Page:Villette.djvu/266

Rh drawn over it. Instantly, silently, before my eyes, it vanished; so did the curtain and alcove; all that end of the garret became black as night. I ventured no research; I had not time nor will; snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, happily near the door, I rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste, and darted downwards to the dormitory.

But I trembled too much to dress myself; impossible to arrange hair or fasten hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed her to help me. Rosine liked a bribe, so she did her best, smoothed and plaited my hair as well as a coiffeur would have done, placed the lace collar mathematically straight, tied the neck-ribbon accurately—in short, did her work like the neat-handed Phillis she could be when she chose. Having given me my handkerchief and gloves, she took the candle and lighted me down-stairs. After all, I had forgotten my shawl; she ran back to fetch it; and I stood with Dr. John in the vestibule, waiting.

"What is this, Lucy?" said he, looking down at me narrowly. "Here is the old excitement. Ha! the nun again?"

But I utterly denied the charge: I was vexed to be suspected of a second illusion. He was sceptical.

"She has been as sure as I live", said he; "her figure crossing your eyes leaves on them a peculiar gleam and expression not to be mistaken".

"She has not been", I persisted, for, indeed, I could deny her apparition with truth.

"The old symptoms are there", he affirmed; "a particular pale, and what the Scotch call a 'raised', look".

He was so obstinate, I thought it better to tell him what I really had seen. Of course with him it was held to be another effect of the same cause—it was all optical illusion—nervous malady, and so on. Not one bit did I believe him, but I dared not contradict; doctors are so self-opinionated, so immovable in their dry, materialist views.

Rosine brought the shawl, and I was bundled into the carriage.

The theatre was full—crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there; palace and hotel had emptied their inmates