that was
felt for me by my family, I sank into a horrible distrust of myself. A
second fall of snow checked the seeds that were germinating in my soul.
The boys whom I most liked were notorious scamps; this fact roused my
pride and I held aloof. Again I was shut up within myself and had no
vent for the feelings with which my heart was full. The master of the
school, observing that I was gloomy, disliked by my comrades, and always
alone, confirmed the family verdict as to my sulky temper. As soon as I
could read and write, my mother transferred me to Pont-le-Voy, a school
in charge of Oratorians who took boys of my age into a form called the
"class of the Latin steps" where dull lads with torpid brains were apt
to linger.

There I remained eight years without seeing my family; living the life
of a pariah,--partly for the following reason. I received but three
francs a month pocket-money, a sum barely sufficient to buy the pens,
ink, paper, knives, and rules which we were forced to supply ourselves.
Unable to buy stilts or skipping-ropes, or any of the things that were
used in the playground, I was driven out of the games; to gain admission
on suffrage I should have had to toady the rich and flatter the strong
of my division. My heart rose against either of these meannesses, which,
however, most children readily employ. I lived under a tree, lost in
dejected thought, or reading the books distributed to us monthly by the
librarian. How many griefs were in the shadow of that solitude; what
genuine anguish filled my neglected life! Imagine what my sore heart
felt when, at the first distribution of prizes,--of which I obtained
the two most valued, namely, for theme and for translation,--neither my
father nor my mother was present in the theatre when I came forward to
receive the awards amid general acclamations, although the building was
filled with the relatives of all my comrades. Instead of kissing the
distributor, according to custom, I burst into tears and threw myself on
his breast. That night I burned my crowns in the stove. The parents of
the other boys were in town for a whole week preceding the distribution
of the prizes, and my comrades departed joyfully the next day; while I,
whose father and mother were only a few miles distant, remained at the
school with the "outremers,"--a name given to scholars whose families
were in the colonies or in foreign countries.

You will notice throughout how my unhappiness increas