Chapter: CHAPTER XXIX.

MONSIEUR'S FETE.


I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my
guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for the
benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its last
watch.

All my materials--my whole stock of beads and silk--were used up before
the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had wrought it
double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit the
particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective
appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a
little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the
fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it, then
coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small box I
had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the colour
called "nacarat," and decked with a little coronal of sparkling blue
stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my scissors'
point certain initials.

       *       *       *       *       *

The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck's
fete; nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome
present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance of
this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a
modified form, to her kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the latter
case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and contrived
beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many others, of
the estimation in which--despite his partialities, prejudices, and
irritabilities--the professor of literature was held by his pupils. No
article of value was offered to him: he distinctly gave it to be
understood, that he would accept neither plate nor jewellery. Yet he
liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value, did not touch him: a
diamond ring, a gold snuff-box, presented, with pomp, would have
pleased him less than a flower, or a drawing, offered simply and with
sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man, not wise in his
generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with "the dayspring on
high."

M. Paul's fete fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a
fine sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was
customary to attend mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the
half-holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping, or
paying visits in the afternoon: these combined considerations induced a
general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were in vogue;
the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was exchanged for something
lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zelie St. Pierre, on this particular
Thursday, even assumed a "robe de soie," deemed in economical
Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury; nay, it was
remarked that she sent for a "coiffeur" to dress her hair that morning;
there were pupils acute enough to discover that she had bedewed her
handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable perfume. Poor
Zelie! It was much her wont to declare about this time, that she was
tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that she longed to
have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some one to work for
her--a husband who would pay her debts (she was woefully encumbered
with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at liberty, as she said,
to "gouter un peu les plaisirs." It had long been rumoured, that her
eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel's eye was certainly often
upon her. He would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes
together. I have seen him give her a quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while
the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrade,
unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would
writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur would
follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; for in some
cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration of instinct, and
pierced in its hiding-place the last lurking thought of the heart, and
discerned under florid veilings the bare; barren places of the spirit:
yes, and its perverted tendencies, and its hidden false curves--all
that men and women would not have known--the twisted spine, the
malformed limb that was born with them, and far worse, the stain or
disfigurement they have perhaps brought on themselves. No calamity so
accursed but M. Emanuel could pity and forgive, if it were acknowledged
candidly; but where his questioning eyes met dishonest denial--where
his ruthless researches found deceitful concealment--oh, then, he could
be cruel, and I thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen
from poor shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of
the mount of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false--poor
living lies--the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on
unveiled. He thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man
has a right to do such justice on man: more than once in these his
visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and
not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. He deserved it; but it was
difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was
righteous and needed.

Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school-bell rang and the
rooms filled: a very pretty spectacle was presented in classe. Pupils
and teachers sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing in
her hand the bouquet of felicitation--the prettiest spring-flowers all
fresh, and filling the air with their fragrance: I only had no bouquet.
I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease
to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their
likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I
never wish to receive them from hands dear to me. Mademoiselle St.
Pierre marked my empty hands--she could not believe I had been so
remiss; with avidity her eye roved over and round me: surely I must
have some solitary symbolic flower somewhere: some small knot of
violets, something to win myself praise for taste, commendation for
ingenuity. The unimaginative "Anglaise" proved better than the
Parisienne's fears: she sat literally unprovided, as bare of bloom or
leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zelie smiled, well pleased.

"How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Miss Lucie," she said:
"silly I have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot-house
flowers!"

And she showed with pride her splendid nosegay.

But hush! a step: _the_ step. It came prompt, as usual, but with a
promptitude, we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by other
feelings than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of intent. We
thought our Professor's "foot-fall" (to speak romantically) had in it a
friendly promise this morning; and so it had.

He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the
already well-lit first classe. The morning light playing amongst our
plants and laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from M. Paul's
all-benignant salute. Like a true Frenchman (though I don't know why I
should say so, for he was of strain neither French nor Labassecourien),
he had dressed for the "situation" and the occasion. Not by the vague
folds, sinister and conspirator-like, of his soot-dark paletot were the
outlines of his person obscured; on the contrary, his figure (such as
it was, I don't boast of it) was well set off by a civilized coat and a
silken vest quite pretty to behold. The defiant and pagan bonnet-grec
had vanished: bare-headed, he came upon us, carrying a Christian hat in
his gloved hand. The little man looked well, very well; there was a
clearness of amity in his blue eye, and a glow of good feeling on his
dark complexion, which passed perfectly in the place of beauty: one
really did not care to observe that his nose, though far from small,
was of no particular shape, his cheek thin, his brow marked and square,
his mouth no rose-bud: one accepted him as he was, and felt his
presence the reverse of damping or insignificant.

He passed to his desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. "Bon
jour, mes amies," said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some
amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund,
good-fellow tone, still less an unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice
he had belonging to himself--a voice used when his heart passed the
words to his lips. That same heart did speak sometimes; though an
irritable, it was not an ossified organ: in its core was a place,
tender beyond a man's tenderness; a place that humbled him to little
children, that bound him to girls and women to whom, rebel as he would,
he could not disown his affinity, nor quite deny that, on the whole, he
was better with them than with his own sex.

"We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our
congratulations on the anniversary of his fete," said Mademoiselle
Zelie, constituting herself spokeswoman of the assembly; and advancing
with no more twists of affectation than were with her indispensable to
the achievement of motion, she laid her costly bouquet before him. He
bowed over it.

The long train of offerings followed: all the pupils, sweeping past
with the gliding step foreigners practise, left their tributes as they
went by. Each girl so dexterously adjusted her separate gift, that when
the last bouquet was laid on the desk, it formed the apex to a blooming
pyramid--a pyramid blooming, spreading, and towering with such
exuberance as, in the end, to eclipse the hero behind it. This ceremony
over, seats were resumed, and we sat in dead silence, expectant of a
speech.

I suppose five minutes might have elapsed, and the hush remained
unbroken; ten--and there was no sound.

Many present began, doubtless, to wonder for what Monsieur waited; as
well they might. Voiceless and viewless, stirless and wordless, he kept
his station behind the pile of flowers.

At last there issued forth a voice, rather deep, as if it spoke out of
a hollow:--

"Est-ce la tout?"

Mademoiselle Zelie looked round.

"You have all presented your bouquets?" inquired she of the pupils.

Yes; they had all given their nosegays, from the eldest to the
youngest, from the tallest to the most diminutive. The senior mistress
signified as much.

"Est-ce la tout?" was reiterated in an intonation which, deep before,
had now descended some notes lower.

"Monsieur," said Mademoiselle St. Pierre, rising, and this time
speaking with her own sweet smile, "I have the honour to tell you that,
with a single exception, every person in classe has offered her
bouquet. For Meess Lucie, Monsieur will kindly make allowance; as a
foreigner she probably did not know our customs, or did not appreciate
their significance. Meess Lucie has regarded this ceremony as too
frivolous to be honoured by her observance."

"Famous!" I muttered between my teeth: "you are no bad speaker, Zelie,
when you begin."

The answer vouchsafed to Mademoiselle St Pierre from the estrade was
given in the gesticulation of a hand from behind the pyramid. This
manual action seemed to deprecate words, to enjoin silence.

A form, ere long, followed the hand. Monsieur emerged from his eclipse;
and producing himself on the front of his estrade, and gazing straight
and fixedly before him at a vast "mappe-monde" covering the wall
opposite, he demanded a third time, and now in really tragic tones--

"Est-ce la tout?"

I might yet have made all right, by stepping forwards and slipping into
his hand the ruddy little shell-box I at that moment held tight in my
own. It was what I had fully purposed to do; but, first, the comic side
of Monsieur's behaviour had tempted me to delay, and now, Mademoiselle
St. Pierre's affected interference provoked contumacity. The reader not
having hitherto had any cause to ascribe to Miss Snowe's character the
most distant pretensions to perfection, will be scarcely surprised to
learn that she felt too perverse to defend herself from any imputation
the Parisienne might choose to insinuate and besides, M. Paul was so
tragic, and took my defection so seriously, he deserved to be vexed. I
kept, then, both my box and my countenance, and sat insensate as any
stone.

"It is well!" dropped at length from the lips of M. Paul; and having
uttered this phrase, the shadow of some great paroxysm--the swell of
wrath, scorn, resolve--passed over his brow, rippled his lips, and
lined his cheeks. Gulping down all further comment, he launched into
his customary "discours."

I can't at all remember what this "discours" was; I did not listen to
it: the gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his mortification
or vexation, had given me a sensation which half-counteracted the
ludicrous effect of the reiterated "Est-ce la tout?"

Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion my
attention was again amusingly arrested.

Owing to some little accidental movement--I think I dropped my thimble
on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head
against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to
me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle--M. Paul
became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to
the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long
to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to
give him ease.

I don't know how, in the progress of his "discours," he had contrived
to cross the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him
when I began to listen.

Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room--a glance which scathed,
or was intended to scathe, as it crossed me--he fell with fury upon
"les Anglaises."

Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning
handled them: he spared nothing--neither their minds, morals, manners,
nor personal appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall
stature, their long necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress, their
pedantic education, their impious scepticism(!), their insufferable
pride, their pretentious virtue: over which he ground his teeth
malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would have said
singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a natural
consequence, detestably ugly.

"Little wicked venomous man!" thought I; "am I going to harass myself
with fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed;
you shall be indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your
pyramid."

I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some
time the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I
bore it some fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing
cockatrice was determined to sting, and he said such things at
last--fastening not only upon our women, but upon our greatest names
and best men; sullying, the shield of Britannia, and dabbling the union
jack in mud--that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought up the
most spicy current continental historical falsehoods--than which
nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zelie, and the whole class,
became one grin of vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover
how these clowns of Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I
struck a sharp stroke on my desk, opened my lips, and let loose this
cry:--

"Vive l'Angleterre, l'Histoire et les Heros! A bas la France, la
Fiction et les Faquins!"

The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The
Professor put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its
folds. Little monster of malice! He now thought he had got the victory,
since he had made me angry. In a second he became good-humoured. With
great blandness he resumed the subject of his flowers; talked
poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, perfume, purity,
etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the "jeunes filles" and
the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St. Pierre a very
full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet; and ended by
announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy morning in
spring, he intended to take the whole class out to breakfast in the
country. "Such of the class, at least," he added, with emphasis, "as he
could count amongst the number of his friends."

"Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.

"Soit!" was his response; and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he
flashed out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble,
and the neglected little box, to my desk, swept up-stairs. I don't know
whether _he_ felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess that _I_ did.

Yet with a strange evanescent anger, I had not sat an hour on the edge
of my bed, picturing and repicturing his look, manner, words ere I
smiled at the whole scene. A little pang of regret I underwent that the
box had not been offered. I had meant to gratify him. Fate would not
have it so.

In the course of the afternoon, remembering that desks in classe were
by no means inviolate repositories, and thinking that it was as well to
secure the box, on account of the initials in the lid, P. C. D. E., for
Paul Carl (or Carlos) David Emanuel--such was his full name--these
foreigners must always have a string of baptismals--I descended to the
schoolroom.

It slept in holiday repose. The day pupils were all gone home, the
boarders were out walking, the teachers, except the surveillante of the
week, were in town, visiting or shopping; the suite of divisions was
vacant; so was the grande salle, with its huge solemn globe hanging in
the midst, its pair of many-branched chandeliers, and its horizontal
grand piano closed, silent, enjoying its mid-week Sabbath. I rather
wondered to find the first classe door ajar; this room being usually
locked when empty, and being then inaccessible to any save Madame Beck
and myself, who possessed a duplicate key. I wondered still more, on
approaching, to hear a vague movement as of life--a step, a chair
stirred, a sound like the opening of a desk.

"It is only Madame Beck doing inspection duty," was the conclusion
following a moment's reflection. The partially-opened door gave
opportunity for assurance on this point. I looked. Behold! not the
inspecting garb of Madame Beck--the shawl and the clean cap--but the
coat, and the close-shorn, dark head of a man. This person occupied my
chair; his olive hand held my desk open, his nose was lost to view
amongst my papers. His back was towards me, but there could not be a
moment's question about identity. Already was the attire of ceremony
discarded: the cherished and ink-stained paletot was resumed; the
perverse bonnet-grec lay on the floor, as if just dropped from the
hand, culpably busy.

Now I knew, and I had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel's was on
the most 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 unmistakable; 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 good-will 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 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 fete-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 deteste, mon garcon!'--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! 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 assure you, is alien to my whole life
and views. It died in the past--in the present it lies buried--its
grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many winters old: in the future
there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my souls consolation; but
all will then be changed--form and feeling: the mortal will have put on
immortality--it will rise, not for earth, but heaven. All I say to
_you_, Miss Lucy Snowe, is--that you ought to treat Professor Paul
Emanuel decently."

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

"Tell me," he pursued, "when it is _your_ fete-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 eyes. 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 fete-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 paletot, 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 bonbonniere--he
was fond of bonbons, by the way--and as he always liked to share with
others what pleased himself, he would give his "dragees" 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.

"A present c'est un fait accompli," said he, re-adjusting his paletot;
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 paletot and bonnet-grec, the
neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer uncomfortable or very
formidable. I did not now sit restrained, "asphyxiee" (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 than did M.
Paul's worldless 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 XXX.

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, outrivalled, 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 carre,
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, 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 briers, 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-school boy, 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 effort 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.

But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to
yield to day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves, free, and
my time of energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled,
trebled, quadrupled the tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his
kindness became sternness; the light changed in his eyes from a beam to
a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he curbed me imperiously; the more I
did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed content. Sarcasms of which
the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears; then flowed out
the bitterest inuendoes against the "pride of intellect." I was vaguely
threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed the limits
proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for unfeminine
knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it joyed me by
any effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in the
abstract--the godlike thirst after discovery--these feelings were known
to me but by briefest flashes.

