“Read; I will admit that,—and yet I know not,-but as to writing—”
“Writing!” cried Pitou.
“Yes, you can write; but without orthography.”
“That is to be seen.”
“Will you lay a wager that you will write a page under my dictation without making four blunders?”
“Will you lay a wager, you, that you will write half a page under my dictation without making two?”
“Oh! that, for example—”
“Well, let us to work. I will pick you out some participles and reflective verbs. I will season you up all these with a certain number of that’s which I know of; I accept the wager.”
“If I had time,” said the abbé.
“You would lose.”
“Pitou! Pitou! remember the proverb, Pitoueus Angelus asinus est.”
“Pooh! proverbs!—there are proverbs made for everybody. Do you know the one which was sung into my ears by the reeds of the Wualu as I passed by them?”
“No; but I should be curious to know it, Master Midas.”
“Fortierus Abbas forte fortis.”
“Sir!” exclaimed the abbé.
“A free translation; the Abbé Fortier is not in his forte every day.”
“Fortunately,” said the abbé, “accusing is of slight importance; it is the proof that condemns.”
“Alas! good Monsieur Abbé, that would be perfectly easy; let us see, what do you teach your pupils?”
“Why—”
“Allow me to follow up the argument. What do you teach your pupils?”
“Why, what I know.”
“Good! remember that your answer was, ‘What I know.’
“Well, yes, what I know,” said the abbé, somewhat shaken; for he felt that during his absence this singular combatant had learned some unknown thrusts. “Yes, I did say so; and what then?”
“Well, then, since you teach your pupils what you know, tell me what it is that you do know?”
“Latin, French, Greek, history, geography, arithmetic, algebra, astronomy, botany, and numismatics—”
“Anything more?” inquired Pitou.
“Why—”
“Try to find something else.”
“Drawing.”
“Go on.”
“Architecture.”
“Go on.”
“Mechanics.”
“A branch of mathematics—but that matters not; go on.”
“But tell me, what are you aiming at?”
“Simply at this: you have stated pretty largely the account of what you do know; now state the account of what you do not know.”
The abbé shuddered.
“Ah!” said Pitou, “I clearly see that to do this I must assist you; well, then, you do not know either German or Hebrew or Arabic or Sanscrit—four mother languages. I speak not of the sub-divisions, which are innumerable. You know nothing of natural history, of chemistry, of physics—”
“Monsieur Pitou—”
“Do not interrupt me: you know nothing of rectilinear trigonometry; you are ignorant of medicine; you know nothing of acoustics, of navigation; you are ignorant of everything that regards the gymnastic sciences.”
“What say you?”
“I said gymnastics, from the Greek exercitia gymntastica, which comes from gymnos, naked, because the athletes were naked when they exercised.”
“And yet it was I who taught you all this!” cried the abbé, almost consoled at the victory of his pupil.
“That is true.”
“It is fortunate that you even acknowledge it.”
“And with gratitude; we were saying, then, that you are ignorant of—”
“Enough. It is certain that I am ignorant of much more than I know.”
“Therefore you acknowledge that many men know more than you do.”
“That is possible.”
“It is certain; and the more a man knows, the more does he perceive that he knows nothing. It was Cicero who said this.”
“Conclude.”
“I conclude—”
“Let us hear your conclusion; it will be a fine one.”
“I conclude that in virtue of your relative ignorance, you ought to be more indulgent as to the relative knowledge of other men. This constitutes a double virtue,—virtus duplex, which we are assured was that of Fénelon, who assuredly knew quite as much as you do; and that is Christian charity and humility.”
The abbé uttered a perfect roar of anger.
“Serpent!” he exclaimed; “you are a serpent!”
“You insult me, but do not answer me; this was the reply of one of the seven wise men of Greece. I would say it in Greek, but I have already said it, or something nearly to the same purpose, in Latin.”
“Good!” said the abbé, “this is another effect of Revolutionary doctrines.”
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