The Professor (9 page)

Influenced by the impression I had received of his gentleness, I
was a good deal surprised when, on arriving the next day at my
new employer's house, and being admitted to a first view of what
was to be the sphere of my future labours, namely the large,
lofty, and well lighted schoolrooms, I beheld a numerous
assemblage of pupils, boys of course, whose collective appearance
showed all the signs of a full, flourishing, and well-disciplined
seminary. As I traversed the classes in company with M. Pelet, a
profound silence reigned on all sides, and if by chance a murmur
or a whisper arose, one glance from the pensive eye of this most
gentle pedagogue stilled it instantly. It was astonishing, I
thought, how so mild a check could prove so effectual. When I
had perambulated the length and breadth of the classes, M. Pelet
turned and said to me—

"Would you object to taking the boys as they are, and testing
their proficiency in English?"

The proposal was unexpected. I had thought I should have been
allowed at least 3 days to prepare; but it is a bad omen to
commence any career by hesitation, so I just stepped to the
professor's desk near which we stood, and faced the circle of my
pupils. I took a moment to collect my thoughts, and likewise to
frame in French the sentence by which I proposed to open
business. I made it as short as possible:—

"Messieurs, prenez vos livres de lecture."

"Anglais ou Francais, monsieur?" demanded a thickset, moon-faced
young Flamand in a blouse. The answer was fortunately easy:—

"Anglais."

I determined to give myself as little trouble as possible in this
lesson; it would not do yet to trust my unpractised tongue with
the delivery of explanations; my accent and idiom would be too
open to the criticisms of the young gentlemen before me, relative
to whom I felt already it would be necessary at once to take up
an advantageous position, and I proceeded to employ means
accordingly.

"Commencez!" cried I, when they had all produced their books.
The moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards
learnt) took the first sentence. The "livre de lecture" was the
"Vicar of Wakefield," much used in foreign schools because it is
supposed to contain prime samples of conversational English; it
might, however, have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the
words, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the language in ordinary
use amongst the natives of Great Britain. My God! how he did
snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was said in his throat
and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak, but I heard him to
the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of correction,
whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt,
that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred
"Anglais." In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in
rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss,
and mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.

"Arretez!" said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded
them all with a steady and somewhat stern gaze; a dog, if stared
at hard enough and long enough, will show symptoms of
embarrassment, and so at length did my bench of Belgians.
Perceiving that some of the faces before me were beginning to
look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my hands, and
ejaculated in a deep "voix de poitrine"—

"Comme c'est affreux!"

They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels;
they were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the
way I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in
their self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their
estimation; not a very easy thing, considering that I hardly
dared to speak for fear of betraying my own deficiencies.

"Ecoutez, messieurs!" said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my
accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched
by the extremity of the helplessness, which at first only excited
his scorn, deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the
very beginning of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and read, in a slow,
distinct voice, some twenty pages, they all the while sitting
mute and listening with fixed attention; by the time I had done
nearly an hour had elapsed. I then rose and said:—

"C'est assez pour aujourd'hui, messieurs; demain nous
recommencerons, et j'espere que tout ira bien."

With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet
quitted the school-room.

"C'est bien! c'est tres bien!" said my principal as we entered
his parlour. "Je vois que monsieur a de l'adresse; cela, me
plait, car, dans l'instruction, l'adresse fait tout autant que le
savoir."

From the parlour M. Pelet conducted me to my apartment, my
"chambre," as Monsieur said with a certain air of complacency.
It was a very small room, with an excessively small bed, but M.
Pelet gave me to understand that I was to occupy it quite alone,
which was of course a great comfort. Yet, though so limited in
dimensions, it had two windows. Light not being taxed in
Belgium, the people never grudge its admission into their houses;
just here, however, this observation is not very APROPOS, for one
of these windows was boarded up; the open windows looked into the
boys' playground. I glanced at the other, as wondering what
aspect it would present if disencumbered of the boards. M. Pelet
read, I suppose, the expression of my eye; he explained:—

"La fenetre fermee donne sur un jardin appartenant a un
pensionnat de demoiselles," said he, "et les convenances exigent
—enfin, vous comprenez—n'est-ce pas, monsieur?"

"Oui, oui," was my reply, and I looked of course quite satisfied;
but when M. Pelet had retired and closed the door after him, the
first thing I did was to scrutinize closely the nailed boards,
hoping to find some chink or crevice which I might enlarge, and
so get a peep at the consecrated ground. My researches were
vain, for the boards were well joined and strongly nailed. It is
astonishing how disappointed I felt. I thought it would have
been so pleasant to have looked out upon a garden planted with
flowers and trees, so amusing to have watched the demoiselles at
their play; to have studied female character in a variety of
phases, myself the while sheltered from view by a modest muslin
curtain, whereas, owing doubtless to the absurd scruples of some
old duenna of a directress, I had now only the option of looking
at a bare gravelled court, with an enormous "pas de geant" in the
middle, and the monotonous walls and windows of a boys'
school-house round. Not only then, but many a time after,
especially in moments of weariness and low spirits, did I look
with dissatisfied eyes on that most tantalizing board, longing to
tear it away and get a glimpse of the green region which I
imagined to lie beyond. I knew a tree grew close up to the
window, for though there were as yet no leaves to rustle, I often
heard at night the tapping of branches against the panes. In the
daytime, when I listened attentively, I could hear, even through
the boards, the voices of the demoiselles in their hours of
recreation, and, to speak the honest truth, my sentimental
reflections were occasionally a trifle disarranged by the not
quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen sounds, which, rising
from the unseen paradise below, penetrated clamorously into my
solitude. Not to mince matters, it really seemed to me a
doubtful case whether the lungs of Mdlle. Reuter's girls or those
of M. Pelet's boys were the strongest, and when it came to
shrieking the girls indisputably beat the boys hollow. I forgot
to say, by-the-by, that Reuter was the name of the old lady who
had had my window bearded up. I say old, for such I, of course,
concluded her to be, judging from her cautious, chaperon-like
proceedings; besides, nobody ever spoke of her as young. I
remember I was very much amused when I first heard her Christian
name; it was Zoraide—Mademoiselle Zoraide Reuter. But the
continental nations do allow themselves vagaries in the choice of
names, such as we sober English never run into. I think, indeed,
we have too limited a list to choose from.

