Villette
its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn’t
praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue
resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I
might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded eventually
that I might, and so sank supine into a luxury of calm before
ninety-nine out of a hundred of the exhibited frames.
It seemed to me that an original and good picture was just as scarce as
an original and good book; nor did I, in the end, tremble to say to
myself, standing before certain _chef-d’œuvres_ bearing great names,
“These are not a whit like nature. Nature’s daylight never had that
colour: never was made so turbid, either by storm or cloud, as it is
laid out there, under a sky of indigo: and that indigo is not ether;
and those dark weeds plastered upon it are not trees.” Several very
well executed and complacent-looking fat women struck me as by no means
the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves. Many scores of
marvellously-finished little Flemish pictures, and also of sketches,
excellent for fashion-books displaying varied costumes in the
handsomest materials, gave evidence of laudable industry whimsically
applied. And yet there were fragments of truth here and there which
satisfied the conscience, and gleams of light that cheered the vision.
Nature’s power here broke through in a mountain snow-storm; and there
her glory in a sunny southern day. An expression in this portrait
proved clear insight into character; a face in that historical
painting, by its vivid filial likeness, startlingly reminded you that
genius gave it birth. These exceptions I loved: they grew dear as
friends.
One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a
certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size, set
up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched before
it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of
worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed themselves off their feet,
might be fain to complete the business sitting: this picture, I say,
seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.
It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life.
I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude, suitable
for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from
fourteen to sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very
much butcher’s meat—to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and
liquids—must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that
wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half-reclined on a
couch: why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round
her; she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two
plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been
standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to
lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent
garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of
abundance of material—seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of
drapery—she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the wretched
untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots and
pans—perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets—were rolled here and
there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst
them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered
the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the catalogue, I
found that this notable production bore the name “Cleopatra.”
Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought
I might as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking that
while some of the details—as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were very
prettily painted, it was on the whole an enormous piece of claptrap;
the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill. Scarcely
noticing this circumstance (as, indeed, it did not matter to me) I
retained my seat; rather to rest myself than with a view to studying
this huge, dark-complexioned gipsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I soon
tired, and betook myself for refreshment to the contemplation of some
exquisite little pictures of still life: wild-flowers, wild-fruit,
mossy wood-nests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen through
clear green sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse and
preposterous canvas.
Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder. Starting, turning, I met a
face bent to encounter mine; a frowning, almost a shocked face it was.
“Que faites-vous ici?” said a voice.
“Mais, Monsieur, je m’amuse.”
“Vous vous amusez! et à quoi, s’il vous plait? Mais d’abord, faites-moi
le plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l’autre côté.”
I did precisely as I was bid. M. Paul Emanuel (it was he) returned from
Rome, and now a travelled man, was not likely to be less tolerant of
insubordination now, than before this added distinction laurelled his
temples.
“Permit me to conduct you to your party,” said he, as we crossed the
room.
“I have no party.”
“You are not alone?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“Did you come here unaccompanied?”
“No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here.”
“Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?”
“No; only Dr. Bretton.”
“And he told you to look at _that_ picture?”
“By no means; I found it out for myself.”
M. Paul’s hair was shorn close as raven down, or I think it would have
bristled on his head. Beginning now to perceive his drift, I had a
certain pleasure in keeping cool, and working him up.
“Astounding insular audacity!” cried the Professor. “Singulières femmes
que ces Anglaises!”
“What is the matter, Monsieur?”
“Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the
self-possession of a garçon, and look at _that_ picture?”
“It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not
look at it.”
“Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone.”
“If, however, I have no society—no _party_, as you say? And then, what
does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody meddles with
me.”
“Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous là—là!”—setting down a chair with
emphasis in a particularly dull corner, before a series of most
specially dreary “cadres.”
“Mais, Monsieur?”
“Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez
pas—entendez-vous?—jusqu’à ce qu’on vienne vous chercher, ou que je
vous donne la permission.”
