As he played the part of guardian angel to a
poor nephew, for whose schooling at Saint Sulpice he was paying, he
came less on his own account than for his adopted child's sake, to
entreat his former pupil's interest with the new minister. He did not
ask to be reinstated, but only for a position at the head of some
provincial school.
QRaphael had fallen a victim to unconquerable drowsiness by the time
that the worthy man's monotonous voice ceased to sound in his ears.
Civility had compelled him to look at the pale and unmoving eyes of
the deliberate and tedious old narrator, till he himself had reached
stupefaction, magnetized in an inexplicable way by the power of
inertia.
"Well, my dear pere Porriquet," he said, not very certain what the
question was to which he was replying, "but I can do nothing for you,
nothing at all. _I wish very heartily_ that you may succeed----"
All at once, without seeing the change wrought on the old man's sallow
and wrinkled brow by these conventional phrases, full of indifference
and selfishness, Raphael sprang to his feet like a startled roebuck.
He saw a thin white line between the black piece of hide and the red
tracing about it, and gave a cry so fearful that the poor professor
was frightened by it.
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