Villette
“Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?”
“He and none other.”
A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have
become palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.
“Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?” I presently inquired. “Was
he your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?”
“Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain
emphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal, of
that saint in heaven—Justine Marie.”
“And who, father, are _you?_” I continued; and though I accentuated the
question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I was ere this quite
prepared for the answer which actually came.
“I, daughter, am Père Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you
once honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the core
of a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn truth, I
coveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor have I for
a day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in you a rooted
interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by her high
training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by the zeal
she alone gives—I realize what then might be your spiritual rank, your
practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey.”
This struck me as a special state of things—I half-realized myself in
that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
inoculated, and so on. “Not so,” thought I, but I restrained
deprecation, and sat quietly enough.
“I suppose M. Paul does not live here?” I resumed, pursuing a theme
which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.
“No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
her son the jeweller’s wealth.”
“How often,” murmured I to myself, “has this man, this M. Emanuel,
seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
great things!”
I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
act of confession, or the saint-worship.
“How long is it since that lady died?” I inquired, looking at Justine
Marie.
“Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then very
young, for he is not much beyond forty.”
“Does he yet weep her?”
“His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel’s nature
is—constancy.”
This was said with marked emphasis.
And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured out
its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his tale,
was benignantly answered by a “pax vobiscum,” which I made kindly
welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but I liked
less the mystic phrase accompanying it.
“Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!” an oracle that made me
shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door. Few of us
know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had happened
yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded Protestant:
there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around “Holy Church”
which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering many
things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this man,
Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition, influenced by
priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious devotion, for
sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to see how Rome,
by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she cherished them for
their own sake and for God’s, or put them out to usury and made booty
of the interest.
By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me a
portion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the little
cabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her
appearance, bringing me a glass of wine.
“Well,” began she, chuckling, “and what sort of a reception did Madame
Walravens give you? Elle est drôle, n’est-ce pas?”
I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message
with which I had been charged.
“Oh la singulière petite bossue!” laughed she. “Et figurez-vous qu’elle
me déteste, parcequ’elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin Paul; ce
petit dévot qui n’ose pas bouger, à moins que son confesseur ne lui
donne la permission! Au reste” (she went on), “if he wanted to marry
ever so much—soit moi, soit une autre—he could not do it; he has too
large a family already on his hands: Mère Walravens, Père Silas, Dame
Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never was a man
like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can bear,
voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he harbours a
romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine—personnage assez
niaise à ce que je pense” (such was Madame’s irreverent remark), “who
has been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere, this score of years, and to
whom he means to go, free from all earthly ties, pure comme un lis, à
ce qu’il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you but know half M. Emanuel’s
crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder you from taking refreshment,
ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat your supper, drink your wine,
oubliez les anges, les bossues, et surtout, les Professeurs—et bon
soir!”
CHAPTER XXXV.
FRATERNITY.
“Oubliez les Professeurs.” So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a wise
woman, but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was a
mistake. That night she should have left me calm—not excited,
indifferent, not interested, isolated in my own estimation and that of
others—not connected, even in idea, with this second person whom I was
to forget.
Forget him? Ah! they took a sage plan to make me forget him—the
wiseheads! They showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little
man a stainless little hero. And then they had prated about his manner
of loving. What means had I, before this day, of being certain whether
he could love at all or not?
I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain
tendernesses, fitfulnesses—a softness which came like a warm air, and a
ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his
irritabilities: _this_ was all I had seen. And they, Père Silas and
Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought in concert I could not
doubt) opened up the adytum of his heart—showed me one grand love, the
child of this southern nature’s youth, born so strong and perfect, that
it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of matter,
clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had watched beside
a tomb twenty years.
This had been done—not idly: this was not a mere hollow indulgence of
sentiment; he had proven his fidelity by the consecration of his best
energies to an unselfish purpose, and attested it by limitless personal
sacrifices: for those once dear to her he prized—he had laid down
vengeance, and taken up a cross.
Now, as for Justine Marie, I knew what she was as well as if I had seen
her. I knew she was well enough; there were girls like her in Madame
Beck’s school—phlegmatics—pale, slow, inert, but kind-natured, neutral
of evil, undistinguished for good.
If she wore angels’ wings, I knew whose poet-fancy conferred them. If
her forehead shone luminous with the reflex of a halo, I knew in the
fire of whose irids that circlet of holy flame had generation.
Was I, then, to be frightened by Justine Marie? Was the picture of a
pale dead nun to rise, an eternal barrier? And what of the charities
which absorbed his worldly goods? What of his heart sworn to virginity?
Madame Beck—Père Silas—you should not have suggested these questions.
They were at once the deepest puzzle, the strongest obstruction, and
the keenest stimulus, I had ever felt. For a week of nights and days I
fell asleep—I dreamt, and I woke upon these two questions. In the whole
world there was no answer to them, except where one dark little man
stood, sat, walked, lectured, under the head-piece of a bandit
bonnet-grec, and within the girth of a sorry paletôt, much be-inked,
and no little adust.
After that visit to the Rue des Mages, I _did_ want to see him again. I
felt as if—knowing what I now knew—his countenance would offer a page
more lucid, more interesting than ever; I felt a longing to trace in it
the imprint of that primitive devotedness, the signs of that
half-knightly, half-saintly chivalry which the priest’s narrative
imputed to his nature. He had become my Christian hero: under that
character I wanted to view him.
Nor was opportunity slow to favour; my new impressions underwent her
test the next day. Yes: I was granted an interview with my “Christian
hero”—an interview not very heroic, or sentimental, or biblical, but
lively enough in its way.
About three o’clock of the afternoon, the peace of the first
classe—safely established, as it seemed, under the serene sway of
Madame Beck, who, _in propria persona_, was giving one of her orderly
and useful lessons—this peace, I say, suffered a sudden fracture by the
wild inburst of a paletôt.
Nobody at the moment was quieter than myself. Eased of responsibility
by Madame Beck’s presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and
edified with her clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she
taught well), I sat bent over my desk, drawing—that is, copying an
elaborate line engraving, tediously working up my copy to the finish of
the original, for that was my practical notion of art; and, strange to
say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and could even produce
curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint
plates—things about as valuable as so many achievements in
worsted-work, but I thought pretty well of them in those days.
What was the matter? My drawing, my pencils, my precious copy, gathered
into one crushed-up handful, perished from before my sight; I myself
appeared to be shaken or emptied out of my chair, as a solitary and
withered nutmeg might be emptied out of a spice-box by an excited cook.
That chair and my desk, seized by the wild paletôt, one under each
sleeve, were borne afar; in a second, I followed the furniture; in two
minutes they and I were fixed in the centre of the grand salle—a vast
adjoining room, seldom used save for dancing and choral
singing-lessons—fixed with an emphasis which seemed to prohibit the
remotest hope of our ever being permitted to stir thence again.
Having partially collected my scared wits, I found myself in the
presence of two men, gentlemen, I suppose I should say—one dark, the
other light—one having a stiff, half-military air, and wearing a
braided surtout; the other partaking, in garb and bearing, more of the
careless aspect of the student or artist class: both flourishing in
full magnificence of moustaches, whiskers, and imperial. M. Emanuel
stood a little apart from these; his countenance and eyes expressed
strong choler; he held forth his hand with his tribune gesture.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “your business is to prove to these gentlemen
that I am no liar. You will answer, to the best of your ability, such
questions as they shall put. You will also write on such theme as they
shall select. In their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an
unprincipled impostor. I write essays; and, with deliberate forgery,
sign to them my pupils’ names, and boast of them as their work. You
will disprove this charge.”