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CHAPTER XXXIV - MALEVOLA
Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had
any occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some
little commissions for her at the shops.
Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presently
furnished with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread,
etcetera, wanted in the pupils' work, and having equipped myself in a
manner suiting the threatening aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I
was just drawing the spring-bolt of the street-door, in act to issue
forth, when Madame's voice again summoned me to the salle-a-manger.
"Pardon, Meess Lucie!" cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptu
thought, "I have just recollected one more errand for you, if your
good-nature will not deem itself over-burdened?"
Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; and
Madame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket,
filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing
amongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I
know not what, exotic plant.
"There," she said, "it is not heavy, and will not shame your neat
toilette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the
favour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,
with my felicitations on her fete. She lives down in the old town,
Numero 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long,
but you have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you
are not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved,
or Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing
up some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten,
ma bonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure
to insist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket
into her own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is
rather a punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"
And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to
execute, that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a
tedious business, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for
the slippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides and
tassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was
off my mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to
be attended to.
I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim
Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the
city, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,
and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.
I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength
and use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall,
the thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--
the quiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In
return, it sweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a
quiet path through broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as
if by eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor.
Let, then, the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first
get rid of this basket of fruit.
An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was now
too distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,
when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me
the address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a
square: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, the
houses were large and looked very old--behind them rose the appearance
of trees, indicating gardens at the back. Antiquity brooded above this
region, business was banished thence. Rich men had once possessed this
quarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That church, whose
dark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the venerable
and formerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had
long since stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving
these their ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or
perhaps to stand cold and empty, mouldering untenanted in the course
of winters.
As I crossed this deserted "place," on whose pavement drops almost as
large as a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in its
whole expanse, no symptom or evidence of life, except what was given
in the figure of an infirm old priest, who went past, bending and
propped on a staff--the type of eld and decay.
He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when I
paused before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, he
turned to look at me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps he
thought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity
age confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene. I know, had a
young ruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit me, I should have
thought such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, when I
found myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique
peasant costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of
native lace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like
little boats than shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in
character.
The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her
costume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would
scarcely reply to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she
would have snatched the basket of fruit from my hand, had not the old
priest, hobbling up, checked her, and himself lent an ear to the
message with which I was charged.
His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully
understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit
into her own hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that
such were my orders, and that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment.
Addressing the aged bonne, not in French, but in the aboriginal tongue
of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, to let me cross the
inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, I was
ushered into a sort of salon, and there left.
The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like
windows of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of a
coming storm, looked strangely lowering. Within--opened a smaller
room; there, however, the blind of the single casement was closed;
through the deep gloom few details of furniture were apparent. These
few I amused myself by puzzling to make out; and, in particular, I was
attracted by the outline of a picture on the wall.
By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it
shook, it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an
opening arched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding
stair; both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and
unpainted. Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick;
soon there fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of
a substance.
Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this
obstruction, partially darkening the arch?
It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was.
Well might this old square be named quarter of the Magi--well might
the three towers, overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic
sages of a dead and dark art. Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell
had opened for me elf-land--that cell-like room, that vanishing
picture, that arch and passage, and stair of stone, were all parts of
a fairy tale. Distincter even than these scenic details stood the
chief figure--Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy. How
was she?
She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny hands
rested upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivory
staff. Her face was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before her
breast; she seemed to have no neck; I should have said there were a
hundred years in her features, and more perhaps in her eyes--her
malign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows above, and livid lids
all round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of dull
displeasure!
This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as
the gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large
pattern; over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so
large for her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her
chief points were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing
with a lustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on
her skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones--purple, green,
and blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like
a barbarian queen.
"Que me voulez-vous?" said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of
male than of female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her
chin.
I delivered my basket and my message.
"Is that all?" she demanded.
"It is all," said I.
"Truly, it was well worth while," she answered. "Return to Madame
Beck, and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant a ses
felicitations, je m'en moque!" And this courteous dame turned her
back.
Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightning
blazed broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed to
proceed with due accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyed
into the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened
tempest.
What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strange
acquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, and
inauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped.
There went that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsy
incarnate, tapping her ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and
muttering venomously as she vanished.
Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a
while ago, had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale,
as if in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a
shower, I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout. Then the
gleams of lightning were very fierce, the thunder crashed very near;
this storm had gathered immediately above Villette; it seemed to have
burst at the zenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant bolts
pierced athwart vertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent
blanched as white metal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its
swollen abundance.
Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her
cold staircase; there was a seat on the landing--there I waited.
Somebody came gliding along the gallery just above; it was the old
priest.
"Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there," said he. "It would
displeasure our benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in
this house."
And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, without
discourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was better
furnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced
me. Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more
like an oratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking
as if it were a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than
designed for present use and comfort.
The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of
conversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and
employed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.
A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figure
remained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; he
seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercer
bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then,
it was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too was
awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my
thoughts and observations were free.
To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled
that Pere Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the
Beguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in
dusk and in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought
also I recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one
lifted look, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that
too had its half mystic interest.
Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and
sloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich
missal and ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn
my eyes before--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and
let in phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna;
revealed by clearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a
nun's dress. The face, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale,
young, and shaded with the dejection of grief or ill health. I say
again it was not beautiful; it was not even intellectual; its very
amiability was the amiability of a weak frame, inactive passions,
acquiescent habits: yet I looked long at that picture, and could not
choose but look.
The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must
yet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in
his book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as
I knew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point towards which my
attention was drawn, and, in a slow distinct voice, dropped,
concerning it, these four observations:--
"She was much beloved.
"She gave herself to God.
"She died young.
"She is still remembered, still wept."
"By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?" I inquired, fancying that I
had discovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that
same aged lady's desperate ill-humour.
