chapter 27 of Jane air this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by Elizabeth clut Jane air by Charlotte Bronte chapter 27 sometime in the afternoon I raised my head and looking around and seeing the Western Sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall I asked what am I to do 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 in vain it's 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 a 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 slow 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 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 onto the ground and out stretched 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 5 minutes more of that deathlike 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 up braided me with vehement you are passionate I expected a scene of such some kind I was prepared for the hot train of Tears only I wanted them to be shed on my breast now a senseless flaw has received them or your drenched handkerchief but I H 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've 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 you 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 at the shambles he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now Ru 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 mean I forgave him all yet not in words yet not outwardly only at my heart's core you know I am a scoundrel Jane airong 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 s sick and tired 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 heartstrings in rening them from among Mr Rochesters I must leave him at 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 for 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 tied my face away and put his aside what how is this he exclaimed hastily oh I know you won't kiss the husband of Bera Mason you consider my arms filled and my Embraces appropriated at any 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 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 proplate a base and low rake who's been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid and strip you of honor 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 just accustom yourself to accuse and revile me and besides the floodgates of tears are opened and they would rush out if you spoke much and you have no desire to expostulate to upgrade 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 steady voice warned me to cail 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 clared 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 governor 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 a cursed place this of Aken 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 governor to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed and my lands would not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere though I possess an old house fer Dean 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 madw woman's neighborhood from you however was something like like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near nupas tree that Demon's Visage 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 po 200 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 Familia 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 arm should confine you and not a straight waist coat 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 would 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 array 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 tomorrow you shall go I only ask you to endure One More Night Under the this roof chain and then farewell to its miseries and Terrors forever 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'll 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 otun me about her I say why do you find a Dell 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 sphinx-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 descent 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 and 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 longed to exert a fraction of Samson's strength and break the entanglement like toe 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 horar his look that of a man who was just about to burst 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 Fair 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 and 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 Flo as freely and as long as they lik if the flood annoyed him so much the better so I gave way and cried heartily soon I heard him earnestly intreating 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 stealed 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 if enough 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 words cut me yet what could I do or say I ought probably to have done or said nothing but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse at this 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'll 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 disheveled 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 I 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 to only 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 mediter terranean 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 the fact acknowledge 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 saw aboard was cruel to yield was out of the question I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to a 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 mind 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 once had 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 Roland 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 at times Mr Ma and 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 learn from him that he could and would give the latter a Fortune of £30,000 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 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 blanch Ingram tall dark and Majestic her family wished to secure me because I was of good race and so did she they showed her to me in part party 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 boted 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 peaked me she allured me her 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 cander nor refinement in her mind or manners and I married her gross grueling 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 abore 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 doglike attachment he once bore me will probably be the same state one day my father and my brother Roland knew all this but they thought only of the £3,000 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 