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

“Only Monsieur’s answer to deliver to the commissionaire.”

He waved an impatient negative.

I ventured to stretch my hand to the bonnet-grec which lay in grim repose on the windowsill. He followed this daring movement with his eye, no doubt in mixed pity and amazement at its presumption.

“Ah!” he muttered, “if it came to that⁠—if Miss Lucy meddled with his bonnet-grec⁠—she might just put it on herself, turn garçon for the occasion, and benevolently go to the Athénée in his stead.”

With great respect, I laid the bonnet on the desk, where its tassel seemed to give me an awful nod.

“I’ll write a note of apology⁠—that will do!” said he, still bent on evasion.

Knowing well it would not do, I gently pushed the bonnet towards his hand. Thus impelled, it slid down the polished slope of the varnished and unbaized desk, carried before it the light steel-framed lunettes, and, fearful to relate, they fell to the estrade. A score of times ere now had I seen them fall and receive no damage⁠—this time, as Lucy Snowe’s hapless luck would have it, they so fell that each clear pebble became a shivered and shapeless star.

Now, indeed, dismay seized me⁠—dismay and regret. I knew the value of these lunettes: M. Paul’s sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and these glasses suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as I picked them up, cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened through all my nerves I was to see the mischief I had done, but I think I was even more sorry than afraid. For some seconds I dared not look the bereaved Professor in the face; he was the first to speak.

“Là!” said he: “me voilà veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You are resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in your hands!”

I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering, and furrowed, was overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I had seen brightening it that evening at the Hotel Crécy. He was not angry⁠—not even grieved. For the real injury he showed himself full of clemency; under the real provocation, patient as a saint. This event, which seemed so untoward⁠—which I thought had ruined at once my chance of successful persuasion⁠—proved my best help. Difficult of management so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender.

Still gently railing at me as “une forte femme⁠—une Anglaise terrible⁠—une petite casse-tout”⁠—he declared that he dared not but obey one who had given such an instance of her dangerous prowess; it was absolutely like the “grand Empereur smashing the vase to inspire dismay.” So, at last, crowning himself with his bonnet-grec, and taking his ruined lunettes from my hand with a clasp of kind pardon and encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athénée in first-rate humour and spirits.

After all this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to hear that I was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it was, and I could not help it.

It was his occasional custom⁠—and a very laudable, acceptable custom, too⁠—to arrive of an evening, always à l’improviste, unannounced, burst in on the silent hour of study, establish a sudden despotism over us and our occupations, cause books to be put away, workbags to be brought out, and, drawing forth a single thick volume, or a handful of pamphlets, substitute for the besotted lecture pieuse, drawled by a sleepy pupil, some tragedy made grand by grand reading, ardent by fiery action⁠—some drama, whereof, for my part, I rarely studied the intrinsic merit; for M. Emanuel made it a vessel for an outpouring, and filled it with his native verve and passion like a cup with a vital brewage. Or else he would flash through our conventual darkness a reflex of a brighter world, show us a glimpse of the current literature of the day, read us passages from some enchanting tale, or the last witty feuilleton which had awakened laughter in the saloons of Paris; taking care always to expunge, with the severest hand, whether from tragedy, melodrama, tale, or essay, whatever passage, phrase, or word, could be deemed unsuited to an audience of jeunes filles. I noticed more than once, that where retrenchment without substitute would have left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness, he could, and did, improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than irreproachable; the dialogue⁠—the description⁠—he engrafted was often far better than that he pruned away.

Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a “retreat,” the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my work; it was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me; it had a purpose; I was not doing it merely to kill time; I meant it when finished as a gift; and the occasion of presentation being near, haste was requisite, and my fingers were busy.

We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step familiar to each ear: the words “Voilà Monsieur!” had scarcely broken simultaneously from every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as split it always did for his admission⁠—such a slow word as “open” is inefficient to describe his movements), and he stood in the midst of us.

There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over the centre of each hung a lamp; beneath this lamp, on either side the table, sat a teacher; the girls were arranged to the right hand and the left; the eldest and