The brontes in brussels, p.11
The Brontës in Brussels, page 11
But she also told him how badly she needed his support as a friend. The tone of her letters, however, strongly suggests that for her he was rather more than a teacher and friend, that he was also the man she was in love with – the first man she had fallen in love with. To reach our own conclusions about what she felt for him and what she wanted from him, we can read her surviving letters to Brussels.
In one of them she says:
Monsieur, the poor do not need a great deal to live on – they ask only the crumbs of bread which fall from the rich man’s table – but if they are refused these crumbs – they die of hunger – No more do I need a great deal of affection from those I love – I would not know what to do with a whole and complete friendship – I am not accustomed to it – but you showed a little interest in me in days gone by when I was your pupil in Brussels – and I cling to the preservation of this little interest – I cling to it as I would cling on to life.
In the same letter, written almost exactly a year after taking leave of him in Brussels, she tells him of her despair when he does not reply.
Day and night I find neither rest nor peace. If I sleep I am disturbed by tormenting dreams in which I see you …1
Ten months later her state of mind is no calmer.
I have tried to forget you … I have done everything, I have sought occupations, I have absolutely forbidden myself the pleasure of speaking about you – even to Emily, but I have not been able to overcome either my regrets or my impatience – and that is truly humiliating – not to know how to get the mastery over one’s own thoughts, to be the slave of a regret, a memory, the slave of a dominant and fixed idea which has become a tyrant over one’s mind. Why cannot I have for you exactly as much friendship as you have for me – neither more nor less? Then I would be so tranquil, so free – I could keep silence for ten years without effort …
Postscript in English in the last of Charlotte’s four extant letters to Heger, dated 18 November 1845
Writing to an old pupil cannot be a very interesting occupation for you – I know that – but for me it is life itself. Your last letter has sustained me – has nourished me for six months – now I need another … To forbid me to write to you, to refuse to reply to me – that will be to tear from me the only joy I have on earth.2
But no more crumbs of comfort came from Brussels. M. Heger stopped replying to her letters.
Haworth Parsonage
20
Charlotte’s Letters to Constantin Heger
He was mute as is the grave, he stood stirless as a tower;
At last I looked up, and saw I prayed to stone:
I asked help of that which to help had no power,
I sought love where love was utterly unknown.
(From Charlotte Brontë’s poem ‘He Saw My Heart’s Woe’)
This English translation of Charlotte’s four extant letters to Heger is taken from Volume I of Margaret Smith’s edition of the letters of Charlotte Brontë. In some of these letters Charlotte refers to others she wrote to him that have not survived. None of his replies have been preserved. The appearance of the original manuscripts of the letters, kept in the British Library, is remarkable. At some stage three of them were torn up and then stitched or, in one case, stuck together again (for the probable explanation and the history of the letters as far as we know it see Chapter 21); Charlotte’s small, neat handwriting contrasts with the untidy jagged lines where the sheets were torn. More remarkable still are the words she wrote to her former tutor in those years when her thoughts were constantly travelling from the Parsonage to the Pensionnat and Brussels
24 July 1844
The earliest of the letters is long and chatty. This one was torn up and stuck together again with glued strips of paper.
Monsieur,
I am well aware that it is not my turn to write to you, but since Mrs Wheelwright is going to Brussels and is willing to take charge of a letter – it seems to me that I should not neglect such a favourable opportunity for writing to you.
I am very pleased that the school year is almost over and that the holiday period is approaching – I am pleased about it on your account, Monsieur – for I have been told that you are working too hard and that as a result your health has deteriorated a little – That is why I refrain from uttering a single complaint about your long silence – I would rather remain six months without hearing from you than add an atom to the burden – already too heavy – which overwhelms you – I well remember that it is now the time for compositions, that it will soon be the time for examinations and after that for prizes – and for the whole period you are condemned to breathe in the deadening aridity of the classes – to wear yourself out – in explaining, questioning, speaking all day long, and then in the evening you have all those dreary compositions to read, correct, almost re-write – Ah Monsieur! I once wrote you a letter which was hardly rational, because sadness was wringing my heart, but I shall do so no more – I will try to stop being egotistical and though I look on your letters as one of the greatest joys I know, I shall wait patiently to receive them until it pleases and suits you to send them. But all the same I can still write you a little letter from time to time – you have given me permission to do so.
I am very much afraid of forgetting French, for I am quite convinced that I shall see you again one day – I don’t know how or when – but it must happen since I so long for it, and then I would not like to stay silent in your presence – it would be too sad to see you and not be able to speak to you; to prevent this misfortune – every single day, I learn by heart half a page of French from a book in a colloquial style: and I take pleasure in learning this lesson, Monsieur – when I pronounce the French words I seem to be chatting with you.
I have just been offered a position as principal teacher in a large boarding-school in Manchester, with a salary of £100, i.e. 2,500 francs a year – I cannot accept it – because acceptance would mean having to leave my father and that cannot be – Nevertheless I have made a plan: (when one lives in seclusion one’s brain is always active – one longs to be busy – one longs to launch out into an active career). Our Parsonage is a fairly large house – with some alterations – there will be room for five or six boarders – if I could find that number of children from respectable families – I would devote myself to their education – Emily is not very fond of teaching but she would nevertheless take care of the housekeeping, and though she is rather withdrawn she has too kind a heart not to do her utmost for the well-being of the children – she is also a very generous soul; and as for order, economy, strict organization – hard work – all very essential matters in a boarding-school – I willingly make myself responsible for them.
There is my plan, Monsieur, which I have already explained to my father and which he considers a good one. – So all that remains is to find the pupils – a rather difficult matter – for we live a long way from towns and people hardly wish to take the trouble of crossing the mountains which form a barrier round us – but the task which lacks difficulty almost lacks merit – it is very rewarding to surmount obstacles – I do not say that I shall succeed but I shall try to succeed – the effort alone will do me good I fear nothing so much as idleness – lack of employment – inertia – lethargy of the faculties – when the body is idle, the spirit suffers cruelly. I would not experience this lethargy if I could write – once upon a time I used to spend whole days, weeks, complete months in writing and not quite in vain since Southey and Coleridge – two of our best authors, to whom I sent some manuscripts were pleased to express their approval of them – but at present my sight is too weak for writing – if I wrote a lot I would become blind. This weakness of sight is a terrible privation for me – without it, do you know what I would do, Monsieur? – I would write a book and I would dedicate it to my literature master – to the only master that I have ever had – to you Monsieur. I have often told you in French how much I respect you – how much I am indebted to your kindness, to your advice, I would like to tell you for once in English – That cannot be – it must not be thought of – a literary career is closed to me – only that of teaching is open to me – it does not offer the same attractions – never mind, I shall enter upon it and if I do not go far in it, it will not be for want of diligence. You too, Monsieur – you wanted to be a barrister – fate or Providence has made you a teacher – you are happy in spite of that.
Please assure Madame of my esteem – I am afraid that Maria, Louise and Claire will have already forgotten me – Prospère and Victorine have never known me well – I myself clearly remember all five – especially Louise – she had so much character – so much naïveté – so much truthfulness in her little face –
Goodbye Monsieur –
Your grateful pupil,
C. Brontë
[P.S.] I have not asked you to write to me soon because I don’t want to seem importunate – but you are too good to forget that I wish it all the same – yes – I wish for it very much – that is enough – after all, do as you please, Monsieur – if in fact I received a letter and thought that you had written it out of pity for me – that would hurt me very much.
It seems that Mrs Wheelwright is going to Paris before going to Brussels – but she will put my letter in the post at Boulogne – once more goodbye, Monsieur – it hurts to say goodbye even in a letter – Oh it is certain that I shall see you again one day – it really has to be – for as soon as I have earned enough money to go to Brussels I shall go – and I shall see you again if it is only for a moment.
24 October 1844
The second letter, written in haste, is much shorter. This one was torn up and the pieces stitched together. The word ‘respect’ towards the end replaces another (‘affection’) that has been crossed out.
Monsieur,
I am full of joy this morning – something which has rarely happened to me these last two years – it is because a gentleman of my acquaintance [Joe Taylor] will be passing through Brussels and has offered to take charge of a letter to you – which either he or else his sister will deliver to you, so that I shall be certain you have received it.
I am not going to write a long letter – first of all I haven’t the time – it has to go immediately – and then I am afraid of bothering you. I would just like to ask you whether you heard from me at the beginning of May and then in the month of August? For all those six months I have been expecting a letter from you, Monsieur – six months of waiting – is a very long time indeed! Nevertheless I am not complaining and I shall be richly recompensed for a little sadness – if you are now willing to write a letter and give it to this gentleman – or to his sister – who would deliver it to me without fail.
However short the letter may be I shall be satisfied with it – only do not forget to tell me how you are, Monsieur, and how Madame and the children are and the teachers and pupils.
My father and sister send you their regards – my father’s affliction is gradually increasing – however he is still not completely blind – my sisters are keeping well but my poor brother is always ill.
Goodbye Monsieur, I am counting on soon having news of you – this thought delights me for the remembrance of your kindness will never fade from my memory and so long as this remembrance endures the respect it has inspired in me will endure also.
Your very devoted pupil,
C. Brontë
[P.S.] I have just had bound all the books that you gave me when I was still in Brussels. I take pleasure in looking at them – they make quite a little library – First there are the complete works of Bernardin de St Pierre – the Pensées of Pascale – a book of verse, two German books – and (something worth all the rest) two speeches, by Professor Heger – given at the Prize Distribution of the Athénée Royal.
