Jane Eyre - Full Audiobook (Charlotte Brontë) | Part 3 of 3 - Jane Eyre [Deluxe Edition]

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I reached the house and knocked at the kitchen door.
An old woman opened. I asked, was this the parsonage? Yes,
was the clergyman in. No, would he be in soon? No,
he was gone from home to a distance not so
far happened three mile. He had been called away by

(00:20):
the sudden death of his father. He was at marsh
and now, and would very likely stay there a fortnight longer.
Was there any lady of the house. Nay, there was
naught but her, and she was housekeeper, and of her reader.
I could not bear to ask the relief for one
of which I was sinking, I could not yet beg,
And again I crawled away. Once more, I took off

(00:43):
my handkerchief. Once more I thought of the cakes of
bread in the little shop. Oh for but a crust,
for but one mouthful, to allay the pang of famine.
Instinctively I turned my face again to the village. I
found the shop again, and I went in, And though
others were there besides the woman, I ventured the request.

(01:04):
Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief? She
looked at me with evident suspicion. Nay, she never sold
stuff by that way. Almost desperate, I asked for half
a cake. She again refused. How could she tell where
I had got the handkerchief, she said? Would she take
my gloves? No? What could she do with them? Reader,

(01:25):
it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some
say there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past.
But at this day I can scarcely bear to review
the times to which I allude. The moral degradation blend
with the physical suffering form two distressing a recollection ever
to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those

(01:48):
who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to
be expected and what could not be helped. An ordinary
beggar is frequently an object of suspicion, A well dressed
beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was employment.
But whose business was it to provide me with employment?
Not certainly that of persons who saw me then for

(02:11):
the first time, and who knew nothing about my character.
And as to the woman who would not take my
handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why she was right
if the offer appeared to her sinister, or the exchange
and profitable. Let me condense now, I am sick of
the subject. A little before dark, I passed a farmhouse

(02:33):
at the open door of which the farmer was sitting
eating his supper of bread and cheese. I stopped and said,
will you give me a piece of bread, for I
am very hungry. He cast on me a glance of surprise,
but without answering, he cut a thick slice from his
loaf and gave it to me. I imagine he did

(02:53):
not think I was a beggar, but only an eccentric
sort of lady who had taken a fancy to his brown.
As soon as I was out of sight of his house,
I sat down and ate it. I could not hope
to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it
in the wood I have before alluded to. But my
night was wretched, my rest broken, the ground was damp,

(03:15):
the air cold. Besides, intruders passed near me more than once,
and I had again and again to change my quarters.
No sense of safety or tranquility befriended me. Towards morning,
it rained. The whole of the following day was wet.
Do not ask me, reader, to give a minute account

(03:36):
of that day. As before, I sought work as before,
I was repulsed. As before, I starved, but once did
food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage,
I saw a little girl about to throw a mess
of cold porridge into a pig trough. Will you give
me that, I asked. She stared at me. Mother, she exclaimed,

(03:59):
there is a woman wants me to give her these porridge. Well, last,
replied a voice within, give it her if she's a
beggar tea pig doesn't want it. The girl emptied the
stiffened mold into my hand, and I devoured it ravenously.
As though wet twilight deepened. I stopped in a solitary
bridle path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.

(04:23):
My strength is quite failing me, I said in a soliloquy.
I feel I cannot go much farther. Shall I be
an outcast again this night while the rain descend. So
must I lay my head on the cold drenched ground.
I fear I cannot do otherwise, for who will receive me?
But it will be very dreadful. With this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill,

(04:47):
and this sense of desolation, this total prostration of hope
in all likelihood, though I should die before morning, And
why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death?
Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life because
I know or believe mister Rochester is living? And then

(05:08):
to die of want and cold is a fate to
which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence, sustain me a
little longer, aid direct me my glazed I wandered over
the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had strayed
far from the village. It was quite out of sight.
The very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by

(05:32):
crossways and bypaths, once more drawn near the tract of Moorland.
And now only a few fields, almost as wild and
unproductive as the heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed,
lay between me and the dusky hill. Well. I would
rather die yonder than in a street or on a
frequented road, I reflected. And far better that crows and ravens,

(05:57):
if any ravens there be in these regions, should pay
my flesh from my bones, than that they should be
prisoned in a workhouse, coffin and molder in a pauper's grave.
To the hill. Then I turned, I reached it. It
remained now only to find a hollow where I could
lie down and feel at least hidden, if not secure.

(06:18):
But all the surface of the waste looked level. It
showed no variation but of tint green where rush and
moss overgrew, the marshes black, where the dry soil bore
only heath dark. As it was getting I could still
see these changes, though, but as mere alternations of light
and shade for color had faded with the daylight. My

(06:41):
eyes still roved over the sullen swell and along the
moor edge, vanishing amidst the wildest scenery. When at one
dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges,
a light sprang up. That is an ignis fatuus, was
my first thought, and I expected it would soon vanish.
It burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing.

(07:06):
Is it then a bonfire just kindled? I questioned. I
watched to see whether it would spread, But no, as
it did not diminish, so it did not enlarge. It
may be a candle in a house, I then conjectured.
But if so, I can never reach it. It is
much too far away, And were it within a yard

(07:26):
of me, what would it avail? I should but knock
at the door to have it shut in my face,
And I sank down where I stood, and hid my
face against the ground. I lay still a while. The
night wind swept over the hill and over me, and
died moaning in the distance. The rain fell fast, wetting
me afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened

(07:48):
to the still frost, the friendly numbness of death it
might have pelted on? I should not have felt it,
But my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence.
I wrote. The light was yet there, shining, dim but
constant through the rain. I tried to walk again. I
dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it. It led me

(08:11):
aslant over the hill through a wide bog which would
have been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking
even now in the height of summer. Here I fell twice,
but as often I rose and rallied my faculties. This
light was my forlorn hope I must gain it. Having
crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over

(08:34):
the moor. I approached it. It was a road or
a track. It led straight up to the light, which
now beamed from a sort of knoll amidst a clump
of trees, firs, apparently from what I could distinguish of
the character of their forms and foliage through the gloom.
My star vanished as I drew near. Some obstacle had

(08:55):
intervened between me and it. I put out my hand
to feel the dark mass before me. I discriminated the
rough stones of a low wall above it something like palisades,
and within a high and prickly hedge I groped on again.
A whitish object gleamed before me. It was a gate,
a wicket. It moved on its hinges as I touched it.

(09:18):
On each side stood a sable bush, holly or you.
Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of
a house rose to view black, low and rather long,
but the guiding light shone Nowhere. All was obscurity, where
the inmates retired to rest. I feared it must be so.

(09:39):
In seeking the door, I turned an angle. There shot
out the friendly gleam again from the lozenged panes of
a very small latticed window. Within a foot of the ground,
made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some
other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion
of the house wall in which it was set. The

(10:00):
aperture was so screened and narrow that curtain or shudder
had been deemed unnecessary. And when I stooped down and
put aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I
could see all within. I could see clearly a room
with a sanded floor, clean scoured, a dresser of walnut
with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and

(10:24):
radiance of a glowing peat fire. I could see a clock,
a white deal table, some chairs, the candle whose ray
had been my beacon burnt on the table and by
its light. And elderly woman somewhat rough looking, but scrupulously
clean like all about her, was knitting a stalking I

(10:45):
noticed these objects cursorily only, and then there was nothing extraordinary.
A group of more interest appeared near the hearth, sitting
still amidst the rosy piece and warmth suffusing it too.
Young grace women, ladies in every point sat one in
a low rocking chair, the other on a lower stool.

(11:07):
Both wore deep mourning of crape and bombazine, which somber
garbs singularly set off very fair necks and faces. A
large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the
knee of one girl, and the lap of the other
was cushioned a black cat. A strange place was this
humble kitchen for such occupants. Who were they? They could

(11:29):
not be the daughters of the elderly person at the table,
for she looked like a rustic, and they were all
delicacy and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs,
and yet as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate
with every lineament. I cannot call them handsome. They were
too pale and grave for the word. As they each

(11:52):
bent over a book, they looked thoughtful, almost to severity.
A stand between them supported a second candle and two
great volumes, to which they frequently referred, comparing them seemingly
with the smaller books they held in their hands, like
people consulting a dictionary to aid them in the task

(12:12):
of translation. This scene was as silent as if all
the figures had been shadows, and the firelit apartment of picture.
So hushed was it I could hear the cinders fall
from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner,
and I even fancied I could distinguish the click click
of the woman's knitting needles. When therefore, a voice broke

(12:34):
the strange stillness. At last it was audible enough to me. Listen,
Diana said one of the absorbed students. Franz and old
Daniel are together in the nighttime, and Franz is telling
a dream from which he has awakened in terror. Listen,
and in a low voice, she read something of which
not one word was intelligible to me, for it was

(12:57):
in an unknown tongue, neither French nor life. Whether it
were Greek or German, I could not tell. That is strong,
she said. When she had finished, I relish it. The
other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to
her sister repeat it while she gazed at the fire.
A line of what had been read at a later day.

(13:18):
I knew the language and the book. Therefore I will
here quote the line, though when I first heard it
it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me,
conveying no meaning. To trot herveer Einer and zusan we
die stern and neckt good good, she exclaimed, while her
dark and deep ice sparkled. There you have a dim

(13:41):
and mighty archangel fitly set before you. The line is
worth one hundred pages of question each wage Dye gaedenkin
in durshale means soren's UNDI dye wherka mit dem gewicht
means grins. I like it. Both were again silent. Is
there only country where they talk that way? Asked the

(14:01):
old woman, looking up from her knitting. Yes, Hannah, a
far larger country than England, where they talk in no
other way. Well, for sure, case I not how they
can understand to you one tother. And if either O
you went there you could tell what they said. I
guess we could probably tell something of what they said,

(14:23):
but not all. For we are not as clever as
you think us, Hannah. We don't speak German, and we
cannot read it without a dictionary to help us. And
what good does it do you? We mean to teach
it some time, or at least the elements, as they say,
and then we shall get more money than we do now.
Bari like, but give our studying eve done enough for tonight?

(14:47):
I think we have at least I'm tired, Mary, are
you mortally? After all? It's tough work fagging away at
a language with no master but a lexicon. It is
a special such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch.
I wonder when Saint John will come home. Surely he

(15:07):
will not be long now it is just ten. Looking
at a little gold watch, she drew from her girdle,
It rains fast. Hannah, will you have the goodness to
look at the fire in the parlor? The woman rose.
She opened a door through which I dimly saw a passage.
Soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room.

(15:27):
She presently came back. Ah Childer, said she. It fair
troubles me to go into yond room now it looks
so lonesome. Why the chair empty? And set back in
a corner. She wiped her eyes with her apron. The
two girls grave before looked sad now. But he is
in a better place, continued Hannah. We shouldn't wish him

(15:51):
here again, and then nobody need to have a quieter death.
Nor he had, you say he never mentioned us, inquired
one of the ladies. He hadn't time, barren, He was
gone in a minute, was your father. He had been
a bit ailing like the day before, but not to signify.
And when mister Saint John asked if he would like either,

(16:12):
oh ye, to be sent for he fair laughed at him.
He began again with a bit of a heaviness in
his head. The next day, that is a fortnight sin,
and he went to sleep and nither awakened. He wore
amos stark when your brother went into tea chamber and
fanned him. Ah, childer, that's tea, last, O t old

(16:34):
stock for ye, and mister Saint John is like of
different sort to them. That's gone for all. Your mother
wore Michigan Eye your Way and amost as book learned,
she wore the Victor. Oh ye, Mary, Diana is more
like your father. I thought them so similar I could
not tell where the old servant for such I now

(16:55):
concluded her to be saw the difference. Both were fair
complexion and slenderly made. Both possessed faces full of distinction
and intelligence. One, to be sure, had Harris shade darker
than the other, and there was a difference in their
style of wearing it. Mary's pale brown locks were parted

(17:15):
and braided smooth. Diana's duskier tresses covered her neck with
thick curls. The clock struck ten. You'll want your supper,
I am sure, observed Hannah, and so will mister Saint
John when he comes in, and she proceeded to prepare
the meal. The ladies rose. They seemed about to withdraw

(17:35):
to the parlor. Till this moment, I had been so
intent on watching them. Their appearance and conversation had excited
in me so keen an interest. I had half forgotten
my own wretched position. Now it recurred to me more desolate,
more desperate than ever it seemed from contrast, and how
impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this house

(17:58):
with concern on my behalf, to make them believe in
the truth of my wants and woes, to induce them
to vouchsafe arrest for my wanderings. As I groped out
the door and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that
last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened, What
do you want? She inquired in a voice of surprise,

(18:20):
as she surveyed me by the light of the candle
she held, May I speak to your mistresses, I said,
you had better tell me what you have to say
to them? Where do you come from? I am a stranger?
What is your business here at this hour? I want
a night's shelter in an outhouse or anywhere, and a
morsel of bread to eat. Distrust The very feeling I

(18:43):
dreaded appeared in Hannah's face. I'll give you a piece
of bread, she said, after a pause. But we can't
take in a vagrant to lotch. It isn't likely. Do
Let me speak to your mistresses. No not, I what
can I do for you? You should not be roving
about now. It looks very ill. But where shall I go?

(19:05):
If you drive me away? What shall I do? Oh?
I'll warrant you no where to go and what to do?
Mind you don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny,
Now go. A penny cannot feed me, and I have
no strength to go farther. Don't shut the door out, don't.
For God's sake, I must. The rain is driving in.

(19:26):
Tell the young ladies let me see them. Indeed I
will not. You are not what you ought to be,
or you wouldn't make such a noise. Move off? But
I must die if I am turned away, not you.
I'm feared you have some ill plans agot that bring
you about folks houses at this time own night. If
you've any followers, housebreakers, or such like anywhere near, you

(19:50):
may tell them. We are not by ourselves in the house.
We have a gentleman, and dogs and guns. Here. The
honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted
it within. This was the climax, a pang of exquisite suffering,
a throe of true despair, rent and heaved. My heart

(20:11):
worn out. Indeed, I was not another step could I stir.
I sank on the wet doorstep. I groaned, I wrung
my hands. I wept in utter anguish. Oh this specter
of death, Oh, this last hour approaching in such horror,
alas this isolation, this banishment from my kind. Not only

(20:33):
the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone,
at least for a moment, but the last I soon
endeavored to regain. I can but die, I said, And
I believe in God. Let me try to wait his
will in silence. These words I not only thought, but uttered,
and thrusting back all my misery into my heart. I

(20:55):
made an effort to compel it to remain there, dumb
and still. Almond must die, said a voice quite close
at hand. But all are not condemned to meet a
lingering and premature doom such as yours would be if
you perished here. Of want? Who or what speaks? I asked,
terrified at the unexpected sound, and incapable now of deriving

(21:19):
from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was near?
What form? The pitch dark knight, and my enfeebled vision
prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud, long knock, the
newcomer appealed to the door. Is it you, mister saint, John,
cried Hannah, yes, yes, open quickly. Well, how wet and

(21:41):
cold you must be, such a wild night as it is.
Come in. Your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and
I believe there are bad folks about. There has been
a beggar woman, I declare, she is not gone yet,
laid down there, get up for shame, move off, I say, hush, Hannah,

(22:01):
I have a word to say to the woman. You
have done your duty in excluding now let me do
mine in admitting her. I was near, and listen to
both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case.
I must at least examine into it. Young woman, rise
and pass before me into the house with difficulty. I

(22:22):
obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean, bright kitchen,
on the very hearth, trembling, sickening, conscious of an aspect
in the last degree, ghastly, wild and weather beaten. The
two ladies, their brother, mister Saint John, the old servant,
were all gazing at me. Saint John, who is it?

(22:44):
I heard one ask? I cannot tell. I found her
at the door, was the reply. She does look white,
said Hannah, as white as clay or death. Was responded,
she will fall. Let her sit, And indeed my head swam.
I dropped, but a chair received me. I still possessed

(23:04):
my senses, though just now I could not speak. Perhaps
a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some but
she is worn to nothing, how very thin and how
very bloodless? A mere specter? Is she? Ill? Or only famished? Famished?
I think, Hannah, is that milk? Give it me and

(23:26):
a piece of bread. Diana. I knew her by the
long curls which I saw drooping between me and the fire,
as she bent over me, broke some bread, dipped it
in milk, and put it to my lips. Her face
was near mine. I saw there was pity in it,
and I felt sympathy in her, hurried breathing in her

(23:46):
simple words too the same bomb like emotion. Spoke Try
to eat, yes, try, repeated Mary gently, and Mary's hand
removed my sodden bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted
what they offered me, feebly at first, eagerly, soon, not
too much at first. Restrain her, said the brother, She

(24:09):
has had enough, and he withdrew the cup of milk
and the plate of bread a little more. Saint John,
look at the avidity in her eyes. No more at
presents sister. Try if she can speak? Now, ask her
her name? I felt I could speak, and I answered,
my name is Jane Elliot. Anxious as ever to avoid discovery,

(24:31):
I had before resolved to assume an alias. And where
do you live? Where are your friends? I was silent.
Can we send for anyone? You know? I shook my head.
What account can you give of yourself? Somehow, Now that
I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and
once was brought face to face with its owners. I

(24:52):
felt no longer outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world.
I dared to put off the mendic to resume my
natural manner and character. I began once more to know myself.
And when mister Saint John demanded an account, which at
present I was far too weak to render, I said,
after a brief pause, Sir, I can give you no

(25:14):
details tonight. But what then? Said he do you expect
me to do for you? Nothing? I replied, My strength
sufficed for but short answers. Diana took the word do
you mean? She asked that we have now given you
what age you require, and that we may dismiss you
to the moor and the rainy night. I looked at her.

