Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Charlotte Bronte

  Now I knew, and had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel’s was on intimate terms with my desk; that it raised and lowered the lid, ransacked and arranged the contents, almost as familiarly as my own. The fact was not dubious, nor did he wish it to be so: he left signs of each visit palpable and unmistakeable; hitherto, however, I had never caught him in the act: watch as I would, I could not detect the hours and moments of his coming. I saw the brownie’s work, in exercises left overnight full of faults, and found next morning carefully corrected: I profited by his capricious goodwill in loans full welcome and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out grammar would magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a classic, mellow and sweet in its ripe age. Out of my work-basket would laughingly peep a romance, under it would lurk the pamphlet, the magazine, whence last evening’s reading had been extracted. Impossible to doubt the source whence these treasures flowed: had there been no other indication, one condemning and traitor peculiarity common to them all, settled the question—they smelt of cigars. This was very shocking, of course: I thought so at first, and used to open the window with some bustle, to air my desk, and with fastidious finger and thumb, to hold the peccant brochures forth to the purifying breeze. I was cured of that formality suddenly. Monsieur caught me at it one day, understood the inference, instantly relieved my hand of its burden, and, in another moment, would have thrust the same into the glowing stove. It chanced to be a book, on the perusal of which I was bent; so for once I proved as decided and quicker than himself, recaptured the spoil, and—having saved this volume—never hazarded a second. With all this, I had never yet been able to arrest in his visits the freakish, friendly, cigar-loving phantom.

  But now at last I had him: there he was—the very brownie himself; and there, curling from his lips, was the pale blue breath of his Indian darling: he was smoking into my desk: it might well betray him. Provoked at this particular, and yet pleased to surprise him—pleased, that is, with the mixed feeling of the housewife who discovers at last her strange elfin ally busy in the dairy at the untimely churn—I softly stole forward, stood behind him, bent with precaution over his shoulder.

  My heart smote me to see that—after this morning’s hostility, after my seeming remissness, after the puncture experienced by his feelings, and the ruffling undergone by his temper—he, all willing to forget and forgive, had brought me a couple of handsome volumes, of which the title and authorship were guarantees for interest. Now, as he sat bending above the desk, he was stirring up its contents; but with gentle and careful hand: disarranging indeed, but not harming. My heart smote me: as I bent over him, as he sat unconscious, doing me what good he could, and I daresay not feeling towards me unkindly, my morning’s anger quite melted: I did not dislike Professor Emanuel.

  I think he heard me breathe. He turned suddenly: his temperament was nervous, yet he never started, and seldom changed colour; there was something hardy about him.

  ‘I thought you were gone into town with the other teachers,’ said he, taking a grim gripe of his self-possession, which half escaped him—‘It is as well you are not. Do you think I care for being caught? Not I. I often visit your desk.’

  ‘Monsieur, I know it.’

  ‘You find a brochure or a tome now and then; but you don’t read them, because they have passed under this?’—touching his cigar.

  ‘They have, and are no better for the process, but I read them.’

  ‘Without pleasure?’

  ‘Monsieur must not be contradicted.’

  ‘Do you like them, or any of them?—are they acceptable?’

  ‘Monsieur has seen me reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many recreations as to undervalue those he provides.’

  ‘I mean well; and, if you see that I mean well, and derive some little amusement from my efforts, why can we not be friends?’

  ‘A fatalist would say—because we cannot.’

  ‘This morning,’ he continued, ‘I awoke in a bright mood, and came into classe happy; you spoiled my day.’

  ‘No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally.’

  ‘Unintentionally! No. It was my fête-day; everybody wished me happiness but you. The little children of the third division gave each her knot of violets, lisped each her congratulation: you—nothing. Not a bud, leaf, whisper—not a glance. Was this unintentional?’

  ‘I meant no harm.’

  ‘Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You would willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me pleasure, had you been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is forgotten, and the pain soothed.’

  ‘I did know that it was expected: I was prepared; yet I laid out no centimes on flowers.’

  ‘It is well—you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you, had you flattered and lied. Better declare at once—“Paul Carl Emanuel—je te déteste, mon garçon!”gq—than smile an interest, look an affection, and be false and cold at heart. False and cold, I don’t think you are; but you have made a great mistake in life, that I believe: I think your judgment is warped—that you are indifferent where you ought to be grateful—and perhaps devoted and infatuated, where you ought to be cool as your name. Don’t suppose that I wish you to have a passion for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde!gr What do you start for? Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is such a word, and there is such a thing—though not within these walls, thank Heaven! You are no child that one should not speak of what exists; but I only uttered the word—the thing, I

  I could not, and did not, contradict such a sentiment.

  ‘Tell me,’ he pursued, ‘when it is your fête-day, and I will not grudge a few centimes for a small offering.’

