His greatest
pleasure was to make experiments in physics or chemistry: he tried
everything which his imagination suggested. Once he happened to produce
a detonating mixture which made a formidable explosion, but nothing was
broken except a few windows."
His choice of reading revealed the same tendency. He was not fond of
reading, and only liked books of adventure which were food for his
warlike sentiments and his ideas of honor and honesty. He preferred the
works of Major Driant, and re-read them even during his mathematical
year. Returning from a walk one Thursday evening, he knocked on the
prefect's door to ask for a book. He wanted _La Guerre fatale_, _La
Guerre de Demain_, _L'Aviateur du Pacifique_, etc. "But you have already
read them." "That does not matter." Did he really re-read them? His
dreams were always the same, and his eyes looked into the future.
Somebody, however, was to exert over this impressionable, mobile, almost
too ardent nature, an influence which was to determine its direction.
His father had advised him to choose his friends with care, and not
yield himself to the first comer.
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