# ent

id: chapter-026
type: WORK_OF_ART
entity:
  The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an agony so lingering, death ought


# bib

id: chapter-001
title: chapter-001
txt: ./txt/chapter-001.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-001.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and handsome woman. "Give it to Harriet, please," was then the direction, "and she can put it away." This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton. Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child''s hands, arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze, but soon a smile answered her. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton''s and made a movement to leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she said"Please, I wish to go: I can sit on a stool." "I wish you, ma''am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she passed me mute.


id: chapter-002
title: chapter-002
txt: ./txt/chapter-002.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-002.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station in a corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of occupying her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count how many ladies should go down the street in a given time. "Polly," he said, looking down on his little girl, "go into the hall; you will see papa''s great-coat lying on a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a pocket-handkerchief there; bring it to me." "Mother," he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew of timidity-"Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to whom I have not been introduced." "Mr. Home''s little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.


id: chapter-003
title: chapter-003
txt: ./txt/chapter-003.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-003.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  "Have done trying that child, Graham," said Mrs. Bretton. Graham forgot his impatience the same evening, and would have accosted her as usual when his friends were gone, but she wrenched herself from his hand; her eye quite flashed; she would not bid him good-night; she would not look in his face. "Miss Snowe," said Paulina to me (she had now got into the habit of occasionally chatting with me when we were alone in our room at night), "do you know on what day in the week I like Graham best?" Once he said:"You like me almost as well as if you were my little sister, Polly." "Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?" I asked. I thought her asleep, when the little white shape once more lifted itself in the crib, and the small voice asked"Do you like Graham, Miss Snowe?"


id: chapter-004
title: chapter-004
txt: ./txt/chapter-004.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-004.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glassthe steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand, and had been so for twenty years. "My dear girl," she said, "one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband, would come that night to visit me. You see I still think of Frank more than of God; and unless it be counted that in thus loving the creature so much, so long, and so exclusively, I have not at least blasphemed the Creator, small is my chance of salvation.


id: chapter-005
title: chapter-005
txt: ./txt/chapter-005.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-005.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  In debt, however, I was not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not had time to benefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended, yet, after the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin, the heir, an avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow temples, who, indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough miser: a direct contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her memory, blessed to this day by the poor and needy. Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more of the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did not charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and hood of hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to achieve with impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted with an excited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me as a dreamer and zealot.


id: chapter-006
title: chapter-006
txt: ./txt/chapter-006.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-006.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  While I looked, my inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose; I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life. I saw and felt London at last: I got into the Strand; I went up Cornhill; I mixed with the life passing along; I dared the perils of crossings. A young man, the steward as I found afterwards, was looking over the ship''s side; he grinned a smile in anticipation of the coming contest; to disappoint him, I paid the money. I asked to be shown my berth; she looked hard at me, muttered something about its being unusual for passengers to come on board at that hour, and seemed disposed to be less than civil.


id: chapter-007
title: chapter-007
txt: ./txt/chapter-007.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-007.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  "Go to Villette," said an inward voice; prompted doubtless by the recollection of this slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random by Miss Fanshawe, as she bid me good-by: "I wish you would come to Madame Beck''s; she has some marmots whom you might look after; she wants an English gouvernante, or was wanting one two months ago." Understanding that it was best not to be importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon which piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped. There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more fully to the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young, distinguished, and handsome man; he might be a lord, for anything I knew: nature had made him good enough for a prince, I thought.


id: chapter-008
title: chapter-008
txt: ./txt/chapter-008.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-008.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Often in the evening, after she had been plotting and counter-plotting, spying and receiving the reports of spies all day, she would come up to my rooma trace of real weariness on her browand she would sit down and listen while the children said their little prayers to me in English: the Lord''s Prayer, and the hymn beginning "Gentle Jesus," these little Catholics were permitted to repeat at my knee; and, when I had put them to bed, she would talk to me (I soon gained enough French to be able to understand, and even answer her) about England and Englishwomen, and the reasons for what she was pleased to term their superior intelligence, and more real and reliable probity. I was one day sitting up-stairs, as usual, hearing the children their English lessons, and at the same time turning a silk dress for Madame, when she came sauntering into the room with that absorbed air and brow of hard thought she sometimes wore, and which made her look so little genial.


