Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [197]
I think he heard me breathe. He turned suddenly: his temperament was nervous, yet he never started, and seldom changed colour; there was something hardy about him.
‘I thought you were gone into town with the other teachers,’ said he, taking a grim gripe of his self-possession, which half escaped him—‘It is as well you are not. Do you think I care for being caught? Not I. I often visit your desk.’
‘Monsieur, I know it.’
‘You find a brochure or a tome now and then; but you don’t read them, because they have passed under this?’—touching his cigar.
‘They have, and are no better for the process, but I read them.’
‘Without pleasure?’
‘Monsieur must not be contradicted.’
‘Do you like them, or any of them?—are they acceptable?’
‘Monsieur has seen me reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many recreations as to undervalue those he provides.’
‘I mean well; and, if you see that I mean well, and derive some little amusement from my efforts, why can we not be friends?’
‘A fatalist would say—because we cannot.’
‘This morning,’ he continued, ‘I awoke in a bright mood, and came into classe happy; you spoiled my day.’
‘No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally.’
‘Unintentionally! No. It was my fête-day; everybody wished me happiness but you. The little children of the third division gave each her knot of violets, lisped each her congratulation: you—nothing. Not a bud, leaf, whisper—not a glance. Was this unintentional?’
‘I meant no harm.’
‘Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You would willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me pleasure, had you been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is forgotten, and the pain soothed.’
‘I did know that it was expected: I was prepared; yet I laid out no centimes on flowers.’
‘It is well—you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you, had you flattered and lied. Better declare at once—“Paul Carl Emanuel—je te déteste, mon garçon!”gq—than smile an interest, look an affection, and be false and cold at heart. False and cold, I don’t think you are; but you have made a great mistake in life, that I believe: I think your judgment is warped—that you are indifferent where you ought to be grateful—and perhaps devoted and infatuated, where you ought to be cool as your name. Don’t suppose that I wish you to have a passion for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde!gr What do you start for? Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is such a word, and there is such a thing—though not within these walls, thank Heaven! You are no child that one should not speak of what exists; but I only uttered the word—the thing, I
I could not, and did not, contradict such a sentiment.
‘Tell me,’ he pursued, ‘when it is your fête-day, and I will not grudge a few centimes for a small offering.’
‘You will be like me, monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes, and I did not grudge its price.’
And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand.
‘It lay ready in my lap this morning,’ I continued; ‘and if Monsieur had been rather more patient, and Mademoiselle St. Pierre less interfering—perhaps I should say, too, if I had been calmer and wiser—I should have given it then.’
He looked at the box: I saw its clear warm tint and bright azure circlet, pleased his eye. I told him to open it.
‘My initials!’ said he, indicating the letters in the lid. ‘Who told you I was called Carl David?’
‘A little bird, monsieur.’
‘Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing when needful?’
He took out the chain—a trifle indeed as to value, but glossy with silk and sparkling with beads. He