life was laborious under his ferula, it was also merry. The best proof of
this is the fact that of all his colleagues at the lycée he was the only
one who had no nickname, a rarity in scholastic annals.

He did not therefore object to these lessons; but while at Carpentras he
was made much of and praised by the principal, was a general favourite, and
had perfect liberty to follow his inspiration during his partly gratuitous
classes, here the hours and the programme tied him down, which was
precisely what he found insupportable.

Everything made things difficult for him here: his external self; his
character, ever so little shy and unsocial; his temperament, which was made
for solitude.

In the thick of this hierarchical society of university professors he
remained independent; he knew nothing of what was said or what was
happening in the college, and his colleagues were always better informed
than he. (4/6.) As he was not a fellow, he was made to feel the fact and
was treated as a subordinate; the others, who prided themselves on the
title, and who were incapable of recognizing his merit, which was a little
beyond them, were jealous of him, all the more inasmuch as his name was
momentarily noised abroad, and they revenged themselves by calling him "the
fly" among themselves, by way of allusion to his favourite subject. (4/7.)

Indifferent to distinctions, as well as to those who bore them,
contemptuous of etiquette, and incapable of putting constraint upon his
nature, he remained an "outsider," and refused to comply with a host of
factitious or worldly obligations which he regarded as useless or
disgusting. Thus even at Ajaccio he managed to escape the customary
ceremonies of New Year's Day.