Villette

. PAUL.

Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly
conclusions, or to suppose, with an over-hasty charity, that from that
day M. Paul became a changed character—easy to live with, and no longer
apt to flash danger and discomfort round him.

No; he was naturally a little man of unreasonable moods. When
over-wrought, which he often was, he became acutely irritable; and,
besides, his veins were dark with a livid belladonna tincture, the
essence of jealousy. I do not mean merely the tender jealousy of the
heart, but that sterner, narrower sentiment whose seat is in the head.

I used to think, as I sat looking at M. Paul, while he was knitting his
brow or protruding his lip over some exercise of mine, which had not as
many faults as he wished (for he liked me to commit faults: a knot of
blunders was sweet to him as a cluster of nuts), that he had points of
resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte. I think so still.

In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great
Emperor. M. Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women, would
have unblushingly carried on a system of petty bickering and
recrimination with a whole capital of coteries, never troubling himself
about loss or lack of dignity. He would have exiled fifty Madame de
Staëls, if they had annoyed, offended, outrivalled, or opposed him.

I well remember a hot episode of his with a certain Madame Panache—a
lady temporarily employed by Madame Beck to give lessons in history.
She was clever—that is, she knew a good deal; and, besides, thoroughly
possessed the art of making the most of what she knew; of words and
confidence she held unlimited command. Her personal appearance was far
from destitute of advantages; I believe many people would have
pronounced her “a fine woman;” and yet there were points in her robust
and ample attractions, as well as in her bustling and demonstrative
presence, which, it appeared, the nice and capricious tastes of M. Paul
could not away with. The sound of her voice, echoing through the carré,
would put him into a strange taking; her long free step—almost
stride—along the corridor, would often make him snatch up his papers
and decamp on the instant.

With malicious intent he bethought himself, one day, to intrude on her
class; as quick as lightning he gathered her method of instruction; it
differed from a pet plan of his own. With little ceremony, and less
courtesy, he pointed out what he termed her errors. Whether he expected
submission and attention, I know not; he met an acrid opposition,
accompanied by a round reprimand for his certainly unjustifiable
interference.

Instead of withdrawing with dignity, as he might still have done, he
threw down the gauntlet of defiance. Madame Panache, bellicose as a
Penthesilea, picked it up in a minute. She snapped her fingers in the
intermeddler’s face; she rushed upon him with a storm of words. M.
Emanuel was eloquent; but Madame Panache was voluble. A system of
fierce antagonism ensued. Instead of laughing in his sleeve at his fair
foe, with all her sore amour-propre and loud self-assertion, M. Paul
detested her with intense seriousness; he honoured her with his earnest
fury; he pursued her vindictively and implacably, refusing to rest
peaceably in his bed, to derive due benefit from his meals, or even
serenely to relish his cigar, till she was fairly rooted out of the
establishment. The Professor conquered, but I cannot say that the
laurels of this victory shadowed gracefully his temples. Once I
ventured to hint as much. To my great surprise he allowed that I might
be right, but averred that when brought into contact with either men or
women of the coarse, self-complacent quality, whereof Madame Panache
was a specimen, he had no control over his own passions; an unspeakable
and active aversion impelled him to a war of extermination.

Three months afterwards, hearing that his vanquished foe had met with
reverses, and was likely to be really distressed for want of
employment, he forgot his hatred, and alike active in good and evil, he
moved heaven and earth till he found her a place. Upon her coming to
make up former differences, and thank him for his recent kindness, the
old voice—a little loud—the old manner—a little forward—so acted upon
him that in ten minutes he started up and bowed her, or rather himself,
out of the room, in a transport of nervous irritation.

To pursue a somewhat audacious parallel, in a love of power, in an
eager grasp after supremacy, M. Emanuel was like Bonaparte. He was a
man not always to be submitted to. Sometimes it was needful to resist;
it was right to stand still, to look up into his eyes and tell him that
his requirements went beyond reason—that his absolutism verged on
tyranny.