holy alien to mine her tastes obnoxious to me her cast of mine 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 to sustain 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 obs contradictory exacting orders even then I restrained myself I issued up braiding I ciled 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 word 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 pigy intellect she had and what giant propensities how fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on me Bera 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 my father died too I was rich enough now yet poor to hideous indigence her nature the most gross impure depraved I ever saw was associated with mine and called by the Lord 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 dishonor 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 F mixed with the air I breathed and besides I remembered I had once been her husband that recol ction 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 5 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 in firm in mind thus at the age of 26 I was hopeless one night I'd been awakened by her yells since the medical men pronounced her mad she had of course been shut up top it was a fiery West Indian night one of the description that frequently precedes the Hurricanes of those climates being unable to sleep in bed I got up and opened the window the air was like sulfur steams I could find no refreshment anywhere mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed suddenly around the room the sea which I could hear from then 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 Cannonball 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 profess Harlot ever had a Fowler 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 meant 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 passed 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 pineapples and while the reent 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 draft 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 sulli 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 climb 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 honor so blighted your youth is not your wife nor are you her husband see that she has 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 the suggest question 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 story room of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for 10 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 loosed into of days sometimes weeks which she filled up with abuse of me at last I hired Grace P from the Grimsby 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 farfax 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 there from In the Nighttime 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 of the Wisp where did I go I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the marched 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 and 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 for 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 anyone you liked whether you asked her to marry you and what she said I can tell you whether I found anyone 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 for 10 long years I roved about living first in one Capital then another sometimes in St Petersburg oftener in Paris occasionally in Rome Naples 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 senoras and German grain 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 realization 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 cray 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 Loa of incongruous Unions would have asked to marry me disappointment made me Reckless I tried dissipation never Deery that I hated and hate that was my Indian melin's attribute rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much even in pleasure any enjoyment that borded on Riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices and I issued it yet I could not live alone so I tried the companionship of Mistresses the first I chose was Leen ven another of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them you already know what she was and how my Leo with with her terminated she had two successors an Italian Gia cinta and a German claraa both considered singularly handsome what was their beauty to me in a few weeks giaa was unprincipled and violent I tired of her in three months Clara was honest and quiet but heavy mindless and unimpressive not one wit 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 favorable opinion of me just now you think me an unfeeling loose principled rake don't you I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes indeed sir did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way first with one mistress and then another you talk of it as a mere matter of course it was with me and I did not like it it was a groveling fashion of existence I should never like to return to it hiring a mistress is the next worst thing to buying a slave both are often by nature and Always by position inferior and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Seline geia centa and claraa I felt the truth of those words and I drew from them the certain inference that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me as under any protext with any justification through any temptation to become the successor of these poor girls he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind Des equated their memory I did not give utterance to this conviction it was enough to feel it I impressed it on my heart that it might remain there to serve me as Aid in the time of trial now Jane why don't you say well sir I have not done you are looking grave you disapprove of me still I see but let me come to the point last January rid of all Mistresses in a harsh bitter frame of mind the result of a useless roving lonely life corroded with the disappointment sourly disposed against all men and especially against all womankind for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual faithful loving woman as a mere dream recalled by business I came back to England on a frosty winter afternoon I rode in sight of thornfield Hall a bored spot I expected no peace no pleasure there on a style in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself I passed it as negligently as I did the polard willow opposite to it I had no presentent of what it would be to me no inward warning that the arbitus of my life my genius for good or evil waited there in Humble guise I did not know it even when on the occasion of mro's accident it came up and Gravely offered me help childish and slender creature it seemed as if a linit had hopped to my foot and proposed to Bear me on its tiny Wing I was Surly but the thing would not go it stood by me with strange perseverance and looked and spoke with a sort of authority I must be aided and by that hand and aided I was when once I had pressed the frail shoulder something new a fresh sap and scents stole into my frame it was well I had learned that this elf must return to me that it belonged to my house down below where I could not have felt it pass away from under my hand and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge without singular regret I heard you come home that night Jane though probably you were not aware that I thought of you or watched for you the next day I observed you myself unseen for half an hour while you played with Adele in the gallery it was a snowy day I recollect and you could not go out doors I was in my room the door was a jar I could both listen and watch Adele claimed your outward detention for a while yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere but you were very patient with her my little Jane you talked to her and amused her a long time when at last she left you you lapsed at once into deep revery you book yourself slowly to Pace the gallery now and then in passing a casement you glanced out of the thick falling snow you listened to the sobbing wind and again you paced gently on and dreamed I think those day Visions were not dark there is a pleasurable Illumination in your eye occasionally a soft excitement into your aspect which told of no bitter billi hypochondriac brooding your look revealed rather the sweet musings of Youth when its Spirit follows on willing Wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal Heaven the voice of Mrs Fairfax speaking to a servant in the hall wakened you and how curiously you smiled too and at yourself Janet there was much sense in your smile it was very shrewd and seemed to make light of your own abstraction it seemed to say my fine Visions are all very well but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal I have a Rosy sky and green flowery Eden in my brain but without I am perfectly aware lies at my feet are rough tract to travel and around me gather black tempests to encounter you ran down stairs and demanded of Mrs Fairfax some occupation the weekly house accounts to make up or something of that sort I think it was I was vexed with you for getting out of my sight impatiently I waited for evening when I might summon you to my presence an unusual to me a perfectly new character I suspected was yours I desired to search it deeper and know it better you entered the room with a look and air at once shy and independent you were quaintly dressed much as you are now I made you talk a long I found you full of strange contrasts your Garb and manner were restricted by rule your air was often defent and altogether that of one refined by nature but absolutely unused to society and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solic ISM or blunder yet when addressed you lifted a keen a daring a de glowing eye to your interlocutor's face there was penetration and Power in each glance you gave when plied by close questions you found ready and round answers very soon you seemed to get used to me I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your Grim cross Master Jane for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain Pleasant ease tranquilized your manner snarl as I would you showed no surprise fear annoyance or displeasure at my moroseness you watched me and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious Grace I cannot describe I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw I liked what I had seen wish to see more yet for a long time I treated you distantly and sought your company rarely I was an intellectual Epicure and wish to prolong the gratification of making this novel and peakant acquaintance besides I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its Bloom would fade the sweet charm of freshness would leave it I did not then know that it was no transitory Blossom but rather the radiant resemblance of one cut in an indestructible gem moreover I wish to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you but you did not you kept in the school room as still as your own desk and easel if by chance I met you you passed me as soon and with as little token of recognition as was consistent with respect your habitual expression in those days Jane was a thoughtful look not despondent for you were not sickly but not buoyant for you had little hope and no actual pleasure I wondered what you thought of me or if you ever thought of me and resolved to find this out I resumed my notice of you there was something glad in your glance and genial in your manner when you conversed I saw you had a social heart it was the silent School room it was the tedium of your life that made you mournful I permitted myself the Delight of being kind to you kindness stirred emotions soon your face became soft in expression your tones gentle I liked my name pronounced by your lips and a grateful happy accent I used to enjoy Joy a chance meeting with you Jane at this time there was a curious hesitation in your manner you glanced at me with a slight trouble a hovering doubt you did not know what my Caprice might be whether I was going to play the master and be Stern or the friend and be benignant I was now too fond of you often to simulate the first whim and when I stretched my hand out cordially such Bloom and light and Bliss Rose to your young wistful features I had much to do often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart don't talk anymore of those days sir I interrupted furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes his language was torture to me for I knew what I must do and do soon and all these reminiscences and these Revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult no Jane he returned what necessity is there to dwell on the past when the present is so much shorer the future so much brighter I shuted to hear the infatuated assertion you see now how the case stands do you not he continued after a youth in manhood past half an unutterable misery and half in dreary Solitude I have for the first time found what I can truly love I have found you you are my sympathy my better self my good angel I am bound to you with a strong attachment I think you good gifted lovely a fervent solemn passion is conceived in my heart it leans to you draws you to my Center and spring of Life wraps my existence about you and kindling in pure powerful flame fuses you and me