Free The Professor by Charlotte Brontë

breakfast, began to pour out my
coffee from a little black coffee-pot. The stove might be
dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it was indisputably
very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by it talking in
French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or comprehend
much of the purport of what they said—yet French, in the mouths
of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors
of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears. One of these
gentlemen presently discerned me to be an Englishman—no doubt
from the fashion in which I addressed the waiter; for I would
persist in speaking French in my execrable South-of-England
style, though the man understood English. The gentleman, after
looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted me in very
good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak
French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed
me for the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan
character of the capital I was in; it was my first experience of
that skill in living languages I afterwards found to be so
general in Brussels.
    I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was
there on the table, and while that stranger continued talking to
me, I was a free, independent traveller; but at last the things
were removed, the two gentlemen left the room; suddenly the
illusion ceased, reality and business came back. I, a bondsman
just released from the yoke, freed for one week from twenty-one
years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume the fetters of
dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being without a
master when duty issued her stern mandate: "Go forth and seek
another service." I never linger over a painful and necessary
task; I never take pleasure before business, it is not in my
nature to do so; impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the
city, though I perceived the morning was very fine, until I had
first presented Mr. Hunsden's letter of introduction, and got
fairly on to the track of a new situation. Wrenching my mind
from liberty and delight, I seized my hat, and forced my
reluctant body out of the Hotel de — into the foreign street.
    It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the
stately houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding
out "Mr. Brown, Numero —, Rue Royale," for so my letter was
addressed. By dint of inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at
the desired door, knocked, asked for Mr. Brown, and was admitted.
    Being shown into a small breakfast-room, I found myself in the
presence of an elderly gentleman—very grave, business-like, and
respectable-looking. I presented Mr. Hunsden's letter; he
received me very civilly. After a little desultory conversation
he asked me if there was anything in which his advice or
experience could be of use. I said, " Yes," and then proceeded to
tell him that I was not a gentleman of fortune, travelling for
pleasure, but an ex-counting-house clerk, who wanted employment
of some kind, and that immediately too. He replied that as a
friend of Mr. Hunsden's he would be willing to assist me as well
as he could. After some meditation he named a place in a
mercantile house at Liege, and another in a bookseller's shop at
Louvain.
    "Clerk and shopman!" murmured I to myself. "No." I shook my
head. I had tried the high stool; I hated it; I believed there
were other occupations that would suit me better; besides I did
not wish to leave Brussels.
    "I know of no place in Brussels," answered Mr. Brown, "unless
indeed you were disposed to turn your attention to teaching. I
am acquainted with the director of a large establishment who is
in want of a professor of English and Latin."
    I thought two minutes, then I seized the idea eagerly.
    "The very thing, sir!" said I.
    "But," asked he, "do you understand French well enough to teach
Belgian boys English?"
    Fortunately I could answer this question in the affirmative;
having studied French under a Frenchman, I could