Villette

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1853

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Chapters 33-35Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 33 Summary: “M. Paul Keeps His Promise”

On May 1, M. Paul takes 20 students and four teachers on a picnic he promised them. Lucy attends, though he earlier told her she was not invited. It is a picturesque spring day in the country, and the ladies enjoy a luxurious breakfast at a nearby farmhouse. They are all dressed in new frocks and straw hats, and M. Paul comments on the decadence of Lucy’s, though hers is no different from the others. Ginevra attempts to walk close to M. Paul and he keeps shifting his position to move away from her. M. Paul tells them all a story, and Lucy is captivated by his intellect: “[H]is mind was indeed my library, and whenever it was opened to me, I entered bliss” (491).

After the meal is finished, Lucy reads aloud to M. Paul, though she does not care for the story. He asks her if she would miss him if he were to go on a long journey. Lucy says that she cannot know how she might react but that she would not know how to live in his absence. She begins to cry. The outing is a great success and M. Paul is kind and even-tempered for its duration. Later, Lucy observes M. Paul having a heated conversation with Madame Beck. He calls for Lucy, but she runs and hides, not understanding her indecision.

Chapter 34 Summary: “Malevola”

Lucy walks to town to purchase supplies for the school at the request of Madame Beck, who has also asked Lucy to deliver a basket of fruit to a woman named Madame Walravens in Rue de Mages. Lucy completes the shopping errand and walks to the old and rundown neighborhood where the lady lives. She notices storm clouds gathering in the sky. On the street outside the house, Lucy is greeted by an old priest; a strangely dressed woman then answers the door. The woman will not permit Lucy to enter, but the priest comes to help. While Lucy waits, she notices a portrait of a young nun on the wall. The house is strange, and the walls look distorted in the dark of the approaching storm.

A small, well-dressed woman—Madame Walravens—appears. Madame refuses the fruit basket, saying, “Return to Madame Beck, and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it” (503). Lucy cannot leave as the storm is now raging outside. The priest tells her to wait in the salon, where he joins her and begins to read. He reveals himself to be Père Silas, the priest who heard her confession and helped her get to the Brettons’ home on the night of her illness. The priest tells her the portrait depicts Justine Marie, a young woman pledged to be married whose father lost all their money to debt. Justine became a nun and died soon after. The young man who was to be her husband came to live with and support her mother and grandmother, and the priest was his tutor. That man is now M. Paul.

Lucy returns to Rue Fossette and relates the story to Madame Beck. Madame says Madame Walravens hates her because she thinks Madame Beck wants to marry her (Madame’s) cousin, M. Paul. Madame Beck says this is absurd because he is still in love with Justine.

Chapter 35 Summary: “Fraternity”

Lucy knows Madame Beck planned her visit to Rue des Mages so she would learn M. Paul’s true character. Lucy’s feelings for him have changed, as she now sees him as heroic.

M. Paul summons Lucy to appear in front of two men, Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte, to vouch for M. Paul’s character. The men are teachers at the boys’ school and have accused M. Paul of forgery. He submitted an essay Lucy wrote, and they do not believe she was the true author. They will give her an oral examination. Lucy is so taken aback that she fumbles her answers. Humiliated and fearing she disappointed M. Paul, she begins to cry. She suddenly recognizes the two men as the dark shadows that chased her through the town the night she arrived in Villette. They demand she write an essay on human justice. Lucy composes an allegorical tale depicting Dame Justice sitting by a fire and meting out punishment and reward. She then she abruptly leaves.

M. Paul later apologizes for the incident, but Lucy accuses him of treating his students and fellow teachers like machines. Lucy then reveals what she has learned about his past. M. Paul offers Lucy friendship, which she hesitates to accept: Another man offered her the same and broke her heart. They wonder if the apparition of the nun is related to Justine Marie before Lucy is called away to translate for someone.

Chapters 33-35 Analysis

The pastoral picnic scene provides a stark contrast to the cold and often claustrophobic confinement of life at Rue de Fossette. The mood is as light as the weather or the relaxed clothing worn by the attendees. Lucy sees M. Paul as she never has before, and the outing provides an opportunity for them to spend uninterrupted time together outside the school walls. When Lucy fell for John Graham and extolled his virtues, she focused on his physical beauty. Her descriptions of M. Paul reveal she has fallen in love with his mind. His criticism of her clothing is now playful—a kind of inside joke alluding to past arguments—and they converse like friends, not enemies. However, M. Paul speaks of Lucy as a sister, taking Lucy back to her friendship with John, who saw her more like a sister than a lover. M. Paul also mentions the possibility of him leaving for an extended time. Lucy weeps, overcome by his kindness but also the growing dread that this relationship too will end in disappointment.

Lucy’s errand to Rue des Mages, though staged by Madame Beck, is another turning point for the protagonist. As she walks into the ancient neighborhood, Lucy begins to feel a sense of disorientation—a feeling she has felt before at other points of transition or change in her life. She becomes briefly lost, struggling to make sense of the new scene around her. These upheavals are always accompanied by changes in the weather, and Lucy soon sees storm clouds gathering over her head. The author describes Madame Walravens’s home as a mysterious, Gothic villa with walls that seem to move and a haunting portrait of a young nun presiding over the entire space. Madame Walravens herself appears to materialize out of the air and has a strange, otherworldly appearance. The dreamlike feel to the scene reinforces Lucy’s confusion as to why she has been sent to this peculiar place.

The presence of Père Silas shifts the tone from dark and mystical to congenial. The aging priest is kind, and though Lucy does not recognize him at first—a problem she has throughout the entire narrative—she senses he is trustworthy. The revelations about M. Paul’s past cast an entirely new light on his acerbic personality. With a new understanding of his painful past comes fresh doubt, as Madame Beck reveals M. Paul still pines for his lost love, Justine Marie.

The incident of the examination with the two men is full of commentary on gender roles. Charlotte Brontë is all too familiar with the plight of a woman not recognized for intellectual achievements. Lucy is made to prove her intelligence because the men cannot believe a woman could have authored the essay M. Paul submitted. That Brontë produced her first two novels under a pen name due to prejudice in the male-dominated publishing industry adds an autobiographical element to this scene as Lucy. What’s more, Lucy is brought in to prove M. Paul’s worth more than her own, as he was the one who submitted the essay. His chief concern is not her integrity but preserving his reputation. The metanarrative continues as Lucy composes an allegorical masterpiece on the spot that mocks the men’s character and stuns them to silence.