The dawnings, the first developments of peculiar talent appearing
within his range, and under his rule, curiously excited, even disturbed
him. He watched its struggle into life with a scowl; he held back his
hand—perhaps said, “Come on if you have strength,” but would not aid
the birth.

When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the
breath of life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract,
when he felt the heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not
yet offer to foster.

“Prove yourself true ere I cherish you,” was his ordinance; and how
difficult he made that proof! What thorns and briers, what flints, he
strewed in the path of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched
tearlessly—ordeals that he exacted should be passed through—fearlessly.
He followed footprints that, as they approached the bourne, were
sometimes marked in blood—followed them grimly, holding the austerest
police-watch over the pain-pressed pilgrim. And when at last he allowed
a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids, he opened those same
lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and gazed deep through the
pupil and the irids into the brain, into the heart, to search if
Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its subtlest forms, was
discoverable in the furthest recess of existence. If, at last, he let
the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke him suddenly up to
apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when he was staggering
with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and the health; and it
was only when every severest test had been applied and endured, when
the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and failed to tarnish the
ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in clouded silence,
stamped it with his deep brand of approval.

I speak not ignorant of these evils.

Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my
professor—he had not given me lessons, but about that time,
accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch
of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have disgraced a
charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me in hand,
examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly deficient, gave
me some books and appointed me some tasks.

He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed exultation,
condescending to say that he believed I was “bonne et pas trop faible”
(i.e. well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of parts), but,
owing he supposed to adverse circumstances, “as yet in a state of
wretchedly imperfect mental development.”

The beginning of all effort has indeed with me been marked by a
preternatural imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common
acquaintance, assert or prove a claim to average quickness. A
depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every new page I have
turned in life.

So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very
forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty
humiliation imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can hardly
do justice to his tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes would
moisten, when tears of shame and effort clouded mine; burdened as he
was with work, he would steal half his brief space of recreation to
give to me.

But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to
yield to day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves, free, and
my time of energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled,
trebled, quadrupled the tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his
kindness became sternness; the light changed in his eyes from a beam to
a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he curbed me imperiously; the more I
did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed content. Sarcasms of which
the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears; then flowed out
the bitterest inuendoes against the “pride of intellect.” I was vaguely
threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed the limits
proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for unfeminine
knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it joyed me by
any effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in the
abstract—the godlike thirst after discovery—these feelings were known
to me but by briefest flashes.

Yet, when M. Paul sneered at me, I wanted to possess them more fully;
his injustice stirred in me ambitious wishes—it imparted a strong
stimulus—it gave wings to aspiration.

In the beginning, before I had penetrated to motives, that
uncomprehended sneer of his made my heart ache, but by-and-by it only
warmed the blood in my veins, and sent added action to my pulses.
Whatever my powers—feminine or the contrary—God had given them, and I
felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of his bestowal.

The combat was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul’s
affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he would
insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he called
“faible”—that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false incapacity.
Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the most
far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that I had
extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard of—and over
the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen down in a sleep as
deep as that of Eutychus.

Once, upon his preferring such an accusation, I turned upon him—I rose
against him. Gathering an armful of his books out of my desk, I filled
my apron and poured them in a heap upon his estrade, at his feet.

“Take them away, M. Paul,” I said, “and teach me no more. I never asked
to be made learned, and you compel me to feel very profoundly that
learning is not happiness.”

And returning to my desk, I laid my head on my arms, nor would I speak
to him for two days afterwards. He pained and chagrined me. His
affection had been very sweet and dear—a pleasure new and incomparable:
now that this seemed withdrawn, I cared not for his lessons.

The books, however, were not taken away; they were all restored with
careful hand to their places, and he came as usual to teach me. He made
his peace somehow—too readily, perhaps: I ought to have stood out
longer, but when he looked kind and good, and held out his hand with
amity, memory refused to reproduce with due force his oppressive
moments. And then, reconcilement is always sweet!

