Wuthering Heights
approached to execute his own command.
“He’ll not obey you, wicked man, any more,” said Catherine; “and he’ll
soon detest you as much as I do.”
“Wisht! wisht!” muttered the young man, reproachfully; “I will not hear
you speak so to him. Have done.”
“But you won’t let him strike me?” she cried.
“Come, then,” he whispered earnestly.
It was too late: Heathcliff had caught hold of her.
“Now, _you_ go!” he said to Earnshaw. “Accursed witch! this time she
has provoked me when I could not bear it; and I’ll make her repent it
for ever!”
He had his hand in her hair; Hareton attempted to release her locks,
entreating him not to hurt her that once. Heathcliff’s black eyes
flashed; he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces, and I was just
worked up to risk coming to the rescue, when of a sudden his fingers
relaxed; he shifted his grasp from her head to her arm, and gazed
intently in her face. Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a
moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine,
said, with assumed calmness—“You must learn to avoid putting me in a
passion, or I shall really murder you some time! Go with Mrs. Dean, and
keep with her; and confine your insolence to her ears. As to Hareton
Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you, I’ll send him seeking his bread
where he can get it! Your love will make him an outcast and a beggar.
Nelly, take her; and leave me, all of you! Leave me!”
I led my young lady out: she was too glad of her escape to resist; the
other followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself till dinner.
I had counselled Catherine to dine upstairs; but, as soon as he
perceived her vacant seat, he sent me to call her. He spoke to none of
us, ate very little, and went out directly afterwards, intimating that
he should not return before evening.
The two new friends established themselves in the house during his
absence; where I heard Hareton sternly check his cousin, on her
offering a revelation of her father-in-law’s conduct to his father. He
said he wouldn’t suffer a word to be uttered in his disparagement: if
he were the devil, it didn’t signify; he would stand by him; and he’d
rather she would abuse himself, as she used to, than begin on Mr.
Heathcliff. Catherine was waxing cross at this; but he found means to
make her hold her tongue, by asking how she would like _him_ to speak
ill of her father? Then she comprehended that Earnshaw took the
master’s reputation home to himself; and was attached by ties stronger
than reason could break—chains, forged by habit, which it would be
cruel to attempt to loosen. She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in
avoiding both complaints and expressions of antipathy concerning
Heathcliff; and confessed to me her sorrow that she had endeavoured to
raise a bad spirit between him and Hareton: indeed, I don’t believe she
has ever breathed a syllable, in the latter’s hearing, against her
oppressor since.
When this slight disagreement was over, they were friends again, and as
busy as possible in their several occupations of pupil and teacher. I
came in to sit with them, after I had done my work; and I felt so
soothed and comforted to watch them, that I did not notice how time got
on. You know, they both appeared in a measure my children: I had long
been proud of one; and now, I was sure, the other would be a source of
equal satisfaction. His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off
rapidly the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been
bred; and Catherine’s sincere commendations acted as a spur to his
industry. His brightening mind brightened his features, and added
spirit and nobility to their aspect: I could hardly fancy it the same
individual I had beheld on the day I discovered my little lady at
Wuthering Heights, after her expedition to the Crags. While I admired
and they laboured, dusk drew on, and with it returned the master. He
came upon us quite unexpectedly, entering by the front way, and had a
full view of the whole three, ere we could raise our heads to glance at
him. Well, I reflected, there was never a pleasanter, or more harmless
sight; and it will be a burning shame to scold them. The red fire-light
glowed on their two bonny heads, and revealed their faces animated with
the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she
eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel and learn, that neither
experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity.
They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff: perhaps
you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they
are those of Catherine Earnshaw. The present Catherine has no other
likeness to her, except a breadth of forehead, and a certain arch of
the nostril that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will or
not. With Hareton the resemblance is carried farther: it is singular at
all times, _then_ it was particularly striking; because his senses were
alert, and his mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity. I suppose
this resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff: he walked to the hearth in
evident agitation; but it quickly subsided as he looked at the young
man: or, I should say, altered its character; for it was there yet. He
took the book from his hand, and glanced at the open page, then
returned it without any observation; merely signing Catherine away: her
companion lingered very little behind her, and I was about to depart
also, but he bid me sit still.
