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
sad 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.
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