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diff --git a/41105-0.txt b/41105-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6d4c2f --- /dev/null +++ b/41105-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4958 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41105 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 41105-h.htm or 41105-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41105/41105-h/41105-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41105/41105-h.zip) + + + + + +THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË + +Followed by Some Reminiscences of the Real +Monsieur and Madame Heger + +by + +FREDERIKA MACDONALD, D.LITT. + +Authoress of 'Xavier and I,' 'The Iliad of the East,' +'A New Criticism of J.-J. Rousseau,' 'The Flower +and The Spirit,' 'The Humane Philosophy +of Rousseau,' etc. + + + + + + + +London: T.C. & E.C. Jack +67 Long Acre, W.C. +and Edinburgh +1914 + + + +[Illustration: Portrait by Richmond] + + + 'And now I will rehearse the tale of Love, which I heard + from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this, and many + other kinds of knowledge.... + + '... "What then is Love," I asked: "Is he mortal?" "He is + neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two," + she replied. "He is a great Spirit, and, like all spirits, + an intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And + what," I said, "is his power?" "He interprets," she replied, + "between gods and men; conveying to the gods the prayers and + sacrifices of men; and to men the commands and replies of + the gods." "And who," I said, "is his father? and who is his + mother?" "His father," she replied, "was Plenty (Poros), and + his mother Poverty (Penia), and as his parentage is, so are + his fortunes. He is always poor, and has no shoes, nor a + house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under + the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses, + taking his rest, and like his mother he is always in + distress. Like his father, too, he is bold, enterprising,--a + philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, + sorcerer, sophist. As he is neither mortal nor immortal, he + is alive and flourishing one moment, and dead another + moment; and again alive, by reason of his father's nature."' + + (_Symposium_. Plato's _Dialogues_. Translator, Jowett, vol. + ii. pp. 54, 55.) + +[Illustration: THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL (RUE D'ISABELLE), +WHICH REMAINED UNALTERED UNTIL 1909] + + + +CONTENTS + +PART I + +CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S LETTERS TO M. HEGER +_(These Letters supply the Key to the Secret of Charlotte Brontë)_ + +CHAPTER I +THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF CHARLOTTE +BRONTË, CREATED BY A FALSE CRITICAL +METHOD + +CHAPTER II +THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM + +CHAPTER III +CHARLOTTE'S LAST YEAR AT BRUXELLES, 1842-43 + +CHAPTER IV +THE CONFESSION AT STE. GUDULE + +CHAPTER V +THE LEAVE-TAKING--THE SCENE IN THE CLASS-ROOM +--'MY HEART WILL BREAK' + +CHAPTER VI +THE LOVE-LETTERS OF A ROMANTIC + +PART II + +SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE REAL +MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER + +CHAPTER I +THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE +FACT FROM FICTION + +CHAPTER II +MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE +BRONTË'S PROFESSOR + +CHAPTER III +MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW THEM: +AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I KNEW +THEM + +CHAPTER IV +MY SECOND INTERVIEW WITH M. HEGER. THE +WASHING OF 'PEPPER.' THE LESSON IN +ARITHMETIC + +CHAPTER V +THE STORY OF A CHAPEAU D'UNIFORME + +CHAPTER VI +MADAME HEGER'S SENTIMENT OF THE JUSTICE +OF RESIGNATION TO INJUSTICE + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + CHARLOTTE BRONTË .... _Frontispiece_ + THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL IN THE RUE D'ISABELLE + M. HEGER AT SIXTY + DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË OF ASHBURNHAM CHURCH + (_Copyright of Author_) + MADAME HEGER AT SIXTY + (_Copyright of Author_) + THE ALLÉE DÉFENDUE + (_Copyright of Author_) + THE GALERIE AND GARDEN IN WINTER + (_Copyright of Author_) + + + +THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË + +PART I + +CHAPTER I + +THE 'PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM' OF CHARLOTTE +BRONTË, CREATED BY A FALSE +CRITICAL METHOD + + +We live in an epoch when impressionist methods of criticism, admissible, +and often illuminative, in the domains of art and of imaginative +literature, have invaded the once jealously guarded paths of historical +criticism, to the detriment of correct standards of judgment. Leading +critics, whose literary accomplishments, powers of persuasive argument, +and unquestionable good faith, lend great influence to their decisions, +show no sort of hesitation in undertaking to interpret the characters +and careers of famous men and women, independently of any examination +of evidence, by purely psychological methods. I am not denying that, as +literary exercises, some of these impressionist portraits of men and +women of genius, seen through the temperament of writers who are, +_sometimes_, endowed with genius themselves, are very interesting. But +what has to be remembered (and what is constantly forgotten) is, that if +these psychological interpretations of people who once really existed +are to be accorded any authority as historical judgments, they must have +been preceded by an attentive enquiry, enabling the future interpreter, +before he begins to employ psychology, to feel perfectly certain that he +has clearly in view the particular Soul he is undertaking to penetrate, +with its own special qualities, and placed amongst, and acted upon by, +the real circumstances of its earthly career. Where the preliminary +precaution of this enquiry, into the true facts that have to be +penetrated, and explained, has been neglected, no psychological +subtlety, no pathological science, no sympathetic insight, can protect +the most accomplished literary impressionist from forming, and +fostering, false opinions about the historical personages he is judging +from a standpoint of assumptions that do not allow him to exercise the +true function of criticism, defined by Matthew Arnold as: 'an impartial +endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is.' + +In the case of Charlotte Brontë, her first, and, still, classical +biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, carried through, now fifty-seven years ago, +with great literary skill, and also with historical exactitude, the +study of her parentage and youth; of her experiences in England as a +governess; of her family trials and losses; of the sudden development of +her talent, or rather, of her genius as a writer, that, at one bound, +after the publication of her first novel, made her famous throughout +England; and soon famous throughout Europe: and that proved her (since +Charlotte has been 'dead'--as people use the phrase--more than half a +century, and since her books are still living spirits, we may be allowed +to affirm this) one of the immortals. + +But now whilst all these epochs in Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte +Brontë_ were studied by exact historical methods, there was one epoch in +her heroine's career that this, elsewhere, conscientious biographer +neglected to study at all: in the sense, of subjecting facts and events +and personages, belonging to its history, to careful examination. Here, +on the contrary, we find that Mrs. Gaskell left exact methods of enquiry +behind her; and adopted arbitrary psychological methods, of arguments, +and assumptions, where, not only no effort was made to consult the +testimony of facts, but where this testimony was ignored, or +contradicted, when it stood in the way, of preconceived theories. And +this period, thus inadequately, or, rather, thus mischievously, dealt +with, happened to be precisely the one where the key must be found to +the right interpretations of Charlotte's personality; and of the +emotions and experiences she had undergone and that called her genius +forth to life: and stamped it with the seal and quality that made her, +amongst our great English Novelists, the only representative +prose-writer in our literature of the European literary movement that +French critics praise, and attack, under the name of _le Romantisme_. + +The period in Charlotte's life that I am speaking of is, of course, the +interval of two years (from Feb. 1842 to Jan. 1844) that she spent at +Bruxelles, in the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, whose Director and +Directress, Monsieur and Madame Heger, are supposed to have been painted +in the characters of 'Paul Emanuel' and of 'Madame Beck,' in the famous +novel of _Villette_. + +How far that supposition is justified, and to what extent _Villette_ is +an autobiographical reminiscence, thinly disguised as a novel, can be +now, but has never been up to this date, satisfactorily decided, by an +attentive historical enquiry. What is established securely to-day, and +cannot be removed from the foundation of documentary evidence that +serves as the basis upon which all future theories must rest, is, that +it is in this period that Charlotte Brontë--not as an enthusiastic and +half-formed school-girl, as some reckless modern impressionist critics, +careless of the evidence of facts, would have us believe, but as a +woman, profoundly sincere, impassioned, exalted, unstained, and +unstainable, who, between twenty-six and twenty-eight years of age, had +long left girlish extravagance behind her--underwent experiences and +emotions, that were not transient feelings, nor sensational excitements. +But they were transforming and formative spiritual influences--causing, +no doubt, bitter anguish, and intolerable regrets, that 'broke her +heart,' in the sense that they destroyed personal hope or belief in +happiness, and even the personal capacity for happiness: yet that from +this grave of buried hope, called her genius forth to life; and stamped +and sealed it, with its special quality and gift:--the gift that made +her a 'Romantic.' So that at this hour one has not to deplore any +longer, for Charlotte's sake, this tragical sentiment, of predestined, +hopeless, and unrequited love, that broke her heart, but that gave her +immortality. For, whilst the broken heart is healed now, or, at any +rate, has slept in peace for more than half a century, the genius, born +from its sorrow, is still a living spirit; and will probably continue +to live on, from age to age, whilst the English tongue endures. + +At the present hour all this can be positively affirmed. But even before +the final settlement, for every critic who respects historical evidence, +of the now incontrovertible fact, Mrs. Gaskell's method of dealing with +this momentous period could not satisfy an attentive student who +compared her account with Charlotte's correspondence: and also with +eloquent impassioned passages in _Villette_ and the _Professor_, where +the authoress is plainly painting emotions and impressions she has +herself undergone. And the effect that was left upon thoughtful readers +of the _Life of Charlotte Brontë_' was that the biographer was, not +negligently, but _deliberately_, altering the true significance, by +underrating the importance, of Charlotte's experiences in Bruxelles, and +of her relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger. + +This biographer's theory was (and the doctrine has been vehemently +defended by a certain clique of devotees of Charlotte Brontë down to +the present day) that Charlotte obtained, certainly, great intellectual +stimulus, as well as literary culture, from the lessons of M. Heger, as +an accomplished Professor; but that, outside of these influences, her +relationships with M. Heger were of an entirely ordinary and tranquil +character, and that she carried back with her to Haworth, after her two +years' residence in Bruxelles, no other sentiments than those of the +grateful regard and esteem a good pupil necessarily retains for a +Professor whose lessons she has turned to excellent account. + +How far Mrs. Gaskell did believe, or was able to make herself believe, +what she professed, it is difficult to determine now. My own opinion is +she did _not_ believe it; but that she esteemed it a duty to respect the +secret _that had not been confided to her_: and to pass by in silence, +and with averted eyes, the place where, forsaken by hope, Charlotte had +fought out bravely and all alone this battle, with a hopeless passion +(that, after all, when it comes across any woman's path, she _must_ +fight out _alone_, because nowhere, outside of her own soul, is there +any help), and then, having won her battle, had gone on, leaving her +broken heart buried in that silent, secret place, to face her altered +destiny. And to write stories as a method of salvation from despair. But +to return, now and again, to visit that silent, secret grave: and to +gather the magical flowers that grew there, and breathe their bitter, +sweet perfume. And to take large handfuls of these flowers home with +her, and, in the air saturated with the bitter-sweet perfume of these +magical flowers, to write her stories. So that the stories themselves +come to us, not like other stories, but steeped in this strange perfume +thrilled through with the magical life belonging to flowers of +remembrance, gathered from the grave of a tragical romance. And this +explains why the stories are themselves romantic: and why, as Harriet +Martineau complained, _Villette_, especially, has this quality, which, +to the authoress of _Illustrations in Political Economy_, appeared a +defect, that '_all events and personages are regarded through the medium +of one passion only--the passion of unrequited love._' + +To return to Mrs. Gaskell and her criticism of Charlotte Brontë. The +question of whether she, like Harriet Martineau, committed a critical +blunder, as a result of studying Charlotte's character and genius by +wrong methods, or whether out of loyalty she endeavoured to cover in her +friend's life the secret romance that Charlotte herself never revealed, +does not need to trouble us much, because the answer does not greatly +matter. However laudatory Mrs. Gaskell's motive may have been, the fact +remains, that, as a result of her endeavour rather to turn attention +away from, than to examine, the true circumstances of Charlotte's +relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger, an inadequate, or else a +false, criticism was inaugurated by her influence of the most popular in +Europe of our distinguished women novelists, and who, outside of +England, is judged by right standards as a 'Romantic,' but who, in her +own country, has been criticised from 1857 down to 1913, in the light of +one of two contradictory impressions--both of which we now know were +historical mistakes. + +The first of these impressions is that Charlotte Brontë has painted, not +only her own emotions, but her own actual experiences, in _Villette_; +and that Lucy Snowe, Paul Emanuel, and Madame Beck, are pseudonyms, +under which we ought to recognise Charlotte herself, and the Director +and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle. + +The second, and almost equally mischievous impression is that no +romantic nor tragical sentiment whatever characterises the relationships +between Charlotte Brontë and her Bruxelles Professor in literature; and +that she derived her inspirations as a writer solely from the drab +dreariness and the desolation of disease and death, of her life in the +shadow of Haworth churchyard. It is impossible from the standpoint of +either of these impressions to form right opinions about Charlotte +Brontë, either as a distinguished personality, or as a writer of genius, +whose place in English literature is that amongst our prose writers she +is the representative 'Romantic' who counts with George Sand; but +differs from her, as an English and not a French exponent of the +sentiment of romantic love. + +Judged both as a distinguished personality and as a writer of genius +from the standpoint of the impression that _Villette_ is an +autobiographical story, Charlotte Brontë suffers injustice, both as a +woman of fine character, and as an imaginative painter of emotions +rather than an observer of events, or a critic of manners. Accepted as a +realistic picture of her own adventures in Brussels, the book does not +testify to her accuracy or skill in portraiture, from the purely +literary point of view. And from the moral and personal standpoint, she +remains convicted (if she be held to be telling her own story) of the +baseness of a half-confession;--and _of a dishonourable and a +successful_, not a _romantic and tragical_, love for a married man. And +of the treacherous wrong done a sister-woman, who threw open her home to +her, when she was a friendless alien in a foreign city. And, if this +were so, this traitress would have further aggravated the dishonest +betrayal of her protectress, by holding up the woman she had wronged to +the world's detestation, either as the contemptible and scheming Mlle. +Zoraïde Reuter, of the _Professor_:--or the less contemptible but more +hateful Madame Beck, in _Villette_. + +If, then, Charlotte did mean, or even suppose, that others could be +induced to believe that she meant, to paint her own relationships to +Monsieur and Madame Heger in the story, she would stand convicted, not +only as a woman of bad character, but as one who had a wicked and +vindictive heart. + +Nor yet does the second impression, patronised by devotees of Charlotte +Brontë (who seem to imagine that the revelation of an entirely innocent +and indeed beautiful, though tragical, romantic attachment in the life +of this romantic writer, is the disclosure of a sin), help us to find +any solution of the 'problem' as psychological critics present it to us, +of the 'dissonance' between her personality and dull existence, and her +literary distinction, as our chief English Romantic, and the authoress +of those amazing masterpieces _Jane Eyre_ and _Villette._ What a +contrast, in effect, between the characteristics of these masterpieces +and the characteristics of her circumstances at Haworth and of the +circle of her familiar acquaintances! The characteristics of Charlotte's +books are--emotional force, the exaltation of passion over all the +commonplace proprieties, the low-toned feelings, the semi-educated +pedantries that are the characteristics of the people who surround +Charlotte; who are her correspondents and her friends; and whose +mediocrity weighs on the poor original woman's spirit (and even on her +literary style) like lead:--so that the letters she writes to them are, +really, nearly as dull as the letters they write to her; and one finds +it hard to believe that some of the letters, to Ellen Nussey, for +instance, come from the same pen that wrote _Villette_: or even that +wrote from Bruxelles some of her letters to Emily. + +And again, if we leave out of account the tragical romantic sentiment +for M. Heger, how are we to solve the problem as these psychologists +present it to us, and that states itself in this conviction: that the +creator of 'Rochester' and 'Paul Emanuel' found her _own_ romance, only +at forty years of age, in her marriage with the Rev. A.B. Nicholls, an +event she announces thus:--'_I trust the demands of both feeling and +duty will be in some measure reconciled by the step in contemplation_'; +adding on to this the following description of the future bridegroom: +'_Mr Nicholls is a kind, considerate fellow: with all his masculine +faults, he enters into my wishes about having the thing done quietly_'? + +From the standpoint of the impression that the romance in Charlotte's +life, was the marriage she speaks of as '_the thing_,' that she wishes +'_may be done quietly_,'--and that the highest pitch of personal emotion +she attained to, is expressed by her in the temperate confidence that by +'the step in contemplation'--'_the demands of both feeling and duty may +in some measure be reconciled_,' (--only _in some measure_? Poor +Charlotte!--But she died within a year)--from this standpoint, I say, +one really cannot solve the problem of the 'dissonance' between +Charlotte's personality and her books. + +But there is one conclusion we are bound to reach. The influences of +Haworth, no doubt--the drab dreariness of everything; and then the +desolation after Bramwell's death, and Emily's death, and Anne's +death--and the father threatened with blindness--and also the mediocrity +of all those dull, dull people, who represented her familiar friends and +correspondents, so satisfied with themselves, all of them; so +dissatisfied with life, and who saw it through the medium not of a +romantic tragical sentiment, not of one great passion, but through the +medium of small grievances of superior nursery governesses: the sort of +people who dislike children, and want overdriven mothers to be always +occupied with their governesses' sentiments, instead of with the baby +who is cutting its teeth. No doubt the influences of Haworth and of +Charlotte Brontë's 'Circle' there, before she became famous, _did_ help +to plant in her the immense depression and fatigue of a spirit that had +known the stress of great emotions, and _could bear no more_,--expressed +in the letter announcing her decision to marry one of the curates she +had laughed at in _Shirley_--who _with all his masculine faults_,' she +says, 'is a _kind, considerate fellow_,' who doesn't expect her to +pretend she thinks this marriage ('_the thing_')--a Festival. Well, but +the conclusion we must form is this, that if it be at Haworth, and after +1846, that we must find the causes of the depression that brought about +Charlotte's marriage with Mr. Nicholl, it is _not_ here that we must +seek the '_Secret of Charlotte Brontë_';--the romance that broke her +heart, true--but made her an immortal, whose claim to live for ever is +based upon no moderate well-balanced sentiment, where 'the demands of +both feeling and duty will be in some measure reconciled'--but upon +passionate emotions, compelling expression, and forming a new language +almost; as M. Jules Lemaître has said 'introducing new ways of feeling, +and as it were a new vibration into literature.' + +And in the place where the romance in Charlotte's life is found must we +seek, also, the source of this power of emotion: creating powers of +expression to which much more accomplished literary artists than +Charlotte (Jane Austen and Mrs. Gaskell, for instance) never reached; +and to an intimate knowledge of moods and ecstasies and raptures, that +rule and torture and exalt human souls, that much more subtle and +scientific psychologists than herself (George Eliot, for instance, and +Mrs. Humphry Ward) never discovered. + +The supreme gift of the authoress of _Villette_ and _Jane Eyre_, as a +painter of emotions, an interpreter of intimate moods, a witness in the +cause of ideal sentiments, an incessant rebel against vulgarity and +common worldliness, and the stupid tyranny of custom, an upholder of the +sovereignty of romance, cannot be weighed against, nor judged by, the +same standards as the accomplished literary gift of such finished +artists as the authors of _Pride and Prejudice_ and _Cranford_, such +subtle students of character as the authors of _Middlemarch_ and _Robert +Elsmere_, such vigorous fighters for intellectual and moral ends as are +represented by the author of the _Illustrations upon Political Economy_, +and the _Atkinson Letters_. And it is because, as a result of judging +her genius and her personality from the standpoint of false +impressions, Charlotte Brontë has not been recognised in England as a +painter of personal emotions, a Romantic in short, but has been judged +as the advocate of a general doctrine--(one very agreeable to the +convictions of the average man, but especially exasperating to the +aspirations and principles of the superior woman)--I mean, the doctrine +that _to obtain the love of a man whom she feels to be, and rejoices to +recognise as, her 'Master,'--is the supreme desire and dream of every +truly feminine heart_; it is because, I say, of this mistake, that +Charlotte has become the idol of a class of critics least qualified +perhaps to appreciate the merits of a romantic rebel against +conventional domesticity; whilst amongst more naturally sympathetic +judges, the peculiar perfume and power of these novels, steeped in and +saturated with the passionate essence of a personal romance, has not +been recognised either for what it really is,--the 'magic' of Charlotte +Brontë; the special quality in her work that gives it originality and +distinction; but this very quality--'the personal note' that makes her +our only English Romantic Novelist, has been signalised by many sincere +admirers of her books as a defect! + +I have already mentioned the judgment passed upon _Villette_ by an +admirable woman of letters, Charlotte Brontë's personal friend, and a +critic whose good faith, and honest desire to serve the interests of +this sister-authoress with whom she found fault it is quite impossible +to doubt. + +When _Villette_ appeared, Charlotte Brontë had been for some little time +on very friendly terms with Harriet Martineau: and she did not fear to +incur the risk--always a perilous one to friendship--of asking Harriet +to tell her, quite frankly, what she thought of her book. Harriet +responded with perfect frankness to the invitation; and the almost +inevitable result followed. The event wrecked their friendship. And no +one was to blame: Harriet Martineau, without disguise, but without +malice, said what she thought was true. But neither was Charlotte in the +wrong, for she felt herself unjustly judged; and her feeling was right, +because Harriet used false standards. + +'As for the matter which you so desire to know,' wrote the frank +Harriet; 'I have but one thing to say: but it is not a small one. I do +not like the love--either the kind or the degree of it--and its +prevalence in the book, and effect on the action of it, help to explain +the passages in the reviews which you consulted me about, and seem to +afford some foundation for the criticism they afford.' + +Charlotte was deeply offended: 'I protest against this passage,' she +wrote; 'I know what _love_ is as I understand it, and if man or woman +should be ashamed of feeling such love, then there is nothing right, +noble, faithful, truthful, unselfish in this earth, as I comprehend +rectitude, nobleness, fidelity, truth and disinterestedness.' + +Here spoke the Romantic. But Harriet Martineau was _not_ a Romantic but +an Intellectual, and she judged Charlotte's books and her genius through +her own temperament, and by intellectual standards. She followed up the +private rebuke to her friend for making too much of love, in a review of +_Villette_, contributed to the _Daily News._ + +'All the female characters,' she wrote, 'in all their thoughts and +lives, are full of one thing, or are regarded in the light of that one +thought, love! It begins with the child of six years old, of the opening +(a charming picture), and closes with it at the last page. And so +dominant is this idea, so incessant is the writer's tendency to describe +_the need of being loved_, that the heroine, who tells her own story, +leaves the reader at last under the uncomfortable impression of her +having either entertained a double love, or allowed one to supersede +another, without notification of the transition. It is not thus in real +life. There are substantial, heartfelt interests for women of all ages, +and, under ordinary circumstances, quite apart from love; there is an +absence of introspection, an unconsciousness, a repose, in women's +lives, unless under peculiarly unfortunate circumstances, of which we +find no admission in this book; and to the absence of it may be +attributed some of the criticism which the book will meet with from +readers who are no prudes, but whose reason and taste will regret the +assumption that events and characters are to be regarded through the +medium of one passion only.' + +The critical blunder in this judgment is that here the authoress of the +_Illustrations in Political Economy_ and of the _Atkinson Letters_ sees +the authoress of _Villette_ through her own temperament, as an +intellectual like herself:--a humane sociologist, and a philosophical +freethinker, _whose literary purpose is to use her talent as a writer in +the service of her ideas and principles_. Judging _Villette_ and its +authoress from this point of view and by these standards, Harriet +Martineau decides that _because_ 'all events and characters in _Villette +are_ regarded through the medium of one passion, love,' _therefore_ the +literary motive and purpose of the authoress must have been to deny--or +at any rate to ignore--that '_there are substantial heartfelt interests +for women of all ages, and in ordinary circumstances, quite apart from +love._' + +The mistake lay in assuming that Charlotte Brontë was an intellectual, +instead of an imaginative genius; and that her literary purpose was to +affirm, or deny, or ignore deliberately, any principle; or in any way +to make her genius the servant of her intellect; whereas her +intelligence was so coloured by her imagination, so subservient to her +genius, that if one were to measure her by intellectual standards--with +Harriet Martineau, for instance--she would remain as vastly Harriet's +inferior in enthusiasm of humanity, in practical benevolence and warm +interest in social reform, and in emancipations from prejudice and +insularity and bigotry, as she was Harriet's superior in power of +passionate feeling, in wealth of imagination, and in superb gift of +expression. But any such comparison would be out of place. Let us admit +that Charlotte's thoughts and aspirations, as we find them scattered +through her writings, express the ordinary vigorous prejudices of an +English gentlewoman of her period, brought up under the influences of a +father who was a good sort of Tory clergyman; that her attitude of +condescension toward, rather than of sympathy with, the 'common people,' +regarded as the 'lower orders,' who should be kindly treated of course, +but kept in their place, and taught to 'order themselves lowly and +reverently to their betters,' indicates a defective humanitarianism; +that her almost rabid patriotism--her conviction that not to be English +is a misfortune, and a stamp of inferiority that weighs heavily as an +impediment to nobility and virtue, upon every member of every other +foreign race, is distinctly narrow; and that her staunch and straitened +protestantism, leaves her as far away as the 'idolatrous priests' she +denounced, from any claim to enlightened tolerance. + +Yet this lack of any particular height or breadth or distinction in +Charlotte Brontë's social, political, critical, or even religious views, +does not in any way detract from the height, depth and distinction of +her powers of noble emotion and splendid expression; nor from the rare +gift of translating words into feelings that quicken her readers' +sensibility to a finer perception of the ideal beauty that lies at the +heart of common things. + +Here is the gift by which we have to judge, or, to speak more +becomingly, for which we have to praise and thank, our only English +'Romantic' novelist, who stands in rank with George Sand, and who has +been studied in comparison with her by Swinburne. And we have to praise, +and thank our Charlotte all the more, because she has a national as well +as a personal note: and brings to this European literary movement the +characteristic qualities of imagination and sentiment that belong to our +English literary temperament, and that do us honour, as a romantic +people who are romantic in our own, and nobody else's way. + +But now if we want to appreciate the 'magic' of Charlotte Brontë as a +Romantic we must not look for the sources of her inspiration at Haworth; +nor in the circle of dull people, to whom she wrote, brilliant writer as +she was, dull letters, because their mediocrity weighed upon her spirit +like lead. + +Twenty years ago, now, I attempted (but was not especially successful in +the task) to establish upon the personal knowledge that my own residence +as a pupil in the historical Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, at +Bruxelles gave me of the facts of Charlotte Brontë's relationships to +Monsieur and Madame Heger, right impressions about the experiences and +emotions she underwent between 1842 and 1846, and that supply the key +and clue to the right interpretation of her genius. Every opinion I then +ventured to state, not upon the authority of any special power of +divination or of psychological insight of my own, but solely upon the +authority of this personal knowledge of Monsieur and Madame Heger in my +early girlhood, and also of the information I owed to the friendship and +kind assistance given me, in my endeavour to rectify false judgments, by +the Heger family, has quite recently, not only been confirmed, but +established upon entirely incontrovertible evidence, by the generous +gift made to English readers throughout the world of the key needed to +unlock once and for ever the tragical but romantic 'Secret' of Charlotte +Brontë. