简.爱 英文版 Jane Eyre
夏洛蒂.勃朗特 Charlotte Bronte
CHAPTER XVIII Page 1
Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: howdifferent from the first three months of stillness, monotony, andsolitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemednow driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: therewas life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not nowtraverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers,once so tenantless, without encountering a smart lady's-maid or adandy valet.
The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrancehall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void andstill when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial springweather called their occupants out into the grounds. Even whenthat weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days,no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only becamemore lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to outdoorgaiety.
I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a changeof entertainment was proposed: they spoke of "playing charades, "but in my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servantswere called in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lightsotherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite thearch. While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed thesealterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringingfor their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give informationrespecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies ofany kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked,and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats,satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c. , were brought down inarmfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such thingsas were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him,and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. "MissIngram is mine, of course, " said he: afterwards he named the twoMisses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to benear him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent's bracelet,which had got loose.
"Will you play?" he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist,which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to returnquietly to my usual seat.
He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party,which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs.One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to proposethat I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantlynegatived the notion.
"No, " I heard her say: "she looks too stupid for any game of thesort. "
Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch,the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewisechosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, ona table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton,draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her hand.Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adele (who had insistedon being one of her guardian's party), bounded forward, scatteringround her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on herarm. Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, cladin white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round herbrow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew nearthe table. They knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressedalso in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremonyfollowed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise thepantomime of a marriage. At its termination, Colonel Dent and hisparty consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out -
"Bride!" Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.
A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its secondrising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last.The drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two stepsabove the dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed ayard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin --which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory -- where itusually stood, surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish-- and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, onaccount of its size and weight.
Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr.Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. Hisdark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costumeexactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agentor a victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view MissIngram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimsonscarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchiefknotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded arms bare, oneof them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefullyon her head. Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion andher general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princessof the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character sheintended to represent.
She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher;she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brinknow seemed to accost her; to make some request:- "She hasted, letdown her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink. " From thebosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showedmagnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment andadmiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulityand delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the strangerfastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. Itwas Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.
The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently theycould not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;"whereupon the curtain again descended.
On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed;the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of darkand coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place,stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visibleby a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candlesbeing all extinguished.
Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands restingon his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester;though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hangingloose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his backin a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough,bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chainclanked; to his wrists were attached fetters.
"Bridewell!" exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.
A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resumetheir ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochesterled in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.
"Do you know, " said she, "that, of the three characters, I likedyou in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier,what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!"
"Is all the soot washed from my face?" he asked, turning it towardsher.
"Alas! yes: the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becomingto your complexion than that ruffian's rouge. "
"You would like a hero of the road then?"
"An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to anItalian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantinepirate. "
"Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married anhour since, in the presence of all these witnesses. " She giggled,and her colour rose.
"Now, Dent, " continued Mr. Rochester, "it is your turn. " And asthe other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats.Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the otherdiviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I didnot now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for thecurtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; myeyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attractedto the semicircle of chairs. What charade Colonel Dent and his partyplayed, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I nolonger remember; but I still see the consultation which followedeach scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and MissIngram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till thejetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek;I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances;and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returnsin memory at this moment.
I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester:I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he hadceased to notice me -- because I might pass hours in his presence,and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction -- becauseI saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scornedto touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if everher dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdrawit instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. Icould not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry thisvery lady -- because I read daily in her a proud security in hisintentions respecting her -- because I witnessed hourly in hima style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to besought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating,and in its very pride, irresistible.
There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances,though much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader,to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presumeto be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous:or very rarely; -- the nature of the pain I suffered could not beexplained by that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy:she was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seemingparadox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was notgenuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; buther mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomedspontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted byits freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she usedto repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had,an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; butshe did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness andtruth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the unduevent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived againstlittle Adele: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet ifshe happened to approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room,and always treating her with coldness and acrimony. Other eyesbesides mine watched these manifestations of character -- watchedthem closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes; the future bridegroom,Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaselesssurveillance; and it was from this sagacity -- this guardedness ofhis -- this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects-- this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her,that my ever-torturing pain arose.
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps politicalreasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt hehad not given her his love, and that her qualifications were illadapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point -- thiswas where the nerve was touched and teased -- this was where thefever was sustained and fed: SHE COULD NOT CHARM HIM.
If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded andsincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face,turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If MissIngram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour,kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers-- jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, Ishould have admired her -- acknowledged her excellence, and beenquiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority,the deeper would have been my admiration -- the more truly tranquilmy quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram'sefforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeatedfailure -- herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancyingthat each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly plumingherself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelledfurther and further what she wished to allure -- to witness THIS,was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrowsthat continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fellharmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand,have quivered keen in his proud heart -- have called love into hisstern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still,without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.
"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to drawso near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly likehim, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need notcoin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly,manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seemsto me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, sayinglittle and looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in hisface a far different expression from that which hardens it now whileshe is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself:it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres;and one had but to accept it -- to answer what he asked withoutpretension, to address him when needful without grimace -- andit increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one likea fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when theyare married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it mightbe managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the veryhappiest woman the sun shines on. "
I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's projectof marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when Ifirst discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him aman unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choiceof a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c. ,of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blamingeither him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas andprinciples instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood.All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they hadreasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemedto me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosomonly such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of theadvantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this planconvinced me that there must be arguments against its generaladoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure allthe world would act as I wished to act.
But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient tomy master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had oncekept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to studyall sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; andfrom the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. NowI saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness thathad startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choicedish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be feltas comparatively insipid. And as for the vague something -- was ita sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?-- that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye,and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partiallydisclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink,as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and hadsuddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something,I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but notwith palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed onlyto dare -- to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, becauseone day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore itssecrets and analyse their nature.
Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride-- saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered onlytheir movements of importance -- the rest of the party were occupiedwith their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynnand Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where theynodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their fourhands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror,according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair ofmagnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured Mrs.Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smileon me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussedpolitics, or county affairs, or justice business. Lord Ingramflirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with oneof the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to thegallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent,suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors:for, after all, Mr. Rochester and -- because closely connectedwith him -- Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party. Ifhe was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemedto steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance wassure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.
The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly feltone day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and wasnot likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walkthe party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitchedon a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of thegentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together withthe younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room.The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity,some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her intoconversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes andairs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library,had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and preparedto beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merrimentof the billiard-players was heard from above.
It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning ofthe hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who kneltby me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed -