 This little book was written before either Jane Eyre or Shirley, and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt. A first attempt at certainty was not, as the pen, which wrote it, had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had not indeed published anything before I commenced the professor, but in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and only. At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of incident, etc., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an author more surprise than pleasure. I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs, that he should never get a shilling he had not earned, that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station, that whatever small competency he might gain should be won by the sweat of his brow, that before he could find so much as an arbor to sit down in, he should master at least half the ascent of the hill of difficulty, that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank, as Adam's son he should share Adam's doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment. In the sequel however I find that publishers in general scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative and poetical, something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly. Indeed until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind he can never know what sorts of romance and sensibility lie hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketting such treasures. Being in business I usually thought to prefer the real. On trial the idea will often be found fallacious, a passionate preference for the wild, wonderful and thrilling, the strange, startling and harrowing, agitates diverse souls that show a calm and sober surface. Such being the case the reader will comprehend that to have reached him in the form of a printed book this brief narrative must have gone through some struggles which indeed it has, and after all its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come, but it takes comfort, subdues fear, leans on the staff of a moderate expectation, and mutters under its breath while lifting its eye to that of the public. He that is low, need fear no fall. Carabelle The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the publication of the professor, shortly after the appearance of Shirley. Being dissuaded from her intention the author has made some use of the materials in a subsequent work. Villette As however these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented to me that I ought not to withhold the professor from the public. I have therefore consented to its publication. A. B. Nichols, Howarth Parsonage, September the 22nd, 1856 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTORY The other day in looking over my papers I found in my desk the following copy of a letter sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance. Dear Charles, I think when you and I were eaten together, you were neither of us what could be called popular characters. You were a sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature. My own portrait I will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly attractive one. Can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together I know not. Surely I never experienced anything of the pillidies and oresties sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on your part, were equally free from all romantic regards to me. Still, out of school hours we walked and talked continually together. When the theme of conversation was our companions or our masters, we understood each other, and when I record to some sentiment of affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself superior to that check then as I do now. It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times to run over the evens which have transpired since we separated, and I sat down and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not, but you shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has bagged with me. First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles, Lord Tyndale and the honourable John Seacum. They asked me if I would enter the church, and my uncle the noble man offered me the living of Seacum, which is in his gift, if I would. Then my other uncle, Mr. Seacum, hinted that when I became director of Seacum Cumscafe, I might perhaps be allowed to take as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike. I declined both the church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife, oh how like a nightmare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins. No doubt they are accomplished and pretty, but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, such as a cord in my bosom. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fireside of Seacum Rectory alone with one of them, for instance the large and well-modern statues, Ira, no, I should be a bad husband under such circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman. When I had declined my uncle's offers, they asked me what I intended to do. I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune and no expectation of any, and, after considerable pause, Lord Tyndale demanded sternly whether I had thoughts of following my father's steps and engaging in trade. Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman. My taste, my ambition, does not lie in that way. But such was his corn expressed in Lord Tyndale's countenance as he pronounced the word trade, such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone, that I was instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I do not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered then, with haste and warmth, I cannot do better than follow in my father's steps. Yes, I will be a tradesman. My uncles did not remonstrate. They and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of Tyndale's patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the reception of another bird, one which might be more intolerable and which certainly was yet untried, I wrote instantly to Edward, you know Edward, my only brother, ten years my senior, married to a rich Malona's daughter, and now possessor of the mill and business which was my father's before he failed. You are aware that my father, once reckoned a crease of wealth, became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Grimsquirt, the blankshire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I should think, much regret as it contained little hope or comfort for her. My father's relations took charge of Edward as they did of me till I was nine years old. At that period, it chanced that the representation of an important borough in our county fell vacant, Mr. Seacum stood for it. My uncle Grimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity of writing a fierce letter to the candidate stating that if he and Lord Tyndale do not consent to do something towards the support of his sister's orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant conduct towards that sister and do his best to turn the circumstances against Mr. Seacum's election. That gentleman and Lord T knew well enough that the Grimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race. They knew also that they had influence in the borough of X, and making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my education. I was sent to Eaton, where I remained ten years, during which phase of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered into trade and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and success that now in his thirtieth year it was fast making a fortune. Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from him, some three or four times a year, which said letters never concluded without some expression of determined enmity against the house of Seacum, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand why, as I had no parents. I should not be indebted to my uncle's Tyndale and Seacum for my education. But as I grew up, and heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against my father, of the sufferings of my mother, of all the wrongs in short of our house, then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these feelings I was influenced when I refused the rectory of Seacum, and the union with one of my patrician cousins. An irreparable breach thus being affected between my uncles and myself, I wrote to Edward, told him what had occurred, and informed him of my intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my conduct, but he said I might come down to Black Shire, if I liked, and he would see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work. I repressed all, even mental comment on his note, packed my trunk, and carved it back, and started for the north directly. After two days travelling, railroads were not then in existence. I arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X. I had always understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that it was only Mr. Krimsworth's mill and warehouse which were situated in the smoky atmosphere of Big Ben Close. His residence lay four miles out in the country. It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the habitation designated to me as my brothers. As I advanced up the avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight and the dark gloomy mist which deepened those shades that the house was large and the ground surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the lawn in front and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the centre. I gazed with interest on the exterior of Krimsworth's hall. Edward is rich, but I to myself. I believed him to be doing well, but I do not know he was master of a mansion like this. Cutting short all marguling, speculation, conjecture, etc., I advanced to the front door and rank. A manservant opened it. I announced myself. He relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet bag and assured me into a room furnished at the library where there was a bright fire and candles burning on the table. He informed me that his master was not yet returned from X market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of half an hour. Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair covered with red Morocco which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the flames dart from the glowing coals and the cinders fall at intervals on the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain. I was in no danger of encountering severe disappointment. From this, the moderation of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowing of fraternal tenderness. Edward's letters had always been such as to prevent the engendering or harboring of delusions of the salt. Still, as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager, very eager. I cannot tell you why. My hand, so utterly estrangered to the grasp of a kindred hand, clenched itself to repressive tremor, with which impatience would feign have shaken it. I thought of my uncles, and as I was engaged in wondering whether Edward's interference would equal the cold disdain I had always experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open, wheels approached the house. Mr. Krimsworth was arrived, and after the lapse of some minutes and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the hall, his tread drew near the library door. That tread alone announced the master of the house. I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten years ago, at all why we draw youth. Now, as I rose from my seat and turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man, light complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions. The first glance made me aware of an air of pompitude and sharpness, shown as well in his movements as in his port, his eye as a general expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and in the moment of shaking hands, scant me from head to foot. He took his seat in a Morocco-covered armchair, and motioned me to another scent. I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the clothes, said he, and his voice I noticed had an abrupt accent, probably habitual to him. He spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the south. The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here, said I. I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being aware that you had such a residence at this. Oh, it is all right, he replied. Only I was kept half an hour behind time, waiting for you. That is all. I thought you must be coming by the eight o'clock, coach. I expressed regret that he had had to wait. He made no answer, but stirred the fire as if to cover a movement of impatience. Then he scanned me again. I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm, that I had saluted this man with a quiet and steady fling. Have you quite broken with Tyndale and Seacum? He asked history. I do not think I shall have any further communication with them. My refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against all future intercourse. Why, said he, I may as well remind you at the very outset of our connection. That no man can serve two masters. A quaint tense with Lord Tyndale will be incompatible with assistance from me. There was a kind of gratuitous menace in his eye, as he looked at me in finishing this observation. Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an inward speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution of men's minds. I do not know what inference Mr. Krimsworth drew from my silence, whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an evidence of my being cowed by his pre-entry manner. After a long and hard stare at me, he rose sharply from his seat. Tomorrow, said he, I shall call your attention to some other points, but now it is suppertime, and Mrs. Krimsworth is probably waiting. Will you come? He stirred from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I wondered what Mrs. Krimsworth might be. Is she, thought I, as alien to what I like at Tyndale, Seacum, the Mrs. Seacum, as the affectionate relative now striding before me? Or is she better than these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel free to show something of my real nature? Or further conjectures were arrested by my entrance into the dining-room. A lamp burning under shade of ground glass showed a handsome apartment, windscotted with oak. Supper was laid on the table, by the fireplace, standing as if waiting her entrance, appeared a lady. She was young, tall, and well-shaped. Her dress was handsome and fashionable, so much my first glance sufficed to a certain. A gay salutation passed between her and Mr. Krimsworth. She chid him, half playfully, half pouting me for being late. Her voice, I always take voices into the account and judging of character, was lively. It indicated I thought good animal spirits. Mr. Krimsworth soon checked her animated scolding with a kiss, a kiss that still told of the bridegroom. They had not yet been married a year. She took her seat at the supper table in first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she pegged my pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me, as ladies do when a flow of good humour disposes them to be cheerful to all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintances. It was now further obvious to me that she had a good complexion, and featured sufficiently marked but agreeable. Her hair was red, quite red. She and Edward talked much, always in a vein of playful contention. She was vexed, or pretended to be vexed, that he had that day driven a vicious horse in the gig, and he made light of her fears. Sometimes she appealed to me. Now, Mr. William, isn't it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he will drive Jack in no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice already. She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I soon saw also that there was more than girlish, a somewhat infantine expression in her, by no means small features. This lisp an expression where, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward's eyes, and would be served to those of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face, or hear in her conversation. It was merry, rather small. By turns I saw vivacity, vanity, cockatry, legard through its irate, but I watched in vain for a glimpse of soul. I am now oriental. White necks, harming lips and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, did not suffice for me without that Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, the burnished hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well, but how many wet days are there in life? November seasons of disaster, and a man's heart and home would be cold indeed, without the clear, cheering gleam of intellect. Having perused the fair page of Mrs. Grimsworth's face, a deep, involuntary sigh announced my disappointment. She took it as a homage to her beauty, an Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome young wife, threw on me a glance, half ridicule, half ire. I turned from them both, and gazing verily around the room, I saw two pictures set in the oak panelling, one on each side of the mantelpiece. Seizing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on between Mr. and Mrs. Grimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination of these pictures. They were portraits, a lady and a gentleman, both costumed in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the shade, I could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam from the softly shaded lamp. I presently recognized her. I had seen this picture before in childhood. It was my mother. That and the companion picture being the only heirlooms saved out of the sale of my father's property. The face I remembered had pleased me as a boy, but then I did not understand it. Now I know how rare that class of face is in the world, and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful yet gentle expression. The serious gray eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry it was only a picture. I soon left Mr. and Mrs. Grimsworth to themselves. A servant conducted me to my bedroom. In closing my chamber door I shut out all intruders, you, Charles, as well as the rest. Goodbye for the present. William Grimsworth To this letter I never got an answer. Before my old friend received it he had accepted a government appointment in one of the colonies, and was already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become of him since? I know not. The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at large. My narrative is not exciting, and above all not marvellous, but it may interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same vocation as myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections of their own. The above letter will serve as an introduction. I now proceed. End of Chapter 1 of The Professor Chapter 2 of The Professor This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Professor by Charlotte Bronte Chapter 2 A fine October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed my first introduction to Crimseworth Hall. I was early up and walking in the large park leg meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun rising over the blank shower hills disclosed a pleasant country. Woods brown and mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately carried. A river gliding between the woods caught on its surface the somewhat cold gleam of the October sun and sky. At frequent intervals along the banks of the river, tall cylindrical chimneys almost like slender round towers indicated the factories which the trees half concealed. Here and there, mansions similar to Crimseworth Hall occupied agreeable sites on the hillside. The country wore, on the whole, a cheerful, active fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley opening between the low hills held in its bubs the great town of X. A dense, permanent paper brooded over this locality. There lay Edward's concern. I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect. I forced my mind to dwell on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable emotion to my heart, that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man ought to feel, when he sees laid before him the seal of his life's carrier, I said to myself, William, you are a rebel against circumstances. You are a fool, and know not what you want. You have chosen trade, and you shall be a tradesman. Look, I continued, meant to me. Look at the sooty smoke on that hollow, and know that there is your post. There you cannot dream, you cannot speculate and theorize. There you shall out and work. Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the breakfast room. I met him collectively. I could not meet him cheerfully. He was standing on the rug, his back to the fire. How much did I read in the expression of his eye, as my glance encountered his, when I advanced to bid him good morning? How much that was contradictory to my nature? He said, good morning, abruptly, and nodded, and then he snatched, rather than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air of a master, who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to end here for a time, or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable the disgust I had just been endearing to subdue. I looked at him. I measured his robust frame and powerful proportions. I saw my own reflection in the mirror over the mantelbees. I amused myself with comparing the two pictures. In phase I resembled him, though I was not so handsome. My features were less regular. I had a darker eye and a broader blur. In form I was greatly inferior, thinner, sliter, not so tall. As an animal, Edward excelled me far. Should he prove as paramount in mind, as in person, I must be a slave, for I must expect from him no lion-leg generosity to one weaker than himself. His cold, avaricious eye, his turn-forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then for his of mind to cope with him? I did not know. I had never been tried. Mrs. Krimsworth's entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning and bridal freshness. I addressed her with a degree of ease a last night's careless gait he seemed to warrant. But she replied with coolness and restraint. Her husband had tutored her. She was not to be too familiar with his clerk. As soon as breakfast was over, Mr. Krimsworth intimated to me that they were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he should expect me to be ready to go down with them to X. I did not keep him waiting. We were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the road. The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs. Krimsworth had expressed her fears a night before. Once or twice, Jack seemed disposed to turn restive. But a vigorous and determined application of the whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon compelled him to submission, and Edward's dilated nostril expressed his triumph in the result of the contest. His scarcely spoke to me during the whole of the brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to dam his horse. X was all stir and buzzled when we entered it. We left the clean streets where there were dwelling houses and shops, churches and public buildings. We left all these and turned down to a region of mills and warehouses. Thence we passed through two massive gates into a great paved yard, and we were in big burn clothes, and the mill was before us, vomiting soot from its long chimney and quivering through its thick brick walls with the commotion of its iron bubbles. Work people were passing to and from, a wagon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Krimsworth looked from side to side and seemed at one glance to comprehend all that was going on. He alighted and leaving his oars and gig to the care of a man who hazened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me follow him to the counting house. We entered it, a very different place from the parlours of Krimsworth Hall, a place for business with a bare, blanked floor, a safe, two high desks and stools and some chairs. A person was seated at one of the desks, who took off his square cap when Mr. Krimsworth entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his occupation of writing or calculating, I know not which. Mr. Krimsworth, having removed his macintosh, sat down by the fire. I remained standing near the hearth. He said presently, Staten, you may leave the room. I have some business to transact with this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell. The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he went out. Mr. Krimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms and sat a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to do but to watch him. How well his features were cut, what a handsome man he was. Whence then came that air of contraction, that narrow and hard aspect on his forehead in all his lenience. Turning to me he began abruptly. You are come down to Blankshire to learn to be a tradesman? Yes, I am. Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once. Yes. Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if you are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning, Greek, Latin and so forth? I have studied mathematics. Stuff I dare say you have. I can read and write French and German. Hum! he reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him, took out a letter and gave it to me. Can you read that? he asked. It was a German commercial letter. I translated it. I could not tell whether he was gratified or not. His countenance remained fixed. It is well, he said after a pause, that you are acquainted with something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and lodging. Since you know French and German, I will take you as second clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give you a good salary, 90 pounds a year. And now, he continued, raising his voice, hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and all that sort of humbug. I must have no nonsense on that point. It would never suit me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my brother. If I find you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed of any faults detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss you as I would any other clerk. 90 pounds a year are good wages, and I expect to have the full value of my money out of you. Remember too, that things are on a practical footing in my establishment. Business like habits, feelings, and ideas suit me best. Do you understand? Partly, I replied, I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my wages, not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any help, but what I earn. That suits me exactly, and on these terms I will consent to be your clerk. I turned on my heel and walked to the window. This time I did not consult his face to learn his opinion. What it was I do not know, nor did I then care. After a silence of some minutes, he recommenced, you perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Coonsworth Hall, and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be aware, that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I like to have the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman, whom for business reasons I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so. You will seek out lodgings in X. Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth. Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X, I answered. It would not suit me either to lodge at Coonsworth Hall. My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Coonsworth's blue eye became incensed. He took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me, he said bluntly, You are poor enough, I suppose. How do you expect to live till your quarter's salary becomes due? I shall get on, said I. How do you expect to live? He repeated in a louder voice. As I can, Mr. Coonsworth. Get into debt at your peril, that's all, he answered. For at I know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits. If you have, drop them. I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a shilling extra, whatever liabilities you may incur. Mind that. Yes, Mr. Coonsworth, you will find I have a good memory. I said no more. I did not think the time was come, but much parlay. I had an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one's temper effer wheeze, often with such a man, as Edward. I said to myself, I will place my cup under this continual dropping. It shall stand there, still and steady. When full, it will run over of itself. Meantime, patience. Two things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr. Coonsworth has set me. I can earn my wages conscientiously. And those wages are sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother assuming towards me the bearing of a proud harsh master, the fault is his, not mine. And shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once aside from the path I have chosen? No. At least, here I deviate. I will advance far enough to see wither my career tense. As yet, I am only pressing in at the entrance. A straight gate enough. It ought to have a good terminus. While I thus reasoned, Mr. Coonsworth rang a bell. His first clerk, the individual dismissed previously to our conference, re-entered. Mr. Staten, said he, show Mr. William the letters from false brothers, and give him English copies of the answers. He will translate them. Mr. Staten, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and heavy, hastened to execute this order. He laid the letters on the desk, and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English answers into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first effort during my own living. A sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened by the presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some time as I wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I felt as secure against his scrutiny as if I had had on a cask with the visor down, or rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence that one would show an unlearned man a letter written in Greek. He might see lines and trace characters, but he could make nothing of them. My nature was not his nature, and its signs were to him like the words of an unknown tongue. Year-long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and left the counting-house. He returned to it, but twice in the course of the day. Each time he mixed and swallowed a glass of brandy and water, the materials for making which he extracted from a cupboard on one side of the fireplace. Having glanced at my translations, he could read both French and German. He went out again in silence. End of Chapter 2 of The Professor Chapter 3 of The Professor This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Professor by Charlotte Dronte Chapter 3 I served Edward as a second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently. What was given me to do, I had the power and the determination to do well. Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none. He set Timothy Staten, his favorite and headman, to watch also. Tim was baffled. I was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made inquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt. No, my accounts with my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which I contrived to pay for, out of a slender fund, the accumulated savings of my eaten pocket money. For as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to ask pecuniary assistants, I had earlier acquired habits of self-denying economy. Has been taking my monthly allowance with anxious care in order to obviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency, to beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time, and I used to couple the reproach with this consolation. Better to be misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day, I had my reward. I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles, one of them threw down on the table before me a five-pound note, which I was able to leave there, saying that my traveling expenses were already provided for. Mr. Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had any complaint to make on the score of my morals. She answered that she believed I was a very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he thought I had any intention of going into the church someday. For, she said, she had had young curates to lodge in her house, who were nothing equal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was a religious man himself. Indeed, he was a joint methodist, which did not, be it understood, prevent him from being at the same time an ingrained rascal, and he came away much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented no place of worship, and owned no god but mammon, turned the information into a weapon of attack against the equability of my temper. He commenced a series of covert smears, of which I did not at first perceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversation she had had with Mr. Staten. This enlightened me. Afterwards, I came to the counting house prepared, and managed to receive the mill owner's blasphemous sarcasm, when next leveled at me on a buckler of impenetrable indifference. Year-long, he tired of wasting his ammunition on his statue, but he did not throw away the shafts. He only kept them quiet in his quiver. Once during my clerkship, I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall. It was on the occasion of a large party given an honour of the master's birthday. He had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar anniversaries, and could not well pass me over. I was, however, kept strictly in the background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin and lace, blooming in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice than was expressed by a distant move. Crimsworth, of course, never spoke to me. I was introduced to none of the band of young ladies. Who, enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat in a ray against me on the opposite side of a long and large room. In fact, I was fairly isolated, and good, but contemplated the shining once from afar, and when weary of such a dazzling scene, turned for a change to the consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr. Crimsworth, standing on the rug, his elbow supported by the marble mantle piece, and about him a group of very pretty girls, with whom he conversed gaily. Mr. Crimsworth, thus blazed, glanced at me. I looked weary, solitary, kept down like some desolate tutor or governess. He was satisfied. Dancing began, I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity to show that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social intercourse. That I was not, in short, a block or a piece of furniture, but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes. The figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized, left the dancers, and wandered into the oak-paneled dining room. No fiber of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house. I looked for and found my mother's picture. I took a wax-taper from a stand and held it up. I gazed long, earnestly. My heart grew to the image. My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features and countenance. Her forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty pleases egotistical human beings so much as a softened and refined likeness of themselves. For this reason, fathers regard with complacency the lineaments of their daughter's faces, where frequently their own similitude is found flatteringly associated with softness of hue and delicacy of outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me so interesting, would strike an impartial spectator when a voice close behind me pronounced the words. Humph! There is some sense in that face. I turned at my elbows to the tall man, young, though probably five or six years older than I, in other respects of an appearance the opposite to commonplace. Though, just now, as I am not disposed to paint his portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I have just thrown off. It was all I myself saw of him for the moment. I did not investigate the color of his eyebrows nor of his eyes, either. I saw his stature and the outline of his shape. I saw, too, his fastidious-looking, red-true's nose. These observations, few in number and general in character, the last accepted, sufficed, for they enabled me to recognize him. Good evening, Mr. Hunston, muttered I with a bow, and then like a shy noodle as I was, I began moving away. And why? Simply because Mr. Hunston was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and my instinct propelled me from my superior. Had frequently seen Hunston in Big Ben clothes, where he came almost weekly to transact business with Mr. Crimpsworth, but I had never spoken to him nor he to me, and I owed him a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation. Where are you going? asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already noticed that Mr. Hunston indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I perversely said to myself, He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk, but my mood is not, perhaps so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me not at all. I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and continued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path. Stay here awhile, said he. It is so hot in the dancing room. Besides, you don't dance. You have not had a partner tonight. He was right, and as he spoke, neither his look, tone, nor manner, displeased me. My amor proper was propitiated. He had not addressed me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cool dining room for refreshment, he now wanted someone to talk to by way of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended too, but I like well enough to oblige, I said. That is a good picture, he continued, recurring to the portrait. Do you consider the face pretty? I asked. Pretty? No. How can it be pretty with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks, but it is peculiar, it seems to think. You could have a talk with that woman, if he were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and compliments. I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on. Not that I admire a head of that sort. It wants character and force. There's too much of the sensitive, so he articulated it, curling his lip at the same time. In that mouth. Besides, there is aristocrat written on the brow and defined in the figure. I hate your aristocrats. You think, then, Mr. Hunston, that patrician descent may be read in a distinctive cast of form and features? Patrician descent be hanged. Who doubts that your lodgings may have their distinctive cast of form and features, as much as we, Blankshire tradesmen, have ours. But which is the best, not there, is assuredly. As to their women, it is a little different. They cultivate beauty from childhood upwards, and may, by care and training, attain to a certain degree of excellence in that point, just like the Oriental Odilus. Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs. Edward Crimsworth. Which is the finer animal? I replied quietly. Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, Mr. Hunston. Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am. I know besides he has a straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that. But these advantages, if they are advantages, he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, whom my father says, was as veritable a Blankshire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat, yet with all the handsomest man in the three ridings. It is you, William, who are the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your plebeian brother by long chock. There was something in Mr. Hunston's point-blank mode of speech, which rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I continued the conversation with a degree of interest. How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth's brother? I thought you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor clerk. Well, and so we do. And what are you but a poor clerk? You do Crimsworth's work, and he gives you wages. Shabby wages they are, too. I was silent. Hunston's language now bordered on the impertinent. Still his manner did not offend me in the least. It only peaked my curiosity. I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while. This world is an absurd one, said he. Why so, Mr. Hunston? I wonder you should ask. You are yourself a strong proof of the absurdity I allude to. I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my pressing him so to do. So I resumed my silence. Is it your intention to become a tradesman? He inquired presently. It was my serious intention three months ago. Humph. The more fool you. You look like a tradesman. What a practical business like face you have. My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunston. The Lord never made either your face or head for X. What good can your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness do you hear? But if you like Big Ben close, stay there. It's your own affair, not mine. Perhaps I have no choice. Well, I care not about it. It will make little difference to me what you do or where you go. But I am cool now. I want to dance again. And I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by her mama. See if I don't get her for a partner in a jiffy. There's Wadi, Sam Wadi making up to her. Won't I cut him out? And Mr. Hunston strolled away. I watched him through the open folding doors. He outstripped Wadi, applied for the hand of the fine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made, full-formed, dashingly dressed young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E. Krimsworth. Hunston whirled her through the walls with spirit. He kept at her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in her animated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himself perfectly agreeable. The mama too, a stout person in a turban, Mrs. Lupton by name, looked well-pleased. Prophetic visions probably flattered her inward eye. The Hunston's wear of an old stem, and sconful as York, such was my late interlocutor's name, professed to be of the advantages of birth. In his secret heart, he well knew and fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage, conferred on him in a mushroom place like X, concerning whose inhabitants, it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own grandfather. Moreover, the Hunston's, once rich, were still independent, and report affirmed that York bade fair by his success in business to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his house. These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton's broad face might well wear a smile of complacency, as she contemplated the air of Hunston would occupied in paying a ziduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I, however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be more accurate, soon saw that the grounds for maternal self-congratulation were slight indeed. The gentle man appeared to me much more desirous of making than susceptible of receiving an impression. I know not what it was in Mr. Hunston that, as I watched him, I had nothing better to do, suggested to me every now and then the idea of a foreigner. In form and features, he might be pronounced English, though even there one caught a dash of something Gallic, but he had no English Highness. He had learned somewhere, somehow, the art of settling himself quite a disease, and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier between him and his convenience or pleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yet vulgar he could not be called. He was not odd, no quiz, yet he resembled no one else I had ever seen before. His general bearing intimated complete, sovereign satisfaction with himself, yet at times an indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inverged doubt of himself. His words and actions, an energetic discontent at his life or a social position, his future prospects or his mental attainments, I know not which, perhaps after all, it might only be a bilious caprice. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of The Professor This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Professor by Charlotte Bronte Chapter 4 No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his profession, and every man worthy of the name will roll long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, and baffled, and submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my residence in X, I felt my occupation irksome, the thing itself, the work of copying and translating business letters was a dry and tedious task enough, but had that been all, I should long have borne with the nuisance. I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the double desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and others the resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, I should have endured in silence the rust and cramp of my best faculties. I should not have whispered, even inwardly, that I longed for liberty. I should have bent in every sigh by which my heart might have ventured to intimate its distress under the closeness, smoke, monotony, and joyless tumult of Big Ben clothes, and its panting desire for freer and fresher scenes. I should have set up the image of duty, the fetish of perseverance, and my small bedroom at Mrs. King's lodgings, and they too should have been my household gods, from which my darling, my cherished and secret imagination, the tender and the mighty, should never, either with softness or strength, have severed me. But this was not all. The antipathy which had sprung up between myself and my employer, striking deeper root and spreading denser shades daily, excluded me from every glimpse of the sunshine of life, and I began to feel like a plant growing in humid darkness out of the slimy walls of a well. Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward Grimsworth had for me, a feeling, in a great measure, involuntary, and which was liable to be excited by every the most trifling movement, look, or world of mine. My southern accent annoyed him, the degree of education, even to my language, irritated him. My punctuality, industry, and accuracy fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour and poignant relish of envy. He feared that I too should one day make a successful businessman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he would not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he knew, and what was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock of silence on mental wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a ridiculous or modifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three faculties, caution, tact, observation, and, prowling and prying, as was Edward's malignity, it could never baffle the link's eyes of these, my natural sentinels. Day by day, did his malice watch my tact, hoping it would sleep and prepare to steal snake-like on its slumber, but tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps. I had received my first quarter's wages, and was returning to my lodgings, possessed heart and soul with a pleasant feeling that the master who had paid me grudged every penny of that hard-earned pittance. I had long ceased to regard Mr. Grimsworth as my brother. He was a hard-grinding master. He wished to be an inexorable tyrant. That was all. Thoughts, not varied but strong, occupied my mind. Two voices spoke within me. Again and again they uttered the same monotonous phrases. One said, William, your life is intolerable. The other, what can you do to alter it? I walked fast, for it was a cold, frosty night in January. As I approached my lodgings, I turned from a general view of my affairs to the particular speculation as to whether my fire would be out. Looking towards a window of my sitting-room, I saw no cheering red gleam. That slot of a servant has neglected it, as usual, said I, and I shall see nothing but pale ashes if I go in. It is a fine starlight night. I will walk a little farther. It was a fine night, and the streets were dry and even clean for X. There was a crescent curve of moonlight to be seen by the parish church tower, and hundreds of stars shone keenly bright in all quarters of the sky. Unconsciously I steered my course towards the country. I had gotten to Grove Street and began to feel the pleasure of seeing dim trees at the extremity round a suburban house when a person leading over the iron gate of one of the small gardens which front the neat dwelling houses in this street addressed me as I was hurrying with quick stride past. What did users hurry? Just so much lot have left Sodom when he expected fire to pour down upon it out of burning brass clouds. I stopped shut and looked towards the speaker. I smelt the fragrance and saw the red spark of cigar. The dusk outline of a man, too, bent towards me over the wicket. You see I'm meditating in the field at Eventide, continued this shade. God knows its cool work, especially as instead of Rebecca on a camel's hump with bracelets on her arms and a ring in her nose, fate sends me only a counting-house clerk in a grey tweed wrapper. The voice was familiar to me. Its second utterance enabled me to seize the speaker's identity. Mr. Hunston, good evening. Good evening indeed. Yes, but you would have passed me without recognition if I had not been so civil as to speak first. I did not know you. A famous excuse. You ought to have known me. I knew you, though you were going ahead like a steam engine. Are the Polis after you? It wouldn't be worth their while. I'm not of consequence enough to attract them. Alas, poor shepherd, I lack and well a day. What a theme for regret and how down in the mouth you must be, judging from the sound of your voice. But since you're not running from the Polis, from whom are you running, the devil? On the contrary, I'm going post to him. That is well. You are just in luck. This is Tuesday evening. There are scores of market gigs and carts returning to dinner for it tonight. And he or some of his have a seat in all regularly. So, if you will step in and sit half an hour in my bachelor's, Paola, you may catch him as he passes without much trouble. I think, though, you had better let him alone tonight. He'll have so many customers to serve. Tuesday is his busy day in X and dinner for it. Come in at all evens. He swung the wicket open as he spoke. Do you really wish me to go in? I asked. As you please, I'm alone. Your company for an hour or two would be agreeable to me. But if you don't choose to favour me so far, I'll not press the point. I hate to bore anyone. It suited me to accept the invitation as it suited Honston to give it. I passed through the gate and followed him to the front door, which he opened. Then sweet traversed a passage and entered his paola. The door being shut, he pointed me to an armchair by the heart. I sat down and glanced round to me. It was a comfortable room at one snug and handsome. The bright great was filled with a genuine blank-shire fire, red, clear and generous. No penurious south of England embers, heaped in the corner of a grate. On the table a shaded lamp diffused around a soft, pleasant and equal light. The furniture was almost luxurious for a young bachelor, comprising a couch and two very easy chairs. Bookshelves filled the recesses on each side of the mantelbees. They were well furnished and arranged with perfect order. The neatness of the room suited my taste. I hate irregular and slovenly habits. From what I saw, I concluded that Honston's ideas on that point corresponded with my own. While he removed from the centre table to the sideboard a few pamphlets and periodicals, I ran my eye along the shelves of the bookcase nearest me. French and German works predominated. The old French dramatists, sun-dry modern authors, Theors, Willemain, Paul de Coq, George Sand, Eugene Suve. In German, Gioté, Schiller, Schocker, Jean-Paul Richter. In English there were works on political economy. I examined no further, for Mr. Honston himself recalled my attention. You shall have something, said he, for you ought to feel disposed for refreshment after walking nobody knows how far on such a Canadian night as this. But it shall not be brandy and water, and it shall not be a bottle of port, nor the door of sherry. I keep no such poison. I have rind wine for my own drinking, and you may choose between that and coffee. Here again Honston suited me. If there was one generally-received practice I abhorred more than another, it was the habitual imbibing of spirits and strong wines. I had, however, no fancy for his acid German nectar. But I liked coffee, so I responded. Give me some coffee, Mr. Honston. I perceived my answer pleased him. He had doubtless expected to see a chilling effect produced by his steady announcement that he would give me neither wine nor spirits. He just shot one searching glance at my face to ascertain whether my cordiality was genuine or a mere faint of politeness. I smiled, because I quite understood him. And, while I honoured his consignious firmness, I was amused at his mistrust. He seemed satisfied, rang the bell, and ordered coffee, which was presently brought. For himself a bunch of grapes and half a pint of something sour sufficed. My coffee was excellent. I told him so, and expressed a shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me. He did not answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark. At that moment one of those momentary eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face, extinguishing his smile and replacing by an abstracted and alienated look, the customarily shrewd, bantering glance of his eye. I employed the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his suizionomy. I had never observed him closely before. And, as my sight is very short, I had gathered only a vague, gentle idea of his appearance. I was surprised now on examination to perceive how small and even feminine were his lineaments. His tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and gentle bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and massive. Not at all. My own features were cast in a harsher and squareer mould than his. I discerned that there would be contrast between his inward and outward man. Contensions, too, for I suspected his soul had more of will and ambition than his body had of fibre and muzzle. Perhaps in these incompatibilities of the physique with the morale lay the secret of