Noon had just struck. The school door opened and the youngsters darted out, jostling each other in their haste to get out quickly. But instead of promptly dispersing and going home to dinner as usual, they stopped a few paces off, broke up into knots, and began whispering. The fact was that, that morning, Simon, the son of La Blanchotte, had, for the first time, attended school. They had all of them in their families heard talk of La Blanchotte; and, although in public she was welcome enough, the mothers among themselves treated her with a somewhat disdainful compassion, which the children had imitated without in the least knowing why. As for Simon himself, they did not know him, for he never went out, and did not run about with them in the streets of the village, or along the banks of the river. And they did not care for him; so it was with a certain delight, mingled with considerable astonishment, that they met and repeated to each other what had been said by a lad of fourteen or fifteen who appeared to know all about it, so sagaciously did he wink. “You know--Simon--well, he has no papa.” Just then La Blanchotte's son appeared in the doorway of the school. He was seven or eight years old, rather pale, very neat, with a timid and almost awkward manner. He was starting home to his mother's house when the groups of his schoolmates, whispering and watching him with the mischievous and heartless eyes of children bent upon playing a nasty trick, gradually closed in around him and ended by surrounding him altogether. There he stood in their midst, surprised and embarrassed, not understanding what they were going to do with him. But the lad who had brought the news, puffed up with the success he had met with already, demanded: “What is your name, you?” He answered: “Simon.” “Simon what?” retorted the other. The child, altogether bewildered, repeated: “Simon.” The lad shouted at him: “One is named Simon something--that is not a name--Simon indeed.” The child, on the brink of tears, replied for the third time: “My name is Simon.” The urchins began to laugh. The triumphant tormentor cried: “You can see plainly that he has no papa.” A deep silence ensued. The children were dumfounded by this extraordinary, impossible, monstrous thing--a boy who had not a papa; they looked upon him as a phenomenon, an unnatural being, and they felt that hitherto inexplicable contempt of their mothers for La Blanchotte growing upon them. As for Simon, he had leaned against a tree to avoid falling, and he remained as if prostrated by an irreparable disaster. He sought to explain, but could think of nothing-to say to refute this horrible charge that he had no papa. At last he shouted at them quite recklessly: “Yes, I have one.” “Where is he?” demanded the boy.