e excited, you will make me hold my
peace."

"Speak."

"I obey.

"Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of
Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful
work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand
francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the
provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to
give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him,
and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu
Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies,
and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament;
but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine,
entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications
of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man
of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often
rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in
tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now
in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to
amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever
there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely
ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his
teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too
intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters
as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the
Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was
interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of
mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered
punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of
singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during
the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of
wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or
stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied
the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he
always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove
the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that
the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college
traditions, he was expe