The curé's house was at one end of a small lake which communicated with the sea through a narrow channel choked with aquatic plants. In the morning the roar of the tide woke me in my open room. From my window I would watch the irresistible advance of the great green ocean under a pink and grey sky. Wild duck and curlew wheeled overhead with their plaintive cries. What a temptation to stay there for ever! To watch the calm passage of the seasons. To be free from social ties, official routine, or any link with life. To spend all day and every day on the long straight dunes, where the great waves roll up ceaselessly in the wind and the jelly-fish thrown up high and dry on the silvery sand look for all the world like amethyst pendants.

Then one October morning came two letters, one from the Bordeaux Academy which announced that the Consultative Committee "regretted they had been unable to give favourable consideration to my application for a post." The other was signed by Monsieur Thierry, Professor of Germanic Language and Literature at the Sorbonne. This good man and conscientious scholar had been my tutor for a year, and he it was who had corrected the thesis I submitted in July for my licence—on "Clausewitz and France," of all things. I had never had anything but praise for him. I knew he cherished friendly feelings for me and possibly reproached himself somewhat. He was on the Committee and his letter was an endeavour to justify the decision. Personally he had done what he could, but some of the members had expressed doubts as to my suitability for the teaching profession, and on this point even he himself had to confess he spoke without much conviction. But in any case, it was better thus. He could not imagine me a provincial student. "Return at once," he ended up, "there is perhaps a way out which will enable you to live in Paris."

I bade farewell to my good old curé, promising him to return in the January vacation, and next day I stepped out on the platform of the Gare d'Orsay.

It was already winter. You could easily count the statues in the leafless Luxemburg. The fire was crackling in M. Thierry's little room in the Rue Royer-Collard.

"My dear boy," he began—and lonely as I was, I felt extremely grateful for this preface—"you mustn't think hardly of the Committee. It is the duty of my colleagues to keep a single eye on the interests of the University, and you yourself won't deny that in your work you have often displayed—how shall I put it?—a spirit of fancy, yes, a spirit of fancy likely to alarm folk so ... serious-minded. I, of course, know you, and it's another matter. I know that that spirit under good guidance will become nothing more than a pleasant originality. But first let me put a question. Do you really feel a call to the teaching profession?"

What reply was to be expected from a man with exactly one hundred and seven francs and a few centimes in his pocket? I stoutly protested my conviction.

"Well," he went on, "I have the very thing for you. That post would have given you one thousand two hundred francs at the most. I have recommended you to an old friend of mine who is director at the Ternes, a private institution. He is looking out for a history teacher. Six hours a week for one hundred and seventy-five francs a month, and the chance of some private tuition. For example, you may, if you wish, continue your own studies at the Sorbonne at the same time. I know you and will make myself responsible for you. It is now Tuesday. If you like the prospect you can start on Friday."

I felt the harsh, cold grip of usherdom upon my neck. Oh, those Champs-Elysées! The furswathed women with their entrancing wake of perfume behind them! But how could I fail to "like the prospect"? One hundred and seven francs and a few centimes....

I overwhelmed him with my gratitude.

He rubbed his hands.