第 二十七 章 · Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and

. 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 Adèle 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, 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, 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 Adèle’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—Adèle must have a new governess,

sir.”

“Oh, Adèle 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