Chapter: CHAPTER XXXIII.

M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE.


On the first of May, we had all--i.e. the twenty boarders and the four
teachers--notice to rise at five o'clock of the morning, to be dressed
and ready by six, to put ourselves under the command of M. le
Professeur Emanuel, who was to head our march forth from Villette, for
it was on this day he proposed to fulfil his promise of taking us to
breakfast in the country. I, indeed, as the reader may perhaps
remember, had not had the honour of an invitation when this excursion
was first projected--rather the contrary; but on my now making allusion
to this fact, and wishing to know how it was to be, my ear received a
pull, of which I did not venture to challenge the repetition by
raising, further difficulties.

"Je vous conseille de vous faire prier," said M. Emanuel, imperially
menacing the other ear. One Napoleonic compliment, however, was enough,
so I made up my mind to be of the party.

The morning broke calm as summer, with singing of birds in the garden,
and a light dew-mist that promised heat. We all said it would be warm,
and we all felt pleasure in folding away heavy garments, and in
assuming the attire suiting a sunny season. The clean fresh print
dress, and the light straw bonnet, each made and trimmed as the French
workwoman alone can make and trim, so as to unite the utterly
unpretending with the perfectly becoming, was the rule of costume.
Nobody flaunted in faded silk; nobody wore a second-hand best article.

At six the bell rang merrily, and we poured down the staircase, through
the carre, along the corridor, into the vestibule. There stood our
Professor, wearing, not his savage-looking paletot and severe
bonnet-grec, but a young-looking belted blouse and cheerful straw hat.
He had for us all the kindest good-morrow, and most of us for him had a
thanksgiving smile. We were marshalled in order and soon started.

The streets were yet quiet, and the boulevards were fresh and peaceful
as fields. I believe we were very happy as we walked along. This chief
of ours had the secret of giving a certain impetus to happiness when he
would; just as, in an opposite mood, he could give a thrill to fear.

He did not lead nor follow us, but walked along the line, giving a word
to every one, talking much to his favourites, and not wholly neglecting
even those he disliked. It was rather my wish, for a reason I had, to
keep slightly aloof from notice, and being paired with Ginevra
Fanshawe, bearing on my arm the dear pressure of that angel's not
unsubstantial limb--(she continued in excellent case, and I can assure
the reader it was no trifling business to bear the burden of her
loveliness; many a time in the course of that warm day I wished to
goodness there had been less of the charming commodity)--however,
having her, as I said, I tried to make her useful by interposing her
always between myself and M. Paul, shifting my place, according as I
heard him coming up to the right hand or the left. My private motive
for this manoeuvre might be traced to the circumstance of the new print
dress I wore, being pink in colour--a fact which, under our present
convoy, made me feel something as I have felt, when, clad in a shawl
with a red border, necessitated to traverse a meadow where pastured a
bull.

For awhile, the shifting system, together with some modifications in
the arrangement of a black silk scarf, answered my purpose; but,
by-and-by, he found out, that whether he came to this side or to that,
Miss Fanshawe was still his neighbour. The course of acquaintance
between Ginevra and him had never run so smooth that his temper did not
undergo a certain crisping process whenever he heard her English
accent: nothing in their dispositions fitted; they jarred if they came
in contact; he held her empty and affected; she deemed him bearish,
meddling, repellent.

At last, when he had changed his place for about the sixth time,
finding still the same untoward result to the experiment--he thrust his
head forward, settled his eyes on mine, and demanded with impatience,
"Qu'est-ce que c'est? Vous me jouez des tours?"

The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, ere, with his
customary quickness, he seized the root of this proceeding: in vain I
shook out the long fringe, and spread forth the broad end of my scarf.
"A-h-h! c'est la robe rose!" broke from his lips, affecting me very
much like the sudden and irate low of some lord of the meadow.

"It is only cotton," I alleged, hurriedly; "and cheaper, and washes
better than any other colour."

"Et Mademoiselle Lucy est coquette comme dix Parisiennes," he answered.
"A-t-on jamais vu une Anglaise pareille. Regardez plutot son chapeau,
et ses gants, et ses brodequins!" These articles of dress were just
like what my companions wore; certainly not one whit smarter--perhaps
rather plainer than most--but Monsieur had now got hold of his text,
and I began to chafe under the expected sermon. It went off, however,
as mildly as the menace of a storm sometimes passes on a summer day. I
got but one flash of sheet lightning in the shape of a single bantering
smile from his eyes; and then he said, "Courage!--a vrai dire je ne
suis pas fache, peut-etre meme suis je content qu'on s'est fait si
belle pour ma petite fete."

"Mais ma robe n'est pas belle, Monsieur--elle n'est que propre."

"J'aime la proprete," said he. In short, he was not to be dissatisfied;
the sun of good humour was to triumph on this auspicious morning; it
consumed scudding clouds ere they sullied its disk.

And now we were in the country, amongst what they called "les bois et
les petits sentiers." These woods and lanes a month later would offer
but a dusty and doubtful seclusion: now, however, in their May
greenness and morning repose, they looked very pleasant.

We reached a certain well, planted round, in the taste of Labassecour,
with an orderly circle of lime-trees: here a halt was called; on the
green swell of ground surrounding this well, we were ordered to be
seated, Monsieur taking his place in our midst, and suffering us to
gather in a knot round him. Those who liked him more than they feared,
came close, and these were chiefly little ones; those who feared more
than they liked, kept somewhat aloof; those in whom much affection had
given, even to what remained of fear, a pleasurable zest, observed the
greatest distance.

He began to tell us a story. Well could he narrate: in such a diction
as children love, and learned men emulate; a diction simple in its
strength, and strong in its simplicity. There were beautiful touches in
that little tale; sweet glimpses of feeling and hues of description
that, while I listened, sunk into my mind, and since have never faded.
He tinted a twilight scene--I hold it in memory still--such a picture I
have never looked on from artist's pencil.

I have said, that, for myself, I had no impromptu faculty; and perhaps
that very deficiency made me marvel the more at one who possessed it in
perfection. M. Emanuel was not a man to write books; but I have heard
him lavish, with careless, unconscious prodigality, such mental wealth
as books seldom boast; his mind was indeed my library, and whenever it
was opened to me, I entered bliss. Intellectually imperfect as I was, I
could read little; there were few bound and printed volumes that did
not weary me--whose perusal did not fag and blind--but his tomes of
thought were collyrium to the spirit's eyes; over their contents,
inward sight grew clear and strong. I used to think what a delight it
would be for one who loved him better than he loved himself, to gather
and store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so recklessly flung to
heaven's reckless winds.

His story done, he approached the little knoll where I and Ginevra sat
apart. In his usual mode of demanding an opinion (he had not reticence
to wait till it was voluntarily offered) he asked, "Were you
interested?"

According to my wonted undemonstrative fashion, I simply
answered--"Yes."

"Was it good?"

"Very good."

"Yet I could not write that down," said he.

"Why not, Monsieur?"

"I hate the mechanical labour; I hate to stoop and sit still. I could
dictate it, though, with pleasure, to an amanuensis who suited me.
Would Mademoiselle Lucy write for me if I asked her?"

"Monsieur would be too quick; he would urge me, and be angry if my pen
did not keep pace with his lips."

"Try some day; let us see the monster I can make of myself under the
circumstances. But just now, there is no question of dictation; I mean
to make you useful in another office. Do you see yonder farm-house?"

"Surrounded with trees? Yes."

"There we are to breakfast; and while the good fermiere makes the cafe
au lait in a caldron, you and five others, whom I shall select, will
spread with butter half a hundred rolls."

Having formed his troop into line once more, he marched us straight on
the farm, which, on seeing our force, surrendered without capitulation.

Clean knives and plates, and fresh butter being provided, half-a-dozen
of us, chosen by our Professor, set to work under his directions, to
prepare for breakfast a huge basket of rolls, with which the baker had
been ordered to provision the farm, in anticipation of our coming.
Coffee and chocolate were already made hot; cream and new-laid eggs
were added to the treat, and M. Emanuel, always generous, would have
given a large order for "jambon" and "confitures" in addition, but that
some of us, who presumed perhaps upon our influence, insisted that it
would be a most reckless waste of victual. He railed at us for our
pains, terming us "des menageres avares;" but we let him talk, and
managed the economy of the repast our own way.

With what a pleasant countenance he stood on the farm-kitchen hearth
looking on! He was a man whom it made happy to see others happy; he
liked to have movement, animation, abundance and enjoyment round him.
We asked where he would sit. He told us, we knew well he was our slave,
and we his tyrants, and that he dared not so much as choose a chair
without our leave; so we set him the farmer's great chair at the head
of the long table, and put him into it.

Well might we like him, with all his passions and hurricanes, when he
could be so benignant and docile at times, as he was just now. Indeed,
at the worst, it was only his nerves that were irritable, not his
temper that was radically bad; soothe, comprehend, comfort him, and he
was a lamb; he would not harm a fly. Only to the very stupid, perverse,
or unsympathizing, was he in the slightest degree dangerous.

Mindful always of his religion, he made the youngest of the party say a
little prayer before we began breakfast, crossing himself as devotedly
as a woman. I had never seen him pray before, or make that pious sign;
he did it so simply, with such child-like faith, I could not help
smiling pleasurably as I watched; his eyes met my smile; he just
stretched out his kind hand, saying, "Donnez-moi la main! I see we
worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different rites."

Most of M. Emanuel's brother Professors were emancipated free-thinkers,
infidels, atheists; and many of them men whose lives would not bear
scrutiny; he was more like a knight of old, religious in his way, and
of spotless fame. Innocent childhood, beautiful youth were safe at his
side. He had vivid passions, keen feelings, but his pure honour and his
artless piety were the strong charm that kept the lions couchant.

That breakfast was a merry meal, and the merriment was not mere vacant
clatter: M. Paul originated, led, controlled and heightened it; his
social, lively temper played unfettered and unclouded; surrounded only
by women and children there was nothing to cross and thwart him; he had
his own way, and a pleasant way it was.

The meal over, the party were free to run and play in the meadows; a
few stayed to help the farmer's wife to put away her earthenware. M.
Paul called me from among these to come out and sit near him under a
tree--whence he could view the troop gambolling, over a wide
pasture--and read to him whilst he took his cigar. He sat on a rustic
bench, and I at the tree-root. While I read (a pocket-classic--a
Corneille--I did not like it, but he did, finding therein beauties I
never could be brought to perceive), he listened with a sweetness of
calm the more impressive from the impetuosity of his general nature;
the deepest happiness filled his blue eye and smoothed his broad
forehead. I, too, was happy--happy with the bright day, happier with
his presence, happiest with his kindness.

He asked, by-and-by, if I would not rather run to my companions than
sit there? I said, no; I felt content to be where he was. He asked
whether, if I were his sister, I should always be content to stay with
a brother such as he. I said, I believed I should; and I felt it.
Again, he inquired whether, if he were to leave Villette, and go far
away, I should be sorry; and I dropped Corneille, and made no reply.

"Petite soeur," said he; "how long could you remember me if we were
separated?"

"That, Monsieur, I can never tell, because I do not know how long it
will be before I shall cease to remember everything earthly."

"If I were to go beyond seas for two--three--five years, should you
welcome me on my return?"

"Monsieur, how could I live in the interval?"

"Pourtant j'ai ete pour vous bien dur, bien exigeant."

I hid my face with the book, for it was covered with tears. I asked him
why he talked so; and he said he would talk so no more, and cheered me
again with the kindest encouragement. Still, the gentleness with which
he treated me during the rest of the day, went somehow to my heart. It
was too tender. It was mournful. I would rather he had been abrupt,
whimsical, and irate as was his wont.

When hot noon arrived--for the day turned out as we had anticipated,
glowing as June--our shepherd collected his sheep from the pasture, and
proceeded to lead us all softly home. But we had a whole league to
walk, thus far from Villette was the farm where he had breakfasted; the
children, especially, were tired with their play; the spirits of most
flagged at the prospect of this mid-day walk over chaussees flinty,
glaring, and dusty. This state of things had been foreseen and provided
for. Just beyond the boundary of the farm we met two spacious vehicles
coming to fetch us--such conveyances as are hired out purposely for the
accommodation of school-parties; here, with good management, room was
found for all, and in another hour M. Paul made safe consignment of his
charge at the Rue Fossette. It had been a pleasant day: it would have
been perfect, but for the breathing of melancholy which had dimmed its
sunshine a moment.

That tarnish was renewed the same evening.

Just about sunset, I saw M. Emanuel come out of the front-door,
accompanied by Madame Beck. They paced the centre-alley for nearly an
hour, talking earnestly: he--looking grave, yet restless; she--wearing
an amazed, expostulatory, dissuasive air.

I wondered what was under discussion; and when Madame Beck re-entered
the house as it darkened, leaving her kinsman Paul yet lingering in the
garden, I said to myself--"He called me 'petite soeur' this morning. If
he were really my brother, how I should like to go to him just now, and
ask what it is that presses on his mind. See how he leans against that
tree, with his arms crossed and his brow bent. He wants consolation, I
know: Madame does not console: she only remonstrates. What now----?"

Starting from quiescence to action, M. Paul came striding erect and
quick down the garden. The carre doors were yet open: I thought he was
probably going to water the orange-trees in the tubs, after his
occasional custom; on reaching the court, however, he took an abrupt
turn and made for the berceau and the first-classe glass door. There,
in that first classe I was, thence I had been watching him; but there I
could not find courage to await his approach. He had turned so
suddenly, he strode so fast, he looked so strange; the coward within me
grew pale, shrank and--not waiting to listen to reason, and hearing the
shrubs crush and the gravel crunch to his advance--she was gone on the
wings of panic.

Nor did I pause till I had taken sanctuary in the oratory, now empty.
Listening there with beating pulses, and an unaccountable, undefined
apprehension, I heard him pass through all the schoolrooms, clashing
the doors impatiently as he went; I heard him invade the refectory
which the "lecture pieuse" was now holding under hallowed constraint; I
heard him pronounce these words--"Ou est Mademoiselle Lucie?"

And just as, summoning my courage, I was preparing to go down and do
what, after all, I most wished to do in the world--viz., meet him--the
wiry voice of St. Pierre replied glibly and falsely, "Elle est au lit."
And he passed, with the stamp of vexation, into the corridor. There
Madame Beck met, captured, chid, convoyed to the street-door, and
finally dismissed him.

As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse
proceeding struck like a blow upon me. I felt from the first it was me
he wanted--me he was seeking--and had not I wanted him too? What, then,
had carried me away? What had rapt me beyond his reach? He had
something to tell: he was going to tell me that something: my ear
strained its nerve to hear it, and I had made the confidence
impossible. Yearning to listen and console, while I thought audience
and solace beyond hope's reach--no sooner did opportunity suddenly and
fully arrive, than I evaded it as I would have evaded the levelled
shaft of mortality.

Well, my insane inconsistency had its reward. Instead of the comfort,
the certain satisfaction, I might have won--could I but have put
choking panic down, and stood firm two minutes--here was dead blank,
dark doubt, and drear suspense.

I took my wages to my pillow, and passed the night counting them.





CHAPTER XXXIV.

MALEVOLA.


Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had
any occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some
little commissions for her at the shops.

Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presently
furnished with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread,
etcetera, wanted in the pupils' work, and having equipped myself in a
manner suiting the threatening aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I was
just drawing the spring-bolt of the street-door, in act to issue forth,
when Madame's voice again summoned me to the salle-a-manger.

"Pardon, Meess Lucie!" cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptu
thought, "I have just recollected one more errand for you, if your
good-nature will not deem itself over-burdened?"

Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; and
Madame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket,
filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing
amongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I
know not what, exotic plant.

"There," she said, "it is not heavy, and will not shame your neat
toilette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the
favour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,
with my felicitations on her fete. She lives down in the old town,
Numero 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long, but
you have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you are
not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved, or
Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing up
some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten, ma
bonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure to
insist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket into
her own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is rather
a punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"

And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to execute,
that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a tedious
business, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for the
slippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides and
tassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was off
my mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to be
attended to.

I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim
Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the
city, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,
and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.

I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength and
use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall, the
thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--the
quiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In return, it
sweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a quiet path
through broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as if by
eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor. Let, then,
the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first get rid of
this basket of fruit.

An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was now
too distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,
when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me
the address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a
square: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, the
houses were large and looked very old--behind them rose the appearance
of trees, indicating gardens at the back. Antiquity brooded above this
region, business was banished thence. Rich men had once possessed this
quarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That church, whose
dark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the venerable and
formerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had long
since stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving these
their ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or perhaps to
stand cold and empty, mouldering untenanted in the course of winters.

As I crossed this deserted "place," on whose pavement drops almost as
large as a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in its
whole expanse, no symptom or evidence of life, except what was given in
the figure of an infirm old priest, who went past, bending and propped
on a staff--the type of eld and decay.

He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when I
paused before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, he
turned to look at me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps he
thought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity
age confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene. I know, had a young
ruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit me, I should have thought
such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, when I found
myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique peasant
costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of native
lace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like little
boats than shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in character.

The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her
costume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would
scarcely reply to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she
would have snatched the basket of fruit from my hand, had not the old
priest, hobbling up, checked her, and himself lent an ear to the
message with which I was charged.

His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully
understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit into
her own hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that such
were my orders, and that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment.
Addressing the aged bonne, not in French, but in the aboriginal tongue
of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, to let me cross the
inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, I was
ushered into a sort of salon, and there left.

The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like
windows of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of a
coming storm, looked strangely lowering. Within--opened a smaller room;
there, however, the blind of the single casement was closed; through
the deep gloom few details of furniture were apparent. These few I
amused myself by puzzling to make out; and, in particular, I was
attracted by the outline of a picture on the wall.

By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it shook,
it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an opening
arched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair;
both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted.
Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick; soon there
fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of a substance.

Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this
obstruction, partially darkening the arch?

It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was.
Well might this old square be named quarter of the Magi--well might the
three towers, overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic sages of
a dead and dark art. Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell had
opened for me elf-land--that cell-like room, that vanishing picture,
that arch and passage, and stair of stone, were all parts of a fairy
tale. Distincter even than these scenic details stood the chief
figure--Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy. How was she?

She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny hands
rested upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivory
staff. Her face was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before her
breast; she seemed to have no neck; I should have said there were a
hundred years in her features, and more perhaps in her eyes--her
malign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows above, and livid lids
all round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of dull displeasure!

This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as the
gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large pattern;
over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large for
her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her chief
points were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing with a
lustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on her
skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones--purple, green, and
blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like a
barbarian queen.

"Que me voulez-vous?" said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of male
than of female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her chin.

