บทที่ บทที่ 30 · 第30章

ised 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.

CHAPTER 31. The Dryad

THE DRYAD