Villette
his anger unexpressed, or whether he would give it vent. Suppression
was not much in his habits; but still, what had been done to him
definite enough to afford matter for overt reproof? I had not uttered a
sound, and could not justly be deemed amenable to reprimand or penalty
for having permitted a slightly freer action than usual to the muscles
about my eyes and mouth.
The supper, consisting of bread, and milk diluted with tepid water, was
brought in. In respectful consideration of the Professor’s presence,
the rolls and glasses were allowed to stand instead of being
immediately handed round.
“Take your supper, ladies,” said he, seeming to be occupied in making
marginal notes to his “Williams Shackspire.” They took it. I also
accepted a roll and glass, but being now more than ever interested in
my work, I kept my seat of punishment, and wrought while I munched my
bread and sipped my beverage, the whole with easy _sang-froid_; with a
certain snugness of composure, indeed, scarcely in my habits, and
pleasantly novel to my feelings. It seemed as if the presence of a
nature so restless, chafing, thorny as that of M. Paul absorbed all
feverish and unsettling influences like a magnet, and left me none but
such as were placid and harmonious.
He rose. “Will he go away without saying another word?” Yes; he turned
to the door.
No: he _re_-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his
pencil-case, which had been left on the table.
He took it—shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the
wood, re-cut and pocketed it, and . . . walked promptly up to me.
The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking
pretty freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant
habit of speaking fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue their
voices much.
M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and I
said I was making a watchguard.
He asked, “For whom?” And I answered, “For a gentleman—one of my
friends.”
M. Paul stooped down and proceeded—as novel-writers say, and, as was
literally true in his case—to “hiss” into my ear some poignant words.
He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make
herself the most consummately unpleasant: I was she with whom it was
least possible to live on friendly terms. I had a “caractère
intraitable,” and perverse to a miracle. How I managed it, or what
possessed me, he, for his part, did not know; but with whatever pacific
and amicable intentions a person accosted me—crac! I turned concord to
discord, good-will to enmity. He was sure, he—M. Paul—wished me well
enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of; he might, at
least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a neutral
acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I behaved to
him! With what pungent vivacities—what an impetus of mutiny—what a
“fougue” of injustice!
Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even slipping
in a slight interjectional observation: “Vivacities? Impetus? Fougue? I
didn’t know….”
“Chut! à l’instant! There! there I went—vive comme la poudre!” He was
sorry—he was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless
peculiarity. This “emportement,” this “chaleur”—generous, perhaps, but
excessive—would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity: I was
not—he believed, in his soul—wholly without good qualities: and would I
but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less “en l’air,” less
“coquette,” less taken by show, less prone to set an undue value on
outside excellence—to make much of the attentions of people remarkable
chiefly for so many feet of stature, “des couleurs de poupée,” “un nez
plus ou moins bien fait,” and an enormous amount of fatuity—I might yet
prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary character. But, as it was—And
here, the little man’s voice was for a minute choked.
I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing
word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so
odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd.
I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on
at his ease.
“While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my anger
for the sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change he had
noticed in my dress. He was free to confess that when he first knew
me—or, rather, was in the habit of catching a passing glimpse of me
from time to time—I satisfied him on this point: the gravity, the
austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, were such as to inspire
the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal influence had
impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my bonnet, to
wear ‘des cols brodés,’ and even to appear on one occasion in a
_scarlet gown_—he might indeed conjecture, but, for the present, would
not openly declare.”
Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once
indignant and horror-struck.
“Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale pink
too, and further subdued by black lace.”
“Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all
one: these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I
talked of, _that_ was but a ‘colifichet de plus.’” And he sighed over
my degeneracy. “He could not, he was sorry to say, be so particular on
this theme as he could wish: not possessing the exact names of these
‘babioles,’ he might run into small verbal errors which would not fail
to lay him open to my sarcasm, and excite my unhappily sudden and
passionate disposition. He would merely say, in general terms—and in
these general terms he knew he was correct—that my costume had of late
assumed ‘des façons mondaines,’ which it wounded him to see.”
What “façons mondaines” he discovered in my present winter merino and
plain white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked him,
he said it was all made with too much attention to effect—and besides,
“had I not a bow of ribbon at my neck?”
“And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would
necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?”—holding
up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a
groan—I suppose over my levity.
After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of the
chain, at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he inquired:
“Whether what he had just said would have the effect of making me
entirely detest him?”
I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don’t
think I spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good-night on
friendly terms: and, even after M. Paul had reached the door, he turned
back just to explain, “that he would not be understood to speak in
entire condemnation of the scarlet dress” (“Pink! pink!” I threw in);
“that he had no intention to deny it the merit of _looking_ rather
well” (the fact was, M. Emanuel’s taste in colours decidedly leaned to
the brilliant); “only he wished to counsel me, whenever I wore it, to
do so in the same spirit as if its material were ‘bure,’ and its hue
‘gris de poussière.’”
“And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?” I asked. “They are very
little ones—?”
“Keep them little, then,” said he. “Permit them not to become
full-blown.”
“And the bow, Monsieur—the bit of ribbon?”
“Va pour le ruban!” was the propitious answer.
And so we settled it.
“Well done, Lucy Snowe!” cried I to myself; “you have come in for a
pretty lecture—brought on yourself a ‘rude savant,’ and all through
your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it?
You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe
there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other
day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of
the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, ‘Miss Snowe looked
uncomfortable.’ Dr. John Bretton knows you only as ‘quiet Lucy’—‘a
creature inoffensive as a shadow;’ he has said, and you have heard him
say it: ‘Lucy’s disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and
manner—want of colour in character and costume.’ Such are your own and
your friends’ impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man,
differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being
too airy and cheery—too volatile and versatile—too flowery and coloury.
This harsh little man—this pitiless censor—gathers up all your poor
scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of rose-colour, your
small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon, your silly bit of
lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for each item. You are
well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life’s sunshine: it is a
new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes,
because you tease him with an obtrusive ray.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
MONSIEUR’S FÊTE.
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
fête; 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 fête 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 Zélie 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;