Villette
their base; and all for what? That a Priesthood might march straight on
and straight upward to an all-dominating eminence, whence they might at
last stretch the sceptre of their Moloch “Church.”
It will not be. God is not with Rome, and, were human sorrows still for
the Son of God, would he not mourn over her cruelties and ambitions, as
once he mourned over the crimes and woes of doomed Jerusalem!
Oh, lovers of power! Oh, mitred aspirants for this world’s kingdoms! an
hour will come, even to you, when it will be well for your
hearts—pausing faint at each broken beat—that there is a Mercy beyond
human compassions, a Love, stronger than this strong death which even
you must face, and before it, fall; a Charity more potent than any sin,
even yours; a Pity which redeems worlds—nay, absolves Priests.
My third temptation was held out in the pomp of Rome—the glory of her
kingdom. I was taken to the churches on solemn occasions—days of fête
and state; I was shown the Papal ritual and ceremonial. I looked at it.
Many people—men and women—no doubt far my superiors in a thousand ways,
have felt this display impressive, have declared that though their
Reason protested, their Imagination was subjugated. I cannot say the
same. Neither full procession, nor high mass, nor swarming tapers, nor
swinging censers, nor ecclesiastical millinery, nor celestial
jewellery, touched my imagination a whit. What I saw struck me as
tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual.
This I did not tell Père Silas; he was old, he looked venerable:
through every abortive experiment, under every repeated disappointment,
he remained personally kind to me, and I felt tender of hurting his
feelings. But on the evening of a certain day when, from the balcony of
a great house, I had been made to witness a huge mingled procession of
the church and the army—priests with relics, and soldiers with weapons,
an obese and aged archbishop, habited in cambric and lace, looking
strangely like a grey daw in bird-of-paradise plumage, and a band of
young girls fantastically robed and garlanded—_then_ I spoke my mind to
M. Paul.
“I did not like it,” I told him; “I did not respect such ceremonies; I
wished to see no more.”
And having relieved my conscience by this declaration, I was able to go
on, and, speaking more currently and clearly than my wont, to show him
that I had a mind to keep to my reformed creed; the more I saw of
Popery the closer I clung to Protestantism; doubtless there were errors
in every church, but I now perceived by contrast how severely pure was
my own, compared with her whose painted and meretricious face had been
unveiled for my admiration. I told him how we kept fewer forms between
us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps, the nature of
mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due observance. I told him I
could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax-lights and embroidery, at
such times and under such circumstances as should be devoted to lifting
the secret vision to Him whose home is Infinity, and His
being—Eternity. That when I thought of sin and sorrow, of earthly
corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe—I could not care for
chanting priests or mumming officials; that when the pains of existence
and the terrors of dissolution pressed before me—when the mighty hope
and measureless doubt of the future arose in view—_then_, even the
scientific strain, or the prayer in a language learned and dead,
harassed: with hindrance a heart which only longed to cry—“God be
merciful to me, a sinner!”
When I had so spoken, so declared my faith, and so widely severed
myself, from him I addressed—then, at last, came a tone accordant, an
echo responsive, one sweet chord of harmony in two conflicting spirits.
“Whatever say priests or controversialists,” murmured M. Emanuel, “God
is good, and loves all the sincere. Believe, then, what you can;
believe it as you can; one prayer, at least, we have in common; I also
cry—‘O Dieu, sois appaisé envers moi qui suis pécheur!’”
He leaned on the back of my chair. After some thought he again spoke:
“How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose
nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining
yonder—how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God, nor
Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves in our
littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy of one
heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light He has
appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of satellites about
their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns around that mighty
unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with strange mental
effort only divined.
“God guide us all! God bless you, Lucy!”
CHAPTER XXXVII.
SUNSHINE.
It was very well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with
Graham till her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton
could not live within a league of the Hôtel Crécy, and not contrive to
visit there often. Both lovers meant at first, I believe, to be
distant; they kept their intention so far as demonstrative courtship
went, but in feeling they soon drew very near.
All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble,
awoke, and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss
Fanshawe, I suppose his intellect had little to do, but his whole
intellect, and his highest tastes, came in question now. These, like
all his faculties, were active, eager for nutriment, and alive to
gratification when it came.