Yet, when M. Paul sneered at me, I wanted to possess them more fully;
his injustice stirred in me ambitious wishes--it imparted a strong
stimulus--it gave wings to aspiration.

In the beginning, before I had penetrated to motives, that
uncomprehended sneer of his made my heart ache, but by-and-by it only
warmed the blood in my veins, and sent added action to my pulses.
Whatever my powers--feminine or the contrary--God had given them, and I
felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of his bestowal.

The combat was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul's
affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he would
insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he called
"faible"--that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false
incapacity. Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the
most far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that
I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard
of--and over the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen down
in a sleep as deep as that of Eutychus.

Once, upon his preferring such an accusation, I turned upon him--I rose
against him. Gathering an armful of his books out of my desk, I filled
my apron and poured them in a heap upon his estrade, at his feet.

"Take them away, M. Paul," I said, "and teach me no more. I never asked
to be made learned, and you compel me to feel very profoundly that
learning is not happiness."

And returning to my desk, I laid my head on my arms, nor would I speak
to him for two days afterwards. He pained and chagrined me. His
affection had been very sweet and dear--a pleasure new and
incomparable: now that this seemed withdrawn, I cared not for his
lessons.

The books, however, were not taken away; they were all restored with
careful hand to their places, and he came as usual to teach me. He made
his peace somehow--too readily, perhaps: I ought to have stood out
longer, but when he looked kind and good, and held out his hand with
amity, memory refused to reproduce with due force his oppressive
moments. And then, reconcilement is always sweet!

On a certain morning a message came from my godmother, inviting me to
attend some notable lecture to be delivered in the same public rooms
before described. Dr. John had brought the message himself, and
delivered it verbally to Rosine, who had not scrupled to follow the
steps of M. Emanuel, then passing to the first classe, and, in his
presence, stand "carrement" before my desk, hand in apron-pocket, and
rehearse the same, saucily and aloud, concluding with the words, "Qu'il
est vraiment beau, Mademoiselle, ce jeune docteur! Quels yeux--quel
regard! Tenez! J'en ai le coeur tout emu!"

When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered "cette
fille effrontee, cette creature sans pudeur," to address me in such
terms.

I had no pacifying answer to give. The terms were precisely such as
Rosine--a young lady in whose skull the organs of reverence and reserve
were not largely developed--was in the constant habit of using.
Besides, what she said about the young doctor was true enough. Graham
_was_ handsome; he had fine eyes and a thrilling glance. An
observation to that effect actually formed itself into sound on my lips.

"Elle ne dit que la verite," I said.

"Ah! vous trouvez?"

"Mais, sans doute."

The lesson to which we had that day to submit was such as to make us
very glad when it terminated. At its close, the released, pupils rushed
out, half-trembling, half-exultant. I, too, was going. A mandate to
remain arrested me. I muttered that I wanted some fresh air sadly--the
stove was in a glow, the classe over-heated. An inexorable voice merely
recommended silence; and this salamander--for whom no room ever seemed
too hot--sitting down between my desk and the stove--a situation in
which he ought to have felt broiled, but did not--proceeded to confront
me with--a Greek quotation!

In M. Emanuel's soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both Greek
and Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if they
would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in fear of
its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a fund of
knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to conceal. The
privileges of a "classical education," it was insinuated, had been
mine; on flowers of Hymettus I had revelled; a golden store, hived in
memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily nurtured my wits.

A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret--to
wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed
Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc's
jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait
for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages,
and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones
fell musically from his lips--for he had a good voice--remarkable for
compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a
vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he
sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however;
not comprehending, of course I could neither be charmed nor annoyed.

Baffled--almost angry--he still clung to his fixed idea; my
susceptibilities were pronounced marble--my face a mask. It appeared as
if he could not be brought to accept the homely truth, and take me for
what I was: men, and women too, must have delusion of some sort; if not
made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for themselves.

At moments I _did_ wish that his suspicions had been better founded.
There were times when I would have given my right hand to possess the
treasures he ascribed to me. He deserved condign punishment for his
testy crotchets. I could have gloried in bringing home to him his worst
apprehensions astoundingly realized. I could have exulted to burst on
his vision, confront and confound his "lunettes," one blaze of
acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to make me clever while I
was young enough to learn, that I might, by one grand, sudden, inhuman
revelation--one cold, cruel, overwhelming triumph--have for ever
crushed the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl David Emanuel!

Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations
fell ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground.

"Women of intellect" was his next theme: here he was at home. A "woman
of intellect," it appeared, was a sort of "lusus naturae," a luckless
accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in
creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in
the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and
passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought
and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male
mind alone could work to any good practical result--hein?

This "hein?" was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me
contradiction or objection. However, I only said--"Cela ne me regarde
pas: je ne m'en soucie pas;" and presently added--"May I go, Monsieur?
They have rung the bell for the second dejeuner" (_i.e._ luncheon).

"What of that? You are not hungry?"

"Indeed I was," I said; "I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven,
and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell."

"Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him."

And he broke in two the "brioche" intended for his own refreshment, and
gave me half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the really
formidable attack was yet to come. While eating his cake, I could not
forbear expressing my secret wish that I really knew all of which he
accused me.

"Did I sincerely feel myself to be an ignoramus?" he asked, in a
softened tone.

If I had replied meekly by an unqualified affirmative, I believe he
would have stretched out his hand, and we should have been friends on
the spot, but I answered--

"Not exactly. I am ignorant, Monsieur, in the knowledge you ascribe to
me, but I _sometimes_, not _always_, feel a knowledge of my own."

"What did I mean?" he inquired, sharply.

Unable to answer this question in a breath, I evaded it by change of
subject. He had now finished his half of the brioche feeling sure that
on so trifling a fragment he could not have satisfied his appetite, as
indeed I had not appeased mine, and inhaling the fragrance of baked
apples afar from the refectory, I ventured to inquire whether he did
not also perceive that agreeable odour. He confessed that he did. I
said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and permit me just to
run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added that I
believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of
baking, or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and
a glass or two of vin blanc--might I go?

"Petite gourmande!" said he, smiling, "I have not forgotten how pleased
you were with the pate a la creme I once gave you, and you know very
well, at this moment, that to fetch the apples for me will be the same
as getting them for yourself. Go, then, but come back quickly."

And at last he liberated me on parole. My own plan was to go and return
with speed and good faith, to put the plate in at the door, and then to
vanish incontinent, leaving all consequences for future settlement.

That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my
scheme: he met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and fixed
me in a minute in my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from my
hand, he divided the portion intended only for himself, and ordered me
to eat my share. I complied with no good grace, and vexed, I suppose,
by my reluctance, he opened a masked and dangerous battery. All he had
yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, signifying nothing: not
so of the present attack.