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM + + +The common saying, that 'people must be just before they are generous,' +becomes at once less common and more correct when it is formulated +differently. '_One needs to be very generous before one can be really +just_' is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's way of stating the proposition. And +one calls this sentence to remembrance when recognising how much +generosity is revealed in the act of justice recently performed by Dr. +Paul Heger in his gift to the British Museum (that is to say to English +readers throughout the world) of the four tragical, but incomparably +beautiful, Letters written by Charlotte Brontë to his father, the late +Professor Constantin Heger, within two years of her return to England. + +No doubt this gift _was_ an act of justice. Without the conclusive +evidence these Letters afford, there would have been no means of +rectifying the arbitrary, false, and inadequate criticism of the +personality, and thus, indirectly, of the writings, of a great novelist +misjudged especially in her own country. + +But whilst, for these reasons, the publication of these Letters was a +duty to English literature, the son of the late Director and Directress +of the Bruxelles Pensionnat--unwarrantably supposed to have their +literal counterparts in the interesting Professor Paul Emanuel, and in +the abominable Madame Beck--might well, in view of the unintelligent and +ungenerous criticism of his parents by English readers, have refused to +recognise any obligation on his side to concern himself with the +rectification of the dull laudatory, or the malicious condemnatory, +judgments passed, from a false standpoint, on the authoress of +_Villette._ + +We find Dr. Paul Heger able to rise entirely above all personal rancour, +and to recognise that Charlotte Brontë herself is not to be made +responsible because a good many of her critics have blundered. Indeed, +the conduct of the whole Heger family since the publication of +_Villette_, and the death of Charlotte Brontë, has been distinguished by +this fine spirit of disinterestedness; and by a dignified indifference +to undeserved reproaches. The answer to all charges, of unkindness to +Charlotte on Madame Heger's part, or of injudicious kindness first, +followed by heartless indifference, on M. Heger's side, was in their +hands; and they had only to publish the present Letters to establish the +facts as they really were. But this could not have been done in the time +when _Villette_ appeared, nor even immediately after Charlotte's death, +without wounding others. _Villette_ appeared in 1853. In 1854 Charlotte, +then in her fortieth year, married the Rev. A.B. Nicholls; and she died +less than a year after this marriage. Mr. Nicholls survived her more +than forty years. No doubt he would have been wounded in his +sensibilities by the disclosure of his late wife's entirely honourable, +but very romantic and passionate earlier attachment to somebody else. +Intimate personal friends of Charlotte, also, would have been afflicted, +not by her revelations, but by the commentaries upon them that a +certain type of critic would have infallibly indulged in. Whilst these +conditions lasted, the Heger family scrupulously refrained from +publishing these documents. Twenty years ago, when I was collecting the +materials for my article published in the _Woman at Home_, and when, in +the light of my own recollection of M. and Madame Heger, as their former +pupil, I endeavoured to rectify, what _I knew to be_, false impressions +about their relationships with Charlotte Brontë, I was told by my +honoured and dearly loved friend, Mademoiselle Louise Heger, about the +existence of these Letters; _but they were not shown me._ And I was +further assured that, whilst they would be carefully preserved, they +would not be published, until every one had disappeared who could in any +way be offended by their disclosure. After the lapse of more than half a +century since Charlotte's death, these conditions have now been reached. +And in his admirable Letter to the Principal Librarian of the British +Museum, Dr. Paul Heger explains his reasons for making this present to +the English people of documents entirely honourable to the character of +one of our great writers, and that explain the emotions and experiences +that formed her genius: + +'Sir,--In the name of my sisters and myself' (thus runs the opening +sentence of the Letter reprinted in the _Times_), 'as the +representatives of the late M. Constantin Heger, I beg leave to offer to +the British Museum, as the official custodian on behalf of the British +People, the Letters of Charlotte Brontë, which the great Novelist +addressed to our Father. These four important Letters, which have been +religiously preserved, may be accepted as revealing the soul of the +gifted author whose genius is the pride of England. We have hesitated +long as to whether these documents, so private, so intimate, should be +scanned by the public eye. We have been deterred from offering them +sooner, by the thought that, perhaps, the publicity involved in the gift +might be considered incompatible with the sensitive nature of the artist +herself. But we offer them the more readily, as they lay open the true +significance of what has hitherto been spoken of as the "Secret of +Charlotte Brontë," and show how groundless is the suspicion which has +resulted from the natural speculations of critics and biographers; to +the disadvantage of both parties to the one-sided correspondence. We +then, admirers of her genius and personality, venture to propose that we +may have the honour of placing these Letters in your hands; making only +the condition that they may be preserved for the use of the nation.' + +'Doubtless,' continues Dr. Paul Heger, when dealing with the actual +relations between Charlotte and the Director and Directress of the +school in the Rue d'Isabelle, 'Doubtless, my parents played an important +part in the life of Charlotte Brontë: but she did not enter into their +lives as one would imagine from what passes current to-day. That is +evident enough from the very circumstances of life, so different for +her, and for them. There is nothing in these Letters that is not +entirely honourable to their author, as to him to whom they are +addressed. It is better to lay bare the very innocent mystery, than to +let it be supposed that there is anything to hide. I hope that the +publication of these Letters will bring to an end a legend which has +never had any real existence in fact. I hope so: _but legends are more +tenacious of life than sober reality_.' + +The last observation shows that Dr. Paul Heger, an experienced +_littérateur_, foresaw what has actually happened, and that the +defenders of the two 'legends' of Charlotte Brontë, patronised by +writers who derive the authority for their opinions about her, not from +the study of the facts of her life and character, but from their own +impressions and convictions, are not going to admit that the legends are +overthrown, simply because it has been proved that they are founded upon +mistakes. At the same time, no statement can be more true than that +'facts are stubborn things,' and that, when these 'stubborn things' are +found arrayed in stern and uncompromising opposition to the impressions +and convictions of the most accomplished psychological theorists--well, +it is the psychological theorists who must give way. + +And this is the situation that has to be faced to-day by critics of +Charlotte Brontë, who have either formed their opinions about her in the +light of their impression that _Villette_ represents an autobiographical +study, or else who have founded their judgments of her personality and +genius as a writer upon their conviction that it is a '_silly and +offensive imputation_' to suppose that her sentiment for M. Heger was a +warmer feeling than the esteem and gratitude a clever pupil owes an +accomplished professor. + +In connection with the tenacity of life of this last theory (after the +publication of the evidence which proves it is a mistake), we have to +consider with serious attention the account rendered in the _Times_ of +the 30th July 1913, of an interview with Mr. Clement Shorter, known to +be the most distinguished supporter, in the past, of the doctrine that +Charlotte's sentiment for Professor Heger was 'literary enthusiasm,' and +nothing more. And this serious attention is needed, because, in Mr. +Clement Shorter's case, it is not allowable to dismiss lightly the +judgment of a critic who (after Mrs. Gaskell) has done more than +any one else to throw light upon the family history of the Brontës, +and also upon and around those three interesting and touching +personalities--Emily, Anne, and, the greatest of them all, Charlotte, +amongst the familiar scenes and personages of their environment at +Haworth, both before and after they had conquered their unique place in +English literature. One cannot for a moment suppose that Mr. Clement +Shorter wilfully refuses to see things as they really are, simply +because it pleases him to see them differently? No! One realises +perfectly that, as with Mrs. Gaskell fifty-seven years ago, _so_ with +this modern conscientious and generous critic to-day there exists an +entirely noble, and, _from a given point of view_, justifiable reason, +for refusing to handle or examine a matter with which (so it is alleged) +historical and literary criticism has no concern--a purely personal, and +intimate secret sorrow, in the life of an admirable woman of genius; the +sanctuary of whose inner feelings it is by no means necessary to +explore: and still less necessary to throw open to the vulgar curiosity +and malevolent insinuations of a generation of critics, infected with +hero-phobia, and the unwholesome delight of discovering '_a good deal to +reprobate and even more to laugh at_,' in the sensibility of men and +women of genius, who have honoured the human race, and enriched the +world, _because_ they have possessed through power of feeling, power +also of doing fine work, that the critics who find much in them 'to +reprobate and more to laugh at' have not the power even to appreciate. +Now, _if_ the point of view of Mrs. Gaskell and Mr. Clement Shorter were +a correct one, with all my heart and soul I, for my part, should approve +of their action in slamming the door in the face of invading facts that +threatened to leave the way open for scandal-hunters and hero-phobists +to enter with them, and to deal with the honoured reputation of +Charlotte Brontë in the same way that--more to the discredit of English +letters than to that of two French writers of genius--recent critics +have dealt with the love-letters of Madame de Staël and George Sand. + +This point of view, however, is a mistaken one in the present case, +because, to commence with, Charlotte Brontë's romantic love for M. Heger +affords no game to the scandal-hunter; but, on the contrary, it is +serviceable to the just appreciation of her character, as well as of her +genius, that her true sentiment for her Professor--_that explains her +attitude of mind when writing 'Villette'_--should be rightly understood. +Then also, whilst Madame de Staël's infatuation for Benjamin Constant +neither adds to nor diminishes her claims, as the authoress of _Corinne_ +and _de l'Allemagne_, to the rank of a fine writer and a great critic, +and while George Sand's tormenting and tormented love for the ill-fated, +irresistible, unstable 'child of his century,' de Musset, is a poignant +revelation of the passing weakness (through immense tenderness) of a +splendidly strong and independent spirit, that one is almost ashamed to +be made the spectator of, Charlotte Brontë's valorous martyrdom, +undergone secretly and silently, and 'rewarded openly,' fills one with +an extraordinary sentiment of respect for her: and justifies Mr. Clement +Shorter's own fine and generous utterances upon the impression that the +Letters that betray the anguish she endured, and overcame, alone, +produces upon him. + +'_Charlotte Brontë_,' said Mr. Clement Shorter, by the report of an +interviewer who recorded his opinions in the _Times_, 30th July, +immediately after the publication of these Letters, '_is one of the +noblest figures in life as well as in literature; and these Letters +place her on a higher pedestal than ever_.' + +Let me quote from the same report in the _Times_ the further statement +of his opinions given by this well-known critic, as to the sentiments +revealed in these Letters: + + 'Mr. Shorter,' affirmed the interviewer, 'welcomed the + publication of the letters in the _Times_ "as giving the + last and final word on an old and needless controversy." + "Personally," he said, "I have always held the view that + those letters were actuated only by the immense enthusiasm + of a woman desiring comradeship and sympathy with a man of + the character of Professor Heger. There was no sort of + great sorrow on her part because Professor Heger was a + married man, and it is plain in her letters that she merely + desired comradeship with a great man. When Charlotte Brontë + made her name famous with her best-known novel, she + experienced much the same adulation from admirers of both + sexes as she had already poured upon her teacher. She found + that literary comradeship she desired in half a dozen male + correspondents to whom she addressed letters in every way as + interesting as those written by her to Professor Heger. + There is nothing in those letters of hers, published now for + the first time, that any enthusiastic woman might not write + to a man double her age, who was a married man with a + family, and who had been her teacher. When one considers + that half a dozen writers have, in the past, declared that + Charlotte Brontë was in love with Professor Heger, it is a + surprising thing that Dr. Heger did not years ago publish + the letters. They are a complete vindication both of her and + of his father, and, as such, I welcome them, as I am sure + must all lovers of the Brontës."' + +In his first contention Mr. Clement Shorter is undeniably right: it _is_ +quite true that '_the publication of these Letters places Charlotte +Brontë on a higher pedestal than ever_.' But why is this true? _Because +these are love-letters of a very rare and wonderful character_; because +the passionate tragical emotion that throbs through them is a love that, +recognised as hopeless, as unrequited, makes only one claim; that, +_precisely because it makes no other_, it has a right to be accepted and +to live. Now this sort of love is a _very rare and wonderful emotion, +that only a noble being can feel; and that although it is hopeless, +tragical, is nevertheless a splendid fact, that renders it absurd to +deny that sublime unselfishness is a capacity of human nature_. And, +again, these letters place Charlotte Brontë 'on a higher pedestal than +ever,' because in them her vocation and gift of expressing her own +emotions in a way that makes them 'vibrate' in us like living feelings +is here carried to its height. So that these personal letters, more even +than the pictured emotions of Lucy Snowe, stand out as a record of +romantic love that (in so far as I know) has never before been rivalled. +It is true we have the romantic love-letters of Abelard and Héloïse, and +the letters in the _New Héloïse_ of Saint-Preux to Julie, and of Julie +to Saint-Preux, after their separation, as beautiful examples of love +surviving hope of happiness; and Sainte-Beuve has quoted, as examples of +the tragical disinterested passion of a love that claims no return, but +only the right to exist, the letters of some eighteenth-century women: +Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, Madame de la Popelinière, and Mademoiselle +d'Aissé. But in none of these historic love-letters (so, at least, it +seems to me) does one feel, with the same truth and strength as in these +recently published letters of Charlotte Brontë to M. Heger, the +'vibration' of this tragical, hopeless, romantic love, that asks for +nothing but acceptance, that does not 'seek its own'--the love that only +asks to give, compared with which all other sorts of love, that _do_ +seek their own and claim return, are as sounding brass and a tinkling +cymbal. + +But now, if we were to accept the view of these letters, that they do +not express love at all, but merely the writer's '_desire of comradeship +with a great man_': and that '_after she had become famous "she found +that literary comradeship she desired, in half a dozen male +correspondents, to whom she addressed letters in every way as +interesting as those written by her to M. Heger_"'; and that '_there is +nothing in these letters that any enthusiastic woman might not write to +a man double her age, who was a married man with a family, and who had +been her teacher_'--if we could accept all these views, could we _then_ +hold the opinion that 'the publication of these letters places Charlotte +on a higher pedestal than ever'? + +It seems to me, on the contrary, that _then_ we should find ourselves +compelled to admit that Charlotte Brontë had fallen very much in our +esteem as a result of the publication of these Letters. For whilst +romantic love is a noble sentiment that does honour to the heart that +feels it, an '_immense enthusiasm for literary comradeship with great +men_' is not _necessarily_, nor generally even, a commendable sentiment. +It is very often merely a rather vulgar and selfish persistency in +claiming the time and attention of busy people who don't want the +comradeship; and I suppose there are very few people in the least degree +famous who have not been rightly harassed by the 'enthusiasm' of +professing admirers who have nothing to do themselves, and who want +busy men or women of letters to correspond with them. And if a desire of +comradeship with M. Heger had really been the sentiment and motive of +Charlotte's letters to him, after she left Bruxelles, then the fact that +she continued to write to him although he did not answer her letters +would prove that she was insisting upon being the 'comrade' of some one +who did not want her. Again, if the tone and terms of these Letters to +M. Heger in 1845 were the same that she employed with '_half a dozen +other male correspondents_,' after she became a famous writer, well +Charlotte _would_ fall in our estimation, both as a writer, who ought to +know how to avoid extravagant language, and as a self-respecting woman +who should not have allowed her enthusiasm for literary comradeship to +induce her to repeat experiences that, without loss of dignity, one +cannot pass through more than once in a lifetime. + +Happily, however, attention to facts proves that none of the conditions +that, if they had existed, would have rendered the writing of these +Letters discreditable to Charlotte's reputation, can be accepted as in +the least credible. It is not credible that her sentiment for M. Heger +was that of intellectual enthusiasm for a great man double her age; +because, to begin with, M, Heger was _not_ double Charlotte Brontë's +age, but only seven years her senior. About this question there can be +no dispute. M. Heger was born in 1809; and Charlotte Brontë in 1816. In +1844 Charlotte then was twenty-eight, and M. Heger thirty-five years of +age, and given the fact that women lose their youth first, M. Heger had +precisely the age that would render him most sympathetic to a woman who +was still young but who had left girlhood behind her. Again, M. Heger +was not a '_Great Man_,' in the sense of being either a celebrity, or an +original genius with gifts or qualities of an order calculated to kindle +intellectual hero-worship; and he was further a dictatorial and +ingrained Professor, the very last person on earth to offer literary +comradeship to a former pupil. The Director of the Pensionnat in the Rue +d'Isabelle, and the former _Préfet des Études_ at the Brussels +_Athénée_ (who had resigned this post when religious instruction, made a +free subject, was excluded, as a compulsory Catholic training from the +college curriculum) was a man of talent, who had weight in Catholic +circles, and was recognised in his character of a Professor as one with +an admirable gift for teaching, even by the enemies of his religious +convictions; but he was not in any way, save as a teacher, a +distinguished or famous personage; and in all probability if this +English writer of genius had not immortalised him in the character of +'Paul Emanuel,' M. Heger would not have outlived the affectionate and +respectful remembrance of his family and personal friends. + +The method of testing the question of whether intellectual enthusiasm, +or tragical romantic love is the sentiment revealed in these Letters is +_to read the Letters themselves--in the light of a true impression of +the real relationships (when they were written) between Charlotte Brontë +and M. Heger_, that is to say in the first twelve months that followed +Charlotte's farewell to the Director and the Directress of the +Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, in January 1844. And to obtain this +right impression, we have to see what had taken place, to alter the +original entirely friendly terms between Madame Heger and the English +under-mistress, who during the first year of her stay in Brussels had +been a parlour-boarder:--for the story told in _Villette_ of Lucy +Snowe's arrival at the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle late at night, +and with no place of shelter, having lost her box and been robbed of her +purse on the voyage, is, to start with, an incident that has no place in +the true history. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CHARLOTTE'S LAST YEAR AT BRUSSELS + +1842-43 + + +What were Charlotte Brontë's real relationships with Monsieur and Madame +Heger when, in January 1844, she bade them, what was to prove, a final +farewell? This is what has to be understood before we can read with a +full sense of their true meaning the tragical impassioned Letters to M. +Heger, written within the first two years of Charlotte's return to +England, Letters that not only place the authoress of _Jane Eyre_ and +_Villette_ (as a devotee, and an exponent of Romantic love) on a 'higher +pedestal than ever,' but that, also, explain at what cost of personal +anguish she attained as a writer her extraordinary power of translating +emotions into words, that, by the impression they produce retranslate +themselves to her readers' imagination and sensibilities as feelings. + +We have always to remember that the relationships between Charlotte and +her former Professor were not those that existed between Lucy Snowe and +her 'Master.' Paul Emanuel was unmarried, and in love with Lucy, +although Madame Beck and the Jesuit, Père Silas,--and in the end +Destiny--prevented the love-story from reaching a happy ending. + +Nor were these relationships, as the facts of the case reveal them, +those imagined by Mr. Clement Shorter; where '_it was no cause of grief +to Charlotte that M. Heger was married_,' because her enthusiasm for him +was that of simple hero-worship for a great man. Nor yet were these +relationships, when she left Bruxelles in 1844 (nor had they been for +some ten months before that date), the same relationships (of trustful +friendship on the one hand and sympathetic interest on the other) that +had existed between Charlotte and the Director and Directress of the +Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle when, a year earlier (in January 1843), +Charlotte had returned to Bruxelles alone, _in response to Madame's as +well as Monsieur's invitation_, to perfect her own French, and to +receive a small salary as English Mistress. These first relationships +had continued untroubled for the first few months after Charlotte's +return. Thus, in March 1843, writing to her friend Ellen Nussey, she +qualifies her complaints of loneliness in the Pensionnat (without the +companionship she had enjoyed the previous year of her dearly loved +sister Emily) by reference to the kindness of Madame, as well as of +Monsieur Heger. + +'As I told you before,' she writes, 'M. and Madame Heger are the only +two persons in the house for whom I really experience regard and esteem; +and of course I cannot be always with them, nor even very often. They +told me, when I first returned, that I was to consider their +sitting-room my sitting-room, and to go there whenever I was not engaged +in the schoolroom. This, however, I cannot do. In the daytime it is a +public room, where music-masters and mistresses are constantly passing +in and out; and in the evening I will not, and ought not, to intrude on +M. and Madame Heger and their children. Thus I am a good deal by +myself; but that does not signify. I now regularly give English lessons +to M. Heger and his brother-in-law. They get on with wonderful rapidity, +especially the first.[1] + +So that, up to this date, no cloud is visible. But by May 29 there is a +cloud above the horizon. It is no bigger than 'a man's hand' as yet: but +it is charged with electricity, and one knows the storm is gathering. +This time Charlotte is writing to Emily, _who never liked M. Heger for +her part_. 'Things wag on much as usual here, only Mlle. Blanche and +Mlle. Haussé are at present on a system of war without quarter. They +hate each other like two cats. Mlle. Blanche frightens Mlle. Haussé by +her white passions, for they quarrel venomously; Mlle. Haussé complains +that when Mlle. Blanche is in a fury "_elle n'a pas de lèvres_." I find +also that Mlle. Sophie dislikes Mlle. Blanche extremely. She says she is +heartless, insincere and vindictive, which epithets, I assure you, are +richly deserved. _Also I find she is the regular spy of Madame Heger, +to whom she reports everything. Also she invents, which I should not +have thought_. I am [not] richly off for companionship in these parts. +_Of late days, M. and Madame Heger rarely speak to me; and I really +don't pretend to care a fig for anybody else in the establishment_. You +are not to suppose by that expression that I am under the influence of +_warm_ affection for Madame Heger. _I am convinced she does not like me: +why, I can't tell_. (O Charlotte!) _Nor do I think she herself has any +definite reason for this aversion_.(!) But for one thing, she cannot +understand why I do not make intimate friends of Mesdames Blanche, +Sophie and Haussé. M. Heger is wondrously influenced by Madame: and I +should not wonder if he disapproves very much of my unamiable want of +sociability. He has already given me a brief lecture on universal +_bienveillance_; and perceiving that I don't improve in consequence, I +fancy he has taken to considering me as a person to be let alone, left +to the error of her ways, and consequently he has, in a great measure, +withdrawn the light of his countenance; and I get on from day to day, +in a Robinson Crusoe like condition, very lonely. That does not signify; +in other respects I have nothing substantial to complain of, nor is even +this a cause of complaint. _Except for the loss of M. Heger's goodwill +(if I have lost it,) I care for none of 'em_.'[2] + +Let us see what this letter, written eight months before Charlotte left +Bruxelles, tells us about the altered facts of the relationships between +herself and the Directress and Director of the School. First, it is no +longer Monsieur and Madame Heger who are the only people Charlotte cares +about in the establishment, _but it is only the goodwill of M. Heger +that she would grieve to lose_. And Madame Heger, who so kindly invited +her to consider the family sitting-room hers, now takes no notice of +her, and, Charlotte knows it, has taken an aversion to her. And when M. +Heger says, 'Don't you think, "Mees Charlotte," who is lonely without +her sister Emily, should be taken more notice of?' Madame Heger replies +coldly: '_If "Mees" is lonely, it is her own fault. Why does she not +make friends with her compeers, Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Sophie and +Haussé?_ They are of her rank; they follow the same profession; no, this +young Englishwoman is full of the pride and narrowness of her race! She +is without _bienveillance_: she esteems herself better than others, she +makes her own unhappiness; _and it is not for her good to single her out +amongst the other excellent under-mistresses as we have done_. Let her +make herself friends amongst them: _let her learn to be amiable_.' And +M. Heger, who thinks there is something true in this, because his +unalterable opinion is that it belongs to the English character, and to +the Protestant creed, to be proud, narrow, unamiable and without +benevolence, lectures Charlotte in this sense. Here are the facts of the +situation in May 1843. + +Now what has happened in these few months to so change the relationships +between Charlotte and Madame Heger, and to render Monsieur Heger--_under +Madame's influence_--less friendly and helpful than he had formerly +been, in his efforts to encourage the studies, and brighten by gifts of +books, and talks about them, the solitude of the English teacher? It is +not very difficult to discover the cause of the change, if only critics +with psychological insight would employ this quality, not to fabricate +problems out of false impressions, but to penetrate the true +significance of the evidence that lies open to one, of the actual +circumstances and facts. + +The circumstance that explains the fact of Madame Heger's altered +conduct and feeling towards the English under-mistress whom only a few +months earlier she had invited to use her own sitting-room, and to +regard herself as a member of the family, and whom _now_ she scarcely +speaks to, and thinks should find companions with the other +under-mistresses, is a discovery that Madame probably made, before even +Charlotte herself had fully recognised what had happened. This discovery +is that a change has taken place in Charlotte's sentiment towards her +'Master in literature'; a sentiment that at first had not transgressed +the limits of a cordial and affectionate appreciation of his kindness +and of his talent and charm and power as a teacher--approved of by +Madame Heger as a becoming sentiment in this young person, convenient, +'convenable.' But as Charlotte's exclusive pleasure in M. Heger's +society and conversation increases, with her distaste for the society +and conversation of every one else with whom she is now in daily +contact, and as the charm of his original personality grows, with her +sense of the natural disparity between herself and the self-controlled +Directress, whose rule of life is respect for what is _convenient,_ in +the French sense of _la convenance_ (_i.e._ what is _becoming_) and of +revolt against the vulgarity and profligacy she finds as the +distinguishing characteristics of her fellow-governesses, this sentiment +becomes transformed (insensibly and fatally, without her knowledge or +will) into a passionate personal devotion--in other words, into a +sentiment that does transgress very seriously indeed the limits of the +sort of feeling that Madame Heger, in her double character of directress +of a highly esteemed Pensionnat de Demoiselles, and of the wife of +Monsieur Heger--esteems 'convenient,' in the case of an under-mistress +in her establishment. It was not a question of ordinary jealousy at all. +Madame Heger, a much more attractive woman than Charlotte Brontë in so +far as her personal appearance was concerned, was absolutely convinced +of the affection and fidelity of her husband, and of the entirely and +exclusively professorial interest he took in assisting this clever and +zealous and meritorious daughter of an evangelical Pastor, to qualify +herself for a schoolmistress in her own country. It was entirely a +question of the '_inconvenience_'--the unbecoming character of this +unfortunate infatuation, that renders it entirely intolerable; something +that must be got rid of at once; but as quietly as possible, without +exciting remark, and with as much consideration for this imprudent, +unhappy 'Mees Charlotte' as possible. The whole affair is a misfortune, +of course, 'un malheur': but what one has to do, now it _has_ arrived, +is to guard against even greater 'malheurs' for everybody concerned. For +'Mees Charlotte' herself, first of all--what a 'malheur' should this +'infatuation,' involuntary and blameless in intention, no doubt, but so +utterly inconvenient, betray itself in some regrettable exhibition of +feeling, most humiliating to herself, and most distressing to her only +parent, the respectable widowed evangelical Pastor in Yorkshire! And +then for the Pensionnat, what a 'malheur' should any gossip arise: and +what sort of an effect would it produce upon the mind of parents of +pupils, who most naturally would object to the knowledge of the +existence even of a sentiment so inconvenient as this being brought to +the knowledge of their young daughters? And confronted with these +perils, Madame Heger's conclusion upon the only way of avoiding them, is +really not a very unreasonable nor unkind one. It is that the sooner +'Mees Brontë' returns to her home in Yorkshire, the better for herself, +and for the interests and the tranquillity of the Director and the +Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle: who wish to sever +their relationships with her on friendly terms; who, in the future, +when she has cured herself of this unhappy extravagance (as no doubt her +good sense and excellent upbringing will assist her to do) hope to renew +their intercourse with her; but who, in the circumstances that have +arisen, think it better all intimacy should be suspended. + +Nor, having formed this conclusion, was Madame Heger's method of +endeavouring to force Charlotte to adopt it also, either wilfully unkind +or inconsiderate. Her method was to convey forcibly to Charlotte's +knowledge _without any needless humiliating explanations_, that she, the +Directress of the Pensionnat where Charlotte was under-mistress, has +penetrated the secret of her feelings towards M. Heger, and consequently +that the old terms between herself and Charlotte have become impossible, +and that the necessity has arisen to assert her claims and to establish +the rules that must be observed in the ordering of the Pensionnat and of +the staff of teachers for which she is responsible. Without discussions +or recriminations in connection with the reasons for this decision, +these mere reasons, well known to Miss Brontë herself, convince her +that it is not convenient 'Mees' should continue a teacher, or even an +inmate, in her school any more; and surely this circumstance alone +should point out to 'Mees' herself, what she ought to do? Let her do +this, let her take the opportunity offered her of relieving Madame Heger +of the painful necessity of touching upon distressing subjects, and the +secret they share shall never be made known to any one, _not even to M. +Heger himself_, who is entirely unconscious of it. An explanation could +easily be found by 'Mees' for the necessity of her return to +England:--her aged father's infirmities, the establishment of the school +that she is now qualified to manage, etc.--and all this matter will +arrange itself quietly. _To bring Charlotte to dismiss herself_ was +Madame Heger's purpose: but in view of the slowness and reluctance of +this obstinate Englishwoman to recognise what was 'becoming,' and +expected from her, the immediate object became to guard against any +self-betrayal by Charlotte of her state of feeling to other members of +the establishment, _and especially to M. Heger,_ whom Madame knew to be +entirely innocent of any warm feeling resembling romantic sentiment for +the homely but intelligent and zealous Englishwoman, whose progress +under his instruction and capacity for appreciating good literature made +her interesting to him as a pupil, whilst her meritorious courage in +working to qualify herself to earn her own bread as an instructress +herself claimed his approval--but whom he had not as yet suspected of a +tragical passion for him. _And Madame Heger esteemed it most undesirable +he should ever make the discovery._ And _therefore_ her immediate care +was to guard against the occasion of such a revelation being given: and +_therefore_ she endeavours to stop private lessons given by M. Heger to +Charlotte, or English lessons given by her in return; _therefore_ too, +she works to prevent any intercourse or meetings between the Professor +and this particular pupil, outside of the presence of spectators and +listeners, whose unsympathetic but attentive eyes and ears will impose +restraint upon this extravagant Charlotte; so little under the control +of good sense and respect for what is becoming. + +But now these tactics followed by Madame Heger, although from her own +point of view they were as considerate and judicious as the interests of +Charlotte, the Pensionnat, and 'convenience' permitted, and although no +personal jealousy, vindictiveness nor malice entered into them, +nevertheless _from Charlotte's point of view_ were intolerable and +cruel; and the torments they inflicted upon her during the long seven +months she lived through this incessant conflict with Madame Heger, +under cover of an outer show of politeness on both sides, were precisely +the same torments of cheated expectancy, suspense, thwarted hope, +disappointments, that she has painted in _Villette_, and the +_Professor_, as inflicted upon the hapless governesses Lucy Snowe and +Frances Henri, by those two cruel, pitiless head-mistresses Madame Beck +and Mlle. Zoraïde Reuter. Yes:--but there was all the difference in the +world between the circumstances arranged by the authoress in her two +novels, and the circumstances as a mischievous destiny had entangled +them in the true history. + +In the stories made to please her fancy by Charlotte, we have in +_Villette_ Paul Emanuel unmarried--and in love with Lucy Snowe; but by +the base contrivances of Madame Beck, a Jesuit priest, Père Silas, has +been called in, to stir up superstitious dread of allying himself with a +heretic in the mind of the good Catholic that Paul was, and so prevent +him from carrying through certain tentative indications of the state of +his affections that have awakened and justified the passionate but timid +and self-despising Lucy Snowe. Nothing then can be more plain than the +position here--Paul Emanuel and Lucy Snowe are being divided, and +trouble is being created, by a horrid, jealous, mischievous Madame Beck, +who wants Paul Emanuel to marry her, although she knows he loves Lucy, +and that Lucy is in love with him, but too little self-confident, too +feeble, in her dependent position, to assert her claims. In the +_Professor_ it is much the same case, only Mlle. Zoraïde Reuter is more +of a cat than Madame Beck, and less an evil genius, who demands +admiration for her cleverness whilst Mlle. Zoraïde, who makes coarse +love to the Professor, provokes contempt. + +Well but now here is the real case. Madame Heger knows that here is the +English daughter of an Evangelical Pastor, who (although she is old +enough to look after herself), is nevertheless under her (Madame's) +protection, and behold this young woman has taken it into her head to +conceive a most inconvenient infatuation for her husband, M. Heger! Now +how is one to meet this situation in the best way for everybody? Happily +the secret lies between herself and Mees Charlotte: it rests with Mees +to take herself out of harm's way: and all is safe. But that is what she +will not do. So here you have the position: this grown-up, obstinate +Englishwoman, with her 'inconvenient' passion, always on the verge of +exhibiting her sentiments in a way that may inform M. Heger--who is the +best of men; most honourable, but still a man--who may or may not see +how serious this is: who may tell one, 'Let _me_ talk reason to her,' +which is the last course to take! It is true, Madame will have said to +herself, 'I might take matters into my hands; and since she has no sense +of 'convenience' herself, I might say: 'Mees, I exact this of you: +_immediately_ you make up your trunks, and return to Yorkshire; you +start to-morrow.' Yes, but what happens then? There are +observations,--indignation is excited. M. Heger will say to me, 'What +now is this sudden attitude you take up towards Mees? it is not just.' +And if I explain, he may say: 'You imagine things; you women are not +good to each other.' Or he may say: 'Let _me talk to Mees Charlotte_,' +and then there will be _attaques de nerfs_--who can say? No, there is +only one thing to do: as this Englishwoman has not herself any sense of +'convenience.' We must be patient until the end of the year, when her +term is finished. _Then she goes_, arrive what may. And, meanwhile, one +must support it; only she must not meet M. Heger alone: and one must +constantly take precautions, in this sense, against scenes.' + +Well, was there anything very cruel, or hard-hearted, or vindictive, in +Madame Heger's conduct? If you are a psychologist, put yourself in her +place. What could she have done with this entanglement of circumstances, +all menacing what she most valued, a watchful preservation of +'convenience,' most necessary in a Pensionnat de _Jeunes Filles_ of high +repute? If any one will suggest a plan that would have been more +considerate to Charlotte than the one she took, I should very much like +to hear what plan? Even then, in the light of what I know of Madame +Heger's incapability of a deliberate desire to torture, or inflict +severe punishment on any pupil, or teacher, or living thing, I should +still protest confidently that in all she did--that sweet and kind old +schoolmistress of mine--in the days when she was twenty years younger +than when I knew her--she _meant_ to be considerate and kind. + +Without attempting to decide who, between Charlotte and Madame Heger, +was to blame, or whether either of them were to blame, here, at any +rate, we have the conditions of feeling between these two women: each +exasperated against the other, under the strain of a forced politeness, +during the last seven months of Charlotte's residence in Bruxelles. No +doubt, for both of them the strain was great. All this time (without +saying it out aloud) Madame Heger was forcing upon Charlotte's +attention, the '_inconvenience_' of her presence in the Pensionnat; the +necessity for her return to England. All this time Charlotte--outwardly +compliant with all the demands made upon her, that keep her writing +letters at Madame's dictation (_in the hours when Monsieur is giving his +lessons in class_), that send her upon messages to the other end of +Bruxelles (_upon holidays when Monsieur's habit is to trim the vine +above the Berceau in the garden_)--all this time, Charlotte's bitter +protest spoke out in the gaze she fastened on the Directress: 'Merciless +woman that you are! _you_ who have everything; who are his wife, the +mother of his children, whom he loves; who will enjoy his conversation +and his society, and the pleasant home you share with him, all your +life; and who grudge me--I, who have nothing of all this, but who love +him more--I, who in a few months must go out into the dark world, +without the light his presence is to me; without the music his voice +makes for me; without the delight his conversation is to my mind, and +the complete satisfaction his society brings to my whole nature--and you +grudge me these few months of happiness? Rich and cruel woman, who, in +your selfish life possess all this, you are more cruel than Dives was to +Lazarus; you grudge me even the crumbs that fall from your table.' + + +[1] _Life of C.B._, p. 254. + +[2] _Life_, p. 258. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE CONFESSIONS AT ST. GUDULE + + +We are now in a position to realise the emotions and experiences that +lasted up to the eve of Charlotte's return to England. But there are two +events that vary the incessant conflict with Madame Heger; and that help +to form the basis of real experiences, expressed in the portraits (that +are not historical pictures) of Zoraïde Reuter and of Madame Beck. These +two events also re-appear, as scenes in _Villette, that did not take +place in the way the authoress relates_ them; but that put us in +possession of the parallel facts in Charlotte's true career: where she +felt the very same emotions she describes in the novel. The first event +gives us the actual, the original history, of what in _Villette_ +reappears in the imaginary account of Lucy Snowe's Confession: and +serves there to introduce us to the Jesuit who is half a spy and half a +saint--Père Silas. In Charlotte's life the event, as it is related by +her in a letter to Emily, took place during that long and solitary +vacation in the empty Pensionnat, where, from August to October 1843, +Charlotte was left to face the position now made for her by Madame +Heger's discovery of the Secret that, possessed by her enemy, could not +remain hidden from Charlotte herself. + +Charlotte's letter to Emily begins by describing the desolation of this +large house, with its deserted class-rooms, and silent garden, and +galérie, and for her solitary companion only the repulsive-minded and +malicious Mademoiselle Blanche, whom she has described in an earlier +letter as a spy of Madame Heger's. + +'I should inevitably,' she writes, 'fall into the gulf of low spirits if +I stayed always by myself.... Yesterday I went on a pilgrimage to the +cemetery, and far beyond it, on to a hill where there was nothing but +fields as far as the horizon. When I came back it was evening, but I had +such a repugnance to return to the house which contained nothing that I +cared for, that I kept treading the narrow streets in the neighbourhood +of the Rue d'Isabelle, and avoiding it. I found myself opposite to _Ste. +Gudule_; and the bell, whose voice you know, began to toll for evening +_salût_. I went in quite alone (which procedure you will say is not much +like me), wandered about the aisles (where a few old women were saying +their prayers), till vespers. I stayed till they were over. Still I +could not leave the church nor force myself to go home--to school, I +mean. _An odd whim_ came into my head. In a solitary part of the +cathedral six or seven people still remained, kneeling by the +Confessionals. In two Confessionals I saw a Priest. I felt as if I did +not care what I did, provided it was not absolutely wrong, and that it +served to vary my life and yield a moment's interest. I took a fancy to +change myself into a Catholic, and go and make _a real Confession_ to +see what it was like. Knowing me as you do, you will think this odd, +_but when people are by themselves they have singular fancies_. A +penitent was occupied in confessing. They do not go into the sort of pew +or cloister the priest occupies, but kneel down on the steps and +confess through a grating. Both the confessor and the penitent whisper +very low: you can hardly hear their voices. After I had watched two or +three penitents go, and return, I approached at last, and knelt down in +a niche which was just vacated. I had to kneel there ten minutes +waiting, for on the other side was another penitent, invisible to me. At +last that one went away, and a little wooden door inside the grating +opened and I saw the Priest leaning his ear toward me. I was obliged to +begin, and yet I did not know a word of the formula with which they +always commence their confessions!... I began by saying I was a +foreigner and had been brought up as a Protestant. The Priest asked if I +was a Protestant then. I somehow could not tell a lie, and said yes. He +replied that in that case I could not "_jouir du bonheur de la +confesse_," but _I was determined to confess_, and at last he said he +would allow me, because it might be the first step towards returning +towards the true Church. _I actually did confess--a real Confession_. +When I had done he told me his address, and said that every morning I +was to go to the Rue du Parc to his house, and he would reason with me +and try to convince me of the error and enormity of being a Protestant. +I promised faithfully. Of course, however, the adventure stops here: and +_I hope I shall never see the Priest again_. I think you had better not +tell Papa this. He will not understand that it was _only a freak_, and +will perhaps think I am going to turn Catholic.' + +Only 'a freak'?--an 'odd whim'? Even without the knowledge of the +special facts we now possess, could any serious student of Charlotte +Brontë believe it? Given what we know of her seriousness, of her +religious temper, that cannot take spiritual things lightly, of her +rational Protestant piety, of her antipathy to Catholic formulas--given +all this as characteristic of her aspirations,--and as characteristics +of her personality, shyness, and reserve carried almost to +morbidness--can any one believe that mere _ennui_, a craving for +variety, excitement, flung this normally shamefaced, timid Englishwoman +down on her knees, on the stone steps of the Sainte Gudule +Confessional; inspired her with the determination needed to withstand +the Priest's objections to allow her, as a Protestant, _de jouir du +bonheur de la confesse_; compelled her to insist upon her claim, by +virtue of her dire need of this '_happiness_' (or at any rate of this +_relief_) of unburthening her soul by a 'real Confession'? A _real_ +Confession--of _what_? What crime has this poor innocent Charlotte on +her conscience that stands in such need of confession? No crime, we may +be sure. Only the weight, the misery of this tragic 'Secret'; too +intimate, too sacred to be confided even to those nearest to her,--even +to Emily. But now that her 'enemy' holds it, too grievous a secret to +remain unshared with Some One, who is not an enemy, nor yet a friend--a +stranger, who will not blush nor tremble for her, will not see her +whilst she whispers through the grating: whom she will not see, or meet +again;--Some One, who by profession, is God's Delegate of Mercy to +deliver the unwilling offender, who repents him of his secret sins, +Some One who is pledged, when he has given pardon and consolation, +_never to betray what he has heard--to forget it even_. Some One who, +experienced in offering counsel and consolation, may (who can say?) +offer some comfort or advice, assisting her to extricate herself from +the snare into which she has fallen, and to recover safety. + +Does one not know what the 'Confession,' whispered through the grating, +really was? Or can one doubt what the Priest's advice was? Was it not +necessarily the same advice so urgently forced upon her by Madame Heger? +She must escape from the peril of temptation: she must not show this +tragic passion any mercy: she must break this spell: she must go back to +England. She felt she could not do this thing of herself without 'God's +special grace preventing her'? Therefore she must diligently seek to +obtain this grace _by the aid of the Holy Catholic Church_--and she must +call in the Rue du Parc--next morning. In so far as the last +recommendation went, we know Charlotte did not follow it. _The +adventure_--as she says herself, _stopped there_. Nor is there anything +in her own story to indicate the existence of any real Jesuit, taking +the place of the mischief-making Saint, Père Silas, familiar to readers +of _Villette_. The Priest of Ste. Gudule comes to us as a more +impressive personage just because Charlotte _never met him again._ + +But his advice remained vividly present to her recollection we may feel +sure. On the 23rd October, about a month after this event, she writes +once more to Ellen Nussey:-- + +'It is a curious position to be so utterly solitary in the midst of +numbers. One day lately I felt as if I could bear it no longer _and I +went to Madame Heger and gave her notice. If it had depended upon her I +should certainly have soon been at liberty. But M. Heger having heard of +what was in agitation, sent for me the day after and pronounced with +vehemence his decision that I could not leave. I could not at that time +have persevered in my intentions without exciting him to anger; and +promised to stay a little while longer._' + +And so what had to be done in the end was postponed: and the old hidden +enmity between Charlotte and Madame Heger went on for another three +months. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE LEAVE-TAKING--THE SCENE IN THE +CLASS-ROOM--CHARLOTTE LEAVES BRUSSELS + + +Two other events that we know must have happened within a few days of +Charlotte's departure from Brussels, 2nd January 1844, are lit up by the +emotions painted in _Villette._ We cannot doubt that these emotions were +suffered by the woman of genius who describes them, because it is, not +imagination, but remembrance, that has given these pages the magical +touch of life, the 'vibration' that translates words 'into feelings,' so +that we are not readers, but witnesses, of what this tormented heart +endures. + +Anguish of suspense; heart-sickness of hope deferred; despair, following +on repeated disappointment; rage and indignation at the cruelty and +injustice of this outrage done to a Love, that has wronged no one, +robbed no one, that has no desire to inflict injury on others; yet that +is refused the right that even the condemned criminal is _not_ +refused,--to bid farewell to what he holds most dear on earth before he +goes forth to execution--all these feelings are painted in the wonderful +pages, where the circumstances of the story nevertheless are legendary, +and belong to the parable of Lucy Snowe: but where the sufferings Lucy +endures on the eve of her separation from Paul Emanuel were facts stored +up in the experiences of Charlotte Brontë. + +Like the incident of Lucy Snowe's 'Confession,' the passages that in +_Villette_ describe the efforts made by Madame Beck and the Jesuit, Père +Silas, to prevent Paul Emanuel from bidding Lucy farewell, before he +starts for his voyage to Basseterres in Guadeloupe, are pages from the +spiritual life of Charlotte Brontë--taken out of their proper frame of +circumstances, and altered in some important details. But outside of +these alterations, one recognises their truthfulness, in the vivid light +they throw upon the facts told us in Charlotte's correspondence. + +In the novel, Paul Emanuel is expected to visit the class-room at a +certain hour and to take farewell of his pupils. In connection with the +real events, it has to be remembered that Charlotte left Bruxelles on +the 2nd January, that is to say, in a period when, from Christmas day to +perhaps the 7th January, there would be holidays, and the Bruxelles +pupils would have gone to their homes. It is probable then that the +English teacher, before the breaking-up, would have taken her farewell +of her pupils in the class-rooms--this was the usual practice when a +teacher was leaving for good--and that M. Heger, whom she hoped to have +seen upon this occasion, would have been absent. + +There would have been also a last lesson in class given by M. Heger +before the breaking-up for these short Christmas holidays--the last +lesson of his, that Charlotte, before she quitted the Pensionnat for +ever, would have had the chance of attending. But, _like Madame Beck_, +Madame Heger would have kept her English teacher employed in writing +letters at her dictation, in her private sitting-room, whilst this +class was going on. Like Lucy, Charlotte would have broken away at the +end, when she heard the sound of moving forms, and shutting desks, +proving the lesson ended. But here also Madame Heger would have followed +her (even as Madame Beck followed Lucy Snowe)--have kept the +under-mistress in the background, and then have taken possession of M. +Heger, on the plea of some business matter demanding his attention. + +Certainly also (it seems to me) we may believe in the incident of the +scrap of paper, handed by one of the smallest girls in the school, to +Charlotte, after these two exploits of Madame Heger's diplomacy, +intended to avoid the danger--_and was not the danger real?_--of an +emotional scene of leave-taking, that might thwart her endeavour to get +Charlotte safely out of the house, without any 'inconvenient' +revelations. M. Heger may, or may not, have been as ignorant of all that +was going on between his wife and 'Mees Charlotte' as Madame Heger +desired him to be. But it would have been entirely like him, whether he +knew what was happening or not, to wish for an emotional leave-taking +with his English pupil. M. Heger liked to foster a certain amount of +sensibility in his relationships with his pupils--it did not amount to +more than a taste for dramatic situations where he had an interesting +part to play that gave his histrionic talents a good field of exercise. +But the message warning Charlotte '_that he must see her at leisure, +before she left, and talk with her at length_,' appears to me just the +sort of message M. Heger would have sent. And more especially he would +have acted thus if _in reality he had forgotten all about Charlotte's +near time of departure_ and then had suddenly remembered it, and that +'Mees' would feel hurt, and think he had behaved coldly to her. In this +case he would have tried to put himself right and to persuade her that +he had not forgotten at all, but had arranged a special opportunity for +a long talk, etc. And Charlotte believing it all, upon the strength of +this note, would have lingered on in his class-room, expecting M. +Heger,--who never appeared. + + +[Illustration: M. HEGER AT SIXTY (He was born in 1809: hence +thirty-four, in 1843, when Charlotte bade him farewell)] + + +It seems to me that, whilst it is _possible_ that Madame Heger _may_ +have prevented her husband from keeping the appointment, it is also +quite _possible_ that M. Heger may have again forgotten all about it? +That would have been like him too,--as I shall show by and by. + +But what I believe to have _certainly happened is that the scene between +Madame Heger and Charlotte took place just as the authoress of +'Villette' described_. That interview wears, to my mind, the stamp of +truth. + + The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now would he come + and speak his farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen + by us nevermore. + + This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a + living creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour; + all breakfasted as usual; all, without reference to, or + apparent thought of, their late professor, betook themselves + with wonted phlegm to their ordinary duties. + + So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its + proceedings, so inexpectant its aspect, I scarce knew how to + breathe in an atmosphere thus stagnant, thus smothering. + Would no one lend me a voice? Had no one a wish, no one a + word, no one a prayer to which I could say Amen? + + I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle--a + treat, a holiday, a lesson's remission; they could not, they + _would_ not now band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a + last interview with a master who had certainly been loved, + at least by some--loved as _they_ could love; but, oh! what + _is_ the love of the multitude? + + I knew where he lived; I knew where he was to be heard of or + communicated with. The distance was scarce a stone's-throw. + Had it been in the next room, unsummoned I could make no use + of my knowledge. To follow, to seek out, to remind, to + recall--for these things I had no faculty. + + M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm. Had he + passed silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I + have suffered him to go by. + + Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. + My heart trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its + current. I was quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my + post or do my work. Yet the little world round me plodded on + indifferent; all seemed jocund, free of care, or fear, or + thought. The very pupils who, seven days since, had wept + hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared quite to + have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion. + + A little before five o'clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame + Beck sent for me to her chamber, to read over and translate + some English letter she had received, and to write for her + the answer. Before settling to this work, I observed that + she softly closed the two doors of her chamber; she even + shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot day, and + free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as + indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an + almost fierce distrust, suggested such question. Did she + want to exclude sound? What sound? + + I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like + the evening and winter wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting + prey, and hearing far off the traveller's tramp. Yet I could + both listen and write. About the middle of the letter I + heard what checked my pen--a tread in the vestibule. No + door-bell had rung; Rosine--acting doubtless by orders--had + anticipated such reveille. Madame saw me halt. She coughed, + made a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the + _classes_. + + 'Proceed,' said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear + enchained, my thoughts were carried off captive. + + The _classes_ formed another building; the hall parted them + from the dwelling-house. Despite distance and partition, I + heard the sudden stir of numbers, a whole division rising at + once. + + 'They are putting away work,' said madame. + + It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden + hush, that instant quell of the tumult? + + 'Wait, madam; I will see what it is.' + + And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No. She would + not be left. Powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, + close as my shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair. + + 'Are you coming too?' I asked. + + 'Yes,' she said, meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect--a + look clouded, yet resolute. We proceeded then, not together, + but she walked in my steps. + + He was come. Entering the first _classe_, I saw him. There + once more appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they + had tried to keep him away, but he was come. + + The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, + giving his farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his + lips each cheek. This last ceremony foreign custom permitted + at such a parting--so solemn, to last so long. + + I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus, + following and watching me close. My neck and shoulder shrank + in fever under her breath; I became terribly goaded. + + He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled + round; he came to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was + before me; she had stepped out suddenly; she seemed to + magnify her proportions and amplify her drapery; she + eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness and deficiency; + she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis, the total + default of self-assertion, with which, in a crisis, I could + be struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him + volubly, she mastered his attention, she hurried him to the + door--the glass door opening on the garden. I think he + looked round. Could I but have caught his eye, courage, I + think, would have rushed in to aid feeling, and there would + have been a charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but already the + room was all confusion, the semicircle broken into groups, + my figure was lost among thirty more conspicuous. Madame had + her will. Yes, she got him away, and he had not seen me. He + thought me absent. Five o'clock struck, the loud dismissal + bell rang, the school separated, the room emptied. + + There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and + distraction in some certain minutes I then passed alone--a + grief inexpressible over a loss unendurable. _What_ should I + do--oh! _what_ should I do--when all my life's hope was thus + torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart? + + What I _should_ have done I know not, when a little + child--the least child in the school--broke with its + simplicity and its unconsciousness into the raging yet + silent centre of that inward conflict. + + 'Mademoiselle,' lisped the treble voice, 'I am to give you + that. M. Paul said I was to seek you all over the house, + from the _grenier_ to the cellar, and when I found you to + give you that.' + + And the child delivered a note. The little dove dropped on + my knee, its olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address + nor name, only these words,-- + + 'It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said + good-bye to the rest, but I hoped to see you in _classe_. I + was disappointed. The interview is deferred. Be ready for + me. Ere I sail, I must see you at leisure, and speak with + you at length. Be ready. My moments are numbered, and, just + now, monopolized; besides, I have a private business on hand + which I will not share with any, nor communicate, even to + you.--Paul.' + + 'Be ready!' Then it must be this evening. Was he not to go + on the morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen + the date of his vessel's departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would + be ready. But could that longed-for meeting really be + achieved? The time was so short, the schemers seemed so + watchful, so active, so hostile. The way of access appeared + strait as a gully, deep as a chasm; Apollyon straddled + across it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome? + Could my guide reach me? + + Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some + comfort. It seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart + beating yet true to the whole throb of mine. + + I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his hell behind + him. I think if eternity held torment, its form would not be + fiery rack, nor its nature despair. I think that on a + certain day amongst those days which never dawned, and will + not set, an angel entered Hades, stood, shone, smiled, + delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a + doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and + hour unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur + the height and compass of his promise--spoke thus, then + towering, became a star, and vanished into his own heaven. + His legacy was suspense--a worse born than despair. + + All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive + leaf, yet in the midst of my trust terribly fearing. My fear + pressed heavy. Cold and peculiar, I knew it for the partner + of a rarely-belied presentiment. The first hours seemed long + and slow; in spirit I clung to the flying skirts of the + last. They passed like drift cloud--like the rack scudding + before a storm. + + Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all + retired. I still remained in the gloomy first _classe_, + forgetting, or at least disregarding, rules I had never + forgotten or disregarded before. + + How long I paced that _classe_, I cannot tell; I must have + been afoot many hours. Mechanically had I moved aside + benches and desks, and had made for myself a path down its + length. There I walked, and there, when certain that the + whole household were abed and quite out of hearing, there I + at last wept. Reliant on night, confiding in solitude, I + kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer. They + heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what + grief could be sacred! + + Soon after eleven o'clock--a very late hour in the Rue + Fossette--the door unclosed, quietly, but not stealthily; a + lamp's flame invaded the moonlight. Madame Beck entered, + with the same composed air as if coming on an ordinary + occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at once + addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and + seemed to seek something. She loitered over this feigned + search long, too long. She was calm, too calm. My mood + scarce endured the pretence. Driven beyond common rage, two + hours since I had left behind me wonted respects and fears. + Led by a touch and ruled by a word under usual + circumstances, no yoke could now be borne, no curb obeyed. + + 'It is more than time for retirement,' said madame. 'The + rule of the house has already been transgressed too long.' + + Madame met no answer. I did not check my walk. When she came + in my way I put her out of it. + + 'Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your + chamber,' said she, trying to speak softly. + + 'No!' I said. 