Villette by Charlotte Brontë (free e reader .TXT) 📕

these thickening symptoms. Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that blessed morning had she made the passage of peril; and now, for the fifth time, it became her dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a brand from the burning⁠—a pupil from under M. Paul’s nose.

“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” cried she. “Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me tuer, je suis sûre; car il est d’une colère!”

Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door.

“Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!” was her cry.

Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this voice uttered itself⁠—

“Dès ce moment!⁠—la classe est défendue. La première qui ouvrira cette porte, ou passera par cette division, sera pendue⁠—fut-ce Madame Beck elle-même!”

Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when Rosine’s French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the corridor.

“Mademoiselle,” said she, “I would not for a five-franc piece go into that classe again just now: Monsieur’s lunettes are really terrible; and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athénée. I have told Madame Beck I dare not deliver it, and she says I am to charge you with it.”

“Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come, come, Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave⁠—charge once more!”

“I, Mademoiselle?⁠—impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day. Madame must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n’en puis plus!”

“Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?”

“Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered: an urgent summons to go directly to the Athénée, as there is an official visitor⁠—inspector⁠—I know not what⁠—arrived, and Monsieur must meet him: you know how he hates a must.”

Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb: against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt. However, I accepted the responsibility⁠—not, certainly, without fear, but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I opened the door, I entered, I closed it behind me as quickly and quietly as a rather unsteady hand would permit; for to be slow or bustling, to rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were aggravations of crime often more disastrous in result than the main crime itself. There I stood then, and there he sat; his humour was visibly bad⁠—almost at its worst; he had been giving a lesson in arithmetic⁠—for he gave lessons on any and every subject that struck his fancy⁠—and arithmetic being a dry subject, invariably disagreed with him; not a pupil but trembled when he spoke of figures. He sat, bent above his desk: to look up at the sound of an entrance, at the occurrence of a direct breach of his will and law, was an effort he could not for the moment bring himself to make. It was quite as well: I thus gained time to walk up the long classe; and it suited my idiosyncracy far better to encounter the near burst of anger like his, than to bear its menace at a distance.

At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of immediate attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not do: he must hear and he must answer my message.

Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated upon the estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I ventured to peep round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a better view of his face, which had struck me when I entered as bearing a close and picturesque resemblance to that of a black and sallow tiger. Twice did I enjoy this side-view with impunity, advancing and receding unseen; the third time my eye had scarce dawned beyond the obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and transfixed through its very pupil⁠—transfixed by the lunettes. Rosine was right; these utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the mobile wrath of the wearer’s own unglazed eyes.

I now found the advantage of proximity: these shortsighted lunettes were useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur’s nose; accordingly, he doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms.

I am glad I was not really much afraid of him⁠—that, indeed, close in his presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and gibbet to execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to furnish him with a needleful of embroidering thread with such accommodating civility as could not but allay some portion at least of his surplus irritation. Of course I did not parade this courtesy before public view: I merely handed the thread round the angle of the desk, and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the Professor’s chair.

“Que me voulez-vous?” said he in a growl of which the music was wholly confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly should wring from him a smile.

My answer commenced uncompromisingly: “Monsieur,” I said, “je veux l’impossible, des choses inouïes;” and thinking it best not to mince matters, but to administer the douche with decision, in a low but quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating its urgency.

Of course, he would not hear a word of it. “He would not go; he would not leave his present class, let all the officials of Villette send for him. He would not put himself an inch out of his way at the bidding of king, cabinet, and chambers together.”

I knew, however, that he must go; that, talk as he would, both his duty and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance with the summons: I stood, therefore,