d he is adorable, in his _paletot_ and
_bonnet grec_, from the moment when he drags Lucy up three pairs of
stairs to the solitary and lofty attic and locks her in, to that other
moment when he brings her to the little house that he has prepared for
her. Whenever he appears there is pure radiant comedy, and pathos as
pure. It is in this utter purity, this transparent simplicity, that
_Villette_ is great. There is not one jarring note in any of the
delicious dialogues between Lucy and M. Paul, not one of those passages
which must be erased if quotation is not to fail of its effect. Take the
scene where Lucy breaks M. Paul's spectacles.

"A score of times ere now I had seen them fall and receive no
damage--this time, as Lucy Snowe's hapless luck would have it, they so
fell that each clear pebble became a shivered and shapeless star.

"Now, indeed, dismay seized me--dismay and regret. I knew the value of
these _lunettes_: M. Paul's sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and
these glasses suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as I
picked them up, cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened
through all my nerves I was to see the mischief I had done, but I think
I was even more sorry than afraid. For some seconds I dared not look the
bereaved Professor in the face; he was the first to speak.

"'_La_!' he said: '_me voila veuf de mes lunettes_! I think that
Mademoiselle Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply
earned; she trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress,
traitress! You are resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in your
hands!'

"I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering and
furrowed, was overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I had
seen brightening it that evening at the Hotel Crecy. He was not
angry--not even grieved. For the real injury he showed himself full of
clemency; under the real provocation, patient as a saint."

Take the "Watchguard" scene.

"M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and I
said I was making a watchguard. He asked, 'For whom?' And I answered,
'For a gentleman--one of my friends.'"

Whereupon M. Paul flies into a passion, and accuses Lucy of behaving to
him, "'With what pungent vivacities--what an impetus of mutiny--what a
_fougue_ of injustice.'... '_Chut! a l'instant!_ There! there I
went--_vive comme la poudre_.' He was sorry--he was very sorry: for my
sake he grieved ove