Villette (68 page)

His history. I took up the word at once; I pursued the idea.

‘No, monsieur,’ I rejoined. ‘Of course, as you say, I know neither your history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your sorrows, or trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh, no! I know nothing about you; you are for me altogether a stranger.’

‘Hein?’ he murmured, arching his brows in surprise.

‘You know, monsieur, I only see you in classe—stern, dogmatic, hasty, imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to originate, hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A man like you, without ties, can have no attachments ; without dependents, no duties. All we, with whom you come in contact, are machines, which you thrust here and here, inconsiderate of their feelings. You seek your recreations in public, by the light of the evening chandelier: this school and yonder college are your workshops, where you fabricate the ware called pupils. I don’t so much as know where you live; it is natural to take it for granted that you have no home, and need none.’

‘I am judged,’ said he. ‘Your opinion of me is just what I thought it was. For you—I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of affection and religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by principle or faith. It is well, mademoiselle, such is our reward in this life.’

‘You are a philosopher, monsieur; a cynic philosopher’ (and I looked at his paletôt, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with his hand), ‘despising the foibles of humanity—above its luxuries—independent of its comforts.’

‘Et vous, mademoiselle; vous êtes proprette et douillette, et affreusement insensible, par-dessus le marché.’
^il

‘But, in short, monsieur, now I think of it, you
must
live somewhere? Do tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you keep?’

With a fearful projection of the under lip, implying an impetus of scorn the most decided, he broke out—

‘Je vis dans un trou!
^im
I inhabit a den, miss—a cavern, where you would not put your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole truth, I talked about my “study” in that college : know now that this “study” is my whole abode; my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As for my “establishment of servants” (mimicking my voice) ‘they number ten: les voila!’

And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers.

‘I black my boots,’ pursued he, savagely. ‘I brush my paletôt.’

‘No, monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that,’ was my parenthesis.

‘Je fais mon lit et mon ménage,‘
ⁱⁿ
I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my supper takes care of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless; nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded, and monkish; and nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to whom a will and testament not to be disputed, has bequeathed the kingdom of heaven.’

‘Ah, monsieur; but I know!’

‘What do you know? many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy!’

‘I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of the Basse-Ville—why don’t you go and live there?’

‘Hein?’ muttered he again.

‘I liked it much, monsieur; with the steps ascending to the door, the gray flags in front, the nodding trees behind—real trees, not shrubs—trees dark, high, and of old growth. And the boudoir-oratoire—you should make that room your study; it is so quiet and solemn.’

He eyed me closely; he half-smiled, half-coloured. ‘Where did you pick up all that? Who told you?’ he asked.

‘Nobody told me. Did I dream it, monsieur, do you think?’

‘Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman’s waking thoughts, much less her sleeping fantasies?’

‘If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I saw a priest, old, bent, and gray, and a domestic—old, too, and picturesque; and a lady, splendid but strange; her head would scarce reach to my elbow—her magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a gown bright as lapis-lazuli—a shawl worth a thousand francs: she was decked with ornaments so brilliant, I never saw any with such a beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had been broken in two and bent double; she seemed also to have outlived the common years of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and sorrow. She was become morose—almost malevolent; yet
somebody,
it appears, cared for her in her infirmities—somebody forgave her trespasses, hoping to have his trespasses forgiven. They lived together, these three people—the mistress, the chaplain, the servant—all old, all feeble, all sheltered under one kind wing.’

He covered with his hand the upper part of his face, but did not conceal his mouth, where I saw hovering an expression I liked.

‘I see you have entered into my secrets,’ said he, ‘but how was it done?’

So I told him how—the commission on which I had been sent, the storm which had detained me, the abruptness of the lady, the kindness of the priest. ‘As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Père Silas whiled away the time with a story,’ I said.

‘A story! What story? Père Silas is no romancist.’

‘Shall I tell monsieur the tale?’

‘Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy’s French—her best or her worst—I don’t much care which: let us have a good poignée of barbarisms, and a bounteous dose of the insular accent.’

‘Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious proportions, and the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the midst. But I will tell him the title—“The Priest’s Pupil.”’

‘Bah!’ said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. ‘The good old father could not have chosen a worst subject: it is his weak point. But what of “The Priest’s Pupil”?’

‘Oh! many things.’

‘You may as well define
what
things. I mean to know.’

‘There was the pupil’s youth, the pupil’s manhood—his avarice, his ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil, monsieur!—so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!’

‘Et puis?’
^io
said he, taking a cigar.

‘Et puis,’ I pursued, ‘he underwent calamities which one did not pity—bore them in a spirit one did not admire—endured wrongs for which one felt no sympathy; finally, took the unchristian revenge of heaping coals of fire on his adversary’s head.’

‘You have not told me all,’ said he.

‘Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Père Silas’s chapters.’

‘You have forgotten one—that which touched on the pupil’s lack of affection—on his hard, cold, monkish heart.’

‘True; I remember now. Père Silas
did
say that his vocation was almost that of a priest—that his life was considered consecrated.’

‘By what bonds or duties?’

‘By the ties of the past and the charities of the present.’

‘You have, then, the whole situation?’

‘I have now told monsieur all that was told me.’ Some meditative minutes passed.

