Villette Readalong Weeks 4 and 5

Yes, that's right, I'm behind again.  I'm trying to listen to this while I'm working and some days just don't yield much listening time!

Week Four's reading was a pleasant respite after all of the goings on in Week Three's reading.  Lucy spent the time recovering from her breakdown at the home of Dr John and Mrs. Bretton.  While she delighted in spending time with friends after spending so much time alone, they delighted in introducing her to the delights of Villette.  Interestingly, Monsieur Paul Emmanuel, appears more and more in Lucy's story.  When we were first introduced to him, Lucy had nothing nice at all to say about him, But when he finds her in an art gallery, sitting in front of a painting he doesn't approve of and moves her to more "appropriate" works, she finds his concern for her less annoying than you might expect.  Gradually she seems to be finding good characteristics in M. Paul and they agree to be friends.

John's relationship with Ginevra Fanshawe, which we only just discovered, is, perhaps, irreparably damaged when, while at the theater, she snubs Mrs. Bretton and openly flirts with another man in front of him.  Now that Lucy has spent so much time with John and finding him now unattached, her heart begins to run away with her a bit.  But Lucy is nothing if not reasonable and she and her Reason spend a lot of time together and Reason generally seems to win.  But it's not able to stop Lucy from beginning to visions of a ghost nun.

Just as Lucy begins to hope that John may care for her, Polly home and her father return in the guise of the de Bassompierres.  Mr. Home has been given the title of Count and Polly is now a Countess.  Despite the fact that she is still little more than a child, John becomes smitten with her.  Now it is also revealed that Polly and Ginerva are cousins and poor Lucy has to put up with the foolishness of both of the girls. But she's more than willing to tolerate it because she's both exceedingly tolerant and unwilling to put her friendship with the families at risk.

I am so ready for Lucy to just take a chance, to cut loose a little bit and maybe even to throw a temper tantrum because she's so darn tired of being the poor little poor girl.