Short & Petite: We Close Charlotte Brontë’s chapter on Hope

Good afternoon! This is shorter than I had anticipated because I’ve got too many jobs to finish.  I hope you enjoy this poignant and (I think) beautifully written chapter in Villette.  Have such strong passions ever been described with such tender, delicate care?  

Thank you for supporting me.  It means the world.

Lots of love

Gretel 🕯️

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, good morning. It's Thursday morning, and I'm about to take the dogs out for a walk. Sitting in the car listening to some music, and I just opened what I assumed would be um the typical lovely email I get from one of you who uh is one of my most loyal listeners, and she has given me a right turning off. A right turning off. I won't read what she wrote, but she basically said, stop worrying about the ratings and the stars. If you start doing that, then you just become any old podcaster. Well, first of all, thank you for the turning off because you're quite right. And it's, you know, I take it from you because you've listened to me right from the beginning. In fact, I think you were my very first supporter, so thank you. Um I love you very dearly. And you are right. I suppose it's just lovely when you see that you get nice feedback, but I promise you, all of you, that I'm never going to be chasing ratings. I just wouldn't really know how to do it. I wouldn't, you know, the idea of doing all this in a studio and having it all polished and taking the time to look listen to it after I've recorded it and all of that, it would never happen. So um I fear not, um, I would never go down that route. It is lovely to get little nice reviews, of course it is. It's as lovely as when I get emails, it's kind of feedback, isn't it? I suppose. And I am only human. I am only human. So I promise you I won't chase ratings, and I consider myself completely chastised. And goodness, uh, I've got a new grandmother out there, and I love it. The more grandmothers, the better. Oh, I'm not suggesting I'm not suggesting that in age, by the way. How rude of me. I just see you sort of wagging your fingers saying, Oh dear. Gretel, what are you thinking of? Dear me. Right, off I go for the walk. I've just parked up and it just occurred to me actually that six people who kindly subscribe to to this podcast, paid subscription, have missed out on parcels this time around. And if you miss if you haven't received a parcel since receiving the Barnaby Rudge book back back last year, then would you kindly, if you want to, send me an email and just let me know and let me know an address I can send a parcel to. If you trust me, and if you're rather not give an address, then perhaps just give out the post box. And to one of you who've sent something to me and sent it to the Sherbourne post office, I'm still struggling to track that down, but I haven't forgotten it, and I just want to let you know that I'm very grateful and I'm so sorry I haven't r responded about it, and it's on my list of things to do to try and track that down. It wasn't where it should be in the post office, so I need to go to a different area and have a look there. So I hope everyone's well this Thursday, and I've got two impatient dogs in the back. Can you hear that? Shall we go for a walk? Shall we? The one place that they don't fight each other is in the back of the car. So it's quite nice to sit here that you're not don't fight, do you? They're just too excited. Well, they're excited, but they're just patiently waiting for the for the door to open. It's funny. Right, off I go.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

We're on our usual walk, but it's um obviously nesting time for the crows because they're dive bombing the dogs. It's it's uh remarkable to see actually. Can you hear them?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