Envelope and page of one of the three letters of Charlotte’s that were torn up and later repaired. According to Heger’s daughter Louise, they were thrown away by her father and then retrieved, repaired and kept by Mme Heger. This one is dated 8 January 1845.
8 January 1845
The third letter has also been torn up and then stitched together. After the sentence ‘One suffers in silence so long as one has the strength and when that strength fails one speaks without measuring one’s words too much’ there are two lines that are so heavily scored out they are illegible, after which Charlotte ends with the formulaic ‘I wish Monsieur happiness and prosperity’.
Mr Taylor returned. I asked him if he had a letter for me – ‘No, nothing.’ ‘Patience’ – I say – ‘His sister will be coming soon’ – Miss Taylor returned ‘I have nothing for you from M. Heger’ she says ‘neither letter nor message.’
When I had taken in the full meaning of these words – I said to myself, what I would say to someone else in such a case ‘You will have to resign yourself to the fact, and above all, not distress yourself about a misfortune that you have not deserved.’ I did my utmost not to cry not to complain –
But when one does not complain, and when one wants to master oneself with a tyrant’s grip – one’s faculties rise in revolt – and one pays for outward calm by an almost unbearable inward struggle.
Day and night I find neither rest nor peace – if I sleep I have tormenting dreams in which I see you always severe, always saturnine and angry with me –
Forgive me then Monsieur if I take the step of writing to you again – How can I bear my life unless I make an effort to alleviate its sufferings?
I know that you will lose patience with me when you read this letter – You will say that I am over-excited – that I have black thoughts etc. So be it Monsieur – I do not seek to justify myself, I submit to all kinds of reproaches – all I know – is that I cannot – that I will not resign myself to the total loss of my master’s friendship – I would rather undergo the greatest bodily pains than have my heart constantly lacerated by searing regrets. If my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely I shall be absolutely without hope – if he gives me a little friendship – a very little – I shall be content – happy, I would have a motive for living – for working.
Monsieur, the poor do not need a great deal to live on – they ask only the crumbs of bread which fall from the rich men’s table – but if they are refused these crumbs – they die of hunger – No more do I need a great deal of affection from those I love – I would not know what to do with a whole and complete friendship - I am not accustomed to it – but you showed a little interest in me in days gone by when I was your pupil in Brussels – and I cling to the preservation of this little interest - I cling to it as I would cling on to life.
Perhaps you will say to me – ‘I no longer take the slightest interest in you Miss Charlotte – you no longer belong to my household – I have forgotten you.’
Well Monsieur tell me so candidly – it will be a shock to me – that doesn’t matter – it will still be less horrible than uncertainty.
I don’t want to re-read this letter – I am sending it as I have written it – Nevertheless I am as it were dimly aware that there are some cold and rational people who would say on reading it – ‘she is raving’ – My sole revenge is to wish these people – a single day of the torments that I have suffered for eight months – then we should see whether they wouldn’t be raving too.
One suffers in silence so long as one has the strength and when that strength fails one speaks without measuring one’s words too much.
I wish Monsieur happiness and prosperity.
18 November 1845
In this letter, the last one we have, Charlotte refers to one she wrote in May 1845 that has not survived. She also refers to one of Heger’s that she says has sustained her for six months. In the margin of the last sheet someone, presumably Heger, has scribbled what appears to be the address of a Brussels shoemaker. This is the only letter that hasn’t been torn up. The neatly written pages are intact. The same cannot be said of Charlotte’s state of mind when she wrote them. The postscript is in English.
Monsieur,
The six months of silence have elapsed; today is the 18th November, my last letter was dated (I believe) the 18th May; therefore I can write to you again without breaking my promise.
The summer and autumn have seemed very long to me; to tell the truth I have had to make painful efforts to endure until now the privation I imposed on myself: you, Monsieur – you cannot conceive what that means – but imagine for a moment that one of your children is separated from you by a distance of 160 leagues, and that you have to let six months go by without writing to him, without receiving news of him, without hearing him spoken of, without knowing how he is, then you will easily understand what hardship there is in such an obligation. I will tell you candidly that during this time of waiting I have tried to forget you, for the memory of a person one believes one is never to see again, and whom one nevertheless greatly respects, torments the mind exceedingly and when one has suffered this kind of anxiety for one or two years, one is ready to do anything to regain peace of mind. I have done everything, I have sought occupations, I have absolutely forbidden myself the pleasure of speaking about you – even to Emily, but I have not been able to overcome either my regrets or my impatience – and that is truly humiliating – not to know how to get the mastery over one’s own thoughts, to be the slave of a regret, a memory, the slave of a dominant and fixed idea which has become a tyrant over one’s mind. Why cannot I have for you exactly as much friendship as you have for me – neither more nor less? Then I would be so tranquil, so free – I could keep silence for ten years without effort.