“Quel triste coin!” cried I, “et quelles laids tableaux!”
And “laids,” indeed, they were; being a set of four, denominated in the
catalogue “La vie d’une femme.” They were painted rather in a
remarkable style—flat, dead, pale, and formal. The first represented a
“Jeune Fille,” coming out of a church-door, a missal in her hand, her
dress very prim, her eyes cast down, her mouth pursed up—the image of a
most villanous little precocious she-hypocrite. The second, a “Mariée,”
with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her chamber, holding
her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and showing the whites
of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The third, a “Jeune Mère,”
hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy baby with a face like an
unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a “Veuve,” being a black woman,
holding by the hand a black little girl, and the twain studiously
surveying an elegant French monument, set up in a corner of some Père
la Chaise. All these four “Anges” were grim and grey as burglars, and
cold and vapid as ghosts. What women to live with! insincere,
ill-humoured, bloodless, brainless nonentities! As bad in their way as
the indolent gipsy-giantess, the Cleopatra, in hers.
It was impossible to keep one’s attention long confined to these
master-pieces, and so, by degrees, I veered round, and surveyed the
gallery.
A perfect crowd of spectators was by this time gathered round the
Lioness, from whose vicinage I had been banished; nearly half this
crowd were ladies, but M. Paul afterwards told me, these were “des
dames,” and it was quite proper for them to contemplate what no
“demoiselle” ought to glance at. I assured him plainly I could not
agree in this doctrine, and did not see the sense of it; whereupon,
with his usual absolutism, he merely requested my silence, and also, in
the same breath, denounced my mingled rashness and ignorance. A more
despotic little man than M. Paul never filled a professor’s chair. I
noticed, by the way, that he looked at the picture himself quite at his
ease, and for a very long while: he did not, however, neglect to glance
from time to time my way, in order, I suppose, to make sure that I was
obeying orders, and not breaking bounds. By-and-by, he again accosted
me.
“Had I not been ill?” he wished to know: “he understood I had.”
“Yes, but I was now quite well.”
“Where had I spent the vacation?”
“Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton.”
“He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?”
“Not quite alone: Marie Broc” (the crétin) “was with me.”
He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played
rapidly over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he
never gave a lesson in the third division (containing the least
advanced pupils), that she did not occasion in him a sharp conflict
between antagonistic impressions. Her personal appearance, her
repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, irritated his
temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was too
apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On
the other hand, her misfortunes, constituted a strong claim on his
forbearance and compassion—such a claim as it was not in his nature to
deny; hence resulted almost daily drawn battles between impatience and
disgust on the one hand, pity and a sense of justice on the other; in
which, to his credit be it said, it was very seldom that the former
feelings prevailed: when they did, however, M. Paul showed a phase of
character which had its terrors. His passions were strong, his
aversions and attachments alike vivid; the force he exerted in holding
both in check by no means mitigated an observer’s sense of their
vehemence. With such tendencies, it may well be supposed he often
excited in ordinary minds fear and dislike; yet it was an error to fear
him: nothing drove him so nearly frantic as the tremor of an
apprehensive and distrustful spirit; nothing soothed him like
confidence tempered with gentleness. To evince these sentiments,
however, required a thorough comprehension of his nature; and his
nature was of an order rarely comprehended.
“How did you get on with Marie Broc?” he asked, after some minutes’
silence.
“Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!”
“You have, then, a weak heart! You lack courage; and, perhaps, charity.
Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister of Mercy.”
[He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and
self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of
his soul.]
“I don’t know, indeed: I took as good care of her as I could; but when
her aunt came to fetch her away, it was a great relief.”
“Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals-full
of similar unfortunates. You could not do that?”
“Could Monsieur do it himself?”
“Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass; our coarse,
fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform such duties.”
“I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but
she made mouths at me instead of speaking.”
“You think you did great things?”
“No; but as great as I _could_ do.”