Villette by Charlotte Brontë (learn to read activity book TXT) 📕

light enough still lingered to show the velvet blackness of his close-shorn head, and the sallow ivory of his brow) looked in.

“Brava!” cried he, holding the door open and remaining at the threshold. “J’ai tout entendu. C’est assez bien. Encore!”

A moment I hesitated.

“Encore!” said he sternly. “Et point de grimaces! A bas la timidité!”

Again I went through the part, but not half so well as I had spoken it alone.

“Enfin, elle sait,” said he, half dissatisfied, “and one cannot be fastidious or exacting under the circumstances.” Then he added, “You may yet have twenty minutes for preparation: au revoir!” And he was going.

“Monsieur,” I called out, taking courage.

“Eh bien! Qu’est-ce que c’est, Mademoiselle?”

“J’ai bien faim.”

“Comment, vous avez faim! Et la collation?”

“I know nothing about it. I have not seen it, shut up here.”

“Ah! C’est vrai,” cried he.

In a moment my throne was abdicated, the attic evacuated; an inverse repetition of the impetus which had brought me up into the attic, instantly took me down—down—down to the very kitchen. I thought I should have gone to the cellar. The cook was imperatively ordered to produce food, and I, as imperatively, was commanded to eat. To my great joy this food was limited to coffee and cake: I had feared wine and sweets, which I did not like. How he guessed that I should like a petit pâté à la crême I cannot tell; but he went out and procured me one from some quarter. With considerable willingness I ate and drank, keeping the petit pâté till the last, as a bonne bouche. M. Paul superintended my repast, and almost forced upon me more than I could swallow.

“A la bonne heure,” he cried, when I signified that I really could take no more, and, with uplifted hands, implored to be spared the additional roll on which he had just spread butter. “You will set me down as a species of tyrant and Bluebeard, starving women in a garret; whereas, after all, I am no such thing. Now, Mademoiselle, do you feel courage and strength to appear?”

I said, I thought I did; though, in truth, I was perfectly confused, and could hardly tell how I felt: but this little man was of the order of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant force sufficient to crush him at once.

“Come then,” said he, offering his hand.

I gave him mine, and he set off with a rapid walk, which obliged me to run at his side in order to keep pace. In the carré he stopped a moment: it was lit with large lamps; the wide doors of the classes were open, and so were the equally wide garden-doors; orange-trees in tubs, and tall flowers in pots, ornamented these portals on each side; groups of ladies and gentlemen in evening-dress stood and walked amongst the flowers. Within, the long vista of the schoolrooms presented a thronging, undulating, murmuring, waving, streaming multitude, all rose, and blue, and half translucent white. There were lustres burning overhead; far off there was a stage, a solemn green curtain, a row of footlights.

“Nest-ce pas que c’est beau?” demanded my companion.

I should have said it was, but my heart got up into my throat. M. Paul discovered this, and gave me a side-scowl and a little shake for my pains.

“I will do my best, but I wish it was over,” said I; then I asked: “Are we to walk through that crowd?”

“By no means: I manage matters better: we pass through the garden— here.”

In an instant we were out of doors: the cool, calm night revived me somewhat. It was moonless, but the reflex from the many glowing windows lit the court brightly, and even the alleys—dimly. Heaven was cloudless, and grand with the quiver of its living fires. How soft are the nights of the Continent! How bland, balmy, safe! No sea-fog; no chilling damp: mistless as noon, and fresh as morning.

Having crossed court and garden, we reached the glass door of the first classe. It stood open, like all other doors that night; we passed, and then I was ushered into a small cabinet, dividing the first classe from the grand salle. This cabinet dazzled me, it was so full of light: it deafened me, it was clamorous with voices: it stifled me, it was so hot, choking, thronged.

“De l’ordre! Du silence!” cried M. Paul. “Is this chaos?”, he demanded; and there was a hush. With a dozen words, and as many gestures, he turned out half the persons present, and obliged the remnant to fall into rank. Those left were all in costume: they were the performers, and this was the green-room. M. Paul introduced me. All stared and some tittered. It was a surprise: they had not expected the Englishwoman would play in a vaudeville. Ginevra Fanshawe, beautifully dressed for her part, and looking fascinatingly pretty, turned on me a pair of eyes as round as beads. In the highest spirit, unperturbed by fear or bashfulness, delighted indeed at the thought of shining off before hundreds—my entrance seemed to transfix her with amazement in the midst of her joy. She would have exclaimed, but M. Paul held her and all the rest in check.

Having surveyed and criticized the whole troop, he turned to me.

“You, too, must be dressed for your part.”

“Dressed—dressed like a man!” exclaimed Zélie St. Pierre, darting forwards; adding with officiousness, “I will dress her myself.”