'Neither you nor another shall persuade or + lead me.' + + 'Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She + shall make you comfortable. She shall give you a sedative.' + + 'Madame,' I broke out, 'you are a sensualist. Under all your + serenity, your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied + sensualist. Make your own bed warm and soft; take sedatives + and meats, and drinks spiced and sweet, as much as you will. + If you have any sorrow or disappointment (and perhaps you + have--nay, I _know_ you have) seek your own palliatives in + your own chosen resources. Leave me, however. _Leave me_, I + say!' + + 'I must send another to watch you, Meess; I must send + Goton.' + + 'I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my + life, and my troubles. O madame! in _your_ hand there is + both chill and poison. You envenom and you paralyse.' + + 'What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot + marry.' + + 'Dog in the manger!' I said, for I knew she secretly wanted + him, and had always wanted him. She called him + 'insupportable'; she railed at him for a 'devot.' She did + not love; but she wanted to marry that she might bind him to + her interest. Deep into some of madame's secrets I had + entered, I know not how--by an intuition or an inspiration + which came to me, I know not whence. In the course of living + with her, too, I had slowly learned that, unless with an + inferior, she must ever be a rival. She was _my_ rival, + heart and soul, though secretly, under the smoothest + bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself. + + Two minutes I stood over madame, feeling that the whole + woman was in my power, because in some moods, such as the + present, in some stimulated states of perception, like that + of this instant, her habitual disguise, her mask, and her + domino were to me a mere network reticulated with holes; and + I saw underneath a being heartless, self-indulgent, and + ignoble. She quietly retreated from me. Meek and + self-possessed, though very uneasy, she said, 'If I would + not be persuaded to take rest, she must reluctantly leave + me.' Which she did incontinent, perhaps even more glad to + get away than I was to see her vanish. + + This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting rencontre + which ever occurred between me and Madame Beck; this short + night scene was never repeated. It did not one whit change + her manner to me. I do not know that she revenged it. I do + not know that she hated me the worse for my fell candour. I + think she bucklered herself with the secret philosophy of + her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked her to + remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there + occurred no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery + passage. + + +Is it possible to doubt that this 'fiery passage,'--or one strangely +like it--went to the building up of the impressions and emotions that +transformed the early memories of Madame Heger, of whom Charlotte once +spoke so kindly in her letters, as a generous friend who had offered her +a post in her school more from a kind wish to help her than from selfish +motives? + +We have another scene of which again, it seems to me, we cannot doubt +the autobiographical reality. If one need proof of this, it may be +found in the admirable criticism of _Villette_ by Mrs. Humphry Ward, who +judges the book exclusively as the author's _literary masterpiece_. In +this masterpiece, Mrs. Humphry Ward finds one notable flaw:--_it is this +very passage_--which the critic affirms (and no doubt she is quite +right) does not strike her as a convincing nor even as a credible +account of the sentiments or behaviour that could have belonged to Lucy +Snowe, the heroine in _Villette._ 'Lucy Snowe,' this critic complains, +'could never have broken down, never have appealed for mercy, never have +cried "_My heart will break_" before her treacherous rival Madame Beck +in Paul Emanuel's presence! A reader by virtue of the very force of the +effect produced upon him by the whole creation has a right to protest, +incredible. No woman, least of all Lucy Snowe, could have so understood +her own cause, could have so fought her own battle.' + +I am ready to accept this sentence as an entirely authoritative literary +sentence, first of all on account of the unquestionable claims of the +critic who utters it to pronounce judgment on these matters; and then +because I feel myself entirely unable, by reason of my personal +acquaintanceships with the real people dressed up in strange disguises +in this book, and placed in positions that the real people never +occupied, to judge this particular novel, _Villette_, from a purely +literary standpoint. Thus I agree that Mrs. Humphry Ward is right when +she says that Lucy Snowe, _by virtue of the very force of the effect +produced by this creation_, could not have said, '_My heart will break,' +before her treacherous rival Madame Beck, in Paul Emanuel's presence_. I +admit this, because Lucy Snowe, Madame Beck and Paul Emanuel, if not +absolutely 'creations,' in the sense of being imaginary characters, are +nevertheless different people from Charlotte Brontë, Madame Heger and +Monsieur Heger, and their relationships to each other are different. +Thus, in the novel Lucy Snowe is not only in love with Paul Emanuel, but +she has a perfect right to be in love with him, not only because he is +unmarried, but also because he has given her very good reason to +believe he is in love with her: and Madame Beck has no sort of right to +interfere with the lover of her English governess, and her cousin the +Professor; and all her schemes to keep these two sympathetic creatures +apart are absolutely unjustifiable, and the results of jealousy and +selfishness. In other words, Lucy has the _beau rôle_ in the piece,--she +has no reason to say, 'My heart will break,' because Madame Beck +intrudes upon her interview with Paul Emanuel. + +But Charlotte had not the _beau rôle_, but the tragic one, in the real +drama. The Directress, who stands between her and the beloved Professor, +is not her rival, but the Professor's wife. And the _beau rôle_, in the +sense of having the right to stand in the way, and also in being the +woman preferred by the man whom both women love, is Madame Heger's in +every way, for Madame Heger is charming to look at, and Charlotte plain. +Therefore it is not in the least incredible, but it seems so natural as +to be almost inevitably true, that when in the very moment that poor +Charlotte has obtained, after so much suspense and waiting, and as the +result of a heaven-sent accident, the almost despaired of chance of a +personal interview with her loved Professor, before she loses sight of +him, perhaps for ever, and when in this moment, and just when he has +taken her hand in his,... Madame Heger enters, and thrusts herself +between them, and commands her husband, _'Come, Constantin_,' and +Charlotte believes he will obey, it seems to me so eminently credible as +to be almost inevitably true, that what Charlotte describes happened, +and that _then_, in dread of this new frustration of the hope so long +deferred, an anguish that 'defied suppression' rang out in the cry 'My +heart will break!' Put oneself in Charlotte's place, and it seems to me +the emotion startled to expression by this new shock, expresses just +what one knows she felt. And, therefore, I find it myself impossible to +doubt that this account is literally true, and may and should be studied +in the light of the assurance that we have here the faithful description +of what really took place, upon the very day, perhaps, when Charlotte +left Bruxelles. + +Let us leave Lucy Snowe's love-story on one side, and judge this page as +one torn out of Charlotte's life--and then decide whether it rings true. + + Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? + Does he purpose to come? Will this day--will the next hour + bring him? or must I again essay that corroding pain of long + attent, that rude agony of rupture at the close, that mute, + mortal wrench, which, in at once uprooting hope and doubt, + shakes life, while the hand that does the violence cannot be + caressed to pity, because absence interposes her barrier. + + It was the _Feast of the Assumption_[1]; no school was held. + The boarders and teachers, after attending mass in the + morning, were gone a long walk into the country to take + their _goûter_, or afternoon meal, at some farmhouse. I did + not go with them, for now but two days remained ere the + _Paul et Virginie_ must sail, and I was clinging to my last + chance, as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last + raft or cable. + + There was some joiner-work to do in the first _classe_, some + bench or desk to repair. Holidays were often turned to + account for the performance of these operations, which + could not be executed when the rooms were filled with + pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn to the + garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil + my own intent, I heard the workmen coming. + + Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples. I + believe it would take two Labassecourian carpenters to drive + a nail. While tying on my bonnet, which had hitherto hung by + its ribbons from my idle hand, I vaguely and momentarily + wondered to hear the step of but one _ouvrier_. I noted, + too--as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary leisure + to note the merest trifles--that this man wore shoes, and + not sabots. I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter + coming to inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw + round me my scarf. He advanced; he opened the door. My back + was towards it. I felt a little thrill, a curious sensation, + too quick and transient to be analysed. I turned, I stood in + the supposed master-artisan's presence. Looking towards the + doorway I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes printed + upon my brain the picture of M. Paul. + + Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to + the suppliant no fulfilment. Once haply in life one golden + gift falls prone in the lap--one boon full and bright, + perfect from Fruition's mint. + + M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to + travel--a surtout, guarded with velvet. I thought him + prepared for instant departure, and yet I had understood + that two days were yet to run before the ship sailed. He + looked well and cheerful. He looked kind and benign. He came + in with eagerness; he was close to me in one second; he was + all amity. It might be his bridegroom-mood which thus + brightened him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his + sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I + would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved + him well--too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy + herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A + cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, + would do me good for all the span of life that remained to + me. It would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness. I + would take it--I would taste the elixir, and pride should + not spill the cup. + + The interview would be short, of course. He would say to me + just what he had said to each of the assembled pupils. He + would take and hold my hand two minutes. He would touch my + cheek with his lips for the first, last, only time, and + then--no more. Then, indeed, the final parting, then the + wide separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to + him, across which, haply, he would not glance to remember + me. + + 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. A check supervened. + + 'Paul, Paul!' said a woman's hurried voice behind--'Paul, + come into the _salon_. I have yet a great many things to say + to you--conversation for the whole day--and so has Victor; + and Josef is here. Come, Paul--come to your friends.' + + Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an + inscrutable instinct, pressed so near she almost thrust + herself between me and M. Emanuel. 'Come, Paul!' she + reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a + steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he + receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could + endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried,-- + + 'My heart will break!' + + What I felt seemed literal heartbreak; but the seal of + another fountain yielded under the strain. One breath from + M. Paul, the whisper, 'Trust me!' lifted a load, opened an + outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy + shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief, I wept. + + 'Leave her to me; it is a crisis. I will give her a cordial, + and it will pass,' said the calm Madame Beck. + + To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something + like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul + answered deeply, harshly, and briefly, 'Laissez-moi!' in the + grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. + + 'Laissez-moi!' he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his + facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. + + 'But this will never do,' said madame with sternness. + + More sternly rejoined her kinsman,-- + + 'Sortez d'ici!' + + 'I will send for Père Silas; on the spot I will send for + him,' she threatened pertinaciously. + + 'Femme!' cried the professor, not now in his deep tones, but + in his highest and most excited key--'femme! sortez à + l'instant!' + + He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion + beyond what I had yet felt. + + 'What you do is wrong,' pursued madame; 'it is an act + characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative + temperament--a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent--a + proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of + persons of steadier and more resolute character.' + + 'You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me,' + said he, 'but you shall see; the event shall teach you. + Modeste,' he continued, less fiercely, 'be gentle, be + pitying, be a woman. Look at this poor face, and relent. You + know I am your friend and the friend of your friends; in + spite of your taunts you well and deeply know I may be + trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty, but my + heart is pained by what I see. It _must_ have and give + solace. _Leave me!_' + + This time, in the '_leave me_' there was an intonation so + bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck + herself could for one moment delay obedience. But she stood + firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eyes, + forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to + retort. I saw over all M. 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. + + The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he + told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, + dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere + long I sat beside him once more myself--reassured, not + desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, + not sick of life and seeking death. + + 'It made you very sad, then, to lose your friend?' said he. + + 'It kills me to be forgotten, monsieur,' I said. 'All these + weary days I have not heard from you one word, and I was + crushed with the possibility, growing to certainty, that you + would depart without saying farewell.' + + 'Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck--that you do not + know me? Must I show and teach you my character? You _will_ + have proof that I can be a firm friend? Without clear proof + this hand will not lie still in mine, it will not trust my + shoulder as a safe stay? Good. The proof is ready. I come to + justify myself.' + + 'Say anything, teach anything, prove anything, monsieur; I + can listen now.' + +After this, in _Villette_, the story drifts away from the real +experience of Charlotte herself, not only in the circumstances related, +but even in the emotions pictured, now painted, not from what she has +felt herself, but from what she imagines for her heroine, that other +happier self, lifted up into the heaven of romance, who, assured of Paul +Emanuel's love, and his betrothed, waits and works in the school where +he has appointed her Directress; in patient expectation of his +return,--_that never comes to pass!_ For (why or wherefore, no literary +critic of _Villette_ who measures the book by simply artistic standards +can find any reason to explain) Charlotte won't let Lucy Snowe, the +heroine, who is her other self, find happiness at last with Paul +Emanuel: or even find him again, after that cruel separation, all due to +the wicked craft and selfish jealousy of Madame Beck. Destiny +interferes; a storm; a shipwreck--one is not told _what_ has happened: +one is made to hear wailing winds and moaning ocean, that is all; we +know nothing further than this: _Lucy Snowe waited and hoped; hoped and +waited; but Paul Emanuel never came back._ + +But, at any rate, before he sailed on that last fatal voyage, all +misunderstandings, all doubts had been swept away. He had driven Madame +Beck from the room, and shown her his contempt and indignation. He had, +with tenderness and passion, declared his love for Lucy; and had asked +her to be his wife. This is what had followed after those scenes +between Lucy and Madame Beck in the late night scene in the class-rooms +and between Lucy and Paul Emanuel, when Madame Beck is put out of the +room by Paul Emanuel, who insists upon saying good-bye to Lucy. + +All that we know of what followed these scenes, enacted under different +circumstances, in Charlotte's life, must be gathered, not by a quite +literal acceptance, but by an intelligent and impartial weighing, of her +statements, contained in a letter written on the 23rd January 1844, +three weeks after her return to Haworth. + +'I suffered much before I left Brussels. I think, however long I live, I +shall not forget what the parting with M. Heger cost me: it grieved me +so much to grieve him, who had been so true, kind and disinterested a +friend. At parting, he gave me a kind of diploma certifying my abilities +as a teacher sealed with the seal of the Athenée Royal of which he is a +professor.... I do not know whether you feel as I do, but there are +times when it appears to me as if all my ideas and feelings, except a +few friendships and affections, are changed from what they used to be. +Something in me which used to be enthusiasm is tamed down and broken. I +no longer regard myself as young--indeed I shall soon be +twenty-eight--and it seems as if I ought to be working and having the +rough realities of the world as other people do.'[2] + + +[1] New Year's Day, perhaps? Charlotte left Bruxelles 2nd January 1843. + +[2] _Life_, p. 273. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE LOVE-LETTERS OF A ROMANTIC[1] + + +Taking up the study of Charlotte's letters written to M. Heger after her +return to Haworth, and reading them in the light of what we know of the +circumstances and emotions that have formed the feelings, and decided +the tone and attitude of the writer, what do we find to be the sentiment +they reveal to us? + +Is it the 'enthusiasm for a great man,' and the desire (for the sake of +vanity, or of amusement) to keep up a correspondence with him? + +Or is it the intellectual need of this teacher's instructions and +advice, as a means of mental improvement? + +Or is it the want of a companion to exchange ideas with, who is a +brighter and more cultivated being than the Nusseys, Taylors, Woolers, +and the others? + +Or is it the pleasure of having a man friend, in the case of a woman who +is neither pretty, nor young, nor silly, enough to indulge in an +ordinary flirtation? + +Or is it none amongst these several forms of desire, or want, that seeks +its own good? + +Is it love?--a love so exalted, so passionate, so personal, so distinct +from any other instinct or interest, physical, social or intellectual, +that this sentiment stands out, in the order of human feelings, as +honourable not only to the heart that feels it, but to human nature: so +that brought into touch with it, one's own heart is uplifted above the +common world, and gladdened '_by the sense_,' as Byron said,[2] '_of the +existence of Love in its most extended and sublime capacity and of our +own participation of its good and of its glory._[3] + +My contention is that it _is_ this romantic Love that reveals itself in +Charlotte's letters to M. Heger. And for this reason, I agree with Mr. +Clement Shorter that they put her upon a higher pedestal than ever. For +to have a heart capable of this great and glorious, albeit often +tragical, romantic Love, that 'seeketh not its own,' and compared with +which all other sorts of love, that _do_ seek their own, are as sounding +brass and a tinkling cymbal is, _independently of deeds or works_, +greatly to serve mankind. For it is to stand as a witness, amongst the +meannesses of mortal and worldly things, to the existence of Something +personal and immortal in the soul and heart of man, helping him '_to +gild his dross thereby_.'[4] Something sovereign, that, quite +independently of forms of belief, or fashions of opinion, '_rules by +every school, till love and longing die_.' Something indestructible, +confined to no epoch, ancient, mediæval or modern, but, '_that was, or +yet the lights were set, a whisper in the void; that will be sung in +planets young when this is clean destroyed_.' In other words, I esteem +human nature honoured in Charlotte Brontë, and Charlotte Brontë honoured +in these Letters, _because they are love-letters of a rare and wonderful +sort amongst the most beautiful, although they are the most sad ever +written_. If they were _not_ love-letters, but expressed the enthusiasm +of a woman wanting comradeship with a great man, I should esteem them +discreditable to any hero-worshipper. Because one should not pester +one's hero with letters, nor conceive the conceit of comradeship with an +object of worship. And it is not true that Charlotte's letters to +Thackeray, George Henry Lewes and other men of letters after she became +famous, had the same character as these love-letters written to M. +Heger before her name was known; because in her letters to different +celebrated writers, Charlotte talked about books or the criticism of +books. But to M. Heger she throws open the secret chamber of her heart: +she pours out its treasures of passionate feelings (as pure as they were +passionate) at the feet of the man she loves; all she asks for from him +in return is not to reprove her, nor refuse the offering; not to +withdraw himself from her life altogether. To let her hear from him +sometimes: not to leave her utterly alone, in the darkness, without any +knowledge of what good or evil may befall one so dear to her. + +Unfortunately we do not possess the first Letters of this +correspondence. The four Letters given by Dr. Paul Heger to the British +Museum all belong to a period when the Professor, who had answered (one +does not know precisely in what way) Charlotte's first epistles, had +left off replying to her; and the consistent motive of these four +appeals is for some tidings of him, some proof that the 'estrangement +from her Master,' to which she says she will never 'voluntarily' +consent, has not, in spite of her own unaltered devotion, irrevocably +taken place. + +'Tell me about anything you like, my Master,' she writes, 'only tell me +something! No doubt, to write to a former under-mistress (no, I will not +remember my employment as under-mistress, I refuse to recall it), but to +write to an old pupil, cannot be, for you, an interesting occupation. I +realise this; but for _me_, it is life. Your last letter served to keep +me alive, to nourish me during six months. Now I must have another one; +and you will give me one. Not because you bear me friendship (you cannot +bear me much!), but because you have a compassionate soul, and because +you would not condemn any one to slow suffering, simply to spare +yourself a few moments of fatigue! To forbid me to write to you, to +refuse to reply to me, would be to tear from me the only joy that I have +in the world; to deprive me of my last privilege, a privilege which I +will never _voluntarily_ renounce. Believe me, my Master! by writing to +me, you do a good action--so long as I can believe you are not angry +with me, so long as the hope is left me of news of you, I can be +tranquil, and not too sad. But when a gloomy and prolonged silence warns +me of the estrangement from me of my Master, when from day to day I +expect a letter, and when, day after day, comes disappointment, to +plunge me in overwhelming grief; and when the sweet and dear consolation +of seeing your handwriting, of reading your counsels, fades from me like +a vain vision,--then fever attacks me, appetite and sleep fail: I feel +that life wastes away.'[5] + +This passage is quoted from the Letter dated by Charlotte 18_th +November_, without any indication of the year. Mr. Spielmann (who is +responsible for the order given the Letters in the _Times_) esteems this +one to be the last of the series; that is to say, to have been written +ten months after the Letter dated by Charlotte 8 January, supposed by +him to belong to the year 1845. With Dr. Paul Heger, I believe, on the +contrary, that the Letter of the 18th November is the first of the +series: and that it belongs to the year 1844; that is to say, was +written ten months after Charlotte's return to England. This opinion +seems to me established by the contents of the Letter, and by the +account it gives of the conditions of affairs at Haworth, which were +those that we find (if we consult Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte +Brontë_) did prevail in November 1844, but not in November 1845, and +still less in November 1846. + + My father (she writes) is in good health, but his eyesight + is all but gone; he can no longer either read or write: and + yet the doctors advise waiting some months longer before + attempting any operation. This winter will be for him one + long night. He rarely complains: and I admire his patience. + If Providence has the same calamity in reserve for me, may + it grant me the same patience to endure it. It seems to me, + Monsieur, that what is most bitter in severe physical + afflictions, is that they compel us to share our sufferings + with those who surround us. One can hide the maladies of the + soul; but those that attack the body and enfeeble our + faculties cannot be hidden. My father now allows me to read + to and to write for him. He shows much more confidence in me + than he has ever done before; and this is a great + consolation to me. + +Charlotte's account in this Letter of her father's patient resignation +and increased confidence in her under the trial, to a man of his +independent and somewhat domineering temper, of compulsory reliance on +the assistance of a daughter from whom he had exacted complete +submission heretofore and from her childhood upwards, is confirmed in +Mrs. Gaskell's biography by the testimony of other letters belonging to +the first year of her return from Belgium. But by November 1845 Mr. +Brontë's philosophy, before his own unmerited misfortune, had been +troubled and transformed into acute misery and anxious forebodings by +the downfall, both moral and physical, of his favourite amongst his +children, Bramwell, the unhappy son--the only one--in this family of +gifted daughters, whose perversion seems also to have had something of +the irresponsibility of genius about it. Writing on the 4th November +1845 to Ellen Nussey,[6] Charlotte says:-- + + I hoped to be able to ask you to come to Haworth. It almost + seemed as if Bramwell had a chance of getting employment; + and I waited to know the results of his efforts, in order to + say 'Dear Ellen, come and see us.' But the place is given to + another person. Bramwell still remains at home, and whilst + _he_ is here, _you_ shall not come.' + +Here is Mrs. Gaskell's account of Mr. Brontë's experiences in this +period, that are not to be reconciled with the account given of his good +health and philosophical patience and resignation to dependence upon +Charlotte given by her a year earlier: + + For the last three years of his life, Bramwell took opium + habitually, by way of stunning conscience: he drank, + moreover, whenever he could get the opportunity.... He slept + in his father's room; and he would sometimes declare that + either he or his father would be dead before the morning! + The trembling sisters, sick with fright, would implore their + father not to expose himself to this danger. But Mr. Brontë + was no timid man; and perhaps he felt that he could possibly + influence his son to some self-restraint more by showing + trust in him than by showing fear. The sisters often + listened for the report of a pistol in the dead of night, + till watchful eye and hearkening ear grew heavy and dull + with the perpetual strain upon their nerves. In the + mornings, young Brontë would saunter out saying, with a + drunkard's incontinence of speech, 'The poor old man and I + have had a terrible night of it; he does his best, the poor + old man, but it's all over with me.' + +One may safely affirm that if Charlotte had been writing in November +1845 it would not have been only his patience under the trial of loss of +sight that she would have found to admire in her father. In November +1846 Mr. Brontë had successfully undergone the operation for cataract +that saved him from blindness: and Charlotte herself, ten months after +the overwhelming evidence of her 'master's estrangement,' given in his +silence after her Letter of the 8th January, had saved her own soul +from the malady she had endured without sharing her sufferings with any +one; and was already writing _Jane Eyre_ ... so that the conclusion is +surely forced upon us that the Letter of the 18th November belongs to +the year 1844, and written ten months after her return to Haworth, 2nd +January 1844, and represents the first, and not the last of these four +Letters. + + +[Illustration: REDUCED FROM A DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË OF ASHBURNHAM +CHURCH SENT TO M. HEGER. The drawing showing the date 1846 was given to +the author by Mlle. Louise Heger] + + +It is important to establish this, because one has to read these Letters +in their right order before one can understand the story they disclose +of the long training in deferred hope, in expectation, crowned with +disappointment, in vain pursuit of shadows that eluded her grasp, and of +illusions that reveal themselves as forms of self-deceit only in the +very hour when they have conquered belief; in other words, of the long +training in personal suffering it took to create and fashion the genius +of a writer whose magical gift was to be the power of transforming words +into feelings. + +Carrying through the examination of these documents by the rule that +recognises the Letter of the 18th November as written ten months after +Charlotte's return to England, we discover in the opening sentence the +fact that the last letter Charlotte had received from her Professor must +have been in May of this same year; that is to say, four months after +the sentimental leave-taking with her Professor, which sent Charlotte +home to England with illusions about the extent to which her own +passionate grief at their separation was shared by M. Heger. By November +these illusions have been dispelled; Charlotte understands perfectly now +(although this does not make her any more just to Madame Heger) that the +'grief' of her 'Master,' that she had said she would 'never forget, +never mind how long she might live,' was a very short-lived affair on +his side; merely the transient regret of a teacher who will miss a +favourite pupil from his class. + +'_Que ne puis-je avoir pour vous juste autant d'amitié que vous avez +pour moi_,' she writes to him, '_ni plus, ni moins? Je serais alors si +tranquille, si libre: je pourrais garder le silence pendant six mois +sans effort_.' + +There is a note of bitterness in this. In what precedes it there is no +bitterness, but we have one of the passages in these wonderful letters +that seem to me to place them above all the other love-letters preserved +in the world, as immortal records of the Romantic Love that honours +human nature in the hearts that cherish it. + +'The six months of silence are over: we are now at the 18th of +November,' she writes:-- + + I may, then, write to you, without breaking my promise. The + summer and winter have seemed very long to me: in truth, it + has cost me painful efforts to endure up to now the + privation I have imposed upon myself. You, for your part, + cannot understand this! But, Monsieur, try to imagine, for + one moment, that one of your children is a hundred and sixty + leagues away from you; and that you are condemned to remain + for six months, without writing to him; without receiving + any news from him; without hearing anything about him; + without knowing how he is;--well, then you may be able to + understand, perhaps, how hard is such an obligation imposed + upon me. + +In connection with the opening phrase, we must recognise in it the +confirmation of an assertion made in my article in the _Woman at Home_ +published twenty years before these Letters were published, but which +had for its authority the information given me by Dr. Paul Heger upon +the occasion of a conversation, when he very kindly talked over with me +the questions connected with events in his parents' life that, inasmuch +as they happened before his birth, he knew as family traditions +chiefly--but still as traditions derived from the only authentic sources +of information that exist: Dr. Paul Heger's theory was that until +Charlotte had left Bruxelles and commenced to write to his father +letters in a tone of exaltation that announced an exaggerated +attachment, Monsieur Heger himself had never suspected the existence of +any such sentiment; and that he, and Madame Heger (?)--were disposed to +regard it as an attack of morbid regret for the more animated life she +had led in Bruxelles, and the dulness of her home surroundings. And +that, acting upon this supposition, they had thought it advisable (and +this in Charlotte's own interests chiefly) to let her know that they +were both of them distressed and displeased by the tone of her letters; +and that if she wished to keep up the correspondence, she must become +more reasonable and temperate in her way of expressing herself; and +that, as the exchange of letters between busy people became onerous, +there must be only two letters every year at intervals of six months. We +find Charlotte acknowledging this condition, as one that she had +accepted, but that she complained of as a great 'privation': and she +then goes on to explain (as only one taught by romantic, that is to say +by unselfish, and unsensual, love, that 'does not seek its own,' could +explain it) in what this 'privation' consists. + +Did any woman, neglected by the man she loves, ever discover a device, +at once so passionate, and so poetically pure as Charlotte's, who makes +the man who does not love her, but whom she knows is an adoring father, +try to realise what she feels, so far away from him, and left without +tidings _by asking him to picture what he would feel if separated by a +hundred and sixty leagues from his little child, he were left without +news of him?_ + +But now if we consult honestly our own impressions, does this letter +reveal that '_it is no cause of grief to Charlotte that M. Heger is +married_'? Is it true that _there 'is nothing in it that any +enthusiastic woman might not write to a married man with a family who +had been her teacher_'? + +What the letter does reveal (thus it seems to me at least) is one +supreme thing before all others: that the writer of it is past saving, +by this time, from the destiny she prophesied for herself ten months ago +in Bruxelles. '_My heart will break_,' Charlotte said then: when fate +(in the garb of Madame Heger) thrust herself between her and her beloved +Professor. + +And now, touching and eloquent as it all is, what escape is there from +the conclusion that the writer of this letter _must_ break her heart? + +What else can happen? Let us recognise her plight. Here one has an +entirely honourable, passionately tender, tenderly passionate, very +serious woman, her mind dominated (as she says herself) by one +tyrannical fixed idea; let us rather say by one tragical passion; and +who sees her own life, and her claims upon the man she loves through the +medium of this tragical passion: _and who gives her life an impossible +purpose; and who makes impossible claims_. They are very small claims, +she pleads. And so they are, very small in comparison with what she +gives, her whole life's devotion poured out at the feet of her 'Master,' +from whom she only asks in return that he will not forbid her worship; +that, now and again, he will give her the joy of seeing his handwriting, +and of knowing that he is well. But small as these claims are, they are +unreasonable:--'_to the last degree "inconvenient" and impossible_,' as +Madame would have said,--in the particular case of this 'Master'; a +married man and an attached husband with five children, the Director of +a Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles who has need to be especially circumspect; +and who cannot discreetly, nor even honourably, allow a former +under-mistress to address him passionate, romantic love-letters, even +every six months. Nor can this loyal husband and self-respecting +Catholic and Professor undertake to appear to sanction this +indiscretion, by keeping her informed of his health and welfare at +regular intervals. So that, building her heart's desires upon false +hopes, that, from day to day, wear themselves out in disappointment, and +looking for consolation to things necessarily withdrawn; and that she +pursues in vain like 'fading visions,'--how is our poor Charlotte to +find any escape from the heart-break that is the natural term of the +path along which this Love, that has become her destiny, leads her? No +way of escape is there for Charlotte: not in heaven above, nor on the +earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. For no miracle can +give her love a happy ending; say that even a thunderbolt fell from +heaven to remove Madame Heger,--it would be extremely unjust--but admit +that a murderous miracle be granted--even so, it would not alter the +fact that M. Heger is not in love with Charlotte. And no earthly scheme +either can bridge the separation--wider than the 160 leagues between +Yorkshire and Brussels--that now severs Charlotte, breaking her heart in +Yorkshire, from her Master in literature, carrying on, as stormily and +triumphantly as when she assisted at them, his lessons in the +class-rooms in the Rue d'Isabelle: those memory-haunted class-rooms she +will never see again; because although we find her in these Letters +speaking of projects of earning money that she may return to Bruxelles, +if only to see her professor once again, one knows that there would be +Madame to count with; and even Monsieur Heger's obstinate neglect to +reply to these appealing Letters does not indicate any answering wish on +his side to see his former pupil again. Nor yet does there exist in the +waters under the earth any pool of magical power of healing sufficient +to soothe these bitter regrets and reproaches; nor any well deep enough +to drown rebellious desires and memories: for Charlotte has too splendid +a soul to think of suicide; or to quench anguish by drugs. So that one +knows that Charlotte's fate is sealed: and that we must follow her +through these last steps to the end, with pity and admiration and love +for her--but still not with injustice to others. Because no one outside +of herself, not Madame Heger, nor Monsieur Heger, is responsible for +what has happened, and what is going to happen; but only the Love that +has Charlotte's soul in thrall, the Love that 'seeketh not its +own,'--romantic, or if it be preferred, Platonic Love; who as the wise +woman, Diotima, told Socrates, is 'not a god, but an immortal spirit, +who spans the gulf between heaven and earth, carrying to the gods the +prayers of men, and to the earth the commands of the gods.' Love, who is +'the child of plenty and of poverty, often, like his mother, without +house or home to cover him' (and who consequently is not highly esteemed +by respectable householders). Love, the 'instinct of immortality in a +mortal creature,' leading him amongst mortal conditions to where +Charlotte is being led to,--the grave of hope,--_but not leaving hope +there entombed, but raising it, not clogged with the pollution of +mortality._ + +All this, that the wise Diotima related, is a true parable of Charlotte +Brontë. And the proof that Diotima was a good psychologist, and had +based her opinions upon the study of facts, is found in the assertion +that Love, although an immortal spirit, is _not a god_. Because a god +sees clearly, and does not make mistakes: whereas Love, as every one +knows, is often blind, and never very clear-sighted; and _is_ liable to +make mistakes, and to be unjust even: and to attribute his own errors to +other people. Thus Charlotte, under the dominion of Love, was unjust, +and made mistakes: she attributed to Madame Heger disappointments and +misadventures and pangs, that were not of Madame Heger's preparation at +all, but were simply the imprudences of this 'Child of plenty and +poverty,' who inherits from both parents and is so often extravagant and +houseless, and consequently in bad odour with householders and the +worshippers of 'convenience,' because 'he has no home to cover him.' +Charlotte should not have attributed, for instance, malevolence or +jealousy or the cruel pleasure of tantalising and torturing her in +Bruxelles to Madame Heger, simply because, as the Directress of a +Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles and wife of M. Heger, she did not want to +take in Romantic Love as a boarder; nor to permit this 'Child of plenty +and poverty' to disorganise the well-balanced domestic and conjugal +relationships between herself and M. Heger. In all this Madame Heger was +not persecuting Charlotte, but protecting her own rights. And if we +examine the circumstances even in the narrative of the scene in the +class-room between the Directress and her English teacher, and the scene +of the farewell interview between the Professor and his pupil, where the +Directress of the Pensionnat is put out of the room because she objects +to this sentimental leave-taking, we shall find that recognising the +true relationships between these three people, if Madame Heger behaved +exactly as Madame Beck is said to have done, then there is not any fault +whatever to be found with Madame Heger. Nay, one does not see how she +could have been more considerate. Another false impression of +Charlotte's--that Madame Heger intercepted her letters, and that M. +Heger did not answer because he did not receive them--has no evidence to +support it. Nor is this all; there is undeniable proof that the letter +we have just considered (_which M. Heger did not answer_) _was_ +received by him: and that he was not very much affected by the +passionate homage of his worshipper. 'On the edge of this letter he has +made some commonplace notes in pencil;--one of them is the name and +address of a shoemaker,' Mr. Spielmann tells us. + +There is a natural feeling of indignation against this masculine +insensibility to a woman's tragical passion, even though one recognises +that honour stood in the way of any responsive sentiment. But one must +not forget M. Heger's special vocation and his daily occupations and +preoccupations. Here you have a Professor of literature in a Pensionnat +de Jeunes Filles who spends, week by week, several days in correcting +and improving 'compositions' and exercises in 'style' of numberless +schoolgirls, full of the eloquent sentimentality that belongs to young +writers between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Monsieur Heger had +been Charlotte's master in literature, remember: and there is another +fact to be realised also, one that upon the authority of my own +knowledge of him, in the character of my own Professor, I am allowed to +testify to: _he was before all things a born teacher, and one who saw +the world as his class-room, and his fellow-creatures in the light of +pupils_. Applying this knowledge of him to the criticism of what we know +about his relations with Charlotte Brontë, we arrive at entirely +different opinions to those formed by people who either see M. Heger +through the medium of Charlotte's passion for him and as she painted him +in _Villette_; or outside of any personal knowledge of him at all, as he +appears to them judged in the light of the impression that he played +with Charlotte's feelings: first of all encouraging by sentimental +flattery her affection for him, and then, when he found that she had +become inconveniently fond of him, behaving with cruel indifference. +None of these decisions is based on a correct knowledge of M. Heger, nor +of his true behaviour and character. The true M. Heger was not the Paul +Emanuel who was _the lover of Lucy Snowe_, because he is very truthfully +and admirably painted in the domineering but interesting, +terror-striking but captivating, masterful and masterly Professor of +literature, so full of talent, and fiery captivating ardour for +beautiful thoughts nobly expressed. The real Professor was _not_ +tender-hearted; nor very tender in manner; nor even very pleasant and +considerate; nor even kind, outside of his professorial character: and +he had no sympathy whatever to spare for people who were not his pupils. +And his sympathy for his pupils, _as his pupils_, led him to work upon +their sympathies, as a way of inducing a frame of mind in them and an +emotional state of feeling, rendering them susceptible to literary +impressions, and putting them in key with himself, in this very fine +enthusiasm of his, not only for enjoying literature himself, but for +throwing open to others, and to young votaries especially, the worship +of beautiful literature--as the record of the best that has been thought +and said in the world. + +But the very exclusive literary temperament of M. Heger left him rather +cold-blooded than particularly warm-hearted, where his pupils' feelings +interfered with their good style in writing; or good accent when +speaking; or with their sense of the first importance of a warm +appreciation of the beauties of literature. If one reversed directly the +description of Charlotte Brontë herself, as a writer whose _words became +feelings_, one might justly say of M. Heger that for him, feelings were +chiefly good with reference to their effects upon words, and the +creation of beautiful language--so that Charlotte's love-letters to him +would be no more than the '_Devoirs de Style_' of a former pupil sent +him for criticism. The shoemaker's address may have been jotted down by +accident, when he was running his eye down the page? If the further +notes signified by Mr. Spielmann on this page, where poor Charlotte's +heart's Secret lay exposed and quivering, had been '_Bon--mais un peu +trop d'exaltation--la Ponctuation n'est pas soignée_,' no one who knew +M. Heger would blame him for _voluntary_ unkindness. But upon this +matter no more must be said at present: we have to return to Charlotte, +and her Letters. + +The second in the order in which I am studying them (that seems to me +unmistakably indicated by the context) would have been written--if we +take the year 1845 as the date--eight, instead of six, months after the +one, dated November, that refers to a preceding letter in the May of the +same year--when Charlotte would have accepted the obligation laid upon +her not to write again for six months. This Letter, dated 24th July, +indicates by the opening sentence, not that she is writing outside of +the appointed time, but _outside of her turn_: that is to say, it shows +that M. Heger had not answered her November Letter; that she had waited +for his reply, but could not wait longer, and so wrote a second letter, +before M. Heger's reply to the first. The custom shows us that poor +Charlotte is uneasily conscious that her former one in November may have +given offence. She apologises for it, as we shall see; and works hard to +write with cheerfulness in a more temperate tone:-- + + Ah, Monsieur! I know I once wrote you a letter that was not + a reasonable one, because my heart was choked with grief; + but I will not do it again! I will try not to be selfish; + although I cannot but feel your letters the greatest + happiness I know. I will wait patiently to receive one, + until it pleases you, and it is convenient to write one. At + the same time, I may write you a little letter from time to + time; you authorised me to do that. + +The effort she is putting upon herself in this Letter is evident. She +has become reasonable; she does not reproach him for not writing, but +only asks him to remember how much she desires it. She tells him of her +plans, as she was recommended to do, instead of dwelling on her +feelings. She humours and flatters his vanity and taste by her +acknowledgment of all she owes him; and of her unfailing gratitude and +wish to dedicate a book to him--she even sends a message to Madame!-- + + _Please present to Madame the assurance of my esteem_. I + fear that Maria, Louise and Claire will have forgotten me. + Prospère and Victorine never knew me, but I remember all + five of them, and especially Louise. There was so much + character, so much naïveté expressed in her little face. + Farewell, Monsieur--Your grateful pupil, + + C. Brontë. + + + _July_ 24.--I have not begged you to write to me soon, + because I am afraid of troubling you, but you are too kind + to forget how much I desire it. Yes! I do desire it so much. + But that is enough. After all, do as you like, Monsieur, for + if I received a letter from you and I thought you wrote it + out of pity, it would hurt me very much.... Oh I shall + certainly see you some day. It must come to pass. Because as + soon as I earn any money, I shall go to Bruxelles--and I + shall see you again, if only for a moment. + +It is all of no avail! No answer does M. Heger vouchsafe. October comes +round, and she writes again. This time she imagines that she has found a +means of making her Letter reach its destination. In other words, she is +convinced, or tries to be convinced, that it is all Madame Heger's fault +again; she it is who will not allow her husband to receive Charlotte's +Letters. + + _October_ 24.--Monsieur--I am quite joyous to-day. A thing + that has not often happened during the last two years.[7] + The reason is that a gentleman amongst my friends is + passing through Bruxelles, and he has offered to take charge + of a letter for you, and to give this same letter into your + hands; or else his sister will do this, so that I shall be + quite certain that you receive it. + +Now comes the final blow to this faithful worshipper. Up to this hour, +she has hoped and waited, waited and hoped. But all this time there has +been the suspicion of Madame Heger--that has kept alive in her the +belief in M. Heger's friendship, who (perhaps?) writes, although his +letters never arrive: who (perhaps?) never receives her letters, +although whenever she dares, and even in defiance of the terms laid down +for her, she writes him letters where the vibration of her passionate +attachment is felt. Now, however, he _has_ received her letter placed in +his own hand. Had he written she would now have held in her turn the +talisman of the beloved handwriting her eyes were weary with waiting to +see again. But he remained obdurate and silent. + + Mr. Taylor has returned (she writes): I asked him if he had + no letter for me. 'No: nothing.' Be patient, I told myself: + soon his sister will return. Miss Taylor came back: 'I have + nothing for you from Monsieur Heger,' she said; 'neither + letter, nor any message.' + + Understanding only too well what this meant, I told myself + just what I should have told any one else in the same + circumstances: Resign yourself to what you cannot alter, and + before all things do not grieve for a misfortune that you + have not deserved. I would not allow myself to weep nor + complain. But when one refuses to oneself the right to tears + and lamentations in certain cases, one is a tyrant; and + natural faculties revolt; so that one buys outward calm at + the price of an inner conflict that cannot be subdued. + + Neither by day, nor by night can I find rest nor peace: even + if I sleep, I have tormenting dreams, where I see you, + always severe, gloomy, angry with me. Forgive me, Monsieur, + if I am driven to take the course of writing to you once + more. How can I endure my life, if I am forbidden to make + any effort to alleviate my sufferings? + +She continues in this piteous strain. She pleads with him not to reprove +her again as she has been reproved before, for exaggeration, morbidness, +sentimentality. She tells him all this may be true--she is not going to +defend herself--but the case is as she states it. She _cannot_ resign +herself to the loss of her master's friendship without one last effort +to preserve it. + + I submit to all the reproaches you may make against me; if + my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall + remain without hope; if he keeps a little for me (never mind + though it be _very_ little) I shall have some motive for + living, for working. + + Monsieur (she continues), the poor do not need much to keep + them alive; they ask only for the crumbs that fall from the + rich man's table, but if these crumbs are refused them, + _then_ they die of hunger! For me too, I make no claim + either to great affection from those I love; I should hardly + know how to understand an exclusive and perfect friendship, + I have so little experience of it! But once upon a time, at + Bruxelles, when I was your pupil, you _did_ show me a little + interest: and just this small amount of interest you gave me + then, I hold to and I care for and prize, as I hold to and + care for life itself.... + + ... I will not re-read this letter, I must send it as it is + written. And yet I know, by some secret instinct, that + certain absolutely reasonable and cool-headed people reading + it through will say:--'She appears to have gone mad.' By + way of revenge on such judges, all I would wish them is that + they too might endure, _for one day only_, the sufferings I + have borne for eight months--then, one would see, if they + too did not 'appear to have gone mad.' + + One endures in silence whilst one has his strength to do it. + But when this strength fails one, one speaks without + weighing one's words. I wish Monsieur all happiness and + prosperity. + + Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, 8_th January_. + +The Letter obtained no answer. And thus the end was reached. We now know +where in Charlotte Brontë's life lay her experiences that formed her +genius and made her the great Romantic--whose quality was that she saw +all events and personages through the medium of one passion--the passion +of a predestined tragical and unrequited love. + + +END OF PART I. + + + +[1] I have to thank Mr. Clement Shorter, who has purchased the copyright +of Charlotte Brontë's manuscripts, for his generous permission to quote +from these letters freely for the purposes of my criticism.--(F.M.) + +[2] _Childe Harold_, note 9 to canto iii. + +[3] The author of _Childe Harold_ adds on this note as a comment upon +what he has said of 'Love' as the inspiration of the greatest of all +Romantics, J.-J. Rousseau:-- + + 'His love was passion's essence--as a tree + On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame + Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be + Thus, and enamour'd, were in him the same. + But his was not the love of living dame, + Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, + But of Ideal beauty, which became + In him existence and o'erflowing teems + Along his burning page, distemper'd tho' it seems. + + This breathed itself to life in Julie, this + Invested her with all that's wild and sweet; + This hallow'd too the memorable kiss + Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet, + From hers, who but with friendship his would meet: + But to that gentle touch, thro' brain and breast + Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat; + In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest + Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.' + + +[4] Rudyard Kipling. + +[5] See Letter, 18 Nov. I am giving my own translation from the French +of Charlotte's Letters in these extracts, not certainly on account of +any dissatisfaction with Mr. Spielmann's English versions of them, but +in order to avoid the risk of any infringement of Mr. Spielmann's +copyright in his Introduction. + +[6] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life, p._ 290. + +[7] Charlotte had been a year and ten months in England in October 1845. +This phrase, however, proves that the Letter belongs to this year and +not to 1844, and consequently that the Letter that follows it, January +8, is 1846. + + + + +PART II + +SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE + +REAL MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER + + +THIS SECOND PART IS + +DEDICATED TO + +MY BROTHER + +THE LATE ABBÉ AUSTIN RICHARDSON + +WHO DIED SUDDENLY, 20TH AUG. 1913 + + + Dearest, before you went away + And left me here behind you, + How often would you talk to me, + And I, too, would remind you + Of stories in this book retold, + That for us two could ne'er grow old; + Of scenes that we could live through yet, + Just you and I,--and not forget: + And now I feel, since you are gone, + I wrote this book for you alone. + + + + +PART II + +CHAPTER I + +THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE + +FACT FROM FICTION + + +The purpose of the First Part of this study was to show that with the +knowledge of the Secret of Charlotte Brontë, brought to us by Dr. Paul +Heger's generous gift of these pathetic and beautiful Love-letters, the +'Problem of Charlotte Brontë,' as so many very clever but inattentive +psychological critics have stated it, has lost all claim to serious +attention. + +The basis of the 'Problem' was the alleged 'dissonance' between +Charlotte's personality and her genius--between her dreary, desolate, +dull, well-tamed existence, uncoloured, untroubled by romance (as Mrs. +Gaskell painted it), and the passionate atmosphere of her novels, where +all events and personages are seen through the medium of one +sentiment--tragical romantic love. + +We now know that the dissonance did not exist; that from her +twenty-sixth year downwards, Charlotte's life was, not only coloured, +but governed by a tragical romantic love: that, in its first stage, +threw her into a hopeless conflict against the force of things and broke +her heart: but that, because the battle was fought in the force, and in +the cause, of noble emotions, saved her soul alive; and called her +genius forth to life: so that it rose as an immortal spirit from the +grave of personal hopes. + +Understanding this, we know that there is no 'Problem' of Charlotte +Brontë: but that her personality and her genius and her life and her +books were all those of a Romantic. But although there is no +psychological Problem, a difficulty that concerns the historical +criticism of Charlotte's life and her books does remain. And this +difficulty has to be faced and conquered, not by speculations nor +arguments, but by methods of enquiry. + +When we study Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece _Villette_ in comparison +with what we now know about the romance in her own life, we recognise +two facts: the first is that, _in this work especially_, she has painted +with such power the emotions she has undergone that her words become +feelings that lift and ennoble the reader's sensibility: and thus serve +him--in the way that it belongs to Romantics to serve mankind. + +But the second fact we discover is that,--again, _in this book +particularly_,--historical personages and real events are used as the +materials for an imaginary story, in a way that has produced critical +confusion: and what is graver still--has caused false and injurious +opinions to be formed about historical people. And the difficulty we +have to face is, not what amount of blame belongs to Charlotte for +misrepresenting historical facts, nor even need we ask ourselves what +reason she had for thus misrepresenting them. Because the reason becomes +plain when we take the trouble to realise that the motive the writer of +this work of genius had in view was one that concerned her own personal +liberation from haunting memories, rather than any motive concerning +the impressions she might produce. + +There can be no doubt that Charlotte's motive in _Villette_, judged as a +method of personal salvation, was not only a permissible, but a noble +one. It is the one that Pater attributed to Michael Angelo: '_the effort +of a strong nature to attune itself to tranquillise vehement emotions by +withdrawing them into the region of ideal sentiments':--'an effort to +throw off the clutch of cruel and humiliating facts by translating them +into the imaginative realm, where the artist, the author, the dreamer +even, has things as he wills, because the hold of outward things_' (such +a stern and merciless one in the case of Charlotte Brontë!) '_is thrown +off at pleasure_.' + +But, judged as a literary and historical method, was Charlotte Brontë's +manner of treating the real Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in +the Rue d'Isabelle a justifiable or fair one? Can she be held without +fault in this; that in Paul Emanuel and in Madame Beck she painted +Monsieur and Madame Heger in a way that rendered them visible to every +one who knew them; and then placed them in fictitious circumstances +that altered the character of their actions and feelings, in such a way +as to misrepresent their true behaviour? It seems to me that we must +admit that the authoress of the _Professor_ and of _Villette_ adopted an +unjust literary and historical method in so far as these real people are +concerned: and that in the case of Madame Heger especially, passion and +prejudice betrayed her: and rendered her guilty of a fault that must be +recognised as a very grave one. But when this fault has been recognised +and admitted, it seems to me a conscientious critic's duty does not +compel him to scold this woman of genius for having the passions of her +kind. A great Romantic is not an angel: and in this case the main facts +about Charlotte are not her shortcomings as a celestial being, but her +transcendent merits as an interpreter of the human heart. For my own +part, I confess that after reading Charlotte's Love-letters, I am in no +mood to look for faults in her, nor even to lend much attention to some +faults that, without looking for them, one is bound to recognise. For +what a thankless and unseemly, as well as what an unprofitable, sort of +criticism is that represented in ancient days by the youngest amongst +Job's Friends, who had such a delightfully expressive name, Elihu, the +son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram! Elihu's criticism of +Job (the man of genius, plunged into dire misfortune, not by any fault +or folly of his own, but by the will of the Higher Powers, who desired +to prove his virtue and to call forth his genius), is exactly the same +method of criticising men and women of genius in the same case as Job, +practised by Elihu's intellectual descendents, Buzites of the kindred of +Ram, in all countries and in every age, down to England in the twentieth +century. The fundamental doctrine of this critical method was, and is, +that '_great men are not always wise_,' and that it is the vocation of +smaller men to teach them wisdom, without 'respecting their persons or +giving them flattering titles' (truly, as a matter of fact, by calling +them names--knaves, hypocrites, sentimental cads, blackguards, etc.). In +other words, the rule with these Buzites is that the main purpose of +criticising great people is _to find fault with them_; to surprise them +in their 'unwise' moments, to concentrate attention upon the faults they +may, or may not, have committed in these moments; and to build upon +these occasional real, or imaginary, faults, psychological and +pathological theories about the madness, wickedness, or folly of people +capable of them. And to conclude that there is 'very much to reprobate +and a great deal to laugh at' in these men and women of genius--and that +the fact that they had genius, and that as witnesses to the 'instinct of +immortality in mortal creatures' they have served and honoured mankind, +and also have bequeathed to us treasures of ideal beauty, is a mere +accident, and may be left unnoticed. + +But let not _my_ portion ever be with these fault-finders, who '_darken +counsel by words without knowledge_,' as the original Elihu was told, +'out of the Whirlwind,' by the Supreme Critic; 'in whose stead' the son +of Barachel had arrogated to himself the right to scold and scoff at +Job; and to tell him that his misfortunes were all the result of his +bad character and of his uncontrolled emotions. I refuse, then, to +recognise as a question of vital importance Charlotte's forgetfulness of +historical exactitude in _Villette_; and I do not myself understand how +any one (except a Buzite) who has read these Letters given to us by Dr. +Paul Heger, and especially the last one, that received no answer, can +help feeling that the suffering the writer of the Letters must have +undergone, in the unbroken silent solitude that followed her unanswered +appeal, must have made the hold upon her memory of 'outward things' so +hard to bear, that to break that hold, to live in the realm of +imagination free from it, _having things as she would_, justified almost +any method of self-liberation. + +Still the fact of the critical confusion of the personages in the novel +with the historical Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue +d'Isabelle does create difficulties in the way of forming right +opinions. And to remove them, we have to follow the plan already +recommended,--to make sure of our facts, before calling in the aid of +psychological arguments. And in this case, to see the position clearly, +we must disentangle from the imaginary story in _Villette_ the real +personages and events woven into the fabric of a parable where, as I +have said, they appear amongst fictitious circumstances and produce +consequently false impressions. In other words, we have to recover a +clear knowledge of the true Monsieur Heger before we can determine where +'Paul Emanuel' resembles, and where he differs from, the Professor, +_whom Charlotte loved: but who never showed any particle of love for +Charlotte, such as Paul Emanuel bestowed on Lucy Snowe_. And then we +have to re-establish in her true place, as Monsieur Heger's wife and the +mother of his five children, the true Directress of the Pensionnat in +the Rue d'Isabelle--who must be contrasted, rather than compared, with +the crafty, jealous and pitiless Madame Beck of the novel, selfishly and +cruelly interfering with the true course of an entirely legitimate and +romantic attachment between her English teacher and her cousin, the +Professor of literature. And the relative positions of these two +Directresses clearly seen, we have to ask ourselves, Whether the real +Madame Heger is proved to have had the base and detestable character of +the hateful Madame Beck? and whether she really _was_, in any voluntary +or even involuntary, way, the direct cause of poor Charlotte's anguish, +suspense and final heart-break? And whether, given the positions and the +different views of life and sense of duty of the different people whose +destinies become entangled in this tragical romance, we can find fault +with any person concerned in these events,--unless, indeed, we follow +Greek methods, and drag in the Eumenides? Or, else, suppose it a +parallel case with Job's: and decide that it was the will of the Higher +Powers to prove Charlotte's virtue and to call forth her genius? But in +so far as mere mortals are concerned, we have to see whether anything +else could have happened, and whether poor Charlotte was not bound to +break her heart? + +So that the purpose of the Second Part of this study of the 'Secret of +Charlotte Brontë' really lies outside of the 'Secret' itself, and +becomes an effort to know 'as in themselves they really were,' and +independently of their relationships with Charlotte, the Professor whom +she loved (probably much more than he deserved), and the Directress of +the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle--whom she certainly hated, without +any reasonable cause for this hatred, although this hatred had a natural +cause--that if only we will use psychology for the purpose of +penetrating facts, and not for playing with such fictions as that _it +was 'no serious grief to Charlotte that Monsieur Heger was married'_ we +may easily discover. After all, one must not ask for entire +'reasonableness' from Romantics, who see personages and events through +the medium of one great Passion. And one must not demand from them +absolute impartiality, when judging the impediment that divides them +from the object of this passion. + +We are not judges then in this case, but enquirers into the facts of the +personality and true characters of the Director and Directress of the +Bruxelles school and of their environment, as the influences that so +largely created the Romantic atmosphere where Charlotte's genius lived +and moved and had its being. And, by the special circumstances of my own +life, I am able to assist in a way that is not (so I am tempted to +believe) possible to any other living critic. The difficulty that stands +in the way of most modern investigators is that long ago the historical +people with their environment 'have become ghostly.' Long ago, for most +readers of _Villette_, the once famous Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles in +the Rue d'Isabelle, with its memory-haunted class-rooms, with its +high-walled garden in the heart of a city whose voices reached one, as +from a world far away, and 'down whose peaceful alleys it was pleasant +to stray and hear the bells of St Jean Baptiste peal out with their +sweet, soft, exalted sound,' have vanished out of life. _Yes--but out of +my life they have not vanished!