“I know that I want money,” repeated Jehan for the third time.
“And what would you do with it?”
This question made the light of hope shine in Jehan’s eyes. He resumed his demure, caressing manner.
“See here, dear brother Claude; I do not come to you with any evil intention. I don’t want to cut a dash at the tavern with your money, or to walk the streets of Paris in garments of gold brocade with my lackey, cum meo laquasio. No, brother; I want the money for a charity.”
“What charity?” asked Claude with some surprise.
“There are two of my friends who want to buy an outfit for the child of a poor widow in the Haudry almshouse. It is a real charity. It will cost three florins; I want to give my share.”
“Who are your two friends?”
“Pierre l‘Assommeur and Baptiste Croque-Oison.”cp
“Hum!” said the archdeacon; “those names are as fit for charity as a bombard for the high altar.”
Certainly Jehan had chosen very suspicious names for his two friends, as he felt when it was too late.
“And then,” added the sagacious Claude, “what kind of an outfit could you buy for three florins, and for the child of one of the women in the Haudry almshouse, too? How long have those widows had babies in swaddling-clothes?”
Jehan broke the ice once more:—
“Well, then, if I must tell you, I want the money to go to see Isabeau la Thierrye tonight, at the Val-d‘Amour.”
“Impure scamp!” cried the priest.
“‘Avaγvεíα,” said Jehan.
This quotation, borrowed, perhaps maliciously, by the student from the wall of the cell, produced a strange effect upon the priest. He bit his lip, and his rage was extinguished in a blush.
“Begone!” said he to Jehan. “I am expecting some one.”
The student made another effort,— “Brother Claude, at least give me a few farthings for food.”
“How far have you got in Gratian’s decretals?” asked Dom Claude.
“I’ve lost my copy-books.”
“Where are you in the Latin humanities?”
“Somebody has stolen my copy of Horace.”
“Where are you in Aristotle?”
“My faith, brother! what Father of the Church says that the errors of heretics have in all ages taken refuge in the brambles of Aristotle’s metaphysics? Plague take Aristotle! I will not destroy my religion with his metaphysics.”
“Young man,” resumed the archdeacon, “at the king’s last entry there was a gentleman called Philippe de Comines, who had embroidered on his horse’s housings this motto, which I advise you to consider: ‘Qui non laborat non manducet.”’cq
The student was silent for a moment, his finger to his ear, his eye fixed upon the ground, and an angry air.
Suddenly he turned to Claude with the lively quickness of a water wagtail,— “So, good brother, you refuse to give me a penny to buy a crust from a baker?”
“‘Qm non laborat non manducet.’”
At this reply from the inflexible archdeacon, Jehan hid his face in his hands like a woman sobbing, and exclaimed in accents of despair,
“What do you mean by that, sir?” asked Claude, amazed at this outburst.
“Why,” said the student,—and he looked up at Claude with impudent eyes into which he had just rubbed his fists to make them look red with crying,—“it is Greek! It is an anapaest of ?schylus which expresses grief perfectly.”
And here he burst into laughter so absurd and so violent that it made the archdeacon smile. It was really Claude’s fault; why had he so spoiled the child?
“Oh, good brother Claude,” added Jehan, emboldened by this smile, “just see my broken buskins! Was there ever more tragic cothurnus on earth than boots with flapping soles?”
The archdeacon had promptly resumed his former severity.
“I will send you new boots, but no money.”
“Only a paltry penny, brother,” continued the suppliant Jehan. “I will learn Gratian by heart. I will believe heartily in God. I will be a regular Pythagoras of learning and virtue. But give me a penny, for pity’s sake! Would you have me devoured by famine, which gapes before me with its jaws blacker, more noisome, deeper than Tartarus or a monk’s nose?”
Dom Claude shook his wrinkled brow: “‘Qm non laborat,-”’
Jehan did not let him finish.
“Well, then,” he cried, “to the devil! Hurrah for fun! I’ll go to the tavern, I’ll fight, I’ll drink, and I’ll go to see the girls!”