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CHAPTER XXIX - MONSIEUR'S FETE
I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my
guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for
the benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its
last watch.
All my materials--my whole stock of beads and silk--were used up
before the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had
wrought it double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit
the particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective
appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a
little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the
fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it,
then coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small
box I had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the
colour called "nacarat," and decked with a little coronal of sparkling
blue stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my
scissors' point certain initials.
* * * * *
The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck's
fete; nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome
present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance
of this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a
modified form, to her kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the
latter case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and
contrived beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many
others, of the estimation in which--despite his partialities,
prejudices, and irritabilities--the professor of literature was held
by his pupils. No article of value was offered to him: he distinctly
gave it to be understood, that he would accept neither plate nor
jewellery. Yet he liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value,
did not touch him: a diamond ring, a gold snuff-box, presented, with
pomp, would have pleased him less than a flower, or a drawing, offered
simply and with sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man,
not wise in his generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with
"the dayspring on high."
M. Paul's fete fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a
fine sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was
customary to attend mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the
half-holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping,
or paying visits in the afternoon: these combined considerations
induced a general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were
in vogue; the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was exchanged for
something lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zelie St. Pierre, on this
particular Thursday, even assumed a "robe de soie," deemed in
economical Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury;
nay, it was remarked that she sent for a "coiffeur" to dress her hair
that morning; there were pupils acute enough to discover that she had
bedewed her handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable
perfume. Poor Zelie! It was much her wont to declare about this time,
that she was tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that
she longed to have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some
one to work for her--a husband who would pay her debts (she was
woefully encumbered with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at
liberty, as she said, to "gouter un peu les plaisirs." It had long
been rumoured, that her eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel's
eye was certainly often upon her. He would sit and watch her
perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a
quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while the class was silently composing,
and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of
this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered,
half-puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes
looking appallingly acute; for in some cases, he had the terrible
unerring penetration of instinct, and pierced in its hiding-place the
last lurking thought of the heart, and discerned under florid veilings
the bare; barren places of the spirit: yes, and its perverted
tendencies, and its hidden false curves--all that men and women would
not have known--the twisted spine, the malformed limb that was born
with them, and far worse, the stain or disfigurement they have perhaps
brought on themselves. No calamity so accursed but M. Emanuel could
pity and forgive, if it were acknowledged candidly; but where his
questioning eyes met dishonest denial--where his ruthless researches
found deceitful concealment--oh, then, he could be cruel, and I
thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen from poor
shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of the mount
of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false--poor living
lies--the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on
unveiled. He thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man
has a right to do such justice on man: more than once in these his
visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and
not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. He deserved it; but it
was difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was
righteous and needed.
Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school-bell rang and the
rooms filled: a very pretty spectacle was presented in classe. Pupils
and teachers sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing
in her hand the bouquet of felicitation--the prettiest spring-flowers
all fresh, and filling the air with their fragrance: I only had no
bouquet. I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered,
they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and
perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers
to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.
Mademoiselle St. Pierre marked my empty hands--she could not believe I
had been so remiss; with avidity her eye roved over and round me:
surely I must have some solitary symbolic flower somewhere: some small
knot of violets, something to win myself praise for taste,
commendation for ingenuity. The unimaginative "Anglaise" proved better
than the Parisienne's fears: she sat literally unprovided, as bare of
bloom or leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zelie smiled, well
pleased.
"How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Miss Lucie," she said:
"silly I have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot-
house flowers!"
And she showed with pride her splendid nosegay.
But hush! a step: _the_ step. It came prompt, as usual, but with
a promptitude, we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by
other feelings than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of
intent. We thought our Professor's "foot-fall" (to speak romantically)
had in it a friendly promise this morning; and so it had.
He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the
already well-lit first classe. The morning light playing amongst our
plants and laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from M.
Paul's all-benignant salute. Like a true Frenchman (though I don't
know why I should say so, for he was of strain neither French nor
Labassecourien), he had dressed for the "situation" and the occasion.
Not by the vague folds, sinister and conspirator-like, of his soot-
dark paletot were the outlines of his person obscured; on the
contrary, his figure (such as it was, I don't boast of it) was well
set off by a civilized coat and a silken vest quite pretty to behold.
The defiant and pagan bonnet-grec had vanished: bare-headed, he came
upon us, carrying a Christian hat in his gloved hand. The little man
looked well, very well; there was a clearness of amity in his blue
eye, and a glow of good feeling on his dark complexion, which passed
perfectly in the place of beauty: one really did not care to observe
that his nose, though far from small, was of no particular shape, his
cheek thin, his brow marked and square, his mouth no rose-bud: one
accepted him as he was, and felt his presence the reverse of damping
or insignificant.