On a certain morning a message came from my godmother, inviting me to
attend some notable lecture to be delivered in the same public rooms
before described. Dr. John had brought the message himself, and
delivered it verbally to Rosine, who had not scrupled to follow the
steps of M. Emanuel, then passing to the first classe, and, in his
presence, stand “carrément” before my desk, hand in apron-pocket, and
rehearse the same, saucily and aloud, concluding with the words, “Qu’il
est vraiment beau, Mademoiselle, ce jeune docteur! Quels yeux—quel
regard! Tenez! J’en ai le cœur tout ému!”

When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered “cette
fille effrontée, cette créature sans pudeur,” to address me in such
terms.

I had no pacifying answer to give. The terms were precisely such as
Rosine—a young lady in whose skull the organs of reverence and reserve
were not largely developed—was in the constant habit of using. Besides,
what she said about the young doctor was true enough. Graham was
handsome; he had fine eyes and a thrilling glance. An observation to
that effect actually formed itself into sound on my lips.

“Elle ne dit que la vérité,” I said.

“Ah! vous trouvez?”

“Mais, sans doute.”

The lesson to which we had that day to submit was such as to make us
very glad when it terminated. At its close, the released pupils rushed
out, half-trembling, half-exultant. I, too, was going. A mandate to
remain arrested me. I muttered that I wanted some fresh air sadly—the
stove was in a glow, the classe over-heated. An inexorable voice merely
recommended silence; and this salamander—for whom no room ever seemed
too hot—sitting down between my desk and the stove—a situation in which
he ought to have felt broiled, but did not—proceeded to confront me
with—a Greek quotation!

In M. Emanuel’s soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both Greek
and Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if they
would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in fear of
its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a fund of
knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to conceal. The
privileges of a “classical education,” it was insinuated, had been
mine; on flowers of Hymettus I had revelled; a golden store, hived in
memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily nurtured my
wits.

A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret—to
wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed
Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc’s
jailors tempted her with the warrior’s accoutrements, and lay in wait
for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages,
and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones
fell musically from his lips—for he had a good voice—remarkable for
compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a
vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he
sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however;
not comprehending, of course I could neither be charmed nor annoyed.

Baffled—almost angry—he still clung to his fixed idea; my
susceptibilities were pronounced marble—my face a mask. It appeared as
if he could not be brought to accept the homely truth, and take me for
what I was: men, and women too, must have delusion of some sort; if not
made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for themselves.

At moments I did wish that his suspicions had been better founded.
There were times when I would have given my right hand to possess the
treasures he ascribed to me. He deserved condign punishment for his
testy crotchets. I could have gloried in bringing home to him his worst
apprehensions astoundingly realized. I could have exulted to burst on
his vision, confront and confound his “lunettes,” one blaze of
acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to make me clever while I
was young enough to learn, that I might, by one grand, sudden, inhuman
revelation—one cold, cruel, overwhelming triumph—have for ever crushed
the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl David Emanuel!

Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations
fell ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground.

“Women of intellect” was his next theme: here he was at home. A “woman
of intellect,” it appeared, was a sort of “lusus naturae,” a luckless
accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in
creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in
the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and
passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought
and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male
mind alone could work to any good practical result—hein?

This “hein?” was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me
contradiction or objection. However, I only said—“Cela ne me regarde
pas: je ne m’en soucie pas;” and presently added—“May I go, Monsieur?
They have rung the bell for the second déjeuner” (i.e. luncheon).

“What of that? You are not hungry?”

“Indeed I was,” I said; “I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven,
and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell.”

“Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him.”

And he broke in two the “brioche” intended for his own refreshment, and
gave me half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the really
formidable attack was yet to come. While eating his cake, I could not
forbear expressing my secret wish that I really knew all of which he
accused me.