in one it was because I felt and knew this that I resolved to marry you to tell me that I had already a wife as empty mockery you know now that I had been a hideous demon I was wrong to attempt to deceive you but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character I feared early instilled Prejudice I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences this was cowardly I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first as I do now open to you plainly My Life of Agony described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence shown to you not my resolution that word is weak but my resistance bent to love faithfully and well where I am faithfully and well loved in return then I should have asked you to accept my pledge of 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 my vitals terrible Moment full of struggle Blackness burning Not a Human Being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshiped and I must renounce love and Idol one Dre word comprised my intolerable Duty toart Jane you understand what I want of you just this promise I will be yours Mr Rochester Mr Rochester I will not be yours another long silence Chan recommended te with a gentleness that broke me down with grief and turned me stone cold with ominous Terror for this still voice was the pant of a lion Rising Jane do you mean to go 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 be Wicked not to love me it would to obey you a wild look raised his brows crossed his features he rose but he forbore yet I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support I shook I feared but I resolved one instant Jane give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone all happiness will be torn away with you what then is left for a wife I have but the maniac upstairs as well might you refer me to some corpse in Yonder churchyard what shall I do Jane we turn for a companion and for some hope do as I do trust in God and yourself believe in heaven hope to meet again there then you will not yield no then you condemn me to live wretched and to die a cursed his voice Rose I advise you to live sinless and I wish you to die tranquil then you snap snatch love and innocence from me you fling me back on lust for a passion Vice for an occupation Mr Rochester I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself we were born to strive and endure you as well as I do so you will forget me before I forget you you make me a liar by such language you Sully my honor I declared I could not change you tell me to my face I shall change soon and what a distortion in your judgment what a perversity in your ideas is proved by your conduct is it better to drive a fellow creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law no man being injured by the breach for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me this was true and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me and charged me with crime and resisting him they spoke almost as loud as feeling and that clamored wildly oh comply it said think of his misery think of his danger look at his State when left alone remember his headlong nature consider the recklessness following on despair soothe him save him love him tell him you love him and will be his who in the world cares for you or who be injured by what you do still indomitable was the reply I care for myself the more solitary the more friendless the more unsustained I am the more I will respect myself I will keep the law given by God sanctioned by man I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane and not mad as I am now laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation they are for such moments as this when Body and Soul rise in Mutiny against their rigor stringent are they inviolate they shall be if at my individual convenience I might break them what would be their worth they have a worth so I have always believed and if I cannot believe it now it is because I am insane quite insane with my veins running fire and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs preconceived opinions forone determinations are all I 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 rought to the highest he must yield to it for a moment whatever followed he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my waist he seemed to devour me with his flaming glance physically I felt at that moment powerless as stubble exposed to the draft and glow of a furnace mentally I still possessed 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 to his and while I looked in his Fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh his grip was painful and my overtaxed strength almost exhausted never said said he as he ground his teeth never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable a mere read she feels in my hand and he shook me with the force of his hold I could Bend her with my finger and thumb and what good would it do if I bent if I upour if I crushed her consider that eye consider the Resolute Wild free thing looking out of it defying me with more than courage with a Stern Triumph whatever I do with its cage I cannot get at it The Savage beautiful creature if I tear if I Rend the slight prison my outrage will only let the captive loose conqueror I might be of the house but the inmate would escape to Heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay 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 my heart if you would seized against your will you will elude the grasp like an essence you will vanish a I inhale your fragrance oh Jane Oh Come Jane come as he said this he released me from his clutch and only looked at me the look was far worse to resist than the Frantic strain only an idiot however would have succumbed now I had dared and baffled his Fury I must elude his sorrow I retired to the door you are going J I am going sir you are leaving me yes you will not come you will not be my comforter my rescuer my deep love my wild woe my frantic prayer all are nothing to you what unutterable paos within his voice how hard it was to reiterate firmly I am going Jane Mr Rochester withdraw then I consent but remember you leave me here in anguish 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 broken anguish from his lips then came a deep strong SOB I had already gained the door but Reed I walked back walked back as determinedly as I had retreated I knelt down by him I turned his face from the cushion to me I kissed his cheek I smoothed his hair with my hand God bless you my dear master I said God keep you from harm and wrong direct you Solace you reward you well for your past 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 