No one answers.
Blondeau, filled with hope, repeats more loudly:
‘Marius Pontmercy!’ And he takes his pen.
Monsieur, I have bowels of compassion.
I said to myself hastily:
‘Here’s a brave fellow who is going to get scratched out.
Attention.
Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact.
He’s not a good student.
Here is none of your heavy-sides, a student who studies, a greenhorn pedant, strong on letters, theology, science, and sapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square; a pin by profession.
He is an honorable idler who lounges, who practises country jaunts, who cultivates the grisette, who pays court to the fair sex, who is at this very moment, perhaps, with my mistress.
Let us save him.
Death to Blondeau!’
At that moment, Blondeau dipped his pen in, all black with erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyes round the audience room, and repeated for the third time:
‘Marius Pontmercy!’ I replied: ‘Present!’
This is why you were not crossed off.”
“Monsieur!—” said Marius.
“And why I was,” added Laigle de Meaux.
“I do not understand you,” said Marius.
Laigle resumed:— “Nothing is more simple.
I was close to the desk to reply, and close to the door for the purpose of flight.
The professor gazed at me with a certain intensity.
All of a sudden, Blondeau, who must be the malicious nose alluded to by Boileau, skipped to the letter L.
L is my letter.
I am from Meaux, and my name is Lesgle.”
“L’Aigle!” interrupted Marius, “what fine name!”
“Monsieur, Blondeau came to this fine name, and called:
‘Laigle!’ I reply: ‘Present!’
Then Blondeau gazes at me, with the gentleness of a tiger, and says to me:
‘If you are Pontmercy, you are not Laigle.’
A phrase which has a disobliging air for you, but which was lugubrious only for me.
That said, he crossed me off.”
Marius exclaimed:— “I am mortified, sir—”
“First of all,” interposed Laigle, “I demand permission to embalm Blondeau in a few phrases of deeply felt eulogium.
I will assume that he is dead.
There will be no great change required in his gauntness, in his pallor, in his coldness, and in his smell.
And I say: ‘Erudimini qui judicatis terram.
Here lies Blondeau, Blondeau the Nose, Blondeau Nasica, the ox of discipline, bos disciplin?, the bloodhound of the password, the angel of the roll-call, who was upright, square, exact, rigid, honest, and hideous.
God crossed him off as he crossed me off.’”
Marius resumed:— “I am very sorry—”
“Young man,” said Laigle de Meaux, “let this serve you as a lesson.
In future, be exact.”
“I really beg you a thousand pardons.”
“Do not expose your neighbor to the danger of having his name erased again.”
“I am extremely sorry—”
Laigle burst out laughing.
“And I am delighted.
I was on the brink of becoming a lawyer.
This erasure saves me.
I renounce the triumphs of the bar.