I delivered my basket and my message.

"Is that all?" she demanded.

"It is all," said I.

"Truly, it was well worth while," she answered. "Return to Madame Beck,
and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant a ses
felicitations, je m'en moque!" And this courteous dame turned her back.

Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightning
blazed broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed to
proceed with due accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyed
into the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened
tempest.

What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strange
acquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, and
inauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped.
There went that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsy
incarnate, tapping her ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and muttering
venomously as she vanished.

Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a
while ago, had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale, as
if in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a shower,
I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout. Then the gleams of
lightning were very fierce, the thunder crashed very near; this storm
had gathered immediately above Villette; it seemed to have burst at the
zenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant bolts pierced athwart
vertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent blanched as white
metal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its swollen abundance.

Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her
cold staircase; there was a seat on the landing--there I waited.
Somebody came gliding along the gallery just above; it was the old
priest.

"Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there," said he. "It would
displeasure our benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in this
house."

And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, without
discourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was better
furnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced me.
Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more like an
oratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking as if it
were a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than designed
for present use and comfort.

The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of
conversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and
employed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.
A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figure
remained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; he
seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercer
bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then, it
was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too was
awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my
thoughts and observations were free.

To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled
that Pere Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the
Beguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in dusk
and in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought also
I recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one lifted
look, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that too had
its half mystic interest.

Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and
sloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich missal
and ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn my eyes
before--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and let in
phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna; revealed by
clearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a nun's dress. The
face, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale, young, and shaded with
the dejection of grief or ill health. I say again it was not beautiful;
it was not even intellectual; its very amiability was the amiability of
a weak frame, inactive passions, acquiescent habits: yet I looked long
at that picture, and could not choose but look.

The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must
yet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in
his book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as I
knew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point towards which my
attention was drawn, and, in a slow distinct voice, dropped, concerning
it, these four observations:--

"She was much beloved.

"She gave herself to God.

"She died young.

"She is still remembered, still wept."

"By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?" I inquired, fancying that I had
discovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that same
aged lady's desperate ill-humour.

The father shook his head with half a smile.

"No, no," said he; "a grand-dame's affection for her children's
children may be great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it is
only the affianced lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have trebly
denied the bliss of union, who mourns what he has lost, as Justine
Marie is still mourned."

I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore I
inquired who had lost and who still mourned "Justine Marie." I got, in
reply, quite a little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively, with
the accompaniment of the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say it
might have been made much more truly impressive, if there had been less
French, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing and wire-drawing; and rather
more healthful carelessness of effect. But the worthy father was
obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more persuaded
of his resemblance to my confessor)--he was a true son of Rome; when he
did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more and
sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wear
and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a good old man.

The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now called
his benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine Marie,
the daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly prospects
were such as to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand. The
pupil's father--once a rich banker--had failed, died, and left behind
him only debts and destitution. The son was then forbidden to think of
Marie; especially that old witch of a grand-dame I had seen, Madame
Walravens, opposed the match with all the violence of a temper which
deformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie had neither the
treachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her lover;
she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second with a
heavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her noviciate.

Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heart
which worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had been
shown in a manner which touched even me, as I listened.

Some years after Justine Marie's death, ruin had come on her house too:
her father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a good
deal on the Bourse, had been concerned in some financial transactions
which entailed exposure and ruinous fines. He died of grief for the
loss, and shame for the infamy. His old hunchbacked mother and his
bereaved wife were left penniless, and might have died too of want; but
their lost daughter's once-despised, yet most true-hearted suitor,
hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with singular
devotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride the revenge
of the purest charity--housing, caring for, befriending them, so as no
son could have done it more tenderly and efficiently. The mother--on
the whole a good woman--died blessing him; the strange, godless,
loveless, misanthrope grandmother lived still, entirely supported by
this self-sacrificing man. Her, who had been the bane of his life,
blighting his hope, and awarding him, for love and domestic happiness,
long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated with the respect a
good son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to this house,
"and," continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to his eyes,
"here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a superannuated
servant of his father's family. To our sustenance, and to other
charities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income, keeping only
the fourth to provide himself with bread and the most modest
accommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it impossible to
himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and to his
angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me."

The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last words,
and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to mine. I
caught this glance, despite its veiled character; the momentary gleam
shot a meaning which struck me.

These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them--whom you
know no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of
China--knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for saying
to you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprang
impromptu from the instant's impulse: his plan in bringing it about
that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and such
circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude
apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency. Madame
Beck's suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless embassy to
the Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally descending the steps
and crossing the square, his interposition on my behalf with the bonne
who would have sent me away, his reappearance on the staircase, my
introduction to this room, the portrait, the narrative so affably
volunteered--all these little incidents, taken as they fell out, seemed
each independent of its successor; a handful of loose beads: but
threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance of a Jesuit-eye,
they dropped pendent in a long string, like that rosary on the
prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the little clasp of
this monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could not yet find the
spot, or detect the means of connection.

Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared
somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:
"Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go through these
inundated streets?"

"More than half a league."

"You live----?"

"In the Rue Fossette."

"Not" (with animation), "not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?"

"The same."

"Donc" (clapping his hands), "donc, vous devez connaitre mon noble
eleve, mon Paul?"

"Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?"

"He and none other."

A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have
become palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.

"Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?" I presently inquired. "Was
he your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?"

"Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain
emphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal, of
that saint in heaven--Justine Marie."

"And who, father, are _you?_" I continued; and though I accentuated the
question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I was ere this quite
prepared for the answer which actually came.

"I, daughter, am Pere Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you
once honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the core
of a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn truth, I
coveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor have I for
a day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in you a rooted
interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by her high
training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by the zeal
she alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual rank, your
practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."

This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself in
that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restrained
deprecation, and sat quietly enough.

"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a theme
which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.

"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
her son the jeweller's wealth."

"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,
seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
great things!"

I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
act of confession, or the saint-worship.

"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at Justine
Marie.

"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then very
young, for he is not much beyond forty."

"Does he yet weep her?"

"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's nature
is--constancy."

This was said with marked emphasis.

And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured out
its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his tale,
was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made kindly
welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but I liked
less the mystic phrase accompanying it.

