One of the boys -about fifteen then, and very likely a bishop now if he still lives- caught my attention at once.
His face drew the eye, but his quickness of mind held it.
We formed an immediate attachment.
During recess, while the others played skittles, we walked together up and down the gravel paths.
We recited Horace to each other; we argued over Ariosto and Tasso, always siding with Ariosto.
Petrarch we revered without reservation; Tassoni and Muratori, who had been his critics, were the special objects of our contempt.
Four days of friendship felt like four years.
Our affection ran so hot that jealousy followed it like a shadow.
If one of us was seen walking with another seminarian, the other sulked as openly as a slighted lover.
The dormitory fell under the authority of a lay friar, dignified with the title of prefect.
After supper he marched us there in a small procession.
Each boy went straight to his own bed, said his prayers in a low murmur, and undressed without noise.
When all were stretched out under their blankets, the prefect took to his own pallet at the far end.
A large lantern hung from the ceiling and threw its light along the whole length of the room, a long, narrow parallelogram of some eighty yards by ten.
The beds stood in two rows at regular intervals, each with its stool, chair, and a place for the trunk beneath.
The washing-basins occupied one end; the prefect's bed stood sentry at the other.
My friend's bed lay directly opposite mine, with the lantern burning between us like a small moon.
The prefect's main duty was simple: to make sure no one left his own bed to spend the night in another's.
Such visits were never presumed innocent.
Bed, according to the regulations, existed for sleep, not for conversation, and any boy who slept elsewhere than in his own was assumed to have committed a cardinal sin.
As long as he stayed in his proper place, however, he might do whatever he pleased.
In that case, his soul was his own affair, and his body with it.
It has often been observed, in Germany as well as in Scarletan States, that the institutions which take the greatest pains to suppress certain solitary habits are precisely those in which they flourish most.
Our seminary was no exception.
Those who had framed the regulations in our seminary were stupid fools, who had not the slightest knowledge of either morals or human nature.
Nature has her demands; the wise man governs them, he does not pretend they do not exist.
Tissot thundered against the abuse of those impulses, and in that he was right; but the abuse would be far rarer if directors did not single it out with such anxious prohibitions.
Nothing inflames the young so much as the pleasure of breaking a rule, especially a rule that meddles with their bodies.
Rebellion is as old as Eden; Adam and Eve did not disobey because the fruit was necessary, but because it was forbidden.
I had been in the seminary nine or ten days when, one night, the mattress dipped beside me. A hand closed over mine and a whisper breathed my name.
I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing.
It was my young friend.
He had woken in the dark, found the lantern extinguished, and taken it into his head to pay me a midnight visit.
I told him at once to go back.
"If the prefect wakes," I whispered, "we shall be accused not of imprudence, but of some chosen abomination. I have no desire to test the regulations on our own skins."
As I urged him to retreat, a movement sounded at the far end of the hall.
He slipped out of my bed.
A heartbeat later came the heavy thump of a body hitting the floor, followed by the prefect's hoarse shout:
"Ah, villain! Wait till to-morrow … till to-morrow!"
He struck a light, hoisted the lantern again over the middle of the dormitory, and went back to his own couch.
Before the rising bell, the rector entered the dormitory with the prefect behind him. We all sat up in our beds.
"Listen to me," he said. "You know what occurred last night. Two among you are guilty. I wish to spare them shame; their names shall not be made public."
"I expect every one of you to present himself to me for confession before recess."
He withdrew. We dressed in silence.
In the afternoon, obedient as a flock, we passed one by one through his confessional and emerged, in theory, purified.
Afterwards we met in the garden, where my friend slipped his arm through mine.
On leaving my bed, he told me, he had run straight into the prefect.
Seeing discovery inevitable, he chose the shortest argument and felled the man with a blow, then gained his own sheets before the lantern was lit.
"And now," I said, "you are certain of being forgiven, for, of course, you have wisely confessed your error?"
"You jest," he replied. "Why, the good rector would not have known any more than he knows at present, even if my visit to you had been paid with a criminal intent."
"Then you must have made a false confession: you are at all events guilty of disobedience?"
"That may be," he answered quietly, "but the rector is responsible for the guilt, as he used compulsion."
I could not help laughing.
"My dear friend, you argue in a very forcible way, and the very reverend rector must by this time be satisfied that the inmates of our dormitory are more learned than he is himself."
Nothing more would have been said of the adventure if, a few nights later, I had not taken a fancy to return my friend's visit.
Toward midnight I had occasion to get out of bed.
The prefect's snoring rolled through the dormitory like a saw.
Taking courage from that music, I pinched out the lantern's wick, crossed the dark hall, and slipped into my friend's bed.
He recognized me at once and made room, but we both kept an ear on the far end of the room.
When the snoring stopped, we understood our danger.
I slid out at once and hurried back to my own bed.
There I met a double surprise.
My hand struck a body already lying in it, and at the same moment I saw the prefect advancing slowly between the rows with a candle in his hand, examining each bed in turn.
His having lit a candle I could understand; what I did not understand was the boy sleeping peacefully in my place, his back turned to me.
I decided the only wisdom was to sleep too.
I lay down beside him and closed my eyes.
The prefect reached us, seized my shoulder, and shook me two or three times.
At the third, I yawned, rubbed my eyes, and pretended to wake.
My bedfellow woke in earnest, sat up, and stared around him in confusion.
"I have made a mistake," he stammered. "As I returned from a certain place in the dark, I found your bed empty, and mistook it for mine."
"Very likely," I said. "I had to get up as well."
"Yes," the prefect cut in, "but how does it happen that you went to bed without making any remark when, on your return, you found your bed already tenanted? And how is it that, being in the dark, you did not suppose that you were mistaken yourself?"
"I could not be mistaken," I replied. "For I felt the pedestal of this crucifix of mine, and I knew I was right; as to my companion here, I did not feel him."
"It is all very unlikely," our Argus muttered.
He walked to the lantern, bent over it, and lifted the wick with his fingers.
"The wick has been thrust into the oil, gentlemen," he announced. "It did not go out of itself. It has been the handiwork of one of you, but it will be seen to in the morning."
My stupid companion crept back to his own bed.
The prefect lit the lantern again, returned to his, and the dormitory slowly settled.
The scene had broken the repose of every pupil.
I quietly slept until the appearance of the rector, who, at the dawn of day, came in great fury, with the prefect -his faithful satellite- at his heels.