A COMPETENCY was what I wanted; a competency it was now my aim and
resolve to secure; but never had I been farther from the mark. With
August the school-year (l’annee scolaire) closed, the examinations
concluded, the prizes were adjudged, the schools dispersed, the gates of
all colleges, the doors of all pensionnats shut, not to be reopened till
the beginning or middle of October. The last day of August was at hand,
and what was my position? Had I advanced a step since the commencement
of the past quarter? On the contrary, I had receded one. By renouncing
my engagement as English master in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, I had
voluntarily cut off 20l. from my yearly income; I had diminished my 60l.
per annum to 40l., and even that sum I now held by a very precarious
tenure.
It is some time since I made any reference to M. Pelet. The moonlight
walk is, I think, the last incident recorded in this narrative where
that gentleman cuts any conspicuous figure: the fact is, since that
event, a change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed,
ignorant that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice,
had revealed to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship,
would have continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as
a porcupine, and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile
for his raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to
take coffee with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and
very stiffly and sternly rejected too; his jesting allusions to the
directress (which he still continued) were heard with a grim calm very
different from the petulant pleasure they were formerly wont to excite.
For a long time Pelet bore with my frigid demeanour very patiently;
he even increased his attentions; but finding that even a cringing
politeness failed to thaw or move me, he at last altered too; in
his turn he cooled; his invitations ceased; his countenance became
suspicious and overcast, and I read in the perplexed yet brooding aspect
of his brow, a constant examination and comparison of premises, and an
anxious endeavour to draw thence some explanatory inference. Ere long,
I fancy, he succeeded, for he was not without penetration; perhaps, too,
Mdlle. Zoraide might have aided him in the solution of the enigma; at
any rate I soon found that the uncertainty of doubt had vanished from
his manner; renouncing all pretence of friendship and cordiality, he
adopted a reserved, formal, but still scrupulously polite deportment.
This was the point to which I had wished to bring him, and I was now
again comparatively at my ease. I did not, it is true, like my position
in his house; but being freed from the annoyance of false professions
and double-dealing I could endure it, especially as no heroic sentiment
of hatred or jealousy of the director distracted my philosophical soul;
he had not, I found, wounded me in a very tender point, the wound was so
soon and so radically healed, leaving only a sense of contempt for
the treacherous fashion in which it had been inflicted, and a lasting
mistrust of the hand which I had detected attempting to stab in the
dark.
This state of things continued till about the middle of July, and then
there was a little change; Pelet came home one night, an hour after his
usual time, in a state of unequivocal intoxication, a thing anomalous
with him; for if he had some of the worst faults of his countrymen,
he had also one at least of their virtues, i.e. sobriety. So drunk,
however, was he upon this occasion, that after having roused the whole
establishment (except the pupils, whose dormitory being over the classes
in a building apart from the dwelling-house, was consequently out of the
reach of disturbance) by violently ringing the hall-bell and ordering
lunch to be brought in immediately, for he imagined it was noon, whereas
the city bells had just tolled midnight; after having furiously rated
the servants for their want of punctuality, and gone near to chastise
his poor old mother, who advised him to go to bed, he began raving
dreadfully about “le maudit Anglais, Creemsvort.” I had not yet retired;
some German books I had got hold of had kept me up late; I heard the
uproar below, and could distinguish the director’s voice exalted in
a manner as appalling as it was unusual. Opening my door a little, I
became aware of a demand on his part for “Creemsvort” to be brought
down to him that he might cut his throat on the hall-table and wash
his honour, which he affirmed to be in a dirty condition, in infernal
British blood. “He is either mad or drunk,” thought I, “and in either
case the old woman and the servants will be the better of a man’s
assistance,” so I descended straight to the hall. I found him staggering
about, his eyes in a fine frenzy rolling--a pretty sight he was, a just
medium between the fool and the lunatic.
“Come, M. Pelet,” said I, “you had better go to bed,” and I took hold of
his arm. His excitement, of course, increased greatly at sight and touch
of the individual for whose blood he had been making application: he
struggled and struck with fury--but a drunken man is no match for a
sober one; and, even in his normal state, Pelet’s worn out frame could
not have stood against my sound one. I got him up-stairs, and, in
process of time, to bed. During the operation he did not fail to
utter comminations which, though broken, had a sense in them; while
stigmatizing me as the treacherous spawn of a perfidious country, he,
in the same breath, anathematized Zoraide Reuter; he termed her “femme
sotte et vicieuse,” who, in a fit of lewd caprice, had thrown herself
away on an unprincipled adventurer; directing the point of the last
appellation by a furious blow, obliquely aimed at me. I left him in the
act of bounding elastically out of the bed into which I had tucked him;
but, as I took the precaution of turning the key in the door behind me,
I retired to my own room, assured of his safe custody till the morning,
and free to draw undisturbed conclusions from the scene I had just
witnessed.
