k's self-satisfaction _plus_ the
arrogance of the self-taught artisan. The general result of reading
the production was utter amazement that the Permanent Secretary of
the Academie Francaise and the official representatives of science
and literature could have been taken in for two or three years by an
ignorant dwarf with a brain crammed full of the refuse of libraries and
the ill-digested parings of books. This constituted the extraordinary
joke of the whole business, and was the explanation of the crowded
court. People came to see the Academie pilloried in the person of
Astier-Rehu, who sat among the witnesses, the mark of every eye. There
he sat without moving, absorbed in his thoughts, not turning his head,
and hardly answering the fulsome compliments of Freydet who was standing
behind, with black gloves and a deep crape hat-band, having quite
recently lost his sister. He had been summoned for the defence, and the
Academic candidate was afraid that the fact might damage him in the eyes
of his old master. He was apologising and explaining how he had come
across the wretched Fage in Vedrine's studio, and that was the reason
of this unexpected call. But his whispers were lost in the noise of the
court and the monotonous hum from the bench, as cases were called on and
disposed of, the invariable 'This day week, this day week' descending
like the stroke of the guillotine and cutting short the barrister's
protest, and the entreaties of poor red-faced fellows mopping their
brows before the seat of justice. 'But, Monsieur le President...' 'This
day week.' Sometimes from the back of the court would come a cry and a
despairing movement of a pair of arms, 'I am here, M. le President, but
I can't get through, there's such a crowd...' 'This day week.' When a
man has beheld such clearances as these, and seen the symbolic scales
operate with such dexterity, he gets a vivid impression of French
justice; it is not unlike the sensation of hearing the funeral service
raced through in a hurry by a strange priest over a pauper's grave.

The voice of the President called for the Fage case. Complete silence
followed in the court, and even on the staircase landing where people
had climbed on to benches to see. Then after a short consultation on the
bench the witnesses filed out through a dense crowd of gowns on their
way to the little room reserved for them, a dreary empty place, badly
lighted by glass windows that had once been red, and lo