He passed to his desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. "Bon
jour, mes amies," said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some
amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund, good-
fellow tone, still less an unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice he
had belonging to himself--a voice used when his heart passed the words
to his lips. That same heart did speak sometimes; though an irritable,
it was not an ossified organ: in its core was a place, tender beyond a
man's tenderness; a place that humbled him to little children, that
bound him to girls and women to whom, rebel as he would, he could not
disown his affinity, nor quite deny that, on the whole, he was better
with them than with his own sex.
"We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our
congratulations on the anniversary of his fete," said Mademoiselle
Zelie, constituting herself spokeswoman of the assembly; and advancing
with no more twists of affectation than were with her indispensable to
the achievement of motion, she laid her costly bouquet before him. He
bowed over it.
The long train of offerings followed: all the pupils, sweeping past
with the gliding step foreigners practise, left their tributes as they
went by. Each girl so dexterously adjusted her separate gift, that
when the last bouquet was laid on the desk, it formed the apex to a
blooming pyramid--a pyramid blooming, spreading, and towering with
such exuberance as, in the end, to eclipse the hero behind it. This
ceremony over, seats were resumed, and we sat in dead silence,
expectant of a speech.
I suppose five minutes might have elapsed, and the hush remained
unbroken; ten--and there was no sound.
Many present began, doubtless, to wonder for what Monsieur waited; as
well they might. Voiceless and viewless, stirless and wordless, he
kept his station behind the pile of flowers.
At last there issued forth a voice, rather deep, as if it spoke out of
a hollow:--
"Est-ce la tout?"
Mademoiselle Zelie looked round.
"You have all presented your bouquets?" inquired she of the pupils.
Yes; they had all given their nosegays, from the eldest to the
youngest, from the tallest to the most diminutive. The senior mistress
signified as much.
"Est-ce la tout?" was reiterated in an intonation which, deep before,
had now descended some notes lower.
"Monsieur," said Mademoiselle St. Pierre, rising, and this time
speaking with her own sweet smile, "I have the honour to tell you
that, with a single exception, every person in classe has offered her
bouquet. For Meess Lucie, Monsieur will kindly make allowance; as a
foreigner she probably did not know our customs, or did not appreciate
their significance. Meess Lucie has regarded this ceremony as too
frivolous to be honoured by her observance."
"Famous!" I muttered between my teeth: "you are no bad speaker, Zelie,
when you begin."
The answer vouchsafed to Mademoiselle St Pierre from the estrade was
given in the gesticulation of a hand from behind the pyramid. This
manual action seemed to deprecate words, to enjoin silence.
A form, ere long, followed the hand. Monsieur emerged from his
eclipse; and producing himself on the front of his estrade, and gazing
straight and fixedly before him at a vast "mappe-monde" covering the
wall opposite, he demanded a third time, and now in really tragic
tones--
"Est-ce la tout?"
I might yet have made all right, by stepping forwards and slipping
into his hand the ruddy little shell-box I at that moment held tight
in my own. It was what I had fully purposed to do; but, first, the
comic side of Monsieur's behaviour had tempted me to delay, and now,
Mademoiselle St. Pierre's affected interference provoked contumacity.
The reader not having hitherto had any cause to ascribe to Miss
Snowe's character the most distant pretensions to perfection, will be
scarcely surprised to learn that she felt too perverse to defend
herself from any imputation the Parisienne might choose to insinuate
and besides, M. Paul was so tragic, and took my defection so
seriously, he deserved to be vexed. I kept, then, both my box and my
countenance, and sat insensate as any stone.
"It is well!" dropped at length from the lips of M. Paul; and having
uttered this phrase, the shadow of some great paroxysm--the swell of
wrath, scorn, resolve--passed over his brow, rippled his lips, and
lined his cheeks. Gulping down all further comment, he launched into
his customary "discours."
I can't at all remember what this "discours" was; I did not listen to
it: the gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his
mortification or vexation, had given me a sensation which half-
counteracted the ludicrous effect of the reiterated "Est-ce la tout?"
Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion my
attention was again amusingly arrested.
Owing to some little accidental movement--I think I dropped my thimble
on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head
against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to
me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle--M. Paul
became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to
the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long
to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to
give him ease.
I don't know how, in the progress of his "discours," he had contrived
to cross the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him
when I began to listen.
Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room--a glance which
scathed, or was intended to scathe, as it crossed me--he fell with
fury upon "les Anglaises."
Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning
handled them: he spared nothing--neither their minds, morals, manners,
nor personal appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall
stature, their long necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress,
their pedantic education, their impious scepticism(!), their
insufferable pride, their pretentious virtue: over which he ground his
teeth malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would have said
singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a natural
consequence, detestably ugly.