Now, it was precisely about this time that the directress, stung by
my coldness, bewitched by my scorn, and excited by the preference she
suspected me of cherishing for another, had fallen into a snare of her
own laying--was herself caught in the meshes of the very passion with
which she wished to entangle me. Conscious of the state of things in
that quarter, I gathered, from the condition in which I saw my
employer, that his lady-love had betrayed the alienation of her
affections--inclinations, rather, I would say; affection is a word at
once too warm and too pure for the subject--had let him see that the
cavity of her hollow heart, emptied of his image, was now occupied by
that of his usher. It was not without some surprise that I found
myself obliged to entertain this view of the case; Pelet, with
his old-established school, was so convenient, so profitable a
match--Zoraide was so calculating, so interested a woman--I wondered
mere personal preference could, in her mind, have prevailed for a moment
over worldly advantage: yet, it was evident, from what Pelet said, that,
not only had she repulsed him, but had even let slip expressions of
partiality for me. One of his drunken exclamations was, “And the
jade doats on your youth, you raw blockhead! and talks of your noble
deportment, as she calls your accursed English formality--and your pure
morals, forsooth! des moeurs de Caton a-t-elle dit--sotte!” Hers, I
thought, must be a curious soul, where in spite of a strong, natural
tendency to estimate unduly advantages of wealth and station, the
sardonic disdain of a fortuneless subordinate had wrought a deeper
impression than could be imprinted by the most flattering assiduities of
a prosperous CHEF D’INSTITUTION. I smiled inwardly; and strange to say,
though my AMOUR PROPRE was excited not disagreeably by the conquest, my
better feelings remained untouched. Next day, when I saw the directress,
and when she made an excuse to meet me in the corridor, and besought my
notice by a demeanour and look subdued to Helot humility, I could
not love, I could scarcely pity her. To answer briefly and dryly
some interesting inquiry about my health--to pass her by with a stern
bow--was all I could; her presence and manner had then, and for some
time previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they
sealed up all that was good, elicited all that was noxious in my nature;
sometimes they enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart.
I was aware of the detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the
change. I had ever hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a
slave, self-given, went near to transform me into what I abhorred!
There was at once a sort of low gratification in receiving this luscious
incense from an attractive and still young worshipper; and an irritating
sense of degradation in the very experience of the pleasure. When she
stole about me with the soft step of a slave, I felt at once barbarous
and sensual as a pasha. I endured her homage sometimes; sometimes I
rebuked it. My indifference or harshness served equally to increase the
evil I desired to check.
“Que le dedain lui sied bien!” I once overheard her say to her mother:
“il est beau comme Apollon quand il sourit de son air hautain.”
And the jolly old dame laughed, and said she thought her daughter was
bewitched, for I had no point of a handsome man about me, except being
straight and without deformity. “Pour moi,” she continued, “il me fait
tout l’effet d’un chat-huant, avec ses besicles.”
Worthy old girl! I could have gone and kissed her had she not been a
little too old, too fat, and too red-faced; her sensible, truthful
words seemed so wholesome, contrasted with the morbid illusions of her
daughter.
When Pelet awoke on the morning after his frenzy fit, he retained no
recollection of what had happened the previous night, and his mother
fortunately had the discretion to refrain from informing him that I had
been a witness of his degradation. He did not again have recourse to
wine for curing his griefs, but even in his sober mood he soon showed
that the iron of jealousy had entered into his soul. A thorough
Frenchman, the national characteristic of ferocity had not been omitted
by nature in compounding the ingredients of his character; it had
appeared first in his access of drunken wrath, when some of his
demonstrations of hatred to my person were of a truly fiendish
character, and now it was more covertly betrayed by momentary
contractions of the features, and flashes of fierceness in his light
blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter mine. He absolutely
avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the falsehood of his
politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my soul rebelled
sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house and
discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the
constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise
each morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau
under my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when
I came back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice
in my ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective,
yet so soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud
and pliant, sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a
certain tone of feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure
and powerful, delighting and troubling my memory--visions of new ties I
longed to contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the
rover and the rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot
in the light of a Spartan virtue.