"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle that made me
shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door. Few of us
know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had happened
yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded Protestant:
there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around "Holy Church"
which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering many
things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this man,
Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition, influenced by
priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious devotion, for
sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to see how Rome,
by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she cherished them for
their own sake and for God's, or put them out to usury and made booty
of the interest.

By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me a
portion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the little
cabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her
appearance, bringing me a glass of wine.

"Well," began she, chuckling, "and what sort of a reception did Madame
Walravens give you? Elle est drole, n'est-ce pas?"

I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message
with which I had been charged.

"Oh la singuliere petite bossue!" laughed she. "Et figurez-vous qu'elle
me deteste, parcequ'elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin Paul; ce
petit devot qui n'ose pas bouger, a moins que son confesseur ne lui
donne la permission! Au reste" (she went on), "if he wanted to marry
ever so much--soit moi, soit une autre--he could not do it; he has too
large a family already on his hands: Mere Walravens, Pere Silas, Dame
Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never was a man
like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can bear,
voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he harbours a
romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine--personnage assez
niaise a ce que je pense" (such was Madame's irreverent remark), "who
has been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere, this score of years, and to
whom he means to go, free from all earthly ties, pure comme un lis, a
ce qu'il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you but know half M. Emanuel's
crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder you from taking refreshment,
ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat your supper, drink your wine,
oubliez les anges, les bossues, et surtout, les Professeurs--et bon
soir!"





CHAPTER XXXV

FRATERNITY.


"Oubliez les Professeurs." So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a wise
woman, but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was a
mistake. That night she should have left me calm--not excited,
indifferent, not interested, isolated in my own estimation and that of
others--not connected, even in idea, with this second person whom I was
to forget.

Forget him? Ah! they took a sage plan to make me forget him--the
wiseheads! They showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little
man a stainless little hero. And then they had prated about his manner
of loving. What means had I, before this day, of being certain whether
he could love at all or not?

I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain
tendernesses, fitfulnesses--a softness which came like a warm air, and
a ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his
irritabilities: _this_ was all I had seen. And they, Pere Silas and
Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought in concert I could not
doubt) opened up the adytum of his heart--showed me one grand love, the
child of this southern nature's youth, born so strong and perfect, that
it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of matter,
clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had watched beside
a tomb twenty years.

This had been done--not idly: this was not a mere hollow indulgence of
sentiment; he had proven his fidelity by the consecration of his best
energies to an unselfish purpose, and attested it by limitless personal
sacrifices: for those once dear to her he prized--he had laid down
vengeance, and taken up a cross.

Now, as for Justine Marie, I knew what she was as well as if I had seen
her. I knew she was well enough; there were girls like her in Madame
Beck's school--phlegmatics--pale, slow, inert, but kind-natured,
neutral of evil, undistinguished for good.

If she wore angels' wings, I knew whose poet-fancy conferred them. If
her forehead shone luminous with the reflex of a halo, I knew in the
fire of whose irids that circlet of holy flame had generation.

Was I, then, to be frightened by Justine Marie? Was the picture of a
pale dead nun to rise, an eternal barrier? And what of the charities
which absorbed his worldly goods? What of his heart sworn to virginity?

Madame Beck--Pere Silas--you should not have suggested these questions.
They were at once the deepest puzzle, the strongest obstruction, and
the keenest stimulus, I had ever felt. For a week of nights and days I
fell asleep--I dreamt, and I woke upon these two questions. In the
whole world there was no answer to them, except where one dark little
man stood, sat, walked, lectured, under the head-piece of a bandit
bonnet-grec, and within the girth of a sorry paletot, much be-inked,
and no little adust.

After that visit to the Rue des Mages, I _did_ want to see him again. I
felt as if--knowing what I now knew--his countenance would offer a page
more lucid, more interesting than ever; I felt a longing to trace in it
the imprint of that primitive devotedness, the signs of that
half-knightly, half-saintly chivalry which the priest's narrative
imputed to his nature. He had become my Christian hero: under that
character I wanted to view him.

Nor was opportunity slow to favour; my new impressions underwent her
test the next day. Yes: I was granted an interview with my "Christian
hero"--an interview not very heroic, or sentimental, or biblical, but
lively enough in its way.

About three o'clock of the afternoon, the peace of the first
classe--safely established, as it seemed, under the serene sway of
Madame Beck, who, _in propria persona_ was giving one of her orderly
and useful lessons--this peace, I say, suffered a sudden fracture by
the wild inburst of a paletot.

Nobody at the moment was quieter than myself. Eased of responsibility
by Madame Beck's presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and
edified with her clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she
taught well), I sat bent over my desk, drawing--that is, copying an
elaborate line engraving, tediously working up my copy to the finish of
the original, for that was my practical notion of art; and, strange to
say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and could even produce
curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint
plates--things about as valuable as so many achievements in
worsted-work, but I thought pretty well of them in those days.

What was the matter? My drawing, my pencils, my precious copy, gathered
into one crushed-up handful, perished from before my sight; I myself
appeared to be shaken or emptied out of my chair, as a solitary and
withered nutmeg might be emptied out of a spice-box by an excited cook.
That chair and my desk, seized by the wild paletot, one under each
sleeve, were borne afar; in a second, I followed the furniture; in two
minutes they and I were fixed in the centre of the grand salle--a vast
adjoining room, seldom used save for dancing and choral
singing-lessons--fixed with an emphasis which seemed to prohibit the
remotest hope of our ever being permitted to stir thence again.

Having partially collected my scared wits, I found myself in the
presence of two men, gentlemen, I suppose I should say--one dark, the
other light--one having a stiff, half-military air, and wearing a
braided surtout; the other partaking, in garb and bearing, more of the
careless aspect of the student or artist class: both flourishing in
full magnificence of moustaches, whiskers, and imperial. M. Emanuel
stood a little apart from these; his countenance and eyes expressed
strong choler; he held forth his hand with his tribune gesture.

"Mademoiselle," said he, "your business is to prove to these gentlemen
that I am no liar. You will answer, to the best of your ability, such
questions as they shall put. You will also write on such theme as they
shall select. In their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an
unprincipled impostor. I write essays; and, with deliberate forgery,
sign to them my pupils' names, and boast of them as their work. You
will disprove this charge."

Grand ciel! Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a
thunder-clap. These two fine, braided, mustachioed, sneering
personages, were none other than dandy professors of the
college--Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte--a pair of cold-blooded fops
and pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It seems that M. Paul had been
rashly exhibiting something I had written--something, he had never once
praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, and which I deemed
forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only _seemed_
remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign
school-girls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce
noticed. Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to
question its genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my
testimony to the truth, and to be put to the torture of their
examination.

A memorable scene ensued.

They began with classics. A dead blank. They went on to French history.
I hardly knew Merovee from Pharamond. They tried me in various
'ologies, and still only got a shake of the head, and an unchanging "Je
n'en sais rien."

After an expressive pause, they proceeded to matters of general
information, broaching one or two subjects which I knew pretty well,
and on which I had often reflected. M. Emanuel, who had hitherto stood
looking on, dark as the winter-solstice, brightened up somewhat; he
thought I should now show myself at least no fool.

He learned his error. Though answers to the questions surged up fast,
my mind filling like a rising well, ideas were there, but not words. I
either _could_ not, or _would_ not speak--I am not sure which: partly,
I think, my nerves had got wrong, and partly my humour was crossed.

I heard one of my examiners--he of the braided surtout--whisper to his
co-professor, "Est-elle donc idiote?"

"Yes," I thought, "an idiot she is, and always will be, for such as
you."

But I suffered--suffered cruelly; I saw the damps gather on M. Paul's
brow, and his eye spoke a passionate yet sad reproach. He would not
believe in my total lack of popular cleverness; he thought I _could_ be
prompt if I _would_.

At last, to relieve him, the professors, and myself, I stammered out:

"Gentlemen, you had better let me go; you will get no good of me; as
you say, I am an idiot."

I wish I could have spoken with calm and dignity, or I wish my sense
had sufficed to make me hold my tongue; that traitor tongue tripped,
faltered. Beholding the judges cast on M. Emanuel a hard look of
triumph, and hearing the distressed tremor of my own voice, out I burst
in a fit of choking tears. The emotion was far more of anger than
grief; had I been a man and strong, I could have challenged that pair
on the spot--but it _was_ emotion, and I would rather have been
scourged than betrayed it.

The incapables! Could they not see at once the crude hand of a novice
in that composition they called a forgery? The subject was classical.
When M. Paul dictated the trait on which the essay was to turn, I heard
it for the first time; the matter was new to me, and I had no material
for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts, laboriously
constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real, and then
clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in this last aim
I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious time till my
facts were found, selected, and properly jointed; nor could I rest from
research and effort till I was satisfied of correct anatomy; the
strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or falsity
sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the knowledge was
not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been sown in Spring,
grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered through Winter;
whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh; glean of wild herbs
my lapful, and shred them green into the pot. Messieurs Boissec and
Rochemorte did not perceive this. They mistook my work for the work of
a ripe scholar.

They would not yet let me go: I must sit down and write before them. As
I dipped my pen in the ink with a shaking hand, and surveyed the white
paper with eyes half-blinded and overflowing, one of my judges began
mincingly to apologize for the pain he caused.

"Nous agissons dans l'interet de la verite. Nous ne voulons pas vous
blesser," said he.

Scorn gave me nerve. I only answered,--

"Dictate, Monsieur."

Rochemorte named this theme: "Human Justice."

Human Justice! What was I to make of it? Blank, cold abstraction,
unsuggestive to me of one inspiring idea; and there stood M. Emanuel,
sad as Saul, and stern as Joab, and there triumphed his accusers.

At these two I looked. I was gathering my courage to tell them that I
would neither write nor speak another word for their satisfaction, that
their theme did not suit, nor their presence inspire me, and that,
notwithstanding, whoever threw the shadow of a doubt on M. Emanuel's
honour, outraged that truth of which they had announced themselves
the--champions: I _meant_ to utter all this, I say, when suddenly, a
light darted on memory.

Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and
whisker--those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous
visages--were the same faces, the very same that, projected in full
gaslight from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me
to death on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt
morally certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless
foreigner beyond her reckoning and her strength, chased her breathless
over a whole quarter of the town.

"Pious mentors!" thought I. "Pure guides for youth! If Human Justice'
were what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present post,
or enjoy your present credit."

An idea once seized, I fell to work. "Human Justice" rushed before me
in novel guise, a red, random beldame, with arms akimbo. I saw her in
her house, the den of confusion: servants called to her for orders or
help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and
starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled
round her feet, and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy,
cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She had
a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a short
black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny's soothing syrup; she smoked
and she sipped, and she enjoyed her paradise; and whenever a cry of the
suffering souls about her pierced her ears too keenly--my jolly dame
seized the poker or the hearth-brush: if the offender was weak,
wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him: if he was strong,
lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand in her
deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.

Such was the sketch of "Human Justice," scratched hurriedly on paper,
and placed at the service of Messrs. Boissec and Rochemorte. M. Emanuel
read it over my shoulder. Waiting no comment, I curtsied to the trio,
and withdrew.

After school that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course the meeting
did not at first run smooth; there was a crow to pluck with him; that
forced examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed
dialogue terminated in my being called "une petite moqueuse et
sans-coeur," and in Monsieur's temporary departure.

Not wishing him to go quite away, only desiring he should feel that
such a transport as he had that day given way to, could not be indulged
with perfect impunity, I was not sorry to see him, soon after,
gardening in the berceau. He approached the glass door; I drew near
also. We spoke of some flowers growing round it. By-and-by Monsieur
laid down his spade; by-and-by he recommenced conversation, passed to
other subjects, and at last touched a point of interest.

Conscious that his proceeding of that day was specially open to a
charge of extravagance, M. Paul half apologized; he half regretted,
too, the fitfulness of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some
allowance ought to be made for him. "But," said he, "I can hardly
expect it at your hands, Miss Lucy; you know neither me, nor my
position, nor my history."

His history. I took up the word at once; I pursued the idea.

"No, Monsieur," I rejoined. "Of course, as you say, I know neither your
history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your
sorrows, or trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh, no! I know
nothing about you; you are for me altogether a stranger."

"Hein?" he murmured, arching his brows in surprise.

"You know, Monsieur, I only see you in classe--stern, dogmatic, hasty,
imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to
originate, hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A man
like you, without ties, can have no attachments; without dependants, no
duties. All we, with whom you come in contact, are machines, which you
thrust here and there, inconsiderate of their feelings. You seek your
recreations in public, by the light of the evening chandelier: this
school and yonder college are your workshops, where you fabricate the
ware called pupils. I don't so much as know where you live; it is
natural to take it for granted that you have no home, and need none."

