By Charlotte Bronte.
Red.
By Stephanie Poppins.
You're sick.
By John Miles Carter.
Chapter 19 the Cleopatra.
My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of the vacation.
Mrs.
Breton's kind management procured me this respite.
Her son having one day delivered the dictum that Lucy was not yet strong enough to go back to that den of a pensionate.
Thereupon,
However,
Followed an intention I could very well have dispensed with.
A polite call from Madame Beck.
That lady actually came out as far as the chateau.
I suppose she'd resolved within herself to see what manner of a place Dr John inhabited.
Apparently,
The pleasant sight and neat interior surpassed her expectations.
She eulogized all she saw,
Pronounced the blue salon un pièce magnifique.
Profusely congratulated me on the acquisition of friends,
And turned also a neat compliment in my favour.
Upon Doctor John coming in,
She 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 chateau.
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.
In short,
She shone in her very best phase that day,
And came in and went out living quite a Catherine Wheel of compliments.
I went back and teased Dr.
John about Madame's devotion to him.
How he laughed.
What fun shone in his eyes as he recalled some of her fine speeches and repeated them,
Imitating her voluble delivery.
He had an acute sense of humour and was the finest company in the world,
When he could forget Miss Fanshawe.
To sit in sunshine,
Calm and sweet,
Is said to be excellent for weak people.
It gives them vital force.
When little Georgette Beck was recovering from her illness,
I used to take her in my arms and walk with her in the garden by the hour together.
There are human tempers bland,
Glowing and genial,
Within whose influence it is as good for the poor,
In spirit,
To live,
As it is for the feeble,
In frame,
To bask in the glow of noon.
Of the number of these choice natures were certainly both Dr.
Breton's and his mother's.
They like to communicate happiness,
As some like to occasion misery.
And they did it instinctively,
Without fuss,
And apparently with very little consciousness.
The means to give pleasure rose spontaneously in their minds.
Every day while I stayed with them some little plan was proposed.
Fully occupied as was Dr John's time,
He still made it in his way to accompany us in each brief excursion.
I can hardly tell you how he managed his engagements.
They were numerous,
Yet by dint of system he classed them in an order which left him a daily period of liberty.
I often saw him hard-worked,
Yet seldom overdriven.
Of high and unbroken energies.
Under his guidance,
I saw in one happy fortnight more of Villette,
Its environs,
And its inhabitants,
Than that I had seen in the willingness and spirit he communicated much noteworthy information with.
He never seemed to think it a trouble to talk to me and I am sure it was never a task to me to listen.
It was not his way to treat subjects coldly and vaguely.
He rarely generalised,
Never prosed.
He seemed to like nice details almost as much as I like them himself.
He seemed observant of character and not superficially observant either.
These points gave the quality of interest to his discourse,
And the fact of his speaking direct from his own resources and not borrowing or stealing them from books,
In short,
A freshness as welcome as it was rare.
Before my eyes too,
His disposition seemed to unfold another phase.
To pass to a fresh day,
To rise a new and nobler dawn.
His mother possessed a good development of benevolence,
But he owned a better and larger.
I found on accompanying him to Bassville,
The poor and crowded quarter of the city,
That his errands there were as much as those of the philanthropist as the physician.
I understood presently that cheerfully,
Habitually,
And in single-minded unconsciousness of any special merit distinguishing his deeds,
He was achieving amongst a very wretched population a world of active good.
The lower orders liked him well.
His poor patients in the hospitals welcomed him.
With a sort of enthusiasm.
But stop!
I must not,
From the faithful narrator,
Degenerate into this partial eulogist.
Well,
For well do I know that Dr.
John was not perfect any more than I am.
Human fallibility leavened him throughout.
There was no hour and scarcely a moment of the time I spent with him,
In act or speech.
He did not betray something that was not of a god.
A god could not have the cruel vanity of Dr John,
Nor his sometime levity.
One day,
At a quiet early hour,
I found myself nearly alone in a certain gallery,
Wherein one particular picture of portentous size,
Set up in the best light,
Having a cordon of protection stretched before it,
And a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of worshipping connoisseurs,
Who,
Having gazed themselves off their feet,
Might be feigned to complete the business setting,
This picture,
I say,
Seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.
I like to visit the picture galleries and I dearly like to be left there alone.
It seemed to me that an original and a good picture was just as scarce as an original and good book.
Nor did I in the end tremble to say to myself standing before,
Chef Dove,
Bearing great names,
These are not a wit like nature.
Nature's daylight never had that colour,
Never was made so turbid either by storm or cloud as is laid out there under a sky of indigo.
And that indigo is not ether,
And those dark weeds plastered upon it are not trees.
Several very well-executed and complacent-looking fat women struck me as by no means the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves.
And many scores of marvelously finished little Flemish pictures,
And also of sketches excellent for fashion books,
Displaying varied costumes in the handsomest materials,
Gave evidence of a laudable industry whimsically applied.
This picture,
Though,
Represented a woman considerably larger than the life,
I thought.
I calculated this lady,
Put into a scale of magnitude suitable for the reception of a commodity of bulk,
Would infallibly turn from 14 to 16 stone.
She was indeed extremely well fed,
Much like butcher's meat,
To say nothing of bread,
Vegetables and liquids.
Must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height?
She lay half reclined on a couch.
Why it would be difficult to say.
Broad daylight blazed round her,
She appeared in hearty health,
Strong enough to do the work of two plain cooks.
She had no business to lounge away at noon on a sofa.
On referring to the catalogue I found this notable production bore the name Cleopatra.
Well,
I was sitting wondering at it.
When the room,
Almost vacant when I entered,
Began to fill.
