And arithmetic? Yes, we did a little of this but not under that learned name. We called it sums. To put down rows of figures, not too long, add them and subtract them one from the other was more or less familiar work. On Saturday evenings, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boy stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. Isay twelve times, for in those days, because of our old duodecimal measures, it was the custom to count as far as the twelve times table, instead of the ten times of the metric system. When this recital was over, the whole class, the little ones included, took it up in chorus, creating such an uproar that chicks and porkers took to flight if they happened to be there. And this went on to twelve times twelve, the first in the row starting the next table and the whole class repeating it as loud as it could yell. Of all that we were taught in school, the multiplication table was what we knew best, for this noisy method ended by dinning the different numbers into our ears. This does not mean that we became skilful reckoners. The cleverest of us easily got muddled with the figures to be carried in a multiplication sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who reached such heights. In short, the moment a problem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than to the learned aid of arithmetic.
When all is said, our master was an excellent man who could have kept school very well but for his lack of one thing; and that was time. He devoted to us all the little leisure which his numerous functions left him. And, first of all, he managed the property of an absentee landowner, who only occasionally set foot in the village. He had under his care an old castle with four towers, which had become so many pigeon houses; he directed the getting in of the hay, the walnuts, the apples and the oats. We used to help him during the summer, when the school, which was well attended in winter, was almost deserted. All that remained, because they were not yet big enough to work in the fields, were a few children, including him who was one day to set down these memorable facts.
Lessons at that time were less dull. They were often given on the hay or on the straw; oftener still, lesson time was spent in cleaning out the dovecote or stamping on the snails that had sallied in rainy weather from their fortresses, the tall box borders of the garden belonging to the castle.
Our master was a barber. With his light hand, which was so clever at beautifying our copies with curlicue birds, he shaved the notabilities of the place: the mayor, the parish priest, the notary. Our master was a bell ringer. A wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons: he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday: the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir singer. With his mighty voice, he filled the church when he led the Magnificat at vespers. Our master wound up and regulated the village clock.
This was his proudest function. Giving a glance at the sun, to ascertain the time more or less nearly, he would climb to the top of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters and find himself in a maze of wheels and springs whereof the secret was known to him alone.
With such a school and such a master and such examples, what will become of my embryo tastes, as yet so imperceptible? In that environment, they seem bound to perish, stifled for ever. Yet no, the germ has life; it works in my veins, never to leave them again.
It finds nourishment everywhere, down to the cover of my penny alphabet, embellished with a crude picture of a pigeon which Istudy and contemplate much more zealously than the A B C. Its round eye, with its circlet of dots, seems to smile upon me. Its wing, of which I count the feathers one by one, tells me of flights on high, among the beautiful clouds; it carries me to the beeches raising their smooth trunks above a mossy carpet studded with white mushrooms that look like eggs dropped by some vagrant hen; it takes me to the snow-clad peaks where the birds leave the starry print of their red feet. He is a fine fellow, my pigeon friend: he consoles me for the woes hidden behind the cover of my book. Thanks to him, I sit quietly on my bench and wait more or less till school is over.
School out of doors has other charms. When the master takes us to kill the snails in the box borders, I do not always scrupulously fulfil my office as an exterminator. My heel sometimes hesitates before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets with the handsomest, so as to feast my eyes on them at my leisure.
On hay making days in the master's field, I strike up an acquaintance with the frog. Flayed and stuck at the end of a split stick, he serves as bait to tempt the crayfish to come out of his retreat by the brook side. On the alder trees I catch the Hoplia, the splendid scarab who pales the azure of the heavens. I pick the narcissus and learn to gather, with the tip of my tongue, the tiny drop of honey that lies right at the bottom of the cleft corolla.
I also learn that too long indulgence in this feast brings a headache; but this discomfort in no way impairs my admiration for the glorious white flower, which wears a narrow red collar at the throat of its funnel.
When we go to beat the walnut trees, the barren grass plots provide me with locusts spreading their wings, some into a blue fan, others into a red. And thus the rustic school, even in the heart of winter, furnished continuous food for my interest in things. There was no need for precept and example: my passion for animals and plants made progress of itself.
