APS TOGETHER
Day 28
Villette by Charlotte BrontëChapter XXXVII
December 12, 2022 by Yiyun Li
A chapter titled “Sunshine” is an outlier in this novel: bright happiness of ever after is granted to two minor characters, whose love story is sweet; perhaps a bit predictable; far from being memorable. And yet not all love stories have to be memorable.
Polly, when young, was a motherless child, and in the coming years will lose a child. Surely there has been suffering that somewhat penetrates her lot. To Lucy such suffering is not excessive, though how can one person measure another person’s suffering?
I do believe there are some human beings so born, so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous blackness overcasts their journey.
One cannot but wonder! Had Lucy been born with status and money, Graham, as she indicated earlier, might have loved her. And his nature, less weighty and more cheerful, might have allayed her melancholy.
Graham had wealth of mirth by nature.