_ For me--the historical Monsieur and +Madame Heger exist quite independently of all associations with the +imaginary personages Paul Emanuel and Madame Beck. For me--the old +school, the class-rooms, the walled garden, with its ancient pear-trees +that still 'faithfully renewed their perfumed snow in spring and +honey-sweet pendants in autumn,' remain--as they were planted vivid +images and visions in my memory half a century ago, when, as a +schoolgirl, I knew nothing about Charlotte Brontë nor _Villette_: but +when I sat, twenty years after Charlotte, in the class-rooms where she +had waited for M. Heger, on the eve of her departure from Bruxelles, +myself an attentive pupil of her Professor, and a witness, half +terrified, and half exasperated, of his varying moods. And when, too, I +saw, rather than heard, Madame Heger, moving noiselessly, where M. +Heger's movements were always attended with shock and excitement; only +to me, Madame Heger appeared always a friendly rather than an adverse +presence--an abiding influence of serenity that reassured one, after +sudden recurrent gusts of nerve-disturbing storms. + +And I would point out that the value of my testimony about the personal +impressions I derived, quite independently of any knowledge of Charlotte +Brontë's residence in what was for me _my_ school, and of her +enthusiasm for _my_ Professor, or her dislike of _my_ schoolmistress, is +enhanced both by the resemblances and by the differences of our several +points of view. Thus--like Charlotte--I was an English pupil and a +Protestant in this Belgian and Catholic school. Like her--my vocation +was to be that of a woman of letters. And although, when she was brought +under M. Heger's influence, she was a woman of genius, already well +acquainted with good literature, and not without experience as a writer, +whereas I was only an unformed girl, with very little reading and no +culture: and merely by force of an inborn desire to follow a certain +purpose in life that filled me with happiness, even in anticipation, +justified in supposing that I had a literary vocation at all, and +although no doubt I have not turned my advantages to account as +Charlotte did, yet I myself owe to M. Heger, not only admirable rules +for criticism and practice, that have always claimed and still claim my +absolute belief, but also I owe to him, as she did, a full enjoyment of +beautiful thoughts, beautifully expressed, and of treasures of the mind +and of the imagination, that, lying outside of the recognised paths of +English study, I might never have found, nor even have recognised as +treasures, had I not been cured of insularity of taste by M. Heger. + +So that upon this point I am able to say of M. Heger what Charlotte +said: he was the only master in literature I ever had; and up to the +present hour I esteem him, in this domain of literary composition, the +only master whose rules I trust. + +But if my judgment of M. Heger, as a Professor, coincides with +Charlotte's, my judgment of him, outside of this capacity, does not show +him to me at all as the model of the man from whom she painted Paul +Emanuel. In other words, I never found nor saw in the real Monsieur +Heger the lovableness under the outward harshness,--the depths of +tenderness under the very apparent severity and irritability,--the +concealed consideration for the feelings of others, under the outer +indifference to the feelings of any one who ruffled his temper; nor yet +did I ever discover meekness and modesty in him, under the dogmatic and +imperious manner that swept aside all opposition. In fact, I never found +out that M. Heger wore a mask. But, irritable, imperious, harsh, not +_unkind_, but certainly the reverse of tender, and without any +consideration for any one's feelings, or any respect for any one's +opinions, thus, _just as he seemed to be, so in reality, in my opinion, +M. Heger actually was_. And what one must remember is that Charlotte's +point of view, from which she formed the opinion that M. Heger _was_ +tender-hearted, and modest and meek, was the point of view of a woman in +love; and this standpoint is not one that ensures impartiality. + +My own point of view, between 1859 and 1861, was that of an English +schoolgirl, under sixteen, of a Belgian schoolmaster, over fifty, who in +his capacity of a literary Professor, was almost a deity to her; but +who, outside of this capacity, was not a lovable, but a formidable man: +a 'Terror,' in the sense children and nursery-maids give the term; that +is to say, some one who is sure to appear upon the scene when one is +least prepared to face him, and who is constantly finding fault with +one. Now a 'Terror,' in this popular sense of the term, although he is +not a lovable, is not necessarily a hateful personage. There may belong +to him an interest of excitement, and even a secret admiration for his +cleverness in fulfilling his role of taking one unawares and finding +something in one to quarrel about. And most certainly this interest of +excitement, and even of a sense of amusement, entered into my sentiment +for M. Heger, whom I recognised as a double-being, an admirable literary +Professor, but an alarming and irritating personality. But although I +never hated him, I yet had some special grievances against this +'Terror,' not only because he had a trick of surprising me in weak +moments, and of finding out my worst sides, but also because he was +really, in my own particular case, unjust; and full of prejudice and +impatience against my nationality, and personal idiosyncrasies that were +not faults; and that I couldn't help. Thus he stirred up in me +rebellious protests, that could not be uttered; because how was an +English schoolgirl of fifteen to protest against the injustice of a +Belgian 'Master,' in his own country, and his own school: who was a man +past fifty, too; and what was more, in his capacity of literary +Professor, if not quite a deity, at least, in my own opinion, the keeper +of the keys of palaces where dwelt the Immortals? + +And that my opinion of M. Heger's personality, as that of a 'Terror' (in +the childish and popular sense) did really show me the man apart from +the Professor very much as he really was, is confirmed by the first +impression he made upon Charlotte herself before the glamour of romantic +love had interfered with her critical perspicacity. Here is the original +description of M. Heger, in the early days of her residence in +Bruxelles: + +'There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken,' she wrote to +Ellen Nussey, 'M. Heger, the husband of Madame. He is Professor of +rhetoric: a man of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in +temperament, a little black being, with a face that varies in +expression. Sometimes he borrows the lineaments of a tom-cat: sometimes +those of a delirious hyena: occasionally, but very seldom, he discards +these perilous attractions and assumes an air not above one hundred +degrees removed from mild and gentleman-like. He is very angry with me +just now, because I have written a translation which he stigmatises as +_peu correct_. He did not tell me so, but wrote the word on the margin +of my book and asked me, in very stern _phrase_, how it happened that my +compositions were always better than my translations, adding that the +thing seemed to him inexplicable. The fact is that three weeks ago in a +high-flown humour he forbade me to use either dictionary or grammar when +translating the most difficult English composition into French. This +makes the task rather arduous, and compels me every now and then to +introduce an English word, which nearly plucks the eyes out of his head +when he sees it. Emily and he don't draw well together at all.' + +I am quoting this view of M. Heger's personality, taken by Charlotte +Brontë before she became a partial witness, because, by and by, when I +am giving my own reminiscences, it will be found that in 1842 M. Heger +was very much the same Professor whom I knew in 1861. + +And Madame Heger? Here too my impressions are obtained from a point of +view unquestionably more impartial than Charlotte Brontë's. And it will +be found that, when the alteration of clear power of vision that +personal prejudices make has been realised, my opposite judgment of the +Directress of the Pensionnat to the judgment of the authoress of +_Villette_, is not the result of any difference in the _facts_ of Madame +Heger's characteristics and behaviour, but in the difference between the +standpoints from which we severally judge them. + +Charlotte's standpoint was the one of the devotee, of the great spirit +who is neither a god nor a mortal, but the 'Child of plenty and poverty, +who is often houseless and homeless'--and who cannot well see 'as in +herself she really is,' the Mistress of the house; who prudently, _not +necessarily with cruelty_, closes the doors of her home against +intruders--that standpoint also is not one conducive to impartial +judgments. + +My own point of view was that of a girl on the threshold of womanhood, +who saw in Madame Heger an embodiment of two qualities especially, that, +perhaps because I did not possess them and could never possess them +(passionate as I was by nature and with strong personal likings and +dislikings), inspired me with a sentiment of reverence and wonder, as +for a remote perfection, that, though unattainable, it did one good to +know existed somewhere; just as it does one good, with feet planted on +the earth, to see the stars. The qualities I saw in Madame Heger were +serene sweetness, a kindness without preferences, covering her little +world of pupils and teachers with a watchful care. _Tranquillité, +Douceur, Bonté:_ the French words express better than English ones the +commingled qualities I felt existed in Madame Heger as she moved +noiselessly (as Charlotte Brontë has described), whilst the more +brilliant and gifted Professor's movements were always stormy. + +When relating these reminiscences of Monsieur and Madame Heger and of +the old school and garden, as I myself treasure them, and quite +independently of their associations with Charlotte Brontë, I shall not +be losing sight of the purpose that justifies this record (as an +endeavour to disentangle fact from fiction) if, in so far as the facts +that concern my own experiences are concerned, I ask now to be allowed +to relate them in a different tone--that is to say, not any longer in +the tone of a literary critic, nor as one supporting any thesis or +argument, but simply as a story-teller 'who has been young and now is +old.' And who, before the darkening day has turned to night, calls to +remembrance scenes and personages long since vanished out of the world, +but still alive for me, bathed in the light that shines upon the +undimmed visions of my youth--although to almost every one else now +alive these scenes have become 'as it were a tale that is told.' + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE +BRONTË'S PROFESSOR[1] + +'Madame,--quelquefois, donner, c'est semer'--_Speech +made to my Mother by M. Heger_. + + +In 1859 this memorable thing happened:--I was introduced by my mother to +M. Heger as his future pupil. I was fourteen years of age: but I +remember everything in connection with this event as though it had +happened yesterday. We were staying at Ostend, where my mother had taken +my brother and myself for a long summer holiday, because she believed we +had been previously overworked at our former schools, from which she had +removed us. She was convinced that we both of us stood in need of +sea-air, exercise and healthy recreation, before we could take up our +studies again, after the strain we had undergone. Upon this point my +brother and I were entirely of one mind with our mother. + +But after a holiday of three months, we had also begun to feel, with +her, that this state of things could not go on for ever, and that--as +she expressed it--'something had to be done with us.' What was done with +us was the result of circumstances that I cannot but regard as +fortunate, in my own case at any rate. They brought into my life, at a +very impressionable age, influences and memories that have always been, +and that are still, after more than half a century, extraordinarily +serviceable and sweet to me. + +The first of these fortunate circumstances was the renewal (due to an +accidental meeting at Ostend) of my mother's friendship with a relative +whom she had lost sight of for a great many years; who had married a +Dutch lady and settled in Holland. The eldest daughter of these +re-discovered cousins was an exceptionally charming girl of nineteen; +and upon enquiry my mother found out that she had been educated at a +school in Brussels, _situated in the Rue d'Isabelle, and kept by a +certain Madame Heger_. How it came to pass that, only four years after +the publication of _Villette_, and two years after Mrs. Gaskell's _Life +of Charlotte Brontë_, it did not occur to my mother to identify this +particular Brussels school with the one where the Director was the fiery +and perilously attractive 'Professor Paul Emanuel' and where the +Directress was painted as the crafty and treacherous 'Madame Beck,' I +really cannot say; but, so it was. There can be no doubt that it was +solely because the account rendered by her delightful young kinswoman of +the school where she had spent three years was thoroughly satisfactory +to my mother, and because the unaffected and accomplished girl herself +was an excellent proof of the happy results of the education she had +received, that my mother made up her mind that the best thing that could +be 'done with me,' was to send me to Madame Heger's school. She had +entered into correspondence with this lady, and the plan had developed +into a further arrangement, that my brother was to be placed with a +French tutor recommended by Madame Heger, and who was the Professor of +History at her establishment. All these conditions were very nearly +settled, when M. Heger came to visit my mother at Ostend; to talk +matters over and to make final arrangements. + +Of course from the point of view of my own humble interest I recognised +that the visit of this Brussels Professor was an event of great +importance. I was fully conscious of this, because my cousin had told me +a great deal about M. Heger, explaining that _he_ was the ruling spirit +in the Pensionnat; that he was rather a terrible personage; and that _if +he took a dislike to one,--well, he could be very disagreeable_. I had +received so much advice upon this particular subject from my cousin that +I had talked the matter over very seriously with my brother afterwards, +and asked him what he thought I ought to do in order to avoid the +misfortune of offending M. Heger. My brother's advice was +sound:--'Don't let the man see you are afraid of him,' he said, 'and +then, whatever you do, don't show off.' + +Keeping these counsels in mind, after M. Heger's arrival, I sat upon the +extreme edge of the rickety sofa that filled the darkest corner in the +little salle-à-manger of our Ostend apartments over the Patissier's shop +in the Rue de la Chapelle--I remember the very name of the Patissier; it +was Dubois--watching and listening eagerly to the conversation of the +Professor with my mother, who, strange to say, did not seem to be in the +least afraid of him; nor to recognise that he was in any way different +to ordinary mortals! And I must say, looking back to that September +afternoon to-day, and realising our attitude of mind, my mother's and +mine, towards this interesting personage to us, but interesting solely +in his character of _my_ future teacher, there does seem to me something +amazing--so amazing as to be almost amusing--in our total +unconsciousness of his already well-established real, or rather ideal +claims as a personage immortalised in English literature, by an +illustrious writer who, four years before my birth, had been his pupil; +and whose romantic love for him, whilst it had broken her heart, had +served as the inspiration of her genius; so that her literary +masterpiece was precisely a book where the very school I was going to +inhabit was painted, with extraordinary veracity, in so far as outward +and local points of resemblance were concerned. + +As for my own ignorance of all these circumstances there is nothing +strange in that. Fifty-four years ago a schoolgirl of my age was not +very likely to have read _Villette_. But what one may pause to inquire +is whether if by any accident the book _had_ come into my hands, and +thus revealed to me my true position, should I have gone down on +my bended knees to my mother, or to express the case more exactly, +should I have flung my arms round her dear neck, and prayed, '_Don't +send me to this school; I am afraid of Professor Paul Emanuel; I +loathe Madame Beck; I shall never make friends with these horrid +Lesbassecouriennes?_' Well, really, I don't think I should have done +anything of the sort! At fourteen one adores an adventure. It seems to +me probable that the excitement of going to the same school, and +learning my lessons in the same class-rooms, and treading the paths of +the same garden, and being instructed by the same teachers as a writer +of genius, who had left these scenes haunted by romance, would have made +me hold under all apprehensions of the Lesbassecouriennes as +school-fellows, of the perfidious Directress with her stealthy methods +of espionage, of the explosive, nerve-wrecking Professor, always +breaking in upon one like a clap of thunder. Yes; but though held under, +the apprehension would have troubled my inner soul a good deal all the +same; and this would have been a pity. Because, in so far as the real +Directress and real Belgian schoolgirls whom I was going to know in the +Rue d'Isabelle went, these apprehensions would have been superfluous and +misleading. + +But now if there were no danger of my finding in the real Pensionnat any +spiritual counterparts of either the fictitious Madame Beck, or of the +perverted Lesbassecouriennes pupils, was it equally certain that, if I +had read _Villette_, I should not have recognised and been justified in +recognising in Monsieur Heger the original model and living image of +that immortal figure in English fiction, '_the magnificent-minded, +grand-hearted, dear, faulty little man_'--Professor Paul Emanuel? + +We shall perhaps be able to decide this question better at the end of +these reminiscences than here. But what must be realised is, that the +very fact that lends some general interest to my mother's first +impressions and my own about M. Heger is chiefly this: that it expresses +observations made from a purely personal standpoint; out of sight of any +literary views about 'Paul Emanuel,' or historical judgments upon his +relations with Charlotte Brontë. The perfectly simple purpose we had in +view was to see clearly what sort of a Professor M. Heger was going to +prove, and whether I was going to do well as his pupil, and get on +satisfactorily, amongst these foreign surroundings. + +My mother formed a most favourable opinion of our visitor, and decided +that I was fortunate in obtaining such a Professor. What had especially +impressed her was a sentence delivered by M. Heger, with a masterly +little gesture, that, as she herself said, entirely won her over to his +opinions upon a question where elaborate arguments might have left her +unconvinced. And I may observe here, that this belonged to M. Heger's +methods, not so much of arguing, as of dispensing with arguments. His +mind was made up upon most subjects, and as he had got into the habit of +regarding the world as his class-room, and his fellow-creatures as +pupils, he did not argue; he told people what they ought to think about +things. And in order to make this method of settling questions not only +convincing, but stimulating, to his most intelligent pupils, he held in +reserve a store of these really luminous phrases, that he would use as +little Lanterns, flashing them, now in this direction, now in that, but +always with a special and appropriate direction given to the +illuminative phrase, so that it lit up the point of view upon which he +desired to fix attention. The particular sentence that conquered my +mother's admiration and acquiescence in M. Heger's point of view was the +one I have made the heading of this chapter. Here was how he contrived +to introduce it. After discussing the plan of _my_ studies, and the +arrangements for my being taken to the English church by my brother +every Sunday, and allowed to take walks with him upon half-holidays (to +all of which of course I listened with passionate attention), they +passed on to discuss the terms asked by the tutor whom the Hegers had +recommended. My mother had been told by her Dutch cousin that they were +exorbitant terms; and, as a matter of fact, I believe they were exactly +twice the amount charged by the Hegers themselves: '_I am not a rich +woman_,' my mother had said, apologetically, '_and I have put aside a +fixed sum for my children's education; I doubt if I can give this_.' ... +Then did the Professor see, and seize, his opportunity: '_Madame,'_ he +said, with a gesture, '_quelquefois, donner, c'est semer_.' My mother, +dazzled with this prophetic utterance, remained speechless and +vanquished. In the evening of the same day I heard her quote to the +Dutch cousin, who did not approve of her consent to these charges, +'_what that clever man, Professor Heger) said so well_,' as though it +had been unanswerable. In the course of the next two years I often heard +the same luminous phrase used, with equal appropriateness, to light up +other propositions. (I have heard M. Heger use it in a sense where it +became a different formula for expressing a fundamental doctrine of +Rousseau, thus, '_Instruire, ce n'est pas donner, c'est semer_,' but I +never heard the words without going back to the first impression, and to +the vision it called up. I would see again the little _salle-à-manger_ +in the Rue de la Chapelle at Ostend, I would watch the masterly gesture +of the Professor's hand when he delivered his triumphant sentence, that +is not an argument, but is worth more; I would see the look of +admiration and sudden conviction come into my dear mother's face; I +would feel myself sitting upon the little rickety sofa in the dark +corner, _and I would shudder with the foreknowledge of what was coming_, +for, woebetide me that I should have to tell it, this first interview +_did not leave with me the same impression of confidence in M. Heger as +my future teacher and guardian that it did with my mother;_ it left with +me, on the contrary, the miserable conviction that the very worst thing +that could have happened had happened; that M. Heger had taken a +vehement dislike to me, and consequently that all hope of happiness for +me in the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle was over and done with. + +And the worst of it was, that it was all my own fault; or rather, to be +just, it was my misfortune. + +For I had had a really very bad time of it, sitting on that rickety +little sofa. My mother, who had only too flattering an opinion of me in +every way, had meant to say the kindest things about me to M. Heger, and +I knew this perfectly. But unfortunately, although she spoke French with +the greatest fluency and self-confidence (because as she was a very +charming woman, and as Frenchmen are always polite in their criticism of +the French of charming English women, she had been very often +complimented upon her command of the language),--unfortunately, I say, +her French was really English, literally translated; and every one who +has experience of what false meanings can be conveyed by this sort of +French will realise what I had suffered, because, though I only spoke +French badly at this time, I understood the language better than my +mother. And this is how I had heard myself described to my future +Professor. My mother had _wished_ to say that I was more fond of study +and of reading than was good for the health of a girl of my age; but +what she _actually_ said was that I was fond of reading things that were +not healthy or suitable (_convenable_) for a young girl. Again, she had +_meant_ to say that as I had worked too hard, she had let me run wild a +little; and that consequently I might find it difficult to get into +working habits again; but that as I had a capital head of my own, and +plenty of courage, I should, no doubt, soon get into good ways again. +But instead of all these flattering things (that might have been rather +irritating too, only a Professor of experience knows how to forgive a +parent's partiality), I had heard this fond mother of mine say that her +daughter had recently contracted the habits of a little savage; and that +it would require courageous discipline, as she was very headstrong, to +bring her into the right way again. It will be understood that to sit +and listen to all this about oneself was anguish. But, carefully +watching M. Heger's face, I had a notion that he had found out there was +some mistake. Still I was depressed and bewildered; and in dread of what +I was going to say, when the time came, as I knew it must, when he would +say something to me, and I should have a chance of answering for myself. +And the misfortune was, that _when_ the critical moment came, I wasn't +expecting it; because, here, at least, what the author of _Villette_ +says of Professor Paul Emanuel was true of M. Heger--everything he did +was sudden; and he always contrived to take one by surprise. + +It was immediately after he had won his triumph over my mother, and in +the moment when I myself was under the spell of admiration for his +talent, that he turned upon me, in a sort of flash, smiling down upon me +(very red and startled to find him so near), and nodding his head with +an irritating look of amusement as his penetrating eyes searched my +doleful face. '_Aa-ah_,' he said, in a half-playful, but as it sounded +to me, more mocking, than kindly tone, '_Aa-ah_' (another nod of the +head), 'so this is the little Savage I have to discipline and vanquish, +is it? And she is headstrong (_têtue_). Tell me, Mees, am I to be too +indulgent? or too severe? (_Dois-je être trop indulgent? ou trop +sévère?_') Now, if only I had made the natural reply, the one obviously +expected from me--the one any girl in my position would have made, and +which I myself should have made if I hadn't been addressed as 'a little +savage,' and if I hadn't been smarting under the sense that he must have +the worst possible opinion of me, and that I ought to vindicate my +honour in some way,--if only, in short, I had remembered my brother's +wholesome advice, '_Don't show off_,' that is to say, if only I had +said, amiably and nicely, with a timid little smile, '_Trop indulgent, +s'il vous plait, Monsieur_,' THEN all would have been well with me; M. +Heger would have continued to smile; we should have exchanged amiable +glances and parted the best of friends.... But of what use are these +speculations? What I _did_ reply to his question of whether he was to be +too indulgent or too severe was--'_Ni l'un ni l'autre, Monsieur; soyez +juste, celà suffit_' ... and I listened to the broadness of my own +British accent, whilst I said it, in despairing wonder! M. Heger's +smiles vanished; there came what I took to be a 'look of undying hatred' +into his face--it was not perhaps so bad as all that, but ... well, I +certainly hadn't conquered his favour. He said something disagreeable +about Les Anglaises being over wise, too philosophical for him, which my +mother thought was a compliment to my cleverness. But I knew what I had +done, and that it could never be undone, henceforth ... + +Well, but the case really was not quite so desperate perhaps? + + +[1] This chapter is reproduced from the _Cornhill_ by the kind +permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW +THEM; AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I +KNEW THEM + + +Let me give here my mother's, and my own, account of the impressions +made upon us by M. Heger's personal appearance at this time. + +'He is very like one of those selected Roman Catholic Priests,' my +mother told her Dutch relatives, 'who go into society and look after the +eldest sons of Catholic noblemen. He has too good a nose for a Belgian +and, I should say, he has Italian blood in him.' + +My own report, to my brother, who made anxious inquiries of me, was less +flattering perhaps, but it was not intended to be disrespectful. I +always see M. Heger as I saw him then: as too interesting to be +alarming; but too alarming to be lovable. + +'He is rather like Punch,' I said, 'but better looking of course; and +not so good-tempered.' + +Let me justify these two descriptions by showing that both of them were +based upon an accurate observation of the man himself. + +M. Heger, as I remember him, was no longer what Charlotte called him, +angrily, in her letter to Ellen Nussey, a _little Black Being_, and, +affectionately, under the disguise of Paul Emanuel, '_a spare, alert +man, showing the velvet blackness of a close-shorn head, and the sallow +ivory of his brow beneath_.' M. Heger in 1859 was still alert, but he +was not spare, he was inclining towards stoutness. His hair was not +velvet black, but grizzled, and he was bald on the crown of his head, in +a way that might have been mistaken for a tonsure; and this no doubt +added to the resemblance my mother saw in him to a Priest. He did not +look in the least old, however. His brow, not sallow but bronzed, was +unwrinkled; his eyes were still clear and penetrating (Charlotte said +they were violet blue; and certainly she ought to have known. Still, _do +violet eyes penetrate one's soul like points of steel?_) The Roman +nose, that my mother thought too good a nose to be Belgian, and that +reminded me of Punch (but a good-looking Punch) was a commanding +feature. And the curved chin (also suggesting a good-looking Punch, to a +young and irreverent observer), although it indicated humour, meant +sarcasm, rather than a sense of fun. But Monsieur Heger had one really +beautiful feature, that I remember often watching with extreme pleasure +when he recited fine poetry or read noble prose:--his mouth, when +uttering words that moved him, had a delightful smile, not in the least +tender towards ordinary mortals, but almost tender in its homage to the +excellence of writers of genius. + +In brief, what M. Heger's face revealed when studied as the index of his +natural qualities, was intellectual superiority, an imperious temper, a +good deal of impatience against stupidity, and very little patience with +his fellow-creatures generally; it revealed too a good deal of humour; +and a very little kind-heartedness, to be weighed against any amount of +irritability. It was a sort of face bound to interest one; but not, so +it seems to me, to conquer affection. For with all these qualities of +intellect, power, humour, and a little kind-heartedness, one quality was +totally lacking: there was no love in M. Heger's face, nor in his +character, as I recall it; and, oddly enough, looking back now to him as +one of the personages in my own past to whom I owe most, and whose mind +I most admire, I have to recognise that in my sentiment towards M. Heger +to-day even, made up as it is half of admiration and half of amusement, +there is not one particle of love. + +I have said--in connection with my first impression, that 'undying hate' +was the sentiment that M. Heger had conceived for me--that really 'it +was not so bad as all that.' Still, what happened at this first +interview, if it did not determine any deep-rooted antipathy to me, +planted from this moment in M. Heger's breast, did indicate, to a +certain extent, what the character of our future relationships was to +be--_out of lesson-hours._ In these hours, our relationships of +Professor and pupil were ideal. Seldom did an occasional +misunderstanding trouble them. Certainly, in my own day, no other pupil +entered with so much sympathetic admiration into the spirit of M. +Heger's teaching as I did. He saw and felt this; and here I, too, was +for him, and _as a pupil_, sympathetic. But in our personal +relationships, there were certain things in me that were antipathetic to +M. Heger, and that rubbed him so much the wrong way, that he was +constantly (so it still seems to me) unjust to what were not faults, but +idiosyncrasies, that belonged to my nationality and my character. First +of all, there was my English accent: and here this singular remark has +to be made: I never spoke such purely British French to any one as to M. +Heger; and this was the result of my constant endeavour to be very +careful to avoid the accent he disliked, when speaking to him. The +second cause of offence in me was also due to my nationality, or rather +to my upbringing. Like all English children of my generation, I had been +brought up to esteem it undignified, and even a breach of good manners, +to cry in public: and although I was tender-hearted and emotional, I was +not in the least hysterical; and except under the stress of extreme +distress, it cost me very little self-control not to weep, as my Belgian +schoolfellows did, very often, at the smallest scolding; or even without +a scolding, and simply because they were bored--'_ennuyée_.' I remember +now my surprise, at first hearing the reply to my question to a sobbing +schoolfellow: '_Pourquoi pleures-tu?_ '_Parce que je m'ennuie._' 'Why?' +'_Mais je te le dis parce que je m'ennuie_.' Well, but M. Heger liked +his pupils to cry, when he said disagreeable things: or, in any case, he +became gentle, and melted, when they wept, and was amiable at once. But +when one did not weep, but appeared either unmoved, or indignant, he +became more and more disagreeable: and, at length, exasperated. A third +idiosyncrasy in me that he disliked was not national, but personal. It +was due to a sort of incipient Rousseau-ism,--that must have been +inborn, because I was never taught it, even in England. And yet there +it was, implanted in me as a sentiment, long before I recognised it as +an opinion or conviction, that I could express in words! This natural +sentiment, or principle, was the belief that '_I was born free: that my +soul was my own: and that there was no virtue, wisdom, nor happiness +possible for me outside of the laws of my own constitution_.' +Unformulated, but inherent in me, this fundamental belief in myself as a +law to myself, no doubt betrayed itself in a sort of independence of +mind and manner very aggravating to my elders and betters, and to those +put in authority over me. And especially aggravating to an authoritative +Professor, who was, in all domains, opposed to individualism, and the +doctrine of personal rights and liberty. Thus in literature M. Heger was +a classic; in religion he was a dogmatic Catholic; in politics he was an +anti-democrat, a lover of vigorous kings; and by constitution he was a +king in his own right: a masterful man, not only a law to himself, but a +lord, by virtue of his sense of superiority, to everyone else. + +For these reasons, M. Heger and myself--on ideal terms as Professor +and pupil--were on bad terms outside of lesson-hours. We could not quite +dislike each other; but our relationships were stormy. There were, +however, intervals of calm. + +I have said that with a good deal of admiration, gratitude, and some +amusement, there is no _love_ for M. Heger intermingled with my +remembrances of him. + +There is, on the contrary, a good deal of love in the sentiment I retain +for Madame Heger,--although, as a matter of fact, in the days when I was +her pupil I never remember any strong or warm feeling of personal +affection for her; nor have I any distinct personal obligation to her, +as to one who, like M. Heger, rendered me direct services by her +instructions or counsels. Nor yet again had Madame Heger any strong +personal liking for me; nor did she show me any special kindness. But +her kindness was of an all-embracing character. And so was her liking +for, or rather love of, all the inhabitants of the little world she +governed: a world that extended beyond the boundaries of the actual +walls of the Pensionnat, in any stated year; a world, made up of all +the girls who, before that year, and afterwards, through several +generations, had been and ever would be, her 'dear pupils'; '_mes chères +élèves_';--terms that, uttered by her, were no mere formula, but +expressed a true sentiment, and a serious and, so it seems to me, a +beautiful and sweet idealism. This idealism in Madame Heger, this +constant love and care and watchfulness for the community of girls, who, +passing out of her hands, were to go out into the world by and by, to +fulfil there what Madame Heger saw to be the kind and sweet and +tranquil, and sometimes self-sacrificing and sorrowful, mission of +womanhood, enveloped the ideal school-mistress with a sort of unfailing +benevolence, that became a pervading influence in the Pensionnat, +singling out no particular pupils, and withdrawn from none of them. + +Here, it seems to me, and not at all in the reasons imagined by +Charlotte in the case of Madame Beck, we have the secret of Madame +Heger's system of government. I really am not, at this distance of time, +able to say positively whether there was, or was not, a surveillance +that might be called a system of _espionage_ carried on, keeping the +head-mistress informed of the conversation and behaviour of this large +number of girls, amongst whom one or two black sheep might have sufficed +to contaminate the flock. I was not a faultless, nor a model girl by any +means: but I was a simple sort of young creature with nothing of the +black sheep in me; and I never remember in my own case having my desk +explored, nor my pockets turned inside out. But if even this had been +done, it would not have gravely affected me; because neither in my +pockets nor in my desk, would anything have been found of a mysterious +or interesting character. But I should think it very probable that, in +this very large school, a watchful surveillance _was_ kept up; and that +if any of these schoolgirls, most of them under sixteen, had attempted, +after their return from the monthly holiday, to bring back to school +illegal stores of sweets, or a naughty story book, and had concealed +such things in their school desks, well, I admit, I think it possible, +that the sweets or naughty book _might_ have been missing from the desk +next day. And also that, in the course of the afternoon, a not entirely +welcome invitation would have been received by the imprudent smuggler of +forbidden goods to pay Madame Heger a visit in the Salon? These things +took place occasionally I know: and naturally, amongst the girls public +sympathy was with the smuggler. But I am not sure, if one takes the +point of view of a Directress, if a large girls' school could be carried +on successfully, were it made a point of honour that there should be no +surveillance, and that pupils might use their lockers as cupboards for +sweets, or as hiding-places for light literature. + +But, apart from the fact that Madame Heger was, no doubt, both watchful +and uncompromising in her surveillance, based upon a firm resolution +that nothing 'inconvenient' must be smuggled in, or hidden out of sight, +as a source of mischief in the school, there was in her no resemblance +to the odious Madame Beck; that is to say, no _moral_ resemblance. In +physical appearance, the author of _Villette_ did use Madame Heger +evidently as the model for the picture of an entirely different moral +person. '_Her complexion was fresh and sanguine, her eye blue and +serene. Her face offered contrasts--its features were by no means such +as are usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such blended +freshness and repose; their outline was stern; her forehead was high, +but narrow; it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but no +expanse.... I know not what of harmony pervaded her whole person._'[1] + +Taking this portrait from _Villette_, as it is given of Madame Beck, and +comparing it with my own recollections, and also with the photograph I +am fortunate enough to possess of Madame Heger at the age of sixty, it +seems to me that this _is_ a very accurate physical description of the +real Directress of the school in the Rue d'Isabelle; who morally was as +unlike the fictitious Madame Beck as truth is unlike falsehood. About +the physical resemblance, I may say that, if I had trusted to my own +impressions, I should have rejected the assertion that the 'outline +of her features was stern.' I never remember associating sternness +with Madame Heger; though her supreme quality of serenity imposed a sort +of respect that had a little touch of fear in it. Upon re-examining the +photograph attentively, however, I find that it is true that the outline +of the features _is_ stern; but I do not think that this impression was +conveyed by the younger face, remembered with softened colouring; and +lit up, as a characteristic expression, by a normal expression of +serenity and of kindliness. '_I know not what of harmony pervaded her +whole person_': that sentence of Charlotte's (used by her of the +unspeakable Madame Beck) exactly expresses the impression I still retain +of the very estimable and, by myself, affectionately remembered, Madame +Heger. + + +[Illustration: MADAME HEGER AT SIXTY. (She was thirty years younger when +Charlotte knew her) From a portrait given to the author by Madame +Heger's daughter (Author's _Copyright_)] + + +In the same way, as I have said, the apprehensions as to my future +companions in this foreign school, that would infallibly have been +awakened in me if I had read, before meeting them, the account given by +the author of _Villette_ of Belgian schoolgirls, as differing, not only +in nationality, but in human nature, from English schoolgirls, would +have been groundless. When I call up around me to-day the recollections +of my Bruxelles schoolfellows, amongst whom I was the only English girl +and the only Protestant, there does not come back to me any painful +remembrance that I ever felt myself an alien amongst them. On the +contrary, I remember privileges granted me as 'la petite Anglaise,' who +was further away than others from home, and must be treated with special +kindness. I see around me in this large company of girls, no 'perverted' +nor precociously formed young women, _whose 'eyes are full of an +insolent light, and their brows hard and unblushing as marble_.' In +brief, I see no '_swinish multitude_'--such as insular prejudice, and a +disturbed imagination, showed Charlotte; but I see very much the same +mixed crowd of youthful faces, fair and dark, pretty and plain, smiling +and serious, stupid and intelligent, coarse and fine, sympathetic and +unlikeable, that one would get in such a large collection of English +schoolgirls; but in all this crowd of my Belgian schoolfellows just what +my memory does _not_ show me anywhere, are the '_eyes full of an +insolent light, and the brow hard and unblushing as marble_,'[2]--that +are not characteristics of the schoolgirl in any nation or country I +have ever known; and I have been a traveller in my time, and enjoyed +opportunities of observing different national peculiarities, that never +fell in the way of Charlotte, who spent two years in Bruxelles; but +lived the rest of her life in Yorkshire. + +As for the hundred (or more perhaps than a hundred) schoolgirls that +made up in my day the little world ruled by Madame Heger as the +administrator of a system based on the authority of _Douceur, Bonté_, +and _les Convenances_ (in the sense of what was seemly, and opposed to +violence and ugliness), amongst them were many girls whom I only knew by +name and sight; many of whom I knew slightly better, and whom I rather +liked than disliked; a few whom I disliked heartily (very few of +these)--and a few whom I loved dearly (very few again)--but amongst +these friends, chosen because their hearts were in tune with my own, +the difference of nationality and creed did not stand in the way of +mutual affection. In some cases, it is true, life, with its exacting +claims of duties and occupations and cares, rushed in to divide me +afterwards from these companions of my best years; when everything that +I am glad, and not sorry, to have been, and to have done, in a long +life, was prepared and made possible for me--but at least one of these +friendships formed with a Belgian schoolgirl in those days, I may +describe as a life-long friendship: because it remains an unaltered +sentiment that lives in me to-day, unquenched by the fact that, only a +few years ago--after half a century had passed since we met--my girl +friend that had been then, a white-haired woman now, died; in the same +year, as it strangely happened, that our old school (transformed into a +boys' college during the last twenty years of its existence), that had +stood in the Rue d'Isabelle until 1909, was swept away, with its +beautiful old walled garden and time-honoured pear-trees, that to the +end of their lives 'renewed their perfumed snowy blossom every spring.' + +I am told a handsome building now replaces the long, plain straggling +façade of the historic school--but I have no wish to see it. + + +[1] _Villette_, chapter viii. + +[2] See _Villette_, chapter viii. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MY SECOND INTERVIEW WITH M. HEGER. +THE WASHING OF 'PEPPER.' THE +LESSON IN ARITHMETIC + + +I had been an inmate of the school in the Rue d'Isabelle a fortnight. In +this interval I had lived through a great deal. Thanks to attentive +self-doctoring and a strict _régime_, where no luxuries in the way of +private crying were allowed, I had pulled myself through the first acute +stage of the sort of sickness that attacks every 'new' girl, as the +result of being plunged into the cold atmosphere of a strange, and +especially of a foreign, school. Now I was out of danger of the peril +that had threatened me during about a week, the possible disaster of +some sudden access of violent weeping over my sense of desolation, in +the sight of these foreign teachers and pupils, that would have seemed +to me profoundly humiliating, on patriotic, as well as upon private +grounds. For, as the one English girl in this Belgian school, was not +the honour of my country, or, at any rate, of the girls of my country, +at stake? And then I realised, also, that politeness to the foreigner, +as well as duty to myself and my country, forbade any exhibition of +vehement home-sickness. Thus, might not these Belgian teachers and girls +reasonably take offence, and say, 'Why do you come to school in our +country if you don't like it? We didn't ask you to come here. Why don't +you go home?' + +By these methods, then, of what it pleased me to regard as a sort of +philosophy of my own, I had lived through the worst, and if I was not +entirely cured of occasional inward sinkings of the heart and the +feeling of desolation, I felt I had mastered the temptation to make any +public display of them. And having reached this point by my own effort, +now help came to me in the shape of a friendly tribute and encouragement +from a girl who was a sort of philosopher, also by a rule of her own, +which she kindly explained to me, and which I entirely approved of. +This girl was fair and small, and had broad brows and clear green eyes +under them. Her name was Marie Hazard. She had not spoken to me before, +but on several occasions had shown me little kindnesses, and given me +nice smiles and nods of greeting. Finally she came up to me in the +garden and took my arm:-- + +'Do you know why I have a friendship for you?' she asked. + +'No,' I answered. 'But have you _really_? I _am_ so glad.' + +'Yes,' she proceeded to explain; 'I like you, because you are +reasonable, and don't sit down and cry, as, of course, you _could_ if +you liked. I have as much heart as another; but it irritates me, and +does not touch me one bit, to see some of the pupils here, the big ones +too, crying and crying, and _why? because they have come back to school, +and would rather be at home!_ Evidently that is the case with all of us. +And evidently, what is more, it's going to be the case for ten months. +But for some insignificant holidays at the New Year, from now until +August, thus it will be with us. We shall be all of us in this school, +and we would all of us prefer to be in our homes. But why cry, then? or +if one begins to cry, why leave off? Is one, then, to cry for ten +months? And what eyes will one have at the end? And what good is it?' + +I laughed, not only because she seemed to me to put it humorously, but +because I was full of happiness that I had found a friend. + +'Yes,' she said, 'you laugh, and that is well, too. It's the thing to +do. Now, if _you_ cried there might be an excuse; you are farther away +from your people than we are. But you ask yourself, What is the good? +And you say to yourself, No, I won't discourage the others. And that is +English. And that is why I like the English; they are at least +reasonable.' + +This was balm to me. The sense of desolation had vanished. Here was the +proof that I had been a good witness, and served to uphold the good name +of England, and also that I had conquered a friend. + +I think it was the same afternoon, because there were Catechism classes, +from which, as a Protestant, I was exempted, that I was sent out into +the garden, for the first time, at an hour when no other pupils were +there. Later on this privilege was very often accorded me, for the same +reason; so that, in my own day at any rate, no one else in the school +had the opportunity I had given me, and that I used, of taking +possession of the enchanted place and making it my very own. And this +was so because there was no knowledge in my mind at the time that Some +One had been beforehand with me here; and that although for my inner +self it became (and must always be for me exclusively) my own beautiful, +well-enclosed, flower-scented, turf-carpeted, Eden where the spirit of +my youth had its home before any worldly influences, or any knowledge of +evil, had come between it and the poetry of its aspirations and its +dreams, yet for every one _but_ myself, it is Charlotte Brontë's Garden +of Imagination, where _she_ used to '_stray down the pleasant alleys and +hear the bells of St. Jean Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, +exalted sound._[1] + +And although no angel with a flaming sword--no, nor yet any Belgian +architects and masons, who have broken down the walls and uprooted the +old trees, and made the old historical garden in the Rue d'Isabelle a +place of stones--can drive me out of _my_ garden of memories where still +(and more often than before as the day darkens) I walk 'in the cool of +the evening' with the spirit of my youth; yet, for English readers, it +is not I, but Charlotte Brontë who must describe, what I could never +dare nor desire to paint after her, the famous _Allée défendue_ that +holds such a romantic place in her novel of Lucy Snowe, and that was +also the scene of my second meeting with M. Heger. + +'In the garden there _was a large berceau_,' wrote the author of +_Villette_, '_above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a +smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran along a +high and grey wall and gathered their tendrils in a knot of beauty; and +hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured spot, where +jasmine and ivy met and married them ... this alley, which ran parallel +with the very high wall on that side of the garden, was forbidden to be +entered by the pupils; it was called indeed l'Allée défendue._' + +In my day there was no prohibition of the _Allée défendue_, although the +name survived. It was only forbidden to play noisy or disturbing games +there; as it was to be reserved for studious pupils, or for the +mistresses who wished to read or converse there in quietude. + + +[Illustration: THE "ALLÉE DÉFENDUE"] + + +If I had a lesson to learn, it was to the _Allée défendue_ that I took +my book; and in this _allée_ I had already discovered and appropriated a +sheltered nook, at the furthest end of the _berceau_, where one was +nearly hidden oneself in the vine's curtain, but had a delightful view +of the garden. Before reaching this low bench, I had noticed, when +entering the _berceau_, that a ladder stood in the centre; and that, out +of view in so far as his head went, a man, in his shirt sleeves, was +clipping and thinning the vines. I took it for granted he was a +gardener, and paid no attention to him; but, in a quite happy frame of +mind, sat down to learn some poetry by heart. My impression is that it +was Lamartine's _Chûte des Feuilles_. Shutting my eyes, whilst repeating +the verses out aloud (a trick I had), I opened them, _to see M. Heger_. +He it was who had been thinning the vine; it was a favourite occupation +of his (had I read _Villette_ I should have known it).[2] Once again he +took me by surprise, and I was full of anxiety as to what might come of +it. Since I entered the school I had, indeed, caught distant views of +him, hurrying through the class-rooms to or from his lessons in the +First and Second divisions. But until my French had improved I was +placed in the Third division, where M. Heger only taught occasionally, +so that I had not yet received any lesson from him. + +It was a relief to see that he looked amiable, and even friendly; if +only I didn't lose my head and say the wrong thing again! One thing I +kept steadily in view; nothing must induce me to forget my brother's +advice this time; there must be no attempt at fine phrases, this time +nothing that could possibly appear like showing off.... But all my +anxieties upon this occasion were dispelled by the purpose of my +Professor's disturbance of my studies. He invited me to assist him in +washing a very stout but very affectionate white dog, to whom I was told +I owed this service as he was a compatriot of mine, an English dog, with +an English name: a very inappropriate one, for he was sweet-tempered and +white, and the name was Pepper. For this operation of washing Pepper, I +was invited upstairs into M. Heger's library, which was, in this +beautifully clean and orderly house, a model of disorder; clouded as to +air, and soaked as to scent, with the smoke of living and the +accumulated ashes of dead cigars. But the shelves laden from floor to +ceiling with books made a delightful spectacle. + +Upon the occasion of this first visit to his library, M. Heger made me +the present of a book that marked a new epoch in my life, because, +before I was fifteen, it put before me in a vivid and amusing way the +problem of personality, _Le Voyage autour de ma Chambre_ of Xavier de +Maistre, was my introduction to thoughts and speculations that led me to +a later interest in Oriental philosophy, and especially in Buddhism. I +must not forget another present in the form of one more of those +luminous little sentences that, as I have said, he used as Lanterns, +turning them to send light in different directions. I had confided to +him, not my own methods of philosophy--I did not dare incur the +risk--but my newly found friend's methods of helping herself to be +'reasonable.' M. Heger showed no enthusiasm, nor even approval: and I +found out that he had a strong dislike to my elected friend. Personally +he would have preferred and recommended _Religious_ methods of prayer, +and docile submission to spiritual direction, to any philosophy, +especially in the case of women. But he quoted to me and wrote down for +me, and exhorted me to learn by heart and repeat aloud (as I actually +did), a definition of the philosophy of life of an Eighteenth-century +Woman, as '_Une façon de tirer parti de sa raison pour son bonheur_.' I +discovered this sentence a great many years afterwards in a book of the +de Goncourts. But M. Heger first gave it to me in my girlhood. + +Although it was, of course, as Professor of Literature that M. Heger +excelled, he was in other domains--in every domain he entered--an +original and an effective teacher. Let me give the history of a famous +Lesson in Arithmetic by M. Heger that took place, I am not quite sure +why, in the large central hall, or _Galerie_ as it was called, that +flanked the square, enclosing the court or playground of daily boarders, +whilst the _Galerie_ divided the court from the garden. For some special +reason, all the classes attended this particular lesson; where the +subject was the _Different effects upon value, of multiplication and +division in the several cases of fractions and integers_. Madame Heger +and the Mesdemoiselles Heger, and all the governesses were there. I had +been promoted into the first class (passing the second class over +altogether) before this, so that I was a regular pupil of M. Heger's in +literature, and certainly in this class, a favourite. But I was a +complete dunce at arithmetic, and it was a settled conviction in my mind +that my stupidity was written against me in the book of destiny; and I +admit that, as it did not seem of any use for me to try to do anything +in this field, I had given up trying, and when arithmetic lessons were +being given I employed my thoughts elsewhere. But a lesson from M. Heger +was another thing; even a lesson in arithmetic by him might be worth +while. So that I really did, with all the power of brain that was in me, +try to apply myself to the understanding of his lesson. But it was of no +use; after about five minutes, the usual arithmetic brain-symptoms +began; words ceased to mean anything at all intelligible. It was really +a sort of madness; and therefore in self-defence I left the thing alone +and looked out of the window, whilst the lesson lasted. It never entered +my head that _I_ was in any danger of being questioned: no one ever took +any notice of me at the arithmetic lessons. It was recognised that, +here, I was no good; and as I was good elsewhere, they left me alone. +Yes, but M. Heger wasn't going to leave me alone. Evidently he had taken +a great deal of trouble, and wanted the lesson to be a success. And it +had not succeeded. He was dissatisfied with all the answers he received. +He ran about on the _estrade_ getting angrier and angrier. And then at +last, to my horror, he called upon _me_; and what cut me to the soul, I +saw that there was a look of confidence in his face, as if to say 'Here +is some one who will have understood!' + +... Well of course the thing was hopeless. I had a sort of mad notion +that a miracle might happen, and that Providence might interfere, and +that if by accident I repeated some words I had heard him say there +might be some sense in them--but, as Matthew Arnold said, miracles don't +happen. It was deplorable. I saw him turn to Madame Heger with a shrug +of the shoulders: and that he must have said of the whole English race +abominable things, and of this English girl in particular, may be taken +for granted; because Madame Heger hardly ever spoke a word when he was +angry. But now she said something soothing about the English nation, and +in my praise. Well, my case being settled, M. Heger began: and he did +not leave off until the whole Galerie was a house of mourning. In the +whole place, the only dry eyes were mine, and here I had to exercise no +self-control; for although at first I had been sorry for him, now I was +really so angry with him for attacking these harmless girls, and +attributing to them abominable heartlessness, although the place rang +with their sobs, that I don't think I should have minded a slight attack +of apoplexy--only I shouldn't have liked him to have died. + +It was really a bewildering and almost maddening thing, because on both +sides it was so absurd. First of all, what had all these weeping girls +done to deserve the reproaches the Professor heaped upon them? 'They +said to themselves,' he told them: '"What does this old Papa-Heger +matter? Let him sit up at night, let him get up early, let him spend all +his days in thinking how he can serve _us_, make difficulties light, +and dark things clear to _us. We_ are not going to take any trouble on +our side, not we! why should we? Indeed, it amuses us to see him +_navré_--for us, it is a good farce."' + +The wail rose up--'_Mais non, Monsieur, ce n'est pas vrai, cela ne nous +amuse pas; nous sommes tristes, nous pleurons, voyez._' + +The Professor took no heed; he continued. 'They said to themselves "Ah! +the old man, _le pauvre vieux_, takes an interest in us, he loves us; it +pleases him to think when he is dead, and has disappeared, these little +pupils whom he has tried to render intelligent, and well instructed, and +adorned with gifts of the mind, will think of his lessons, and wish they +had been more attentive. Foolish old thing! not at all," they say, "as +if _we_ had any care for him or his lessons."' + +The wail rose up--'_Ce n'est pas gentil ce que vous dites là, Monsieur: +nous avons beaucoup de respect pour vous, nous aimons vos leçons; oui, +nous travaillerons bien, vous allez voir, pardonnez-nous_.' + +'Frankly, now, does that touch you?' I heard behind me. 'It is not +reasonable! I find it even stupid (_je le trouve même bête_).' Marie +Hazard, of course. I made a mistake when I said _my_ eyes were the only +dry ones. Here was my philosopher-friend, amongst the pupils in the +Galerie, and her eyes were quite as dry as mine. + +But the story of the Lesson in Arithmetic does not finish here; and +nothing would be more ungrateful were I to hide the ending: by which I +was the person to benefit most. To my alarm, in the recreation hour next +day, M. Heger came up to me, still with a frowning brow and a strong +look of dislike, and told me he wished to prove to himself whether I was +negligent or incapable. Because if I was incapable, it was idle to waste +time on me--so much the worse for my poor mother, who deceived herself! +On the other hand, if I was negligent, it was high time I should correct +myself. This was what had to be seen. I followed him up to his library, +not joyously like the willing assistant in the washing of Pepper, but +like a trembling criminal led to execution. I felt he was going again +over 'fractions' and the 'integers.' I knew I shouldn't understand +them; and that he wouldn't understand that I was 'incapable,' that when +arithmetic began my brain was sure to go! + +The funny and pleasant thing about M. Heger was that he was so fond of +teaching, and so truly in his element when he began it, that his temper +became sweet at once; and I loved his face when it got the look upon it +that came in lesson-hours: so that, whereas we were hating each other +when we crossed the threshold of the door, we liked each other very much +when we sat down to the table; and I had an excited feeling that he was +going to make me understand. _It took him rather less than a quarter of +an hour._ + +On the table before us he had a bag of macaroon biscuits, and half a +Brioche cake. He presented me with a macaroon. There you have one whole +macaroon (_intègre_): well, but let us be generous. Suppose I multiply +my gift, by eight: now you have eight whole macaroons and _are eight +times richer_, hein? But that's too many; _eight_ whole macaroons! I +divide them between you and me. As the result, you have half the eight. +But now for our _half-Brioche_; we have one piece only: and we are _two +people_, so we multiply the pieces. But _each is smaller_, the more +pieces, the smaller slice of cake; here are eight pieces; they are +really too small for anything, we will divide this collection of pieces +into two parts. Now does not this division make you better off, hein? +Then he folded his arms across his chest in a Napoleonic attitude, and +nodding his head at me, asked, '_Que c'est difficile,--n'est-ce pas_?' + +Of course in this, and indeed in all his personal and special methods, +M. Heger followed Rousseau faithfully. But, then, where is the modern +educationalist since 1762 who does _not_ found himself upon Rousseau? + +It was not, however, in rescuing one from the slough of despond, where +natural defects would have left one without his aid, that M. Heger +excelled--it was rather in calling out one's best faculties; in +stimulating one's natural gifts; in lifting one above satisfaction with +mediocrity; in fastening one's attention on models of perfection; in +inspiring one with a sense of reverence and love for them, that M. +Heger's peculiar talent lay. + +I may attempt only to sum up a _few_ maxims of his, that have constantly +lived in my own mind: but I feel painfully my inability to convey the +impression they produced when given by this incomparable Professor; +whose power belonged to his personality; and was consequently a power +that cannot be reproduced, nor continued by any disciple. The Teacher of +genius is born and not made. + +The first of these maxims was that, before entering upon the study of +any noble or high order of thoughts, one had to follow the methods +symbolised by the Eastern practice of leaving one's shoes outside of the +Mosque doors. There were any number of ways of 'putting off the shoes' +of vulgarity, suggested to one's choice by M. Heger: the reading of some +beautiful passage in a favourite book; the repetition of a familiar +verse: attention to some very beautiful object: the deliberate +recollection of some heroic action, _etc._ With different temperaments +different plans might be followed:--what was necessary was that one did +not enter the sacred place without some _deliberate_ renunciation of +vulgarity and earthliness: by _some_ mental act, or process, one must +have 'put off one's shoes.' There is here a strange circumstance that I +was too young to feel the true importance of at the time, but that I +have often wondered over since then. There can be no doubt of M. Heger's +rigid orthodoxy as a Catholic. Yet whilst the recitation of the Rosary +inaugurated the daily lessons, M, Heger had a special invocation[3] of +'the Spirits of _Wisdom_, _Truth_, _Justice_, _and Equanimity_,' that +was recited by some chosen pupil; who had to come out of her place in +class and stand near him; and who was not allowed by him to gabble. And +this was the invariable introduction to _his_ lesson. I can't feel it +was an orthodox proceeding: _There was not a Saint's name anywhere!_ But +I feel the infallible impression it produced upon me now. One effect, in +the sense of 'putting off one's shoes,' that it had for myself was that +the Professor of Literature appeared to me without any of the dislikable +qualities of the everyday M. Heger. + +Another maxim of M. Heger's was certainly borrowed from Voltaire: That +one must give one's soul as many forms as possible. _Il faut donner à +son âme toutes les formes possibles_. Again, that every sort of +literature and literary style has its merits, _except the literature +that is not literary and the style that is bad:_ here again, one has, of +course, Voltaire's well-known phrases: _J'admets tous les genres, hors +le genre ennuyeux_.' + +A third maxim was that one must never employ, nor tolerate the +employment of, a literary image as _an argument_. The purpose of a +literary image is to illuminate as a vision, and to interpret as a +parable. An image that does not serve both these purposes is a fault in +style. + +_A fourth maxim_ is that one must never neglect the warning one's ear +gives one of a _fault_ in style; and never trust one's ear exclusively +about the merits of a literary style. + +_A fifth rule_:--One must not fight with a difficult sentence; but take +it for a walk with one; or sleep with the thought of it present in one's +mind; and let the difficulty arrange itself whilst one looks on. + +_A sixth rule_:--One must not read, before sitting down to write, a +great stylist with a marked manner of his own; unless this manner +happens to resemble one's own. + +Now I shall be told that these rules and maxims, whether true or false, +are 'known to nearly every one,' and are of assistance to no one; +because people who can write do not obey rules: and people who can't +write are not taught to do so by rules. If this were literally true then +there would be no room in the world for a Professor of Literature. My +own opinion is that there are very few good writers who do not obey +rules; and that these rules are, if contracted in youth, of great use as +a discipline that saves original writers from the defect of their +quality of originality, in a proneness to mannerisms and whims. + +In connection with the possible complaint that I am putting forward as +M. Heger's maxims, sentences that were not originally invented nor +uttered by him, my reply is that I do not affirm that he invented his +own maxims, but simply that he chose them from an enormous store he had +collected by study and fine taste and by a sound critical judgment, the +result of an extensive acquaintanceship with the best that has been said +and thought in the world by philosophers, poets, and literary artists +and connoisseurs. In his character of a Professor of literature I find +it hard to imagine that any gift of original thought, or personal power +of expressing his own thoughts, could have placed M. Heger's pupils +under the same obligations as did his knowledge of beautiful ideas, +beautifully expressed, gathered from north, south, east and west, in +classical, mediæval and modern times. To be given these precious and +luminous thoughts in one's youth, when they have a special power to +'rouse, incite and gladden one,' is a supreme boon:--and in my own case +my gratitude to M. Heger has never been in the least disturbed by the +discovery that he was not the inventor of the maxims that have +constantly been a light to my feet and a lantern to my path during the +half-century that has elapsed since I received them from him in the +historical Pensionnat, that stood for many years, after Monsieur Heger +himself had vanished out of life, but that stands no longer in the Rue +d'Isabelle. + + +[1] From Mlle. Louise Heger I have this note: '_Les cloches de St. +Jacques et non pas St. Jean Baptiste, église qui se trouve à l'autre +côté de la ville près du canal: quartier du Père Silas dans +"Villette."_' + +[2] _Villette_, chapter xii. + +[3] Esprit de Sagesse, conduisez-nous: + Esprit de Vérité, enseignez-nous: + Esprit de Charité, vivifiez-nous: + Esprit de Prudence, préservez-nous: + Esprit de Force, défendez-nous: + Esprit de Justice, éclairez-nous: + Esprit Consolateur, apaisez-nous. + +Here is the invocation, sent me by Mlle. Heger; who has, with extreme +kindness, endeavoured to recover it for me. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE STORY OF A CHAPEAU D'UNIFORME + + +In connection with the particular Belgian schoolgirls whom I knew, who +still, in 1860, learnt their lessons in the class-rooms where Charlotte +Brontë once taught, and who were still taught by M. Heger, and still +surrounded with the benign and serene influences of Madame Heger, let me +prove that these schoolgirls had not the characteristics of the +_Lesbassecouriennes_; and that Charlotte Brontë displayed insular +prejudice, as well as an imagination coloured by the distress of an +unhappy passion, when she said of them, '_The Continental female is +quite a different being to the insular female of the same age and +class._'[1] + +Inasmuch as the story I have to tell is the story of a Bonnet, it will +be recognised as one that is calculated to display the qualities and +intimate and essential peculiarities of the 'Continental female' (under +sixteen) in a light, and under the stress and strain of passions and +interests, too serious to permit of any tampering with, or disguise of, +nature. One has to realise, also, that the question is not merely of a +bonnet, but of a Best Bonnet, a Sunday Bonnet. For, in the remote days +of which I am now writing modern young people should realise even +schoolgirls of ten or twelve wore bonnets on Sunday, and even upon +week-days, when they went beyond the borders of their garden: a hat was +thought indecorous on the head of any girl in her 'teens--a form of +undress rather than of dress. To wear a hat was like wearing a +pinafore--a confession that one had not forgotten the nursery. To save +one's best Sunday Bonnet, in the garden, one might go about in a hat, +and in the bosom of one's family wear a pinafore to save a new dress; +but in the same way that one did not go into the drawing-room with a +pinafore on, one did not, in those days, pay visits in a hat: and to go +to church in one would have been thought irreverent. So that a Sunday +Bonnet meant that childish ways were done with, and that one had +attained the age of reason. Like a barrister's wig it imposed +seriousness on the wearer, who had to live up to it. Madame Heger, when +establishing the rules for the uniform that was worn by all the pupils +of the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, paid great attention to the Sunday +Bonnet. Following the sense she lent to the law of her system of +government, the love of dress was not to be allowed amongst her pupils +to become an encouragement to vanity and rivalship, and hence one +uniform, for rich and poor alike, avoided any chance of vain, unkind, +and envious feelings; but at the same time the love of dress was not to +be discouraged altogether; because it was serviceable to taste, and the +care for appearance, without which a young person remains deficient in +femininity. Therefore although every boarder wore the same uniform, what +this uniform was to be was made quite an important question: and the +girls were invited to choose a committee to decide it, in consultation +with their head-mistress. And to this consultation Madame Heger brought +a large spirit of indulgence, especially where the Sunday Bonnet was +concerned. The Sunday Dress had to be black silk--about the _façon_ +there might be discussion, but not about the colour or material. On the +other hand, about the Bonnet, everything was left an open question. It +might be fashionable: it might be becoming: and even serviceableness was +not made a too stringent obligation. Indeed in the first year of my +school career the Sunday Bonnet selected for the summer months was the +reverse of serviceable. It was white chip; it was decorated with pink +rosebuds, where blonde and tulle mingled with the rosebuds; it had broad +white ribands edged with black velvet--in short, a very charming Bonnet: +but sown with perils. Everything about it could get easily soiled; and +nothing about it would stand exposure to rain. + +Madame Heger, recognising these material inconveniences, had +nevertheless seen that, on the educational side, there were compensating +advantages--the cultivation of neatness and order. She had not then +discouraged the white chip, rosebuds and the rest; at the same time, +she had stated the case for a yellow straw, with a plaid-ribbon that +would not easily soil. + +'On the one hand,' she had said, 'you may, with merely simple +precautions, carry your Bonnet through the summer to the big holidays, +without anxiety. On the other hand, no doubt there will be anxiety: the +white chip is extremely pretty, but do not forget that it will require +almost incessant care. Never must this Bonnet be put on one side without +a clean white handkerchief to cover it. Not only so, one storm, if you +have no umbrella, will suffice; everything will need renewal. And I warn +you, my children, that if this misfortune arrive, it is not I, but +_you_, who will have to ask your good mammas for another Bonnet. _I_ ask +from your parents a _chapeau d'uniforme_, and one only, each term: no +more. So now decide as you please.' + +_The decision had been for the white chip, arrive what may_. My own +point of view, whilst the subject was being discussed around me, was +that nothing could interest me less. Fancy troubling one's head about a +Bonnet! I did not say it, because I had no wish to make myself +unpopular, but the interest in the affair appeared to me puerile. +Happily these trifling matters had no importance for me; it did not +matter to me at all what sort of _chapeau d'uniforme_ they chose. + +How wrong I was! It mattered to me more than to any one else in the +whole school, because no one wore their _chapeau d'uniforme_ so much, +and no one took the poor thing out so frequently into storm and rain. +All the other boarders attended early mass on Sunday mornings in a +convent chapel, within five minutes' walk of the school. The other +occasions when they wore the fragile white chip _chapeau_ were safe +occasions, when, if it rained, they took shelter in their own homes on +the monthly holidays, or were sent back to school in a _fiacre_. My case +was different. Every Sunday morning, in accordance with the arrangement +made by my mother, my brother called at the Rue d'Isabelle to take me to +the English Church, which in those days was a sort of hall, known as the +'_Temple Anglican_,' situated in a passage near the Bruxelles Museum. +The service was generally over by noon; but it was too late for me to +return to school in time for the déjeuner at mid-day, and this +authorised the custom of my taking lunch with my brother and enjoying a +short walk afterwards; so that I was taken back by him to the Rue +d'Isabelle before four o'clock. Now it will be easily understood that +this agreeable arrangement had temptations: and that _sometimes_, on +_very_ fine days, there would occur forgetfulness of the 'Temple +Anglican' altogether; and the whole of these four or five hours would be +spent in our favourite haunt, the Bois de la Cambre, where we would +picnic, on cakes and fruit, when there was pocket-money enough, or on +two halfpenny 'pistolets,' when, as often happened, ten centimes, that +ought to have gone into the plate at the Temple, was all we had. And +whether the lunch was of cakes, or of dry bread, it did not alter the +fact that we talked of home incessantly; and were supremely happy. Yes; +but no doubt our conduct was reprehensible, and did not deserve the +favour of Heaven. And my recollection is that almost invariably these +picnics in the Bois de la Cambre, to which an exceptionally fine day had +tempted us, ended in a downpour of rain. And how it rains at Brussels, +when it does rain! So now, think of the state of the white chip Bonnet, +and of the bunch of rosebuds, interwoven with blonde, and of the white +silk ribbon edged with black velvet, that I took back with me to the Rue +d'Isabelle. + +And it is here where the beautiful nature of Belgian schoolgirls, or of +these particular Belgian schoolgirls who were my companions and +contemporaries, stands revealed. For upon one particular Sunday, having +hastily and silently fled to the dormitory upon my return, and being +discovered there, in dismayed contemplation of the lamentable saturated +mixture of mashed up tinted pulp and wires, that had once been rosebuds +and blonde, my depths of despondency moved these sympathetic young +hearts to compassion. As it was Sunday afternoon, one was allowed to +loiter over getting ready for dinner; a circle of consolers gathered +round me, and from it, forth stepped two rival aspirants to the honour +of sacrificing themselves on the altar of friendship. The first said: +'Now nothing is more simple: we shall wrap up this unhappy rag in my +handkerchief as you see;_--You shall have my chapeau d'uniforme_, and I +shall tell Maman everything--she interests herself in you; for when she +was young, she was at school in England. She will send me another +_chapeau d'uniforme_, and all is said.' + +The other girl, whose name was Henriette--I forget her surname--said, +'My plan is easier: for here is an accident,--as though it were done on +purpose. Now what do you say: I have two _chapeaux d'uniforme_, if you +please! The first my mother sent me as a model to show Madame Heger, and +from this model she chose it. But now Madame had ordered mine with the +others: and when I told my mother, she said, 'Say nothing: an accident +may happen, the Bonnet will not support rain, you will have this one at +hand if a misfortune arrive. Well, and here is the misfortune: there's +no difficulty at all.' + +Both of these girls had their homes in Brussels, and both of them I knew +had everything their own way with two fondly indulgent mammas. I had no +scruple in accepting their generous sacrifice, and I hugged them both, +and was really (I who despised tears) on the verge of crying. Between +the two, I hardly knew which offer to take, but it seemed to me that as +Henriette had two Bonnets, it was most reasonable to take hers. And we +all went down to dinner happily. And the 'Unhappy rag' '_cette +malheureuse loque_,' was buried in the _hangar_, the wood-house at the +bottom of the garden. + +But under cloudless skies one is prone to forget the lessons of +misfortune. It took some time--but the Sunday came when, once again, it +seemed 'almost wrong' to waste summer hours in the Temple Anglican, when +one felt so good under the beautiful trees in the Bois de la Cambre. And +then there was pocket-money in hand, and a lunch of cakes, and not +halfpenny pistolets, could be obtained. + +'I suppose you don't think it will rain?' I suggested. + +'Rain!' My brother said with scorn. 