SOME time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round
and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the
wall, I asked, 'What am I to do?'
But the answer my mind gave- 'Leave Thornfield at once'- was so
prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such
words now. 'That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part
of my woe,' I alleged: 'that I have wakened out of most glorious
dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and
master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is
intolerable. I cannot do it.'
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and
foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I
wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further
suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held
Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her
dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he
would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
'Let me be torn away, then!' I cried. 'Let another help me!'
'No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall
yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand:
your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.'
I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless
a judge haunted,- at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My
head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from
excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips
that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I
now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had
been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even
little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had
sought me. 'Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes,' I
murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an
obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were
feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the
ground; an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up- I was supported by
Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.
'You come out at last,' he said. 'Well, I have been waiting for you
long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob:
five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced
the lock like a burglar. So you shun me?- you shut yourself up and
grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with
vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I
was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be
shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your
drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a
white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then,
your heart has been weeping blood?
'Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter- nothing
poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly
where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look.
'Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but
one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of
his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some
mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his
bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?'
Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such
deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy
in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole
look and mien- I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly;
only at my heart's core.
'You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?' ere long he inquired
wistfully- wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness,
the result rather of weakness than of will.
'Yes, sir.'
'Then tell me so roundly and sharply- don't spare me.'
'I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water.' He heaved a
sort of shuddering sigh,
moncler, and taking me in his arms, carried me
downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me;
all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving
warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my
chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate
something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library-
sitting in his chair- he was quite near. 'If I could go out of life
now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me,' I thought;
'then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my
heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave
him, it appears. I do not want to leave him- I cannot leave him.'
'How are you now, Jane?'
'Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.'
'Taste the wine again, Jane.'
I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before
me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an
inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind;
he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me
as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I
turned my face away and put his aside.
'What!- How is this?' he exclaimed hastily. 'Oh, I know! you
won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled
and my embraces appropriated?'
'At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.'
'Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will
answer for you- Because I have a wife already, you would reply.- I
guess rightly?'
'Yes.'
'If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must
regard me as a plotting profligate- a base and low rake who has been
simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare
deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of
self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in
the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw
your breath; in the second place,
abercrombie and fitch, you cannot yet accustom yourself
to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are
opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no
desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking
how to act- talking you consider is of no use. I know you- I am on
my guard.'
'Sir, I do not wish to act against you,' I said; and my unsteady
voice warned me to curtail my sentence.
'Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to
destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man- as a
married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have
refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to
me: to live under this roof only as Adele's governess; if ever I say a
friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to
me, you will say,- "That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must
be ice and rock to him"; and ice and rock you will accordingly
become.'
I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: 'All is changed about me,
sir; I must change too- there is no doubt of that; and to avoid
fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections
and associations, there is only one way- Adele must have a new
governess, sir.'
'Oh, Adele will go to school- I have settled that already; nor do I
mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of
Thornfield Hall- this accursed place- this tent of Achan- this
insolent vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the
light of the open sky- this narrow stone hell, with its one real
fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall
not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield
Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal
from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the
place; merely because I feared Adele never would have a governess to
stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would
not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere- though I possess an
old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this,
where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about
the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my
conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably those damp walls
would soon have eased me of her charge: but to each villain his own
vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination, even of
what I most hate.
'Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was
something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a
upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I'll
shut up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front door and board the
lower windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here
with my wife, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for
money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to
bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when
my wife is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at
night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on-'
'Sir,' I interrupted him, 'you are inexorable for that
unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hate- with vindictive
antipathy. It is cruel- she cannot help being mad.'
'Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are),
you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it
is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think
I should hate you?'
'I do indeed, sir.'
'Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and
nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of
your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would
still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it
would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine
you, and not a strait waistcoat- your grasp, even in fury, would
have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did
this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond
as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with
disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no
watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring
tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary
of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of
recognition for me.- But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was
talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you know, is prepared
for prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure
one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its
miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to, which will
be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome
intrusion- even from falsehood and slander.'
'And take Adele with you, sir,' I interrupted; 'she will be a
companion for you.'
'What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adele to school;
and what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own
child,- a French dancer's bastard? Why do you importune me about
her! I say, why do you assign Adele to me for a companion?'
'You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are
dull: too dull for you.'
'Solitude! solitude!' he reiterated with irritation. 'I see I
must come to an explanation. I don't know what sphynx-like
expression is forming in your countenance. You are to share my
solitude. Do you understand?'
I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was
becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been
walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted
to one spot. He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him,
fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet,
collected aspect.
'Now for the hitch in Jane's character,' he said at last,
speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak.
'The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew
there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation,
and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a
fraction of Samson's strength, and break the entanglement like tow!'
He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just
before me.
'Jane! will you hear reason?' (he stooped and approached his lips
to my ear); 'because, if you won't, I'll try violence. His voice was
hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an
insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in
another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be
able to do nothing with him. The present- the passing second of
time- was all I had in which to control and restrain him: a movement
of repulsion, flight, fear would have sealed my doom,- and his. But
I was not afraid: not in the least. I felt an inward power; a sense of
influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not
without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips
over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of his clenched hand,
loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him, soothingly-
'Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you
have to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable.'
He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been
struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to
repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now,
however, I considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long
as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave
way and cried heartily.
Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I
could not while he was in such a passion.
'But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had
steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I
could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes.'
His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn,
became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder,
but I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no.
'Jane! Jane!' he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it
thrilled along every nerve I had; 'you don't love me, then? It was
only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that
you think me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my
touch as if I were some toad or ape.'
These words cut me: yet what could I do or say? I ought probably to
have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse
at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop
balm where I had wounded.
'I do love you,' I said, 'more than ever: but I must not show or
indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it.'
'The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me,
and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and
distant?'
'No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see
there is but one way: but you will be furious if I mention it.'
'Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping.'
'Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.'
'For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair-
which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face- which looks
feverish?'
'I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my
whole life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and
strange scenes.'
'Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about
parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the
new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not
married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester- both virtually and nominally.
I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to
a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the
shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and
guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you
into error- to make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head?
Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I shall again become
frantic.'
His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye
blazed: still I dared to speak.
'Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning
by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be
your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical- is false.'
'Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man- you forget that: I am not
long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me
and yourself,
franklin marshall, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and-
beware!'
He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking
his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all
hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was
cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do
instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity- looked for
aid to one higher than man: the words 'God help me!' burst
involuntarily from my lips.
'I am a fool!' cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. 'I keep telling her
I am not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows
nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances
attending my infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree
with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand
in mine, Janet- that I may have the evidence of touch as well as
sight, to prove you are near me- and I will in a few words show you
the real state of the case. Can you listen to me?'
'Yes, sir; for hours if you will.'
'I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not
the eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?'
'I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once.'
'And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping
man?'
'I have understood something to that effect.'
'Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property
together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and
leaving me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my
brother, Rowland. Yet as little could he endure that a son of his
should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He
sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and
merchant, was his old acquaintance. He was certain his possessions
were real and vast: he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a
son and daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give
the latter a fortune of thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When
I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride
already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he
told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and
this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche
Ingram: tall, dark,
christian louboutin, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me
because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in
parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very
little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly
displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the
men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled,
stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and
inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted
that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness,
the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her
relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a
marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have
no respect for myself when I think of that act!- an agony of inward
contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even
know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature:
I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor
refinement in her mind or manners- and, I married her:- gross,
grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might
have- But let me remember to whom I am speaking.
'My bride's mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The
honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in
a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too- a complete dumb
idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate,
whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of
affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes
in his wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore
me), will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my
brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty
thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me.
'These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of
concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my
wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes
obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and
singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to
anything larger- when I found that I could not pass a single
evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that
kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because
whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once
coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile- when I perceived that I
should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant
would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable
temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting
orders- even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I
curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in
secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.
'Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some
strong words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman
upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her
character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices
sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check
them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and
what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those
propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an
infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading
agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate
and unchaste.
'My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four
years my father died too. I was rich enough now- yet poor to hideous
indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was
associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of
me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the
doctors now discovered that my wife was mad- her excesses had
prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don't like my
narrative; you look almost sick- shall I defer the rest to another
day?'
'No, sir, finish it now; I pity you- I do earnestly pity you.'
'Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of
tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of
those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous,
selfish hearts; it is a hybrid,
abercrombie paris, egotistical pain at hearing of woes,
crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But
that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole
face is full at this moment- with which your eyes are now almost
overflowing- with which your heart is heaving- with which your hand is
trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of
love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I
accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent- my arms wait to
receive her.'
'Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?'
'Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect
was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the
world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to
be clean in my own sight- and to the last I repudiated the
contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection
with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and
person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of
her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I
remembered I had once been her husband- that recollection was then,
and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while
she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife;
and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied
to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as
long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus,
at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.
