At this response of the inflexible archdeacon, Jehan hid his head in his hands, like a woman sobbing, and exclaimed with an expression of despair: “Ὀτοτοτοτοτοῖ.”
“What is the meaning of this, sir?” demanded Claude, surprised at this freak.
“What indeed!” said the scholar; and he lifted to Claude his impudent eyes into which he had just thrust his fists in order to communicate to them the redness of tears; “’tis Greek! ’tis an anapæst of Æschylus which expresses grief perfectly.”
And here he burst into a laugh so droll and violent that it made the archdeacon smile. It was Claude’s fault, in fact: why had he so spoiled that child?
“Oh! good Brother Claude,” resumed Jehan, emboldened by this smile, “look at my worn out boots. Is there a cothurnus in the world more tragic than these boots, whose soles are hanging out their tongues?”
The archdeacon promptly returned to his original severity.
“I will send you some new boots, but no money.”
“Only a poor little parisis, brother,” continued the suppliant Jehan. “I will learn Gratian by heart, I will believe firmly in God, I will be a regular Pythagoras of science and virtue. But one little parisis, in mercy! Would you have famine bite me with its jaws which are gaping in front of me, blacker, deeper, and more noisome than a Tartarus or the nose of a monk?”
Dom Claude shook his wrinkled head: “Qui non laborat—”
Jehan did not allow him to finish.