Villette

were very sick too, and on whom the stewardess attended with shameless partiality, were stoics compared with her. Many a time since have I noticed, in persons of Ginevra Fanshawe's light, careless temperament, and fair, fragile style of beauty, an entire incapacity to endure: they seem to sour in adversity, like small-beer in thunder: the man who takes such a woman for his wife, ought to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all sunshine. Indignant at last with her teazing peevishness, I curtly requested her »to hold her tongue.« The rebuff did her good, and it was observable that she liked me no worse for it.
    As dark night drew on, the sea roughened: larger waves swayed strong against the vessel's side. It was strange to reflect that blackness and water were round us, and to feel the ship ploughing straight on her pathless way, despite noise, billow, and rising gale. Articles of furniture began to fall about, and it became needful to lash them to their places; the passengers grew sicker than ever; Miss Fanshawe declared, with groans, that she must die.
    »Not just yet, honey,« said the stewardess. »We're just in port.« Accordingly, in another quarter of an hour, a calm fell upon us all; and about midnight the voyage ended.
    I was sorry: yes, I was sorry. My resting-time was past; my difficulties – my stringent difficulties – recommenced. When I went on deck, the cold air and black scowl of the night seemed to rebuke me for my presumption in being where I was: the lights of the foreign sea-port town, glimmering round the foreign harbour, met me like unnumbered threatening eyes. Friends came on board to welcome the Watsons; a whole family of friends surrounded and bore away Miss Fanshawe; I –– but I dared not for one moment dwell on a comparison of positions.
    Yet where should I go? I must go somewhere. Necessity dare not be nice. As I gave the stewardess her fee – and she seemed surprised at receiving a coin of more value than, from such a quarter, her coarse calculations had probably reckoned on – I said:
    »Be kind enough to direct me to some quiet, respectable inn, where I can go for the night.«
    She not only gave me the required direction, but called a commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and –
not
my trunk, for that was gone to the custom-house.
    I followed this man along a rudely-paved street, lit now by a fitful gleam of moonlight; he brought me to the inn. I offered him sixpence, which he refused to take; supposing it not enough, I changed it for a shilling; but this also he declined, speaking rather sharply, in a language to me unknown. A waiter, coming forward into the lamp-lit inn-passage, reminded me, in broken English, that my money was foreign money, not current here. I gave him a sovereign to change. This little matter settled, I asked for a bed-room; supper I could not take: I was still sea-sick and unnerved, and trembling all over. How deeply glad I was when the door of a very small chamber at length closed on me and my exhaustion. Again I might rest: though the cloud of doubt would be as thick to-morrow as ever; the necessity for exertion more urgent, the peril (of destitution) nearer, the conflict (for existence) more severe.
     

 
Chapter VII
Villette
    I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed: physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt and clear.
    Just as I finished dressing, a tap came to the door; I said, »Come in,« expecting the chambermaid, whereas a rough man walked in and said, –
    »Gif me your keys, Meess.«
    »Why?« I asked.
    »Gif!« said he impatiently; and as he half-snatched them from my hand, he added, »All right! haf your tronc soon.«
    Fortunately it did turn out all right: he was from the custom-house. Where to go to get some breakfast I could not tell; but I proceeded, not without hesitation, to descend.
    I now observed, what I had not noticed in my extreme weariness last night, viz., that this inn was, in fact, a large hotel; and as I slowly descended the broad staircase, halting on each step (for I was in wonderfully little haste to get down), I gazed at the high ceiling above me, at the painted walls around, at the wide windows which filled the house with light, at the veined marble I trode (for the steps were all of marble, though uncarpeted and not very clean), and contrasting all this with the dimensions of the closet assigned to me as a chamber, with the extreme modesty of its