Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/47

Rh Laurent took delight in what the voracious little beasts had the good grace to leave him of this literature. Often he became so absorbed in his reading that he forgot all precautions. Walking on tip-toe so that she might give him no warning, Felicité would take him by surprise in his asylum. If she did not catch him red-handed at the prohibited reading, the old devil would perceive that he had rummaged over the shelves and upset the books. Then came a squall from the shrew, and howls from the punished, which ended by exciting Cousin Lydia.

Once he was caught in the act of reading "Paul and Virginia." "A bad book! You would do better to study your arithmetic!" she admonished. And Monsieur Dobouziez ratified the decree of his better half by adding that the precocious scapegrace, too great a reader and too much the dreamer, would never amount to anything, would remain all his life a poor devil like Jacques Paridael. A dreamer! What scorn Cousin William put into that word!

On winter evenings, Laurent rejoiced in gaining his dear attic as early as he could. Downstairs in the dining-room, where they detained him after dinner, he felt himself a bore and a nuisance. Why did they not send him up to bed! If he suppressed a desire to stretch, if he yawned, if he took his eyes off the school book before the clock struck ten, the sacramental hour. Cousin Lydia would roll her round eyes, and Gina would bridle, affecting to be more wide awake than ever, and chiding the boy for his temper.

Even during the day, after some remonstrance or other, Laurent would run for his refuge under the roof.

Deprived of his books, he opened the skylight,