M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered by the teachers and pupils of the school, individually and collectively, to be as much as a woman’s or girl’s life was worth.
Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would “skurry” through, retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable estrade, like a ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress — on whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils out of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the salle-à-manger, or some other piano-station — she would, upon her second or third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of consternation — a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles.
One morning I was sitting in the carré, at work upon a piece of embroidery which one of the pupils had commenced but delayed to finish, and while my fingers wrought at the frame, my ears regaled themselves with listening to the crescendos and cadences of a voice haranguing in the neighbouring classe, in tones that waxed momentarily more unquiet, more ominously varied. There was a good strong partition-wall between me and the gathering storm, as well as a facile means of flight through the glass-door to the court, in case it swept this way; so I am afraid I derived more amusement than alarm from these thickening symptoms. Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that blessed morning had she made the passage of peril; and now, for the fifth time, it became her dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a brand from the burning — a pupil from under M. Paul’s nose.
“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” cried she. “Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me tuer, je suis s?re; car il est d’une colère!”
Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door.
“Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!” was her cry.
Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this voice uttered itself:—
“Dès ce moment! — la classe est défendue. La première qui ouvrira cette porte, ou passera par cette division, sera pendue — fut-ce Madame Beck elle-même!”
Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when Rosine’s French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the corridor.
“Mademoiselle,” said she, “I would not for a five-franc piece go into that classe again just now: Monsieur’s lunettes are really terrible; and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athénée. I have told Madame Beck I dare not deliver it, and she says I am to charge you with it.”
“Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come, come, Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave — charge once more!”
“I, Mademoiselle? — impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day. Madame must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n’en puis plus!”
“Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?”
“Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered: an urgent summons to go directly to the Athénée, as there is an official visitor — inspector — I know not what — arrived, and Monsieur must meet him: you know how he hates a must.”
Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb: against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt. However, I accepted the responsibility — not, certainly, without fear, but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I opened the door, I entered, I closed it behind me as quickly and quietly as a rather unsteady hand would permit; for to be slow or bustling, to rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were aggravations of crime often more disastrous in result than the main crime itself. There I stood then, and there he sat; his humour was visibly bad — almost at its worst; he had been giving a lesson in arithmetic — for he gave lessons on any and every subject that struck his fancy — and arithmetic being a dry subject, invariably disagreed with him: not a pupil but trembled when he spoke of figures. He sat, bent above his desk: to look up at the sound of an entrance, at the occurrence of a direct breach of his will and law, was an effort he could not for the moment bring himself to make. It was quite as well: I thus gained time to walk up the long classe; and it suited my idiosyncracy far better to encounter the near burst of anger like his, than to bear its menace at a distance.
At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of immediate attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not do: he must hear and he must answer my message.
Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated upon the estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I ventured to peep round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a better view of his face, which had struck me when I entered as bearing a close and picturesque resemblance to that of a black and sallow tiger. Twice did I enjoy this side-view with impunity, advancing and receding unseen; the third time my eye had scarce dawned beyond the obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and transfixed through its very pupil — transfixed by the “lunettes.” Rosine was right; these utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the mobile wrath of the wearer’s own unglazed eyes.
I now found the advantage of proximity: these short-sighted “lunettes” were useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur’s nose; accordingly, he doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms.
I am glad I was not really much afraid of him — that, indeed, close in his presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and gibbet to execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to furnish him with a needleful of embroidering thread with such accommodating civility as could not but allay some portion at least of his surplus irritation. Of course I did not parade this courtesy before public view: I merely handed the thread round the angle of the desk, and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the Professor’s chair.
“Que me voulez-vous?” said he in a growl of which the music was wholly confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly should wring from him a smile.
My answer commenced uncompromisingly: “Monsieur,” I said, “je veux l’impossible, des choses inou?es;” and thinking it best not to mince matters, but to administer the “douche” with decision, in a low but quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating its urgency.
Of course, he would not hear a word of it. “He would not go; he would not leave his present class, let all the officials of Villette send for him. He would not put himself an inch out of his way at the bidding of king, cabinet, and chambers together.”
I knew, however, that he must go; that, talk as he would, both his duty and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance with the summons: I stood, therefore, waiting in silence, as if he had not yet spoken. He asked what more I wanted.
“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 window-sill. 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 gar?on 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, work-bags 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 most studious nearest the lamps or tropics; the idlers and little ones towards the north and south poles. Monsieur’s habit was politely to hand a chair to some teacher, generally Zélie St. Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her vacated seat; and............