"I am judged," said he. "Your opinion of me is just what I thought it
was. For you I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of
affection and religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by
principle or faith. It is well, Mademoiselle; such is our reward in
this life."

"You are a philosopher, Monsieur; a cynic philosopher" (and I looked at
his paletot, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with his
hand), "despising the foibles of humanity--above its
luxuries--independent of its comforts."

"Et vous, Mademoiselle? vous etes proprette et douillette, et
affreusement insensible, par-dessus le marche."

"But, in short, Monsieur, now I think of it, you _must_ live somewhere?
Do tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you keep?"

With a fearful projection of the under-lip, implying an impetus of
scorn the most decided, he broke out--

"Je vis dans un trou! I inhabit a den, Miss--a cavern, where you would
not put your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole
truth, I talked about my 'study' in that college: know now that this
'study' is my whole abode; my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As
for my 'establishment of servants'" (mimicking my voice) "they number
ten; les voila."

And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers.

"I black my boots," pursued he savagely. "I brush my paletot."

"No, Monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that," was my parenthesis.

"Je fais mon lit et mon menage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my
supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless;
nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and
nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn
like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in
purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to
whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the kingdom
of heaven."

"Ah, Monsieur; but I know!"

"What do you know? many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy!"

"I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of
the Basse-Ville--why don't you go and live there?"

"Hein?" muttered he again.

"I liked it much, Monsieur; with the steps ascending to the door, the
grey flags in front, the nodding trees behind--real trees, not
shrubs--trees dark, high, and of old growth. And the
boudoir-oratoire--you should make that room your study; it is so quiet
and solemn."

He eyed me closely; he half-smiled, half-coloured. "Where did you pick
up all that? Who told you?" he asked.

"Nobody told me. Did I dream it, Monsieur, do you think?"

"Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman's waking thoughts,
much less her sleeping fantasies?"

"If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I
saw a priest, old, bent, and grey, and a domestic--old, too, and
picturesque; and a lady, splendid but strange; her head would scarce
reach to my elbow--her magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a
gown bright as lapis-lazuli--a shawl worth a thousand francs: she was
decked with ornaments so brilliant, I never saw any with such a
beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had been broken in
two and bent double; she seemed also to have outlived the common years
of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and
sorrow. She was become morose--almost malevolent; yet _somebody_, it
appears, cared for her in her infirmities--somebody forgave her
trespasses, hoping to have his trespasses forgiven. They lived
together, these three people--the mistress, the chaplain, the
servant--all old, all feeble, all sheltered under one kind wing."

He covered with his hand the upper part of his face, but did not
conceal his mouth, where I saw hovering an expression I liked.

"I see you have entered into my secrets," said he, "but how was it
done?"

So I told him how--the commission on which I had been sent, the storm
which had detained me, the abruptness of the lady, the kindness of the
priest.

"As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Pere Silas whiled away the
time with a story," I said.

"A story! What story? Pere Silas is no romancist."

"Shall I tell Monsieur the tale?"

"Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy's
French--her best or her worst--I don't much care which: let us have a
good poignee of barbarisms, and a bounteous dose of the insular accent."

"Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious
proportions, and the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the
midst. But I will tell him the title--the 'Priest's Pupil.'"

"Bah!" said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. "The
good old father could not have chosen a worse subject; it is his weak
point. But what of the 'Priest's Pupil?'"

"Oh! many things."

"You may as well define _what_ things. I mean to know."

"There was the pupil's youth, the pupil's manhood;--his avarice, his
ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil,
Monsieur!--so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!

"Et puis?" said he, taking a cigar.

"Et puis," I pursued, "he underwent calamities which one did not
pity--bore them in a spirit one did not admire--endured wrongs for
which one felt no sympathy; finally took the unchristian revenge of
heaping coals of fire on his adversary's head."

"You have not told me all," said he.

"Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Pere Silas's
chapters."

"You have forgotten one--that which touched on the pupil's lack of
affection--on his hard, cold, monkish heart."

"True; I remember now. Pere Silas _did_ say that his vocation was
almost that of a priest--that his life was considered consecrated."

"By what bonds or duties?"

"By the ties of the past and the charities of the present."

"You have, then, the whole situation?"

"I have now told Monsieur all that was told me."

Some meditative minutes passed.

"Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, look at me, and with that truth which I
believe you never knowingly violate, answer me one question. Raise your
eyes; rest them on mine; have no hesitation; fear not to trust me--I am
a man to be trusted."

I raised my eyes.

"Knowing me thoroughly now--all my antecedents, all my
responsibilities--having long known my faults, can you and I still be
friends?"

"If Monsieur wants a friend in me, I shall be glad to have a friend in
him."

"But a close friend I mean--intimate and real--kindred in all but
blood. Will Miss Lucy be the sister of a very poor, fettered, burdened,
encumbered man?"

I could not answer him in words, yet I suppose I _did_ answer him; he
took my hand, which found comfort, in the shelter of his. _His_
friendship was not a doubtful, wavering benefit--a cold, distant
hope--a sentiment so brittle as not to bear the weight of a finger: I
at once felt (or _thought_ I felt) its support like that of some rock.

"When I talk of friendship, I mean _true_ friendship," he repeated
emphatically; and I could hardly believe that words so earnest had
blessed my ear; I hardly could credit the reality of that kind, anxious
look he gave. If he _really_ wished for my confidence and regard, and
_really_ would give me his--why, it seemed to me that life could offer
nothing more or better. In that case, I was become strong and rich: in
a moment I was made substantially happy. To ascertain the fact, to fix
and seal it, I asked--

"Is Monsieur quite serious? Does he really think he needs me, and can
take an interest in me as a sister?"

"Surely, surely," said he; "a lonely man like me, who has no sister,
must be but too glad to find in some woman's heart a sister's pure
affection."

"And dare I rely on Monsieur's regard? Dare I speak to him when I am so
inclined?"

"My little sister must make her own experiments," said he; "I will give
no promises. She must tease and try her wayward brother till she has
drilled him into what she wishes. After all, he is no inductile
material in some hands."

While he spoke, the tone of his voice, the light of his now
affectionate eye, gave me such a pleasure as, certainly, I had never
felt. I envied no girl her lover, no bride her bridegroom, no wife her
husband; I was content with this my voluntary, self-offering friend. If
he would but prove reliable, and he _looked_ reliable, what, beyond his
friendship, could I ever covet? But, if all melted like a dream, as
once before had happened--?

"Qu'est-ce donc? What is it?" said he, as this thought threw its weight
on my heart, its shadow on my countenance. I told him; and after a
moment's pause, and a thoughtful smile, he showed me how an equal
fear--lest I should weary of him, a man of moods so difficult and
fitful--had haunted his mind for more than one day, or one month.

On hearing this, a quiet courage cheered me. I ventured a word of
re-assurance. That word was not only tolerated; its repetition was
courted. I grew quite happy--strangely happy--in making him secure,
content, tranquil. Yesterday, I could not have believed that earth
held, or life afforded, moments like the few I was now passing.
Countless times it had been my lot to watch apprehended sorrow close
darkly in; but to see unhoped-for happiness take form, find place, and
grow more real as the seconds sped, was indeed a new experience.

"Lucy," said M. Paul, speaking low, and still holding my hand, "did you
see a picture in the boudoir of the old house?"

"I did; a picture painted on a panel."

"The portrait of a nun?"

"Yes."

"You heard her history?"

"Yes."

"You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?"

"I shall never forget it."

"You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?"

"I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait," said I; which
was true enough.

"You did not, nor will you fancy," pursued he, "that a saint in heaven
perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely
superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset _you?_"

"I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly
natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at."

"Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good-living woman--much less a pure,
happy spirit--would trouble amity like ours n'est-il pas vrai?"

Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out
that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some
English family, who had applied for a prospectus: my services were
needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable:
sufficient for the day is always the evil; for this hour, its good
sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the "morbid
fancies," against which he warned me, wrought in his own brain.

 Chapter XXXIII's "Promise" is for M. Paul to take the students and teachers for breakfast in the country. Lucy, who like everyone has dressed up, worries that M. Paul will chide her for wearing her pink dress, and she avoids the professor. He sees through her ruse and teases her again with that word from the night at the de Bassompierres': "coquette." Lucy defends her sartorial choices. They sit, and M. Paul regales them with a story told with such feeling and spoken so well that Lucy falls into a kind of reverie of imagination. After breakfast, M. Paul and Lucy sit under a tree while Lucy reads aloud from a book. In a strange moment he asks that if she were his sister, would she like to always stay with a brother such as he? She says that indeed she would. He continues questioning her, asking how she would remember him if he went away, for how long, and so on. Lucy is upset by this and begins to weep. She hides it, and for once M. Paul is silent and lets it pass. The rest of the day passes pleasantly. In Chapter XXXIV Madame Beck asks Lucy to take a long walk to the Rue de Mages and give a basket to Madame Walravens, who lives there. The neighborhood where the lady lives looks like it has seen better days. An old priest sees Lucy as she approaches, and Lucy attempts to bring the basket in to Madame Walravens, but the servant will not let her in. The priest comes and works things out so that Lucy may enter. Inside, a short well-dressed lady comes in, and she frightens Lucy with her strange appearance. She refuses the basket from Madame Beck with the message that "she can buy fruit when she wants it." It has begun raining, so Lucy waits inside for a while. The old priest comes her and asks her to sit in the salon. She looks at a portrait on the wall, and the priest tells her about the subject, Justine Marie. She was to marry a man of her own economic class, but the young man's father died and left him with debts. Therefore they could not marry, so Justine Marie took the veil and very shortly afterwards died. While he is telling this story, Lucy recognizes the man as Pere Silas, her confessor on the night that she collapsed and was rescued by Dr. John. He continues the story, relating that the young man was plunged into deep sorrow. Justine's family eventually came to ruin, too. Justine's mother and grandmother would have been left destitute on Justine's father's death if the young man had not helped them. Madame Walravens is Justine's grandmother, and the young man had installed her in this house along with a servant. The priest was the young man's old tutor. The young man is very charitable and monkish in his habits. Lucy begins to smell a rat, wondering if she was sent here with some purpose other than the delivery of a gift. Pere Silas ask if she knows M. Paul, and Lucy says she does. It is M. Paul who was this young bereaved man, and it is he who now supports the family of his dead fiancee. Lucy has been brought here to learn M. Paul's history. Lucy returns to Madame Beck and says that Madame Walravens sent it back because she thinks that Madame Beck would like to marry her cousin M. Paul herself. This is not Madame Beck's desire, though, and she says that M. Paul is still in love with Justine. The concern of Chapter XXXV is Madame Beck's plan to reveal M. Paul's true nature. She wants Lucy to know that M. Paul is good, generous, and capable of very deep feeling. Lucy wonders about the motives of Pere Silas and Madame Beck. When M. Paul next arrives, he takes her into a room separate from the others. There are two associates from the Athenee who are there to examine her. She has written an essay, and they cannot believe an English schoolteacher could have written it without help, and she is now to prove that M. Paul is not a liar. Taken aback, she stammers horribly, and they accuse her of idiocy. She begins to cry, mostly because she has let M. Paul down. Lucy's ability to write a good essay does not translate into on-the-spot verbal quizzing. The two gentlemen make Lucy write an essay "On Human Justice." In another implausible Brontean coincidence, Lucy recognizes these two men as those who were following her on her first night in Villette. This realization inspires her to write a brilliant allegory of Dame Justice sitting by her fireside, dispensing punishment and reward on those who deserve it. Lucy leaves before the men can tell her what they think of her essay. M. Paul later apologizes, explaining that his position warranted the encounter. They have a heated exchange in which Lucy accuses him of treating his students like machines and of being generally an inhuman brute. She says he has no home and is unnatural, and he retorts that he lives in two rooms in the boys' college and keeps no servants. Lucy reveals her knowledge of Madame Walravens, and she teases him about his charity. She really does admire him, but she instead pokes fun at him. M. Paul now softens, and they are brought together again by shared knowledge. He knows that she now has no illusions about his character. She would like the friendship with him, but Lucy has had a friendship with a Dr. John fail before, so she is shy of commitment. M. Paul is reassuring. Their talk turns to the portrait of Justine Marie, and M. Paul would like to know if it reminds Lucy of the ghostly nun. She says that it does, but Lucy is still hoping for a better explanation for the visitations than this. M. Paul, with his rational mind, agrees.

