chapter 31 of Jane Eyre 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 klett jane eyre by charlotte brontë chapter 31 my home then when i at last find a home is a cottage a little room with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor containing four painted chairs and table a clock a cupboard with two or three plates and dishes and a set of tea things in Delft above a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers small yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has increased that by a modest stock of such things as unnecessary it is evening I have dismissed with the fee of an orange the Little Orphan who serves me as a handmaid I am sitting alone on the half this morning the village school opened I had twenty scholars but three of the number can read none write or cipher several NIT and a few so a little they speak with the broadest accent of the district at present they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other's language some of them are unmannered rough intractable as well as ignorant but others are docile have a wish to learn and events a disposition that pleases me I must not forget that these coarsely clad little peasants are a flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy and that the germs of native excellence refinement intelligence kind feeling are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best born my duty will be to develop these germs surely I shall find some happiness and discharging that office much enjoyment I do not expect in the life opening before me yet it will doubtless if I regulate my mind and exert my powers as I ought yield me enough to live on from day to day was I very gleeful settled content during the hours I passed in yonder bear humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon not to deceive myself I must reply no I felt desolate to a degree I felt yes idiots that I am I felt degraded I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance the poverty the coarseness of all I heard and saw around me but let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings I know them to be wrong that is a great step gained I shall strive to overcome them tomorrow I trust I shall get the better of them partially and in a few weeks perhaps they will be quite subdued in a few months it is possible the happiness of seeing progress and a change for the better and my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust meantime let me ask myself one question which is better to have surrendered to temptation listened to passion made no painful effort no struggle but to have sunk down in the silken snare fallen asleep when the flowers covering it wakened in a southern clime among the luxuries of a pleasure villa to have been now living in France mr. Rochester's mistress delirious with his love half my time for he would oh yes he would have loved me well for a while he did love me no one will ever love me so again I shall never more know the sweet homage given duty youth and grace for never to anyone else and I seem to possess these charms he was fond and proud of me it is what no man besides will ever be but where am i wandering and what am i saying and above all feeling whether it is better I asked to be a slave in a false paradise at Marseilles fevered with delusive bliss one hour suffocating with the bitterest tears of and shame the next or to be a village school mistress free and honest in a breezy Mountain nook in the healthy heart of England yes I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment God directed me to a correct choice I thank his Providence for the guidance having brought my eventide musings to this point I rose went to my door and looked at the sunset of the harvest day and at the quiet fields before my cottage which with the school was distant half a mile from the village the birds were singing their last strains the air was mild the dew was balm while I looked I thought myself happy and was surprised to find myself ere long weeping and why for the doom which had reffed me from adhesion to my master for him I was no more to see for the desperate grief and fatal fury consequences my departure which might now perhaps be dragging him from the path of right too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration dither at this thought I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of Eve and lonely vale of Morton I say lonely for in that Bend of it visible to me there was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage half-hidden trees and quite at the extremity the roof of Vale Hall with a rich mr. Oliver and his daughter lived I hid my eyes and leant my head against the stone frame for my door but soon a slight noise near the wicket which shot on my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up a dog old Carlo mr. rivers pointer as I saw in a moment was pushing the gate with his nose and Sinjin himself leant upon it with folded arms his brow knit his gaze grave almost to displeasure fixed on me I asked him to come in no I cannot stay I have only brought you a little parcel my sister's left for you I think it contains a color box pencils and paper I approach to take it a welcome gift it was he examined my face I thought with austerity as I came near the traces of tears were doubtless very visible upon it have you found your first day's work harder than you expected he asked oh no on the contrary I think in time I shall get on with my scholars very well but perhaps your accommodations your cottage your furniture have disappointed your expectations they are in truth scanty enough but I interrupted my cottage is clean and weatherproof my furnish is efficient and commodious all I see has made me thankful not despondent I am NOT absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet a sofa and silver plate besides five weeks ago I had nothing I was an outcast a beggar a vagrant now I have acquaintances a home a business I wonder at the goodness of God the generosity of my friends the bounty of my lot I do not repine but you feel solitude and oppression the little house there behind you is dark and empty I have hardly had time to yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness very well I hope you feel the content to express at any rate your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot's wife what you had left before I saw you of course I do not know but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation which would incline you to look back pursue your present career steadily for some months at least it is what I mean to do I answered Sinjin continued it is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature but that it may be done I know from experience God has given us in a measure the power to make our own fate and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get when our will strains after a path we may not follow we need neither star from in earnest nor stand still in despair we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind as strong as the forbidden food it long to taste and perhaps Fuhrer and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one fortune has blocked up against us if rougher than it a year ago I was myself intensely miserable because I thought I'd made a mistake in entering the ministry its uniform duties wearied me to death I burned for the more active life of the world for the more exciting toils of a literary career for the destiny of an artist author orator anything rather than that of a priest yes the heart of a politician of a soldier of a voter II of glory a lover of renown a luster after power beat under my curate's surplice I considered my life was so wretched it must be changed or I must die after a season of darkness and struggling light broke and relief fell my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds my powers heard a call from heaven to rise gather their full strength spread their wings and mount beyond Ken God had an errand for me to bear which afar to deliver it