from his eyes erect he sprang he held his arms out but I evaded the Embrace and at once quitted the room farewell was the Cry of my heart as I left him despair added farewell forever that night I never thought to sleep but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood I dreamt I lay in the Red Room at Gates head that the night was dark and my mind impressed with strange fears the light that had long ago struck me into Syncopy recalled in this Vision seemed gliding to mount the wall and tremblingly to pause in the center of the obscured ceiling I lifted up my head to look the roof resolved to clouds high and dim The Gleam was such as the moon imparts to Vapor she is about to sever I watched her come watched with the strangest anticipation as though some word of Doom would be written on her disc she broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud a hand first penetrated the Sable folds and waved them away then not a moon but a white human form Shone in the AIA inclining a glorious brow earthward it gazed and gazed on me it spoke to my spirit immeasurably distant was the tone yet so near it whispered in my heart my daughter flee Temptation mother I will so I answered after I wake from the trans-like dream it was yet night but July nights are short soon after midnight Dawn comes it cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfill thought I I Rose I was dressed for I had taken off nothing but my shoes I knew where to find in my drawers some linen a locket a ring in seeking these articles I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago I left that it was not mine it was the Visionary Brides who had melted in air the other articles I made up in a parcel my purse containing 20 Shillings it was all I had I put in my pocket I tied on my straw Bonnet pinned my Shaw took the parcel and my slippers which I would not put on yet and stole from my room farewell kind Mrs Fairfax I whispered as I glided past her door Farewell My Darling Adele I said as I glanced toward the nursery no thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her I had to deceive a fine ear for ought I knew it might now be listening I would have got past Mr Rochester's chamber without a pause but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold my foot was forced to stop also no sleep was there the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall and again and again he sighed while 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 till death and a fountain of rapture would spring to my lips I thought of this the kind master who could not sleep now was waiting with impatience for day he would send for me in the morning I should be gone he would have me sought for vainly he would feel himself forsaken his love rejected he would suffer perhaps grow desperate I thought of this too my hand moved towards the lock I caught it back and glided on drearily I wound my way downstairs I knew what I had to do and I did it mechanically I sought the key of the side door in the kitchen I sought too a file of oil and a feather I oiled the key and the lock I got some water I got some bread for perhaps I should have to walk far and my strength sorely shaken of late must not break down all this I did without one sound I opened the door passed out shut it softly dim Dawn glimmered in the yard the great Gates were closed and locked but a wicked in one 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 the contrary direction to milet a road I had never traveled but often noticed and wondered where it led thither I bent my steps no reflection was to be allowed now not one glance was to be cast back not even one forward not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future the first was a page so Heavenly sweet so deadly sad that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy the last last was an awful blank something like the world when the Deluge was gone by I skirted fields and hedges and Lanes to left to Sunrise I believe it was a lovely summer morning I know my shoes which I had put on when I left the house were soon wet with Dew but I looked neither to Rising Sun nor smiling sky nor a wakening nature he who was taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road but of the block and ax edge of the deant of bone and vein of the the grave gaping at the end and I thought of Dre flight and homeless wandering and oh with Agony I thought of what I left I could not help it I thought of him now in his room watching the sunrise hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him and be his I longed to be his I panted to return it was not too late I could yet spare him the bitter Pang of bereavement as yet my flight I was sure was undiscovered I could go back and be his comforter his pride his Redeemer From Misery perhaps from ruin that fear of his self-abandonment far worse than my abandonment how it goed me it was a barbed Arrowhead in my breast it tore me when I tried to extract it it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in Birds began singing in break and cops birds were faithful to their mates birds were emblems of love what was I in the midst of my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle I abor B myself I had no Solace from self approbation none even from self-respect I had injured wounded left by Master I was hateful in my own eyes still I could not turn nor retrace One Step God must have led me on as to my own will or conscience impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled the other I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way fast fast I went like one Delirious a weakness beginning in 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 was soon up crawling forwards on my hands and knees and then again raised to my feet as eager and as determined as ever to reach the road when I got there I was forced to sit to rest me under a hedge and while I sat I heard wheels and saw a coach come on I stood up and lifted my hand it stopped I asked where it was going the driver named a place a long way off where I was sure Mr Rochester had no connections I asked for what sum he would take me there he said 30 Shillings I answered I had but 20 well he would try to make it do he further gave me leave to get into the inside as the vehicle was empty I entered was shut in and it rolled on its way gentle reader may you never feel what I then felt may your eyes never shed such stormy scolding heart drun tears is poured from mine may you never appeal to heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips for never may you like me dread to be the instrument of evil to what you Holy Love end of chapter 27