Explore "Villette" by Charlotte Brontë on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered by the teachers and pupils of the school, individually and collectively, to be as much as a woman's or girl's life was worth.
Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would "skurry" through, retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable estrade, like a ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress-on whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils out of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the salle-à-manger, or some other piano-station-she would, upon her second or third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of consternation-a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles.