The Professor / Учитель. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Шарлотта БронтеЧитать онлайн книгу.
punch” (or ponche, as she pronounced it); “it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full meal.”
I bowed, but again declined it. She went on:
“I feel,” said she, after a solemn sip – “I feel profoundly the importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted me, for you are aware, Monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the establishment in the next house?”
“Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame.” Though, indeed, at that moment I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter’s pensionnat.
“I! Oh, no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son – nothing more. Ah! you thought I gave lessons in class – did you?”
And she laughed loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy amazingly.
“Madame is in the wrong to laugh,” I observed; “if she does not give lessons, I am sure it is not because she cannot;” and I whipped out a white pocket-handkerchief and wafted it, with a French grace, past my nose, bowing at the same time.
“Quel charmant jeune homme![148]” murmured Madame Pelet in a low voice. Madame Reuter, being less sentimental, as she was Flamand and not French, only laughed again.
“You are a dangerous person, I fear,” said she; “if you can forge compliments at that rate, Zoraïde will positively be afraid of you; but if you are good, I will keep your secret, and not tell her how well you can flatter. Now, listen what sort of a proposal she makes to you. She has heard that you are an excellent professor, and as she wishes to get the very best masters for her school (car Zoraïde fait tout comme une reine, c’est une veritable maîtresse-femme[149]), she has commissioned me to step over this afternoon, and sound Madame Pelet as to the possibility of engaging you. Zoraïde is a wary general; she never advances without first examining well her ground. I don’t think she would be pleased if she knew I had already disclosed her intentions to you; she did not order me to go so far, but I thought there would be no harm in letting you into the secret, and Madame Pelet was of the same opinion. Take care, however, you don’t betray either of us to Zoraïde – to my daughter, I mean; she is so discreet and circumspect herself, she cannot understand that one should find a pleasure in gossiping a little – ”
“C’est absolument comme mon fils![150]” cried Madame Pelet.
“All the world is so changed since our girlhood!” rejoined the other: “young people have such old heads now. But to return, Monsieur. Madame Pelet will mention the subject of your giving lessons in my daughter’s establishment to her son, and he will speak to you; and then to-morrow, you will step over to our house, and ask to see my daughter, and you will introduce the subject as if the first intimation of it had reached you from M. Pelet himself, and be sure you never mention my name, for I would not displease Zoraïde on any account.”
“Bien! bien![151]” interrupted I – for all this chatter and circumlocution began to bore me very much; “I will consult M. Pelet, and the thing shall be settled as you desire. Good evening, mesdames – I am infinitely obliged to you.”
“Comment! vous vous en allez déjà?” exclaimed Madame Pelet. “Prenez encore quelque chose, monsieur; une pomme cuite, des biscuits, encore une tasse de café?[152]”
“Merci, merci, madame – au revoir.[153]” And I backed at last out of the apartment.
Having regained my own room, I set myself to turn over in my mind the incident of the evening. It seemed a queer affair altogether, and queerly managed; the two old women had made quite a little intricate mess of it; still I found that the uppermost feeling in my mind on the subject was one of satisfaction. In the first place it would be a change to give lessons in another seminary, and then to teach young ladies would be an occupation so interesting – to be admitted at all into a ladies’ boarding-school would be an incident so new in my life. Besides, thought I, as I glanced at the boarded window, “I shall now at last see the mysterious garden: I shall gaze both on the angels and their Eden.”
Chapter IX
M. Pelet could not of course object to the proposal made by Mdlle. Reuter; permission to accept such additional employment, should it offer, having formed an article of the terms on which he had engaged me. It was, therefore, arranged in the course of next day that I should be at liberty to give lessons in Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment four afternoons in every week.
When evening came I prepared to step over in order to seek a conference with Mademoiselle herself on the subject; I had not had time to pay the visit before, having been all day closely occupied in class. I remember very well that before quitting my chamber, I held a brief debate with myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. “Doubtless,” thought I, “she is some stiff old maid; for though the daughter of Madame Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters[154]; besides, if it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome, and no dressing can make me so, therefore I’ll go as I am.” And off I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table, surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk, dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a lady’s love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid[155].
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