'One night I had been awakened by her yells- (since the medical men
had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)- it was a
fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently
precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in
bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like
sulphur-steams- I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes
came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I
could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake- black
clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves,
broad and red,
abercrombie and fitch paris, like a hot cannon-ball- she threw her last bloody
glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was
physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were
filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she
momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with
such language!- no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary
than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word- the thin
partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction
to her wolfish cries.
'"This life," said I at last, "is hell: this is the air- those
are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself
from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me
with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's
burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse
than this present one- let me break away, and go home to God!"
'I said this whilst I knelt down at, and unlocked a trunk which
contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only
entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the
crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the
wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second.
'A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through
the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and
the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I
walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst
its drenched pomegranates and pineapples, and while the refulgent dawn
of the tropics kindled round me- I reasoned thus, Jane- and now
listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and
showed me the right path to follow.
'The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed
leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart,
dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled
with living blood- my being longed for renewal- my soul thirsted for a
pure draught. I saw hope revive- and felt regeneration possible.
From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea-
bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened
thus:-
'"Go," said Hope, "and live again in Europe: there it is not
known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is
bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her
with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel
yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like.
That woman, who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your
name, so outraged your honour, so blighted your youth, is not your
wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is cared for as her
condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require
of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in
oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being. Place her
in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave
her."
'I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had
not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very
first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union- having already
begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the
family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening
to me- I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the
infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as
to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring
to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as
myself.
'To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such
a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to
Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third storey room, of
whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild
beast's den- a goblin's cell. I had some trouble in finding an
attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity
dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my
secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days- sometimes weeks-
which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from
the Grimsby Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed
Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only
two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed
have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise
knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good
keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it
appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing
profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and
baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never
failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses; once to
secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to
possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the
night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the
attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly
visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she
then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought
back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might
have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing
which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet
visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles-'
'And what, sir,' I asked, while he paused, 'did you do when you had
settled her here? Where did you go?'
'What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp.
Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the
March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its
lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent
woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at
Thornfield-'
'But you could not marry, sir.'
'I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It
was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I
meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it
appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free
to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found
willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of
the curse with which I was burdened.'
'Well, sir?'
'When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open
your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless
movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you,
and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart. But before I go
on, tell me what you mean by your "Well, sir?" It is a small phrase
very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on
through interminable talk: I don't very well know why.'
'I mean,- What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an
event?'
'Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?'
'Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to
marry you; and what she said.'
'I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I
asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in
the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in
one capital, then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in
Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with
plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own
society: no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a
woman amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and
German grafinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting
moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form,
which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently
undeceived. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either
of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me- for the antipodes
of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one
whom, had I been ever so free, I- warned as I was of the risks, the
horrors, the loathings of incongruous unions- would have asked to
marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation-
never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was my Indian
Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me
much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed
to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.
'Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of
mistresses. The first I chose was Celine Varens- another of those
steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already
know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two
successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered
singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks?
Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months.
Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible:
not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to
set her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her.
But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable
opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled
rake: don't you?'
'I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir.
Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first
with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of
course.'
'It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion
of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress
is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature,
and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with
inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I
passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara.'
I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain
inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching
that had ever been instilled into me, as- under any pretext- with
any justification- through any temptation- to become the successor
of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same
feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not
give utterance to this conviction: it was enough to feel it. I
impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as
aid in the time of trial.
'Now, Jane, why don't you say "Well, sir?" I have not done. You are
looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to
the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses- in a harsh, bitter
frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life-
corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and
especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion
of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream),
recalled by business, I came back to England.
'On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield
Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace- no pleasure there. On a
stile in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I
passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I
had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning
that the arbitress of my life- my genius for good or evil- waited
there in humble guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion
of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help.
Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped
to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly;
but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange
perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be
aided, and by that hand: and aided I was.
'When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new- a fresh
sap and sense- stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this
elf must return to me- that it belonged to my house down below- or I
could not have felt it pass away from under my hand,
louboutin, and seen it
vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come
home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I
thought of you or watched for you. The next day I observed you- myself
unseen- for half an hour, while you played with Adele in the
gallery. It was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out
of doors. I was in my room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and
watch. Adele claimed your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied
your thoughts were elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my
little Jane; you talked to her and amused her a long time. When at
last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook
yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a
casement, you glanced out at the thick-falling snow; you listened to
the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and dreamed. I think
those day visions were not dark: there was a pleasurable
illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your
aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your
look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit
follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal
heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the
hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself,
Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and
seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to say- "My
fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are
absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my
brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough
tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter."