It consisted in an unreasonable proposition with which he had before
afflicted me: namely, that on the next public examination-day I should
engage--foreigner as I was--to take my place on the first form of
first-class pupils, and with them improvise a composition in French, on
any subject any spectator might dictate, without benefit of grammar or
lexicon.

I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom
nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature
a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under
the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or the
recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one evidence
of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that Impulse was
the most intractable, the most capricious, the most maddening of
masters (him before me always excepted)--a deity which sometimes, under
circumstances--apparently propitious, would not speak when questioned,
would not hear when appealed to, would not, when sought, be found; but
would stand, all cold, all indurated, all granite, a dark Baal with
carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast like the stone face of a
tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some sound, some
long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an unseen
stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake unsolicited,
would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal like a
perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, whatever the
hour--to its victim for some blood, or some breath, whatever the
circumstance or scene--rousing its priest, treacherously promising
vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum of oracles,
but sure to give half the significance to fateful winds, and grudging
to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant--yielding it
sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the deathless ichor of
its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel into bondage, and
make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade, between a Mathilde and
a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for the pleasure, and to the
inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour!

Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once--strong
battle, with confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and
repulse.

On this particular day I was soundly rated. "The obstinacy of my whole
sex," it seems, was concentrated in me; I had an "orgueil de diable." I
feared to fail, forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or not?
Who was I that I should not fail, like my betters? It would do me good
to fail. He wanted to see me worsted (I knew he did), and one minute he
paused to take breath.

"Would I speak now, and be tractable?"

"Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not
compel me. I would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than
write for a show and to order, perched up on a platform."

"Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship's
sake?"

"Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun
had a right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would harass
me thus."

He supposed then (with a sneer--M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling
his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)--he supposed
there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that
form it was not for him to make use.

"Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois d'ici,"
said he, "eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately arming for
the effort."

"Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a
hundred and fifty of the 'papas' and 'mammas' of Villette."

And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted
to be liberated--to get out into the air--I was almost in a fever.

"Chut!" said the inexorable, "this was a mere pretext to run away; _he_
was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I suffer,
thoroughly screened by his person?"

"I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural
history of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander,
and sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step to
the well, and get a glass of water--the sweet apples had made me
thirsty?"

"If that was all, he would do my errand."

He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch
behind me, I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried
prey had escaped.





CHAPTER XXXI.

THE DRYAD.


The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm.
This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for many
others, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this time
left me overcome with fatigue--sleepless nights entailed languid days.

One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league to
the Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and taking
refuge in my solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit
down, and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.

Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and
watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring
foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had
entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,
and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.

My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,
in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as
a visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told that
she was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and that
between her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers, and
the Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul was not
of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl with him ere
now, and as far as distant observation could enable me to judge, she
seemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an indulgent
guardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through his, and
hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had struck
through me--a disagreeable anticipatory sensation--one of the family of
presentiments, I suppose--but I refused to analyze or dwell upon it.
While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and following
the gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly dressed, for
she was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the glancing leaves
of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled--they closed; my lassitude,
the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and birds, all lulled me, and at
last I slept.

Two hours stole over me. Ere I woke, the sun had declined out of sight
behind the towering houses, the garden and the room were grey, bees had
gone homeward, and the flowers were closing; the party of guests, too,
had vanished; each alley was void.

On waking, I felt much at ease--not chill, as I ought to have been
after sitting so still for at least two hours; my cheek and arms were
not benumbed by pressure against the hard desk. No wonder. Instead of
the bare wood on which I had laid them, I found a thick shawl,
carefully folded, substituted for support, and another shawl (both
taken from the corridor where such things hung) wrapped warmly round me.

Who had done this? Who was my friend? Which of the teachers? Which of
the pupils? None, except St. Pierre, was inimical to me; but which of
them had the art, the thought, the habit, of benefiting thus tenderly?
Which of them had a step so quiet, a hand so gentle, but I should have
heard or felt her, if she had approached or touched me in a day-sleep?

As to Ginevra Fanshawe, that bright young creature was not gentle at
all, and would certainly have pulled me out of my chair, if she had
meddled in the matter. I said at last: "It is Madame Beck's doing; she
has come in, seen me asleep, and thought I might take cold. She
considers me a useful machine, answering well the purpose for which it
was hired; so would not have me needlessly injured. And now,"
methought, "I'll take a walk; the evening is fresh, and not very chill."

So I opened the glass door and stepped into the berceau.

I went to my own alley: had it been dark, or even dusk, I should have
hardly ventured there, for I had not yet forgotten the curious illusion
of vision (if illusion it were) experienced in that place some months
ago. But a ray of the setting sun burnished still the grey crown of
Jean Baptiste; nor had all the birds of the garden yet vanished into
their nests amongst the tufted shrubs and thick wall-ivy. I paced up
and down, thinking almost the same thoughts I had pondered that night
when I buried my glass jar--how I should make some advance in life,
take another step towards an independent position; for this train of
reflection, though not lately pursued, had never by me been wholly
abandoned; and whenever a certain eye was averted from me, and a
certain countenance grew dark with unkindness and injustice, into that
track of speculation did I at once strike; so that, little by little, I
had laid half a plan.

"Living costs little," said I to myself, "in this economical town of
Villette, where people are more sensible than I understand they are in
dear old England--infinitely less worried about appearance, and less
emulous of display--where nobody is in the least ashamed to be quite as
homely and saving as he finds convenient. House-rent, in a prudently
chosen situation, need not be high. When I shall have saved one
thousand francs, I will take a tenement with one large room, and two or
three smaller ones, furnish the first with a few benches and desks, a
black tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair and table, with a
sponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day-pupils, and so work
my way upwards. Madame Beck's commencement was--as I have often heard
her say--from no higher starting-point, and where is she now? All these
premises and this garden are hers, bought with her money; she has a
competency already secured for old age, and a flourishing establishment
under her direction, which will furnish a career for her children.

"Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steady
exertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not to
complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks
interest; be content to labour for independence until you have proved,
by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is
there nothing more for me in life--no true home--nothing to be dearer
to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from me
better things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at whose
feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism, and
gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for
others? I suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be so
rounded: for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see a
huge mass of my fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see that
a great many men, and more women, hold their span of life on conditions
of denial and privation. I find no reason why I should be of the few
favoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening
the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the
beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep."

So this subject is done with. It is right to look our life-accounts
bravely in the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is a
poor self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the items, and
sets down under the head--happiness that which is misery. Call
anguish--anguish, and despair--despair; write both down in strong
characters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt to
Doom. Falsify: insert "privilege" where you should have written "pain;"
and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to pass, or accept
the coin with which you would cheat him. Offer to the strongest--if the
darkest angel of God's host--water, when he has asked blood--will he
take it? Not a whole pale sea for one red drop. I settled another
account.

