简.爱 英文版 Jane Eyre
夏洛蒂.勃朗特 Charlotte Bronte
CHAPTER I
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We hadbeen wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in themorning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company,dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds sosombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercisewas now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chillyafternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight,with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidingsof Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physicalinferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered roundtheir mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by thefireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neitherquarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she haddispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to beunder the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that untilshe heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation,that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociableand childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner-- something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were -- shereally must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented,happy, little children. "
view to the right hand; to theleft were the clear panes.
"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.
"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there issomething truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in thatmanner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly,remain silent. "
A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. Itcontained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, takingcare that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted intothe window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, likea Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, Iwas shrined in double retirement.
Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to theleft were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separatingme from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning overthe leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene ofwet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping awaywildly before a long and lamentable blast.
I returned to my book -- Bewick's History of British Birds: theletterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; andyet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, Icould not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat ofthe haunts of sea-fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories"by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with islesfrom its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape -
"Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,Boils round the naked, melancholy islesOf farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surgePours in among the stormy Hebrides. "
Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores ofLapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland,with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regionsof dreary space, -- that reservoir of frost and snow, where firmfields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazedin Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentrethe multiplied rigours of extreme cold. " Of these death-white realmsI formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehendednotions that float dim through children's brains, but strangelyimpressive. The words in these introductory pages connectedthemselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significanceto the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to thebroken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastlymoon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard,with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its lowhorizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent,attesting the hour of eventide.
The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marinephantoms.
The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed overquickly: it was an object of terror.
So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying adistant crowd surrounding a gallows.
Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undevelopedunderstanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting:as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winterevenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, havingbrought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed usto sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, andcrimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passagesof love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads;or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela,and Henry, Earl of Moreland.
With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in myway. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon.The breakfast-room door opened.
physicalinferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.surrounding!
"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused:he found the room apparently empty.
"Where the dickens is she!" he continued. "Lizzy! Georgy!(calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is runout into the rain -- bad animal!"
"It is well I drew the curtain, " thought I; and I wished ferventlyhe might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed havefound it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception;but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once -
"She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack. "
And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of beingdragged forth by the said Jack.
"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.
"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the answer. "I wantyou to come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimatedby a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.
John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years olderthan I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with adingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage,heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habituallyat table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and blearedeye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; buthis mama had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of hisdelicate health. " Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he woulddo very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him fromhome; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, andinclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallownesswas owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.
John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, andan antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or threetimes in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually:every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bonesshrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewilderedby the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever againsteither his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like tooffend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs.Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strikeor heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her verypresence, more frequently, however, behind her back.
Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spentsome three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as hecould without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike,and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and uglyappearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if heread that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking,he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining myequilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.
"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since, " saidhe, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and forthe look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"
Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replyingto it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainlyfollow the insult.
"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.
"I was reading. "
"Show the book. "
I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamasays; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought tobeg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, andeat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense.Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they ARE mine;all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go andstand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows. "
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but whenI saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, Iinstinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough,however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking myhead against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain wassharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.
"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer -- youare like a slave-driver -- you are like the Roman emperors!"
I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinionof Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence,which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.
"What! what!" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hearher, Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first -- "
He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder:he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant,a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickledown my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: thesesensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received himin frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands,but he called me "Rat! Rat!" and bellowed out aloud. Aid wasnear him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was goneupstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessieand her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words -
"Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!"
"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"
Then Mrs. Reed subjoined -
"Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there. " Four handswere immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.