The father shook his head with half a smile.
"No, no," said he; "a grand-dame's affection for her children's
children may be great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it
is only the affianced lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have
trebly denied the bliss of union, who mourns what he has lost, as
Justine Marie is still mourned."
I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore I
inquired who had lost and who still mourned "Justine Marie." I got, in
reply, quite a little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively,
with the accompaniment of the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say
it might have been made much more truly impressive, if there had been
less French, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing and wire-drawing; and
rather more healthful carelessness of effect. But the worthy father
was obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more
persuaded of his resemblance to my confessor)--he was a true son of
Rome; when he did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners,
with more and sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could
survive the wear and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a
good old man.
The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now called
his benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine
Marie, the daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly
prospects were such as to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand.
The pupil's father--once a rich banker--had failed, died, and left
behind him only debts and destitution. The son was then forbidden to
think of Marie; especially that old witch of a grand-dame I had seen,
Madame Walravens, opposed the match with all the violence of a temper
which deformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie had neither
the treachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her
lover; she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second
with a heavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her
noviciate.
Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heart
which worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had been
shown in a manner which touched even me, as I listened.
Some years after Justine Marie's death, ruin had come on her house
too: her father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a
good deal on the Bourse, had been concerned in some financial
transactions which entailed exposure and ruinous fines. He died of
grief for the loss, and shame for the infamy. His old hunchbacked
mother and his bereaved wife were left penniless, and might have died
too of want; but their lost daughter's once-despised, yet most true-
hearted suitor, hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with
singular devotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride
the revenge of the purest charity--housing, caring for, befriending
them, so as no son could have done it more tenderly and efficiently.
The mother--on the whole a good woman--died blessing him; the strange,
godless, loveless, misanthrope grandmother lived still, entirely
supported by this self-sacrificing man. Her, who had been the bane of
his life, blighting his hope, and awarding him, for love and domestic
happiness, long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated with the
respect a good son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to
this house, "and," continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to
his eyes, "here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a
superannuated servant of his father's family. To our sustenance, and
to other charities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income,
keeping only the fourth to provide himself with bread and the most
modest accommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it
impossible to himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and
to his angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me."
The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last
words, and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to
mine. I caught this glance, despite its veiled character; the
momentary gleam shot a meaning which struck me.
These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them--whom you
know no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of
China--knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for saying
to you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprang
impromptu from the instant's impulse: his plan in bringing it about
that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and
such circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude
apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency.
Madame Beck's suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless
embassy to the Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally
descending the steps and crossing the square, his interposition on my
behalf with the bonne who would have sent me away, his reappearance on
the staircase, my introduction to this room, the portrait, the
narrative so affably volunteered--all these little incidents, taken as
they fell out, seemed each independent of its successor; a handful of
loose beads: but threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance
of a Jesuit-eye, they dropped pendent in a long string, like that
rosary on the prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the
little clasp of this monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could
not yet find the spot, or detect the means of connection.
Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared
somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:
"Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go through these
inundated streets?"
"More than half a league."
"You live----?"
"In the Rue Fossette."
"Not" (with animation), "not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?"
"The same."
"Donc" (clapping his hands), "donc, vous devez connaitre mon noble
eleve, mon Paul?"
"Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?"
"He and none other."
A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have
become palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.
"Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?" I presently inquired. "Was
he your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?"
"Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain
emphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal,
of that saint in heaven--Justine Marie."
"And who, father, are _you?_" I continued; and though I
accentuated the question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I
was ere this quite prepared for the answer which actually came.
"I, daughter, am Pere Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you
once honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the
core of a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn
truth, I coveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor
have I for a day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in
you a rooted interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by
her high training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by
the zeal she alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual
rank, your practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."
This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself in
that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restrained
deprecation, and sat quietly enough.
"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a theme
which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.
"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
her son the jeweller's wealth."
"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,
seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
great things!"
I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
act of confession, or the saint-worship.
"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at Justine
Marie.
"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then
very young, for he is not much beyond forty."
"Does he yet weep her?"
"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's nature is--
constancy."
This was said with marked emphasis.
And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured
out its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his
tale, was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made
kindly welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but
I liked less the mystic phrase accompanying it.
"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle
that made me shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door.
Few of us know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had
happened yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded
Protestant: there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around "Holy
Church" which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering
many things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this
man, Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition,
influenced by priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious
devotion, for sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to
see how Rome, by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she
cherished them for their own sake and for God's, or put them out to
usury and made booty of the interest.
By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me
a portion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the
little cabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her
appearance, bringing me a glass of wine.
"Well," began she, chuckling, "and what sort of a reception did Madame
Walravens give you? Elle est drole, n'est-ce pas?"
I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message
with which I had been charged.
"Oh la singuliere petite bossue!" laughed she. "Et figurez-vous
qu'elle me deteste, parcequ'elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin
Paul; ce petit devot qui n'ose pas bouger, a moins que son confesseur
ne lui donne la permission! Au reste" (she went on), "if he wanted to
marry ever so much--soit moi, soit une autre--he could not do it; he
has too large a family already on his hands: Mere Walravens, Pere
Silas, Dame Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never
was a man like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can
bear, voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he
harbours a romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine--
personnage assez niaise a ce que je pense" (such was Madame's
irreverent remark), "who has been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere,
this score of years, and to whom he means to go, free from all earthly
ties, pure comme un lis, a ce qu'il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you
but know half M. Emanuel's crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder
you from taking refreshment, ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat
your supper, drink your wine, oubliez les anges, les bossues, et
surtout, les Professeurs--et bon soir!"
Content of CHAPTER XXXIV - MALEVOLA [Charlotte Bronte's novel: Villette]
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