Villette
This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a living
creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour; all breakfasted as
usual; all, without reference to, or apparent thought of their late
Professor, betook themselves with wonted phlegm to their ordinary
duties.
So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its proceedings, so
inexpectant its aspect—I scarce knew how to breathe in an atmosphere
thus stagnant, thus smothering. Would no one lend me a voice? Had no
one a wish, no one a word, no one a prayer to which I could say—Amen?
I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle—a treat, a
holiday, a lesson’s remission; they could not, they _would_ not now
band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a last interview with a
Master who had certainly been loved, at least by some—loved as _they_
could love—but, oh! what _is_ the love of the multitude?
I knew where he lived: I knew where he was to be heard of, or
communicated with; the distance was scarce a stone’s-throw: had it been
in the next room—unsummoned, I could make no use of my knowledge. To
follow, to seek out, to remind, to recall—for these things I had no
faculty.
M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm: had he passed
silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I have suffered him
to go by.
Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. My heart
trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was
quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my post—or do my work. Yet
the little world round me plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund,
free of care, or fear, or thought: the very pupils who, seven days
since, had wept hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared
quite to have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion.
A little before five o’clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame Beck sent
for me to her chamber, to read over and translate some English letter
she had received, and to write for her the answer. Before settling to
this work, I observed that she softly closed the two doors of her
chamber; she even shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot
day, and free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as
indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an almost fierce
distrust, suggested such question. Did she want to exclude sound? what
sound?
I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like the evening
and winter-wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting prey, and hearing far off
the traveller’s tramp. Yet I could both listen and write. About the
middle of the letter I heard—what checked my pen—a tread in the
vestibule. No door-bell had rung; Rosine—acting doubtless by orders—had
anticipated such réveillée. Madame saw me halt. She coughed, made a
bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the classes.
“Proceed,” said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear enchained, my
thoughts were carried off captive.
The classes formed another building; the hall parted them from the
dwelling-house: despite distance and partition, I heard the sudden stir
of numbers, a whole division rising at once.
“They are putting away work,” said Madame.
It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden hush—that
instant quell of the tumult?
“Wait, Madame—I will see what it is.”
And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No: she would not be
left: powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, close as my
shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair.
“Are you coming, too?” I asked.
“Yes,” said she; meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect—a look,
clouded, yet resolute.
We proceeded then, not together, but she walked in my steps.
He was come. Entering the first classe, I saw him. There, once more
appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they had tried to keep him
away, but he was come.
The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, giving his
farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his lips each cheek. This
last ceremony, foreign custom permitted at such a parting—so solemn, to
last so long.
I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus; following and
watching me close; my neck and shoulder shrunk in fever under her
breath; I became terribly goaded.
He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came
to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was before me; she had stepped
out suddenly; she seemed to magnify her proportions and amplify her
drapery; she eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness and
deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis—the total
default of self-assertion—with which, in a crisis, I could be struck.
She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him volubly, she mastered
his attention, she hurried him to the door—the glass-door opening on
the garden. I think he looked round; could I but have caught his eye,
courage, I think, would have rushed in to aid feeling, and there would
have been a charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but already the room was
all confusion, the semicircle broken into groups, my figure was lost
among thirty more conspicuous. Madame had her will; yes, she got him
away, and he had not seen me; he thought me absent. Five o’clock
struck, the loud dismissal-bell rang, the school separated, the room
emptied.
There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and distraction in some
certain minutes I then passed alone—a grief inexpressible over a loss
unendurable. _What_ should I do; oh! _what_ should I do; when all my
life’s hope was thus torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart?
What I _should_ have done, I know not, when a little child—the least
child in the school—broke with its simplicity and its unconsciousness
into the raging yet silent centre of that inward conflict.
“Mademoiselle,” lisped the treble voice, “I am to give you that. M.
Paul said I was to seek you all over the house, from the grenier to the
cellar, and when I found you, to give you that.”
And the child delivered a note; the little dove dropped on my knee, its
olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address nor name, only these
words:—
“It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said good-by to
the rest, but I hoped to see you in classe. I was disappointed. The
interview is deferred. Be ready for me. Ere I sail, I must see you at
leisure, and speak with you at length. Be ready; my moments are
numbered, and, just now, monopolized; besides, I have a private
business on hand which I will not share with any, nor communicate—even
to you.—PAUL.”
“Be ready?” Then it must be this evening: was he not to go on the
morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen the date of his
vessel’s departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would be ready, but could that
longed-for meeting really be achieved? the time was so short, the
schemers seemed so watchful, so active, so hostile; the way of access
appeared strait as a gully, deep as a chasm—Apollyon straddled across
it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome? Could my guide
reach me?
Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some comfort; it
seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart beating yet true to the
whole throb of mine.
I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I
think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor
its nature despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days
which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades—stood,
shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a
doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked
for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of
his promise: spoke thus—then towering, became a star, and vanished into
his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense—a worse boon than despair.
All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive-leaf, yet in
the midst of my trust, terribly fearing. My fear pressed heavy. Cold
and peculiar, I knew it for the partner of a rarely-belied
presentiment. The first hours seemed long and slow; in spirit I clung
to the flying skirts of the last. They passed like drift cloud—like the
wrack scudding before a storm.
They passed. All the long, hot summer day burned away like a Yule-log;
the crimson of its close perished; I was left bent among the cool blue
shades, over the pale and ashen gleams of its night.
Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all retired. I
still remained in the gloomy first classe, forgetting, or at least
disregarding, rules I had never forgotten or disregarded before.
How long I paced that classe I cannot tell; I must have been afoot many
hours; mechanically had I moved aside benches and desks, and had made
for myself a path down its length. There I walked, and there, when
certain that the whole household were abed, and quite out of
hearing—there, I at last wept. Reliant on Night, confiding in Solitude,
I kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer; they heaved my
heart; they tore their way. In this house, what grief could be sacred?
Soon after eleven o’clock—a very late hour in the Rue Fossette—the door
unclosed, quietly but not stealthily; a lamp’s flame invaded the
moonlight; Madame Beck entered, with the same composed air, as if
coming on an ordinary occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at
once addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and seemed to
seek something: she loitered over this feigned search long, too long.
She was calm, too calm; my mood scarce endured the pretence; driven
beyond common range, two hours since I had left behind me wonted
respects and fears. Led by a touch, and ruled by a word, under usual
circumstances, no yoke could now be borne—no curb obeyed.
“It is more than time for retirement,” said Madame; “the rule of the
house has already been transgressed too long.”
Madame met no answer: I did not check my walk; when she came in my way,
I put her out of it.
“Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your chamber,”
said she, trying to speak softly.
“No!” I said; “neither you nor another shall persuade or lead me.”
“Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She shall make
you comfortable: she shall give you a sedative.”
“Madame,” I broke out, “you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity,
your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make your
own bed warm and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks spiced and
sweet, as much as you will. If you have any sorrow or
disappointment—and, perhaps, you have—nay, I _know_ you have—seek your
own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. Leave me, however.
_Leave me_, I say!”
“I must send another to watch you, Meess: I must send Goton.”
“I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my
troubles. Oh, Madame! in _your_ hand there is both chill and poison.
You envenom and you paralyze.”
“What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry.”
“Dog in the manger!” I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and
had always wanted him. She called him “insupportable:” she railed at
him for a “dévot:” she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she
might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame’s secrets I
had entered—I know not how: by an intuition or an inspiration which
came to me—I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I
had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a
rival. She was _my_ rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under the
smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.
Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in my
power, because in some moods, such as the present—in some stimulated