Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [92]
‘I cut short these confidences somewhat abruptly now and then,’ said I. ‘But excuse me, Dr. John, may I change the theme for one instant? What a god-like person is that de Hamal! What a nose on his face—perfect! Model one in putty or clay, you could not make a better, or straighter, or neater; and then, such classic lips and chin—and his bearing—sublime.’
‘De Hamal is an unutterable puppy, besides being a very white-livered hero.’
‘You, Dr. John, and every man of a less refined mould than he, must feel for him a sort of admiring affection, such as Mars and the coarser deities may be supposed to have borne the young, graceful Apollo.’
‘An unprincipled, gambling, little jackanapes!’ said Dr. John curtly, ‘whom, with one hand, I could lift up by the waistband any day, and lay low in the kennel, if I liked.’
‘The sweet seraph!’ said I. ‘What a cruel idea? Are you not a little severe, Dr. John?’
And now I paused. For the second time that night I was going beyond myself—venturing out of what I looked on as my natural habits—speaking in an unpremeditated, impulsive strain, which startled me strangely when I halted to reflect. On rising that morning, had I anticipated that before night I should have acted the part of a gay lover in a vaudeville; and an hour after, frankly discussed with Dr. John the question of his hapless suit, and rallied him on his illusions? I had no more presaged such feats than I had looked forward to an ascent in a balloon, or a voyage to Cape Horn.
The Doctor and I, having paced down the walk, were now returning; the reflex from the window again lit his face: he smiled, but his eye was melancholy. How I wished that he could feel heart‘s-ease! How I grieved that he brooded over pain, and pain from such a cause! He, with his great advantages, he to love in vain! I did not then know that the pensiveness of reverse is the best phase for some minds; nor did I reflect that some herbs, ‘though scentless when entire, yield fragrance when they’re bruised.’
‘Do not be sorrowful, do not grieve,’ I broke out. ‘If there is in Ginevra one spark of worthiness of your affection, she will—she must feel devotion in return. Be cheerful, be hopeful, Dr. John. Who should hope, if not you?’
In return for this speech I got—what, it must be supposed, I deserved—a look of some surprise: I thought also of some disapprobation. We parted, and I went into the house very chill. The clocks struck and the bells tolled midnight; people were leaving fast: the fete was over; the lamps were fading. In another hour all the dwelling-house, and all the Pensionnat, were dark and hushed. I too was in bed, but not asleep. To me it was not easy to sleep after a day of such excitement.
CHAPTER 15
The Long Vacation
Following Madame Beck’s fête, with its three preceding weeks of relaxation, its brief twelve hours’ burst of hilarity and dissipation, and its one subsequent day of utter languor, came a period of reaction; two months of real application, of close, hard study. These two months, being the last of the ‘année scolaire,’ were indeed the only genuine working months in the year. To them was procrastinated—into them concentrated, alike by professors, mistresses, and pupils—the main burden of preparation for the examinations preceding the distribution of prizes. Candidates for rewards had then to work in good earnest; masters and teachers had to set their shoulders to the wheel, to urge on the backward, and diligently aid and train the more promising. A showy demonstration—a telling exhibition—must be got up for public view, and all means were fair to this end.
I scarcely noted how the other teachers went to work; I had my own business to mind: and my task was not the least onerous, being to embue some ninety sets of brains with a due tincture of what they considered a most complicated and difficult science, that of the