Books: Jane Eyre

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"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 I 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, 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, 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, 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, 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 mean 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 pine-apples, 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 Grimbsy 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 undeserved. 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?"