Pausing before Methusaleh--the giant and patriarch of the garden--and
leaning my brow against his knotty trunk, my foot rested on the stone
sealing the small sepulchre at his root; and I recalled the passage of
feeling therein buried; I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for him;
my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was become of
that curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and half life;
only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?

Was this feeling dead? I do not know, but it was buried. Sometimes I
thought the tomb unquiet, and dreamed strangely of disturbed earth, and
of hair, still golden, and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks.

Had I been too hasty? I used to ask myself; and this question would
occur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with Dr.
John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice still
kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so well as
when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, this
cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part of
himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellow
mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness the
rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their
perfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is
the sweetbriar enamoured of the air?

"Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are not
mine. Good-night, and God bless you!"

Thus I closed my musings. "Good-night" left my lips in sound; I heard
the words spoken, and then I heard an echo--quite close.

"Good-night, Mademoiselle; or, rather, good-evening--the sun is scarce
set; I hope you slept well?"

I started, but was only discomposed a moment; I knew the voice and
speaker.

"Slept, Monsieur! When? where?"

"You may well inquire when--where. It seems you turn day into night,
and choose a desk for a pillow; rather hard lodging--?"

"It was softened for me, Monsieur, while I slept. That unseen,
gift-bringing thing which haunts my desk, remembered me. No matter how
I fell asleep; I awoke pillowed and covered."

"Did the shawls keep you warm?"

"Very warm. Do you ask thanks for them?"

"No. You looked pale in your slumbers: are you home-sick?"

"To be home-sick, one must have a home; which I have not."

"Then you have more need of a careful friend. I scarcely know any one,
Miss Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your very
faults imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating,
and keeping down."

This idea of "keeping down" never left M. Paul's head; the most
habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of
it. No matter; what did it signify? I listened to him, and did not
trouble myself to be too submissive; his occupation would have been
gone had I left him nothing to "keep down."

"You need watching, and watching over," he pursued; "and it is well for
you that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties. I watch
you and others pretty closely, pretty constantly, nearer and oftener
than you or they think. Do you see that window with a light in it?"

He pointed to a lattice in one of the college boarding-houses.

"That," said he, "is a room I have hired, nominally for a
study--virtually for a post of observation. There I sit and read for
hours together: it is my way--my taste. My book is this garden; its
contents are human nature--female human nature. I know you all by
heart. Ah! I know you well--St. Pierre, the Parisienne--cette
maitresse-femme, my cousin Beck herself."

"It is not right, Monsieur."

"Comment? it is not right? By whose creed? Does some dogma of Calvin or
Luther condemn it? What is that to me? I am no Protestant. My rich
father (for, though I have known poverty, and once starved for a year
in a garret in Rome--starved wretchedly, often on a meal a day, and
sometimes not that--yet I was born to wealth)--my rich father was a
good Catholic; and he gave me a priest and a Jesuit for a tutor. I
retain his lessons; and to what discoveries, grand Dieu! have they not
aided me!"

"Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries."

"Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit's system works. You
know the St. Pierre?"

"Partially."

He laughed. "You say right--_'partially'_; whereas _I_ know her
_thoroughly_; there is the difference. She played before me the
amiable; offered me patte de velours; caressed, flattered, fawned on
me. Now, I am accessible to a woman's flattery--accessible against my
reason. Though never pretty, she was--when I first knew her--young, or
knew how to look young. Like all her countrywomen, she had the art of
dressing--she had a certain cool, easy, social assurance, which spared
me the pain of embarrassment--"

"Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you embarrassed
in my life."

"Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petite
pensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature--"

"Monsieur, I never saw it."

"Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it."

"Monsieur, I have observed you in public--on platforms, in tribunes,
before titles and crowned heads--and you were as easy as you are in the
third division."

"Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; and
publicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in it
quite freely;--but--but, in short, here is the sentiment brought into
action, at this very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it.
If, Mademoiselle, I were a marrying man (which I am not; and you may
spare yourself the trouble of any sneer you may be contemplating at the
thought), and found it necessary to ask a lady whether she could look
upon me in the light of a future husband, then would it be proved that
I am as I say--modest."

I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with a
sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.

"As to the St. Pierre," he went on, recovering himself, for his voice
had altered a little, "she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and I
don't know whither I might have been led, but for yonder little lattice
with the light. Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery hast thou
wrought! Yes," he pursued, "I have seen her rancours, her vanities, her
levities--not only here, but elsewhere: I have witnessed what bucklers
me against all her arts: I am safe from poor Zelie."

"And my pupils," he presently recommenced, "those blondes jeunes
filles--so mild and meek--I have seen the most reserved--romp like
boys, the demurest--snatch grapes from the walls, shake pears from the
trees. When the English teacher came, I saw her, marked her early
preference for this alley, noticed her taste for seclusion, watched her
well, long before she and I came to speaking terms; do you recollect my
once coming silently and offering you a little knot of white violets
when we were strangers?"

"I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still."

"It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, without
prudery--that sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, when
it is revealed in eye or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return. Not
only did _I_ watch you; but often--especially at eventide--another
guardian angel was noiselessly hovering near: night after night my
cousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, and glidingly pursued your
movements when you did not see her."

"But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see what
passed in this garden at night?"

"By moonlight I possibly might with a glass--I use a glass--but the
garden itself is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is a
door leading into a court, which communicates with the college; of that
door I possess the key, and thus come and go at pleasure. This
afternoon I came through it, and found you asleep in classe; again this
evening I have availed myself of the same entrance."

I could not help saying, "If you were a wicked, designing man, how
terrible would all this be!"

His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of the
subject: he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against a
tree, and looking at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humour
was tranquil, I thought proper to go on sermonizing him: he often
lectured me by the hour together--I did not see why I should not speak
my mind for once. So I told him my impressions concerning his
Jesuit-system.

"The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this coming
and going by stealth degrades your own dignity."

"My dignity!" he cried, laughing; "when did you ever see me trouble my
head about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are 'digne.' How
often, in your high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in
trampling upon, what you are pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it,
scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness with
such hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of a
third-rate London actor."

"Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a
wrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the human
heart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve's apples.
I wish you were a Protestant."

Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet
thoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly--"I have seen other
things."

"What other things?"

Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs,
where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.

"Look, at it," said he: "is not that spark like an eye watching you and
me?"

He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:--"I have
seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch
all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it."

The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver.

"Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye just
winking itself out?"

"I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it
is time to go in."

"It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only this
question."

Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk
had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the
trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too
much absorbed to be sensible of the change.

"Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?"

"There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst
Protestants as amongst other sects," I answered. "Why, Monsieur, do you
ask such a question?"

"Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?"

"I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such
subjects. I dislike it the more because--"

"You believe?"

"No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions--"

"Since you came here?"

"Yes; not many months ago."

"Here?--in this house?"

"Yes."

"Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was
conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am
choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a
strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are
alike--there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, when
you look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like
mine--that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some
of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I
perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes,
you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with
mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle;
knottings and catchings occur--sudden breaks leave damage in the web.
But these 'impressions,' as you say, with English caution. I, too, have
had my 'impressions.'"