(25:35):
She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct both with
power and goodness. I took sudden courage, answering her compassionate
gait with a smile, I said, I will trust you
if I were a masterless and stray dog. I know
that you would not turn me from your hearth tonight.
As it is, I really have no fear do with

(25:59):
me and for me you like, but excuse me from
much discourse. My breath is short. I feel a spasm
when I speak. All three surveyed me, and all three
were silent. Hannah, said mister St. John. At last let
her sit there at present and ask her no questions.
In ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that

(26:22):
milk and bread. Mary and Diana let us go into
the parlor and talk the matter over. They withdrew. Very
soon one of the ladies returned. I could not tell
which a kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me
as I sat by the genial fire. In an undertone,
she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere long, with the

(26:43):
servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase. My dripping
clothes were removed. Soon a warm, dry bed received me.
I thanked God, experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion, a glow of
grateful joy, and slept. Chapter twenty nine, The recollection of

(27:06):
about three days and nights succeeding this is very dim
in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in
that interval, but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed.
I knew I was in a small room and in
a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown.
I lay on it, motionless as a stone, and to

(27:26):
have torn me from it would have been almost to
kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time,
of the change from morning to noon, from noon to evening.
I observed when anyone entered or left the apartment. I
could even tell who they were. I could understand what
was said when the speaker stood near to me, but
I could not answer. To open my lips or move

(27:49):
my limbs was equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my
most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I had a
feeling that she wished me away, that she did not
understand me or my circumstances, that she was prejudiced against me.
Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice

(28:09):
a day. They would whisper sentences of this sword at
my bedside. It is very well we took her in. Yes,
she would certainly have been found dead at the door
in the morning had she been left out all night.
I wonder what she has gone through strange hardships. I imagine, poor, emaciated,
pallid wanderer. She is not an uneducated person, I should think,

(28:33):
by her manner of speaking, her accent was quite pure,
and the clothes she took off, though splashed and wet,
were little worn and fine. She has a peculiar face,
fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like it,
And when in good health and animated, I can fancy
her physiognomy would be agreeable. Never once in their dialogues

(28:56):
did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality
they had extended to me, or of suspicion of or
aversion to myself. I was comforted. Mister St. John came,
but once he looked at me and said, my state
of lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and
protracted fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor,

(29:20):
nature he was sure would manage best left to herself.
He said, every nerve had been overstrained in some way,
and the whole system must sleep torpid Awhile there was
no disease, he imagined my recovery would be rapid enough.
When once commenced these opinions, he delivered in a few
words in a quiet, low voice, and added, after a pause,

(29:45):
in the tone of a man little accustomed to expansive comment,
rather an unusual physiognomy, certainly not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.
Far otherwise, responded Diana to speak truth, Saint John, my
heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish

(30:06):
we may be able to benefit her permanently. That is
hardly likely, was the reply. You will find she is
some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends,
and has probably injudiciously left them. We may perhaps succeed
in restoring her to them if she is not obstinate.
But I trace lines of force in her face which

(30:27):
make me skeptical of her tractability. He stood, considering me
some minutes, then added, she looks sensible, but not at
all handsome. She is so ill, Saint John, ill, or well,
she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of
beauty are quite wanting in those features. On the third

(30:48):
day I was better. On the fourth I could speak, move,
rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some
gruel and dry toast about as I supposed the dinner
hour I had eaten with relish. The food was good,
void of the feverish flavor which had hitherto poisoned. What
I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively

(31:11):
strong and revived. Ere long satidy of repose and desire
for action stirred me. I wished to rise, but what
could I put on? Only my damp and bemirred apparel,
in which I had slept on the ground and fallen
in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors.
So clad, I was spared the humiliation. On a chair

(31:35):
by the bedside. Were all my own things clean and dry.
My black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces
of the bog were removed from it, the creases left
by the wet smoothed out. It was quite decent. My
very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable. There
were the means of washing in the room, and a

(31:56):
comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary
process and resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself.
My clothes hung loose on me, for I was much wasted,
But I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once more
clean and respectable looking, no speck of the dirt, no

(32:17):
trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed
so to degrade me. Left. I crept down a stone
staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow,
low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.
It was full of the fragrance of new bread and
the warmth of a generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices,

(32:39):
it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from
the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized
by education. They grow there firm as weeds among stones.
Hannah had been cold and stiff. Indeed, at the first
latterly she had begun to relent a little, and when

(32:59):
she saw me come in, tidy and well dressed, she
even smiled. What you have got up? She said, you
are better? Then you may sit you down in my
chair on the hearthstone, if you will. She pointed to
the rocking chair. I took it. She bustled about, examining
me every now and then, with the corner of her
eye turning to me as she took some loaves from

(33:23):
the oven, she asked, bluntly, did you ever go a
begging afore you came here? I was indignant for a moment,
but remembering that anger was out of the question and
that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her,
I answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness.
You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am

(33:45):
no beggar any more than yourself or your young ladies.
After a pause, she said, I don not understand that
you've like no house nor no brass. I guess the
one of house or brass by which I suppose you
mean money does not make a beggar in your sense
of the word. Are you book learned, she inquired presently, yes, very,

(34:08):
But you've never been to a boarding school. I was
at a boarding school eight years. She opened her eyes wide.
Whatever cannot you keep yourself for? Then? I have kept myself,
and I trust shall keep myself again. What are you
going to do with these gooseberries, I inquired, as she
brought out a basket of the fruit mac m into pies.

(34:30):
Give them to me and I'll pick them. Nay, I
don't want you to do not, but I must do something.
Let me have them, she consented, and she even brought
me a clean towel to spread over my dress. Lest
as she said, I should mucky it eve not been
used to sarvants work. I see by your hands, she remarked,

(34:53):
happen EVE been a dressmaker? No, you're wrong, and now
never mind what I have been. Don't trouble your head
further about me, but tell me the name of the
house where we are. Some calls it marsh End, and
some calls it Moorhouse. And the gentleman who lives here
is called mister St John. Nay, he doesn't live here,

(35:15):
he is only staying awhile when he is at home,
he is in his own parish at Morton, that village
a few miles off Hi. And what is he? He
is a parson, I remembered the answer of the old
housekeeper at the parsonage when I had asked to see
the clergyman. This then was his father's residence. I old

(35:38):
mister Rivers lived here, and his father and grandfather and
gert great grandfather afore him. The name then of that
gentleman is mister Saint John Rivers. I Saint John is
like his Kirsten name. And his sisters are called Diana
and Mary Rivers. Yes, their father is dead dead three

(36:00):
weeks sin of a stroke they have no mother. The
mistress has been dead this many a year? Have you
lived with a family long? I've lived here thirty year?
I nursed them all three. That proves you must have
been an honest and faithful servant. I will say so
much for you, though you have had the incivility to

(36:21):
call me a beggar, She again regarded me with a
surprise stare. I believe, she said, I was quite missed
done in my thoughts of you. But there is so
many cheats goes about you m unforging me. And though
I continued rather severely, you wish to turn me from
the door on a night when you should not have
shut out a dog? Well it was hard, but what

(36:45):
can a body do? I thought more oth children, nor
of missile poor things. They've liked nobody to tack care
on em but me, I'm like to look sharpish. I
maintained a grave silence for some minutes. You munn't think
too hardly of me, she again remarked. But I do
think hardly of you, I said, And I'll tell you why.

(37:07):
Not so much because you refuse to give me shelter,
or regarded me as an impostor as because you just
now made it a species of reproach that I had
no brass and no house. Some of the best people
that ever lived have been as destitute as I am.
And if you are a Christian, you ought not to
consider poverty a crime. No more I ought, said she.

(37:29):
Mister Saint John tells me so too. And I see
I wore rang, But I've clear a different notion on you.
Naa what I had. You look a right down, dacent
little crater. That will do I forgive you. Now shake hands.
She put her flowery and horny hand into mine. Another
and heartier smile illumined her rough face, and from that

(37:51):
moment we were friends. Hannah was evidently fond of talking.
While I picked the fruit and she made the paste
for the pies. She proceeded to give me sundry details
about her deceased master and mistress and the childer, as
she called the young people. Old Mister Rivers, she said,
was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of

(38:14):
as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End
had belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house,
and it was, she affirmed, Aboon, two hundred year old.
For all it looked but a small humble place, not
to compare why mister Oliver's grand haul down I Morton Vale.
But she could remember Bill Oliver's father, a journeyman needlemaker,

(38:37):
and tch rivers war Gentry ich out days otch Henry's
as Aunibody might see by looking into thh registers I
Morton Church Vestry. Still she allowed the Outmaster was like
other folk, not michigan ot ot common Way Stark mad
O shooting and farming and sitch like. The mistress was different.

(39:02):
She was a great reader and studied a deal, and
the barons had taken after her. There was nothing like
them in these parts, nor ever had been. They had
liked learning, all three almost from the time they could speak,
and they had always been of a mac of their own.
Mister st John, when he grew up, would go to

(39:24):
college and be a parson, and the girls, as soon
as they left school, would seek places as governesses. For
they had told her their father had some years ago
lost a great deal of money by a man he
had trusted, turning bankrupt, and as he was now not
rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves.

(39:45):
They had lived very little at home for a long while,
and were only come now to stay a few weeks
on account of their father's death. But they did so
like marsh End and Morton and all these moors and
hills about. They had been in London and many other
grand towns, but they always said there was no place
like home, And then they were so agreeable with each other,

(40:08):
never fell out nor threacked. She did not know where
there was such a family for being united. Having finished
my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two
ladies and their brother were. Now gone over to Morton
for a walk, but they would be back in half
an hour to tea. They returned within the time Hannah
had allotted them. They entered by the kitchen door. Mister

(40:31):
Saint John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed through.
The two ladies stopped. Mary in a few words, kindly
and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me
well enough to be able to come down. Diana took
my hand. She shook her head at me. You should
have waited for my leave to descend, she said, you

(40:52):
still look very pale and so thin. Poor child, poor girl.
Diana had a voice toned to my ear, like the
cooing of a dove. She possessed eyes whose gaze I
delighted to encounter. Her whole face seemed to me fill
of charm. Mary's countenance was equally intelligent, her features equally pretty,

(41:15):
but her expression was more reserved, and her manners, though gentle,
more distant. Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority.
She had a will. Evidently it was my nature to
feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers,
and to bend where my conscience and self respect permitted

(41:36):
to an active will. And what business have you here,
she continued, It is not your place. Mary and I
sit in the kitchen sometimes because at home we like
to be free, even to license. But you are a
visitor and must go into the parlor. I am very
well here, not at all with Hannah bustling about and

(41:57):
covering you with flower. Besides, the fire is too hot
for you, interposed Mary. To be sure, added her sister. Come,
you must be obedient, And still holding my hand, she
made me rise and led me into the inner room.
Sit there, she said, placing me on the sofa, while

(42:18):
we take our things off and get the tea ready.
It is another privilege we exercise in our little Moorland
home to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined,
or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing. She
closed the door, leaving me solace with mister Saint John,
who sat opposite a book or newspaper in his hand.

(42:42):
I examined first the parlor and then its occupant. The
parlor was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet
comfortable because clean and neat. The old fashioned chairs were
very bright, and the walnutwood table was like a looking glass.
A few strange antique portraits of the men and women

(43:03):
of other days decorated the stained walls. A cupboard with
glass doors contained some books and an ancient set of china.
There was no superfluous ornament in the room, not one
modern piece of furniture save a brace of wre boxes
and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a
side table. Everything including the carpet and curtains, looked at

(43:28):
once well worn and well saved. Mister Saint John, sitting
as still as one of the dusty pictures on the walls,
keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and
his lips, neatly sealed, was easy enough to examine. Had
he been a statue instead of a man, he could
not have been easier. He was young, perhaps from twenty

(43:50):
eight to thirty, tall, slender, his face riveted the eye.
It was like a Greek face, very pure in outline,
quite a straight classic nose, quite an Athenian mouth and chin.
It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near
the antique models as did his. He might well be

(44:12):
a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his
own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue
with brown lashes. His high forehead, colorless as ivory, was
partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair. This
is a gentle delineation, is it not? Reader? Yet he

(44:33):
whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of
a gentle a yielding an impressible or even of a
placid nature quiescent. As he now sat, there was something
about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which to my perceptions,
indicated elements within either restless or hard or eager. He

(44:56):
did not speak to me one word, nor even direct
to me one glance till his sisters returned. Diana, as
she passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea,
brought me a little cake baked on the top of
the oven. Eat that now, she said, you must be hungry.
Hannah says, you have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast.

(45:19):
I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened
and keen. Mister Rivers now closed his book, approached the table,
and as he took a seat, fixed his blue pictorial
looking eyes full on me. There was an unceremonious directness,
a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told

(45:40):
that intention and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted
from the stranger. You are very hungry, he said, I am, sir.
It is my way, It always was my way by instinct, ever,
to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.
It is well for you that a low fever has
forced you to abstain for the last three days. There

(46:03):
would have been danger in yielding to the cravings of
your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still
not immoderately. I trust one shall not eat long at
your expense, sir, was my very clumsily contrived, unpolished answer. No,
he said coolly. When you have indicated to us the
residence of your friends, we can write to them and

(46:26):
you may be restored to home. That I must plainly
tell you is out of my power to do, being
absolutely without home and friends. The three looked at me,
but not distrustfully. I felt there was no suspicion in
their glances. There was more of curiosity. I speak particularly
of the young ladies. Saint John's eyes, though clear enough

(46:49):
in a literal sense, in a figurative one, were difficult
to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments
to search other people's thoughts than as agents to reveal
his own, the which combination of keenness and reserve was
considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage. Do you
mean to say, he asked, that you are completely isolated

(47:11):
from every connection I do. Not a tie links me
to any living thing. Not a claim do I possess
to admittance under any roof in England, A most singular
position at your age. Here I saw his glance directed
to my hands, which were folded on the table before me,
I wonder what he sought there. His words soon explained

(47:32):
the quest. You have never been married. You are a spinster.
Diana laughed. Why she can't he above seventeen or eighteen
years old? Saint John said she, I am near nineteen,
but I am not married. No, I felt a burning
glow mount to my face. For bitter and agitating recollections

(47:54):
were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw
the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me
by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimson visage.
But the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze till
the trouble he had excited forced out tears as well
as color. Where did you last reside? He now asked,

(48:17):
You are too inquisitive? Saint John murmured Mary in a
low voice, but he leaned over the table and required
an answer by a second, firm and piercing Look, the
name of the place where and of the person with
whom I lived is my secret? I replied concisely, which,
if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right

(48:38):
to keep both from Saint John and every other questioner.
Remark Diana, Yet, if I know nothing about you or
your history. I cannot help you, he said, And you
need help, do you not? I need it, and I
seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will
put me in the way of getting work which I

(48:58):
can do and the remuner for which will keep me
if but in the barest necessaries of life. I know
not whether I am a true philanthropist. Yet I am
willing to aid you to the utmost of my power
and a purpose. So honest first, then tell me what
you have been accustomed to do and what you can do.

(49:19):
I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed
by the beverage, as much so as a giant with wine.
It gave new tone to my unstrung nerves and enabled
me to address this penetrating young judge steadily, mister Rivers,
I said, turning to him and looking at him as
he looked at me openly and without diffidence. You and

(49:42):
your sisters have done me a great service the greatest
man can do his fellow being. You have rescued me
by your noble hospitality from death. This benefit conferred gives
you an unlimited claim on my gratitude and a claim
to a certain extent. On my confidence, I will tell

(50:02):
you as much of the history of the Wanderer you
have harbored as I can tell without compromising my own
peace of mind, my own security moral and physical, and
that of others. I am an orphan, the daughter of
a clergyman. My parents died before I could know them.
I was brought up a dependent educated in a charitable institution.

(50:26):
I will even tell you the name of the establishment
where I passed six years as a pupil and two
as a teacher, Lowood, Orphan Asylum, Shire. You will have
heard of it, mister Rivers. The Reverend Robert Brocklehurst is
the treasurer. I have heard of mister Brocklehurst, and I
have seen the school. I left Lowood nearly a year

(50:47):
since to become a private governess. I obtained a good
situation and was happy this place. I was obliged to
leave four days before I came here. The reason of
my departure I cannot and ought not to explain. It
would be useless, dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame
attached to me. I am as free from culpability as

(51:10):
any one of you. Three miserable I am, and must
be for a time. For the catastrophe which drove me
from a house I had found a paradise was of
a strange and direful nature. I observed but two points
in planning my departure, speed secrecy. To secure these, I
had to leave behind me everything I possessed, except a

(51:31):
small parcel, which in my hurry and trouble of mind
I forgot to take out of the coach that brought
me to Whitcross to this neighborhood. Then I came quite destitute.
I slept two nights in the open air, and wandered
about two days without crossing a threshold. But twice in
that space of time did I taste food. And it

(51:53):
was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to
the last gasp, that you missed her rivers, forbade me
to perish of one at your door, and took me
under the shelter of your roof. I know all your
sisters have done for me since, for I have not
been insensible during my seeming torpor, and I owe to

(52:13):
their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as
to your evangelical charity. Don't make her talk any more now,
Saint John, said Diana, as I paused. She is evidently
not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa and
sit down, now, Miss Elliott, I gave an involuntary half

(52:34):
started hearing the alias. I had forgotten my new name.
Mister Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at once.
You said your name was Jane Elliot, he observed. I
did say so, and it is the name by which
I think it expedient to be called at present. But
it is not my real name, and when I hear it,

(52:55):
it sounds strange to me. Your real name. You will
not give no. Oh, I fear discovery above all things,
and whatever disclosure would lead to it, I avoid. You
are quite right, I am sure, said Diana. Now do brother,
let her be at peace a while. But when Saint
John had mused a few moments, he recommenced us imperturbably

(53:18):
and with as much acumen as ever. You would not
like to be long dependent on our hospitality. You would
wish I see to dispense as soon as may be,
with my sister's compassion, and above all, with my charity.
I am quite sensible of the distinction drawn, nor do
I resent it. It is just you desire to be

(53:38):
independent of us I do. I have already said, so
show me how to work, or how to seek work.
That is all I now ask. Then let me go,
if it be but to the meanest cottage. But till
then allow me to stay here. I dread another essay
of the horrors of homeless destitution. Indeed, you shall stay

(53:59):
here here, said Diana, putting her white hand on my head.
You shall, repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity,
which seemed natural to her. My sisters, you see, have
a pleasure in keeping you, said mister Saint John, as
they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a
half frozen bird some wintry wind might have driven through

(54:23):
their casement. I feel more inclination to put you in
the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavor to do so.
But observe, my sphere is narrow. I am, but the
incumbent of a poor country parish. My aid must be
of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to
despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient

(54:44):
sucker than such as I can offer. She has already
said that she is willing to do anything honest she
can do, answer Diana for me, and you know, Saint John,
she has no choice of helpers. She is forced to
put up with such crusty people as you you. I
will be a dressmaker, I will be a plain work woman.

(55:04):
I will be a servant, a nurse girl. If I
can be no better, I answered, right, said mister Saint John,
quite coolly. If such is your spirit, I promised to
aid you in my own time and way. He now
resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.
I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much and

(55:25):
sat up as long as my present strength would permit,
Chapter thirty. The more I knew of the inmates of Moorhouse,
the better I liked them. In a few days, I
had so far recovered my health that I could sit
up all day and walk out. Sometimes I could join

(55:46):
with Diana and Mary in all their occupations, converse with
them as much as they wished, and aid them when
and where they would allow me. There was a reviving
pleasure in this intercourse of a kind now tasted by
me for the first time, the pleasure arising from perfect
congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles. I liked to read

(56:08):
what they liked, to read what they enjoyed, delighted me
what they approved. I reverenced they loved their sequestered home.
I too. In the gray, small antique structure, with its
low roof, its latticed casements, its moldering walls, its avenue
of aged firs, all grown as land under the stress

(56:30):
of mountain winds, its garden dark with yew and holly,
and where no flowers but of the heartiest species would bloom,
found a charm both potent and permanent. They clung to
the purple moors behind and around their dwelling, to the
hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle path leading from
their gate descended, and which wound between fern banks, first

(56:55):
and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture
fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath or gave
sustenance to a flock of gray moorland sheep with their
little mossy faced lambs. They clung to the scene, I say,
with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the

(57:15):
feeling and share both its strength and truth. I saw
the fascination of the locality. I felt the consecration of
its loneliness. May I feasted on the outline of swell
and sweep, on the wild coloring communicated to ridge and dell,
by moss, by heath, bell, by flower, sprinkled turf, by

(57:35):
brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag. These details were just
to me what they were to them, So many pure
and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the
soft breeze, the rough and the halcyon day, the hours
of sunrise and sunset, the moonlight and the clouded night
developed for me in these regions. The same attraction as

(57:59):
for them wound round my faculties, the same spell that
entrance theirs indoors. We agreed equally well. They were both
more accomplished and better read than I was. But with
eagerness I followed in the path of knowledge they had
trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent me.
Then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in

(58:21):
the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought
fitted thought, opinion met opinion. We coincided, in short, perfectly,
if in our trio. There was a superior and a leader.
It was Diana. Physically, she far excelled me. She was handsome,
she was vigorous in her animal spirits. There was an

(58:43):
affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as excited
my wonder while it baffled my comprehension. I could talk
a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush
of vivacity and fluency gone. I was fain to sit
on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest my head
on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary

(59:06):
while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had
but touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I like
to learn of her. I saw the part of instructress
pleased and suited her. That of scholar pleased and suited
me no less our nature's dovetailed mutual affection of the
strongest kind was the result. They discovered I could draw.