well skill and strength courage and eloquence the best qualifications of soldier statesman and orator were all needed for these all center in the good missionary a missionary I resolved to be from that moment my state of mind changed the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty leaving nothing of bondage but it's galling soreness which time only can heal my father indeed imposed that termination but since his death I have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with some affairs settled a successor for Morton provided an entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut asunder a last conflict with human weakness in which I know I shall overcome because I have vowed that I will overcome and I leave Europe for the East he said this in his peculiar subdued yet emphatic voice looking when he had ceased speaking not at me but the Setting Sun and which I looked to both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the field to the wicket we had heard no step on that grass-grown track the water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene we might well then start when a gay voice sweet as a silver bell exclaimed good evening mr. rivers and good evening old Carlo your dog is quicker to recognize his friends than you are sir he pricked his ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field and you have your back towards me now it was true though mr. rivers had started at the first of those musical accents as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head he stood yet at the close of the sentence in the same attitude in which the speaker had surprised him his arm resting on the gate his face directed towards the West he turned at last with measured deliberation a vision as it seemed to me had risen at his side there appeared within three feet of him a form clad in pure white a youthful graceful form full yet fine and contour and when after bending to caress Carlo it lifted up its head and threw back a long veil there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty perfect beauty is a strong expression but I do not retrace or qualify it as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of albion moulded as pure hues of rose and Lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened justified in this instance the term no charm was wanting no defect was perceptible the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments eyes shaped and colored as we see them in lovely pictures large and dark and full the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination the pencilled brow which gives such clearness the white smooth forehead which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tintin ray the cheek oval fresh and smooth the lips fresh to ruddy healthy sweetly formed the even and gleaming teeth without flaw the small dimpled chin the ornament of rich plenteous tresses all advantages in short which combined realized the ideal of beauty were fully hers I wondered as I looked at the spare creature I admired her with my whole heart Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood and forgetting her usual stinted stepmother dole of gifts had endowed this her darling with a grand daams bounty what did singe in rivers think of this earthly angel I naturally asked myself that question as I saw him turned to her and look at her and as naturally I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance he had already withdrawn his eye from the parry and was looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket a lovely evening but late for you to be out alone he said as he crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot oh I only came home from s she mentioned the name of a large town some 20 miles distant this afternoon Papa told me you would open your school and that the new mistress was come and so I put on my bonnet after tea and ran up the valley to see her this is she pointing to me it is said Sinjin do you think you shall like Morton she asked of me with a direct and naive simplicity of tone and manner pleasing if childlike I hope I shall I have many inducements to do so did you find her scholars as attentive as you expected quite do you like your house very much have I finished it nicely very nicely indeed and made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice would you have indeed she is teachable and handy this then I thought is miss Oliver the heiress favored it seems in the gifts of fortune as well as in those of nature what happy combination of the planets presided over her birth I wonder I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes she added it will be a change for me to visit you now and then and I like a change mr. rivers I have been so gay during my stay at s last night or rather this morning I was dancing till two o'clock the blanked regiment a stationed there since the riots and the officers the most agreeable men in the world they put all our young knife grinders and scissor merchants to shame it seemed to me that mr. Simkins under lip protruded and his upper lip curled a moment his mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed and the lower part of his face unusually Stern and square as the Laughing girl gave him this information he lifted his gaze too from the daisies and turned it on her an unsmiling are searching a meaning gaze it was she answered it with a second laugh and laughter well became her youth her roses her dimples her bright eyes as he stood mute and grave she again fell to caressing Carlo poor Carlo loves me said she he is not stern and distant to his friends and if he could speak he would not be silent as she patted the dog's head bending with native grace before his young and austere master I saw a glow rise to that master's face I saw his solemn I melt with sudden fire and Flickr with resistless emotion flushed and kindled thus he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a woman his chest heaved once as if his large heart weary of despotic constriction had expanded despite the will and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty but he curbed it I think as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed he responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made him purpose says you never come to see us now continued miss Oliver looking up you are quite a stranger at Vale Hall he is alone this evening and not very well will you return with me and visit him it is not a seasonable hour to intrude on mr. Oliver and since engine not a seasonable hour but I declare it is it is just the hour when papar most wants company when the works are closed and he has no business to occupy him now mr. rivers come why are you so very shy and so very somber she filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of her own I forgot she exclaimed shaking her beautiful curled head as if shocked at herself I am so giddy and thoughtless do excuse me it had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for joining in my chatter Diana and Mary have left you and more houses shut up and you are so lonely I am sure I pity you do come and see Papa not tonight miss Rosamund not tonight mr. Sinjin spoke almost like an automaton himself only knew the effort it cost him thus to refuse well if you are so obstinate I will leave you for I dare not stay any longer the dew begins to fall good evening she held out her hand he just touched it good evening he repeated in a voice low and hollow as an echo she turned but in a moment returned are you well she asked well might she put the question his face was as blanched as her gown quite well he enunciated and with a bow he left the gate she went one way he and other she turns twice to gaze after him as she tripped very like down the field he as he strode firmly across never turned at all this spectacle of another suffering and sacrifice wrapped my thoughts from exclusive meditation on my own Diana rivers had designated her brother inexorable as death she had not exaggerated end of chapter 31 you you