Villette (86 page)

This doesn’t concern me. I don’t care about it.

Quote from Shakespeare’s
Macbeth
(act 5, scene 5).

Also Dagan; Semitic god of crop fertility.

Pride of the devil.

I can see you from here.

That superior woman.

Velvet paw.

What is this? Are you playing tricks on me?

It’s the pink dress.

And Miss Lucy is as flirtatious as ten Parisiennes. Have you ever seen an Englishwoman her equal? Just look at her hat, her gloves, and her boots!

Courage!—I say truly that I am not angry. Perhaps I am even happy that someone has made herself so pretty for my little party.... But my dress isn’t pretty—it’s only neat.... I like neatness.

The woods and the small paths.

Ham ... jams.

Stingy housewives.

Give me your hand!

French dramatist Pierre Corneille ( 1606-1684) .

Little sister.

Nevertheless I have been very harsh with you, very exacting.

Where is Miss Lucy? She is in bed.

Intrigue.

Biblical city in the wilderness.

What do you want with me?

And as for her greetings, what do I care about them!

You must know my student, my Paul?

She is odd isn’t she?

Oh, the singular little hunchback.

It appears that she detests me because she thinks I’m in love with my cousin Paul, that devoted little man, who dares not to move unless his confessor gives him permission! ... For the rest ... be it me or another.

Someone who I think is quite silly.

Pure like a lily, as they say.

Forget the angels, the hunchbacks, and above all the professors—and good night!

Great heavens!

Founder of the Merovingian dynasty (A.D. 476-750), the Frankish “first race” of the kings of France.

Legendary king of the Franks.

I don’t know anything about it.

We act in the interest of the truth. We don’t want to hurt you.

A heartless little mocker.

And you, miss, you are tidy and delicate and horribly unfeeling above all that.

I live in a hole!

I make my bed and do my housework.

And then?

Isn’t it true? for this hour, its good sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the ‘morbid fancies,’ against which he warned me, wrought in his own brain.

Demanding little person.

French Catholic saint (c.1580-1660) who ministered to the peasants.

Rome.

From Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
(act 1, scene 4).

Too much sensibility and sympathy.

Tell me then, little sister.

That makes me ill.

Mary, Queen of the Heavens.

Oh God, forgive me, I am a sinner.

Full of spirit and grace.

Brave (dialect).

Mountain northeast of Athens.

An unrealistic dream. Alnaschar, a character from
The Arabian Nights,
has his dream crushed when he invests everything in glassware, which he accidentally smashes before he can sell anything.

It is sweet, rest! It is precious happiness!

Sweet consoler.

Refers to the work of essayist, novelist, and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Rousseau championed the natural innocence and goodness of human beings, qualities that could be strengthened by example.

How pale you are! You are very ill then, miss? employed. Ginevra’s first words—‘Is your headache very bad tonight?’ (for Ginevra, like the rest, thought I had a headache—an intolerable headache which made me frightfully white in the face, and insanely restless in the foot)—her first words, I say, inspired the impulse to flee anywhere, so that it were only out of reach. And soon, what followed—plaints about her own headaches—completed the business.

Frolics.

Where are they? Why don’t they come?

The little one will help me, isn’t that right? ... But of course, I will help you with all my heart. Do with me what you wish, my sponsor.

Don Quixote’s horse in Cervantes’s classic tale.

Leave me!

Get out of here!

Woman, get out of here now!

She is completely pale. That face makes me ill.

Gently, gently ... be calm.

Day school for ladies.

Punch.