The Professor (14 page)

Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her
"regard" was fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it
presented space enough for the legible graving of two words,
Mutiny and Hate; in some one of her other lineaments I think the
eye—cowardice had also its distinct cipher. Mdlle. Trista
thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a coarse work-day
sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like a horse,
she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind
and below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking
Flamandes, including two or three examples of that deformity of
person and imbecility of intellect whose frequency in the Low
Countries would seem to furnish proof that the climate is such as
to induce degeneracy of the human mind and body; these, I soon
found, were completely under her influence, and with their aid
she got up and sustained a swinish tumult, which I was
constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two of her tools
to rise from their seats, and, having kept them standing five
minutes, turning them bodily out of the schoolroom: the
accomplices into a large place adjoining called the grands salle;
the principal into a cabinet, of which I closed the door and
pocketed the key. This judgment I executed in the presence of
Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much aghast at beholding so decided a
proceeding—the most severe that had ever been ventured on in her
establishment. Her look of affright I answered with one of
composure, and finally with a smile, which perhaps flattered, and
certainly soothed her. Juanna Trista remained in Europe long
enough to repay, by malevolence and ingratitude, all who had ever
done her a good turn; and she then went to join her father in the
— Isles, exulting in the thought that she should there have
slaves, whom, as she said, she could kick and strike at will.

These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as
marked and as little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the
exhibition of them.

Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of
contrast, to show something charming; some gentle virgin head,
circled with a halo, some sweet personification of innocence,
clasping the dove of peace to her bosom. No: I saw nothing of
the sort, and therefore cannot portray it. The pupil in the
school possessing the happiest disposition was a young girl from
the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently benevolent and
obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered; moreover, the
plague-spot of dissimulation was in her also; honour and
principle were unknown to her, she had scarcely heard their
names. The least exceptionable pupil was the poor little Sylvie
I have mentioned once before. Sylvie was gentle in manners,
intelligent in mind; she was even sincere, as far as her religion
would permit her to be so, but her physical organization was
defective; weak health stunted her growth and chilled her
spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister, her
whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame,
trained subjection of her manner, one read that she had already
prepared herself for her future course of life, by giving up her
independence of thought and action into the hands of some
despotic confessor. She permitted herself no original opinion,
no preference of companion or employment; in everything she was
guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton air, she went
about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she liked,
or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do. The
poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the
dictates of her own reason and conscience quite subordinate to
the will of her spiritual director. She was the model pupil of
Mdlle. Reuter's establishment; pale, blighted image, where life
lingered feebly, but whence the soul had been conjured by Romish
wizard-craft!

A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might
be divided into two classes. 1st. The continental English—the
daughters chiefly of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour
had driven from their own country. These poor girls had never
known the advantages of settled homes, decorous example, or
honest Protestant education; resident a few months now in one
Catholic school, now in another, as their parents wandered from
land to land—from France to Germany, from Germany to Belgium
—they had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad habits,
losing every notion even of the first elements of religion and
morals, and acquiring an imbecile indifference to every sentiment
that can elevate humanity; they were distinguishable by an
habitual look of sullen dejection, the result of crushed
self-respect and constant browbeating from their Popish
fellow-pupils, who hated them as English, and scorned them as
heretics.

The second class were British English. Of these I did not
encounter half a dozen during the whole time of my attendance at
the seminary; their characteristics were clean but careless
dress, ill-arranged hair (compared with the tight and trim
foreigners), erect carriage, flexible figures, white and taper
hands, features more irregular, but also more intellectual than
those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances, a general
air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance
alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and
nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the
PROTEGEE of Jesuistry: proud, too, was the aspect of these
British girls; at once envied and ridiculed by their continental
associates, they warded off insult with austere civility, and met
hate with mute disdain; they eschewed company-keeping, and in the
midst of numbers seemed to dwell isolated.

The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in
number, all French—their names Mdlles. Zephyrine, Pelagie, and
Suzette; the two last were commonplace personages enough; their
look was ordinary, their manner was ordinary, their temper was
ordinary, their thoughts, feelings, and views were all ordinary
—were I to write a chapter on the subject I could not elucidate
it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more distinguished in
appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette, but in
character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to
come daily to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or
some such flimsy art; but of her I never had more than a passing
glimpse, as she sat in the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen
of the elder pupils about her, consequently I had no opportunity
of studying her character, or even of observing her person much;
the latter, I remarked, had a very English air for a maitresse,
otherwise it was not striking; of character I should think; she
possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly "en
revolte" against her authority. She did not reside in the house;
her name, I think, was Mdlle. Henri.

Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and
defective, much that was vicious and repulsive (by that last
epithet many would have described the two or three stiff, silent,
decently behaved, ill-dressed British girls), the sensible,
sagacious, affable directress shone like a steady star over a
marsh full of Jack-o'-lanthorns; profoundly aware of her
superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness
which sustained her under all the care and responsibility
inseparable from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow
smooth, her manner tranquil. She liked—as who would not?—on
entering the school-room, to feel that her sole presence sufficed
to diffuse that order and quiet which all the remonstrances, and
even commands, of her underlings frequently failed to enforce;
she liked to stand in comparison, or rather—contrast, with those
who surrounded her, and to know that in personal as well as
mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed palm of
preference—(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she
managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on
herself the office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to
her subalterns every invidious task of blame and punishment, that
they all regarded her with deference, if not with affection; her
teachers did not love her, but they submitted because they were
her inferiors in everything; the various masters who attended her
school were each and all in some way or other under her
influence; over one she had acquired power by her skilful
management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions
to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a
fourth—a timid man—she kept in awe by a sort of austere
decision of mien; me, she still watched, still tried by the most
ingenious tests—she roved round me, baffled, yet persevering; I
believe she thought I was like a smooth and bare precipice, which
offered neither jutting stone nor tree-root, nor tuft of grass to
aid the climber. Now she flattered with exquisite tact, now she
moralized, now she tried how far I was accessible to mercenary
motives, then she disported on the brink of affection—knowing
that some men are won by weakness—anon, she talked excellent
sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment. I
found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it
was sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to
smile in her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her
scarcely veiled, though mute mortification. Still she
persevered, and at last, I am bound to confess it, her finger,
essaying, proving every atom of the casket, touched its secret
spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she laid her hand
on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or whether
the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you
shall know.

It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was
indisposed; I had a bad cold and a cough; two hours' incessant
talking left me very hoarse and tired; as I quitted the
schoolroom, and was passing along the corridor, I met Mdlle.
Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that I looked very
pale and tired. "Yes," I said, "I was fatigued;" and then, with
increased interest, she rejoined, "You shall not go away till you
have had some refreshment." She persuaded me to step into the
parlour, and was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next
day she was kinder still; she came herself into the class to see
that the windows were closed, and that there was no draught; she
exhorted me with friendly earnestness not to over-exert myself;
when I went away, she gave me her hand unasked, and I could not
but mark, by a respectful and gentle pressure, that I was
sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My modest
demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance; I
thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the
evening, my mind was full of impatience for the afternoon of the
next day to arrive, that I might see her again.

I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole
of my subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with
affection. At four o'clock she accompanied me out of the
schoolroom, asking with solicitude after my health, then scolding
me sweetly because I spoke too loud and gave myself too much
trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into the garden,
to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a very
fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I
looked at the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The
day-scholars began to pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.

"Will you go into the garden a minute or two," asked she, "till
they are gone?"

I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as
much as to say—

"You will come with me?"

In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side
down the alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms
were then in full blow as well as their tender green leaves. The
sky was blue, the air still, the May afternoon was full of
brightness and fragrance. Released from the stifling class,
surrounded with flowers and foliage, with a pleasing, smiling,
affable woman at my side—how did I feel? Why, very enviably.
It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had suggested
of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley
shut out the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M.
Pelet's mansion, and screened us momentarily from the other
houses, rising amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my
arm to Mdlle. Reuter, and led her to a garden-chair, nestled
under some lilacs near. She sat down; I took my place at her
side. She went on talking to me with that ease which
communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned in my
mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell
rang, both at her house and M. Pelet's; we were obliged to part;
I detained her a moment as she was moving away.

"I want something," said I.

"What?" asked Zoraide naively.

"Only a flower."

"Gather it then—or two, or twenty, if you like."

"No—one will do-but you must gather it, and give it to me."

"What a caprice!" she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her
tip-toes, and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it
to me with grace. I took it, and went away, satisfied for the
present, and hopeful for the future.

Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in
moonlight night of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this
well; for, having sat up late that evening, correcting devoirs,
and feeling weary and a little oppressed with the closeness of my
small room, I opened the often-mentioned boarded window, whose
boards, however, I had persuaded old Madame Pelet to have removed
since I had filled the post of professor in the pensionnat de
demoiselles, as, from that time, it was no longer "inconvenient"
for me to overlook my own pupils at their sports. I sat down in
the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill, and leaned out:
above me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless night sky
—splendid moonlight subdued the tremulous sparkle of the stars
—below lay the garden, varied with silvery lustre and deep
shade, and all fresh with dew—a grateful perfume exhaled from
the closed blossoms of the fruit-trees—not a leaf stirred, the
night was breezeless. My window looked directly down upon a
certain walk of Mdlle. Reuter's garden, called "l'allee
defendue," so named because the pupils were forbidden to enter it
on account of its proximity to the boys' school. It was here
that the lilacs and laburnums grew especially thick; this was the
most sheltered nook in the enclosure, its shrubs screened the
garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with the young
directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with her
as I leaned from the lattice, and let my; eye roam, now over the
walks and borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed
front of the house which rose white beyond the masses of foliage.
I wondered in what part of the building was situated her
apartment; and a single light, shining through the persiennes of
one croisee, seemed to direct me to it.