Villette
_Antigua_, nor her course, nor her passenger were named.
Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more
than it did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this
side, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if
expectant of an arrival and impatient of delay. “Où sont-ils? Pourquoi
ne viennent-ils?” I heard her mutter more than once; and at last, as if
determined to have an answer to her question—which hitherto none seemed
to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase—a phrase brief enough, simple
enough, but it sent a shock through me—“Messieurs et mesdames,” said
she, “où donc est Justine Marie?”
“Justine Marie!” What was this? Justine Marie—the dead nun—where was
she? Why, in her grave, Madame Walravens—what can you want with her?
You shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.
Thus _I_ should have answered, had the response lain with me, but
nobody seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or
at a loss. The quietest commonplace answer met the strange, the
dead-disturbing, the Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback.
“Justine Marie,” said one, “is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will be
here presently.”
Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat—chat it
still remained, easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion,
comment, went round the circle, but all so broken, so dependent on
references to persons not named, or circumstances not defined, that
listen as intently as I would—and I _did_ listen _now_ with a fated
interest—I could make out no more than that some scheme was on foot, in
which this ghostly Justine Marie—dead or alive—was concerned. This
family-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some reason; there
seemed question of a marriage, of a fortune—for whom I could not quite
make out—perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef Emanuel—both were
bachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests rained upon a young
fair-haired foreigner of the party, whom they called Heinrich Mühler.
Amidst all the badinage, Madame Walravens still obtruded from time to
time, hoarse, cross-grained speeches; her impatience being diverted
only by an implacable surveillance of Désirée, who could not stir but
the old woman menaced her with her staff.
“La voilà!” suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, “voilà Justine Marie
qui arrive!”
This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured nun
on the panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw in
thought the vision of the garret, the apparition of the alley, the
strange birth of the berceau; I underwent a presentiment of discovery,
a strong conviction of coming disclosure. Ah! when imagination once
runs riot where do we stop? What winter tree so bare and
branchless—what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble, that Fancy,
a passing cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it in
spirituality, and make of it a phantom?
With solemn force pressed on my heart, the expectation of mystery
breaking up: hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glass
darkly; now was I to behold it face to face. I leaned forward; I
looked.
“She comes!” cried Josef Emanuel.
The circle opened as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. At
this instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided the
pale moon in doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection the
dénouement pressing on. Surely those near me must have felt some little
of the anxiety I felt, in degree so unmeted. Of that group the coolest
must have “held his breath for a time!” As for me, my life stood still.
It is over. The moment and the nun are come. The crisis and the
revelation are passed by.
The flambeau glares still within a yard, held up in a park-keeper’s
hand; its long eager tongue of flame almost licks the figure of the
Expected—there—where she stands full in my sight. What is she like?
What does she wear? How does she look? Who is she?
There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late,
so strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad,
that scarce would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she is
like the nun of the attic, that she wears black skirts and white
head-clothes, that she looks the resurrection of the flesh, and that
she is a risen ghost.
All falsities—all figments! We will not deal in this gear. Let us be
honest, and cut, as heretofore, from the homely web of truth.
_Homely_, though, is an ill-chosen word. What I see is not precisely
homely. A girl of Villette stands there—a girl fresh from her
pensionnat. She is very comely, with the beauty indigenous to this
country. She looks well-nourished, fair, and fat of flesh. Her cheeks
are round, her eyes good; her hair is abundant. She is handsomely
dressed. She is not alone; her escort consists of three persons—two
being elderly; these she addresses as “Mon Oncle” and “Ma Tante.” She
laughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she looks, at
all points, the bourgeoise belle.
“So much for Justine Marie;” so much for ghosts and mystery: not that
this last was solved—this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw in
the garret and garden must have been taller by a span.
We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at the
respectable old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to the
third member of this company? Can we spare him a moment’s notice? We
ought to distinguish him so far, reader; he has claims on us; we do not
now meet him for the first time. I clasped my hands very hard, and I
drew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, I devoured the
ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more than a
stone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my eyes
by many nights’ weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by the
_Antigua_. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered what was
once truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false. The
_Antigua_ was gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel.
Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I know
not. Ask first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite?
How far did this delay concern _me?_ Were there not those whom it might
touch more nearly?