(59:29):
Their pencils and color boxes were immediately at my service.
My skill greater in this one point than theirs, surprised
and charmed them. Mary would sit and watch me by
the hour. Together, then she would take lessons and a docile, intelligent,
assiduous pupil. She made thus occupied and mutually entertained. Days

(59:52):
passed like hours, and weeks like days. As to mister
Saint John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and
rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him.
One reason of the distance yet observed between us, was
that he was comparatively seldom at home. A large proportion

(01:00:13):
of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and
poor among the scattered population of his parish. No weather
seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions, rain or fair,
He would, when his hours of morning study were over,
take his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo,

(01:00:35):
go out on his mission of love or duty. I
scarcely know in which light he regarded it. Sometimes, when
the day was very unfavorable, his sisters would expostulate. He
would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful.
And if I let a gust of wind or a

(01:00:55):
sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks,
what pre d would such sloth be for the future?
I proposed to myself, Diana and Mary's general answer to
this question was a sigh and some minutes of apparently
mournful meditation. But besides his frequent absences, there was another

(01:01:15):
barrier to friendship with him. He seemed of a reserved
and abstracted, and even of a brooding nature, zealous and
his ministerial labors, blameless in his life and habits. He
yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that
inward content which should bet he reward of every sincere

(01:01:37):
Christian and practical philanthropist. Often of an evening, when he
sat at the window, his desk and papers before him,
he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on
his hand, and deliver himself up to I know not
what course of thought, but that it was perturbed and
exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful

(01:01:59):
diylight of his eye. I think moreover, that nature was
not to him that treasury of delight. It was to
his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my hearing,
a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills,
and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary
walls he called his home. But there was more of

(01:02:20):
gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which
the sentiment was manifested. And never did he seem to
roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence,
never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights
they could yield incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed
before I had an opportunity of gaging his mind. I

(01:02:42):
first got an idea of its caliber when I heard
him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish
I could describe that sermon, but it is past my power.
I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.
It began calm, and indeed, as far as delivery and
pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end

(01:03:03):
and earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained. Zeal breed soon in
the distinct accents and prompted the nervous language. This grew
to force, compressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was thrilled, the
mind astonished by the power of the preacher. Neither were softened.
Throughout there was a strange bitterness, an absence of consolatory gentleness,

(01:03:29):
stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines, election predestination, reprobation were frequent,
and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence
pronounced for doom. When he had done. Instead of feeling better, calmer,
more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness.

(01:03:51):
For it seemed to me, I know not whether equally
so to others, that the eloquence to which I had
been listening had sprung from a depth where later he
dregs of disappointment, where moved troubling impulses, of insatiate yearnings
and disquieting aspirations. I was sure Saint John Rivers, pure lived, conscientious,

(01:04:12):
zealous as he was, had not yet found that peace
of God which posseth all understanding. He had no more
found it, I thought, than had I with my concealed
and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost eligium,
regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which
possessed me and tyrannized over me ruthlessly. Meantime, a month

(01:04:36):
was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave more
House and returned to the far different life and scene
which awaited them as governesses in a large, fashionable south
of England City, where each held a situation in families
by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only
as humble dependants, and who neither knew nor sought out

(01:04:59):
there innate ex silences, and appreciated only their acquired accomplishments,
as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the
taste of their waiting woman. Mister Saint John had said
nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised
to obtain for me. Yet it became urgent that I
should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, being

(01:05:20):
left alone with him a few minutes in the parlor,
I ventured to approach the window recess, which his table
chair and desk consecrated as a kind of study. And
I was going to speak, though not very well, knowing
in what words to frame my inquiry, for it is
at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve
glassing over such natures as his. When he saved me

(01:05:43):
the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue,
looking up as I drew near, You have a question
to ask of me, he said, yes, I wish to
know whether you have heard of any service I can
offer myself to undertake. I found or devised something for
you three weeks ago. But as you seemed both useful
and happy here, as my sisters had evidently become attached

(01:06:05):
to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure, I
deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort
till their approaching departure from marsh End should render yours necessary.
And they will go in three days now, I said, yes,
And when they go, I shall return to the parsonage
at Morton. Hannah will accompany me, and this old house

(01:06:28):
will be shut up. I waited a few moments, expecting
he would go on with the subject first broached, But
he seemed to have entered another train of reflection. His
look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was
obliged to recall him to a theme which was of
necessity one of close and anxious interest to me. What

(01:06:50):
is the employment you had in view, mister Rivers? I
hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of
securing it. Oh, no, since it is an employment which
depends only on me to give and you to accept.
He again paused. There seemed a reluctance to continue, I
grew impatient. A restless movement or two, and an eager

(01:07:12):
and exacting glance fastened on his face conveyed the feeling
to him as effectually as words could have done, and
with less trouble. You need be in no hurry to hear,
he said. Let me frankly tell you I have nothing
eligible or profitable to suggest before I explain. Recall, if

(01:07:32):
you please My notice clearly given that if I helped you,
it must be as the blind man would help the lame.
I am poor, for I find that when I have
paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining to me
will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind,
and the patch of Moorish soil with the yew trees

(01:07:54):
and holly bushes in front. I am obscure. Rivers is
an old name, but of the three sole descendants of
the race, two earn the dependent's crust among strangers, and
the third considers himself an alien from his native country,
not only for life but in death, yes and deems

(01:08:15):
and is bound to deem himself honored by the lot
and aspires. But after the day when the cross of
separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders.
And when the head of that church, militant of whose
humblest members he has won, shall give the word rise,
follow me. Saint John said these words as he pronounced

(01:08:36):
his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice, with an unflushed
cheek and a coruscating radiance of glance. He resumed, And
since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer
you but a service of poverty and obscurity. You may
even think it degrading, For I see now your habits
have been what the world calls refined, your tastes lean

(01:08:59):
to the ideal, and your society has at least been
amongst the educated. But I consider that no service degrades
which can better our race. I hold that the more
arid and unreclaim the soil where the Christian laborer's task
of tillage is appointed him, the scantier the meat his
toil brings, the higher the honor his Under such circumstances

(01:09:22):
is the destiny of the pioneer. And the first pioneers
of the Gospel were the Apostles. Their captain was Jesus
the Redeemer, himself. Well, I said, as he again paused
proceed He looked at me before he proceeded. Indeed, he
seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features

(01:09:44):
and lines were characters on a page. The conclusions drawn
from this scrutiny, he partially expressed in his succeeding observations.
I believe you will accept the post I offer you,
said he and hold it for a while, not permanently,
though any more than I could permanently keep the narrow
and narrowing the trinquill hidden office of English country incumbent.

(01:10:08):
For in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to
repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.
Do you explain, I urged, when he halted once more,
I will, and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,
how trivial, how cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton,
now that my father is dead and that I am

(01:10:29):
my own master. I shall leave the place, probably in
the course of a twelvemonth. But while I do stay,
I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton,
when I came to it two years ago, had no school.
The children of the poor were excluded from every hope
of progress. I established one for boys. I mean now

(01:10:51):
to open a second school for girls. I have hired
a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two
rooms attached to it for the mistress's house. Her salary
will be thirty pounds a year. Her house is already
furnished very simply but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady,
Miss Oliver, the only daughter of the sole rich man

(01:11:14):
in my parish, Mister Oliver, the proprietor of a needle
factory and iron foundry in the valley. The same lady
pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from
the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress
in such menial offices connected with her own house and
the school, as her occupation of teaching will prevent her

(01:11:36):
having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress?
He put the question rather hurriedly. He seemed have to
expect an indignant or at least a disdainful rejection of
the offer. Not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though
guessing some, he could not tell in what light the
lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble.

(01:12:00):
But then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum.
It was plotting, but then compared with that of a
governess in a rich house. It was independent, and the
fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron.
It was not ignoble, not unworthy, not mentally degrading. I
made my decision. I thank you for the proposal, mister Rivers,

(01:12:24):
and I accept it with all my heart. But you
comprehend me, he said. It is a village school. Your
scholars will be only poor girls, cottagers, children at the best,
farmer's daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering will be all
you will have to teach. What will you do with
your accomplishments? What with the largest portion of your mind? Sentiments, tastes,

(01:12:51):
save them till they are wanted. They will keep you
know what you undertake? Then I do, He now smiled,
and not a bitter or a smile, but one well
pleased and deeply gratified. And when will you commence the
exercise of your function. I will go to my house
to morrow and open the school if you like next week,

(01:13:13):
very well, so be it. He rose and walked through
the room. Standing still. He again looked at me. He
shook his head. What do you disapprove of, mister Rivers?
I asked, you will not stay at Morton long? No? No,
why what is your reason for saying so? I read
it in your eye? It is not of that description

(01:13:36):
which promises the maintenance of an even tenor in life.
I am not ambitious. He started at the word ambitious.
He repeated, No, what made you think of ambition? Who
is ambitious? I know I am, But how did you
find it out? I was speaking of myself. Well, if
you are not ambitious, you are He paused. What I

(01:13:59):
was going to say, impassioned. But perhaps he would have
misunderstood the word and been displeased. I mean that human
affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you.
I am sure you cannot long be content to pass
your leisure in solitude and to devote your working hours
to a monotonous labor, holy void of stimulus, any more

(01:14:22):
than I can be content, he added, with emphasis, to
live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains. My
nature that God gave me, contravened my faculties Heaven bestowed, paralyzed,
made useless. You hear Now, how I contradict myself, I

(01:14:42):
who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the
vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water
in God's service. I, his ordained minister, almost rave in
my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by
some means. He left the room. In this brief hour,

(01:15:04):
I had learnt more of him than in the whole
previous month. Yet still he puzzled me. Diana and Mary
Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached
for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried
to appear as usual, that the sorrow they had to
struggle against was one that could not be entirely conquered

(01:15:24):
or concealed. Diana intimated that this would be a different
parting from any they had ever yet known. It would, probably,
as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting
for years. It might be a parting for life. He
will sacrifice all to his long framed resolves, she said,
natural affection and feelings more potent. Still Saint John looks quiet, Jane,

(01:15:50):
but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would
think him gentle, Yet in some things he is inexorable
as death. And the worst of it is my conscience
will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe decision.
Certainly I cannot, for a moment blame him for it.
It is right, noble Christian, Yet it breaks my heart.

(01:16:12):
And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent
her head low over her work. We are now without father,
We shall soon be without home and brother, she murmured.
At that moment, a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed
by fate, purposely to prove the truth of the adage
that misfortunes never come singly, and to add to their distresses,

(01:16:36):
the vexing one of the slip between the cup and
the lip. Saint John passed the window, reading a letter.
He entered. Our uncle John is dead, said he. Both
The sisters seemed struck, not shocked or appalled. The tidings
appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting dead, repeated Diana. Yes,

(01:16:57):
she riveted a searching gaze on her brother's sad face.
And what then, she demanded, in a low voice. What
then die? He replied, maintaining a marble, immobility of feature.
What then, why? And nothing read? He threw the letter
into her lap. She glanced over it and handed it

(01:17:18):
to Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it
to her brother. All three looked at each other, and
all three smiled a dreary, pensive smile. Enough, Amen, we
can yet live, said Diana. At last, At any rate,
it makes us no worse off than we were before,

(01:17:39):
remarked Mary. Only it forces rather strongly on the mind
the picture of what might have been, said mister Rivers,
and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with what is. He
folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again
went out. For some minutes, no one spoke. Diana then
turned to me, Jane, you will wonder at us and

(01:18:02):
our mysteries, she said, and think us hard hearted beings
not to be more moved at the death of so
near a relation as an uncle. But we have never
seen him or known him. He was my mother's brother.
My father and he quarreled long ago. It was by
his advice that my father risked most of his property

(01:18:22):
in the speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them.
They parted in anger and were never reconciled. My uncle
engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings. It appears he realized
a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married
and had no near kindred but ourselves and one other

(01:18:45):
person not more closely related than we. My father always
cherished the idea that he would atone for his error
by leaving his possessions to us. That letter informs us
that he is bequeathed every penny to the other relation,
with the exception of thirty guineas to be divided between
Saint John, Diana and Mary Rivers for the purchase of

(01:19:09):
three morning rings. He had a right, of course, to
do as he pleased, and yet a momentary damp is
cast on the spirits. By the receipt of such news,
Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a
thousand pounds each, and to Saint John such a sum
would have been valuable for the good it would have
enabled him to do this explanation. Given the subject was

(01:19:32):
dropped and no further reference made to it by either
mister Rivers or his sisters. The next day I left
marsh End for Morton. The day after Diana and Mary
quitted it for distant be dash. In a week mister
Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage, and so the
old grange was abandoned, Chapter thirty one. My home, then,

(01:19:56):
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 a table, a clock, a
cupboard with two or three plates and dishes, and a
set of tea things in delf Above a chamber of
the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead

(01:20:19):
and chest of drawers, small yet too large to be
filled with my scandy wardrobe. Though the kindness of my
gentle and generous friends has increased that by a modest
stock of such things as are necessary. It is evening
I have dismissed with the fee of an orange, the
little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am

(01:20:42):
sitting alone on the hearth. This morning the village school opened.
I had twenty scholars, but three of the number can read,
none write or cipher. Several knit, and a few so
a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the
district at present, and they and I have a difficulty
in understanding each other's language. Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable,

(01:21:08):
as well as ignorant, but others are docile, have a
wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me.
I must not forget that these coarsely clad little peasants
are of flesh and blood as good as the signs
of gentless genealogy, and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence,

(01:21:29):
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 in 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

(01:21:50):
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, idiot,

(01:22:10):
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

(01:22:31):
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 in my scholars may substitute gratification

(01:22:53):
for disgust. Meantime, let me ask myself one question, which
is better to have so rendered to temptation, listened to passion,
made no painful effort, no struggle, But to have sunk
down in the silken snare, fallen asleep on the flowers
covering it, wakened in a southern climb, amongst the luxuries

(01:23:15):
of a pleasure villa, to have been now living in France,
mister 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 to beauty, youth, and grace,

(01:23:36):
for never to anyone else shall I seem to possess
these charms. He was fond and proud of me. It
is what no man besides will ever be dought. But
where am I wandering? And what am I saying? And
above all feeling? Whether is it better I ask to
be a slave and a fool's paradise at Marseille's, fevered

(01:23:56):
with delusive bliss one hour, suffocating with the bitterest years
of remorse 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

(01:24:17):
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
even tide 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

(01:24:40):
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 erelong weeping, and why
for the doom which had reft me from adhesion to
to my master. For him, I was no more to see,

(01:25:03):
for the desperate grief and fatal fury consequences of my departure,
which might now perhaps be dragging him from the path
of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither.
At this thought I turned my face aside from the
lovely sky of Eve and lonely veil of Morton, I say, lonely,

(01:25:24):
for in that bend of it visible to me, there
was no building of parent, save the church and the parsonage,
half hid in trees, and quite at the extremity the
roof of vale Hall, where the rich mister Oliver and
his daughter lived. I hid my eyes and leant my
head against the stone frame of my door. But soon

(01:25:45):
a slight noise near the wicket, which shut in my
tiny garden from the meadow beyond it, made me look
up a dog. Old Carlo, mister Rivers pointer, as I
saw in a moment, was pushing the gate with his nose,
and Saint John him's self lent upon it with folded arms,
his brown knit, his gaze grave, almost a displeasure fixed

(01:26:07):
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 approached to take it.
A welcome gift, it was. He examined my face, I
thought with austerity. As I came near, the traces of

(01:26:30):
tears were doubtless very visible upon it. Have you found
your first days 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,

(01:26:51):
in truth scanty enough. But I interrupted. My cottage is
clean and weather proof, my furniture sufficient, and 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,

(01:27:14):
five weeks ago I had nothing. I was an outcast,
a beggar, a vagrant. Now I have acquaintance, 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

(01:27:37):
have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquility,
much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness. Very well,
I hope you feel the content you 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,

(01:27:58):
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, Saint
John continued, it is hard work to control the workings
of inclination and turn the bent of nature, but that

(01:28:19):
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 assesstenance,
they cannot get. When our will strains after a path
we may not follow, we need neither starve from inanition,
nor stand still in despair. We have but to seek

(01:28:39):
another nourishment for the mind as strong as the forbidden
food it long to taste, and perhaps purer 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 had made any mistake

(01:29:00):
in entering the ministry. Its uniform duties wearied me to death.
I burn 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 votary of glory, a lover

(01:29:23):
of renown, a luster after power beat under my curate surplus.
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 plane without bounds. My powers

(01:29:47):
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, statesmen,
and orator were all needed. For these all center in

(01:30:10):
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
its galling soreness, which time only can heal. My father
indeed imposed the determination, But since his death I have

(01:30:33):
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,

(01:30:57):
subdued yet emphatic voice, looking when he had ceased speaking
not at me, but at the setting sun, at which
I looked too. 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 veil was the one lulling
sound of the hour and scene. We might well then start,

(01:31:20):
when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed,
good evening, mister 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 mister

(01:31:42):
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,

(01:32:06):
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
in contour, And when after bending to caress Carlo, it
lifted up its head and threw back a long veil

(01:32:26):
there bloomed under his glance of 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 climb of Albion molded as pure hues of rose
and lily, as ever, her humid gales and vapory skies
generated and screened justified. In this instance the term no

(01:32:52):
charm was wanting. No defect was perceptible. The young girl
had regular and delicate lineaments, eyes shaped in color as
we see them in lovely pictures, large and dark and full.
The long and shadowy eyelash, which in circles of fine
eye with so soft a fascination. The penciled brow which

(01:33:12):
gives such clearness, The white, smooth forehead, which adds such
repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray. The
cheek oval fresh and smooth, the lips fresh too, ruddy, healthy,
sweetly formed, the even and gleaming teeth without flaw, the small,

(01:33:32):
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 this fair creature.
I admired her with my whole heart. Nature had surely
formed her in a partial mood, and forgetting her usual

(01:33:56):
stinted stepmother Dole of Gifts, had endowed this her darling
with a grand dame's bounty. What did Saint John Rivers
think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked myself that question,
as I saw him turn 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

(01:34:19):
the perry 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 Dash.
She mentioned the name of a large town some twenty
miles distant. This afternoon. Papa told me you had opened

(01:34:43):
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, Saint John. Do you think
you shall like Morton? She asked of me, with a
direct and naive simplicity of tone and manner pleasing if childlike,

(01:35:05):
I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.
Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected? Quite?
Do you like your house very much? Have I furnished
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

(01:35:28):
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,

(01:35:49):
mister Rivers. I've been so gay during my stay at
s Dash last night, or rather this morning, I was
dancing till two o'clock. The teach regiment are stay there
since the riots, and the officers are the most agreeable
men in the world. They put all our young knife
grinders and scissor merchants to shame. It seemed to me

(01:36:10):
that mister Saint John's 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, and, unsmiling, a searching a meaning gaze

(01:36:34):
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

(01:36:55):
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 flicker with resistless emotion, flushed and kindled. Thus he

(01:37:16):
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

(01:37:40):
movement to the gentle advances made him. Papa 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, mister Oliver, answered Saint John. Not

(01:38:02):
a seasonable hour, But I declare it is. It is
just the hour when Papa most wants company, when the
works are closed and he has no business to occupy him. Now,
mister Rivers, do 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,

(01:38:25):
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 house is shut up,
and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity

(01:38:48):
you do come and see Papa. Not tonight, Miss Rosamond,
Not tonight, mister Saint John 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.

(01:39:10):
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 blanched as her gown. Quite well, he enunciated,

(01:39:32):
and with a bow, he left the gate. She went
one way, he another. She turned twice to gaze after
him as she tripped fairylike down the field. He, as
he strode firmly across, never turned at all. This spectacle
of another's suffering and sacrifice rapped my thoughts from exclusive

(01:39:53):
meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother
inexorable as death she had no not exaggerated Chapter thirty two.
I continue the labors of the village school as actively

(01:40:13):
and faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work.
At first, some time elapsed before with all my efforts
I could comprehend my scholars and their nature. Wholly untaught,
with faculties, quite torpid. They seemed to me hopelessly dull,
and at first sight, all dull alike. But I soon

(01:40:34):
found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them
as amongst the educated. And when I got to know
them and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself. Their
amazement at me, my language, my rules, and ways once subsided,
I found some of these heavy looking, gaping rustics wake

(01:40:55):
up into sharp witted girls. Enough many showed themselves obliging
and amiable too, And I discovered amongst them not a
few examples of natural politeness and innate self respect, as
well as of excellent capacity that won both my goodwill
and my admiration. These soon took a pleasure in doing

(01:41:16):
their work well, in keeping their persons neat in learning
their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly manners. The
rapidity of their progress in some instances was even surprising,
and an honest and happy pride I took in it. Besides,
I began personally to like some of the best girls,

(01:41:38):
and they liked me. I had amongst my scholars several
farmers daughters, young women grown almost These could already read, write,
and sew, And to them I taught the elements of grammar, geography, history,
and the finer kinds of needlework. I found estimable characters
amongst them, characters desirous of information and disposed for improvement,

(01:42:03):
with whom I passed many a pleasant evening hour in
their own homes. Their parents, then the farmer, and his wife,
loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment in accepting
their simple kindness and in repaying it by a consideration,
a scrupulous regard to their feelings to which they were not,

(01:42:23):
perhaps at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and
benefited them, because while it elevated them in their own eyes,
it made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received.
I felt I became a favorite in the neighborhood. Whenever
I went out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations

(01:42:45):
and was welcomed with friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard,
though it be, but the regard of working people is
like sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet, serene in word
feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this period
of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness

(01:43:06):
than sank with dejection. And yet reader, to tell you all,
in the midst of this calm, this useful existence, after
a day passed an honorable exertion amongst my scholars, and
evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone, I used
to rush into strange dreams at night, dreams many colored, agitated,

(01:43:29):
full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy dreams where
amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and
romantic chance, I still again and again met mister Rochester,
always at some exciting crisis, and then the sense of
being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye,

(01:43:52):
touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him.
The hope of passing a lifetime at his would be
renewed with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke.
Then I recalled where I was and house situated. Then
I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering.

(01:44:14):
And then the still dark night witnessed the convulsion of
despair and heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock
the next morning, I was punctually opening the school, tranquil settled,
prepared for the steady duties of the day. Rosamond Oliver
kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call

(01:44:34):
at the school was generally made in the course of
her morning ride. She would canter up to the door
on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant. Anything
more exquisite than her appearance in her purple habit with
her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the
long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders,

(01:44:57):
can scarcely be imagined. And it it was thus she
would enter the rustic building and glide through the dazzled
ranks of the village children. She generally came at the
hour when mister Rivers was engaged in giving his daily
catechising lesson keenly, I fear. Did the eye of the
visitress pierce the young pastor's heart. A sort of instinct

(01:45:20):
seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he
did not see it, and when he was looking quite
away from the door. If she appeared at it, his
cheek would glow, and his marble seeming features, though they
refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in their very quiescence,
became expressive of a repressed fervor stronger than working muscle

(01:45:43):
or darting glance could indicate. Of course, she knew her power.
Indeed he did not, because he could not conceal it
from her, in spite of his Christian stoicism. When she
went up and addressed him and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even
fondly in his face, his hand would tremble, and as

(01:46:05):
eye burn. He seemed to say with his sad and
resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips,
I love you, and I know you prefer me. It
is not despair of success that keeps me dumb. If
I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it.
But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar,

(01:46:26):
the fire is arranged round it, it will soon be
no more than a sacrifice consumed. And then she would
pout like a disappointed child. A pensive cloud would soften
her radiant vivacity. She would withdraw her hand hastily from his,
and turn in transient petulance from his aspect. At once

(01:46:47):
so heroic and so martyrlike Saint John, no doubt would
have given the world to follow, recall retain her when
she thus left him. But he would not give one
chance of heaven, nor relinquish for the elygium of her
love one hope of the true eternal paradise. Besides, he

(01:47:09):
could not bind all that he had in his nature,
the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest, in the
limits of a single passion. He could not. He would
not renounce his wild field of mission warfare for the
parlors and the peace of vale Hall. I learned so
much from himself in an inroad, I once, despite his reserve,

(01:47:30):
had the daring to make on his confidence. Miss Oliver
already honored me with frequent visits to my cottage. I
had learned her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise.
She was coquettish but not heartless, exacting but not worthlessly selfish.
She had been indulged from her birth, but was not

(01:47:51):
absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but good humored, vain. She
could not help it when every glance in the last
showed her such a flush of loveliness, but not affected,
liberal handed, innocent of the pride of wealth, ingenuous, sufficiently intelligent, gay,

(01:48:12):
lively and un thinking. She was very charming and short,
even to a cool observer of her own sex, like me.
But she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A
very different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance,
of the sisters of Saint John. Still, I liked her
almost as I liked my pupil adele, except that for

(01:48:35):
a child whom we have watched over and taught, a
closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally
attractive adult acquaintance. She had taken an amiable caprice to me.
She said, I was like mister Rivers, only certainly she allowed,
not one tenth so handsome, though I was a nice,
neat little soul enough, But he was an angel. I was, however, good, clever,

(01:49:01):
composed and firm like him. I was a lusses NATOI,
she affirmed. As a village school mistress. She was sure
my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
One evening, while with her usual childlike activity and thoughtless
yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and

(01:49:24):
the table drawer of my little kitchen. She discovered first
two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar
and dictionary, and then my drawing materials and some sketches,
including a pencil head of a pretty little cherub like
girl one of my scholars, and sundry views from nature

(01:49:45):
taken in the veil of Morton and on the surrounding moors.
She was first transfixed with surprise and then electrified with delight.
Had I done these pictures? Did I know? French and German?
What a love? What a miracle? I I was? I
drew better than her master in the first school in
s Dash. Would I sketch a portrait of her to

(01:50:06):
show to Papa with pleasure? I replied, and I felt
a thrill of artist delighted the idea of copying from
so perfect and radiant a model She had then on
a dark blue silk dress. Her arms and her neck
were bare. Her only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which

(01:50:26):
waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of
natural curls. I took a sheet of fine cardboard and
drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of
coloring it, And as it was getting late, then I
told her she must come and sit another day. She
made such a report of me to her father that

(01:50:48):
mister Oliver himself accompanied her next evening, a tall, massive featured,
middle aged and gray headed man, at whose side his
lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret.
He appeared a taciturn and perhaps a proud personage, but
he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond's

(01:51:10):
portrait pleased him highly. He said I must make a
finished picture of it. He insisted too, on my coming
the next day to spend the evening at Vale Hall.
I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing
abundant evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full
of glee and pleasure all the time I stayed. Her

(01:51:32):
father was affable, and when he entered into conversation with
me after tea, he expressed in strong terms his approbation
of what I had done in Morton's school, and said
he only feared from what he saw and heard. I
was too good for the place, and would soon quit
it for one more suitable. Indeed, cried Rosamond, she is

(01:51:54):
clever enough to be a governess in a high family. Papa,
I thought I would far rather be where I am
then in any high family in the land. Mister Oliver
spoke of mister Rivers of the River's family with great respect.
He said it was a very old name in that neighborhood,
that the ancestors of the house were wealthy, that all

(01:52:15):
Morton had once belonged to them, that even now, he
considered the representative of that house, might, if he liked,
make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a
pity that so fine and talented a young man should
have formed the design of going out as a missionary.
It was quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared

(01:52:36):
then that her father would throw no obstacle in the
way of Rosamond's union with Saint John. Mister Oliver evidently
regarded the young clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred
profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune. It
was the fifth of November and a holiday. My little servant,

(01:52:59):
after helping me to clean my house, was gone, while
satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid.
All about me was spotless and bright scoured floor, polished grate,
and well rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat,
and had now the afternoon before me to spend as
I would. The translation of a few pages of German

(01:53:21):
occupied an hour. Then I got my palette and pencils
and fell to the more soothing because easier occupation of
completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature. The head was finished already. There
was but the background to tint, and the drapery to
shade off. A touch of carmine too, to add to
the ripe lips, a soft curl here and there to

(01:53:44):
the tresses, a deeper tinge to the shadow of the
lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the
execution of these nice details. When, after one rapid tap
my door unclosed, emitting Saint John Rivers, I am come
to see how you are spending your holiday, he said, not,
I hope in thought. No, that is well. While you draw,

(01:54:08):
you will not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust you still,
though you have borne up wonderfully so far. I have
brought you a book for evening solace. And he laid
on the table a new publication, a poem, one of
those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public
of those days, the golden age of modern literature. Alas

(01:54:30):
the readers of our era are less favored, but courage
I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I
know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost, Nor has
Mammon gained power over either to bind or slay. They
will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty, and

(01:54:51):
strength again one day. Powerful angels safe in heaven, They
smile when sordid souls triumph and feeble ones weep over
their destruction. Poetry destroyed, genius vanished, No mediocrity. No, do
not let envy prompt you to the thought. No, they

(01:55:11):
not only live, but rain and redeem, And without their
divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell, the
hell of your own meanness, while I was eagerly glancing
at the bright pages of Marmion. For Marmian, it was
Saint John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figures
sprang erect again with a start. He said nothing. I

(01:55:35):
looked up at him. He shunned my eye. I knew
his thoughts well and could read his heart plainly. At
the moment, I felt calmer and cooler than he. I
had then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived
an inclination to do him some good if I could.
With all his firmness and self control, thought I. He

(01:55:56):
tasks himself too far, locks every feeling and paying within expresses,
confesses imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him
to talk a little about this sweet Rosamund, whom he
thinks he ought not to marry. I will make him talk,
I said, first, take a chair, mister Rivers. But he answered,

(01:56:18):
as he always did, that he could not stay very well.
I responded mentally, stand if you like, but you shall
not go just yet. I am determined solitude is at
least as bad for you as it is for me.
I'll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of
your confidence. And find an aperture in that marble breast

(01:56:38):
through which I can shed one drop of the bomb
of sympathy? Is this portrait like, I asked, bluntly, like
like whom I did not observe it closely? You did,
mister Rivers. He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness.
He looked at me astonished, Oh that is nothing, And

(01:57:00):
yet I muttered within I don't mean to be baffled
by a little stiffness on your part. I'm prepared to
go to considerable links, I continued. You observed it closely
and distinctly, but I have no objection to your looking
at it again. And I rose and placed it in
his hand. A well executed picture, he said, very soft,

(01:57:22):
clear coloring, very graceful and correct drawing. Yes, yes, I
know all that, But what of the resemblance? Who is it? Like?
Mastering some hesitation, he answered Miss Oliver, I presume, of course,
And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guests,
I will promise to paint you a careful and faithful

(01:57:45):
duplicate of this very picture, provided you admit that the
gift would be acceptable to you. I don't wish to
throw away my time and trouble on an offering you
would deem worthless. He continued to gaze at the picture.
The longer he looked, the firmer he held it, the
more he seemed to covet it. It is, like, he murmured,

(01:58:07):
the eyes well managed, the color, light expression are perfect.
It smiles. Would it comfort or would it wound you
to have a similar painting? Tell me that when you
were at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India,
would it be a consolation to have that memento in
your possession, or with the sight of it bring recollections

(01:58:30):
calculated to enervate and distress. He now furtively raised his eyes.
He glanced at me, irresolute disturbed, He again surveyed the picture.
That I should like to have it as certain. Whether
it would be judicious or wise is another question. Since
I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that

(01:58:51):
her father was not likely to oppose the match, I
less exalted in my views than Saint John, had been
strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their union.
It seemed to me that should he become the possessor
of mister Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much
good with it as if he went and laid his

(01:59:11):
genius out to wither, and his strength to waste under
a tropical sun. With this persuasion, I now answered, as
far as I can see, it would be wiser and
more judicious if you were to take to yourself the
original at once. By this time he had sat down,
he had laid the picture on the table before him,

(01:59:32):
and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly
over it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor
shocked at my audacity. I saw even that to be
thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed unapproachable
to hear it thus freely handled, was beginning to be
felt by him as a new pleasure and unhoped for relief.

(01:59:55):
Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their
sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest, seeming
stoic is human, after all, and to burst with boldness
and goodwill into the silent sea of their souls is
often to confer on them the first of obligations. She

(02:00:15):
likes you, I am sure, said I, as I stood
behind his chair and her father respects you moreover. She
is a sweet girl, rather thoughtless, but you would have
sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You ought to
marry her. Does she like me, he asked, certainly better

(02:00:38):
than she likes anyone else. She talks of you continually.
There is no subject she enjoys so much or touches
upon so often. It is very pleasant to hear this,
he said, Very go on for another quarter of an hour,
And he actually took out his watch and laid it
upon the table to measure the time. But where's the

(02:00:59):
use of going on, i asked, when you are probably
preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh
chain to fetter your heart. Don't imagine such hard things.
Fancy me yielding and melting as I am doing. Human
love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind
and overflowing with sweet inundation. All the field I have

(02:01:22):
so carefully and with such labor, prepared, so assiduously, sown
with the seeds of good intentions, of self denying plans,
And now it is deluged with a nectarous flood, the
young germs swamped delicious poison cankering them. Now I see
myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing room at

(02:01:42):
vale Hall, at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet. She is
talking to me with her sweet voice, gazing down on
me with those eyes your skillful hand has copied so well,
smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine.
I am hers, this present life and passing world. Suffice
to me, hush, say nothing. My heart is full of delight.

(02:02:06):
My senses are entranced. Let the time I marked pass
in peace. I humored him. The watch ticked on. He
breathed fast and low. I stood silent amidst this hush.
The quartet spat. He replaced the watch, laid the picture down,
rose and stood on the hearth. Now said he that

(02:02:28):
little space was given to delirium and delusion. I rested
my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my
neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers. I tasted her cup.
The pillow was burning. There is an asp in the garland.
The wine has a bitter taste. Her promises are hollow,

(02:02:48):
Her offer's false. I see and know all this. I
gazed at him in wonder. It is strange, pursued he
that while I love Rosamond oliver so wildly, with all
the intensity indeed of a first passion, the object of
which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating, I experience at the

(02:03:10):
same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not
make me a good wife, that she is not the
partner suited to me, that I should discover this within
a year after marriage, and that to twelve months rapture
would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know strange. Indeed,
I could not help ejaculating. While something in me he

(02:03:33):
went on is acutely sensible to her charms, something else
is as deeply impressed with her defects. They are such
that she could sympathize in nothing. I aspired to cooperate
in nothing. I undertook Rosamond a sufferer, a laborer, a
female apostle, Rosamond a missionary's wife. No, but you need

(02:03:54):
not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme, relinquish
what my vocation, my great work, my foundation laid on
earth for a mansion in heaven. My hopes of being
numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in
the glorious one of bettering their race, of carrying knowledge
into the realms of ignorance, of substituting peace for war,

(02:04:18):
freedom for bondage, religion for superstition, the hope of heaven
for the fear of health. Must I relinquish? That it
is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is
what I have to look forward to and to live for.
After a considerable pause, I said, and Miss Oliver, are
her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you. Miss

(02:04:41):
Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers. In less
than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart.
She will forget me and will marry, probably someone who
will make her far happier than I should do. You
speak coolly enough, but you suffer in the conflict. You
are wasting away. No, if I get a little thin,

(02:05:04):
it is with anxiety about my prospects, Yet unsettled, my
departure continually procrastinated. Only this morning I received intelligence that
the successor whose arrival I have been so long expecting,
cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come. Yet,
and perhaps the three months may extend to six. You

(02:05:26):
tremble and become flushed. Whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom again,
the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined
that a woman would dare to speak so to a man.
For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse.
I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet and

(02:05:47):
refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed
the outworks of conventional reserve and cross the threshold of
confidence and won a place by their hearts, fairy Hearthstone,
you are original, said he, and not timid. There is
something brave in your spirit as well as penetrating in

(02:06:07):
your eye. But allow me to assure you that you
partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more profound and
potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance
of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When
I color and when I shade before Miss Oliver, I
do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know

(02:06:28):
it is ignoble, a mere fever of the flesh. Not
I declare the convulsion of the soul that is just
as fixed as a rock firm set in the depths
of a restless sea. Know me to be what I
am A cold hard man, I smiled incredulously. You have
taken my confidence by storm, he continued, and now it

(02:06:50):
is much at your service. I am simply in my
original state, stripped of that blood bleached robe with which
Christianity covers human deformity, A cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection,
only of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me.
Reason and not feeling, is my guide. My ambition is unlimited,

(02:07:14):
my desire to arise higher, to do more than others insatiable.
I honor endurance, perseverance, industry, talent, because these are the
means by which men achieve great ends and mount to
lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest because I
consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman,

(02:07:37):
not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through
or what you still suffer. You would describe yourself as
a mere pagan philosopher, I said, no, there is this
difference between me and deistic philosophers. I believe, and I
believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not
a pagan, but a Christian philosopher, a follower of the

(02:08:00):
sect of Jesus as his disciple. I adopt his pure,
his merciful, his benignant doctrines. I advocate them. I am
sworn to spread them. When in youth to religion. She
has cultivated my original qualities. Thus, from the minute germ
natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree philanthropy. From

(02:08:24):
the wild, stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared
a due sense of the divine justice of the ambition
to win power and renown for my wretched self. She
has formed the ambition to spread my master's kingdom, to
achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much
has religion done for me, turning the original materials to

(02:08:48):
the best account, pruning and training nature. But she could
not eradicate nature, nor will it be eradicated till this
mortal shall put on immortality. Having said this, he took
his hat, which lay on the table beside my palate.
Once more. He looked at the portrait. She is lovely,

(02:09:08):
he murmured, she is well named the rose of the world. Indeed,
and may I not paint one like it for you?
Schwe bono. No. He drew over the picture the sheet
of thin paper on which I was accustomed to rest
my hand in painting to prevent the cardboard from being sullied.

(02:09:30):
What he suddenly saw on this blank paper it was
impossible for me to tell, but something had caught his eye.
He took it up with a snatch. He looked at
the edge, then shot a glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar
and quite incomprehensible, a glance that seemed to take and
make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress.

(02:09:53):
For it traversed all quick, keen as lightning. His lips
parted as if to speak, but he checked the coming sentence.
Whatever it was, What is the matter? I asked, Nothing
in the world was the reply, And replacing the paper,
I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin.