  ‘You will be like me, monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes, and I did not grudge its price.’

  And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand.

  ‘It lay ready in my lap this morning,’ I continued; ‘and if Monsieur had been rather more patient, and Mademoiselle St. Pierre less interfering—perhaps I should say, too, if I had been calmer and wiser—I should have given it then.’

  He looked at the box: I saw its clear warm tint and bright azure circlet, pleased his eye. I told him to open it.

  ‘My initials!’ said he, indicating the letters in the lid. ‘Who told you I was called Carl David?’

  ‘A little bird, monsieur.’

  ‘Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing when needful?’

  He took out the chain—a trifle indeed as to value, but glossy with silk and sparkling with beads. He liked that too—admired it artlessly, like a child.

  ‘For me?’

  ‘Yes, for you.’

  ‘This is the thing you were working at last night?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘You finished it this morning?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You commenced it with the intention that it should be mine?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘And offered on my fête-day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This purpose continued as you wove it?’

  Again I assented.

  ‘Then it is not necessary that I should cut out any portion—saying, this part is not mine; it was plaited under the idea and for the adornment of another?’

  ‘By no means. It is neither necessary, nor would it be just.’

  ‘This object is all mine?’

  ‘That object is yours entirely.’

  Straightway Monsieur opened his paletôt, arranged the guard splendidly across his chest, displaying as much and suppressing as little as he could: for he had no notion of concealing what he admired and thought decorative. As to the box, he pronounced it a superb bonbonnière—he was fond of bonbons, by the way—and as he always liked to share with others what pleased himself, he would give his ‘dragées’gs as freely as he lent his books. Amongst the kind brownie’s gifts left
in my desk, I forgot to enumerate many a paper of chocolate comfits. His tastes in these matters were southern, and what we think infantine. His simple lunch consisted frequently of a ‘brioche,’ which, as often as not, he shared with some child of the third division.

  ‘À present c’est un fait accompli,’gt said he, readjusting his paletôt; and we had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two volumes he had brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife (he generally pruned before lending his books, especially if they were novels, and sometimes I was a little provoked at the severity of his censorship, the retrenchments interrupting the narrative), he rose, politely touched his bonnet-grec, and bade me a civil good day.

  ‘We are friends now,’ thought I, ‘till the next time we quarrel.’

  We might have quarrelled again that very same evening, but, wonderful to relate! failed, for once, to make the most of our opportunity.

  Contrary to all expectation, M. Paul arrived at the study-hour. Having seen so much of him in the morning, we did not look for his presence at night. No sooner were we seated at lessons, however, than he appeared. I own I was glad to see him, so glad that I could not help greeting his arrival with a smile; and when he made his way to the same seat about which so serious a misunderstanding had formerly arisen, I took good care not to make too much room for him; he watched with a jealous, side-long look, to see whether I shrank away, but I did not, though the bench was a little crowded. I was losing the early impulse to recoil from M. Paul. Habituated to the paletôt and bonnet-grec, the neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer uncomfortable or very formidable. I did not now sit restrained, ‘asphyxiée’ (as he used to say) at his side; I stirred when I wished to stir, coughed when it was necessary, even yawned when I was tired—did, in short, what I pleased, blindly reliant upon his indulgence. Nor did my temerity, this evening at least, meet the punishment it perhaps merited; he was both indulgent and good-natured; not a cross glance shot from his eyes, not a hasty word left his lips. Till the very close of the evening, he did not indeed address me at all, yet I felt, somehow, that he was full of friendliness. Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings; no words could inspire a pleasanter content that did M. Paul’s wordless presence. When the tray came in, and the bustle of supper commenced, he just said, as he retired, that he wished me a good night and sweet dreams; and a good night and sweet dreams I had.

  CHAPTER 30

  M. Paul

  Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly conclusions, or to suppose, with an over-hasty charity, that from that day M. Paul became a changed character—easy to live with, and no longer apt to flash danger and discomfort round him.

  No; he was naturally a little man, of unreasonable moods. When over-wrought, which he often was, he became acutely irritable; and, besides, his veins were dark with a livid belladonna tincture, the essence of jealousy. I do not mean merely the tender jealousy of the heart, but that sterner, narrower sentiment, whose seat is in the head.

  I used to think, as I sat looking at M. Paul, while he was knitting his brow or protruding his lip over some exercise of mine, which had not as many faults as he wished (for he liked me to commit faults: a knot of blunders was sweet to him as a cluster of nuts), that he had points of resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte. I think so still.

  In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great Emperor. M. Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women, would have unblushingly carried on a system of petty bickering and recrimination with a whole capital of coteries, never troubling himself about loss or lack of dignity. He would have exiled fifty Madame de Staels, if they had annoyed, offended, out-rivalled, or opposed him.