that fitful gloom. He would, but could not. And the athletic mind scurled's corn on its more fragile companion. As to his good looks, I should have liked to have a woman's opinion on that subject. It seemed to me that his face might produce the same effect on a lady that a very peaked and interesting, though scarcely pretty, female face would on a man. I have mentioned his dark locks. They were brushed sideways above a white and sufficiently expansive forehead. His cheek had a rather hectic freshness. His features might have done well on canvas, but indifferently in marble. They were plastic. Character had set a stamp upon each. Expression recast them at her pleasure, and strange metamorphosis she wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose bull and anin that of an arch and mischievous girl. More frequently the two semblances were blend, and a queer, composite countenance they made. Starting from a silent fit, he began, William, what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs. King's, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street and have a garden like me. I should be too far from the mill. What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three times a day. Besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a flower on a green leaf? I am no fossil. What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth's, counting house day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an automaton. You never get up, you never say you are tired, you never ask for a holiday, you never take change or relaxation, you give way to no excess of an evening, you neither keep wild company nor indulge in strong drink. Do you, Mr. Hunston? Don't think to pose me with short questions. Your case and mine are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a parallel. I say that when a man endures patiently what ought to be unendurable, he's a fossil. Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience? Why, man, do you suppose you're a mystery? The other night, you seemed surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged. Now you find subject for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do with my eyes and ears? I've been in your counting house more than once when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog. Call for a book, for instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to consider the wrong one, flunk it back almost in your face, desired you to shut or open the door as if you had been its flunky, to say nothing of your position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither plays nor partner, but hovered about like a poor, shabby hangar on, and how patient you were under each and all of these circumstances. Well, Mr. Hunston, what then? I can hardly tell you what then. The conclusion to be drawn as to your character depends upon the nature of the motives which guide your conduct. If you are patient because you expect to make something eventually out of Crimsworth notwithstanding his tyranny, or perhaps by means of it, you are what the world calls an interested and mercenary, but may be a very wise fellow. If you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man for my money. If you are patient because your nature is phlegmatic, flat, inexitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch of resistance, why God made you to be crushed and lie down by all means, and lie flat, and let juggernaut ride well over you. Mr. Hunston's eloquence was not, it will be perceived, of the smooth and oily order. At the spoke, he pleased me ill. I seem to recognise in him one of those characters, who, sensitive enough themselves, are selfishly relentless towards the sensitiveness of others. Moreover, though he was neither like Crimsworth nor Lord Tyndale, yet he was acrid and, I suspected, overbearing in his way. There was a tone of despotism in the urgency of the very reproaches, by which he aimed at goading the oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still more fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved there to by a slight inward revelation of the inconsistency of man. It was as I thought. Hunston had expected me to take with calm his incorrect and offensive surmises, his bitter and haughty taunts, and himself was chafed by a laugh, carouselour than a whisper. His brow darkened, his thin nostrils dilated a little. Yes, he began. I told you that you were an aristocrat, and who but an aristocrat would laugh such a laugh as that, and look such a look? A laugh frigidly jaring, a look lazily mutinous, gentleman like irony, patrician resentment. What a noble man you would have made William Crimsworth. You're cut out for one. Pity fortune has bogged nature. Look at the features, figure, even to the hands. Distinction all over, ugly distinction. Now, if you're only an estate and a mansion, and a park, and a title, how you could play the exclusive, maintain the rights of your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people, support your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in churl's blood. As it is, you have no power. You can do nothing. You're wrecked and stranded on the shores of commerce, forced into collision with practical men, with whom you cannot cope, for you'll never be a tradesman. The first part of Hunston's speech moved me not at all, or if it did, it was only to wonder the perversion into which prejudice had twisted its judgment of my character. The concluding sentence, however, not only moved, but shook me. The blow it gave was a severe one, because truth wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it was only in this dame of myself. Hunston saw his advantage. He followed it up. You'll make nothing by trade, continued he, nothing more than the crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live. Your only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow or running away with an heiress. I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them, said I, rising. And even that is hopeless, he went on coolly. What widow would have you, much less what heiress? You're not bold and venturesome enough for the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think perhaps you look intelligent and polished? Carry your intellect and refinement to market and tell me in a private note what prizes bid for them. Mr. Hunston had taken his tone for the night. The string he struck was out of tune. He would finger no other. A verse to discard, of which I had enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silent and solitude were preferable to jarring converse. I bade him good night. What? Are we going, lad? Well, good night. You'll find the door. And he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house. I had got a good way on my return to my lodgings, before I found out that I was walking very fast and breathing very hard, and that my nails were almost stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set fast. On making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fifths, and jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through my mind to slacken their diet. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why did I enter Hunston's house this evening? Why, at dawn tomorrow, must I repair to Crimseworth's mill? All that night did I ask myself these questions, and all that night fearlessly demanded of my soul an answer. I got no sleep. My head burned. My feet froze. At last the factory bells rang, and I sprang from my bed with other slaves. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of The Professor This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Professor by Charlotte Bronte Chapter 5 There is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling, as well as to every position in life. I turned this tourism over in my mind, as, in the frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now icy street, which descended from Mrs. King's to the close. The factory work people had proceeded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all lighted up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my post in the counting house, as usual. The fire there, but just lit, as yet only smoked. Satan had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat down at the desk. My hands, recently washed in half frozen water, were still numb. I could not write till they had regained vitality, so I went on thinking, and still the theme of my thoughts was the climax. Self dissatisfaction troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations. Come, William Crimsworth, set my conscience, or whatever it is that within ourselves takes ourselves to task. Come, get a clear notion of what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax. Pray, has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old. What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be, when you told Tyndale you would tread in your father's steps, and a pretty treading you are likely to make of it. How well you like ex, just at this moment, how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops, its warehouses, its factories. How the prospect of this day cheers you, letter copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings, letter copying till evening, solitude, for you neither find pleasure in Browns, nor Smiths, nor Nick Halls, nor Ackless Company. And as to Huntsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be derived from a society. How did you like the taste you had of him last night? Was it sweet? Yet he is a talented, an original-minded man, and even he does not like you. Your self-respect defies you to like him. He has always seen you to disadvantage. He always will see you to disadvantage. Your positions are unequal, and where they are on the same level your minds could not. Assimilate, never hope, then, to gather the honey of friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hallow, Krimsworth, where are your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Huntsden as a bee-wooder-rock, as a bird a desert, and your aspirations spread eager wings towards a land of visions where, now in advancing daylight, in next daylight, you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those three you will never meet in this world. They are angels. The souls of just men made perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will never be made perfect. Eight o'clock strikes, your hands are thawed, get to work. Work? Why should I work? said I, sullenly. I cannot please though I toil like a slave. Work, work! reiterated the inward voice. I may work, it will do no good, I growled, but nevertheless I drew out a packet of letters and commenced my task. Tasks thankless and bitter as that of the East relied, crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt, in search of straw and stubble, wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks. About ten o'clock I heard Mr. Krimsworth's gig turn into the yard, and in