Your old October was only desirable while forbidden

Another Tuesday, another Villette readalong post! And guess what, POLLY IS BACK! I didn't realize how much I missed that weird little kid/baby thing until we spent all this time without her and WTF, where the hell is she?

Before we get to that, Lucy is swinging between being super depressed

I could have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to leave them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to descend. 

"But if I feel, may I never express?" "Never!" declared Reason. I groaned under her bitter sternness. 

Better, perhaps, to die quickly a pleasant death than drag on long a charmless life.

And being crazy in love with Dr. John and the letters he writes her

I folded the untasted treasure...feeling as if fairy tales were true and fairy gifts no dream. 

[Mr. John] asked me, smiling, why I cared for his letter so very much. I thought, but did not say, that I prized it like the blood in my veins.

One evening Dr. John invites Lucy to the theater with him when his mom can't make it and you sort of think that means things are going to go forward with these two BUT NO, there is a fire at the theater and a poor woman is hurt in the riot. Being nice people, Lucy and Dr. John help the girl and get her to safety. Who does the girl turn out to be? OH HEY, THERE YOU ARE POLLY.

She's still sort of a weird girl. She's 18 (ish? is that right?) but still acts like a little kid a lot of the time. Lucy is threatened by Polly showing up and tries to quiz her about her feelings for Graham when they were younger. Lucy keeps telling her "But surely you don't remember all of your ridiculous, childish affections from so long ago and Polly won me with her response:

"You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked them when a child?"
"The sharpness must be gone - the point, the poignancy - the deep imprint must be softened away and effaced?"
"I have a good memory for those days."

But don't worry, Polly likes Lucy. There's no real competition between the two, probably cos Polly doesn't really see Lucy as competition. At least not for Dr. John. Polly's dad, Mr. Home, offers to pay Lucy to hang out with Polly but she turns down the offer because yeah, that's sort of weird and at least she has her (constantly spied on) freedom teaching under Mme Beck. Instead she hangs out with Lucy for free and they start taking German lessons with a lady that could possibly be a hobbit, given her eating habits

[She] habitually consumed, for her first and second breakfast, beer and beef

 This section doesn't quite end with the same dramatic cliffhanger as the earlier sections, but there is something here. While Polly and Lucy are arguing about Polly talking about love (Polly insists she's old enough for this stuff and Lucy says she's going to always be childlike to her so yeah stop that nonsense) Polly says she DOES understand, but she doesn't want to talk about it because you see, there is someone Polly is worried about. Her cousin, Ginevra (DUN DUN DUUUUUN) 

Ginevra says she doesn't really care for the Dr. John anymore. I mean SURE, she says he'll totally still marry her if she'd say yeah, but overall she's bored with the guy. Polly wants to invite all of them over and see if Ginevra is right or Dr. John is really over her. That is a formula for some Telenovelas style hijinks so I AM FOR IT. 

Or more likely, Kimmy Schmidt style dinner party, but I couldn't find a gif of that.

Thank you Alice, for the good times. Our readalongs are the best. Till next week!