id: chapter-009
title: chapter-009
txt: ./txt/chapter-009.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-009.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  By degrees, as I acquired fluency and freedom in their language, and could make such application of its more nervous idioms as suited their case, the elder and more intelligent girls began rather to like me in their way: I noticed that whenever a pupil had been roused to feel in her soul the stirring of worthy emulation, or the quickening of honest shame, from that date she was won. After a while I heard no more of Mrs. Cholmondeley''s presents; but still, visiting went on, and the absolutely necessary dresses continued to be supplied: also many little expensive etceteragloves, bouquets, even trinkets. "You express yourself so disagreeably," said she, "one hardly knows how to answer; what I mean to say is, that I occasionally allow Isidore the pleasure and honour of expressing his homage by the offer of a trifle."


id: chapter-010
title: chapter-010
txt: ./txt/chapter-010.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-010.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  I know she often pondered anxiously what she called "leur avenir;" but if the youngest, a puny and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke from its nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and laughing and panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put out one hand, so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the child''s sudden onset: "Prends garde, mon enfant!" she would say unmoved, patiently permit it to stand near her a few moments, and then, without smile or kiss, or endearing syllable, rise and lead it back to Trinette. I know not to this day how I looked at him: the force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget myself; and I only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his notice was arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear little oval mirror fixed in the side of the window recessby the aid of which reflector Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the garden below.


id: chapter-011
title: chapter-011
txt: ./txt/chapter-011.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-011.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little cabinet, close by the door of which I stoodthat door half-unclosed; a man''s voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some, words, whereof I only caught the adjuration, "For God''s sake!" Then, after a second''s pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow. Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress''s sole use; and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenaryit was not, surely, to her hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to have passed?


id: chapter-012
title: chapter-012
txt: ./txt/chapter-012.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-012.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a gardenlarge, considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground! Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when Madame Beck''s large school turned out rampant, and externes and pensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'' college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs and limbsdoubtless then the garden was a trite, trodden-down place enough.


id: chapter-013
title: chapter-013
txt: ./txt/chapter-013.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-013.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  In summer it was never quite dark, and then I went up-stairs to my own quarter of the long dormitory, opened my own casement (that chamber was lit by five casements large as great doors), and leaning out, looked forth upon the city beyond the garden, and listened to band-music from the park or the palace-square, thinking meantime my own thoughts, living my own life, in my own still, shadow-world. Now the child was well enough, only warm with the warmth of July; it was scarcely less needful to send for a priest to administer extreme unction than for a doctor to prescribe a dose; also Madame rarely made "courses," as she called them, in the evening: moreover, this was the first time she had chosen to absent herself on the occasion of a visit from Dr. John.


id: chapter-014
title: chapter-014
txt: ./txt/chapter-014.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-014.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  In beholding this diaphanous and snowy mass, I well remember feeling myself to be a mere shadowy spot on a field of light; the courage was not in me to put on a transparent white dress: something thin I must wearthe weather and rooms being too hot to give substantial fabrics sufferance, so I had sought through a dozen shops till I lit upon a crape-like material of purple-graythe colour, in short, of dun mist, lying on a moor in bloom. Underneath this aperture I pushed a large empty chest, and having mounted upon it a smaller box, and wiped from both the dust, I gathered my dress (my best, the reader must remember, and therefore a legitimate object of care) fastidiously around me, ascended this species of extempore throne, and being seated, commenced the acquisition of my task; while I learned, not forgetting to keep a sharp look-out on the black-beetles and cockroaches, of which, more even, I believe, than of the rats, I sat in mortal dread.


