简.爱 英文版 Jane Eyre
夏洛蒂.勃朗特 Charlotte Bronte
CHAPTER XXVII Page 3
"Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon youto my presence. An unusual -- to me -- a perfectly new characterI suspected was yours: I desired to search it deeper and know itbetter. You entered the room with a look and air at once shy andindependent: 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 oftendiffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, butabsolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of makingherself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder;yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowingeye to your interlocutor's face: there was penetration and powerin each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you foundready and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me:I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and yourgrim and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see howquickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised your manner: snarlas I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasureat my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at mewith a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at oncecontent and stimulated with what I saw: I liked what I had seen,and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated youdistantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an intellectualepicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making thisnovel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while troubledwith a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloomwould fade -- the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I didnot then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather theradiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover,I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you -- butyou did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own deskand easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and withas little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect.Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtfullook; not despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant,for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered whatyou thought of me, or if you ever thought of me, and resolved tofind this out.
"I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in yourglance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw youhad a social heart; it was the silent schoolroom -- it was thetedium of your life -- that made you mournful. I permitted myselfthe delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon:your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked myname pronounced by your lips in a grateful happy accent. I used toenjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time: there was acurious hesitation in your manner: you glanced at me with a slighttrouble -- a hovering doubt: you did not know what my caprice mightbe -- whether I was going to play the master and be stern, or thefriend and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often to simulatethe first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, suchbloom and light and bliss rose to your young, wistful features,I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to myheart. "
"Don't talk any more of those days, sir, " I interrupted, furtivelydashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was tortureto me; for I knew what I must do -- and do soon -- and all thesereminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings only made mywork more difficult.
"No, Jane, " he returned: "what necessity is there to dwell onthe Past, when the Present is so much surer -- the Future so muchbrighter?"
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 andhalf in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I cantruly love -- I have found you. You are my sympathy -- my betterself -- my good angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment.I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passionis conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centreand spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling inpure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
"It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marryyou. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: youknow now that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attemptto deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in yourcharacter. I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to haveyou safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I shouldhave appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I donow -- opened to you plainly my life of agony -- described to youmy hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence -- shownto you, not my RESOLUTION (that word is weak), but my resistlessBENT to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and wellloved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledgeof 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 myvitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning!Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved betterthan I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped:and I must renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised myintolerable duty -- "Depart!"
"Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise -- 'Iwill be yours, Mr. Rochester. '"
"Mr. Rochester, I will NOT be yours. "
Another long silence.
"Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down withgrief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror -- for thisstill voice was the pant of a lion rising -- "Jane, do you mean togo 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 notbe wicked to love me. "
"It would to obey you. "
A wild look raised his brows -- crossed his features: he rose;but he forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair forsupport: I shook, I feared -- but I resolved.
"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when youare gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then isleft? For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well mightyou refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall Ido, Jane? Where turn for a companion and for some hope?"
"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hopeto meet again there. "
"Then you will not yield?"
"No. "
"Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?" Hisvoice 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 onlust for a passion -- vice for an occupation?"
"Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp atit for myself. We were born to strive and endure -- you as wellas I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you. "
"You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. Ideclared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall changesoon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversityin your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drivea fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law,no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relativesnor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?"
This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reasonturned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resistinghim. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamouredwildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of hisdanger -- look at his state when left alone; remember his headlongnature; consider the recklessness following on despair -- soothehim; 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 youdo?"
Still indomitable was the reply -- "I care for myself. The moresolitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the moreI will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctionedby man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I wassane, and not mad -- as I am now. Laws and principles are not forthe times when there is no temptation: they are for such momentsas this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour;stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individualconvenience I might break them, what would be their worth? Theyhave a worth -- so I have always believed; and if I cannot believeit now, it is because I am insane -- quite insane: with my veinsrunning fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count itsthrobs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are allI 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 amoment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my armand grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flamingglance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubbleexposed to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I stillpossessed 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 tohis; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntarysigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed strength almostexhausted.