(02:10:15):
It disappeared in his glove, and with one hasty nod
and good afternoon, he vanished. Well, I exclaimed, using an
expression of the district that caps the globe. However, I,
in my turn, scrutinized the paper, but saw nothing on
it save a few dingy stains of paint where I

(02:10:35):
had tried the tint in my pencil. I pondered the
mystery a minute or two, but finding it insolvable, and
being certain it could not be of much moment, I
dismissed and soon forgot it. Chapter thirty three. When m R.
Saint John went it was beginning to snow. The whirling

(02:10:57):
storm continued all night. The next day a keen wind
brought fresh and blinding falls. By twilight the valley was
drifted up and almost impassable. I had closed my shutter,
laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow
from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after
sitting nearly an hour on the hearth, listening to the

(02:11:18):
muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took
down Marmian, and beginning day set on Naram's castled steep
and Tweed's fair river broad and deep, and Cheviot's mountains lone,
the massive towers the dungeon keep the flinking walls that
round them sweep in yellow luster shown. I soon forgot

(02:11:40):
storm and music. I heard a noise the wind, I
thought shook the door. No, it was Saint John Rivers, who,
lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane.
The howling darkness and stood before me, the cloak that
covered his tall figure, all white as a glae. I

(02:12:01):
was almost in consternation, so little had I expected any
guest from the blocked up veil that night, any ill news,
I demanded, Has anything happened? No, how very easily alarmed
you are, he answered, removing his cloak and hanging it
up against the door, towards which he again coolly pushed

(02:12:21):
the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the
snow from his boots. I shall sully the purity of
your floor, said he. But you must excuse me for once.
Then he approached the fire. I have had hard work
to get here, I assure you, he observed, as he
warmed his hands over the flame. One drift took me

(02:12:43):
up to the waist. Happily, the snow is quite soft yet.
But why are you come? I could not forbear saying,
rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor. But
since you ask it, I answer simply to have a
little talk with you. I got tired of my mute
and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced the

(02:13:05):
excitement of a person to whom a tale has been
half told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel.
He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday,
and really I began to fear his wits were touched
if he were insane. However, his was a very cool
and collected insanity. I had never seen that handsome, featured

(02:13:27):
face of his look more like chiseled marble than it
did just now, as he put aside his snow wet
hair from his forehead and let the firelight shine free
on his pale brow and cheek is pale where it
grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or
sorrow now so plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would

(02:13:47):
say something I could at least comprehend. But his hand
was now at his chin, his finger on his lip.
He was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted,
like his face. Perhaps called for gush of pity came
over my heart. I was moved to say, I wish
Diana or Mary would come and live with you. It

(02:14:08):
is too bad that you should be quite alone, and
you are recklessly rash about your own health. Not at all,
said he. I care for myself when necessary. I am well, Now,
what do you see a miss in me. This was
said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that my
solicitude was, at least, in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I

(02:14:32):
was silenced. He still slowly moved his finger over his
upper lip, and still as I dwelt dreamily on the
glowing grate. Thinking it urgent to say something, I asked
him presently if he felt any cold draft from the
door which was behind him. No. No, he responded, shortly
and somewhat testily. Well, I reflected, if you won't talk,

(02:14:56):
you may be still. I'll let you alone now, and
return turned to my book. So I snuffed the candle
and resumed the perusal of Marmion. He soon stirred. My
eye was instantly drawn to his movements. He only took
out a Morocco pocketbook, thence produced a letter, which he
read in silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation.

(02:15:20):
It was vain to try to read with such an
inscrutable fixture before me, Nor could I, in impatience, consent
to be dumb. He might rebuff me if he liked
but talk. I would have you heard from Diana and
Mary lately? Not since the letter I showed you a
week ago. There has not been any change made about
your own arrangements. You will not be summoned to leave

(02:15:42):
England sooner than you expected. I fear not. Indeed, such
chance is too good to befall me. Baffled so far,
I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about
the school and my scholars. Mary Garrett's mother is better.
And Mary came back to the school this morning. And
I shall have four new girls next week from the

(02:16:04):
foundry clothes. They would have come today but for the snow. Indeed,
mister Oliver pays for two. Does he means to give
the whole school a treat at Christmas? I know, was
it your suggestion? No? Who's then his daughter's? I think
it is like her, she is so good natured. Yes,

(02:16:26):
again came the blank of a pause. The clock struck
eight strokes. It aroused him. He uncrossed his legs, sat erect.
Turn to me, leave your book a moment, and come
a little nearer the fire, he said, wondering, and of
my wonder finding no end, I complied. Half an hour ago,

(02:16:47):
he pursued, I spoke of my impatience to hear the
sequel of a tale. On reflection, I find the matter
will be better managed by my assuming the narrator's part
and converting you into a listener before commencing. It is
but fair to warn you that the story will sound
somewhat hackneyed in your ears, but stale details often regain

(02:17:08):
a degree of freshness when they passed through new lips
for the rest, Whether trite or novel, it is short.
Twenty years ago, a poor curate, never mind his name
at this moment fell in love with a rich man's daughter.
She fell in love with him and married him, against
the advice of all her friends, who consequently disowned her

(02:17:32):
immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed, the rash
pair were both dead and laid quietly side by side
under one's lab. I have seen their grave. It formed
part of the pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the
grim so black old cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town

(02:17:52):
in Shire. They left a daughter, which, at its very
birth Charity received in her lap cold as that of
the snow drift I almost stuck fast in tonight. Charity
carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich
maternal relations. It was reared by an ant in law
called I come to names now, Missus Reed of Gateshead

(02:18:15):
you start, Did you hear a noise? I dare say,
it is only a rat scrambling along the rafters of
the adjoining schoolroom. It was a barn before I had
it repaired and altered, and barnes are generally haunted by rats.
Dot to proceed. Missus Reed kept the orphan ten years.
Whether it was happy or not with her, I cannot say,

(02:18:36):
never having been told. But at the end of that
time she transferred it to a place, you know, being
no other than Lowood's School, where you so long resided yourself.
It seems her career there was very honorable. From a pupil,
she became a teacher like yourself. Really, it strikes me
there are parallel points in her history and yours. She

(02:18:59):
left it to be a governess there again, your fates
were analogous. She undertook the education of the ward of
a certain mister Rochester. Mister Rivers, I interrupted, I can
guess your feelings, he said, but restrain them for a while.
I have nearly finished, hear me to the end of

(02:19:21):
mister Rochester's character I know nothing but the one fact
that he professed to offer honorable marriage to this young girl,
and that at the very altar she discovered he had
a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent
conduct and proposals were as a matter of pure conjecture.
But when an event transpired which rendered inquiry after the

(02:19:44):
Governess necessary, it was discovered she was gone. No one
could tell when, where, or how she had left Thornfield
Hall in the night. Every research after her course had
been vain. The country had been scoured far and wide.
No v vestige of information could be gathered respecting her.
Yet that she should be found is become a matter

(02:20:06):
of serious urgency. Advertisements have been put in all the papers.
I myself have received a letter from one mister Briggs,
a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is
it not an odd tale? Just tell me, this, said I,
And since you know so much, you surely can tell
it me. What of mister Rochester, how and where is he?

(02:20:29):
What is he doing? Is he? Well? I am ignorant
of all concerning mister Rochester. The letter never mentions him,
but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt. I have
adverted to you should rather ask the name of the
Governess the nature of the event which requires her appearance.
Did no one go to Thornfield Hall? Then? Did no

(02:20:51):
one see mister Rochester? I suppose not? But they wrote
to him, of course, And what did he say? Who
is his letters? Mister Briggs intimates that the answer to
his application was not from mister Rochester, but from a lady.
It is signed Alice Fairfax. I felt cold and dismayed.

(02:21:13):
My worst fears than were probably true. He had, in
all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to
some former haunt on the continent. And what opiate for
his severe sufferings? What object for his strong passions had
he sought there? I dared not answer the question, Oh,
my poor master once almost my husband, whom I had

(02:21:35):
often called my dear Edward. He must have been a
bad man, observed mister Rivers. You don't know him, don't
pronounce an opinion upon him, I said with warmth. Very
well he answered quietly, And indeed my head is otherwise
occupied than with him. I have my tale to finish.

(02:21:56):
Since you won't ask the Governess's name. I must tell
it of my own accord. Stay I have it here.
It is always more satisfactory to see important points written
down fairly committed to black and white. And the pocketbook
was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through from one of
its compartments, was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily

(02:22:20):
torn off. I recognized in its texture and its stains
of ultramarine and lake and vermilion, the ravished margin of
the portrait cover. He got up, held it close to
my eyes, and I read, traced in Indian ink in
my own handwriting the words jane Ere the work doubtless

(02:22:41):
of some moment of abstraction, Briggs wrote to me of
a Jane Ere, he said, the advertisements demanded a Jane Ere.
I knew a Jane Elliott dot. I confess I had
my suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were
at once resolved into certainty the name and renounce the alias. Yes, yes,

(02:23:04):
But where is mister Briggs? He perhaps knows more of
mister Rochester than you do. Briggs is in London. I
should doubt his knowing anything at all about mister Rochester.
It is not in mister Rochester, he is interested. Meantime,
you forget essential points in pursuing trifles. You do not
inquire why mister Briggs sought after you. What he wanted

(02:23:25):
with you? Well, what did he want? Merely to tell
you that your uncle, mister Heir of Madeira, is dead,
that he has left you all his property, and that
you are now rich. Merely that nothing more. I rich, Yes,
you rich, quite an heiress. Silence succeeded. You must prove

(02:23:46):
your identity, of course, resumed Saint John presently, a step
which will offer no difficulties. You can then enter on
immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds.
Briggs has will and the necessary documents. Here was a
new card turned up. It is a fine thing, reader,

(02:24:07):
to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth,
A very fine thing, but not a matter one can
comprehend or consequently enjoy all at once. And then there
are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture giving.
This is solid and a fear of the actual world,
nothing ideal about it. All. Its associations are solid and sober,

(02:24:31):
and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump
and spring and shout hurrah. At hearing one has got
a fortune, one begins to consider responsibilities and to ponder
business on a base of steady satisfaction. Rise certain grave cares,
and we contain ourselves, and blood over our bliss with

(02:24:53):
a solemn brow. Besides the words legacy bequest go side
by side with the words death, funeral. My uncle I
had heard was dead, my only relative ever since being
made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope
of one day seeing him. Now I never should, And

(02:25:14):
then this money came only to me, not to me
and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It
was a grand boon, doubtless, and independence would be glorious. Yes,
I felt that that thought swelled my heart. You unbend
your forehead at last, said mister Rivers. I thought Medusa
had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone.

(02:25:37):
Perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?
How much am I worth? Oh? A trifle nothing, of course,
to speak of twenty thousand pounds, I think, they say,
But what is that twenty thousand pounds? Here was a
new stunner. I had been calculating on four or five thousand.
This news actually took my breath for a moment. Mister

(02:25:59):
Saint John, on whom I had never heard laugh before,
laughed now well, said he. If you had committed a murder,
and I had told you your crime was discovered, you
could scarcely look more aghast. It is a large sum.
Don't you think there's a mistake, no mistake at all.
Perhaps you have read the figures wrong. It may be
two thousand. It is written in letters, not figures twenty thousand.

(02:26:24):
I again felt rather like an individual of but average
gastronomical powers, sitting down to feast alone at a table
spread with provisions for one hundred. Mister Rivers rose now
and put his cloak on. If it were not such
a very wild night, he said, I would send Hannah
down to keep you company. You look too desperately miserable

(02:26:46):
to be left alone. But Hannah, per woman, could not
stride the drifts so well as I. Her legs are
not quite so long, So I must ian leave you
to your sorrows. Good night, He was lifting the life.
A sudden thought occurred to me. Stop one minute, I cried, Well,

(02:27:06):
it puzzles me to know why. Mister Briggs wrote to
you about me, or how he knew you, or could
fancy that you living in such an out of the
way place, had the power to aid in my discovery. Oh,
I am a clergyman, he said, and the clergy are
often appealed to about odd matters. Again, the latch rattled, No,

(02:27:28):
that does not satisfy me, I exclaimed, And indeed there
was something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead
of allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever. It is
a very strange piece of business, I added. I must
know more about it another time. No tonight tonight, And

(02:27:50):
as he turned from the door, I placed myself between
it and him. He looked rather embarrassed. You certainly shall
not go till you have told me all, I said.
I would rather not just now you shall you must?
I would rather Diana or Mary informed you. Of course,
these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax. Gratified, it

(02:28:13):
must be, and that without delay. And I told him so.
But I apprised you that I was a hard man,
said he difficult to persuade, and I am a hard woman,
impossible to put off. And then he pursued I am cold,
no fervor infects me, whereas I am hot, and fire

(02:28:33):
dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed all the snow
from your cloak. By the same token it has streamed
on to my floor and made it like a trampled street,
as you hope ever to be forgiven, mister Rivers, the
high crime and misdemeanor of spoiling a sanded kitchen. Tell
me what I wish to know? Well, then, he said,

(02:28:55):
I yield, if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance,
as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must
know some day as well now as later. Your name
is Jane Eyre. Of course that was all settled before.
You are not, perhaps aware that I am your namesake,
that I was christened Saint John Eyre Rivers. No, indeed,

(02:29:19):
I remember now seeing the letter E comprised in your initials,
written in books you have at different times lent me.
But I never asked for what name it stood? But
what then? Surely I stopped. I could not trust myself
to entertain, much less to express the thought that rushed
upon me, that embodied itself, that in a second stood

(02:29:42):
out a strong, solid probability, circumstances, knit themselves, fitted themselves,
shot into order. The chain that had been lying hitherto
a formless lump of links was drawn out straight. Every
ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew by instinct
how the matter stood before Saint John had said another word.

(02:30:06):
But I cannot expect the reader to have the same
intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation. My mother's
name was Air. She had two brothers, one a clergyman
who married Miss Jane Reed of Gateshead, the other John
Eyre Escue, merchant lady of Funchal Madeira. Mister Briggs, being

(02:30:29):
mister Eyre's solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform
us of our uncle's death and to say that he
had left his property to his brother, the clergyman's orphan daughter,
overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel never forgiven between
him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks
since to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking

(02:30:53):
if we knew anything of her. A name casually written
on a slip of paper has enabled me to find
her out. You know the rest. Again, he was going,
but I set my back against the door do let
me speak, I said, Let me have one moment to
draw breath and reflect. I paused. He stood before me,

(02:31:13):
hat in hand, looking composed enough. I resumed, your mother
was my father's sister, Yes, my aunt. Consequently, he bowed,
my uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana and
Mary are his sister's children, as I am his brother's child. Undeniably.

(02:31:33):
You three, then are my cousins. Half our blood on
each side flows from the same source. We are cousins. Yes,
I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother,
one I could be proud of, one I could love,
and two sisters whose qualities were such that, when I
knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me

(02:31:56):
with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls on whom,
kneeling down on the wet ground and looking through the
low latticed window of moor House kitchen, I had gazed
with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair, were
my near kinswomen. And the young and stately gentleman who
had found me almost dying at his threshold was my

(02:32:19):
blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch. This was wealth,
Indeed wealth to the heart, a mine of pure genial affections.
This was a blessing, bright, vivid and exhilarating, not like
the ponderous gift of gold, rich and welcome enough in
its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped

(02:32:42):
my hands in sudden joy. My pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.
Oh I am glad, I am glad, I exclaimed Saint
John smiled. Did I not say neglected essential points to
pursue trifles? He asked, You were sere when I told
you you had got a fortune, and now for a

(02:33:03):
matter of no moment, you are excited. What can you mean?
It may be of no moment to you. You have
sisters and don't care for a cousin, but I had nobody.
And now three relations or two if you don't choose
to be counted, are born into my world full grown,
I say again, I am glad. I walked fast through

(02:33:24):
the room. I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that
rose faster than I could receive, comprehend settle them, thoughts
of what might, could, would and should be, and that
ere long. I looked at the blank wall. It seemed
to sky thick with ascending stars. Everyone lit me to
a purpose or delight those who had saved my life,

(02:33:48):
whom till this hour I had loved barrenly. I could
now benefit. They were under a yoke. I could free them.
They were scattered. I could reunite them the independent The
affluence which was mine might be theirs too, were we
not four twenty thousand pounds shared equally would be five

(02:34:09):
thousand each. Justice enough, and to spare justice would be done,
Mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me.
Now it was not a mere bequest of coin. It
was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment. How I looked
all these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I

(02:34:29):
cannot tell, but I perceived soon that mister Rivers had
placed a chair behind me and was gently attempting to
make me sit down on it. He also advised me
to be composed. I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and distraction,
shook off his hand and began to walk about again.
Write to Diana and Mary too, Moro, I said, and

(02:34:52):
tell them to come home directly. Diana said, they would
both consider themselves rich with a thousand pounds, So with
five thousand, they will do very well. Tell me where
I can get you a glass of water, said Saint John.
You must really make an effort to tranquilize your feelings. Nonsense?
And what sort of an effect will the bequest have

(02:35:13):
on you? Will it keep you in England, induce you
to marry miss Oliver and settle down like an ordinary mortal?
You wonder your head becomes confused. I have been too
abrupt in communicating the news. It has excited you beyond
your strength. Mister Rivers. You quite put me out of patience.

(02:35:34):
I am rational enough. It is you who misunderstand, or
rather who affect to misunderstand. Perhaps if you explained yourself
a little more fully, I should comprehend better. Explain what
is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that
twenty thousand pounds the sum in question, divided equally between

(02:35:55):
the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give
five thousand to each. What I want is that you
should write to your sisters and tell them of the
fortune that has accrued to them. To you, you mean
I have intimated my view of the case. I am
incapable of taking any other. I am not brutally selfish,
blindly unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved. I

(02:36:21):
will have a home and connections. I like more House,
and I will live at Morehouse. I like Diana and Mary,
and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary.
It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds.
It would torment and oppress me to have twenty thousand,
which moreover could never be mine injustice, though it might

(02:36:44):
in law. I abandon to you. Then what is absolutely
superfluous to me? Let there be no opposition and no
discussion about it. Let us agree amongst each other and
decide the point at once. This is acting on first impulses.
You must take days to consider such a matter. Ere
your word can be regarded as valid. Oh, if all

(02:37:07):
you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy. You see
the justice of the case. I do see a certain justice,
but it is contrary to all custom. Besides, the entire
fortune is your right. My uncle gained it by his
own efforts. He was free to leave it to whom
he would. He left it to you. After all, justice

(02:37:30):
permits you to keep it. You may, with a clear
conscience consider it absolutely your own with me, said I.
It is fully as much a matter of feeling as
of conscience. I must indulge my feelings. I so seldom
have had an opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue,
object and annoy me for a year, I could not

(02:37:53):
forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a glimpse,
that of repaying in part a mighty obligation and winning
to myself lifelong friends. You think so now, rejoined Saint John,
Because you do not know what it is to possess,
nor consequently to enjoy wealth. You cannot form a notion
of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you, Of

(02:38:15):
the place it would enable you to take in society,
of the prospects it would open to you, you cannot,
and you, I interrupted cannot at all imagine the craving
I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had
a home, I never had brothers or sisters. I must
and will have them. Now you are not reluctant to

(02:38:36):
admit me and own me, are you, Jane? I will
be your brother. My sisters will be your sisters, without
stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights. Brother. Yes,
at the distance of a thousand leagues. Sisters, Yes, slaving
amongst strangers. I wealthy, gorged with gold I never earned,

(02:38:58):
and do not merit you penniless famous, Equality and fraternization,
close union, intimate attachment. But Jane, your aspirations after family
ties and domestic happiness may be realized otherwise than by
the means you contemplate. You may marry. Nonsense again, Mary,

(02:39:21):
I don't want to marry and never shall marry. That
is saying too much. Such hazardous affirmations are a proof
of the excitement under which you labor. It is not
saying too much. I know what I feel, and how
averse are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage.
No one would take me for love, and I will
not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation.

(02:39:44):
And I do not want a stranger, unsympathizing alien different
from me. I want my kindred, those with whom I
have full fellow feeling. Say again, you will be my brother.
When you uttered the words, I was satisfied. Happy repeat
them if you can repeat them sincerely, I think I can.

(02:40:05):
I know I have always loved my own sisters, and
I know on what my affection for them is grounded
respect for their worth and admiration of their talents. You
two have principle and mind. Your tastes and habits resemble
Diana's and Mary's. Your presence is always agreeable to me
in your conversation. I have already for some time found

(02:40:27):
a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally
make room in my heart for you as my third
and youngest sister. Thank you that contents me for tonight.
Now you had better go, for if you stay longer,
you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mistrustful scruple
and the school miss air. It must now be shut up.

