On the other hand Count André had no motive for concealing his character from me, and on this same evening, at the hour of retiring, he asked me to come into his study to talk a little. He had hardly looked at me, and I understood plainly that his intention was not to put any more familiarity between us, but to give me his opinions on my rôle as preceptor. He occupied a suite of three rooms in a wing of the château, a bedroom, a dressing-room and the smoking-room in which we now found ourselves. A large upholstered divan, several armchairs and a massive desk, constituted the furniture of this room. On the walls glittered arms of all kinds, guns of Tangiers, sabres and muskets of the first empire, and a Prussian helmet, which the count pointed out to me almost as soon as we had entered. He had lighted a short brierwood pipe, prepared two glasses of brandy mixed with seltzer water, and lamp in hand, he showed me the helmet saying: “I am very sure that I knocked that fellow over. You do not know anything about the sensation of holding an enemy at the point of your gun, of taking aim, of seeing him fall, and thinking: Another one gone? It happened in a village not far from Orléans. I was on guard at daybreak, in a corner of the cemetery. I saw a head above the wall, it looked over, then the shoulders followed. It was this inquisitive fellow who wanted to see what we were doing. He did not go back to tell.” He put down the lamp, and, after laughing a little at this remembrance, he became serious. I had felt obliged, for the sake of politeness, to moisten my lips in the mixture of gaseous water and alcohol, and the count continued: “I wished to talk with you about Lucien, monsieur, to explain his character and in what way he is to be directed. His old tutor was an excellent man, but very weak, very indolent. I have encouraged your coming because you are a young man, and a young man is more suitable for Lucien. Teaching, monsieur, is worse than nothing, sometimes, when it falsifies ideas. The great thing in this life, I ought almost say the only thing, is character.” He made a pause as if to ask my opinion, I answered with some _banal_ phrase which supported his view.