I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or
formally proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to
reflection, or planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as
fancied his mind could in any one respect be improved. She thought him
very perfect; it was Graham himself, who, at first by the merest
chance, mentioned some book he had been reading, and when in her
response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, something, pleasant
to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he had ever
talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and answered
with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a music waxing
finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a suggestive,
persuasive, magic accent that opened a scarce-known treasure-house
within, showed him unsuspected power in his own mind, and what was
better, latent goodness in his heart. Each liked the way in which the
other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression pleased; each
keenly relished the flavour of the other’s wit; they met each other’s
meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often matched like
carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by nature; Paulina
possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits—unstimulated, she
inclined to be thoughtful and pensive—but now she seemed merry as a
lark; in her lover’s genial presence, she glanced like some soft glad
light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness, I can hardly express,
but I wondered to see her. As to that gentle ice of hers—that reserve
on which she had depended; where was it now? Ah! Graham would not long
bear it; he brought with him a generous influence that soon thawed the
timid, self-imposed restriction.
Now were the old Bretton days talked over; perhaps brokenly at first,
with a sort of smiling diffidence, then with opening candour and still
growing confidence. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity
than that he had wished me to give; he had earned independence of the
collateral help that disobliging Lucy had refused; all his
reminiscences of “little Polly” found their proper expression in his
own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome lips; how much better
than if suggested by me.
More than once when we were alone, Paulina would tell me how wonderful
and curious it was to discover the richness and accuracy of his memory
in this matter. How, while he was looking at her, recollections would
seem to be suddenly quickened in his mind. He reminded her that she had
once gathered his head in her arms, caressed his leonine graces, and
cried out, “Graham, I _do_ like you!” He told her how she would set a
footstool beside him, and climb by its aid to his knee. At this day he
said he could recall the sensation of her little hands smoothing his
cheek, or burying themselves in his thick mane. He remembered the touch
of her small forefinger, placed half tremblingly, half curiously, in
the cleft in his chin, the lisp, the look with which she would name it
“a pretty dimple,” then seek his eyes and question why they pierced so,
telling him he had a “nice, strange face; far nicer, far stranger, than
either his mamma or Lucy Snowe.”
“Child as I was,” remarked Paulina, “I wonder how I dared be so
venturous. To me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible,
and, Lucy, I feel a sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble chin,
at his straight Greek features. Women are called beautiful, Lucy; he is
not like a woman, therefore I suppose he is not beautiful, but what is
he, then? Do other people see him with my eyes? Do _you_ admire him?”
“I’ll tell you what I do, Paulina,” was once my answer to her many
questions. “_I never see him_. I looked at him twice or thrice about a
year ago, before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes; and if he
were to cross their balls twelve times between each day’s sunset and
sunrise, except from memory, I should hardly know what shape had gone
by.”
“Lucy, what do you mean?” said she, under her breath.
“I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind.”
It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever the
tender, passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey, and
sometimes dropped in my ear—molten lead. To me, she commented no more
on her lover’s beauty.
Yet speak of him she would; sometimes shyly, in quiet, brief phrases;
sometimes with a tenderness of cadence, and music of voice exquisite in
itself; but which chafed me at times miserably; and then, I know, I
gave her stern looks and words; but cloudless happiness had dazzled her
native clear sight, and she only thought Lucy—fitful.
“Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!” she would say, smiling at me. “Graham says
you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet
you are excellent; we both think so.”
“You both think you know not what,” said I. “Have the goodness to make
me as little the subject of your mutual talk and thoughts as possible.
I have my sort of life apart from yours.”
“But ours, Lucy, is a beautiful life, or it will be; and you shall
share it.”
“I shall share no man’s or woman’s life in this world, as you
understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not
sure; and till I _am_ sure, I live solitary.”
“But solitude is sadness.”
“Yes; it is sadness. Life, however; has worse than that. Deeper than
melancholy, lies heart-break.”
“Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether.”
There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a
witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina had
forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against
correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me
these letters; with something of the spoiled child’s wilfulness, and of
the heiress’s imperiousness, she _made_ me read them. As I read
Graham’s, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her pride:
they were fine letters—manly and fond—modest and gallant. Hers must
have appeared to him beautiful. They had not been written to show her
talents; still less, I think, to express her love. On the contrary, it