Villette Charlotte Brontë (summer reads .txt) 📖

No: he re-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his pencil-case, which had been left on the table.

He took it⁠—shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the wood, re-cut and pocketed it, and⁠ ⁠… walked promptly up to me.

The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking pretty freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant habit of speaking fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue their voices much.

M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and I said I was making a watchguard.

He asked, “For whom?” And I answered, “For a gentleman⁠—one of my friends.”

M. Paul stooped down and proceeded⁠—as novel-writers say, and, as was literally true in his case⁠—to “hiss” into my ear some poignant words.

He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make herself the most consummately unpleasant; I was she with whom it was least possible to live on friendly terms. I had a caractère intraitable, and perverse to a miracle. How I managed it, or what possessed me, he, for his part, did not know; but with whatever pacific and amicable intentions a person accosted me⁠—crac! I turned concord to discord, goodwill to enmity. He was sure, he⁠—M. Paul⁠—wished me well enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of; he might, at least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a neutral acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I behaved to him! With what pungent vivacities⁠—what an impetus of mutiny⁠—what a fougue of injustice!

Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even slipping in a slight interjectional observation: “Vivacities? Impetus? Fougue? I didn’t know⁠ ⁠…”

“Chut! à l’instant! There! there I went⁠—vive comme la poudre!” He was sorry⁠—he was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless peculiarity. This emportement, this chaleur⁠—generous, perhaps, but excessive⁠—would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity: I was not⁠—he believed, in his soul⁠—wholly without good qualities; and would I but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less en l’air, less coquette, less taken by show, less prone to set an undue value on outside excellence⁠—to make much of the attentions of people remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, des couleurs de poupée, un nez plus ou moins bien fait, and an enormous amount of fatuity⁠—I might yet prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary character. But, as it was⁠—And here, the little man’s voice was for a minute choked.

I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd.

I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on at his ease.

“While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my anger for the sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change he had noticed in my dress. He was free to confess that when he first knew me⁠—or, rather, was in the habit of catching a passing glimpse of me from time to time⁠—I satisfied him on this point: the gravity, the austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, were such as to inspire the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal influence had impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my bonnet, to wear des cols brodés, and even to appear on one occasion in a scarlet gown⁠—he might indeed conjecture, but, for the present, would not openly declare.”

Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once indignant and horror-struck.

“Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale pink too, and further subdued by black lace.”

“Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all one: these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I talked of, that was but a colifichet de plus.” And he sighed over my degeneracy. “He could not, he was sorry to say, be so particular on this theme as he could wish: not possessing the exact names of these babioles, he might run into small verbal errors which would not fail to lay him open to my sarcasm, and excite my unhappily sudden and passionate disposition. He would merely say, in general terms⁠—and in these general terms he knew he was correct⁠—that my costume had of late assumed des façons mondaines, which it wounded him to see.”

What façons mondaines he discovered in my present winter merino and plain white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked him, he said it was all made with too much attention to effect⁠—and besides, “had I not a bow of ribbon at my neck?”

“And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?”⁠—holding up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a groan⁠—I suppose over my levity.

After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of the chain, at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he inquired: “Whether what he had just said would have the effect of making me entirely detest him?”

I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don’t think I spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good night on friendly terms: and, even after M. Paul had reached the door, he turned back just to explain, “that he would not be understood to speak in entire