"Little wicked venomous man!" thought I; "am I going to harass myself
with fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed;
you shall be indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your
pyramid"
I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some
time the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I
bore it some fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing
cockatrice was determined to sting, and he said such things at last--
fastening not only upon our women, but upon our greatest names and
best men; sullying, the shield of Britannia, and dabbling the union
jack in mud--that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought up the
most spicy current continental historical falsehoods--than which
nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zelie, and the whole class,
became one grin of vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover
how these clowns of Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I
struck a sharp stroke on my desk, opened my lips, and let loose this
cry:--
"Vive l'Angleterre, l'Histoire et les Heros! A bas la France, la
Fiction et les Faquins!"
The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The
Professor put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its
folds. Little monster of malice! He now thought he had got the
victory, since he had made me angry. In a second he became good-
humoured. With great blandness he resumed the subject of his flowers;
talked poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, perfume,
purity, etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the "jeunes
filles" and the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St.
Pierre a very full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet;
and ended by announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy
morning in spring, he intended to take the whole class out to
breakfast in the country. "Such of the class, at least," he added,
with emphasis, "as he could count amongst the number of his friends."
"Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.
"Soit!" was his response; and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he
flashed out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble,
and the neglected little box, to my desk, swept up-stairs. I don't
know whether _he_ felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess
that _I_ did.
Yet with a strange evanescent anger, I had not sat an hour on the edge
of my bed, picturing and repicturing his look, manner, words ere I
smiled at the whole scene. A little pang of regret I underwent that
the box had not been offered. I had meant to gratify him. Fate would
not have it so.
In the course of the afternoon, remembering that desks in classe were
by no means inviolate repositories, and thinking that it was as well
to secure the box, on account of the initials in the lid, P. C. D. E.,
for Paul Carl (or Carlos) David Emanuel--such was his full name--these
foreigners must always have a string of baptismals--I descended to the
schoolroom.
It slept in holiday repose. The day pupils were all gone home, the
boarders were out walking, the teachers, except the surveillante of
the week, were in town, visiting or shopping; the suite of divisions
was vacant; so was the grande salle, with its huge solemn globe
hanging in the midst, its pair of many-branched chandeliers, and its
horizontal grand piano closed, silent, enjoying its mid-week Sabbath.
I rather wondered to find the first classe door ajar; this room being
usually locked when empty, and being then inaccessible to any save
Madame Beck and myself, who possessed a duplicate key. I wondered
still more, on approaching, to hear a vague movement as of life--a
step, a chair stirred, a sound like the opening of a desk.
"It is only Madame Beck doing inspection duty," was the conclusion
following a moment's reflection. The partially-opened door gave
opportunity for assurance on this point. I looked. Behold! not the
inspecting garb of Madame Beck--the shawl and the clean cap--but the
coat, and the close-shorn, dark head of a man. This person occupied my
chair; his olive hand held my desk open, his nose was lost to view
amongst my papers. His back was towards me, but there could not be a
moment's question about identity. Already was the attire of ceremony
discarded: the cherished and ink-stained paletot was resumed; the
perverse bonnet-grec lay on the floor, as if just dropped from the
hand, culpably busy.
Now I knew, and I had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel's was
on the most intimate terms with my desk; that it raised and lowered
the lid, ransacked and arranged the contents, almost as familiarly as
my own. The fact was not dubious, nor did he wish it to be so: he left
signs of each visit palpable and unmistakable; hitherto, however, I
had never caught him in the act: watch as I would, I could not detect
the hours and moments of his coming. I saw the brownie's work in
exercises left overnight full of faults, and found next morning
carefully corrected: I profited by his capricious good-will in loans
full welcome and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out
grammar would magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a
classic, mellow and sweet in its ripe age. Out of my work-basket would
laughingly peep a romance, under it would lurk the pamphlet, the
magazine, whence last evening's reading had been extracted. Impossible
to doubt the source whence these treasures flowed: had there been no
other indication, one condemning and traitor peculiarity, common to
them all, settled the question--_they smelt of cigars_. This was
very shocking, of course: _I_ thought so at first, and used to
open the window with some bustle, to air my desk, and with fastidious
finger and thumb, to hold the peccant brochures forth to the purifying
breeze. I was cured of that formality suddenly. Monsieur caught me at
it one day, understood the inference, instantly relieved my hand of
its burden, and, in another moment, would have thrust the same into
the glowing stove. It chanced to be a book, on the perusal of which I
was bent; so for once I proved as decided and quicker than himself;
recaptured the spoil, and--having saved this volume--never hazarded a
second. With all this, I had never yet been able to arrest in his
visits the freakish, friendly, cigar-loving phantom.
But now at last I had him: there he was--the very brownie himself; and
there, curling from his lips, was the pale blue breath of his Indian
darling: he was smoking into my desk: it might well betray him.
Provoked at this particular, and yet pleased to surprise him--pleased,
that is, with the mixed feeling of the housewife who discovers at last
her strange elfin ally busy in the dairy at the untimely churn--I
softly stole forward, stood behind him, bent with precaution over his
shoulder.
My heart smote me to see that--after this morning's hostility, after
my seeming remissness, after the puncture experienced by his feelings,
and the ruffling undergone by his temper--he, all willing to forget
and forgive, had brought me a couple of handsome volumes, of which the
title and authorship were guarantees for interest. Now, as he sat
bending above the desk, he was stirring up its contents; but with
gentle and careful hand; disarranging indeed, but not harming. My
heart smote me: as I bent over him, as he sat unconscious, doing me
what good he could, and I daresay not feeling towards me unkindly, my
morning's anger quite melted: I did not dislike Professor Emanuel.
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 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 fete-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 deteste, mon garcon!'--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! 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 assure you, is alien
to my whole life and views. It died in the past--in the present it
lies buried--its grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many winters old:
in the future there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my souls
consolation; but all will then be changed--form and feeling: the
mortal will have put on immortality--it will rise, not for earth, but
heaven. All I say to _you_, Miss Lucy Snowe, is--that you ought
to treat Professor Paul Emanuel decently."
I could not, and did not contradict such a sentiment.
"Tell me," he pursued, "when it is _your_ fete-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 eyes. 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 liked that too--admired it
artlessly, like a child.
"For me?"
"Yes, for you."
"This is the thing you were working at last night?"
"The same."
"You finished it this morning?"
"I did."
"You commenced it with the intention that it should be mine?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And offered on my fete-day?"
"Yes."
"This purpose continued as you wove it?"
Again I assented.
"Then it is not necessary that I should cut out any portion--saying,
this part is not mine: it was plaited under the idea and for the
adornment of another?"
"By no means. It is neither necessary, nor would it be just."
"This object is _all_ mine?"
"That object is yours entirely."
Straightway Monsieur opened his paletot, arranged the guard splendidly
across his chest, displaying as much and suppressing as little as he
could: for he had no notion of concealing what he admired and thought
decorative. As to the box, he pronounced it a superb bonbonniere--he
was fond of bonbons, by the way--and as he always liked to share with
others what pleased himself, he would give his "dragees" as freely as
he lent his books. Amongst the kind brownie's gifts left in my desk, I
forgot to enumerate many a paper of chocolate comfits. His tastes in
these matters were southern, and what we think infantine. His simple
lunch consisted frequently of a "brioche," which, as often as not, to
shared with some child of the third division.
"A present c'est un fait accompli," said he, re-adjusting his paletot;
and we had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two
volumes he had brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife
(he generally pruned before lending his books, especially if they were
novels, and sometimes I was a little provoked at the severity of his
censorship, the retrenchments interrupting the narrative), he rose,
politely touched his bonnet-grec, and bade me a civil good-day.
"We are friends now," thought I, "till the next time we quarrel."
We _might_ have quarrelled again that very same evening, but,
wonderful to relate, failed, for once, to make the most of our
opportunity.
Contrary to all expectation, M. Paul arrived at the study-hour. Having
seen so much of him in the morning, we did not look for his presence
at night. No sooner were we seated at lessons, however, than he
appeared. I own I was glad to see him, so glad that I could not help
greeting his arrival with a smile; and when he made his way to the
same seat about which so serious a misunderstanding had formerly
arisen, I took good care not to make too much room for him; he watched
with a jealous, side-long look, to see whether I shrank away, but I
did not, though the bench was a little crowded. I was losing the early
impulse to recoil from M. Paul. Habituated to the paletot and bonnet-
grec, the neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer
uncomfortable or very formidable. I did not now sit restrained,
"asphyxiee" (as he used to say) at his side; I stirred when I wished
to stir, coughed when it was necessary, even yawned when I was tired--
did, in short, what I pleased, blindly reliant upon his indulgence.
Nor did my temerity, this evening at least, meet the punishment it
perhaps merited; he was both indulgent and good-natured; not a cross
glance shot from his eyes, not a hasty word left his lips. Till the
very close of the evening, he did not indeed address me at all, yet I
felt, somehow, that he was full of friendliness. Silence is of
different kinds, and breathes different meanings; no words could
inspire a pleasanter content than did M. Paul's worldless presence.
When the tray came in, and the bustle of supper commenced, he just
said, as he retired, that he wished me a good night and sweet dreams;
and a good night and sweet dreams I had.
Content of CHAPTER XXIX - MONSIEUR'S FETE [Charlotte Bronte's novel: Villette]
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