"Monsieur, tell me them."

"I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this
house and garden?"

"I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried
here alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now
bears us."

"And that in former days a nun's ghost used to come and go here."

"Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?"

"Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house
by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I have
indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual
weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other
living being. A nun!"

"Monsieur, I, too, have seen it."

"I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something
that remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is
as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it
has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean--"

Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made
the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point--the
high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughs
on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and
inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had
swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and
crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze,
and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood
still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and
heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more
solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the
boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail?
What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell
rang in the house--the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there
came, out of the berceau, an apparition, all black and white. With a
sort of angry rush-close, close past our faces--swept swiftly the very
NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall of
stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing; the
rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.





CHAPTER XXXII.

THE FIRST LETTER.


Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my
intercourse with the sumptuous Hotel Crecy? That intercourse had, for
an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre had
been travelling, dividing some weeks between the provinces and capital
of France. Chance apprised me of their return very shortly after it
took place.

I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering slowly
on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not unpleasing,
when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if they had just
encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of the broad,
smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged gentleman and
young lady, on the other--a young and handsome man. Very graceful was
the lady's mien, choice her appointments, delicate and stately her
whole aspect. Still, as I looked, I felt they were known to me, and,
drawing a little nearer, I fully recognised them all: the Count Home de
Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton.

How animated was Graham's face! How true, how warm, yet how retiring
the joy it expressed! This was the state of things, this the
combination of circumstances, at once to attract and enchain, to subdue
and excite Dr. John. The pearl he admired was in itself of great price
and truest purity, but he was not the man who, in appreciating the gem,
could forget its setting. Had he seen Paulina with the same youth,
beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded, and in simple attire,
a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would have thought her a pretty
little creature, and would have loved with his eye her movements and
her mien, but it required other than this to conquer him as he was now
vanquished, to bring him safe under dominion as now, without loss, and
even with gain to his manly honour, one saw that he was reduced; there
was about Dr. John all the man of the world; to satisfy himself did not
suffice; society must approve--the world must admire what he did, or he
counted his measures false and futile. In his victrix he required all
that was here visible--the imprint of high cultivation, the
consecration of a careful and authoritative protection, the adjuncts
that Fashion decrees, Wealth purchases, and Taste adjusts; for these
conditions his spirit stipulated ere it surrendered: they were here to
the utmost fulfilled; and now, proud, impassioned, yet fearing, he did
homage to Paulina as his sovereign. As for her, the smile of feeling,
rather than of conscious power, slept soft in her eyes.

They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he
skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand. He looked very handsome;
mettle and purpose were roused in him fully.

"Papa, there is Lucy!" cried a musical, friendly voice. "Lucy, dear
Lucy--_do_ come here!"

I hastened to her. She threw back her veil, and stooped from her saddle
to kiss me.

"I was coming to see you to-morrow," said she; "but now to-morrow you
will come and see me."

She named the hour, and I promised compliance.

The morrow's evening found me with her--she and I shut into her own
room. I had not seen her since that occasion when her claims were
brought into comparison with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so
signally prevailed; she had much to tell me of her travels in the
interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she in such a tete-a-tete,
a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction and clear soft
voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or to say too much. My own
attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she
herself seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up
her narrative briefly. Yet why she terminated with so concise an
abridgment did not immediately appear; silence followed--a restless
silence, not without symptoms of abstraction. Then, turning to me, in a
diffident, half-appealing voice--"Lucy--"

"Well, I am at your side."

"Is my cousin Ginevra still at Madame Beck's?"

"Your cousin is still there; you must be longing to see her."

"No--not much."

"You want to invite her to spend another evening?"

"No... I suppose she still talks about being married?"

"Not to any one you care for."

"But of course she still thinks of Dr. Bretton? She cannot have changed
her mind on that point, because it was so fixed two months ago."

"Why, you know, it does not matter. You saw the terms on which they
stood."

"There was a little misunderstanding that evening, certainly; does she
seem unhappy?"

"Not she. To change the subject. Have you heard or seen nothing of, or
from, Graham during your absence?"

"Papa had letters from him once or twice about business, I think. He
undertook the management of some affair which required attention while
we were away. Dr. Bretton seems to respect papa, and to have pleasure
in obliging him."

"Yes: you met him yesterday on the boulevard; you would be able to
judge from his aspect that his friends need not be painfully anxious
about his health?"

"Papa seems to have thought with you. I could not help smiling. He is
not particularly observant, you know, because he is often thinking of
other things than what pass before his eyes; but he said, as Dr.
Bretton rode away, Really it does a man good to see the spirit and
energy of that boy.' He called Dr. Bretton a boy; I believe he almost
thinks him so, just as he thinks me a little girl; he was not speaking
to me, but dropped that remark to himself. Lucy...."

Again fell the appealing accent, and at the same instant she left her
chair, and came and sat on the stool at my feet.

I liked her. It is not a declaration I have often made concerning my
acquaintance, in the course of this book: the reader will bear with it
for once. Intimate intercourse, close inspection, disclosed in Paulina
only what was delicate, intelligent, and sincere; therefore my regard
for her lay deep. An admiration more superficial might have been more
demonstrative; mine, however, was quiet.

"What have you to ask of Lucy?" said I; "be brave, and speak out."

But there was no courage in her eye; as it met mine, it fell; and there
was no coolness on her cheek--not a transient surface-blush, but a
gathering inward excitement raised its tint and its temperature.

"Lucy, I _do_ wish to know your thoughts of Dr. Bretton. Do, _do_ give
me your real opinion of his character, his disposition."

"His character stands high, and deservedly high."

"And his disposition? Tell me about his disposition," she urged; "you
know him well."

"I know him pretty well."

"You know his home-side. You have seen him with his mother; speak of
him as a son."

"He is a fine-hearted son; his mother's comfort and hope, her pride and
pleasure."

She held my hand between hers, and at each favourable word gave it a
little caressing stroke.

"In what other way is he good, Lucy?"

"Dr. Bretton is benevolent--humanely disposed towards all his race, Dr.
Bretton would have benignity for the lowest savage, or the worst
criminal."

"I heard some gentlemen, some of papa's friends, who were talking about
him, say the same. They say many of the poor patients at the hospitals,
who tremble before some pitiless and selfish surgeons, welcome him."

"They are right; I have witnessed as much. He once took me over a
hospital; I saw how he was received: your father's friends are right."

The softest gratitude animated her eye as she lifted it a moment. She
had yet more to say, but seemed hesitating about time and place. Dusk
was beginning to reign; her parlour fire already glowed with twilight
ruddiness; but I thought she wished the room dimmer, the hour later.

"How quiet and secluded we feel here!" I remarked, to reassure her.

"Do we? Yes; it is a still evening, and I shall not be called down to
tea; papa is dining out."

Still holding my hand, she played with the fingers unconsciously,
dressed them, now in her own rings, and now circled them with a twine
of her beautiful hair; she patted the palm against her hot cheek, and
at last, having cleared a voice that was naturally liquid as a lark's,
she said:--

"You must think it rather strange that I should talk so much about Dr.
Bretton, ask so many questions, take such an interest, but--".

"Not at all strange; perfectly natural; you like him."

"And if I did," said she, with slight quickness, "is that a reason why
I should talk? I suppose you think me weak, like my cousin Ginevra?"

"If I thought you one whit like Madame Ginevra, I would not sit here
waiting for your communications. I would get up, walk at my ease about
the room, and anticipate all you had to say by a round lecture. Go on."

"I mean to go on," retorted she; "what else do you suppose I mean to
do?"

And she looked and spoke--the little Polly of Bretton--petulant,
sensitive.

"If," said she, emphatically, "if I liked Dr. John till I was fit to
die for liking him, that alone could not license me to be otherwise
than dumb--dumb as the grave--dumb as you, Lucy Snowe--you know it--and
you know you would despise me if I failed in self-control, and whined
about some rickety liking that was all on my side."

"It is true I little respect women or girls who are loquacious either
in boasting the triumphs, or bemoaning the mortifications, of feelings.
But as to you, Paulina, speak, for I earnestly wish to hear you. Tell
me all it will give you pleasure or relief to tell: I ask no more."

"Do you care for me, Lucy?"

"Yes, I do, Paulina."

"And I love you. I had an odd content in being with you even when I was
a little, troublesome, disobedient girl; it was charming to me then to
lavish on you my naughtiness and whims. Now you are acceptable to me,
and I like to talk with and trust you. So listen, Lucy."

And she settled herself, resting against my arm--resting gently, not
with honest Mistress Fanshawe's fatiguing and selfish weight.

"A few minutes since you asked whether we had not heard from Graham
during our absence, and I said there were two letters for papa on
business; this was true, but I did not tell you all."

"You evaded?"

"I shuffled and equivocated, you know. However, I am going to speak the
truth now; it is getting darker; one can talk at one's ease. Papa often
lets me open the letter-bag and give him out the contents. One morning,
about three weeks ago, you don't know how surprised I was to find,
amongst a dozen letters for M. de Bassompierre, a note addressed to
Miss de Bassompierre. I spied it at once, amidst all the rest; the
handwriting was not strange; it attracted me directly. I was going to
say, 'Papa, here is another letter from Dr. Bretton;' but the 'Miss'
struck me mute. I actually never received a letter from a gentleman
before. Ought I to have shown it to papa, and let him open it and read
it first? I could not for my life, Lucy. I know so well papa's ideas
about me: he forgets my age; he thinks I am a mere school-girl; he is
not aware that other people see I am grown up as tall as I shall be;
so, with a curious mixture of feelings, some of them self-reproachful,
and some so fluttering and strong, I cannot describe them, I gave papa
his twelve letters--his herd of possessions--and kept back my one, my
ewe-lamb. It lay in my lap during breakfast, looking up at me with an
inexplicable meaning, making me feel myself a thing double-existent--a
child to that dear papa, but no more a child to myself. After breakfast
I carried my letter up-stairs, and having secured myself by turning the
key in the door, I began to study the outside of my treasure: it was
some minutes before I could get over the direction and penetrate the
seal; one does not take a strong place of this kind by instant
storm--one sits down awhile before it, as beleaguers say. Graham's hand
is like himself, Lucy, and so is his seal--all clear, firm, and
rounded--no slovenly splash of wax--a full, solid, steady drop--a
distinct impress; no pointed turns harshly pricking the optic nerve,
but a clean, mellow, pleasant manuscript, that soothes you as you read.
It is like his face--just like the chiselling of his features: do you
know his autograph?"

"I have seen it: go on."

"The seal was too beautiful to be broken, so I cut it round with my
scissors. On the point of reading the letter at last, I once more drew
back voluntarily; it was too soon yet to drink that draught--the
sparkle in the cup was so beautiful--I would watch it yet a minute.
Then I remembered all at once that I had not said my prayers that
morning. Having heard papa go down to breakfast a little earlier than
usual, I had been afraid of keeping him waiting, and had hastened to
join him as soon as dressed, thinking no harm to put off prayers till
afterwards. Some people would say I ought to have served God first and
then man; but I don't think heaven could be jealous of anything I might
do for papa. I believe I am superstitious. A voice seemed now to say
that another feeling than filial affection was in question--to urge me
to pray before I dared to read what I so longed to read--to deny myself
yet a moment, and remember first a great duty. I have had these
impulses ever since I can remember. I put the letter down and said my
prayers, adding, at the end, a strong entreaty that whatever happened,
I might not be tempted or led to cause papa any sorrow, and might
never, in caring for others, neglect him. The very thought of such a
possibility, so pierced my heart that it made me cry. But still, Lucy,
I felt that in time papa would have to be taught the truth, managed,
and induced to hear reason.

"I read the letter. Lucy, life is said to be all disappointment. _I_
was not disappointed. Ere I read, and while I read, my heart did more
than throb--it trembled fast--every quiver seemed like the pant of an
animal athirst, laid down at a well and drinking; and the well proved
quite full, gloriously clear; it rose up munificently of its own
impulse; I saw the sun through its gush, and not a mote, Lucy, no moss,
no insect, no atom in the thrice-refined golden gurgle.

"Life," she went on, "is said to be full of pain to some. I have read
biographies where the wayfarer seemed to journey on from suffering to
suffering; where Hope flew before him fast, never alighting so near, or
lingering so long, as to give his hand a chance of one realizing grasp.
I have read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so far from
being reaped in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was borne off by
sudden whirlwind; and, alas! some of these met the winter with empty
garners, and died of utter want in the darkest and coldest of the year."

"Was it their fault, Paulina, that they of whom you speak thus died?"

"Not always their fault. Some of them were good endeavouring people. I
am not endeavouring, nor actively good, yet God has caused me to grow
in sun, due moisture, and safe protection, sheltered, fostered, taught,
by my dear father; and now--now--another comes. Graham loves me."

For some minutes we both paused on this climax.

"Does your father know?" I inquired, in a low voice.

"Graham spoke with deep respect of papa, but implied that he dared not
approach that quarter as yet; he must first prove his worth: he added
that he must have some light respecting myself and my own feelings ere
he ventured to risk a step in the matter elsewhere."

"How did you reply?"

"I replied briefly, but I did not repulse him. Yet I almost trembled
for fear of making the answer too cordial: Graham's tastes are so
fastidious. I wrote it three times--chastening and subduing the phrases
at every rescript; at last, having confected it till it seemed to me to
resemble a morsel of ice flavoured with ever so slight a zest of fruit
or sugar, I ventured to seal and despatch it."

"Excellent, Paulina! Your instinct is fine; you understand Dr. Bretton."

"But how must I manage about papa? There I am still in pain."

"Do not manage at all. Wait now. Only maintain no further
correspondence till your father knows all, and gives his sanction."