“Did I sincerely feel myself to be an ignoramus?” he asked, in a
softened tone.

If I had replied meekly by an unqualified affirmative, I believe he
would have stretched out his hand, and we should have been friends on
the spot, but I answered—

“Not exactly. I am ignorant, Monsieur, in the knowledge you ascribe to
me, but I sometimes, not always, feel a knowledge of my own.”

“What did I mean?” he inquired, sharply.

Unable to answer this question in a breath, I evaded it by change of
subject. He had now finished his half of the brioche: feeling sure that
on so trifling a fragment he could not have satisfied his appetite, as
indeed I had not appeased mine, and inhaling the fragrance of baked
apples afar from the refectory, I ventured to inquire whether he did
not also perceive that agreeable odour. He confessed that he did. I
said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and permit me just to
run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added that I
believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of
baking, or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and
a glass or two of vin blanc—might I go?

“Petite gourmande!” said he, smiling, “I have not forgotten how pleased
you were with the pâté â la crême I once gave you, and you know very
well, at this moment, that to fetch the apples for me will be the same
as getting them for yourself. Go, then, but come back quickly.”

And at last he liberated me on parole. My own plan was to go and return
with speed and good faith, to put the plate in at the door, and then to
vanish incontinent, leaving all consequences for future settlement.

That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my
scheme: he met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and fixed
me in a minute in my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from my
hand, he divided the portion intended only for himself, and ordered me
to eat my share. I complied with no good grace, and vexed, I suppose,
by my reluctance, he opened a masked and dangerous battery. All he had
yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, signifying nothing: not
so of the present attack.

It consisted in an unreasonable proposition with which he had before
afflicted me: namely, that on the next public examination-day I should
engage—foreigner as I was—to take my place on the first form of
first-class pupils, and with them improvise a composition in French, on
any subject any spectator might dictate, without benefit of grammar or
lexicon.

I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom
nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature
a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under
the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or the
recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one evidence
of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that Impulse was
the most intractable, the most capricious, the most maddening of
masters (him before me always excepted)—a deity which sometimes, under
circumstances—apparently propitious, would not speak when questioned,
would not hear when appealed to, would not, when sought, be found; but
would stand, all cold, all indurated, all granite, a dark Baal with
carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast like the stone face of a
tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some sound, some
long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an unseen
stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake unsolicited,
would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal like a
perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, whatever the
hour—to its victim for some blood, or some breath, whatever the
circumstance or scene—rousing its priest, treacherously promising
vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum of oracles,
but sure to give half the significance to fateful winds, and grudging
to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant—yielding it
sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the deathless ichor of
its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel into bondage, and
make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade, between a Mathilde and
a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for the pleasure, and to the
inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour!

Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once—strong
battle, with confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and
repulse.

On this particular day I was soundly rated. “The obstinacy of my whole
sex,” it seems, was concentrated in me; I had an “orgueil de diable.” I
feared to fail, forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or not?
Who was I that I should not fail, like my betters? It would do me good
to fail. He wanted to see me worsted (I knew he did), and one minute he
paused to take breath.

“Would I speak now, and be tractable?”

“Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not
compel me. I would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than
write for a show and to order, perched up on a platform.”

“Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship’s
sake?”

“Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun
had a right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would harass
me thus.”

He supposed then (with a sneer—M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling
his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)—he supposed
there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that
form it was not for him to make use.

“Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois d’ici,”
said he, “eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately arming for
the effort.”

“Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a
hundred and fifty of the ‘papas’ and ‘mammas’ of Villette.”

And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted
to be liberated—to get out into the air—I was almost in a fever.

“Chut!” said the inexorable, “this was a mere pretext to run away; he
was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I suffer,
thoroughly screened by his person?”

“I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural
history of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander,
and sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step to
the well, and get a glass of water—the sweet apples had made me
thirsty?”

“If that was all, he would do my errand.”

He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch
behind me, I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried
prey had escaped.