Scarcely noticing this circumstance,
I retained my seat,
Rather to rest myself than with a view to studying this huge,
Dark-complexioned gypsy queen.
Of whom indeed I soon tired.
Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder.
Starting Turning,
I met a face bent to encounter mine.
A frowning,
Almost shocked face it was.
What are you doing here?
Said a voice.
It was Monsieur Paul Emmanuel,
Returned from Rome,
And now a travelled man,
Was not likely to be less tolerant of insubordination now than before this added distinction.
Permit me to conduct you to your party,
He said as we crossed the room.
I have no party.
You are not alone.
Yes,
Me sure.
Did you not come here unaccompanied?
No,
Monsieur.
Dr.
Breton brought me here.
Dr.
Breton and Madame his mother,
Of course.
No,
Only Dr.
Breton.
And he told you to look at that picture.
By no means I found it out for myself.
Missy Poole's hair was shorn close as raven down.
I think it would have bristled on his head.
Beginning now to perceive his drift,
I had a certain pleasure in keeping cool and working him up.
Astounding audacity,
Cried the Professor.
What is the matter,
Monsieur?
How dare you,
A young person,
Sit coolly down with the self-possession of a garçon and look at that picture?
It is a very ugly picture.
But I cannot at all see why I should not look at it.
Speak no more of it,
But you ought not to be here alone.
If,
However,
I have no society or party,
As you say,
And then what does it signify whether I'm alone or accompanied?
Nobody meddles with me.
Asseyez-vous là.
He set down a chair with emphasis in a particularly dull corner before a series of most specially dreary cat-races.
Mais,
Monsieur!
Mesdames et Messieurs,
Asseyez-vous.
By and by,
He began accosting me.
How did you get on with Marie Brock?
" he said.
Monsieur,
I did my best!
But it was terrible to be alone with her.
You have a weak heart,
You lack courage and perhaps charity.
Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a sister of mercy.
I don't know indeed.
I took as good care of her as I could,
But when her aunt came to fetch her away,
It was a great relief.
You are an egotist.
There are women who have nursed hospitals full of similar unfortunates.
You could not do that?
Could Monsieur do it himself?
Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass our coarse,
Fallible,
Self-indulgent sex in the power to perform such duties.
I washed her,
I kept her clean and I fed her.
I tried to amuse her but she made mouths at me instead of speaking.
You think you did great things.
No,
But I did as great as I could do.
Then limited are your powers for intending one idiot who fell sick.
Without Monsieur,
I had a nervous fever and my mind was ill.
Monsieur Paul showed a face of character which had its terrors.
His passions were strong,
His aversions and attachments alike vivid.
The force he exerted in holding both in check by no means mitigated an observer's sense of their vehemence.
With such tendencies,
It may well be supposed,
He often excited in ordinary minds fear and dislike.
Yet it was an error to fear him.
Nothing drove him so nearly frantic as the tremor of an apprehensive and distrustful spirit.
Nothing soothed him like confidence tempered with gentleness.
To convince these sentiments,
However,
Required a thorough comprehension of his nature,
And his nature was of an order rarely comprehended.
It would have been eager to show anger at his teasing,
Hostile tone.
I had never been angry with him yet though.
And had no present disposition to begin.
Cleopatra.
I repeated quietly,
Monsieur has been looking at Cleopatra too and what does he think of her?
I have looked at her a great many times while Monsieur has been talking.
I can see her quite well from this corner.
Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman's life.
Excuse me,
Monsieur Paul,
They are too hideous.
But if you admire them,
Allow me to vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation.
Mamsel,
He said,
Grimacing a half-smile,
Or what he intended for a smile.
Though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation.
You unguarded English women walk calmly amidst red hot plough shares and escape burning.
I believe if some of you were thrown into the hottest furnace you would issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire.
Will Monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?
And what are you gazing at now?
I think there is a person I know.
In fact,
I caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any other than the redoubted Colonel.
.
.
To Hamau.
Was a very finished,
Highly polished little picture it was.
What a figure so trim,
What womanish feet and hands,
How daintily he held a glass to one of his optics,
And to watch admiration he glazed upon the Cleopatra.
I observed him for about 10 minutes and preceded he was exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile.
So much was I interested in his bearing.
So absorbed in dividing his character by his looks and movements,
I temporarily forgot Monsieur Paul.
When I looked around again,
He was gone.
My eye,
Pursuant of the search,
Met not him.
But another and dissimilar figure.
This way came Dr.
John,
In visage,
In shape,
In hue,
As unlike the dark,
Acerbic and caustic little professor.
As the fruit of the Hesperides might be unlike the slow in the wild thicket.
He was looking for me,
But had not yet explored the corner where the schoolmaster had put me.
I remained silent.
Yet another minute I would watch.
He approached to Hamau.
He paused near him.
I thought he had a pleasure in looking over his head.
Dr.
Breton II gazed on the Cleopatra.
I doubt if it was to his taste.
He did not simper like the little count.
His mouth looked fastidious,
His eye cool.
I saw now he was waiting and I joined him.
We took one turn around the gallery.
It was always such a pleasure to take a turn.
I liked dearly to hear what he had to say about either pictures or books,
Because without pretending to be a connoisseur,
He always spoke his thought.
And that was sure to be fresh.
As we left the gallery,
I asked what he thought of the Cleopatra.
I made him laugh by telling him how Professor Emmanuel had sent me to the corner.
Coop,
Said he.
My mother is a better looking woman.
I heard some French fops yonder designating her the tip de voluptue.
If so,
I can only say Le Vol Apteux is little to my liking.
Compare that mulatto with Geneva.