id: chapter-015
title: chapter-015
txt: ./txt/chapter-015.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-015.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Following Madame Beck''s fte, 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. The next day came the distribution of prizes; that also passed; the school broke up; the pupils went home, and now began the long vacation. It seemed to me that at this hour there was affection and sorrow in Heaven above for all pain suffered on earth beneath; the weight of my dreadful dream became alleviatedthat insufferable thought of being no more lovedno more owned, half-yielded to hope of the contraryI was sure this hope would shine clearer if I got out from under this house-roof, which was crushing as the slab of a tomb, and went outside the city to a certain quiet hill, a long way distant in the fields.


id: chapter-016
title: chapter-016
txt: ./txt/chapter-016.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-016.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  My eye, prepared to take in the range of a long, large, and whitewashed chamber, blinked baffled, on encountering the limited area of a small cabineta cabinet with seagreen walls; also, instead of five wide and naked windows, there was one high lattice, shaded with muslin festoons: instead of two dozen little stands of painted wood, each holding a basin and an ewer, there was a toilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, in a white robe over a pink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a pretty pin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned it.


id: chapter-017
title: chapter-017
txt: ./txt/chapter-017.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-017.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old, dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule of the great deep. "The first thing this morning," said he, putting his sentiment in his pocket, turning from the moon, and sitting down, "I went to the Rue Fossette, and told the cuisinire that you were safe and in good hands. "Goton could do nothing for me but bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had rejected both so often during the past week, that the good woman got tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed.


id: chapter-018
title: chapter-018
txt: ./txt/chapter-018.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-018.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual, but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his lips. I chanced to assert one day, with a view to stilling his impatience, that in my own mind, I felt positive Miss Fanshawe must intend eventually to accept him. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man: you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Pre Silas ever convert you, you will give him abundance of alms for his poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of your favourite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr. John"


id: chapter-019
title: chapter-019
txt: ./txt/chapter-019.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-019.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Apparently, the pleasant site and neat interior surpassed her expectations; she eulogized all she saw, pronounced the blue salon "une pice magnifique," profusely congratulated me on the acquisition of friends, "tellement dignes, aimables, et respectables," turned also a neat compliment in my favour, and, upon Dr. John coming in, ran up to him with the utmost buoyancy, opening at the same time such a fire of rapid language, all sparkling with felicitations and protestations about his "chteau,""madame sa mre, la digne chtelaine:" also his looks; which, indeed, were very flourishing, and at the moment additionally embellished by the good-natured but amused smile with which he always listened to Madame''s fluent and florid French.


id: chapter-020
title: chapter-020
txt: ./txt/chapter-020.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-020.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  While I looked, the thought of the Rue Fossette came across meof the walled-in garden and school-house, and of the dark, vast "classes," where, as at this very hour, it was my wont to wander all solitary, gazing at the stars through the high, blindless windows, and listening to the distant voice of the reader in the refectory, monotonously exercised upon the "lecture pieuse." Thus must I soon again listen and wander; and this shadow of the future stole with timely sobriety across the radiant present. I do not know that the women were very beautiful, but their dresses were so perfect; and foreigners, even such as are ungraceful in domestic privacy, seem to posses the art of appearing graceful in public: however blunt and boisterous those every-day and home movements connected with peignoir and papillotes, there is a slide, a bend, a carriage of the head and arms, a mien of the mouth and eyes, kept nicely in reserve for gala usealways brought out with the grande toilette, and duly put on with the "parure."


id: chapter-021
title: chapter-021
txt: ./txt/chapter-021.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-021.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  "Lucy will not leave us to-day," said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at breakfast; "she knows we can procure a second respite." My hunger has this good angel appeased with food, sweet and strange, gathered amongst gleaning angels, garnering their dew-white harvest in the first fresh hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has she assuaged the insufferable fears which weep away life itselfkindly given rest to deadly wearinessgenerously lent hope and impulse to paralyzed despair. My mind, calmer and stronger now than last night, made for itself some imperious rules, prohibiting under deadly penalties all weak retrospect of happiness past; commanding a patient journeying through the wilderness of the present, enjoining a reliance on faitha watching of the cloud and pillar which subdue while they guide, and awe while they illuminehushing the impulse to fond idolatry, checking the longing out-look for a far-off promised land whose rivers are, perhaps, never to be, reached save in dying dreams, whose sweet pastures are to be viewed but from the desolate and sepulchral summit of a Nebo.


id: chapter-022
title: chapter-022
txt: ./txt/chapter-022.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-022.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of study was lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone home, the clashing door and clamorous bell hushed for the evening; when Madame was safely settled in the salle--manger in company with her mother and some friends; I then glided to the kitchen, begged a bougie for one half-hour for a particular occasion, found acceptance of my petition at the hands of my friend Goton, who answered, "Mais certainement, chou-chou, vous en aurez deux, si vous voulez;" and, light in hand, I mounted noiseless to the dormitory. I shut the garret-door; I placed my light on a doddered and mouldy chest of drawers; I put on a shawl, for the air was ice-cold; I took my letter; trembling with sweet impatience, I broke its seal.


id: chapter-023
title: chapter-023
txt: ./txt/chapter-023.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-023.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  When we had donewhen two sheets were covered with the language of a strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active gratitude(once, for all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the utmost scorn, every sneaking suspicion of what are called "warmer feelings:" women do not entertain these "warmer feelings" where, from the commencement, through the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never once been cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed the rising of Hope''s star over Love''s troubled waters)when, then, I had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring attachmentan attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take to its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitudethen, just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, snatch the full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct, and send a terse, curt missive of a page.


id: chapter-024
title: chapter-024
txt: ./txt/chapter-024.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-024.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Towards the last of these long seven weeks I admitted, what through the other six I had jealously excludedthe conviction that these blanks were inevitable: the result of circumstances, the fiat of fate, a part of my life''s lot andabove alla matter about whose origin no question must ever be asked, for whose painful sequence no murmur ever uttered. The man is English enough, goodness knows; and had an English name till three or four years ago; but his mother was a foreigner, a de Bassompierre, and some of her family are dead and have left him estates, a title, and this name: he is quite a great man now."


id: chapter-025
title: chapter-025
txt: ./txt/chapter-025.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-025.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  How often, while women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the father, the son, the husband coming home. I know not which of our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance: both were whitetwo mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase till they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now affected. "I should like a little," said Paulina, looking up; "I never had any ''old October:'' is it sweet?"


id: chapter-026
title: chapter-026
txt: ./txt/chapter-026.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-026.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain; without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected with her establishment should frequent such associates as must cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and depress. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his "daughterling" as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of what should be done when "Polly" was a woman, when she should be grown up; and "Polly," standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-grey locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she never said, "Papa, I am grown up."


id: chapter-027
title: chapter-027
txt: ./txt/chapter-027.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-027.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Of the bearing of his opinions I need here give no special indication; yet it may be permitted me to say that I believed the little man not more earnest than right in what he said: with all his fire he was severe and sensible; he trampled Utopian theories under his heel; he rejected wild dreams with scorn;but when he looked in the face of tyrannyoh, then there opened a light in his eye worth seeing; and when he spoke of injustice, his voice gave no uncertain sound, but reminded me rather of the band-trumpet, ringing at twilight from the park. Of course, you cannot but render homage to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the room?my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs A and Z; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?"


id: chapter-028
title: chapter-028
txt: ./txt/chapter-028.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-028.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  As to Rosine, the portresson whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils out of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the salle--manger, or some other piano-stationshe would, upon her second or third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of consternationa sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles. "Mademoiselle," said she, "I would not for a five-franc piece go into that classe again just now: Monsieur''s lunettes are really terrible; and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athne. My answer commenced uncompromisingly: "Monsieur," I said, "je veux l''impossible, des choses inoues;" and thinking it best not to mince matters, but to administer the "douche" with decision, in a low but quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating its urgency.