  I well remember a hot episode of his with a certain Madame Panache—a lady temporarily employed by Madame Beck to give lessons in history. She was clever—that is, she knew a good deal; and, besides, thoroughly possessed the art of making the most of what she knew; of words and confidence she held unlimited command. Her personal appearance was far from destitute of advantages; I believe many people would have pronounced her ‘a fine woman!’ and yet there were points in her robust and ample attractions, as well as in her bustling and demonstrative presence, which, it appeared, the nice and capricious tastes of M. Paul could not away with. The sound of her voice, echoing through the carré, would put him into a strange taking; her long, free step—almost stride—along the corridor, would often make him snatch up his papers and decamp on the instant.

  With malicious intent he bethought himself, one day, to intrude on her class; as quick as lightning he gathered her method of instruction; it differed from a pet plan of his own. With little ceremony, and less courtesy, he pointed out what he termed her errors. Whether he expected submission and attention, I know not; he met an acrid opposition, accompanied by a round reprimand for his certainly unjustifiable interference.

  Instead of withdrawing with dignity, as he might still have done, he threw down the gauntlet of defiance. Madame Panache, bellicose as a Penthesilea,gu picked it up in a minute. She snapped her fingers in the intermeddler’s face; she rushed upon him with a storm of words. M. Emanuel was eloquent; but Madame Panache was voluble. A system of fierce antagonism ensued. Instead of laughing in his sleeve at his fair foe, with all her sore amour propre and loud self-assertion, M. Paul detested her with intense seriousness; he honoured her with his earnest fury; he pursued her vindictively and implacably refusing to rest peaceably in his bed, to derive due benefit from his meals, or even serenely to relish his cigar, till she was fairly rooted out of the establishment. The professor conquered, but I cannot say that the laurels of this victory shadowed gracefully his temples. Once I ventured to hint as much. To my great surprise he allowed that I might be right, but averred that when brought into contact with either men or women of the coarse, self-complacent quality, whereof Madame Panache was a specimen, he had no control over his own passions; an unspeakable and active aversion impelled him to a war of extermination.

  Three months afterwards, hearing that his vanquished foe had met with reverses, and was likely to be really distressed for want of employment, he forgot his hatred, and, alike active in good and evil, he moved heaven and earth till he found her a place. Upon her coming to make up former differences, and thank him for his recent kindness, the old voice—a little loud—the old manner—a little forward—so acted upon him that in ten minutes he started up and bowed her, or rather himself, out of the room, in a transport of nervous irritation.

  To pursue a somewhat audacious parallel, in a love of power, in an eager grasp after supremacy M. Emanuel was like Bonaparte. He was a man not always to be submitted to. Sometimes it was needful to resist; it was right to stand still, to look up into his eyes and tell him that his requirements went beyond reason—that his absolutism verged on tyranny.

  The dawnings, the first developments of peculiar talent appearing within his range, and under his rule, curiously excited, even disturbed him. He watched its struggle into life with a scowl; he held back his hand—perhaps said, ‘Come on if you have strength,’ but would not aid the birth.

  When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the breath of life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract, when he felt the heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not yet offer to foster.

  ‘Prove yourself true ere I cherish you,’ was his ordinance; and how difficult he made that proof! What thorns and briars, what flints, he strewed in the path of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched tearlessly—ordeals that he exacted should be passed through—fearlessly. He followed footprints that, as they approached the bourne, were sometimes marked in blood—followed them grimly, holding the austerest police-watch over the pain pressed pilgrim. And when at last he allowed a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids, he opened those same lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and gazed deep through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the heart, to search if Vanity,
or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its subtlest forms, was discoverable in the furthest recess of existence. If, at last, he let the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke him suddenly up to apply new tests; he sent him on irksome errands when he was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and the health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied and endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and failed to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine and, still in clouded silence, stamped it with his deep brand of approval.

  I speak not ignorant of these evils.

  Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my professor—he had not given me lessons, but about that time, accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch of education (I think it was arithmetic) which would have disgraced a charity-schoolboy, as he very truly remarked, he took me in hand, examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly deficient, gave me some books and appointed me some tasks.

  He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed exultation, condescending to say that he believed I was ‘bonne et pas trop faible’ (i.e. well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of parts) but, owing he supposed to adverse circumstances, ‘as yet in a state of wretchedly imperfect mental development.’

  The beginning of all efforts has indeed with me been marked by a preternatural imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common acquaintance, assert or prove a claim to average quickness. A depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every new page I have turned in life.

  So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty humiliation imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can hardly do justice to his tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes would moisten, when tears of shame and effort clouded mine; burdened as he was with work, he would steal half his brief space of recreation to give to me.