No More Learning

The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr.
Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat
viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She was a
big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent
besides: she showed virile force in the contest--more than once she
almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with
a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At
last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned
them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a
chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the
most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators: he
looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate.

"That is _my wife_," said he. "Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am
ever to know--such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure
hours! And _this_ is what I wished to have" (laying his hand on my
shoulder): "this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth
of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her just
as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the
difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder--this
face with that mask--this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of
the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge
ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize. "

We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some
further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he descended
the stair.

"You, madam," said he, "are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be
glad to hear it--if, indeed, he should be still living--when Mr. Mason
returns to Madeira. "

"My uncle! What of him? Do you know him? "

"Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his
house for some years. When your uncle received your letter intimating
the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, who
was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to Jamaica,
happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he
knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the name of
Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed as you may suppose,
revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is
now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his
disease--decline--and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will
ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate you
from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to
lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred
him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not
too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain
that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to
accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better remain in
England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr. Eyre. Have we
anything else to stay for? " he inquired of Mr. Mason.

"No, no--let us be gone," was the anxious reply; and without waiting to
take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall door. The
clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or
reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he too departed.

I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to which
I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the
bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded--not to weep, not to mourn, I
was yet too calm for that, but--mechanically to take off the wedding
dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I
thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt weak and tired. I
leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I
thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved--followed up and down
where I was led or dragged--watched event rush on event, disclosure open
beyond disclosure: but _now_, _I thought_.

The morning had been a quiet morning enough--all except the brief scene
with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; there
was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance
or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, a calmly
pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short questions
put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an
open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; then the
living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all was over.

I was in my own room as usual--just myself, without obvious change:
nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was
the Jane Eyre of yesterday? --where was her life? --where were her
prospects?

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman--almost a bride, was a
cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were
desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December
storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed
the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes
which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with
untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and
flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and
white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead--struck
with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in
the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so
blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could
never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my
master's--which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering
child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not
seek Mr. Rochester's arms--it could not derive warmth from his breast.
Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted--confidence
destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was not
what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say
he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from
his idea, and from his presence I must go: _that_ I perceived well.
When--how--whither, I could not yet discern; but he himself, I doubted
not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real affection, it seemed, he could
not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he
would want me no more. I should fear even to cross his path now: my view
must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my
conduct!

My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round
me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. Self-abandoned,
relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up
bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and
felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.
I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like
within me--a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these
words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that
should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them--

"Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help. "

It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it--as I
had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips--it
came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole
consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith
death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That
bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul;
I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the
floods overflowed me. "




CHAPTER XXVII


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 Adele 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 Adele'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--Adele must have a new governess, sir. "

"Oh, Adele 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 I. I was
wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did how it was
haunted. I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever saw you, all
knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adele never
would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was
housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac
elsewhere--though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more
retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely
enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in
the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement.
Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but to
each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect
assassination, even of what I most hate.

"Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was
something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a
upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I'll
shut up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front door and board the lower
windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here with _my
wife_, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for money, and
she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her
company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when _my wife_
is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to
stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on--"

"Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady:
you speak of her with hate--with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel--she
cannot help being mad. "

"Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't
know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because
she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you? "

"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.