You ran downstairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the
weekly house accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think
it was. I was vexed with you for getting out of my sight.
'Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my
presence. An unusual- to me- a perfectly new character I suspected was
yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered
the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were
quaintly dressed- much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I
found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were
restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether
that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a
good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by
some solecism or blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a
daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face: there was
penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close
questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed
to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence of sympathy
between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was
astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised
your manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear,
annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now
and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot
describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw: I
liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I
treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an
intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of
making this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while
troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely
its bloom would fade- the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I
did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the
radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover,
I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you- but you
did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and
easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as
little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your
habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not
despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had
little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of
me, or if you ever thought of me, and resolved to find this out.
'I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your
glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a
social heart; it was the silent schoolroom- it was the tedium of
your life- that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of
being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became
soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by
your lips in a grateful happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting
with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your
manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble- a hovering doubt: you
did not know what my caprice might be- whether I was going to play the
master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too
fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my
hand out cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young,
wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and
there to my heart.'
'Don't talk any more of those days, sir,' I interrupted,
furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was
torture to me; for I knew what I must do- and do soon- and these
reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings, only made my
work more difficult.
'No, Jane,' he returned: 'what necessity is there to dwell on the
Past, when the Present is so much surer- the Future so much brighter?'
I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.
'You see now how the case stands- do you not?' he continued. 'After
a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in
dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly
love- I have found you. You are my sympathy- my better self- my good
angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good,
gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my
heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life,
wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame,
fuses you and me in one.
'It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you.
To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now
that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you;
but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared
early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before
hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to
your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now- opened to you
plainly my life of agony- described to you my hunger and thirst
after a higher and worthier existence- shown to you, not my resolution
(that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and
well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should
have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours.
Jane- give it me now.'
A pause.
'Why are you silent, Jane?'
I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my
vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a
human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was
loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must
renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable
duty- 'Depart!'
'Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise- "I
will be yours, Mr. Rochester."'
'Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.'
Another long silence.
'Jane!' recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with
grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror- for this still
voice was the pant of a lion rising- 'Jane, do you mean to go one
way in the world, and to let me go another?'
'I do.'
'Jane' (bending towards and embracing me), 'do you mean it now?'
'I do.'
'And now?' softly kissing my forehead and cheek.
'I do,' extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.
'Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This- this is wicked. It would not be
wicked to love me.'
'It would to obey you.'
A wild look raised his brows- crossed his features: he rose; but he
forbore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I
shook, I feared- but I resolved.
'One instant,
doudoune moncler, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you
are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left?
For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer
me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where
turn for a companion and for some hope?'
'Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope
to meet again there.'
'Then you will not yield?'
'No.'
'Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?' His
voice rose.
'I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.'
'Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on
lust for a passion- vice for an occupation?'
'Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at
it for myself. We were born to strive and endure- you as well as I: do
so. You will forget me before I forget you.'
'You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I
declared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change
soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in
your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a
fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man
being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor
acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?'
This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason
turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting
him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured
wildly. 'Oh, comply!' it said. 'Think of his misery; think of his
danger- look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong
nature; consider the recklessness following on despair- soothe him;
save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in
the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?'
Still indomitable was the reply- 'I care for myself. The more
solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I
will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by
man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and
not mad- as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when
there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body
and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they;
inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break
them, what would be their worth? They have a worth- so I have always
believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane-
quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating
faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone
determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant
my foot.'
I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so.
His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment,
whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and
grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance:
physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the
draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul,
and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately,
has an interpreter- often an unconscious, but still a truthful
interpreter- in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his
fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and
my overtaxed strength almost exhausted.
'Never,' said he, as he ground his teeth, 'never was anything at
once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!'
(And he shook me with the force of his hold.) 'I could bend her with
my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore,
if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free
thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage- with a
stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it- the
savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my
outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the
house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call
myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit-
with will and energy, and virtue and purity- that I want: not alone
your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and
nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you
will elude the grasp like an essence- you will vanish ere I inhale
your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!'
As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at
me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only
an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled
his fury; I must elude his sorrow: retired to the door.
'You are going, Jane?'
'I am going, sir.'
'You are leaving me?'
'Yes.'
'You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My
deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?'
What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to
reiterate firmly, 'I am going.'
'Jane!'
'Mr. Rochester!&#
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