"Never, " said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at onceso 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 herwith my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent,if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider theresolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, withmore than courage -- with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with itscage, I cannot get at it -- the savage, beautiful creature! IfI tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let thecaptive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmatewould escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of itsclay 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 myheart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elude thegrasp 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 lookedat me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain:only an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared andbaffled his fury; I must elude his sorrow: I 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? Mydeep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?"
What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was toreiterate firmly, "I am going. "
"Jane!"
"Mr. Rochester!"
"Withdraw, then, -- I consent; but remember, you leave me here inanguish. Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and,Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings -- think of me. "
He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh,Jane! my hope -- my love -- my life!" broke in anguish from hislips. Then came a deep, strong sob.
I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back -- walkedback as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him;I turned his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; Ismoothed his hair with my hand.
"God bless you, my dear master!" I said. "God keep you from harmand wrong -- direct you, solace you -- reward you well for yourpast kindness to me. "
"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward, " he answered;"without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love:yes -- nobly, generously. "
Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire fromhis eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded theembrace, and at once quitted the room.
"Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added,"Farewell for ever!"
That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me assoon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to thescenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead;that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears.The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled inthis vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly topause in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my headto look: the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleamwas such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. Iwatched her come -- watched with the strangest anticipation; asthough some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She brokeforth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetratedthe sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a whitehuman form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward.It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurablydistant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart -
"My daughter, flee temptation. "
"Mother, I will. "
got some water, I got some bread: for.
So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It wasyet night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawncomes. "It cannot be too early to commence the task I have tofulfil, " thought I. I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken offnothing but my shoes. I knew where to find in my drawers some linen,a locket, a ring. In seeking these articles, I encountered thebeads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester had forced me to accept afew days ago. I left that; it was not mine: it was the visionarybride's who had melted in air. The other articles I made up in aparcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings (it was all I had),I put in my pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl,took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put on yet, andstole from my room.
"Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!" I whispered, as I glided past herdoor. "Farewell, my darling Adele!" I said, as I glanced towardsthe nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embraceher. I had to deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might nowbe listening.
I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause; butmy heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my footwas forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate waswalking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighedwhile I listened. There was a heaven -- a temporary heaven --in this room for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say -
"Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life tilldeath, " and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thoughtof this.
That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting withimpatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I shouldbe gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feelhimself forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhapsgrow desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards thelock: I caught it back, and glided on.
Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, andI did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in thekitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled thekey and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhapsI should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late,must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I openedthe door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in theyard. The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket inone of them was only latched. Through that I departed: it, too,I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield.
A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in thecontrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, butoften noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps.No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to becast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be giveneither to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenlysweet -- so deadly sad -- that to read one line of it would dissolvemy courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank:something like the world when the deluge was gone by.
I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. Ibelieve it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which Ihad put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But Ilooked neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature.He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold,thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the blockand axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the gravegaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homelesswandering -- and oh! with agony I thought of what I left. I couldnot help it. I thought of him now -- in his room -- watching thesunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with himand be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it was nottoo late; I could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. Asyet my flight, I was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back andbe his comforter -- his pride; his redeemer from misery, perhapsfrom ruin. Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment -- far worse thanmy abandonment -- how it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-headin my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickenedme when remembrance thrust it farther in. Birds began singing inbrake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds wereemblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart andfrantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had no solacefrom self- approbation: none even from self-respect. I had injured-- wounded -- left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. StillI could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on.As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled oneand stifled the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along mysolitary way: fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness,beginning inwardly, extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell:I lay on the ground some minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf.I had some fear -- or hope -- that here I should die: but I wassoon up; crawling forwards on my hands and knees, and then againraised to my feet -- as eager and as determined as ever to reachthe road.
When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge;and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stoodup and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going:the driver named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr.Rochester had no connections. I asked for what sum he would takeme there; he said thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty;well, he would try to make it do. He further gave me leave to getinto the inside, as the vehicle was empty: I entered, was shutin, and it rolled on its way.
Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyesnever shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured frommine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless andso agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, likeme, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.