“It is a poor conclusion, is it not?” he observed, having brooded
a while on the scene he had just witnessed: “an absurd termination to
my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two
houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and
when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a
slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me;
now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their
representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me. But where is
the use? I don’t care for striking: I can’t take the trouble to raise
my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to
exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case: I
have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle
to destroy for nothing.
“Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I’m in its shadow at
present. I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly
remember to eat and drink. Those two who have left the room are the
only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and
that appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony. About _her_ I won’t
speak; and I don’t desire to think; but I earnestly wish she were
invisible: her presence invokes only maddening sensations. _He_ moves
me differently: and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I’d
never see him again! You’ll perhaps think me rather inclined to become
so,” he added, making an effort to smile, “if I try to describe the
thousand forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or embodies.
But you’ll not talk of what I tell you; and my mind is so eternally
secluded in itself, it is tempting at last to turn it out to another.
“Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a
human being; I felt to him in such a variety of ways, that it would
have been impossible to have accosted him rationally. In the first
place, his startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with
her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my
imagination, is actually the least: for what is not connected with her
to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor,
but her features are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, in every
tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object
by day—I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men
and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world
is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I
have lost her! Well, Hareton’s aspect was the ghost of my immortal
love; of my wild endeavours to hold my right; my degradation, my pride,
my happiness, and my anguish—
“But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you: only it will let you
know why, with a reluctance to be always alone, his society is no
benefit; rather an aggravation of the constant torment I suffer: and it
partly contributes to render me regardless how he and his cousin go on
together. I can give them no attention any more.”
“But what do you mean by a _change_, Mr. Heathcliff?” I said, alarmed
at his manner: though he was neither in danger of losing his senses,
nor dying, according to my judgment: he was quite strong and healthy;
and, as to his reason, from childhood he had a delight in dwelling on
dark things, and entertaining odd fancies. He might have had a
monomania on the subject of his departed idol; but on every other point
his wits were as sound as mine.
“I shall not know that till it comes,” he said; “I’m only half
conscious of it now.”
“You have no feeling of illness, have you?” I asked.
“No, Nelly, I have not,” he answered.
“Then you are not afraid of death?” I pursued.
“Afraid? No!” he replied. “I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment,
nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my hard constitution and
temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and
probably _shall_, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black
hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to
remind myself to breathe—almost to remind my heart to beat! And it is
like bending back a stiff spring: it is by compulsion that I do the
slightest act not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I
notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one
universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties
are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long, and so
unwaveringly, that I’m convinced it _will_ be reached—and
_soon_—because it has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the
anticipation of its fulfilment. My confessions have not relieved me;
but they may account for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humour
which I show. O God! It is a long fight; I wish it were over!”
He began to pace the room, muttering terrible things to himself, till I
was inclined to believe, as he said Joseph did, that conscience had
turned his heart to an earthly hell. I wondered greatly how it would
end. Though he seldom before had revealed this state of mind, even by
looks, it was his habitual mood, I had no doubt: he asserted it
himself; but not a soul, from his general bearing, would have
conjectured the fact. You did not when you saw him, Mr. Lockwood: and
at the period of which I speak, he was just the same as then; only
fonder of continued solitude, and perhaps still more laconic in
company.
CHAPTER XXXIV
For some days after that evening, Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us at
meals; yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and Cathy.
He had an aversion to yielding so completely to his feelings, choosing
rather to absent himself; and eating once in twenty-four hours seemed
sufficient sustenance for him.
One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs, and
out at the front door. I did not hear him re-enter, and in the morning
I found he was still away. We were in April then: the weather was sweet
and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the
two dwarf apple-trees near the southern wall in full bloom. After
breakfast, Catherine insisted on my bringing a chair and sitting with
my work under the fir-trees at the end of the house; and she beguiled