nd then. The little woman sighed, and twice Jack heard her
say, as did the priest,--"Poor child!"
She also pitied him. And why? What was he, then, that they pitied him?
Jack asked himself.
This compassion that others felt for him weighed sorely on his little
heart. He could have wept with shame, for in his childish mind he
attributed this disdainful compassion to some peculiarity of costume,
his bare legs, or his long curls.
But he thought of his mother's despair. Should he meet with another
refusal? Suddenly he saw Constant draw her purse and hand to the
principal some notes and gold pieces. Yes, they were going to keep
him. He was delighted, poor child, for he little knew that the great
misfortune of his life was now inaugurated there in that room.
At this moment a tremendous bass voice came up from the garden below,
singing the chorus of an old song. The windows of the room had not
recovered from the shock, when a stout, short man, in a velvet coat,
close-cut hair, and heavy beard, burst into the room.
"Hallo!" he cried, in a tone of comic astonishment, "a fire in the
parlor? What a luxury!" and he drew a long breath. In fact, the
new-comer was in the habit of drawing long breaths at the end of each
sentence, a habit he had acquired in singing; and these breaths were
almost like the roaring of a wild beast. Catching sight of the strangers
and the pile of money, he stopped short with the words on his lips.
Delight and surprise succeeded each other on his countenance, whose
muscles seemed habituated to all facial contortions.
Moronval turned gravely toward the waiting woman. "M. Labassandre, of
the Imperial Academy of Music, our Professor of Music." Labassandre
bowed once, twice, three times, and then, by way of restoring his
self-possession, and putting matters at once on a pleasant footing for
all parties, administered a kick to the black boy, who did not seem at
all astonished, but picked himself up and disappeared from the room.
The door again opened, and two persons entered. One was very ugly--a
mean face without a beard, huge spectacles with convex glasses, and
wearing an overcoat buttoned to the chin, which bore all up and down the
front too visible indications of-the awkwardness of a near-sighted man.
This was Dr. Hirsch, Professor of Mathematics and of Natural Sciences.
He exhaled a strong odor of alkalies, and, thanks to his chemical
manipulations, his fingers were every color of the rainbow. Th
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