Thus I learned that they were proposing to arrange my future without consulting me! Boarding school--prison--was to punish me for my independence. For the moment I was crushed,--then, in my pride I refused to admit that I was crushed. Would not that be to admit the attractions of the house? Since they were considering the possibility of sending me away I would get ahead of them, and would myself ask to go. Yes, that should be the punishment I would inflict upon my parents. Upon my parents only? But I could not remain there at the door and be surprised--and besides, I was ashamed! I therefore finally turned the latch and went in. I went in like an important personage, steeling myself against the emotion which was getting the better of me. “I have come for my book,” said I, by way of justifying my entrance. Father and mother, sitting opposite one another, looked at me and then exchanged a glance. I found my book--which a careful hand had put in order upon the table, seized it hastily and turned to go. “Francis,” said my mother. I turned to her with an expressionless face, put on to keep back the tears. “Listen, my child,” she said,--and when she called me “child” I drew myself up--“you must always obey your father.” Obey! the word was odious to me. “Why, I always listen to him,” I said. Father fixed me with his piercing eyes that hurt as if I felt the points of their rays. He seemed to hesitate; no doubt he did hesitate between his desire to explain and the sense of its uselessness. Recovering his natural--and by that very fact, authoritative--voice, he simply gave me a proof of confidence. “We were talking of you just now,” he said. “Yes, of you,” repeated mother, somewhat anxiously. Then came a sort of interrogatory: “What do you think of being when you are grown?” asked father. “You think about it sometimes, don’t you? What sort of life would you prefer? You have your own tastes and preferences. Have you chosen your vocation, like your brothers?” My vocation! Just what I expected! Vocations were often talked about at our house, and how every one ought faithfully to fulfil his own. During my illness, and in the early days of my convalescence, before my walks with grandfather, I had often thought, and even announced, that when I was grown up I would be a doctor, too. I could not imagine a finer career. I had talked in the kitchen with the peasants who came for the doctor, their faces all drawn with pain, and on the staircase I had met the train of patients who came for consultation with dolorous faces, and went away cheered. Though I had ceased to talk about it it was understood at our house that I was to be my father’s successor. “I don’t know,” I replied, turning away. “Ah!” he exclaimed, in a surprised and disappointed tone. “I thought you wanted to be a doctor.” “Oh, no!” I replied, suddenly making up my mind in a spirit of opposition. He said nothing more of this hope which had been dear to him, but went on: