Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [175]
‘He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism.’
I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of silence.
A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a ‘juron:’ he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the word sacré. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the unequivocal addition of millefg something, when I passed him about two hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and take my German lesson in the Rue Crécy. Never was a better little man, in some points, than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little despot.
Our German mistress, Fräulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman, of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second breakfast, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial with her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented to kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive smack. These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably; still, on the whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct foreign girls, who hardly ever will think and study for themselves—who have no idea of grappling with a difficulty, and overcoming it by dint of reflection or application—our progress, which, in truth, was very leisurely, seemed to astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of glacial prodigies, cold, proud, and preternatural.
The young Countess was a little proud, a little fastidious: and perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its steely glisten.
Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while she half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph—an Undine—she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of easier mood.
A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller’s Ballads; Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully: the Fraulein would listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice sounded like music. She translated them too with a facile flow of language, and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek would flush, her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or melt as she went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often recite them when we were alone together. One she liked well was ‘Des Mädchens Klage’: that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat over the fire one evening:—
‘Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück,
Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!’fh
‘Lived and loved!’ said she, ‘is that the summit of earthly happiness, the end of life—to love? I don’t think it is. It may be the extreme of mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of feeling. If Schiller had said to be loved—he might have come nearer the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?’
‘I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to you? What do you know about it?’
She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.
‘Now, Lucy,’ she said, ‘I won’t take that from you. It may be well for papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he
‘No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings by