Quicherat, or some other professor at the school, to show him what
an ignoramus he is. I consider him neither more nor less than a
rascal; and really, now that I come to think of it, what he said
about Michelet awhile ago was quite insufferable, outrageous! To
talk in that way about an old master replete with genius! It was
simply abominable!"


April 17.


"Therese, give me my new hat, my best frock-coat, and my silver-
headed cane."

But Therese is deaf as a sack of charcoal and slow as Justice.
Years have made her so. The worst is that she thinks she can hear
well and move about well; and, proud of her sixty years of upright
domesticity, she serves her old master with the most vigilant
despotism.

"What did I tell you?" ...And now she will not give me my silver-
headed cane, for fear that I might lose it! It is true that I often
forget umbrellas and walking-sticks in the omnibuses and booksellers'
shops. But I have a special reason for wanting to take out with me
to-day my old cane with the engraved silver head representing Don
Quixote charging a windmill, lance in rest, while Sancho Panza,
with uplifted arms, vainly conjures him to a stop. That cane is
all that came to me from the heritage of my uncle, Captain Victor,
who in his lifetime resembled Don Quixote much more than Sancho
Panza, and who loved blows quite as much as most people fear them.