Laura burst out laughing, and she accompanied her brother back to Valencia. Cæsar’s mother wished the lad to take his law course there, but Cæsar decided to do it in Madrid.
“A provincial capital is an insupportable place,” he said.
Cæsar went to Madrid and rented a study and a bed-room, cheap and unrestricted.
He boarded in one house and lodged at another. Thus he felt more free.
Cæsar believed that it was not worth the trouble to study law seriously; and he imagined moreover that to study so many routine conceptions, which may be false, such as the conception of the soul, of equity, of responsibility, etc., would bring him to a shyster lawyer’s vulgar and affected idea of life. To counteract this tendency he devoted himself to studying zoology at the University, and the next year he took a course in physiology at San Carlos.
At the same time he did not neglect the stock exchange; his great pride was to acquaint himself thoroughly with the details of the speculations made and to talk in the crowds.
As a student he was mediocre. He learned the secret of passing examinations well with the minimum of effort, and practised it. He found that by knowing only a couple of things under each heading of the program, it was enough for him to answer and to pass well. And so, from the beginning of each course, he marked in the text the two or three lines of every page which seemed to him to comprise the essential, and having learned those, considered his knowledge sufficient.
Cæsar had a deep contempt for the University and for his fellow-students; all their rows and manifestations seemed to him repulsively flat and stupid.
Alzugaray was studying law too, and had obtained a clerkship in a Ministry. Alzugaray got drunk on music. His great enthusiasm was for playing the ‘cello. Cæsar used to call on him at his office and at home.
The clerks at the Ministry seemed to Cæsar to form part of an inferior human race.