'Look at that sky! How could it +rain?' + +It managed to do it. True, it was only a brief shower: but the water +came down in sheets. In despair I took off the _chapeau d'uniforme_, and +my brother, who wore an Inverness cape, sheltered it under the flap. I +stood to hold the cape at a right angle, so that the precious object +might not be crushed, and we were watching it under this sheltering +wing, and my brother was assuring me it was all right when,--as I stood +there bareheaded and rain-beaten, beneath a tree by the side of the +broad path near the entrance to the wood--a short, stoutish man, +buttoned up to the chin in his greatcoat, and holding his umbrella +tightly, walked by us at a great pace, without (so at least it seemed) +looking at us at all. And that man was M. Heger. We gasped, and looked +at each other. + +'He didn't see us,' said my brother cheerily. 'What a bit of luck!' + +'You may be quite sure he did see us,' I answered. 'Well, I wonder what +will happen now?' + +With this new anxiety on our hands, even the precious _chapeau +d'uniforme_ became a secondary consideration. But the shower having +passed, we examined it carefully. There was no disaster this time. The +rosebuds were still rosebuds and the blonde still blonde. It is true +that a splash had fallen on the white chip crown, but my brother was +always ready with comfort. + + +[Illustration: THE GALERIE AND GARDEN IN WINTER (The Allée Defendue is +on the left. The old pear-tree, whose lower branches still blossomed in +spring, is on the right)] + + +'When it's dry,' he told me, 'you'll easily get that off with a bit of +bread.' + +This consoled me for the time being: but he was wrong as to the question +of facts. Bread had no effect upon that blot. It remained an island, or, +to speak more correctly, a coast-line, on the white chip, to the end of +that _chapeau d'uniforme_'s existence. But one dusted the stain over +with white powder before putting on one's Bonnet, and hoped no one +noticed it? So far as I know, no one did. But let it not be supposed +that I escaped moral punishment: I, who had once boasted in my pride +that nothing was less indifferent to me than my Sunday Bonnet, wore this +one uneasily to the end of the term, always conscious that the tell-tale +stain was there, and might suggest questions as to its origin. + +Nor did I escape scot-free from M. Heger's hands, although he did behave +with a certain generosity, for he kept the secret. But he used his own +method of punishment. + +Happy in the confidence given me by my brother's assurance that I should +easily get rid of the rain-blot, I went back to the Rue d'Isabelle, in +some anxiety about M. Heger, but _nearly_ persuaded that, after all, +perhaps, with his umbrella to think of and grasp, and the hurry he was +in, he _very likely_ hadn't seen us. But when the pupil's door was +opened in answer to my ring, and I was hoping to hurry through the +corridor to the staircase leading to the dormitories, I found M. Heger +waiting for me. He barred my path and looked down at me with his +penetrating, mocking eyes,--that, although I do not like to contradict +Charlotte, I still think had more green and steel, than violet-blue, +colour in them. + +'A-ah,' he said with his long-drawn sigh, 'you are attentive at my +lessons, Mees; do you now listen with the same attention to the sermon +of the Minister at your Temple?' + +Here was my opportunity; of course I ought to have said, '_No, +Monsieur, I don't listen to any one with so much attention as I do to +you: no one interests me so much_.' When I had got upstairs and had +taken off the _chapeau d'uniforme_, I realised that this was what any +rational being would have said. But it was too late then--all I did say +was, '_Je ne sais pas, Monsieur_' (a bad French accent too). + +'A-ah,' he repeated, tightening his mouth, 'now I should like to see +whether you profit by the instructions of your Minister: Thus I shall be +glad if you will write me a _résumé_ in French of the sermon you heard +to-day at the Temple. It will be a good exercise for you in the French +language. And also I shall enjoy the happiness of knowing this wise +Minister's advice. It is understood, you will give me the _résumé_ of +this sermon to-morrow.' + +'_Oui, Monsieur_.' + +All through the evening recreation hours, and at night when I fought +against sleepiness in my bed, I worked over the composition of that +sermon. It is true that I did fall asleep in the middle of it myself; +but that does not prove it was a dull sermon, for I took it up again in +the morning with renewed zest. I gave up my whole recreation hour after +_déjeuner_ to writing it out. And I believed it to be as good a sermon +as was ever preached. And there was no vanity in this belief: because it +was not my own sermon, but one I had originally heard preached in my +childhood in an old village church, and the arguments in favour of being +good and simple had taken hold of my imagination, partly on account of +the associations with the place where I heard it. Well, but now, can my +readers deny that when I say M. Heger was a more irritating than lovable +man, I have sound reasons for my statement? _After ordering me to write +that sermon, and when I had stolen several hours from my sleep, and +given up two recreations to obey him, he never asked for it!_ And when I +told him I had written the sermon and that it was ready for him, he +merely looked down upon me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and said, +'_A-ah, c'est bien. Vous l'avez donc bien retenu, ce fameux sermon? tant +mieux, tant mieux_.' + + +[1] _Villette_, chapter viii. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MADAME HEGER'S SENTIMENT OF THE JUSTICE +OF RESIGNATION TO INJUSTICE + + +At the end of these reminiscences I have now to relate the incident that +stands out in my memory as, not only the most bitter experience I had +ever, up to this date, undergone of personal injustice in my brief life +of fifteen years, not only, what was of great moral importance to me, my +first lesson in the philosophy of refusing to torment oneself in order +to punish one's tormentors, but also the incident that revealed to me a +secret sorrow hidden away under Madame Heger's serenity; and that +convinces me, now, that the tragical romance of Charlotte Brontë was not +to her, as it must have been to M. Heger, misunderstood, and regarded as +an event of small importance; but that it 'entered into her life,' and +was to her a very serious trouble. + +One day in June, I am not able to remember now upon what especial +occasion, nor in honour of what event, all the school was given an +entire holiday: and, for its better enjoyment, the girls were invited by +a former pupil in the Rue d'Isabelle, who had married and possessed a +fine château and a large garden within walking distance of Bruxelles, to +spend the whole day in her house and garden, where a mid-day collation +was prepared for them. I remember very little about the day's +enjoyments--the cruel impressions that followed the pleasant holiday +have effaced from my memory almost everything that preceded them. I +know, however, that all was sunshine and good humour: that my companions +whom I had trusted as friends were as friendly to me as ever; and that +with my two chosen companions, the philosopher Marie Hazard and the +other still dearer friend, who was a philosopher in a different sense, +as a profound Nature-worshipper,--where _I_ was supposed to be a +philosopher in a sense of my own as a worshipper of ideas--talked +'philosophy' wisely and well--in our own estimation, and ate red +gooseberries. As we talked other girls discovered these +gooseberry-bushes also, and came in flocks: so we three withdrew, and +sat down under some shady tree, and were very happy and at peace. Near +us, on a low cane chair, sat one of the under-mistresses, a Frenchwoman, +whom I liked extremely, and who also liked me: her name was Mlle. +Zélie--she was too young to have been one of the mistresses known to +Charlotte Brontë twenty years before. She may have been twenty-six: or +she may have been thirty. + +As she sat there, doing embroidery, and watching all the time a swarm of +girls picking gooseberries,--we three, who had left off picking them, +were at rest upon the grass,--there came, suddenly, a servant in great +haste sent from the Rue d'Isabelle by Madame Heger, with a letter: +neither Monsieur nor Madame had arrived yet, they were to be there in +time for the collation in the afternoon. The letter was an urgent order +to Mlle. Zélie that the girls were not to _touch the fruit in the +kitchen garden_--this stipulation had been made by the generous hostess, +who had invited all this company to a feast of cakes and cream and good +things of every description, but who wanted her gooseberries and +currants for jam. Here of course was cause of great dismay: although the +bushes had not been entirely stripped, yet certainly thirty or forty +girls amongst the gooseberry-bushes alone had made their mark. We three +philosophers had trifled with one bush perhaps; but our share in the +depredation was comparatively slight. A bell was rung, and the message +read aloud. I am convinced from that moment onwards no one touched any +fruit:--still the mischief had been done; it was obvious to the naked +eye that the gooseberry-bushes had been attacked. + +The person who seemed most distressed was poor Mlle. Zélie: she blamed +no one, but repeated constantly, 'Why then did not Madame warn me? Never +should I have permitted it, had I not supposed that it was understood +that these gooseberries, without value for that matter, were intended +to be eaten. It seemed to me, in the absence of instructions, so +natural.' + +And a chorus of girls answered: 'We thought it too, Mademoiselle: never +would we have touched a gooseberry had we understood.' + +There the matter remained. We were not particularly unhappy: as a matter +of fact all the gooseberries in the garden could have been purchased for +five francs in Bruxelles. No harm had been done the bushes: it was a +_mal entendu_--what would you have? The only person who seemed to take +it to heart was poor Mlle. Zélie. + +'Quel malheur,' she kept repeating. 'Quel malheur! mais aussi, pourquoi +Madame ne m'a-t-elle rien dit?' + +We continued, Marie Hazard and myself, sitting under our shady tree; our +third philosopher, the Nature-worshipper, always good at decoration, had +been called off to assist at laying out the tables, and arranging +flowers; groups of other girls were sitting in circles on the grass or +walking about arm in arm, when--suddenly arrived upon the scene M. +Heger. He came up with an amiable expression: but in a moment the look +changed to one black as night: he had seen the tell-tale signs of the +depredations inflicted on the gooseberry-bushes. + +'Who is responsible for this?' he asked, '_c'est une bassesse!_ Mlle. +Zélie, what does this signify? Were you not told the fruit was to be +respected?' + +Poor Mlle. Zélie stood there quivering with terror. + +'Unhappily,' she said, 'Madame's letter arrived too late: without bad +intention, these young girls imagined themselves free to eat +gooseberries: from the moment it was known that it was forbidden, I am +sure there was no infraction of the rule: but alas! what was done, was +done. I regret it profoundly: and so I am sure do you, is it not so, my +children?' she asked, turning to Marie Hazard and myself:--there was a +clear and empty space around us--every other girl had somehow vanished. + +'Yes, Mademoiselle, we are very sorry,' both of us answered at once. + +M. Heger swooped round upon us in his wrath. + +'And so,' he said, 'it is _you_, is it; you two who have so much pride, +both of you; who are so little sensitive to the counsels of your +teachers, you, who are so superior in your own esteem, who are the +guilty ones? It is you two, and you alone in the entire Pension, who +have been capable of this indignity? And see what ruin you have made! +Are you not ashamed--what gluttony!' + +'Mais non, Monsieur, non,' pleaded Mademoiselle Zélie, 'these young +girls are not alone responsible; many others also took the fruit; you +must not blame them for everything.' + +'Is that so, Mademoiselle Hazard? Is that so, Mees?' + +'Il ne faut pas nous demander cela,' said I, with my usual bad accent in +agitated moments. 'C'est aux autres qu'il faut le demander.' + +'Mais oui,' he said, 'and this is what I intend to do; Mlle. Zélie, do +me this pleasure: fetch me the _élèves_ who were here just now: call +them together. I must get to the bottom of this. Je dois approfondir +cela.' + +Mlle. Zélie was some time about it: but in the end, she returned with a +good company of girls, forty or fifty at least; amongst them nearly all +of those who had been most busy amongst the gooseberry bushes. They +stood round us in a sort of circle; Marie Hazard, myself, and M. Heger. + +M. Heger delivered a little speech: he explained, and enlarged upon, the +confidence that our kind hostess had placed in us; she had thrown open +her garden to us; she had prepared a feast for us; she had made only one +condition--respect my gooseberry-bushes. Was it possible, could one +suppose it possible, that any one could be found base enough, greedy +enough, to ignore her wishes? + +'We were not told,' said Marie Hazard; 'This is not reasonable--one +would not have touched a gooseberry had one known. Is one a child of six +then, to love gooseberries to this extent?' + +'Mlle. Hazard, it is not to _you_ I address myself,' said M. Heger. 'I +have no question to ask you. You admit, and indeed it is not possible +for you to deny, that you have committed this act of +gluttony--inexcusable in a child of six. It is to you all, my dear +pupils, outside of these two, who I know are guilty, that I ask it, and +with confidence--amongst you all, have any of you been guilty of this +indignity?' + +Dead silence. Mlle. Zélie was fidgeting about, snapping her fingers +nervously. But she said nothing. + +M. Heger again addressed the girls round him, and there was a note of +triumph in his voice:-- + +'Cela suffit,' he affirmed, 'I shall ask no more. If any of you are +guilty, you know it in your consciences: you know now what it remains +for you to do. For me, I believe, and I love to believe, that the only +pupil in this school capable of this unworthy conduct is a foreigner.' + +'Pardon, Monsieur,' said a voice at my elbow, 'je suis Belge; et moi +aussi j'ai mangé des groseilles.' + +M. Heger bowed towards her profoundly. + +_Je fais une exception en votre faveur_, _Mademoiselle Hazard_,' he +said: and then he walked away. + +I remained at first almost stupefied: the first shock rendered me unable +to distinguish between reality and fiction. I began to doubt my senses: +was I really, were Marie Hazard and myself, the only girls in the school +who had rifled the gooseberry-bushes? Did it mean that, if not +deliberately base, in some way there was a peculiar deficiency in +delicacy and honour in my constitution, rendering me capable of doing +base things without knowing it? Was it true that in this foreign country +I had disgraced my own? This was my first impression, confusion of mind; +because up to this date I had never known nor suffered from real +injustice. Here was an entirely new experience. And at first it baffled +me. I suppose I must have shown this desperation in my face: for M. +Heger was no sooner out of sight than attempts were made to console me: +but I was beyond consolation. Mlle. Zélie came first; she laid a +soothing hand on my shoulder. + +'Do not afflict yourself, my child,' she said. 'This is a +misunderstanding: I shall explain everything to Madame Heger.' + +Then several girls came bustling up, rather shamefacedly, assuring me +that it was nothing: '_Quelle affaire_,' they ejaculated. '_Et tout cela +à propos de quelques groseilles!_' + +'It has nothing to do with the gooseberries,' I said; 'you are all +cowards, and I detest you; why couldn't you say you took them too?' + +'What good would it have been, with M. Heger? We shall all go to Madame +and tell her everything. She will see how it is at once. _Voyons, Chou: +ne pleures pas_.' + +'_Je ne pleure pas; vous mentez_:' and this was both impolite and +incorrect: I _was_ crying, but not ordinary tears, because they scalded +one. + +What happens invariably with people who insist upon their own private +grievances too much, and too long, happened in my case that afternoon: +at first I had been an object of sympathy, but when I refused it, and +was ungracious, I became a bore. The case was stated to me in reasonable +terms: + +'Say that we should have done differently and were cowardly. It was not +out of ill-will to you, but because we were afraid of M. Heger, with +whom one must not reason when he is in a bad humour, as every one knows. +You and Marie Hazard, for instance, who must always be in the right with +him, in what way does it serve you? Voyons: be frank; at least: _cela +vous réussit-il?_ Listen then: we will make it all plain with Madame +Heger. Mlle. Zélie will tell her we knew nothing when we ate those +gooseberries; we thought they were there for us--that it belonged to the +feast to eat this fruit: they were not so very good, these gooseberries +after all: it was a politeness on our part, not greediness. Every one +nearly ate gooseberries. When we were told it was a mistake, we ate no +more gooseberries, and were sorry. La petite Anglaise and Marie Hazard +did as the others did: and here is the whole history. Now all this is +known already to almost every one. It will be known to Madame Heger +before we go home to-night. What then do you want? Look at Marie Hazard: +she is in the same case as you are, and does not afflict herself.' + +'Marie Hazard is at home here, and I am not at home. I am English; and I +am told by M. Heger before you all, that because I am English I am +capable of baseness.' + +'And what does that do to you?' asked Marie Hazard, herself, turning +upon me with her cruel reasonableness. 'English or Belgian, one is not +capable of baseness, and one has not deserved any blame: that is what is +serious; the rest signifies nothing. One must not be a patriot to this +extent. It is not reasonable. If even you had been in the wrong about +those gooseberries, do you truly imagine to yourself that the honour of +England would have been affected by it?' + +Just _because_ this was so reasonable and true, it stung me to the soul. +'_Ma chère et bonne amie_,' wrote Rousseau to Madame d'Epinay in the +days of their friendship, when explaining why he had burnt a letter to +her that seemed to him more reasonable than kind: '_Pythagore disait +qu'il ne faut jamais attiser le feu avec une épée. Cette sentence me +paraît être la plus importante et la plus sacrée des lois de l'amitié_.' +I knew nothing about the sayings of Pythagoras, nor the writings of +Rousseau in those days. But it did seem to me opposed to the sacred laws +of friendship, to remind me, in this moment, that it was absurd in me to +drag patriotism into this question. + +'Leave me alone,' I said, turning my back upon them, 'you tire me, all +of you; none of you understand me.' + +Although I sulked the whole afternoon, and was, as I deserved to be, +left to sulk, as 'insupportable,' I yet came round to the conviction +before we returned, that everything had been explained, and that even M. +Heger understood that an injustice had been done me; and that although, +of course, no apology could be looked for from such an obstinate man, +still _he knew he had been in the wrong_ and was secretly repentant. But +I was to be undeceived. After our return to the Rue d'Isabelle, the +lecture du soir in the refectory was given, as was the usual plan on +holidays, by M. Heger, seated at the head of the room, with Madame Heger +on his right hand, and a table before them, placed between the two long +lines of tables with benches stretching the length of the room against +the walls, and two ranges of chairs on the opposite side of the tables +facing the benches, where sat all the pupils. Having finished the +'reading,' M. Heger summed up in a few words the sentiments that 'he was +sure all there must feel of gratitude to their hostess, once an inmate +of this school; and who had contrived this little fête for her +successors. He asked their consent to a message of thanks that was to be +sent her; and he wound up his expression of confidence in the enjoyment +every one had derived from this holiday, by stating the satisfaction of +Madame Heger and himself at the good conduct of every one; and then came +this sentence:--There was only one regrettable exception to be made to +the perfect behaviour and sense of respect due to the lady who had +thrown open her house and garden to them, and this exception, he was, at +any rate, pleased to recognise, was not amongst those brought up in the +sentiments of religion and convenience cherished by almost all of them: +and hence though one had to deplore the fault, in the case of a +foreigner (_une étrangère_) one was more disposed to regard it with +indulgence.' + +Marie Hazard rose from her seat:--but there really was no time for any +protest or objection. There was a shuffling of chairs, a movement of +benches. Monsieur and Madame Heger walked out of the Refectory by a +folding door behind them that opened into a passage leading to their own +part of the house; and the pupils filed out, under the surveillance of +the mistress in charge, by the opposite door towards the staircase +leading to the Oratory, for evening prayers. I alone remained sitting on +my bench, in my usual place in the Refectory, about half-way down the +right-hand line of tables. No one paid any attention to me, until the +room was nearly empty, and then the mistress at the door looked round, +and seeing me sitting there, said, 'Make haste, Mees; you will be late +for prayers: what _are_ you doing?' + +I remained sitting there. She looked at me a moment; evidently didn't +like my looks; shrugged her shoulders, agitated her hands, said-- + +'One cannot wait for you any longer mademoiselle, _vous êtes notée_,' +and vanished. + +I do not know now, and I hardly think I knew then, what I meant by the +resolution that was the only one firmly present to me, that no one, +nothing, should move me from the place where I was sitting in the +Refectory: that there I was going to remain all night, and for ever if +necessary, until this wrong was redressed, and until just excuses were +made to me. What had at first been a new and astonishing discovery to +me, that injustice could be done, and that people whom I respected and +even loved, could be unjust to me, had now become a well-established and +common fact, and I saw injustice everywhere and felt no use in living at +all, because I had become convinced that people would always be unjust +to me, _always_; it was the common rule of the world evidently. What was +I to do then? Resist, perish in resisting? Very possibly, but not +submit. + +There I sat at fifteen years of age, on the bench, with my elbows +planted on the Refectory table, and my burning, throbbing head between +my hands, _in the frame of mind in which Anarchists are made._ + +But the influence was already approaching that was to transform anarchy +into the ideal socialism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, where the bitter +bitter rage of rebelliousness against the wrong done oneself becomes the +generous sympathy with all injustice throughout the world: '_Ce premier +sentiment de l'injustice est resté si profondément gravé dans mon âme, +que toutes les idées qui s'y rapportent me rendent ma première émotion; +et ce sentiment, relatif à moi dans son origine, a pris une telle +consistance en lui-même, et s'est si bien détaché de tout intérêt +personnel, que mon coeur s'enflamme au spectacle ou au récit de toute +action injuste, quel qu'en soit l'objet, et en quelque lieu qu'elle se +commette, comme si l'effet en retomboit sur moi_.' + +The lesson that the author of the _Confessions_ learnt at an even +earlier age than I did was taught me by a Victim of injustice who +continued throughout her life so courageously undisturbed by it in +kindness and consideration for others, that her sensibility to it became +a less powerful feeling in her than her compassion for the suffering +and passionate woman who had wronged her. + +I cannot say how long I had sat in the Refectory, when I saw the folding +doors at the head of the room open, and quietly and composedly as usual, +Madame Heger entered and approached me. She sat down on the chair +opposite my bench on the opposite side of the table. + +'My child,' she said, 'you are wrong to take so seriously the reproach +addressed to you by M. Heger as the result of a mistake. Mlle. Zélie has +explained to M. Heger and to me the accident. It was a pity, no doubt, +that this happened: but you have not any more blame than the others. All +is forgotten and forgiven. But you, my child, are wrong in this. Why do +you remain here, when prayers are already over, and without permission? +You know well it is forbidden.' + +I broke out passionately complaining that I could not be expected to +obey rules when I was unjustly treated: I could bear anything else, but +I could not support injustice. + +'Pas l'injustice,' I protested, 'j'obéirais a tout, je supporterais +tout: mais, pas l'injustice, non, madame, non, je ne saurais supporter +l'injustice.' + +'Cependant, mon enfant, il faut savoir la supporter. Que faire? +_Seriez-vous la seule personne au monde qui ne connaîtrait pas +l'injustice?_' + +I shook my head obstinately: I made a show of resistance: but I was +already under Madame Heger's influence. A tremendous change had taken +place in me. I was no longer an Anarchist. It had already come to me as +a conviction that there was nothing grand, but rather something mean, in +refusing to bear anything that my other fellow-creatures had to bear, +that better and nobler people than I had borne. + +'It saddens me,' continued Madame Heger--'(_Cela m'attriste_) to see a +young girl like you, who soon must enter life, and who takes the habit +of saying, "I cannot support this, everything else you like, _but not +this_": or "I will renounce everything else, _but not that_." It does +not depend upon us, my child, what we must support, nor what we may, +because _les convenances_ or the interests of others demand it, have to +renounce. Amongst the many pupils I have known, there have been some +passionate like yourself and exalted, who have said like you to-day, I +cannot support injustice, who have seen injustice, where there was no +intention to be unjust; who have refused counsel with anger and +impatience, and who in their refusal to bow to necessary obligations +have been themselves unjust. And they have been unhappy in their lives; +most unhappy. _Dominated by some fixed idea, the slave of some desire +that cannot be accomplished,_ they have seen enemies in those who would +have been their friends. They have created for themselves a sad fate; +and I know one of them who died of it (_j'en connais une qui en est +morte_).' + +Something in Madame Heger's voice surprised me, for her even tones +quavered and broke. I looked up suddenly, her face was ashen white and +her lips blue. I was struck to the heart. I knew not why, but in some +way I instinctively felt that, through my fault, she was in pain: I was +full of remorse. The table was between us, or I should have thrown +myself upon my knees before her. My emotion had the usual effect upon my +French accent. 'Forgive me, oh forgive me,' I wanted to say, 'I am +ashamed of myself.' I said, 'Pardong, O pardong, j'ai honte de moi.' + +As it happened, nothing could have been better timed than my relapse +into English barbarism. In a moment Madame's unusual emotion was under +control: the soft colour returned to her cheek and lips, she shook her +head gently, and said in her ordinary voice-- + +'You _must_ take care of your accent, my child. One says "pardon," not +"pardong "; and one does not say "J'ai honte de moi," but one says "Je +suis honteuse," or "J'ai honte." + +'But I see you are now in a good disposition,' she went on, 'and I am +pleased to see it. Thus then, go quietly to bed without disturbing your +companions, and I will send Clothilde to you with some flower-of-orange +water that will tranquillise this hot head. Good night, and be very wise +in the future: and all will be well.' + +Ever since I have known the story of Charlotte Brontë I have had the +firm conviction of what was in Madame Heger's mind when she spoke to me +of one who had imagined enemies in friends, and who, complaining of +injustice, had been unjust. But since I have read Charlotte's Letters, +the unmistakable proof is that Madame Heger, so far as my memory serves +me after all these years, actually quoted the very words of one of these +letters, about one dominated by a fixed idea, and the slave of vain +desires. + +So then we may decide finally, that Madame Heger was not Madame Beck. +And of M. Heger we may decide that he was not Paul Emanuel either; for +Paul Emanuel having learnt that he had committed an injustice, would +have called his whole school together, and in full class-room repaired +his involuntary fault. But the real M. Heger did nothing of the sort. +For a time there was a great coldness towards him in my heart. But in +the hours of his lessons he remained, as ever, the 'Professor' of +unrivalled merit. + +Summing up what may be gathered from these reminiscences, I think the +facts that can be affirmed are these:-- + +No moral likeness, but a physical resemblance, between Madame Heger and +the portrait of Madame Beck. A strong and lifelike resemblance, between +Paul Emanuel and M. Heger, up to the point when the Professor Paul falls +in love with Lucy Snowe. After this event, a dwindling resemblance +between the Professor in _Villette_, and the real Professor in the Rue +d'Isabelle, who was never in love with Charlotte Brontë, and who was the +lawful and attached husband of the Directress of the Pensionnat. + +But when Professor Paul Emanuel becomes the docile disciple of Père +Silas, when he is caught in the 'Jesuitical cobwebs of mother Church,' +then he ceases to resemble the real man in the very least. M. Heger's +role in life was not that of a disciple but of a Master of other people, +and a very arbitrary and domineering Master too, for whom the world was +his class-room. He was under the thumb of no priest, nor spiritual +director. As for Jesuitical 'cobwebs,' the notion of M. Heger caught in +any cobweb is absurd! + +Every one knows what happens when a bumble-bee in its courses comes in +contact with a cobweb. It is a mere incident in the career of the +bumble-bee--but it is a disaster for the cobweb. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41105 *** |