‘Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, look at me, and with that truth which I believe you never knowingly violate, answer me one question. Raise your eyes; rest them on mine; have no hesitation ; fear not to trust me—I am a man to be trusted.’

I raised my eyes.

‘Knowing me thoroughly now—all my antecedents, all my responsibilities—having long known my faults, can you and I still be friends?’

‘If monsieur wants a friend in me, I shall be glad to have a friend in him.’

‘But a close friend I mean—intimate and real—kindred in all but blood? Will Miss Lucy be the sister of a very poor, fettered, burdened, encumbered man?’

I could not answer him in words, yet I suppose I
did
answer him; he took my hand, which found comfort in the shelter of his. His friendship was not a doubtful, wavering benefit—a cold, distant hope—a sentiment so brittle as not to bear the weight of a finger: I at once felt (or
thought
I felt) its support like that of some rock.

‘When I talk of friendship, I mean
true
friendship,’ he repeated emphatically; and I could hardly believe that words so earnest had blessed my ear; I hardly could credit the reality of that kind, anxious look he gave. If he
really
wished for my confidence and regard, and
really
would give me his—why, it seemed to me that life could offer nothing more or better. In that case, I was become strong and rich: in a moment I was made substantially happy. To ascertain the fact, to fix and seal it, I asked—

‘Is monsieur quite serious? Does he really think he needs me, and can take an interest in me as a sister?’

‘Surely, surely,’ said he; ‘a lonely man like me, who has no sister, must be but too glad to find in some woman’s heart a sister’s pure affection.’

‘And dare I rely on monsieur’s regard? Dare I speak to him when I am so inclined?’

‘My little sister must make her own experiments,’ said he; ‘I will give no promises. She must tease and try her wayward brother till she has drilled him into what she wishes. After all, he is no inductile material in some hands.’

While he spoke, the tone of his voice, the light of his now affectionate eye, gave me such a pleasure as, certainly, I had never felt. I envied no girl her lover, no bride her bridegroom, no wife her husband; I was content with this my voluntary, self-offering friend. If he would but prove reliable, and he
looked
reliable, what, beyond his friendship, could I ever covet? But, if all melted like a dream, as once before had happened—?

‘Qu’est-ce donc? What is it?’ said he, as this thought threw its weight on my heart, its shadow on my countenance. I told him; and after a moment’s pause, and a thoughtful smile, he showed me how an equal fear—lest I should weary of him, a man of moods so difficult and fitful—had haunted his mind for more than one day, or one month.

On hearing this, a quiet courage cheered me. I ventured a word of re-assurance. That word was not only tolerated; its repetition was courted. I grew quite happy—strangely happy—in making him secure, content, tranquil. Yesterday, I could not have believed that earth held, or life afforded, moments like the few I was now passing. Countless times it has been my lot to watch apprehended sorrow close darkly in; but to see unhoped-for happiness take form, find place, and grow more real as the seconds sped, was indeed a new experience.

‘Lucy,’ said M. Paul, speaking low and still holding my hand, ‘did you see a picture in the boudoir of the old house?’

‘I did; a picture painted on a panel.’

‘The portrait of a nun?’

‘Yes.’

‘You heard her history?’

‘Yes.’

‘You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?’

‘I shall never forget it.’

‘You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?’

‘I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait,’ said I; which was true enough.

‘You did not, nor will you fancy,’ pursued he, ‘that a saint in Heaven perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset
you?’

‘I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at.’

‘Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good living woman—much less a pure, happy spirit—would trouble amity like ours—n’est il pas vrai?’
^ip

Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some English family, who had applied for a prospectus: my services were needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable: sufficient for the day is always the evil;

B
esides Fifine Beck’s mother, another power had a word to say to M. Paul and me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealousy her son through that mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to which M. Emanuel drew nigh month by month—the sliding panel of the confessional.

‘Why were you so glad to be friends with M. Paul?’ asks the reader. ‘Had he not long been a friend to you? Had he not given proof on proof of a certain partiality in his feelings?’

Yes, he had; but still I liked to hear him say so earnestly—that he was my close, true friend; I liked his modest doubts, his tender deference—that trust which longed to rest, and was grateful when taught how. He had called me ‘sister.’ It was well. Yes; he might call me what he pleased, so long as he confided in me. I was willing to be his sister, on condition that he did not invite me to fill that relation to some future wife of his; and tacitly vowed as he was to celibacy, of this dilemma there seemed little danger.

Through most of the succeeding night, I pondered that evening’s interview. I wanted much the morning to break, and then listened for the bell to ring; and, after rising and dressing, I deemed prayers and breakfast slow, and all the hours lingering, till that arrived at last which brought the lesson of literature. My wish was to get a more thorough comprehension of this fraternal alliance: to note with how much of the brother he would demean himself when we met again; to prove how much of the sister was in my own feelings; to discover whether I could summon a sister’s courage, and he a brother’s frankness.

He came. Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. That whole day he never accosted me. His lesson was given rather more quietly than usual, more mildly, and also more gravely. He was fatherly to his pupils, but he was not brotherly to me. Ere he left the classe, I expected a smile, if not a word; I got neither: to my portion fell one nod—hurried, shy.