Villette Charlotte Brontë (summer reads .txt) 📖

condemnation of the scarlet dress” (“Pink! pink!” I threw in); “that he had no intention to deny it the merit of looking rather well” (the fact was, M. Emanuel’s taste in colours decidedly leaned to the brilliant); “only he wished to counsel me, whenever, I wore it, to do so in the same spirit as if its material were bure, and its hue gris de poussière.”

“And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?” I asked. “They are very little ones⁠—?”

“Keep them little, then,” said he. “Permit them not to become full-blown.”

“And the bow, Monsieur⁠—the bit of ribbon?”

“Va pour le ruban!” was the propitious answer.

And so we settled it.

“Well done, Lucy Snowe!” cried I to myself; “you have come in for a pretty lecture⁠—brought on yourself a ‘rude savant,’ and all through your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it? You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, ‘Miss Snowe looked uncomfortable.’ Dr. John Bretton knows you only as ‘quiet Lucy’⁠—‘a creature inoffensive as a shadow;’ he has said, and you have heard him say it: ‘Lucy’s disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and manner⁠—want of colour in character and costume.’ Such are your own and your friends’ impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man, differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being too airy and cheery⁠—too volatile and versatile⁠—too flowery and coloury. This harsh little man⁠—this pitiless censor⁠—gathers up all your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of rose-colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon, your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life’s sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray.”

XXIX Monsieur’s Fête

I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for the benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its last watch.

All my materials⁠—my whole stock of beads and silk⁠—were used up before the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had wrought it double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit the particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it, then coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small box I had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the colour called “nacarat,” and decked with a little coronal of sparkling blue stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my scissors’ point certain initials.

The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck’s fête; nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance of this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a modified form, to her kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the latter case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and contrived beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many others, of the estimation in which⁠—despite his partialities, prejudices, and irritabilities⁠—the professor of literature was held by his pupils. No article of value was offered to him: he distinctly gave it to be understood, that he would accept neither plate nor jewellery. Yet he liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value, did not touch him: a diamond ring, a gold snuffbox, presented, with pomp, would have pleased him less than a flower, or a drawing, offered simply and with sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man, not wise in his generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with “the dayspring on high.”

M. Paul’s fête fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a fine sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was customary to attend mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the half-holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping, or paying visits in the afternoon: these combined considerations induced a general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were in vogue; the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was exchanged for something lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zélie St. Pierre, on this particular Thursday, even assumed a robe de soie, deemed in economical Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury; nay, it was remarked that she sent for a coiffeur to dress her hair that morning; there were pupils acute enough to discover that she had bedewed her handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable perfume. Poor Zélie! It was much her wont to declare about this time, that she was tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that she longed to have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some one to work for her⁠—a husband who would pay her debts (she was woefully encumbered with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at liberty, as she said, to goûter un peu les plaisirs. It had long been rumoured, that her eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel’s eye was certainly often upon her. He would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a quarter-of-an-hour’s gaze, while the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur