On a Thursday morning in July the literature class sits with ribbon-tied compositions, waiting for Paul. He is often a little late. They wonder when the door opens on Madame Beck. She says there will be no lesson of literature. The lessons will probably be suspended for a week, because a sudden summons of duty calls him away. He is preparing for a long voyage and has decided to leave Europe for an indefinite time. This morning the pupils will read English with Lucy. A murmur goes round. Some pupils weep. Lucy keeps the English reading long and close, and she is severe with the tears because she cannot bear them. When the others are gone she presses one sobbing girl to her heart, then sends her out. She fills every minute of the day and would sit up all night if a candle were allowed. The night leaves her worse for the gossip that follows.
The first reserve wears off. Teachers, pupils, and servants mouth the name Emanuel. Out of the mass of rumour a few facts settle. He is to sail within the week. His destination is Basseterre in Guadaloupe. The business relates to a friend's interests, not his own. Madame says in public that the loss is immense, that he has been her right hand, and that she opposed the step until he convinced her it was his duty. She never looks at Lucy while she says it. Lucy sleeps little. Whenever she does, the words Basseterre and Guadaloupe seem spoken over her pillow. What makes the going cruel is the month just past. A month has gone since they settled the theological difference, with no quarrel. He has come oftener, talked more, sat with temper soothed and manner home-like, and asked into her plans. He calls the school project an Alnaschar dream and makes her repeat it. Ten days earlier, in the garden alley, he took her hand and called her his sweet consoler. His look seemed about to say more, until Madame Beck and Père Silas came down on them. The priest's face moved from a sentimental start to ecclesiastical jealousy. Madame saw nothing, though Paul kept Lucy's hand in her presence.
The last day breaks. Now he will speak his farewell, or vanish mute. The alternative seems present to nobody else. All rise, breakfast, and go to work as usual. Lucy knows where he lives. The distance is scarce a stone's throw. Unsummoned, she cannot use the knowledge. A little before five, Madame sends for her to translate an English letter, then softly closes both doors and fastens the casement. Lucy hears a tread in the vestibule. No bell has rung. The classes stir as a whole division rises. Madame follows her like a shadow. He has come. In the first class the girls stand in a semicircle while he passes round, pressing each hand and touching each cheek, a foreign custom permitted at a parting meant to last so long. Madame steps out, masters his attention, and hurries him through the glass door to the garden. Lucy thinks he looks round. She cannot catch his eye. He goes believing her absent. Five o'clock strikes. The room empties.
Alone, she does not know what to do with a hope torn out by the roots. The least child in the school finds her, sent to seek her from the grenier to the cellar, and delivers a note with neither address nor name. Paul writes that he had not meant to take leave of her with the rest. He was disappointed not to see her in class. The interview is deferred. She must be ready. Before he sails he must see her at leisure and speak with her at length. She waits through the evening. He does not come. Near eleven Madame enters, calm, and loiters over a feigned search for her keys. She says it is more than time for retirement, and offers a warmed bed and a sedative. Lucy does not check her walk. When Madame comes in the way, Lucy puts her out of it. She names the rivalry aloud: Madame wants Paul, not from love, but to bind him to her interest. Madame retreats. The flash is never repeated. About six Lucy washes her face in the cold well-water. A scrap of mirror says she is changed: cheeks and lips sodden white, eyes glassy, eyelids swollen and purple. Isabelle, a child she once nursed, only says how pale she is. The household calls the pain a headache. Lucy accepts the name. The next night Madame stays away and sends Ginevra, then Goton with a sweet drink. Lucy tastes the drug after she has swallowed it. She was meant to be held quiet.
The opiate does not do what Madame intended. Instead of stupor comes excitement. Lucy lifts the blind on a supreme moon and cannot bear the dormitory. She dresses, remembers a broken stake in the park paling too narrow for Madame, and finds the street door yields from within. Villette is one blaze of masks, carriages, and festival. An open carriage passes slowly, and she knows the faces: the Count de Bassompierre, her godmother, Paulina in white, and Graham opposite. She follows them under a flaming arch into a park dressed as Egypt, timber and pasteboard still able to hold the marvel. The night is a civic fête. At an open-air concert a man at her elbow says she is not well placed. For a moment he is a stranger. Then she knows Miret, the bookseller, who finds her a chair and withdraws without a question. From that seat she is again beside the Brettons. Mrs Bretton wishes aloud that steady little Lucy were there. Graham turns and studies the shawled figure. Lucy keeps her face down and slips away before he can be sure. She is not done. The night's drama feels only begun. Straying, she comes where family groups have settled under trees, away from the thickest lamps. Three trunks lift a canopy over a green knoll and a seat with a single occupant. A child in lilac swings on a lady's hand. The child is Désirée Beck. The lady is Madame Beck, out in full dress while the school believes her in bed. With her stand her brother Victor, Paul's brother Josef, and Père Silas. On the seat, jewels and a gold-knobbed cane, sits Madame Walravens. The secret junta is assembled in the open. They outnumber Lucy. She is not yet dead.
