he had produced, was listening to himself with much complaisance when the old servant interrupted him to say:
“A thousand pardons, monsieur, if I venture to slip in a word, but it seems to me necessary to agree upon terms; how much will you take a month to teach my young master all these things, it being understood that you will come every day except Sunday?”
Monsieur Gérondif reflected a few moments, and replied at last in a hesitating manner: