CHAPTER XXXII.
During all this time my museum made great progress, and it soon became
necessary for me to have some new shelves put up.
My great uncle continued to take a very deep interest in my taste for
natural history, and among his shells he found a number of duplicates,
and these he presented to me. With indefatigable patience he taught me
the scientific classifications of Cuvier, Linne, Lamarck or
Bruguieres, and I was astonished at the attention with which I
listened to him.
In a very old little desk, that was a part of the furniture of my
museum, I had a copy-book into which I copied, from uncle's notes, and
numbered with the greatest care, the name of the species, genus,
family and class of each shell,--also the place of its origin. And
there by the dim light that fell upon the desk, in the silence of that
little retreat so high above the street, surrounded with objects what
had come from distant corners of the earth and from the depths of the
sea, when my mind wandered, and I became fatigued because of the
mysterious differences in the forms of animals, and because of the
infinite variety of shells, with what emotion I wrote down in my book,
opposite the name of a Spirifer or a Terebratula, such enchanting
words as these: "Eastern coast of Africa," "coast of Guinea," "Indian
Ocean."
I recall that in this same museum I experienced, one afternoon in
March, a peculiar feeling indicative of my tendency towards reaction,
that later, at certain periods of self-abandonment, caused me to seek
the rough and uncouth society of sailors, and made me revel in noise
and change and gayety.
It was Mardi-Gras time. At sundown I had gone out with my father to
see the masqueraders who were in the streets; and having returned
rather early I went immediately to my attic-room to classify some
shells. But the noise of the revellers and the clashing of their
tambourines reached even to the retreat where I was occupying myself
with scientific matters, and the sounds awakened in me a feeling of
inexpressible sadness. It was the same emotion, greatly intensified,
that I had when I listened, of winter evenings, to the old cake
vendor, and heard her voice die away into those far-off squalid
streets near the harbor. I experienced an unexpected anguish very
difficult to define in words. I had a vague impression, which was the
cause of my suffering, that I was imprisoned; and for the moment, I
thought that my liking for dry classifications and nature study shut
me away from the little boys of every age who were in the streets
below mingling with the sailors, more childish than they, who tricked
out in dreadful masks ran and frollicked and sang coarse songs. It
goes without saying that I had no desire to be one of them; the very
idea of jostling against them filled me with distaste, and I disdained
their rude sport. And I sincerely felt that it was better for me to be
where I was, occupied with putting the many-colored family of the
Purpura and the twenty-three varieties of the Gastropoda in order.
But nevertheless the gay and merry people in the street troubled me
strangely. And, as was usual with me when I felt distressed, I went
down to look for my mother for the purpose of begging her to come up
to keep me company. Astonished at my request (for I scarcely ever
asked any one into my den), astonished especially by my anxious
manner, she said with an air of pleasantry that it was silly for a boy
of ten to be afraid to stay alone; but she consented to return with
me, and when there she seated herself close to me and occupied herself
with a piece of embroidery. Oh! how reassuring was her sweet and
darling presence! I returned to my task without concerning myself
further about the noise of the maskers, and as I worked I glanced up
now and again to look at her beautiful profile cut in silhouette,
because of the darkness without, upon my tiny window pane.