id: chapter-029
title: chapter-029
txt: ./txt/chapter-029.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-029.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  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. "We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our congratulations on the anniversary of his fte," said Mademoiselle Zlie, 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.


id: chapter-030
title: chapter-030
txt: ./txt/chapter-030.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-030.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Paul had not been my professorhe had not given me lessons, but about that time, accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have disgraced a charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me in hand, examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly deficient, gave me some books and appointed me some tasks. Paul was very kind, very good, very forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty humiliation imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can hardly do justice to his tenderness and helpfulness. I said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and permit me just to run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added that I believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of baking, or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and a glass or two of vin blancmight I go?


id: chapter-031
title: chapter-031
txt: ./txt/chapter-031.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-031.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom, and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise. While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and following the gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly dressed, for she was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the glancing leaves of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzledthey closed; my lassitude, the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and birds, all lulled me, and at last I slept.


id: chapter-032
title: chapter-032
txt: ./txt/chapter-032.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-032.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Had he seen Paulina with the same youth, beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded, and in simple attire, a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would have thought her a pretty little creature, and would have loved with his eye her movements and her mien, but it required other than this to conquer him as he was now vanquished, to bring him safe under dominion as now, without loss, and even with gain to his manly honour, one saw that he was reduced; there was about Dr. John all the man of the world; to satisfy himself did not suffice; society must approvethe world must admire what he did, or he counted his measures false and futile.


id: chapter-033
title: chapter-033
txt: ./txt/chapter-033.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-033.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  It was rather my wish, for a reason I had, to keep slightly aloof from notice, and being paired with Ginevra Fanshawe, bearing on my arm the dear pressure of that angel''s not unsubstantial limb(she continued in excellent case, and I can assure the reader it was no trifling business to bear the burden of her loveliness; many a time in the course of that warm day I wished to goodness there had been less of the charming commodity)however, having her, as I said, I tried to make her useful by interposing her always between myself and M. I wondered what was under discussion; and when Madame Beck re-entered the house as it darkened, leaving her kinsman Paul yet lingering in the garden, I said to myself"He called me ''petite soeur'' this morning.


id: chapter-034
title: chapter-034
txt: ./txt/chapter-034.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-034.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  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. 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 volunteeredall 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.


id: chapter-035
title: chapter-035
txt: ./txt/chapter-035.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-035.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  And they, Pre Silas and Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought in concert I could not doubt) opened up the adytum of his heartshowed me one grand love, the child of this southern nature''s youth, born so strong and perfect, that it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of matter, clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had watched beside a tomb twenty years. Eased of responsibility by Madame Beck''s presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and edified with her clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she taught well), I sat bent over my desk, drawingthat is, copying an elaborate line engraving, tediously working up my copy to the finish of the original, for that was my practical notion of art; and, strange to say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and could even produce curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint platesthings about as valuable as so many achievements in worsted-work, but I thought pretty well of them in those days.


id: chapter-036
title: chapter-036
txt: ./txt/chapter-036.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-036.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  in the garden were more plants to be looked after,favourite rose-bushes, certain choice flowers; little Sylvie''s glad bark and whine followed the receding palett down the alleys. On the front-door steps he turned; once again he looked at the moon, at the grey cathedral, over the remoter spires and house-roofs fading into a blue sea of night-mist; he tasted the sweet breath of dusk, and noted the folded bloom of the garden; he suddenly looked round; a keen beam out of his eye rased the white faade of the classes, swept the long line of croises. Whether it was worse to stay with my co-inmates, or to sit alone, I had not considered; I naturally took up the latter alternative; if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart or head of no human being in this house could yield it; only under the lid of my desk could it harbour, nestling between the leaves of some book, gilding a pencil-point, the nib of a pen, or tinging the black fluid in that ink-glass.