(02:40:50):
I suppose no. I will retain my post of mistress
till you get a substitute. He smiled approbation. We shook hands,
and he took I need not narrate and detail the
further struggles I had and arguments I used to get
matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My task

(02:41:10):
was a very hard one, but as I was absolutely resolved,
as my cousin saw at length that my mind was
really and immutably fixed on making a just division of
the property, as they must in their own hearts have
felt the equity of the intention, and must, besides have
been innately conscious that in my place they would have

(02:41:32):
done precisely what I wished to do. They yielded at
length so far as to consent to put the affair
to arbitration. The judges chosen were mister Oliver and an
able lawyer. Both coincided in my opinion. I carried my point.
The instruments of transfer were drawn out. Saint John, Diana, Mary,

(02:41:54):
and I each became possessed of a competency Chapter thirty four.
It was near Christmas by the time all was settled,
the season of general holiday approached. I now closed Morton's School,
taking care that the parting should not be barren. On
my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as

(02:42:17):
the heart wonderfully, and to give somewhat when we have
largely received is but to afford event to the unusual
abolition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure
that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when
we parted, that consciousness was confirmed. They manifested their affection

(02:42:37):
plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I
had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts. I promised
them that never a week should pass in future that
I did not visit them and give them an hour's
teaching in their school. Mister Rivers came up as having
seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls file out before me,

(02:43:00):
and locked the door. I stood with the key in
my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with
some half dozen of my best scholars, as decent, respectable, modest,
and well informed young women as could be found in
the ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying
a great deal, for after all, the British peasantry are

(02:43:23):
the best taught, best mannered, most self respecting of any
in Europe. Since those days I have seen paisons and
bowerin in and the best of them seem to be ignorant,
coarse and besought it compared with my Morton girls. Do
you consider you have got your reward for a season
of exertion? Asked mister Rivers when they were gone. Does

(02:43:46):
not the consciousness of having done some real good in
your day and generation give pleasure doubtless? And you have
only toiled a few months? Would not a life devoted
to the task of regenerating your race. Be well spent, yes,
I said, but I could not go on forever. So
I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as

(02:44:06):
to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them. Now.
Don't recall either my mind or body to the school.
I am out of it and disposed for full holiday.
He looked grave. What now, What sudden eagerness is this you, evins?
What are you going to do to be active? As
active as I can? And first I must beg you

(02:44:28):
to set Hannah at liberty and get somebody else to
wait on you. Do you want her? Yes, to go
with me to Moorhouse. Diana and Mary will be at
home in a week, and I want to have everything
in order against their arrival. I understand. I thought you
were for flying off on some excursion. It is better,
so Hannah shall go with you. Tell her to be

(02:44:51):
ready by tomorrow. Then, and here is the schoolroom key.
I will give you the key of my cottage in
the morning. He took it. You give it up very gleefully,
said he. I don't quite understand your lightheartedness, because I
cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a
substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose?

(02:45:13):
What ambition in life? Have you? Now? My first aim
will be to clean down? Do you comprehend the full
force of the expression to clean down more house from
chamber to cellar? My next to rub it up with beeswax,
oil and an indefinite number of cloths till it glitters again.
My third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet with

(02:45:37):
mathematical precision. Afterwards, I shall go near to ruin you
in coals and pete, to keep up good fires in
every room. And lastly, the two days preceding that on
which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah
and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants,
grading of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, popping up of

(02:46:00):
materials for mince pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites
as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to
the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to
have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness
for Diana and Mary before next Thursday. And my ambition

(02:46:21):
is to give them a bo ideal of a welcome
when they come. Saint John smiled slightly. Still, he was dissatisfied.
It is all very well for the presence, said he.
But seriously, I trust that when the first flush of
vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than
domestic endearments and household joys, the best things the world has.

(02:46:44):
I interrupted, No, Jane, no, this world is not the
scene of fruition. Do not attempt to make it so,
nor of rest. Do not turn slothful. I mean, on
the contrary, to be busy, Jane. I excuse you for
the present two months, grace. I allow you for the
full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself

(02:47:06):
with this late found charm of relationship. But then I
hope you will begin to look beyond morehouse and morton,
and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort
of civilized affluence. I hope your energies will then once
more trouble you with their strength. I looked at him
with surprise. Saint John, I said, I think you are

(02:47:29):
almost wicked to talk. So I am disposed to be
as content as a queen, and you try to stir
me up to restlessness, to what end, to the end
of turning to profit the talents which God has committed
to your keeping, and of which He will surely one
day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you
closely and anxiously. I warn you of that, and try

(02:47:53):
to restrain the disproportionate fervor with which you throw yourself
into commonplace home pleasures. Don't claim so tenaciously to ties
of the flesh. Save your constancy and ardor for an
adequate cause forbear to waste them on trite, transient objects.
Do you hear, Jane, Yes, just as if you were

(02:48:13):
speaking Greek, I feel I have adequate cause to be happy,
and I will be happy. Goodbye. Happy. At Moorhouse I was,
and hard I worked, and so did Hannah. She was
charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the
bustle of a house turned topsy turvy, how I could
brush and dust and clean and cook, and really, after

(02:48:36):
a day or two of confusion, worse confounded, it was
delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves
had made. I had previously taken a journey to s
to purchase some new furniture, my cousin's having given me
carte blanche to affect what alterations I pleased, and as
some having been set aside for that purpose, the ordinary

(02:48:58):
sitting room and bedrooms I left much as they were,
for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure
from seeing again the old homely tables and chairs and
beds than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still,
some novelty was necessary to give to their return the
piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark,

(02:49:22):
handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully
selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze. New coverings and mirrors,
and dressing cases for the toilet tables answered the end.
They looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlor and
bedroom I refurnished entirely with old mahogany and crimson upholstery.

(02:49:47):
I laid canvas on the passage and carpets on the stairs.
When all was finished, I thought more house as complete,
A model of bright, modest snugness within as it was
at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert
dreariness without the eventful Thursday at length came. They were

(02:50:08):
expected about dark and air dusk. Fires were lit upstairs
and below. The kitchen was in perfect trim. Hannah and
I were dressed, and all was in readiness. Saint John
arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear
of the house till everything was arranged, and indeed the

(02:50:28):
bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial,
going on within its walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement.
He found me in the kitchen, watching the progress of
certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the hearth, he
asked if I was at last satisfied with housemaid's work.

(02:50:49):
I answered by inviting him to accompany me on a
general inspection of the result of my labors. With some difficulty,
I got him to make the tour of the house.
He just looked in at the doors I opened, and
when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he said, I
must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and
troubled to have affected such considerable changes in so short

(02:51:12):
a time. But not a syllable did he utter, indicating
pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode. This silence
damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some
old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case,
no doubt, In a somewhat crestfallen tone, not at all.

(02:51:33):
He had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously
respected every association he feared. Indeed, I must have bestowed
more thought on the matter than it was worth. How
many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the
arrangement of this very room by the bye? Could I
tell him where such a book was? I showed him

(02:51:55):
the volume on the shelf. He took it down, and,
with drawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to
read it. Now I did not like this reader. Saint
John was a good man, but I began to feel
he had spoken truth of himself when he said he
was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life
had no attraction for him, Its peaceful enjoyments, no charm. Literally,

(02:52:21):
he lived only to aspire after what was good and great, certainly,
but still he would never rest nor approve of others
resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead
still and pale as a white stone, at his fine
lineaments fixed in study. I comprehended all at once that

(02:52:41):
he would hardly make a good husband, that it would
be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood,
as by inspiration, the nature of his love for miss Oliver.
I agreed with him that it was but a love
of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself
for the feverish influence it exercised over him, How he

(02:53:02):
should wish to stifle and destroy it, how he should
mistrust it's ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers.
I saw he was of the material from which nature
hewes her heroes, Christian and Pagan, her logovers, her statesmen,
her conquerors, a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon,

(02:53:24):
But at the fireside too often a cold, cumbrous column,
gloomy and out of place. This parlor is not his fear,
I reflected, The Himalayan ridge, or Kaffer bush, even the
plague cursed Guinea coast swamp would suit him better. While
may he ask you the calm of domestic life? It
is not his element. There his faculties stagnate, they cannot

(02:53:48):
develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of
strife and danger, where courage is proved and energy exercised,
and fortitude tasked, that he will speak and move the
leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage
of him. On this hearth, he is right to choose
a missionary's career. I see it now, they are coming.

(02:54:12):
They are coming, cried Hannah, throwing open the parlor door.
At the same moment, Old Carlo barked joyfully out. I ran.
It was now dark, but a rumbling of wheels was audible.
Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped
at the wicket. The driver opened the door, first one

(02:54:32):
well known form, then another stepped out. In a minute,
I had my face under their bonnets in contact, first
with merry soft cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughed,
kissed me. Then Hannah patted Carlo, who was half wild
with delight, asked eagerly if all was well, and, being

(02:54:54):
assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house. They were
stiff with their long and bolting drive from Whitcross, and
chilled with the frosty night air, but their pleasant countenances
expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah
brought in the boxes, they demanded Saint John. At this

(02:55:14):
moment he advanced from the parlor. They both threw their
arms round his neck at once. He gave each one
quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words
of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then,
intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in
the parlor, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.

(02:55:36):
I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana
had first to give hospitable orders, respecting the driver. This done,
both followed me. They were delighted with the renovation and
decorations of their rooms, with the new drapery and fresh
carpets and rich tinted china vases. They expressed their gratification ungrudgingly.

(02:55:59):
I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met
their wishes exactly and not what I had done added
a vivid charm to their joyous return home. Sweet was
that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent
in narrative and comment that their fluency covered Saint John's taciturnity.
He was sincerely glad to see his sisters, but in

(02:56:22):
their glow of fervor and flow of joy, he could
not sympathize. The event of the day, that is, the
return of Diana and Mary, pleased him. But the accompaniments
of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception,
irked him. I saw he wished the calmer mora was
come in the very meridian of the night's enjoyment. About

(02:56:46):
an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door.
Hannah entered with the intimation that a poor lad was
come at that unlikely time to fetch mister Rivers to
see his mother, who was drawing away? Where does she live?
Hannah clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off
and more end moss all the way, Tell him I

(02:57:09):
will go. I am sure, sir, you had better not.
It's the worst road to travel after dark that can be.
There's no track at all over the bog, and then
it is such a bitter night, the keenest wind you
ever felt. You had better send words, sir that you
will be there in the morning. But he was already
in the passage, putting on his cloak, and without one objection,

(02:57:33):
one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock. He
did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was,
but he looked happier than when he set out. He
had performed an active duty, made an exertion, felt his
own strength to do and deny, and was on better
terms with himself. I am afraid the whole of the

(02:57:55):
ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas week we
took to know settled employment, but spent it in a
sort of merry. Domestic dissipation, the air of the moors,
the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity acted on
Diana and Mary's spirits like some life giving elixir. They
were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night.

(02:58:19):
They could always talk, and their discourse, witty, pithy, original,
had such charms for me that I preferred listening to
and sharing in it, to doing anything else. Saint John
did not rebuke our vivacity, but he escaped from it.
He was seldom in the house. His parish was large,

(02:58:39):
the population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting
the sick and poor in its different districts. One morning
at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes,
asked him if his plans were yet unchanged. Unchanged and
unchangeable was the reply, and he proceeded to inform us

(02:59:01):
that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for
the ensuing year. And Rosamond Oliver suggested Mary, the words
seeming to escape her lips involuntarily, for no sooner had
she uttered them than she made a gesture as if
wishing to recall them. Saint John had a book in
his hand. It was his unsocial custom to read at meals.

(02:59:24):
He closed it and looked up Rosamond Oliver said, he
is about to be married to mister Granby, one of
the best connected and most estimable residents in s grandson
and heir to Sir Frederick Granby. I had the intelligence
from her father yesterday. His sisters looked at each other
and at me. We all three looked at him. He

(02:59:46):
was serene as glass. The match must have been got
up hastily, said Diana. They cannot have known each other long,
but two months they met in October at the County
ball at s But where there are no no obstacles
to a union, as in the present case, where the
connection is in every point, desirable, delays are unnecessary. They

(03:00:09):
will be married as soon as s place which Sir
Frederick gives up to them can he refitted for their reception.
The first time I found Saint John alone after this communication,
I felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him,
But he seemed so little to need sympathy that, so
far from venturing to offer him more, I experienced some

(03:00:32):
shame at the recollection of what I had already hazarded. Besides,
I was out of practice in talking to him. His
reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed
beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating
me like his sisters. He continually made little, chilling differences
between us, which did not at all tend to the

(03:00:54):
development of cordiality. In short, now that I was acknowledged
his kinswoman and lived under the same roof with him,
I felt the distance between us to be far greater
than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress.
When I remembered how far I had once been admitted
to his confidence. I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.

(03:01:18):
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised
when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over
which he was stooping, and said, you see, Jane, the
battle is fought and the victory. One startled at being
thus addressed, I did not immediately reply. After a moment's hesitation,
I answered, but are you sure you are not in

(03:01:39):
the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost them
too dear? Would not such another ruin you? I think not,
And if I were, it does not much signify I
shall never be called upon to contend for such another.
The event of the conflict is decisive. My way is
now clear. I thank God for it, and so saying,

(03:02:01):
he returned to his papers and his silence. As our
mutual happiness, I e Diana's, Mary's and mine settled into
a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and
regular studies. Saint John's stayed more at home. He sat
with us in the same room, sometimes for hours together,

(03:02:23):
while Mary drew. Diana pursued a course of encyclopedic reading.
She had to my awe and amazement undertaken, and I
fagged away at German. He pondered a mystic lore of
his own, that of some eastern tongue, the acquisition of
which he thought necessary to his plans. Thus engaged, he

(03:02:44):
appeared sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough.
But that blue eye of his had a habit of
leaving the outlandish looking grammar and wandering over and sometimes
fixing upon us his fellow students, with a cute, curious
intensity of observation. If caught, it would be instantly withdrawn.

(03:03:05):
Yet ever and anon it returned searchingly to our table.
I wondered what it meant. I wondered too, at the
punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion
that seemed to me of small moment, namely my weekly
visit to Morton's school. And still more was I puzzled
when if the day was unfavorable, if there was snow

(03:03:29):
or rain or high wind, and his sisters urged me
not to go, he would invariably make light of their
solicitude and encourage me to accomplish the task, without regard
to the elements. Jane is not such a weakling as
you would make her. He would say. She can bear
a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes

(03:03:50):
of snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution
is both sound and elastic, better calculated to endure variations
of climate than many more robust. And when I returned
sometimes a good deal tired and not a little weather beaten.
I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur

(03:04:11):
would be to vex him. On all occasions, fortitude pleased him.
The reverse was a special annoyance. One afternoon, however, I
got leave to stay at home because I really had
a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton. In my stead,
I sat reading Schiller, he deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls.

(03:04:33):
As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened
to look his way. There I found myself under the
influence of the ever watchful blue eye. How long it
had been searching me through and through and over and over,
I cannot tell. So keen was it, and yet so cold?
I felt, for the moment superstitious, as if I were

(03:04:54):
sitting in the room with something uncanny. Jane what are
you doing learning German? I want you to give up
German and learn Hindustani. You are not in earnest, in
such earnest that I must have it so, and I
will tell you why. He then went on to explain
that Hindustani was the language he was himself at present studying,

(03:05:16):
that as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement,
that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil
with whom he might again and again go over the
elements and so fix them thoroughly in his mind. That
his choice had hovered for some time between me and
his sisters, but that he had fixed on me because

(03:05:37):
he saw I could sit at a task the longest
of the three. Would I do him this favor? I
should not perhaps have to make the sacrifice long as
it wanted, now barely three months to his departure. Saint
John was not a man to be lightly refused. You
felt that every impression made on him, either for pain

(03:05:57):
or pleasure, was deep graved and permanent. I consented. When
Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred
from her to her brother. She laughed, and both she
and Mary agreed that Saint John should never have persuaded
them to such a step. He answered quietly, I know it.

(03:06:19):
I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet
an exacting master. He expected me to do a great deal,
and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way,
fully testified his approbation. By degrees. He acquired a certain
influence over me that took away my liberty of mind.

(03:06:40):
His praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference.
I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he
was by, because a tarsmely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity,
at least in me, was distasteful to him. I was
so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable,

(03:07:02):
that in his presence, every effort to sustain or follow
any other became vain. I fell under a freezing spell
when he said, go, I went, come, I came, do this.
I did it. But I did not love my servitude.
I wished many a time he had continued to neglect me.

(03:07:22):
One evening, when at bedtime his sisters and I stood
round him bidding him good night, he kissed each of them,
as was his custom, and as was equally his custom,
he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be
in a frolicsome humor. She was not painfully controlled by

(03:07:43):
his will, for hers in another way was as strong,
exclaimed Saint John. You used to call Jane your third sister,
but you don't treat her as such. You should kiss
her too. She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana
very provoked, and felt uncomfortably confused. And while I was

(03:08:04):
thus thinking and feeling, Saint John bent his head. His
Greek face was brought to a level with mine. His
eyes questioned my eyes. Piercingly, he kissed me. There are
no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or
I should say my ecclesiastical cousin salute belonged to one
of these classes. But there may be experiment kisses, and

(03:08:26):
his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me
to learn the result. It was not striking. I am
sure I did not blush. Perhaps I might have turned
a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss
were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted.
The ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which

(03:08:47):
I underwent, it seemed to invest it for him with
a certain charm. As for me, I daily wished more
to please him. But to do so, I felt daily
more and more that I must disown half my nature,
stifle half my faculties, rest my tastes from their original bent,
force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I

(03:09:09):
had no natural vocation. He wanted to train me to
an elevation I could never reach. It racked me hourly
to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was
as impossible as to mold my irregular features to his
correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green
eyes the sea blue tint and solemn luster of his own.

(03:09:31):
Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall. At
present of late, it had been easy enough for me
to look sad. A cankering evil sat at my heart
and drained my happiness at its source, the evil of suspense.
Perhaps you think I had forgotten mister Rochester reader, amidst
these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment.

(03:09:55):
His idea was still with me. Because it was not
a vapor sunshine could disperse, or a sand traced effigy
storms could wash away. It was a name graven on
a tablet, faded to last as long as the marble
had inscribed. The craving to know what had become of
him followed me everywhere. When I was at Morton, Irie

(03:10:16):
entered my cottage every evening to think of that. And
now at moor House, I sought my bedroom each night
to brood over it. In the course of my necessary
correspondence with mister Briggs about the will, I had inquired
if he knew anything of mister Rochester's present residence and
state of health. But as Saint John had conjectured, he

(03:10:39):
was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote
to missus Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had
calculated with certainty on this step. Answering my end, I
felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was
astonished when a fortnight passed without reply. But when two
months wore away, and day after day the post arrived

(03:11:01):
and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to
the keenest anxiety. I wrote again, there was a chance
of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope followed renewed effort.
It shone like the former for some weeks. Then like it,
it faded, flickered. Not a line, not a word reached me.

(03:11:22):
When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope
died out, and then I felt dark. Indeed, a fine
spring shown round me, which I could not enjoy. Some
approached Diana tried to cheer me. She said, I looked
ill and wished to accompany me to the seaside. This
Saint John opposed. He said, I did not want dissipation.

(03:11:44):
I wanted employment. My present life was too purposeless. I
required an aim, and I suppose by way of supplying deficiencies.
He prolonged still further my lessons in Hindustani, and grew
more urgent in reques quiring their accomplishment, And I, like
a fool, never thought of resisting him. I could not

(03:12:06):
resist him. One day I had come to my studies
in lower spirits than usual. The EBB was occasioned by
a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the
morning there was a letter for me, And when I
went down to take it, almost certain that the long
looked for tidings were vouchsafed me. At last, I found
only an unimportant note from mister Briggs on business. The

(03:12:31):
bitter check had rung for me some tears, and now,
as I sat pouring over the crabbed characters and flourishing
tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again. Saint
John called me to his side to read. In attempting
to do this, my voice failed me words were lost
in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of

(03:12:51):
the parlor. Diana was practicing her music in the drawing room,
Mary was gardening. It was a very fine May day, clear,
sonny and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion,
nor did he question me as to its cause. He
only said, we will wait a few minutes, Jane, till

(03:13:13):
you are more composed. And while I smothered the paroxysm
with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on
his desk and looking like a physician, watching with the
eye of science and expected and fully understood crisis in
a patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes

(03:13:33):
and muttered something about not being very well that morning.
I resumed my task and succeeded in completing it. Saint
John put away my books and his locked his desk,
and said, now, Jane, you shall take a walk, and
with me I will call Diana and Mary. No. I
want only one companion this morning, and that must be you.

(03:13:56):
Put on your things, go out by the kitchen door,
take the road towards the head of Marsh Glen. I
will join you in a moment. I know no medium.
I never in my life have known any medium. In
my dealings with positive, hard characters antagonistic to my own,
between absolute submission and determined revolt, I have always faithfully

(03:14:20):
observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting,
sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other. And as neither
present circumstances warranted nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny,
I observed careful obedience to Saint John's directions, and in
ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the

(03:14:41):
glen side by side with him. The breeze was from
the west. It came over the hills, sweet with scents
of heath and rush. The sky was of stainless blue.
The stream descending the ravine swelled with past spring rains,
poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the

(03:15:01):
sun and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced
and left the track, we trod a soft turf, mossy
fine and emerald green, minutely enameled with a tiny white
flower and spangled with a starlike yellow blossom. The hills, meantime,
shut us quite in, for the glen towards its head

(03:15:25):
moon to their very core. Let us rest here, sad St. John.
As we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of
rocks guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck
rushed down a waterfall, and where still a little farther
the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath

(03:15:46):
for raiment and crag for gem, where it exaggerated the
wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh for the frowning,
where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude and a
last refuge for silence. I took a seat. Saint John
stood near me. He looked up the pass and down
the hollow. His glance wandered away with the stream and

(03:16:08):
returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which colored it. He
removed his hat, let the breeze, stir his hair, and
kiss his brow. He seemed in communion with the genius
of the haunt. With his eye. He bade farewell to something,
and I shall see it again, he said aloud, in
dreams when I sleep by the Ganges, and again in

(03:16:30):
a more remote hour, when another slumber overcomes me on
the shore of a darker stream. Strange words of a
strange love and austere patriot's passion for his fatherland. He
sat down for half an hour. We never spoke, neither
he to me nor I to him. That interval passed,

(03:16:50):
he recommenced, Jane, I go in six weeks. I have
taken my berth in an East India man which sails
on the twentieth of June. God will protect you, for
you have undertaken his work. I answered, yes, said he,
there is my glory and joy. I am the servant
of an infallible master. I am not going out under

(03:17:12):
human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring control
of my feeble fellow worms. My king, my logo, my
captain is the all perfect. It seems strange to me
that all around me do not burn to enlist under
the same banner to join in the same enterprise. All
have not your powers, and it would be folly for

(03:17:33):
the feeble to wish to march with the strong. I
do not speak to the feeble, or think of them.
I address only such as are worthy of the work
and competent to accomplish it. Those are few in number
and difficult to discover, you say, truly, But when found,
it is right to stir them up, to urge and

(03:17:54):
exhort them to the effort to show them what their
gifts are and why they were given to speak Heaven's
me message in their ear, to offer them, direct from God,
a place in the ranks of His chosen. If they
are really qualified for the task, will not their own
hearts be the first to inform them of it? I
felt as if an awful charm was framing round and

(03:18:16):
gathering over me. I trembled to hear some fatal words spoken,
which would at once declare and rivet the spell. And
what does your heart say, demanded Saint John. My heart
is mute. My heart is mute, I answered, struck and thrilled.

(03:18:39):
Then I must speak for it, continued the deep, relentless voice. Jane,
Come with me to India, Come as my help meet
and fellow laborer. The glen and sky spun round the hills. Heaved.
It was as if I had heard a summons from heaven,
as if a visionary messenger like him of Macedonia had announced,

(03:19:00):
come over and help us. But I was no apostle.
I could not behold the herald. I could not receive
his call. Oh, Saint John, I cried, have some mercy.
I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what
he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued,

(03:19:21):
God and Nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It
is not personal but mental endowments they have given you.
You are formed for labor, not for love. A missionary's wife.
You must shall be you shall be mine. I claim
you not for my pleasure, but for my sovereign service.
I am not fit for it. I have no vocation,

(03:19:43):
I said. He had calculated on these first objections. He
was not irritated by them. Indeed, as he leaned back
against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest,
and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for
a lofe long and trying opposition, and had taken in
a stock of patience to last him to its close. Resolved, however,

(03:20:08):
that that close should be conquest for him humility, Jane said.
He is the groundwork of Christian virtues. You say right
that you are not fit for the work. Who is
fit for it? Or who that ever was truly called
believed himself worthy of the summons? I, for instance, am
but dust and ashes with Saint Paul. I acknowledge myself

(03:20:32):
the chiefest of sinners. But I do not suffer this
sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I know
my leader that he is just as well as mighty,
And while he has chosen a feeble instrument to perform
a great task, he will, from the boundless stores of
his providence supply the inadequacy of the means to the end.

(03:20:53):
Think like me, Jane, Trust like me. It is the
rock of ages I ask you to lean on. Do
not doubt, but it will bear the weight of your
human weakness. I do not understand a missionary life. I
have never studied missionary labors. There I, humble as I am,
can give you the age you want. I can set
your task from our tower, stand by you always help

(03:21:18):
you from moment to moment. This I could do in
the beginning soon, for I know your powers, you would
be as strong and apt as myself and would not
require my help. But my powers where are they? For
this undertaking? I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or
stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of

(03:21:38):
no light kindling, no life quickening, no voice, counseling or cheering.
Oh I wish I could make you see how much
my mind is at this moment like a rayalist dungeon
with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths, the fear
of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish.
I have an answer for you, hear it. I have

(03:21:59):
watched you ever since we first met. I have made
you my study for ten months. I have proved you
in that time by sundry tests. And what have I
seen and elicited in the village school. I found you
could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labor uncongenial to your habits
and inclinations. I saw you could perform it with capacity

(03:22:21):
and tact You could win while you controlled in the
calm with which you learnt. You had become suddenly rich.
I read a mind clear of the vice of demus.
Lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute
readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares,
keeping but one to yourself and relinquishing the three others

(03:22:42):
to the claim of abstract justice, I recognized a soul
that reveled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In
the tractability with which, at my wish you forsook a
study in which you were interested and adopted another because
it interested me. In the untiring assiduity with which you

(03:23:02):
have since persevered in it, in the unflagging energy and
unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties, I
acknowledged the compliment of the qualities I seek. Jane, you
are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant and courageous, very gentle,
and very heroic. Ceased to mistrust yourself. I can trust

(03:23:26):
you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools and a
helper amongst Indian women. Your assistance will be to me invaluable.
My iron shroud contracted round me, persuasion advanced with slow
sure step, shut my eyes as I would these last
words of his succeeded in making the way, which had

(03:23:48):
seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared
so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded
and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand. He
waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an
hour to think before I again hazarded a reply. Very

(03:24:10):
willingly he rejoined, and rising, he strode a little distance
up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath,
and there lay still. I can do what he wants
me to do. I am forced to see and acknowledge
that I meditated, that is, if life be spared me.
But I feel mine is not the existence to be

(03:24:32):
long protracted under an Indian sun. What then, he does
not care for that when my time came to die,
he would resign me in all serenity and sanctity to
the God who gave me. The case is very plain
before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved
but empty land. Mister Rochester is not there, And if

(03:24:55):
he were, what is what can that ever be to me?
My business is to live without him? Now? Nothing so absurd,
so weak as to drag on from day to day
as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances
which might reunite me to him. Of course, as St
John one said, I must seek another interest in life

(03:25:18):
to replace the one lost. Is not the occupation he
now offers me. Truly the most glorious man can adopt
or God assign, Is it not, by its noble cares
and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the
void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes. I believe
I must say yes, And yet I shudder alas if

(03:25:42):
I join Saint John, I abandon half myself. If I
go to India, I go to premature death. And how
will the interval between leaving England for India and India
for the grave be filled? Oh? I know well, that
too is very clear to my vision. By straining to
satisfy Saint John till my sinews ache, I shall satisfy

(03:26:04):
him to the finest central point and farthest outward circle
of his expectations. If I do go with him, If
I do make this sacrifice, he urges, I will make
it absolutely. I will throw all on the altar, heart, vitals,
the entire victim. He will never love me, but he
shall approve me. I will show him energies he has

(03:26:27):
not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I
can work as hard as he can, and with as
little grudging consent then to his demand as possible. But
for one item, one dreadful item. It is that he
asks me to be his wife, and has no more
of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant

(03:26:49):
of a rock down which the stream is foaming in
yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier with a
good weapon, and that is all unmarried to him. This
never grieve me. But can I let him complete his
calculations coolly put into practice his plans, go through the
wedding ceremony. Can I receive from him the bridal ring,

(03:27:11):
endure all the forms of love which I doubt not
he would scrupulously observe, and know that the spirit was
quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment
he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No, such
a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it,
as his sister I might accompany him, not as his wife.

(03:27:35):
I will tell him. So, I looked towards the knoll.
There he lay still as a prostrate column. His face
turned to me, his I beaming, watchful and keen. He
started to his feet and approached me. I am ready
to go to India if I may go free. Your
answer requires a commentary, he said. It is not clear

(03:27:56):
you have hitherto been my adopted brother. I you're a
adopted sister. Let us continue as such. You and I
had better not marry. He shook his head. Adopted fraternity
will not do in this case. If you were my
real sister, it would be different. I should take you
and seek no wife. But as it is, either our

(03:28:18):
union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it
cannot exist. Practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan.
Do you not see it, Jane, consider a moment. Your
strong sense will guide you. I did consider, and still
my sense, such as it was, directed me only to

(03:28:39):
the fact that we did not love each other as
man and wife should, and therefore it inferred we ought
not to marry. I said, so, Saint John, I returned,
I regard you as a brother, you me as a sister,
So let us continue. We can we cannot, he answered,
with short, sharp determine nation it would not do. You

(03:29:02):
have said you will go with me to India. Remember
you have said that conditionally. Well well to the main point,
the departure with me from England, the cooperation with me
in my future labors. You do not object. You have
already as good as put your hand to the plow.
You are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but

(03:29:23):
one end to keep in view, how the work you
have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims,
merge all considerations in one purpose, that of fulfilling with effect,
with power, the mission of your great Master. To do so,

(03:29:44):
you must have a coadjutor, not a brother, that is
a loose tie, but a husband. I too, do not
want a sister. A sister might any day be taken
from me. I want a wife. The soul help meet
I can influence efficiently in life and retain absolutely till death.
I shuddered as he spoke. I felt his influence in

(03:30:06):
my marrow, his hold on my limbs. Seek one elsewhere
than in me, Saint John, Seek one fitted to you,
one fitted to my purpose. You mean fitted to my vocation. Again,
I tell you it is not the insignificant private individual,
the mere man with the man's selfish senses I wish
to mate. It is the missionary, and I will give

(03:30:29):
the missionary my energies. It is all he wants, But
not myself. That would be only adding the husk and
shell to the kernel. For them. He has no use.
I retain them. You cannot. You ought not. Do you
think God will be satisfied with half an oblation? Will
he accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of God,

(03:30:50):
I advocate, it is under his standard. I enlist you.
I cannot accept on his behalf a divided allegiance. It
must be entire. Oh, I will give my heart to God.
I said, you do not want it. I will not
swear reader that there was not something of repressed sarcasm,
both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence

(03:31:12):
and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently
feared Saint John till now because I had not understood him.
He had held me in awe, because he had held
me in doubt. How much of him was saint? How
much mortal I could not Heretofoetell, But revelations were being
made in this conference. The analysis of his nature was

(03:31:34):
proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities. I comprehended them.
I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the
bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me,
I sat at the feet of a man caring as
I the veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having

(03:31:54):
felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt
his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal
one with whom I might argue, one whom, if I
saw good, I might resist. He was silent after I
had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an
upward glance at his countenance. His eye bend on me,

(03:32:16):
expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. Is she sarcastic?
And sarcastic? To me? It seemed to say, what does
this signify? Do not let us forget that this is
a solemn matter, he said, ere long, one of which
we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane,

(03:32:37):
you are in earnest when you say you will serve
your heart to God, it is all I want. Once,
wrench your heart from man and fix it on your maker.
The advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth will
be your chief delight and endeavor. You will be ready
to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will
see what impetus would be given to your efforts and

(03:32:59):
mine by our physical and mental union in marriage, the
only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to
the destinies and designs of human beings, and passing over
all minor caprices, all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling,
all scruple about the degree kind, strength, or tenderness of

(03:33:22):
mere personal inclination. You will hasten to enter into that
union at once, shall I? I said briefly, And I looked
at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but strangely formidable
in their still severity, at his brow commanding but not open,
at his eyes, bright and deep and searching but never soft,

(03:33:45):
at his tall, imposing figure, and fancied myself an idea
his wife. Oh, it would never do, as his curate,
his comrade, all would be right. I would cross oceans
with him in that capacity toil under eastern suns in
Asian deserts with him in that office, Admire and emulate

(03:34:06):
his courage and devotion and vigor, accommodate quietly to his masterhood,
Smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition, discriminate the Christian from
the man, profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other.
I should suffer often no doubt attached to him. Only

(03:34:27):
in this capacity. My body would be under rather a
stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free.
I should still have my unblighted self to turn to
my natural, unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments
of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which
would be only mine, to which he never came, and

(03:34:49):
sentiments growing there, fresh and sheltered, which his austerity could
never blight, nor his measured warrior march trample down. But
as his wife at his side, always and always restrained,
and always checked, forced to keep the fire of my
nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly, and

(03:35:10):
never utter a cry. Though the imprisoned flame consumed vital
after vital, this would be unendurable. Saint John, I exclaimed,
when I had got so far in my meditation. Well,
he answered icily, I repeat, I freely consent to go
with you as your fellow missionary, but not as your wife.

(03:35:32):
I cannot marry you and become part of you, A
part of me you must become, he answered steadily. Otherwise
the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man
not yet thirty, take out with me to India a
girl of nineteen unless she be married to me? How
can we be forever together? Sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst

(03:35:54):
savage tribes and unwet Very well, I said, shortly, under
the circumstances, quite as well as if I were either
your real sister or a man and a clergyman like yourself.
It is known that you are not my sister. I
cannot introduce you as such. To attempt it would be
to fasten injurious suspicions on us both and for the rest.

(03:36:17):
That you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a
woman's heart, and it would not do it, would do,
I affirmed, with some disdain. Perfectly, Well, I have a
woman's heart, but not where you are concerned. For you,
I have only a comrade's constancy, a fellow soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity,

(03:36:37):
if you like a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant,
nothing more. Don't fear it is what I want, he said,
speaking to himself. It is just what I want, And
there are obstacles in the way. They must be hewn down. Jane,
you would not repent marrying me. Be certain of that.

(03:36:58):
We must be married. I repeat it. There is no
other way, and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon
marriage to render the union right, even in your eyes.
I scorn your idea of love, I could not help saying,
as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my
back against the rock, I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer, yes,

(03:37:21):
Saint John, and I scorn you when you offer it.
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well cut lips
while he did so. Whether he was incensed or surprised
or what it was not easy to tell. He could
command his countenance thoroughly. I scarcely expected to hear that
expression from you, he said. I think I have done

(03:37:43):
and uttered nothing to deserve scorn. I was touched by
his gentle tone and overawed by his high calm. Mean
forgive me the words, Saint John. But it is your
own fault that I have been roused to speak so unguardedly.
You have introduced a topic on which are natures are
at variance, a topic we should never discuss. The very

(03:38:04):
name of love is an apple of discord between us.
If the reality were required, what should we do? How
should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage?
Forget it? No, said he. It is a long cherished
scheme and the only one which can secure my great end.
But I shall urge you no further at present. Tomorrow

(03:38:27):
I leave home for Cambridge. I have many friends there
to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall
be absent a fortnight. Take that space of time to
consider my offer, and do not forget that. If you
reject it, it is not me you deny, but God,
through my means, He opens to you a noble career
as my wife. Only can you enter upon it. Refuse

(03:38:50):
to be my wife, and you limit yourself forever to
a track of selfish ease, and bear and obscurity tremble less.
In that case, you should be numbered with those who
have denied the faith and are worse than infidels. He
had done. Turning from me, he once more looked to river,
looked to hill. But this time his feelings were all

(03:39:11):
pent in his heart. I was not worthy to hear them. Uttered.
As I walked by his side homeward, I read well
in his iron silence all he felt towards me. The
disappointment of an austere and despotic nature which has met
resistance where it expected submission. The disapprobation of a cool,

(03:39:31):
inflexible judgment which has detected in another feelings and views
in which it has no power to sympathize. In short,
as a man, he would have wished to course me
into obedience. It was only as a sincere Christian he
bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long
a space for reflection and repentance. That night, after he

(03:39:55):
had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget even
to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I,
who though I had no love, had much friendship for him,
was hurt by the marked omission, so much hurt that
tears started to my eyes. I see you, and Saint
John have been quarreling, Jane said Diana, during your walk

(03:40:18):
on the moor. But go after him. He is now
lingering in the passage, expecting you. He will make it up.
I have not much pride under such circumstances. I would
always rather be happy than dignified, and I ran after him.
He stood at the foot of the stairs. Good Night,
Saint John, said, I good night, Jane, he replied calmly.

(03:40:40):
Then shake hands. I added, What a cold, loose touch
he impressed on my fingers. He was deeply displeased by
what had occurred that day. Cordiality would not warm nor
tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had
with him, no cheering smile or generous word. But still

(03:41:01):
the Christian was patient and placid. And when I asked
him if he forgave me, he answered that he was
not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation,
that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much
rather he had knocked me down Chapter thirty five. He

(03:41:23):
did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he
had said he would. He deferred his departure a whole week,
And during that time he made me feel what severe
punishment a good, yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable man
can inflict on one who has offended him without one
overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word. He contrived to

(03:41:46):
impress me momently with the conviction that I was put
beyond the pale of his favor. Not that Saint John
harbored a spirit of Unchristian vindictiveness, not that he would
have injured a hair of my head if it had
been fully in an it power to do so. Both
by nature and principle, he was superior to the mean
gratification of vengeance. He had forgiven me for saying I

(03:42:09):
scorned him and his love. But he had not forgotten
the words, and as long as he and I lived,
he never would forget them. I saw by his look
when he turned to me that they were always written
on the air between me and him. Whenever I spoke,
they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their
echo toned every answer he gave me. He did not

(03:42:31):
abstain from conversing with me. He even called me as
usual each morning to join him at his desk, And
I fear the corrupt man within him had a pleasure
unimparted to and unshared by the pure Christian in evincing
with what skill he could while acting and speaking, apparently
just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase

(03:42:55):
the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated
a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To me,
he was in reality become no longer flesh but marble.
His eye was a cold, bright blue gem. His tongue
is speaking instrument, nothing more. All this was torture to me, refined,

(03:43:18):
lingering torture. It kept up a slow fire of indignation
and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed and crushed
me altogether. I felt, how if I were his wife,
this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could
soon kill me without drawing from my veins a single
drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience

(03:43:42):
the faintest stain of crime. Especially, I felt this when
I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met
my ruth. He experienced no suffering from estrangement, no yearning
after reconciliation, And though more than once my fast falling
tears blistered the page over which we both bent. They

(03:44:03):
produced no more effect on him than if his heart
had been really a matter of stone or metal. To
his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual, as
if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me
how completely I was banished and banned he added the
force of contrast, and this I am sure he did

(03:44:24):
not by force, but on principle. The night before he
left home, happening to see him walking in the garden
about sunset, and remembering as I looked at him that
this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved
my life, and that we were near relations, I was
moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship.