a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to glance his eye at Staten and myself to hang up his Macintosh, stand a minute with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did not deviate from his usual habits. The only difference was that when he looked at me, his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly, his eye, instead of being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two longer than usual, but went out in silence. Twelve o'clock arrived, the bell rang for a suspension of labour. The work people went off to their dinners. Staten too, departed, desiring me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I was tying up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place, preparatory to closing my desk, when Krimsworth reappeared at the door, and entering, closed it behind him. You'll stay here a minute," said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire. Alone with Edward I remembered a relationship, and remembering that forgot the difference of position. I put away deference and careful forms of speech. I answered with simple brevity. It is time to go home," I said, turning the key in my desk. You'll stay here," he reiterated, and take your hand off that key, leave it in the lock. Why? asked I. What causes there for changing my usual plans? Do as I order, was the answer, and no questions. You're my servant, obey me. What have you been about? He was going on in the same breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got the better of articulation. You may look if you wish to know," I replied. There is the open desk. There are the papers. Confound your insolence. What have you been about? Your work, and I've done it well. Hypocrite and twadler, smooth-faced, nibbling, greased horn. This last term is, I believe, purely blankshire, and alludes to the horn of black, brancid whale oil. Usually to be seen suspended to cartwheels, and employed for greasing the same. Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up accounts. I have now given your service three months' trial, and I find it the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay no longer. What eye do you dare to give me notice? Stop at police for your wages. He took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his Macintosh. I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn. I took no pains to temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half a dozen vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he continued, I found you out and know you thoroughly. You mean whining lickspital? What have you been saying all over X about me? Answer me that. You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you. You lie. It is your practice to talk about me. It is your constant habit to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands. We have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and knock you about like a dog. I wish you were a dog. I'd set to this minute, and never stir from the spot till I had cut every strip of flesh from your bones with this whip. He flourished his tool. The end of the last just touched my forehead. A warm, excited thrill ran through my veins. My blood seemed to give abound and then raised fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly, came round to where he stood, and phased him. Down with your whip, said I, and explained this instant what you mean. Sarah, to whom are you speaking? To you, there is no one else present, I think. You say I have been calumniating you, complaining of your low wages and bad treatment. Give your grounds for these assertions. Groomsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation, he gave one in a loud, scolding voice. Grounds, you shall have them, and turn to the light that I may see your brazen face plush lack when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the town hall yesterday, I had the pleasure of fearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the question under discussion by allusions to my private affairs. My cancer bought monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such trash. And when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I saw that treacherous villain, Hunston, acting as Fugelman. I detected you in close conversation with Hunston at my house a month ago, and I know that you were at Hunston's rooms last night. Deny it if you dare. Oh, I shall not deny it, and if Hunston hounded on the people to his view, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration, for a worse man, a harder master, or more brutal brother than you are has seldom existed. Sira, Sira, re-itrated Crosbyrd, and to complete his apostrophe, he cracked the whip straight over my head. A minute suffice to rest it from him, break it in two pieces, and throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded, and said, Touch me, and I'll have you up before the nearest magistrate. Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate something of their exorbitant insolence. He had no mind to be brought before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed to bithink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a sureer and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of personal chastisement. Take your hat, said he. Take what belongs to you, and go out at the door. Get away to your parish, you popper, begs, steals, tarves. Get transported, do what you like. But at your peril venture again into my sight. If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground belonging to me, I'll hire a man to cane you. It is not likely you will have the chance. Once off your premises, what temptation can I have to return to them? I'll leave a prison, I'll leave a tyrant, I'll leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so no fear of my coming back. Go or I'll make you, exclaimed Crimsworth. I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the key on the top. What are you obstructing from the desk, demanded the milowner, leave all behind in its place, or I'll send for a policeman to search you. Look sharp about it then, said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house, walked out of it to enter it no more. A recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr. Crimsworth entered and the scene above related took place, I had had rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to hear the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however. The images of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize with the action of my nerves, and walk I did fast and far. How could I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart. I felt light and liberated. I had got away from Big Ben closed without a breach of resolution, without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced circumstances. Circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me. No longer was its horizon limited by the high black walls surrounding Crimsworth's mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark, for what wider and clearer boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, low, straight before me lay Grofton, a village of villas, about five miles out of X. The short winter day, as I proceed from the far-declined sun, was already approaching its close. A chill frost mist was rising from the river on which X stands. And along whose banks the road I had taken lay, it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far, the time of the day favored tranquility as the people were all employed within doors. The hour of evening release from the factories, not being yet arrived, a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow. I stood a while, leading over a wall, and looking down at the current, I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear and permanent impression of the scene, and treasured it for future years. Grofton Church clock struck four. Looking up, I beheld the last of the day's sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some very old oak trees around his church. Its light colored and characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air. Then year, I, and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall, and once more turned my face towards X. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 I re-entered the town a hungry man. The dinner I had forgotten recurred seductively to my recollection, and it was with a quick step and sharp appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was dark when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered how my fire would be. The night was cold, and I shuddered at the prospect of a grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise, I found on entering my sitting-room a good fire and a clean hearth. I had hardly noticed this phenomenon when I became aware of another subject for wonderment. The chair I usually occupied near the hearth was already filled. A person sat there with his arms folded on his chest, and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment's examination enabled me to recognise in this person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunston. I could not, of course, be much pleased to see him, considering the manner in which I had parted from him the night before, and as I walked to the hearth stirred the fire and said coolly, Good evening, my demeanour evinced as little cordiality as I felt. Yet I wondered in my own mind what had brought him there, and I wondered also what motives had induced him to interfere so actively between me and Edward. It was to him, it appeared, that I owed my welcome dismissal. Still, I could not bring myself to ask him questions to show any eagerness of curiosity. If he chose to explain, he might, but the explanation should be a perfectly voluntary one on his part. I thought he was entering upon it. You owe me a debt of gratitude, were his first words. Do I? said I. I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind. Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton weight at least. When I came in I found you fire out, and I had it lit again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with the bellow as till it had burnt up properly. Now say thank you. Not till I have had something to eat. I can thank nobody while I am so famished. I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat. Cold meat? exclaimed Hunsdon as the servant closed the door. What a glutton you are! Man, meat with tea! You'll die of eating too much. No, Mr. Hunsdon, I shall not. I felt a necessity for contradicting him. I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and irritated at the continued roughness of his manner. It is overeating that makes you so ill-tempered, said he. How do you know, I demanded. It is like you to give a pragmatical opinion, without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the case. I have had no dinner. What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsdon only replied by looking in my face and laughing. Poor thing! he whined after a pause. It is that no dinner, is it? What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth order you to fast by way of punishment, William? No, Mr. Hunsdon. Fortunately, at this sulky juncture tea was brought in, and I fell too upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly. Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanised as to intimate to Mr. Hunsdon that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the table and do as I did, if he liked. But I don't like in the least, said he, and therewith he summoned the servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to have a glass of toast and water. And some more coal, he added. Mr. Crimsworth shall keep a good fire while I stay. His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so as to be opposite to me. Well, he proceeded, you are out of work, I suppose. Yes, said I, and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this point, I, yielding to the women for the moment, took up the subject as though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had been done. Yes, thanks to you I am. Crimsworth turned me off at a minute's notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public meeting, I understand. Ah, what! He mentioned that. He observed me signalling the lads, did he? What had he to say about his friend Hunsdon? Anything sweet? He called you a treacherous villain. Oh, he hardly knows me yet. I'm just one of those shy people who don't come out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance, but you'll find have some good qualities, excellent ones. The Hunsdons were always unrivaled at tracking a rascal, a downright dishonourable villain as their natural prey. They could not keep off him wherever they met him. You used the word pragmatical just now, that word is the property of our family. It has been applied to us from generation to generation. We have fine noses for abuses. We sent a scoundrel a mile off. We are reformers born, radical reformers. And it was impossible for me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact with him, to witness some of his conduct to you. For whom personally I care nothing, I only consider the brutal injustice with which he violated your natural claim to equality. I say it was impossible for me to be thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race at work within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a chain. Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out Hunsdons character, and because it explained his motives. It interested me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over a throng of ideas it had suggested. Are you grateful to me? he asked presently. In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not out of regard for me. But human nature is perverse, impossible to answer his blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency to gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his championship to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely to meet with it here. In reply he termed me a dry-hearted aristocratic scamp, whereupon I again charged him with having taken the bread out of my mouth. Your bread was dirty, man, cried Hunsdons, dirty and unwholesome. It came to the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you, Crimsworth is a tyrant, a tyrant to his work-people, a tyrant to his clerks, and will someday be a tyrant to his wife. Nonsense, bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I've lost mine, and through your means. There's sense in what you say, after all, rejoined Hunsdon. I must say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical an observation as that last. I'd imagine now, from my previous observation of your character, that the sentimental delight you would have taken in your newly regained liberty, would for a while at least, have effaced all ideas of forethought and prudence. Nothing better of you for looking steadily to the needful. Looking steadily to the needful, how can I do otherwise? I must live, and to live I must have what you call the needful, which I can only get by working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me. What do you mean to do? pursued Hunsdon coolly. You have influential relations, as opposed they'll soon provide you with another place. Influential relations? Who, I should like to know their names? The Secums. Stuff, I have cut them. Hunsdon looked at me incredulously. I have, said I, and that definitively. You must mean that they have cut you, William. As you please, they offered me their patronage on condition of my entering the church. I declined both the terms and the recompense. I withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my elder brother's arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by the cruel intermeddling of a stranger. Of yourself, in short. I could not repress a half-smile, as I said this. A similar demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsdon's lips. Oh, I see, said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he did see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with his chin resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal of my countenance, he went on. Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Secums? Yes, rejection and repulsion. Why do you ask me twice? How can hands stained with the ink of a counting-house, soiled with the grease of a wool-ware-house, ever again be permitted to come into contact with aristocratic palms? There would be a difficulty, no doubt. Still, you were such a complete see-come in appearance, feature, language, almost manner. I wonder they should disown you. They have disowned me, so talk no more about it. Do you regret it, William? No. Why not, lad? Because they are not people with whom I could ever have had any sympathy. I say you are one of them. That merely proves that you know nothing at all about it. I am my mother's son, but not my uncle's nephew. Still, one of your uncles is a Lord, though rather an obscure and not a very wealthy one. And the other is a right honourable. You should consider worldly interest. Nonsense, Mr. Hunston. You may or may not know that even had I desired to be submissive to my uncles, I could not have stooped with a good enough grace ever to have won their favour. I should have sacrificed my own comfort and not gained their patronage in return. Very likely. So you calculated your wisest plan was to follow your own devices at once. Exactly. I must follow my own devices. I must till the day of my death, because I can neither comprehend, adopt, nor work out those of other people. Hunston yawned. Well, said he, in all this I see but one thing clearly, that is that the whole affair is no business of mine. He stretched himself and again yawned. I wonder what time it is, he went on, and have an appointment for seven o'clock. Three quarters past six, by my watch. Well, then I'll go, he got up. You'll not meddle with trade again, said he, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece. No, I think not. You would be a fool if you did, probably after all you'll think better of your uncle's proposal and going to the church. A singular regeneration must take place in my whole inner and outer man before I do that. A good clergyman is one of the best of men. Indeed, do you think so? Interrupted Hunston scoffingly. I do, and no mistake, but I have not the peculiar points which go to make a good clergyman, and rather than adopt a profession for which I have no vocation, I would endure extremities of hardship from poverty. You're a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won't be a tradesman or a parson. You can't be a lawyer or a doctor or a gentleman because you've no money. I'd recommend you to travel. What, without money? You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French, with a vile English accent, no doubt. Still, you can speak it. Go on to the continent, and see what will turn up for you there. God knows I should like to go, exclaimed I, within voluntary order. Go! What the deuce hinders you. You may get to Brussels, for instance, for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy. Necessity would teach me if I didn't. Go, then, and let your wits make a way for you when you get there. I know Brussels almost as well as I know X, and I'm sure it would suit such a one as you better than London. But occupation, Mr. Hunston, I must go where occupation is to be had, and how could I get recommendation or introduction or employment at Brussels? There speaks the organ of caution. You hate to advance a step before you know every inch of the way. You haven't a sheet of paper and a pen and ink. I hope so, and I produced writing materials with a lacquery, for I guessed what he was going to do. He sat down, wrote a few lines, folded, sealed, and addressed a letter, and held it out to me. There, prudence, there's a pioneer to hew down the first rough difficulties of your path. I know well enough, lad, you are not one of those who will run their neck into a noose without seeing how they are to get it out again, and you're right there. A reckless man is my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the concerns of such a one. Those who are reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so for their friends. This is a letter of introduction, I suppose, taking the epistle. Yes, with that in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself in a state of absolute destitution, which I know you will regard as a degradation. So should I, for that matter, the person to whom you will present it generally has two or three respectable places, depending upon his recommendation. That will just suit me, said I. Well, and where's your gratitude? demanded Mr. Hunston. Don't you know when to say thank you? I fifteen pounds and a watch, which my godmother, whom I never saw, gave me eighteen years ago, was my rather irrelevant answer, and I further avowed myself a happy man, and professed that I did not envy any being in Christendom. But your gratitude, I shall be off presently, Mr. Hunston. Tomorrow, if all be well, I'll not stay a day longer in ex than I'm obliged. Very good, but it will be decent to make due acknowledgement for the assistance you have received. Be quick. It is just going to strike seven. I'm waiting to be thanked. Just stand out of the way, will you, Mr. Hunston. I want a key there is on the corner of the mantelpiece. I'll pack my portmanteau before I go to bed. The house-clock struck seven. The lad is a heathen, said Hunston, and taking his hat from a sideboard he left the room, laughing to himself. I had half an inclination to follow him. I really intended to leave ex the next morning, and should certainly not have another opportunity of bidding him goodbye. The front door banged, too. Let him go, said I. We shall meet again some day. End of Chapter Six. Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmeer Surrey