id: chapter-037
title: chapter-037
txt: ./txt/chapter-037.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-037.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Graham had wealth of mirth by nature; Paulina possessed no such inherent flow of animal spiritsunstimulated, she inclined to be thoughtful and pensivebut now she seemed merry as a lark; in her lover''s genial presence, she glanced like some soft glad light. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity than that he had wished me to give; he had earned independence of the collateral help that disobliging Lucy had refused; all his reminiscences of "little Polly" found their proper expression in his own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome lips; how much better than if suggested by me. "It is well for you, Miss Snowe, to talk and think with that propriety which always characterizes you; but this matter is a grief to me; my little girl was all I had: I have no more daughters and no son; Bretton might as well have looked elsewhere; there are scores of rich and pretty women who would not, I daresay, dislike him: he has looks, and conduct, and connection.


id: chapter-038
title: chapter-038
txt: ./txt/chapter-038.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-038.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The pupils of the first classe sat very still; the cleanly-written compositions prepared since the last lesson lay ready before them, neatly tied with ribbon, waiting to be gathered by the hand of the Professor as he made his rapid round of the desks. M. Emanuel was not always quite punctual; we scarcely wondered at his being a little late, but we wondered when the door at last opened and, instead of him with his swiftness and his fire, there came quietly upon us the cautious Madame Beck. Paul''s desk; she stood before it; she drew round her the light shawl covering her shoulders; beginning to speak in low, yet firm tones, and with a fixed gaze, she said, "This morning there will be no lesson of literature."


id: chapter-039
title: chapter-039
txt: ./txt/chapter-039.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-039.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more than it did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this side, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if expectant of an arrival and impatient of delay. There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late, so strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad, that scarce would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she is like the nun of the attic, that she wears black skirts and white head-clothes, that she looks the resurrection of the flesh, and that she is a risen ghost. So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willingly would I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing my strange adventure to a successful close, and quietly regaining my bed in the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home.


id: chapter-040
title: chapter-040
txt: ./txt/chapter-040.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-040.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  When the housemaid made the beds, she found in one, a bolster laid lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when Ginevra Fanshawe''s music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the morning lesson, that accomplished and promising young person, her pupil, failed utterly to be forthcoming. Never to this day has Madame Beck obtained satisfaction on this point, nor indeed has anybody else concerned, save and excepting one, Lucy Snowe, who could not forget how, to facilitate a certain enterprise, a certain great door had been drawn softly to its lintel, closed, indeed, but neither bolted nor secure. One night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore down some of the branches, nearly broke his own neck, and after all, in running away, got a terrible fright, and was nearly caught by two people, Madame Beck and M.


id: chapter-041
title: chapter-041
txt: ./txt/chapter-041.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-041.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  He took my hand in one of his, with the other he put back my bonnet; he looked into my face, his luminous smile went out, his lips expressed something almost like the wordless language of a mother who finds a child greatly and unexpectedly changed, broken with illness, or worn out by want. Paul''s face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. "All these weary days," said he, repeating my words, with a gentle, kindly mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips, and of which the playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled, as it often was, with the assertion, that however I might write his language, I spoke and always should speak it imperfectly and hesitatingly.


id: chapter-042
title: chapter-042
txt: ./txt/chapter-042.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-042.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  About the middle of the second year an unexpected chance threw into my hands an additional hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter containing that sum. He was just recovering from a dangerous illness; the money was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching him in the matter of, I know not what, papers or memoranda found after his kinswoman''s deathnaming or recommending Lucy Snowe. He sat down, he took pen and paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he was faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. His tenderness had rendered him ductile in a priest''s hands, his affection, his devotedness, his sincere pious enthusiasm blinded his kind eyes sometimes, made him abandon justice to himself to do the work of craft, and serve the ends of selfishness; but these are faults so rare to find, so costly to their owner to indulge, we scarce know whether they will not one day be reckoned amongst the jewels.