After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not a
stranger, reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the Rue
Fossette: she is often of Madame Beck’s Sunday parties. She is a
relation of both the Becks and Walravens; she derives her baptismal
name from the sainted nun who would have been her aunt had she lived;
her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and an orphan, and M.
Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather.
The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of their
band—which is it? Vital question—which is it?
I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draught
had filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber intolerable.
I always, through my whole life, liked to penetrate to the real truth;
I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, and
daring the dread glance. O Titaness among deities! the covered outline
of thine aspect sickens often through its uncertainty, but define to us
one trait, show us one lineament, clear in awful sincerity; we may gasp
in untold terror, but with that gasp we drink in a breath of thy
divinity; our heart shakes, and its currents sway like rivers lifted by
earthquake, but we have swallowed strength. To see and know the worst
is to take from Fear her main advantage.
The Walravens’ party, augmented in numbers, now became very gay. The
gentlemen fetched refreshments from the kiosk, all sat down on the turf
under the trees; they drank healths and sentiments; they laughed, they
jested. M. Emanuel underwent some raillery, half good-humoured, half, I
thought, malicious, especially on Madame Beck’s part. I soon gathered
that his voyage had been temporarily deferred of his own will, without
the concurrence, even against the advice, of his friends; he had let
the _Antigua_ go, and had taken his berth in the _Paul et Virginie_,
appointed to sail a fortnight later. It was his reason for this resolve
which they teased him to assign, and which he would only vaguely
indicate as “the settlement of a little piece of business which he had
set his heart upon.” What _was_ this business? Nobody knew. Yes, there
was one who seemed partly, at least, in his confidence; a meaning look
passed between him and Justine Marie. “La petite va m’aider—n’est-ce
pas?” said he. The answer was prompt enough, God knows!
“Mais oui, je vous aiderai de tout mon cœur. Vous ferez de moi tout ce
que vous voudrez, mon parrain.”
And this dear “parrain” took her hand and lifted it to his grateful
lips. Upon which demonstration, I saw the light-complexioned young
Teuton, Heinrich Mühler, grow restless, as if he did not like it. He
even grumbled a few words, whereat M. Emanuel actually laughed in his
face, and with the ruthless triumph of the assured conqueror, he drew
his ward nearer to him.
M. Emanuel was indeed very joyous that night. He seemed not one whit
subdued by the change of scene and action impending. He was the true
life of the party; a little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chief
in mirth, as well as in labour, yet from moment to moment proving
indisputably his right of leadership. His was the wittiest word, the
pleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. Restlessly active, after his
manner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but oh! I saw which was
his favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I saw whom he
folded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, and
cherished as the apple of his eye.
Still, hint and raillery flew thick, and still I gathered that while M.
Paul should be absent, working for others, these others, not quite
ungrateful, would guard for him the treasure he left in Europe. Let him
bring them an Indian fortune: they would give him in return a young
bride and a rich inheritance. As for the saintly consecration, the vow
of constancy, that was forgotten: the blooming and charming Present
prevailed over the Past; and, at length, his nun was indeed buried.
Thus it must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not
been mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which
never _is_ mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated; not
seeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered of
vision when, in truth, her prediction touched reality.
I might have paused longer upon what I saw; I might have deliberated
ere I drew inferences. Some, perhaps, would have held the premises
doubtful, the proofs insufficient; some slow sceptics would have
incredulously examined ere they conclusively accepted the project of a
marriage between a poor and unselfish man of forty, and his wealthy
ward of eighteen; but far from me such shifts and palliatives, far from
me such temporary evasion of the actual, such coward fleeing from the
dread, the swift-footed, the all-overtaking Fact, such feeble suspense
of submission to her the sole sovereign, such paltering and faltering
resistance to the Power whose errand is to march conquering and to
conquer, such traitor defection from the TRUTH.
No. I hastened to accept the whole plan. I extended my grasp and took
it all in. I gathered it to me with a sort of rage of haste, and folded
it round me, as the soldier struck on the field folds his colours about
his breast. I invoked Conviction to nail upon me the certainty,
abhorred while embraced, to fix it with the strongest spikes her
strongest strokes could drive; and when the iron had entered well my
soul, I stood up, as I thought, renovated.