Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [202]
In M. Emanuel’s soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both Greek and Latin. As monkies are said to have the power of speech if they would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in fear of its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a fund of knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to conceal. The privileges of a ‘classical education,’ it was insinuated, had been mine; on flowers of Hymettusgz I had revelled; a golden store, hived in memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily nurtured my wits.
A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret—to wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc’s jailors tempted her with the warrior’s accoutrements, and lay in wait for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages, and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones fell very musically from his lips—for he had a good voice—remarkable for compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however; not comprehending, of course I could neither be charmed nor annoyed.
Baffled—almost angry—he still clung to his fixed idea; my susceptibilities were pronounced marble—my face a mask. It appeared as if he could not be brought to accept the homely truth, and take me for what I was: men, and women too, must have delusion of some sort; if not made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for themselves.
At moments I did wish that his suspicions had been better founded. There were times when I would have given my right hand to possess the treasures he ascribed to me. He deserved condign punishment for his testy crotchets. I could have gloried in bringing home to him his worst apprehensions astoundingly realized. I could have exulted to burst on his vision, confront and confound his ‘lunettes,’ one blaze of acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to make me clever while I was young enough to learn, that I might, by one grand, sudden, inhuman revelation—one cold, cruel, overwhelming triumph—have for ever crushed the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl David Emanuel!
Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations fell ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground.
‘Women of intellect’ was his next theme: here he was at home. A ‘woman of intellect,’ it appeared, was a sort of ‘lusus naturæ,’ a luckless accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male mind alone could work to any good practical result—hein?
This ‘hein?’ was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me contradiction or objection. However, I only said—
‘Cela ne me regarde pas: je ne m’en soucie pas;‘ha and presently added—‘May I go, monsieur? They have rung the bell for the second ‘déjeuner’ (i.e., luncheon).
‘What of that? You are not hungry?’
‘Indeed I was,’ I said; ‘I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven, and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell.’
‘Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him.’
And he broke in two the ‘brioche,’ intended for his own refreshment, and gave me half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the really formidable attack was yet to come. While eating