Villette
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now that this seemed withdrawn, I cared not for his lessons.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 “carrément” 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 cœur tout ému!”
When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered “cette
fille effrontée, cette créature 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 vérité,” 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 déjeuner” (_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 pâté â la crême 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