12 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



I could only get a whiff of the tannery yard/' lie would say to 

 Jules Vercel, **I feel I should be cured." M. Barbet en- 

 deavoured in vain to amuse and turn the thoughts of this lad 

 of fifteen so absorbed in his sorrow. At last he thought it his 

 duty to warn the parents of this state of mind, which threatened 

 to become morbid. 



One morning in November Louis Pasteur was told with an 

 air of mystery that he was wanted. ' ' They are waiting for you 

 close by," said the messenger, indicating a small cafe at the 

 corner of the street. Louis entered and found a man sitting at 

 a small table at the back of the shop, his face in his hands. It 

 was his father. "I have come to fetch you," he said simply. 

 No explanations were necessary ; the father and son understood 

 each other's longings. 



What took place in Pasteur's mind when he found himself 

 again at Arbois? After the first few days of relief and joy, did 

 he feel, when he went back to Arbois college, any regret, not 

 to say remorse, at not having overcome his homesickness? 

 Was he discouraged by the prospect of a restricted career in 

 that small town? Little is known of that period when his will 

 had been mastered by his feelings; but from the indecision of 

 his daily life we may hazard a guess at the disquieted state of 

 his mind at this time. At the beginning of that year (1839) 

 he returned for a time to his early tastes; he went back to his 

 coloured chalks, left aside for the last eighteen months, ever 

 since one holiday time when he had drawn Captain Barbier, 

 proudly wearing his uniform, and with the high colour of ex- 

 cellent health. 



He soon got beyond the powers of his drawing master, M. 

 Pointurier, a good man who does not seem to have seen any 

 scientific possibilities in the art of drawing. 



Louis' pastel drawings soon formed a portrait gallery of 

 friends. An old cooper of seventy, Father Gaidot, born at 

 Dole, but now living at Arbois, had his turn. Gaidot appears 

 in a festive costume, a blue coat and a yellow waistcoat, very 

 picturesque with his wrinkled forehead and close-shaven cheeks. 

 Then there are all the members of a family named Roch. The 

 father and the son are drawn carefully, portraits such as are 

 often seen in country villages; but the two daughters Lydia 

 and Sophia are more delicately pencilled ; they live again in the 

 youthful grace of their twenty summers. Then we have a 

 notary, the wide collar of i Irock coat framing his rubicund 