Meantime my path was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a
few weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from
the commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired
as much facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my
pupils; and as I had encountered them on a right footing at the
very beginning, and continued tenaciously to retain the advantage
I had early gained, they never attempted mutiny, which
circumstance, all who are in any degree acquainted with the
ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the relation in which
professors and pupils too frequently stand towards each other in
those establishments, will consider an important and uncommon
one. Before concluding this chapter I will say a word on the
system I pursued with regard to my classes: my experience may
possibly be of use to others.

It did not require very keen observation to detect the character
of the youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact
to adopt one's measures to their capacity. Their intellectual
faculties were generally weak, their animal propensities strong;
thus there was at once an impotence and a kind of inert force in
their natures; they were dull, but they were also singularly
stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead, most difficult to move.
Such being the case, it would have been truly absurd to exact
from them much in the way of mental exertion; having short
memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they
recoiled with repugnance from any occupation that demanded close
study or deep thought. Had the abhorred effort been extorted
from them by injudicious and arbitrary measures on the part of
the Professor, they would have resisted as obstinately, as
clamorously, as desperate swine; and though not brave singly,
they were relentless acting EN MASSE.

I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet's establishment,
the combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the
dismissal of more than one English master. It was necessary then
to exact only the most moderate application from natures so
little qualified to apply—to assist, in every practicable way,
understandings so opaque and contracted—to be ever gentle,
considerate, yielding even, to a certain point, with dispositions
so irrationally perverse; but, having reached that culminating
point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it, root it in
rock—become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a step
—but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the
gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive
proofs of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant
saliva and handfuls of Low Country mud. You might smooth to the
utmost the path of learning, remove every pebble from the track;
but then you must finally insist with decision on the pupil
taking your arm and allowing himself to be led quietly along the
prepared road. When I had brought down my lesson to the lowest
level of my dullest pupil's capacity—when I had shown myself the
mildest, the most tolerant of masters—a word of impertinence, a
movement of disobedience, changed me at once into a despot. I
offered then but one alternative—submission and acknowledgment
of error, or ignominious expulsion. This system answered, and my
influence, by degrees, became established on a firm basis. "The
boy is father to the man," it is said; and so I often thought
when looked at my boys and remembered the political history of
their ancestors. Pelet's school was merely an epitome of the
Belgian nation.

AND Pelet himself? How did I continue to like him? Oh,
extremely well! Nothing could be more smooth, gentlemanlike,
and even friendly, than his demeanour to me. I had to endure
from him neither cold neglect, irritating interference, nor
pretentious assumption of superiority. I fear, however, two
poor, hard-worked Belgian ushers in the establishment could not
have said as much; to them the director's manner was invariably
dry, stern, and cool. I believe he perceived once or twice that
I was a little shocked at the difference he made between them and
me, and accounted for it by saying, with a quiet sarcastic
smile—

"Ce ne sont que des Flamands—allez!"

And then he took his cigar gently from his lips and spat on the
painted floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands
certainly they were, and both had the true Flamand physiognomy,
where intellectual inferiority is marked in lines none can
mistake; still they were men, and, in the main, honest men; and I
could not see why their being aboriginals of the flat, dull soil
should serve as a pretext for treating them with perpetual
severity and contempt. This idea, of injustice somewhat poisoned
the pleasure I might otherwise have derived from Pelet's soft
affable manner to myself. Certainly it was agreeable, when the
day's work was over, to find one's employer an intelligent and
cheerful companion; and if he was sometimes a little sarcastic
and sometimes a little too insinuating, and if I did discover
that his mildness was more a matter of appearance than of
reality—if I did occasionally suspect the existence of flint or
steel under an external covering of velvet—still we are none of
us perfect; and weary as I was of the atmosphere of brutality and
insolence in which I had constantly lived at X—, I had no
inclination now, on casting anchor in calmer regions, to
institute at once a prying search after defects that were
scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled from my view. I was
willing to take Pelet for what he seemed—to believe him
benevolent and friendly until some untoward event should prove
him otherwise. He was not married, and I soon perceived he had
all a Frenchman's, all a Parisian's notions about matrimony and
women. I suspected a degree of laxity in his code of morals,
there was something so cold and BLASE in his tone whenever he
alluded to what he called "le beau sexe;" but he was too
gentlemanlike to intrude topics I did not invite, and as he was
really intelligent and really fond of intellectual subjects of
discourse, he and I always found enough to talk about, without
seeking themes in the mire. I hated his fashion of mentioning
love; I abhorred, from my soul, mere licentiousness. He felt the
difference of our notions, and, by mutual consent, we kept off
ground debateable.