And now the puppy the puppy's barking at someone in the distance because she's got an umbrella up. She's obviously trying to work out what kind of creature it is that's got a huge head. I'm just trying to see it from the puppy's point of view. That she's all she can see is a massive head and two little legs coming out of the bottom. She's thinking, what on earth's that? Oh goodness, my life is hysterically odd. And now we conclude the chapter in Villette called Reaction. A fortnight passed. I was getting once more inured to the harness of school and lapsing from the passionate pain of change to the pulsy of custom. One afternoon, in crossing the Carre on my way to the first class, where I was expected to assist at a lesson of style and literature, I saw standing by one of the long and large windows, Rosine. The portress, so I lost my place, her attitude as usual was quite nonchalant. She always stood at ease, one of her hands rested in her apron pocket, the other at this moment held to her eyes a letter whereof Mademoiselle coolly perused the address and deliberately studied the seal. A letter The shape of a letter similar to that had haunted my brain in its very core for seven days past. I had dreamed of a letter last night. Strong magnetism drew me to that letter now, yet whether I should have ventured to demand of Rosine so much as a glance at that white envelope with a spot of red wax in the middle, I knew not. No, I think I should have sneaked past in terror of a rebuff from disappointment. My heart throbbed now as if I already heard the tramp of her approach. Nervous mistake. It was the rapid step of the professor of professor of literature measuring the corridor. I fled before him. Could I but be seated quietly at my desk before his arrival, with the class under my orders all in disciplined readiness, he would perhaps exempt me from notice, but if caught lingering in the cares, I would be sure to come in for a special harangue. I had time to get seated to enforce perfect silence, to take out my work and to commence it amidst the profoundest and best trained hush, ere Monsieur Emmanuel entered, with his vehement burst of latch and panel, and his deep, redundant bow, prophetic of collar. As usual he broke upon us like a clap of thunder, but instead of flashing lightning wise from the door to the estrade, his career halted midway at my desk. Setting his face towards me and the window, his back to the pupils and the room, he gave me a look, such a look as might have licensed me to stand straight up and demand what he meant, a look of scowling distrust. Voila, pourvu, said he, drawing his hand from his waistcoat and placing on my desk a letter, the very letter I had seen in Rosine's hand, the letter whose face of enameled white and single, Cyclops eye of vermilion red had printed themselves so clear and perfect on the retina of an inward vision. I knew it. I felt it had to be the letter of my hope, the fruition of my wish, the release from my doubt, the ransom from my terror. This letter Monsieur Poul with his unwarrantably interfering habits had taken from the portress and now delivered it himself. I might have been angry, but had not a second for the sensation yes, I held in my hand, not a slight note, but an envelope which must at least contain a sheet. It felt not flimsy but firm, substantial, satisfying, and here was the direction Miss Lucy Snow in a clean, clear, equal, decided hand, and there was the seal, round, full, deftly dropped by untremulous fingers, stamped with the well cut impress of initials J G B. I experienced a happy feeling, a glad emotion which went warm to my heart, and ran lively through all my veins. For once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy, not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot live, not a mess of that manner I drearily eulogized a while ago, which indeed at first melts on the lips with an unspeakable and preternatural sweetness, but which, in the end, our souls full surely loathe, longing deliriously for natural and earth grown food, wildly praying heaven's spirits to reclaim their own spirit due and essence, an ailment divine, but for mortals, deadly. It was neither sweet hail nor small coriander seed, neither slight wafer nor luscious honey I had lighted on. It was the wild, savoury mess of the hunter, nourishing and salubrious meat, forest fed or desert reared, fresh, healthful and life sustaining. It was what the old dying patriarch demanded of his son Esau, promise him in requital the blessing of his last breath. It was a godsend, and I inwardly thanked the god who had vouchsafed it. Outwardly I only thanked the man, crying Thank you, thank you, monsieur. Monsieur curled his lip, gave me a vicious glance of the eye, and strode to his estrade. Monsieur Poul was not at all a good little man, though he had good points. Did I read my letter there and then? Did I consume the venison at once and with haste as if Esau's shaft flew every day? I knew better. The cover with its address, the seal, with its three clear letters, was bounty and abundance for the present. I stole from the room, I procured the key of the great dormitory which was kept locked by day. I went to my bureau with a sort of haste and trembling, lest Madame should creep upstairs and spy on me. I opened a drawer, unlocked a box, and took out a case, and having feasted my eyes with one more look, and approached the seal with a mixture of awe and shame and delight to my lips, I folded the untasted treasure, yet all fair and inviolate, in silver paper, committed it to the case, shut up the box and drawer, reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to class, feeling as if fairy tales were true. And fairy gifts no dream, strange, sweet insanity, and this letter, the source of my joy, I had not yet read, did not yet know the number of its lines. When I reentered the schoolroom, behind Monsieur Poole raging like a pestilence, some people had not spoken audibly or distinctly enough to suit his ear and taste, and now she and others were weeping and he was raving from his estrade, almost livid. Curious to mention, as I appeared, he fell on me. Was I the mistress of these girls? Did I profess to teach them the conduct befitting ladies? And did I permit, and he doubted not, encourage them to strangle their mother tongue in their throats, to mince and mash it between their teeth as if they had some base cause to be ashamed of the words they uttered. Was this modesty? He knew better. It was a vile pseudo sentiment, the offspring or the forerunner of evil. Rather than submit to this mopping and mowing, this mincing and grimacing, this grinding of a noble tongue, this general affectation and sickening stubbornness of the pupils of the first class, he would throw them up for a set of insupportable pet petite metres and confine himself to teaching the ABC to the babies of the third division. What could I say to all this? Really nothing, and I hoped he would allow me to be silenced. The storm recommenced. Every answer to his queries was then refused. It seemed to be considered in that place, that conceited boudoir of a first class, with its pretentious bookcases, its green based desks, its rubbish of flower stands, its trash of framed pictures and maps, and its foreign surveillante. Forsooth it seemed to be the fashion to think there that the professor of literature was not worthy of a reply. These were new ideas imported he did not doubt, straight from La Grande Britannia. They savoured of island insolence and arrogance. Lull II, the girls, not one of whom was ever known to weep a tear for the rebukes of any other master, now all melting like snow statues before the intemperate heat of Monsieur Emmanuel, I, not yet much shaken, sitting down and venturing to resume my work. Something, either in my continued silence, or in the movement of my hand, stitching, transported Monsieur Emmanuel beyond the last boundary of patience. He actually sprung from his estrade. The stove stood near my desk and he attacked it. The little iron door was nearly dashed from its hinges, the fuel was made to fly. Esqueuzave L'entension de Monsanta? he asked me in a low furious voice, as he thus outraged under the pretence of arranging the fire. It was time to soothe him a little, if possible. May Monsieur, said I, I would not insult you for the world. I remember too well that you once said we should be friends. I did not intend my voice to falter, but it did, more, I think, through the agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present fear. Still there certainly was something in Monsieur Poole's anger, a kind of passion of emotion that specially tended to draw tears. I was not unhappy, nor much afraid, yet I wept. Alons, alon, he said presently, looking around and seeing the deluge universally. Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian. I have only one pocket handkerchief, he added, but if I had twenty I would offer you each one. Your teacher shall be your representative. Here, Miss Lucy. And he took forth and held out to me a clean silk handkerchief. Now a person who did not know Monsieur Poole, who was unused to him and his impulses, would naturally have bungled at this offer, declining accepting the same, etc. But I too plainly felt this would never do. The slightest hesitation would have been fatal to the incipient treaty of peace. I rose and met the handkerchief halfway, received it with decorum, wiped therewith my eyes, and resuming my seat and retaining the flag of truth in my hand and on my lap, took especial care during the remainder of the lesson, to touch neither needle nor thimble, scissors nor muslin. Many a jealous glance did Monsieur Poole cast at these implements. He hated them mortally, considering sewing a source of distraction from the attention due to himself. A very eloquent lesson he gave, and very kind and friendly was he to the close. Ere he had done the clouds were dispersed, and the sun shining out, tears were exchanged for smiles. In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk. And your letter, said he, this time not quite fiercely. Let's do that again then. And your letter, said he. I have not read it yet, monsieur. Ah, it is too good to read at once. You save it, as when I was a boy I used to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe. The guess came so near to the truth I could not prevent a sudden rising warmth in my face from revealing as much. You promise yourself a pleasant moment, said he. In reading that letter you will open it when alone, Nespas. Ah, a smile answers Well, well, one should not be too harsh. La jeunesse nacont. Monsieur, monsieur, I cried, or rather whispered after him, as he turned to go, do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a friend's letter. Without reading it I can vouch for that. Jacons, Jaconso Ense Ami. Monsieur Mademoiselle. But monsieur, here is your handkerchief. Keep it, keep it till the letter is read, then bring it to me. I shall read the billet's tenor in your eyes. When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the schoolroom into the Berceaux, and thence into the garden and court to take their customary recreation before the five o'clock dinner, I stood a moment thinking, and absently twisting the handkerchief round my arm. For some reason gladdened, I think, by a sudden return of the golden shimmer of childhood, roused by an unwanted renewal of its buoyancy, made merry by the liberty of the closing hour, and above all solace at heart by the joyous consciousness of that treasure in the case, box, drawer upstairs. I fell to playing with the handkerchief, as if it were a ball, casting it into the air and catching it as it fell. The game was stopped by another hand than mine, a hand emerging from a palateau sleeve and stretched over my shoulder. It caught the extemporized plaything and bore it away with these sullen words Je vois bien que vous moque du mois et du mes effet. Really that little man was dreadful, a mere sprite of caprice and ubiquity. One never knew either his whim or his whereabout. Chapter twenty two The Letter I'm not going to read it now, like the letter, I'm going to leave you guessing, but here's the first sentence. When all was still in the house, when dinner was over and the noisy recreation hour passed, when darkness had set in and the quiet lamp of study was lit in the refectory, when the extern were gone home, the clashing door and clamorous bell hushed for the evening. When Madame was safely settled in the Salamanche in company with her mother and some friends, I then glided to the kitchen, begged a bougie for one hour one half hour for a particular occasion, found acceptance of my petition at the hands of my friend Gauton, who answered Me certainement chuchu vuzon aure de si vule, and light in hand I mounted noiseless to the dormitory.