Grandpapa died at the end of the autumn, after lingering on interminably; my mother shrouded herself in black crêpe and had all my clothes dyed black. This funereal get-up did not improve my appearance; it set me apart, and I felt it condemned me to an austere way of life that was beginning to weigh heavily upon my spirits. The students, both boys and girls, used to parade up and down the boulevard Saint-Michel in laughing gangs; they went to cafés, theatres, cinemas. As for me, after reading learned tomes and translating Catullus all day, I would spend the evenings doing mathematical problems. My parents, by helping to push me, not into marriage, but into a career, were breaking with tradition; nevertheless they still made me conform to it; there was never any question of letting me go anywhere without them, nor of releasing me from family duties.