To be dressed like a man did not please, and would not suit me. I had consented to take a man’s name and part; as to his dress—_halte là!_ No. I would keep my own dress, come what might. M. Paul might storm, might rage: I would keep my own dress. I said so, with a voice as resolute in intent, as it was low, and perhaps unsteady in utterance.

He did not immediately storm or rage, as I fully thought he would he stood silent. But Zélie again interposed.

“She will make a capital petit-mâitre. Here are the garments, all—all complete: somewhat too large, but—I will arrange all that. Come, chère amie—belle Anglaise!”

And she sneered, for I was not “belle.” She seized my hand, she was drawing me away. M. Paul stood impassable—neutral.

“You must not resist,” pursued St. Pierre—for resist I did. “You will spoil all, destroy the mirth of the piece, the enjoyment of the company, sacrifice everything to your amour-propre. This would be too bad—monsieur will never permit this?”

She sought his eye. I watched, likewise, for a glance. He gave her one, and then he gave me one. “Stop!” he said slowly, arresting St. Pierre, who continued her efforts to drag me after her. Everybody awaited the decision. He was not angry, not irritated; I perceived that, and took heart.

“You do not like these clothes?” he asked, pointing to the masculine vestments.

“I don’t object to some of them, but I won’t have them all.”

“How must it be, then? How accept a man’s part, and go on the stage dressed as a woman? This is an amateur affair, it is true—a vaudeville de pensionnat; certain modifications I might sanction, yet something you must have to announce you as of the nobler sex.”

“And I will, Monsieur; but it must be arranged in my own way: nobody must meddle; the things must not be forced upon me. Just let me dress myself.”

Monsieur, without another word, took the costume from St. Pierre, gave it to me, and permitted me to pass into the dressing-room. Once alone, I grew calm, and collectedly went to work. Retaining my woman’s garb without the slightest retrenchment, I merely assumed, in addition, a little vest, a collar, and cravat, and a paletôt of small dimensions; the whole being the costume of a brother of one of the pupils. Having loosened my hair out of its braids, made up the long back-hair close, and brushed the front hair to one side, I took my hat and gloves in my hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the others. He looked at me. “That may pass in a pensionnat,” he pronounced. Then added, not unkindly, “Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid—un peu d’aplomb, M. Lucien, et tout ira bien.”

St. Pierre sneered again, in her cold snaky manner.

I was irritable, because excited, and I could not help turning upon her and saying, that if she were not a lady and I a gentleman, I should feel disposed to call her out.

“After the play, after the play,” said M. Paul. “I will then divide my pair of pistols between you, and we will settle the dispute according to form: it will only be the old quarrel of France and England.”

But now the moment approached for the performance to commence. M. Paul, setting us before him, harangued us briefly, like a general addressing soldiers about to charge. I don’t know what he said, except that he recommended each to penetrate herself with a sense of her personal insignificance. God knows I thought this advice superfluous for some of us. A bell tinkled. I and two more were ushered on to the stage. The bell tinkled again. I had to speak the very first words.

“Do not look at the crowd, nor think of it,” whispered M. Paul in my ear. “Imagine yourself in the garret, acting to the rats.”

He vanished. The curtain drew up—shrivelled to the ceiling: the bright lights, the long room, the gay throng, burst upon us. I thought of the black-beetles, the old boxes, the worm-eaten bureau. I said my say badly; but I said it. That first speech was the difficulty; it revealed to me this fact, that it was not the crowd I feared so much as my own voice. Foreigners and strangers, the crowd were nothing to me. Nor did I think of them. When my tongue once got free, and my voice took its true pitch, and found its natural tone, I thought of nothing but the personage I represented—and of M. Paul, who was listening, watching, prompting in the side-scenes.

By-and-by, feeling the right power come—the spring demanded gush and rise inwardly—I became sufficiently composed to notice my fellow-actors. Some of them played very well; especially Ginevra Fanshawe, who had to coquette between two suitors, and managed admirably: in fact she was in her element. I observed that she once or twice threw a certain marked fondness and pointed partiality into her manner towards me—the fop. With such emphasis and animation did she favour me, such glances did she dart out into the listening and applauding crowd, that to me—who knew her—it presently became evident she was acting at some one; and I followed her eye, her smile, her gesture, and ere long discovered that she had at least singled out a handsome and distinguished aim for her shafts; full in the path of those arrows—taller than other spectators, and therefore more sure to receive them—stood, in attitude quiet but intent, a well-known form— that of Dr. John.

The spectacle seemed somehow suggestive. There was language in Dr. John’s look, though I cannot tell what he said; it animated me: I drew out of it a history; I put my idea into the part I per formed; I threw it into my wooing of Ginevra. In the “Ours,” or sincere lover, I saw Dr. John. Did I pity him, as erst? No, I hardened my heart, rivalled and outrivalled him. I knew myself but a fop, but where he was outcast I could please. Now I know acted as if wishful and resolute to win and conquer. Ginevra seconded me; between us we half-changed the nature of the rôle, gilding it from top