"Will he ever give it?"

"Time will show. Wait."

"Dr. Bretton wrote one other letter, deeply grateful for my calm, brief
note; but I anticipated your advice, by saying, that while my
sentiments continued the same, I could not, without my father's
knowledge, write again."

"You acted as you ought to have done; so Dr. Bretton will feel: it will
increase his pride in you, his love for you, if either be capable of
increase. Paulina, that gentle hoar-frost of yours, surrounding so much
pure, fine flame, is a priceless privilege of nature."

"You see I feel Graham's disposition," said she. "I feel that no
delicacy can be too exquisite for his treatment."

"It is perfectly proved that you comprehend him, and then--whatever Dr.
Bretton's disposition, were he one who expected to be more nearly
met--you would still act truthfully, openly, tenderly, with your
father."

"Lucy, I trust I shall thus act always. Oh, it will be pain to wake
papa from his dream, and tell him I am no more a little girl!"

"Be in no hurry to do so, Paulina. Leave the revelation to Time and
your kind Fate. I also have noticed the gentleness of her cares for
you: doubt not she will benignantly order the circumstances, and fitly
appoint the hour. Yes: I have thought over your life just as you have
yourself thought it over; I have made comparisons like those to which
you adverted. We know not the future, but the past has been propitious.

"As a child I feared for you; nothing that has life was ever more
susceptible than your nature in infancy: under harshness or neglect,
neither your outward nor your inward self would have ripened to what
they now are. Much pain, much fear, much struggle, would have troubled
the very lines of your features, broken their regularity, would have
harassed your nerves into the fever of habitual irritation; you would
have lost in health and cheerfulness, in grace and sweetness.
Providence has protected and cultured you, not only for your own sake,
but I believe for Graham's. His star, too, was fortunate: to develop
fully the best of his nature, a companion like you was needed: there
you are, ready. You must be united. I knew it the first day I saw you
together at La Terrasse. In all that mutually concerns you and Graham
there seems to me promise, plan, harmony. I do not think the sunny
youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is
deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy--not as
angels, but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives _are_ thus
blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and lingering
evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another course. Other
travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and
variable--breast adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early
closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of
God; and I know that, amidst His boundless works, is somewhere stored
the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures
contain the proof as the promise of its mercy."

 The only other person honored with a fete at Madame Beck's is M. Paul. Lucy has been making a watchguard for him, which M. Paul probably assumed she was making for Dr. John. Everyone else gives M. Paul flowers, since he is not materialistic and prefers tokens or sincere gifts rather than the lavish but empty "subscription" presents that are given each year to Madame Beck. While all the students and teachers present M. Paul with their bouquets, Lucy hangs back. Zelie St. Pierre makes fun of Lucy, saying she is English and knows not the custom of giving the professor of literature a floral tribute. This angers Lucy and, showing once again her perversity when faced with misunderstanding, she decides to keep the watchguard back. Lucy listens to the man's lecture to the class, but she drops her thimble to the floor, causing her to bend to get it. She hits her head loudly on the table, interrupting the flow of M. Paul's talk. He rails against all things English, which Lucy endures, but when he attacks specifically the honor of the country's history, she bursts out "Vive L'Angleterre" and casts aspersions on the honor of France. M. Paul, now enjoying having made Lucy so angry, now talks mildly about his collection of flowers, singling out Zelie especially. He proposes to take the girls to breakfast in the country, but Lucy refuses and goes up to her dormitory. In private, Lucy now laughs at this silly display between two adults who should know better. She goes back to the schoolroom to get the watchguard. She finds M. Paul rifling through her desk. He has done so in the past, correcting her schoolwork and leaving her things to read. M. Paul is not embarrassed by being surprised in this instance, for he is only leaving her more books. He chides Lucy for spoiling the fete by not giving him a bouquet. She then gives him the watchguard, now chiding him for impatience. He immediately puts it on. He leaves but returns that night for the reading in the refectory. They sit together, and Lucy smiles at him. In Chapter XXX, "Monsieur Paul," it is clear that even after this rather violent quarrel, the relationship between Lucy and M. Paul has not changed. He is still autocratic and largely disapproving of Lucy. Lucy does not allow the reader to entertain any "kindly conclusions" about the despotic little man. Lucy, like so many women of her time, was never properly taught mathematics. M. Paul, who always believes that correcting deficiencies in people is his business, instructs her. It is hard for her, and he is kindly and actually quite encouraging. Lucy's learning curve finally steepens, and she begins to enjoy the work. Then, perversely, M. Paul seems to dislike it. He seems not to want Lucy to enjoy or take pride in intellectual achievement, though he himself is instructing her. Lucy cannot bear this, and she has another fit of temper at him. M. Paul wants to give Lucy a public examination, for he thinks that she would fail and that failure would quash her intellectual pride. She has no desire to be publicly humiliated by M. Paul. In Chapter XXXI Lucy goes to her l'allee defendue to contemplate her future and try to carve out some independence for herself. She would like to save up her money and begin a small school of her own, so that she would no longer be under the thumb of Madame Beck. She reckons that she needs about one thousand francs. M. Paul finds her and walks with her. He thinks that she looks pale and possibly ill. M. Paul has a room for study at the boy's college, which borders the walled garden of Madame Beck's, and from that study's window he has been observing Madame Beck's school closely. She learns that he has been observing her in her l'allee defendue from the very beginning. He claims to be only judging people's characters, but Lucy cannot help but feel that he is spying. The discussion turns to the supernatural, and M. Paul reveals, incredibly, that he has seen the nun. As they are standing there, they are both visited with the vision of the nun passing quite close to them. In Chapter XXXII Polly and her father have been traveling away from Villette for some time. Lucy sees them in the park one fine day in April, with Dr. John approaching. Dr. John, as is his wont, rides past Lucy without seeing her, intent on joining Paulina and her father. Polly, however, has more presence of mind, and he comes to talk to Lucy. Now that Paulina has returned, their old habit of Lucy visiting the Hotel Crecy is resumed. Paulina doesn't want to be like her flighty cousin Ginevra, and she is worried about Lucy's opinion of her. Lucy assures her that she is nothing like Ginevra, and Lucy admits that she likes Polly. Paulina only ever says intelligent, delicate, and sincere things, and because of this Lucy cannot but help have a deep regard for her. It turns out Polly has gotten a letter from Dr. John. She has not shared it with her father. It is a love letter, and Polly has returned Dr. John's love. She has written back to him that his affections are welcome and that she would talk to her father. Paulina is a dutiful daughter, and while she does not want to keep anything from her beloved "Papa," she is afraid of hurting him with this information. He will certainly grieve her loss if she marries Dr. Bretton. Lucy assures Polly that she has done rightly. She should, however, tell her father when the moment is appropriate, and she should try not to keep it from him much longer. Having never harbored hope for herself in Dr. John's direction, Lucy is resigned to the fact that Paulina and Dr. John are well-matched.