But Pelet’s fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress,
and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious
teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same
interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil,
and upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily
resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle.
Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment
that delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and
difficult path of principle--in that path she never trod; but the plain
highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged.
When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued
the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts
she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both
in allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernment, as was soon
proved by the alteration in his mien and manner; she must have managed
to convince him that I neither was, nor ever had been, a rival of his,
for the fortnight of fury against me terminated in a fit of exceeding
graciousness and amenity, not unmixed with a dash of exulting
self-complacency, more ludicrous than irritating. Pelet’s bachelor’s
life had been passed in proper French style with due disregard to moral
restraint, and I thought his married life promised to be very French
also. He often boasted to me what a terror he had been to certain
husbands of his acquaintance; I perceived it would not now be difficult
to pay him back in his own coin.
The crisis drew on. No sooner had the holidays commenced than note of
preparation for some momentous event sounded all through the premises
of Pelet: painters, polishers, and upholsterers were immediately set
to work, and there was talk of “la chambre de Madame,” “le salon de
Madame.” Not deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced
with that title in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm
of filial piety, as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her
use, I concluded, in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the
kitchen-scullion, that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be
the tenant of these gay chambers.
Presently official announcement of the coming event was put forth. In
another week’s time M. Francois Pelet, directeur, and Mdlle. Zoraide
Reuter, directrice, were to be joined together in the bands of
matrimony. Monsieur, in person, heralded the fact to me; terminating
his communication by an obliging expression of his desire that I should
continue, as heretofore, his ablest assistant and most trusted friend;
and a proposition to raise my salary by an additional two hundred francs
per annum. I thanked him, gave no conclusive answer at the time, and,
when he had left me, threw off my blouse, put on my coat, and set out
on a long walk outside the Porte de Flandre, in order, as I thought, to
cool my blood, calm my nerves, and shake my disarranged ideas into some
order. In fact, I had just received what was virtually my dismissal.
I could not conceal, I did not desire to conceal from myself the
conviction that, being now certain that Mdlle. Reuter was destined to
become Madame Pelet it would not do for me to remain a dependent dweller
in the house which was soon to be hers. Her present demeanour towards
me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her former
feeling was unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but
Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation would
shiver their restraints.
I was no pope--I could not boast infallibility: in short, if I stayed,
the probability was that, in three months’ time, a practical modern
French novel would be in full process of concoction under the roof of
the unsuspecting Pelet. Now, modern French novels are not to my
taste, either practically or theoretically. Limited as had yet been my
experience of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating,
near at hand, an example of the results produced by a course of
interesting and romantic domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction
was about this example, I saw it bare and real, and it was very
loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by
the habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by the infectious
influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced
and prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now
regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote
to temptation. They had inscribed on my reason the conviction that
unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s rights, is delusive and
envenomed pleasure--its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison
cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever.
From all this resulted the conclusion that I must leave Pelet’s, and
that instantly; “but,” said Prudence, “you know not where to go, nor how
to live;” and then the dream of true love came over me: Frances Henri
seemed to stand at my side; her slender waist to invite my arm; her
hand to court my hand; I felt it was made to nestle in mine; I could not
relinquish my right to it, nor could I withdraw my eyes for ever from
hers, where I saw so much happiness, such a correspondence of heart with
heart; over whose expression I had such influence; where I could kindle
bliss, infuse awe, stir deep delight, rouse sparkling spirit, and
sometimes waken pleasurable dread. My hopes to will and possess, my
resolutions to merit and rise, rose in array against me; and here I was
about to plunge into the gulf of absolute destitution; “and all this,”
suggested an inward voice, “because you fear an evil which may never
happen!” “It will happen; you KNOW it will,” answered that stubborn
monitor, Conscience. “Do what you feel is right; obey me, and even in
the sloughs of want I will plant for you firm footing.” And then, as I
walked fast along the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea
of some Great Being, unseen, but all present, who in His beneficence
desired only my welfare, and now watched the struggle of good and evil
in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His voice, heard in
the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to the sophisms by which
His enemy and mine--the Spirit of Evil--sought to lead me astray.
Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and
declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers; but
whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists,
would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself
to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the
velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the
man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I
retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet’s: I sought
him in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner
proved that I was resolved; he, perhaps, at heart approved my
decision. After twenty minutes’ conversation, I re-entered my own room,
self-deprived of the means of living, self-sentenced to leave my present
home, with the short notice of a week in which to provide another.