CHAPTER XLIX.
We left the mountains at the beginning of October, but my home-coming was marked by a very painful circumstance--I was sent to school! I went, of course, only as a day scholar; and it goes without saying that I was never allowed to go and come alone lest I should get into bad company.
The four years that I spent at the university, as a day scholar, were as strange and as full of odd experiences as any of my life.

But, notwithstanding, from that fatal day my history becomes much less interesting as a narrative.
I was taken to school for the first time, at two o'clock in the afternoon, upon one of those glorious October days, so sunny and peaceful, that is like a reluctant and sad leave-taking of the summer-time.

Ah! how beautiful it had been in the mountains, in the leafless forests and among the autumn-tinted vines! With a crowd of children, all talking at the same time, I entered the torture chamber.

My first impression was one of astonished disgust because of the hideousness of the ink-stained walls, and of the old benches of shiny wood defaced by the penknife carvings of countless school-boys who had been so inexpressibly miserable in this place.
Although I was a stranger to my new companions they treated me with the greatest familiarity (they used thee and thou in addressing me) and gave themselves patronizing airs that were almost impertinent.

Although I observed my school-mates timidly and furtively I thought them, for the most part, exceedingly ill-mannered and untidy.
As I was twelve and a half I entered the third class; my tutor considered me advanced enough to keep up with it if I chose to do so, although I myself felt that I was scarcely equal to the task.