Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Charlotte Bronte

  Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ said he, ‘I trust you have not far to go through these inundated streets?’

  ‘More than half a league.’

  ‘You live—?’

  ‘In the Rue Fossette.’

  ‘Not’ (with animation), ‘not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Donc’ (clasping his hands), ‘done, vous devez connaître mon élève, mon Paul?’hy

  ‘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 saintworship.

  ‘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?’hz

  I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message with which I had been charged.

  ‘Oh la singulière petite bossue!’ia laughed she: ‘Et figurez-vous qu’elle me déteste, parcequ’elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin Paul; ce petit devot qui n‘ose pas bouger, á 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 autreib—he could not do it; he has too large a family already on his hands; Mere 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 á ce que je pense’ic (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, á ce qu‘il dit.id 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!’ie

  CHAPTER 35

  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—shewed 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—Pere 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 headpiece 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 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.’

  Grand Ciel!if Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a thunder-clap. These two fine, braided, moustachioed, sneering personages, were none other than dandy professors of the college—Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte—a pair of cold-blooded fops and pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It seems that M. Paul had been rashly exhibiting something I had written—something he had never once praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, and which I deemed forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only seemed remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign school-girls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce noticed. Messrs. Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to question its genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my testimony to the truth, and to be put to the torture of their examination.

  A memorable scene ensued.

  They began with classics. A dead blank. They went on to French history. I hardly knew Mérovée ig from Pharamond.ih They tried me in various ‘ologies, and still only got a shake of the head, and an unchanging ‘Je n’en sais rien.ii

  After an expressive pause, they proceeded to matters of general information, broaching one or two subjects which I knew pretty well, and on which I had often reflected. M. Emanuel, who had hitherto stood looking on, dark as the winter-solstice, brightened up somewhat; he thought I should now show myself at least no fool.

  He learned his error. Though answers to the questions surged up fast, my mind filling like a rising well, ideas were there, but not words. I either could not, or would not speak-I am not sure which: partly, I think my nerves had got wrong, and partly my humour was crossed.

  I heard one of my examiners—he of the braided surtout—whisper to his co-professor: ‘Est-elle done idiote?’

  ‘Yes,’ I thought, ‘an idiot she is, and always will be, for such as you.’

  But I suffered—suffered cruelly; I saw the damps gather on M. Paul’s brow, and his eye spoke a passionate yet sad reproach. He would not believe in my total lack of popular cleverness ; he thought I could be prompt if I would.

  At last, to relieve him, the professors, and myself, I stammered out:

  ‘Gentlemen, you had better let me go; you will get no good of me; as you say, I am an idiot.’

  I wish I could have spoken with calm and dignity, or I wish my sense had sufficed to make me hold my tongue; that traitor tongue tripped, faltered. Beholding the judges cast on M. Emanuel a hard look of triumph, and hearing the distressed tremor of my own voice, out I burst in a fit of choking tears. The emotion was far more of anger than grief; had I been a man and strong, I could have challenged that pair on the spot—but it was emotion, and I would rather have been scourged, than betrayed it.

  The incapables! Could they not see at once the crude hand of a novice in that composition they called a forgery? The subject was classical. When M. Paul dictated the trait on which the essay was to turn, I heard it for the first time; the matter was new to me, and I had no material for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts, laboriously constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real, and then clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in this last aim I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious time till my facts were found, selected, and properly pointed; nor could I rest from research and effort till I was satisfied of correct anatomy; the strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or falsity sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the knowledge was not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been sown in Spring, grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered through Winter; whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh; glean of wild herbs my lap full, and shred them green into the pot. Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte did not perceive this. They mistook my work for the work of a ripe scholar.

  They would not yet let me go: I must sit down and write before them. As I dipped my pen in the ink with a shaking hand, and surveyed the white paper with eyes half-blinded and overflowing, one of my judges began mincingly to apologize for the pain he caused.

  ‘Nous agissons dan l’intêret de la verité. Nous ne voulons pas vous blesser,’ij said he.

>   Scorn gave me nerve. I only answered,—

  ‘Dictate, Monsieur.’

  Rochemorte named this theme: ‘Human Justice.’

  Human Justice! What was I to make of it? Blank, cold abstraction, unsuggestive to me of one inspiring idea; and there stood M. Emanuel, sad as Saul, and stern as Joab, and there triumphed his accusers.

  At these two I looked. I was gathering my courage to tell them that I would neither write nor speak another word for their satisfaction, that their theme did not suit, nor their presence inspire me, and that, notwithstanding, whoever threw the shadow of a doubt on M. Emanuel’s honour, outraged that truth of which they had announced themselves the champions: I meant to utter all this, I say, when, suddenly, a light darted on memory.

  Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and whisker—those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous visages—were the same faces, the very same that projected in full gas-light from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me to death on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt morally certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless foreigner beyond her reckoning and her strength, chased her breathless over a whole quarter of the town.

  ‘Pious mentors!’ thought I. ‘Pure guides for youth! If “Human Justice” were what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present post, or enjoy your present credit.’

  An idea once seized, I fell to work. ‘Human Justice’ rushed before me in novel guise, a red, random beldame with arms akimbo. I saw her in her house, the den of confusion: servants called to her for orders or help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled round her feet and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy, cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She had a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a short black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny’s soothing syrup; she smoked and she sipped and she enjoyed her paradise, and whenever a cry of the suffering souls about her pierced her ears too keenly—my jolly dame seized the poker or the hearth-brush: if the offender was weak, wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him; if he was strong, lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand in her deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.