The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark Read Free Book Online Page B

girls, this is the first day of the new session. Are we downhearted? No. You girls must work hard this year at every subject and pass your qualifying examination with flying colours. Next year you will be in the Senior school, remember. I hope you’ve all had a nice summer holiday, you all look nice and brown. I hope in due course of time to read your essays on how you spent them.”
    When she had gone Miss Brodie looked hard at the door for a long time. A girl, not of her set, called Judith, giggled. Miss Brodie said to Judith, “That will do.” She turned to the blackboard and rubbed out with her duster the long division sum she always kept on the blackboard in case of intrusions from outside during any arithmetic period when Miss Brodie should happen not to be teaching arithmetic. When she had done this she turned back to the class and said, “Are we downhearted no, are we downhearted no. As I was saying, Mussolini has performed feats of magnitude and unemployment is even farther abolished under him than it was last year. I shall be able to tell you a great deal this term. As you know, I don’t believe in talking down to children, you are capable of grasping more than is generally appreciated by your elders. Education means a leading out, from e , out and duco, I lead. Qualifying examination or no qualifying examination, you will have the benefit of my experiences in Italy. In Rome I saw the Forum and I saw the Colosseum where the gladiators died and the slaves were thrown to the lions. A vulgar American remarked to me, ‘It looks like a mighty fine quarry.’ They talk nasally. Mary, what does to talk nasally mean?”
    Mary did not know.
    “Stupid as ever,” said Miss Brodie. “Eunice?”
    “Through your nose,” said Eunice.
    “Answer in a complete sentence, please,” said Miss Brodie. “This year I think you should all start answering in complete sentences, I must try to remember this rule. Your correct answer is ‘To talk nasally means to talk through one’s nose.’ The American said, ‘It looks like a mighty fine quarry.’ Ah! It was there the gladiators fought. ‘Hail Caesar!’ they cried. ‘These about to die salute thee!’”
    Miss Brodie stood in her brown dress like a gladiator with raised arm and eyes flashing like a sword. “Hail Caesar!” she cried again, turning radiantly to the window light, as if Caesar sat there. “Who opened the window?” said Miss Brodie dropping her arm.
    Nobody answered.
    “Whoever has opened the window has opened it too wide,” said Miss Brodie. “Six inches is perfectly adequate. More is vulgar. One should have an innate sense of these things. We ought to be doing history at the moment according to the time-table. Get out your history books and prop them up in your hands. I shall tell you a little more about Italy. I met a young poet by a fountain. Here is a picture of Dante meeting Beatrice—it is pronounced Beatrichay in Italian which makes the name very beautiful—on the Ponte Vecchio. He fell in love with her at that moment. Mary, sit up and don’t slouch. It was a sublime moment in a sublime love. By whom was the picture painted?”
    Nobody knew.
    “It was painted by Rossetti. Who was Rossetti, Jenny?”
    “A painter,” said Jenny.
    Miss Brodie looked suspicious.
    “And a genius,” said Sandy, to come to Jenny’s rescue.
    “A friend of—?” said Miss Brodie.
    “Swinburne,” said a girl.
    Miss Brodie smiled. “You have not forgotten,” she said, looking round the class. “Holidays or no holidays. Keep your history books propped up in case we have any further intruders.” She looked disapprovingly towards the door and lifted her fine dark Roman head with dignity. She had often told the girls that her dead Hugh had admired her head for its Roman appearance. “Next year,” she said, “you will have the specialists to teach you history and mathematics and languages, a teacher for this and a teacher for that, a period of forty-five