Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest,
he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.
“Now,” he continued, again addressing me, “I have received the
pilgrim—a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me
good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.”
“To speak truth, sir, I don’t understand you at all: I cannot keep up
the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I
know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that
you regretted your own imperfection;—one thing I can comprehend: you
intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems
to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to
become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you
began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would
in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections,
to which you might revert with pleasure.”
“Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am
paving hell with energy.”
“Sir?”
“I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint.
Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have
been.”
“And better?”
“And better—so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to
doubt me; I don’t doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives
are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes
and Persians, that both are right.”
“They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them.”
“They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute:
unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.”
“That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that
it is liable to abuse.”
“Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to
abuse it.”
“You are human and fallible.”
“I am: so are you—what then?”
“The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the
divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.”
“What power?”
“That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,—‘Let it be
right.’”
“‘Let it be right’—the very words: you have pronounced them.”
“_May_ it be right then,” I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to
continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides,
sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my
penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the
uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a
conviction of ignorance.
“Where are you going?”
“To put Adèle to bed: it is past her bedtime.”
“You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx.”
“Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am
certainly not afraid.”
“You _are_ afraid—your self-love dreads a blunder.”
“In that sense I do feel apprehensive—I have no wish to talk nonsense.”
“If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should
mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don’t trouble
yourself to answer—I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very
merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am
naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat;
controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your
limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother—or father,
or master, or what you will—to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or
move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural
with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then
your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they
dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird
through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute
captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are
still bent on going?”
“It has struck nine, sir.”
“Never mind,—wait a minute: Adèle is not ready to go to bed yet. My
position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room,
favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally
watched Adèle (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious
study,—reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day).
She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk
frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her
blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. ‘Il
faut que je l’essaie!’ cried she, ‘et à l’instant même!’ and she rushed
out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process:
in a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,—a
miniature of Céline Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the
rising of—But never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about
to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether
it will be realised.”
Ere long, Adèle’s little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She
entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of
rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could
be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath
of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk
stockings and small white satin sandals.
“Est-ce que ma robe va bien?” cried she, bounding forwards; “et mes
souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!”
And spreading out her dress, she chasséed across the room till, having
reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe,
then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming—
“Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonté;” then rising,
she added, “C’est comme cela que maman faisait, n’est-ce pas,
monsieur?”
“Pre-cise-ly!” was the answer; “and, ‘comme cela,’ she charmed my
English gold out of my British breeches’ pocket. I have been green,
too, Miss Eyre,—ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you
now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left
me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain
be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that
it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but
half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as
just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle
of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I’ll
explain all this some day. Good-night.”
CHAPTER XV
Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one
afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adèle in the grounds: and
while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up
and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Céline
Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a “_grande
passion_.” This passion Céline had professed to return with even
superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he
believed, as he said, that she preferred his “_taille d’athlète_” to
the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.
“And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the
Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel;
gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres,
diamonds, dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining
myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I had not, it
seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and
destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to
deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had—as I deserved to have—the
fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Céline
did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was
tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy
to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence. No,—I
exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue about
her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of
musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to
stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences,
when I bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the
balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight besides, and very still and
serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and
took out a cigar,—I will take one now, if you will excuse me.”
Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a
cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah
incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on—
“I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was
_croquant_—(overlook the barbarism)—_croquant_ chocolate comfits, and
smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along
the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in
an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses,
and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the
‘voiture’ I had given Céline. She was returning: of course my heart
thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The
carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that
is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a
cloak—an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June
evening—I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the
skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over
the balcony, I was about to murmur ‘Mon ange’—in a tone, of course,
which should be audible to the ear of love alone—when a figure jumped
from the carriage after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel
which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now
passed under the arched _porte cochère_ of the hotel.
“You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not
ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to
experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall
waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in
which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes
and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in
the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I
tell you—and you may mark my words—you will come some day to a craggy
pass in the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up
into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to
atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave
into a calmer current—as I am now.
“I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and
stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its
antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey
façade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet
how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a
great plague-house? How I do still abhor—”
He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his
boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in
its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.
We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before
us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such
as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust,
detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the
large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which