(03:44:47):
I went out and approached him as he stood leaning
over the little gate. I spoke to the point at once,
Saint John, I am unhappy because you are still angry
with me. Let us be friends. I hope we are friends,
was the unmoved reply, while he still watched the rising
of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I approached. No,

(03:45:09):
Saint John, we are not friends as we were. You
know that, are we not that? Is wrong. For my part,
I wish you no ill and all good. I believe you,
St John, for I am sure you are incapable of
wishing anyone ill. But as I am your kinswoman, I
should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of

(03:45:31):
general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers. Of course, he said,
your wish is reasonable, and I am far from regarding
you as a stranger. This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone,
was mortifying and baffling enough. Had I attended to the
suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left him.

(03:45:53):
But something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could.
I deeply venerated my cousins, talent, and principle. His friendship
was of value to me. To lose it tried me severely.
I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.
Must we part in this way, Saint John? And when
you go to India, will you leave me so without

(03:46:16):
a kinder word than you have yet spoken. He now
turned quite from the moon and faced me. When I
go to India, Jane, will I leave you? What do
you not go to India? You said? I could not
unless I married you, and you will not marry me.
You adhere to that resolution. Reader, Do you know as

(03:46:36):
I do, what terror those cold people can put into
the ice of their questions? How much of the fall
of the avalanche is in their anger of the breaking
up of the frozen sea and their displeasure? No, Saint John,
I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but

(03:46:57):
it did not yet crash down once more. Why this refusal,
he asked, Formerly, I answered, because you did not love me.
Now I reply, because you almost hate me. If I
were to marry you, you would kill me. You are
killing me now. His lips and cheeks turned white, quite white.

(03:47:19):
I should kill you. I am killing you. Your words
are such as ought not to be used, violent, unfeminine,
and untrue. They betray an unfortunate state of mind. They
merit severe reproof. They would seem inexcusable, but that it
is the duty of man to forgive his fellow, even
until seventy end seven times, I had finished the business. Now,

(03:47:43):
while earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace
of my former offense, I had stamped on that tenacious surface,
another and far deeper impression I had burned it in.
Now you will indeed hate me, I said. It is
useless to attempt to conciliate you. I see I have
made an eternal enemy of you. A fresh wrong. Did
these words inflict the worse because they touched on the truth.

(03:48:08):
That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew
the steely ire I had wedded. I was heart wrung.
You utterly misinterpret my words, I said, at once, seizing
his hand, I have no intention to grieve or pain you.
Indeed I have not. Most bitterly, he smiled, most decidedly.

(03:48:29):
He withdrew his hand from mine. And now you recall
your promise and will not go to India at all,
I presume, said he, after a considerable pause. Yes, I
will as your assistant, I answered. A very long silence
succeeded what struggle there was in him between nature and
grace In this interval, I cannot tell only singular gleams

(03:48:53):
scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face.
He spoke at LFE. I before proved to you the
absurdity of a single woman of your age, proposing to
accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it
to you in such terms as I should have thought
would have prevented your ever again alluding to the plan

(03:49:15):
that you have done so, I regret for your sake,
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me
courage at once. Keep to common sense, Sayst. John, you
are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by
what I have said, you are not really shocked, for
with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull

(03:49:38):
or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again,
I will be your curate if you like, but never
your wife. Again. He turned lividly pale, but as before,
controlled his passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly, A
female curate who is not my wife would never suit

(03:49:59):
me with me. Then it seems you cannot go. But
if you are sincere in your offer, I will, while
in town speak to a married missionary whose wife needs
a coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of
the society's aid, and thus you may still be spared
the dishonor of breaking your promise and deserting the band

(03:50:21):
you engage to join. Now, I never had, as the
reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into
any engagement. And this language was all much too hard
and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied. There
is no dishonor no breach of promise, no desertion in

(03:50:42):
the case. I am not under the slightest obligation to
go to India, especially with strangers. With you, I would
have ventured much because I admire, confide in, and as
a sister, I love you. But I am convinced that
go when and with whom I would, I should not
live long in that climate. Uh, you are afraid of yourself,

(03:51:04):
he said, curling his lip. I am God did not
give me my life to throw away and to do
as you wish me. Would I begin to think be
almost equivalent to committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitively resolve
on quitting England, I will know for certain whether I
cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than

(03:51:26):
by leaving it. What do you mean? It would be
fruitless to attempt to explain. But there is a point
on which I have long endured painful doubt. And I
can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed.
I know where your heart turns, and to what it clings.
The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since

(03:51:47):
you ought to have crushed it. Now you should blush
to allude to it. You think of mister Rochester. It
was true. I confessed it by silence. Are you going
to seek mister Rochester? I must find out what is
become of him. It remains for me. Then he said,
to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God

(03:52:08):
for you in all earnestness, that you may not indeed
become a castaway. I had thought I recognized in you
one of the chosen. But God sees not as man sees.
His will be done. He opened the gate, passed through it,
and straight away down the glen. He was soon out
of sight. On re entering the parlor, I found Diana

(03:52:30):
standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. Diana was a
great deal taller than I. She put her hand on
my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face. Jane. She said,
you are always agitated and pale. Now I am sure
there is something the matter. Tell me what business Saint
John and you have on hands. I have watched you

(03:52:52):
this half hour from the window. You must forgive my
being such a spy, But for a long time I
have fancied I hardly know. St. John is a strange being.
She paused, I did not speak. Soon she resumed that
brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you.
I am sure he has long distinguished you by a

(03:53:15):
notice and interest he never showed to anyone else. To
what end I wish he loved you? Does he? Jane?
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead. No, die,
not one whit? Then why does he follow you so
with his eyes, and get you so frequently alone with him,
and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and

(03:53:37):
I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.
He does. He has asked me to be his wife.
Diana clapped her hands. That is just what we hoped
in thought. And you will marry him, Jane, won't you?
And then he will stay in England far from that, Diana.
His sole idea in proposing to me is to procure

(03:53:57):
a fitting fellow laborer in his Indian toils. What he
wishes you to go to India. Yes, madness, she exclaimed,
you would not live three months there. I am certain
you never shall go. You have not consented, have you, Jane.
I have refused to marry him and have consequently displeased him.

(03:54:19):
She suggested deeply. He will never forgive me. I fear.
Yet I offered to accompany him as his sister. It
was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the
task you undertook, one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills
even the strong, and you are weak. St John you

(03:54:39):
know him would urge you to impossibilities. With him. There
would be no permission to rest during the hot hours.
And unfortunately I have noticed whatever he exacts you force
yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to
refuse his hand. You do not love him, then, Jane,

(03:55:00):
not as a husband. Yet he is a handsome fellow.
And I am so plain you see, Die, we should
never suit plain you, not at all. You are much
too pretty as well as too good to be grilled
alive in Calcutta. And again she earnestly conjured me to
give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.

(03:55:23):
I must, indeed, I said, for when just now I
repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he
expressed himself shocked at my want of decency. He seemed
to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to
accompany him unmarried, as if I had not from the
first hoped to find in him a brother and habitually

(03:55:43):
regarded him as such. What makes you say he does
not love you, Jane? You should hear himself on the subject.
He has again and again explained that it is not
himself but his office he wishes to meet. He has
told me I am formed for labor, not for love,
which is true, no doubt. But in my opinion, if
I am not formed for love, it follows that I

(03:56:06):
am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange
die to be chained for life to a man who
regarded one but as a useful tool, insupportable, unnatural? Out
of the question. And then I continued, though I have
only sisterly affection for him now, Yet if forced to
be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving

(03:56:28):
an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because
he is so talented, and there is often a certain
heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case,
my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want
me to love him, and if I showed the feeling,

(03:56:49):
he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity
unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.
And yet Saint John is a good man, said die Diana.
He is a good and a great man, but he
forgets pitilessly the feelings and claims of little people in
pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore for

(03:57:13):
the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest in
his progress he should trample them down. Here he comes,
I will leave you, Diana. And I hastened upstairs as
I saw him entering the garden. But I was forced
to meet him again at supper. During that meal he
appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he

(03:57:35):
would hardly speak to me, and I was certain he
had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme. The
sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed
me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had of
late been his ordinary manner, one scrupulously polite. No doubt
he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to

(03:57:57):
subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now
believed he had forgiven me once more. For the evening
reading before prayers, he selected the twenty first chapter of Revelation.
It was at all times pleasant to listen while from
his lips fell the words of the Bible. Never did
his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full.

(03:58:19):
Never did his manner become so impressive in its noble
simplicity as when he delivered the Oracles of God. And
tonight that voice took a more solemn tone, that manner
a more thrilling meaning. As he sat in the midst
of his household circle, the May moon shining in through
the uncurtained window and rendering almost unnecessary the light of

(03:58:42):
the candle on the table. As he sat there, bending
over the great Old Bible, and described from its page
the vision of the new Heaven and the new Earth.
Told how God would come to dwell with men, how
he would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and
promised that their should be no more death, neither sorrow

(03:59:02):
nor crying, nor any more pain. Because the former things
were passed away. The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as
he spoke them, especially as I felt, by this light
indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them his eye
had turned on me. He that overcometh shall inherit all things,

(03:59:25):
and I will be as God, and he shall be
my son. But was slowly distinctly read the fearful, the
unbelieving see shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
Henceforward I knew what fate Saint John feared for me.
A calm, subdued triumph, blunt with a longing earnestness, marked

(03:59:48):
his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter.
The reader believed his name was already written in the
Lamb's book of life, and he yearned after the hour
which should admit him to the city to which the
kings of the earth bring their glory and honor, which
has no need of sun or moon to shine in it,
because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb

(04:00:12):
is the light thereof. In the prayer following the chapter,
all his energy gathered, all his stern zeal woke. He
was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on
a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak hearted, guidance
for wanderers from the fold, a return even at the

(04:00:32):
eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world
and the flesh were alluring from the narrow path. He asked,
he urged, He claimed. The boon of a brand snatched
from the burning earnestness is ever deeply solemn. First, as
I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his Then,

(04:00:53):
when it continued and rose, I was touched by it,
and at last owed he felt the greatness and goodness
of his purpose so sincerely. Others who heard him plead
for it could not but feel it too. The prayer over,
we took leave of him. He was to go at
a very early hour in the morning. Diana and Mary,

(04:01:14):
having kissed him, left the room in compliance. I think,
with a whispered hint from him. I tendered my hand
and wished him a pleasant journey. Thank you, Jane, As
I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a fortnight.
That space, then is yet left you for reflection. If

(04:01:36):
I listened to human pride. I should say no more
to you of marriage with me. But I listened to
my duty and keep steadily in view my first aim
to do all things to the glory of God. My
master was long suffering, so will I be. I cannot
give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath, repent,
resolve while there is yet time. Remember we are bit

(04:01:59):
to work while it is day. Warned that the night
cometh when no man shall work. Remember the fate of Dives,
who had his good things in this life. God give
you strength to choose that better part which shall not
be taken from you. He laid his hand on my
head as he uttered the last words he had spoken, earnestly, mildly.

(04:02:20):
His look was not indeed that of a lover beholding
his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling
his wandering sheep, or better, of a guardian angel watching
the soul for which he is responsible. All men of talent,
whether they be men of feeling or not, whether they
be zealots or aspirants or despots, provided only they be sincere,

(04:02:44):
have their sublime moments when they subdue and rule. I
felt veneration for Saint John veneration so strong that its
impetus thrust me at once to the point I had
so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him,
to rush down the torrent of his will into the
gulf of his existence, and there lose my own. I

(04:03:05):
was almost as hard beset by him now as I
had been once before, in a different way, by another.
I was a fool both times. To have yielded then
would have been an error of principle. To have yielded
now would have been an error of judgment. So I
think at this hour, when I look back to the
crisis through the quiet medium of time, I was unconscious

(04:03:27):
of folly. At the instant I stood motionless under my
hirafans touch. My refusals were forgotten, my fears overcome, my
wrestlings paralyzed the impossible. I e. My marriage with Saint
John was fust becoming the possible. All was changing utterly
with a sudden sweep. Religion called angels, beckoned God commanded

(04:03:51):
life rolled together like a scroll death skates opening showed
eternity beyond. It seemed that for safety and bliss there
all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim
room was full of visions. Could you decide, now? Asked
the missionary. The inquiry was put in gentle tones. He

(04:04:14):
drew me to him as gently. Oh that gentleness, How
far more potent is it than force? I could resist
Saint John's wrath. I grew pliant as a read under
his kindness. Yet I knew all the time. If I
yielded now, I should not the less be made to
repent some day of my former rebellion. His nature was

(04:04:35):
not changed by one hour of solemn prayer. It was
only elevated. I could decide if I were but certain?
I answered, Were I but convinced that it is God's
while I should marry you. I could vow to marry
you here and now come afterwards? What would my eye
prayers are heard? Ejaculated Saint John. He pressed his hand

(04:04:56):
firmer on my head, as if he claimed me. He
he surrounded me with his arm, almost as if he
loved me. I say almost. I knew the difference, for
I had felt what it was to be loved. But
like him, I had now put love out of the
question and thought only of duty. I contended with my

(04:05:17):
inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply,
fervently longed to do what was right, and only that
show me, show me the path I entreated of heaven.
I was excited more than I had ever been. And
whether what followed was the effect of excitement, the reader

(04:05:37):
shall judge. All the house was still, for I believe
all except Saint John and myself were now retired to rest.
The one candle was dying out. The room was full
of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick. I heard
its throb Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling

(04:05:57):
that thrilled it through and at once to my head
and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock,
but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling.
It acted on my senses as if their utmost activity
hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now
summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant. I and

(04:06:20):
ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones. What
have you heard? What do you see? Asked Saint John.
I saw nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry Jane, Jane, Jane,
nothing more, Oh God, What is it? I gasped. I
might have said where is it? For it did not

(04:06:41):
seem in the room, nor in the house, nor in
the garden. It did not come out of the air,
nor from under the earth, nor from overhead. I had
heard it. Where or whence forever impossible to know. And
it was the voice of a human being, unknown, loved,
well remembered voice that of Edward Fairfax, Rochester. And it

(04:07:04):
spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently. I am coming,
I cried, Wait for me, Oh, I will come. I
flew to the door and looked into the passage. It
was dark. I ran out into the garden. It was void.
Where are you? I exclaimed. The hills beyond marsh Glen

(04:07:27):
sent the answer faintly back, Where are you? I listened
the windside low in the first All was Morland, loneliness
and midnight, hush down, superstition. I commented, as that specter
rose up black by the black you at the gate.
This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft. It is

(04:07:48):
the work of nature. She was roused and did no miracle,
but her best. I broke from Saint John, who had
followed and would have detained me. It was my time
to assume ascendancy. My powers were in play and in force.
I told him to forbear question or remark. I desired

(04:08:09):
him to leave me. I must and would be alone.
He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command,
well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber,
locked myself in, fell on my knees, and prayed in
my way, a different way to Saint John's, but effective
in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near

(04:08:32):
a mighty spirit, and my soul rushed out in gratitude
at his feet. I rose from the thanksgiving, took a resolve,
and lay down, unscared, enlightened, eager, But for the daylight
Chapter thirty six. The daylight came. I rose at dawn.
I busied myself for an hour or two with arranging

(04:08:53):
my things in my chamber, drawers and wardrobe in the
order wherein I should wish to leave them. During a
brief absence meantime, I heard Saint John quit his room.
He stopped at my door. I feared he would knock no,
but a slip of paper was passed under the door.
I took it up. It bore these words y'all left

(04:09:17):
Metu suddenly last night Hadeus stayed beat a little longer.
Y'all would have leadio your hand in the Christian's gross
and the Angel's ground. If shall expect our clear decision
when you're a turn this day fortnight meantime, watch in
pray thayaan turn no tinto temptation. The spirit a trust
is willing, but the flesh I see is weak. I

(04:09:40):
shall pray for you hourly dot yours, Saint John. My spirit,
I answered, mentally, is willing to do what is right.
And my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish
the will of Heaven when once that will is distinctly
known to me. At any rate, it shall be strong
enough enough to search, inquire, to grope an outlet from

(04:10:03):
this cloud of doubt and find the open day of certainty.
It was the first of June, yet the morning was
overcast and chilly. Rain beat fast on my casement. I
heard the front door open and Saint John pass out.
Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden.
He took the way over the misty moors in the

(04:10:24):
direction of Whitcross. There he would meet the coach in
a few more hours, I shall succeed you in that track,
cousin thought I, I too have a coach to meet
at Whitcross. I too have some to see and ask
after in England before I depart forever it wanted yet
two hours of breakfast time. I filled the interval in

(04:10:44):
walking softly about my room and pondering the visitation which
had given my plans their present bent. I recalled that
inward sensation I had experienced, for I could recall it
with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I
had heard again, I questioned, whence it came as vainly

(04:11:05):
as before you left me too suddenly last night. Had
you stayed but a little longer, you would have laid
your hand on the Christian's cross and the Angel's crown.
I shall expect your clear decision when I return this
day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not
into temptation. The spirit I trust is willing, but the

(04:11:27):
flesh I see is weak. I shall pray for you hourly,
dot yours, Saint John. It seemed in me, not in
the external world, I asked, Was it a mere nervous impression,
A delusion. I could not conceive or believe. It was
more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come,

(04:11:47):
like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and
Silas's prison. It had opened the doors of the soul's
cell and loosed its bands. It had wakened it out
of its sleep. Whence it sprang trembling, listening aghast, then
vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in
my quaking heart, and through my spirit, which neither feared

(04:12:11):
nor shook, but exulted, as if in joy over the
success of one effort it had been privileged to make
independent of the cumbrous body. Ere many days, I said,
as I terminated my musings, I will know something of
him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters
have proved of no avail, Personal inquiry shall replace them.

(04:12:34):
At breakfast, I announced to Diana and Mary that I
was going a journey and should be absent at least
four days alone Jane. They asked, yes, it was to
see or hear news of a friend about whom I
had for some time been uneasy. They might have said,
as I have no doubt. They thought that they had
believed me to be without any friends save them, for

(04:12:56):
indeed I had often said so. But with their true
natural delicacy, they abstained from comment, except that Diana asked
me if I was sure I was well enough to travel.
I looked very pale, she observed. I replied that nothing
ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon

(04:13:17):
to alleviate. It was easy to make my further arrangements,
for I was troubled with no inquiries, no surmises. Having
once explained to them that I could not now be
explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in
the silence with which I pursued them. According to me,
the privilege of free action I should, under similar circumstances

(04:13:39):
have accorded them. I left more House at three o'clock
p m. And soon after four I stood at the
foot of the signpost of Whitcross, waiting the arrival of
the coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield.
Amidst the silence of those solitary roads and desert hills,
I heard it approach from a great distance. It was

(04:14:00):
the same vehicle whence a year ago I had alighted
one summer evening on this very spot. How desolate and
hopeless and objectless it stopped as I beckoned. I entered,
not now obliged to part with my whole fortune as
the price of its accommodation. Once more, on the road
to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger pigeon flying home.

(04:14:23):
It was a journey of six and thirty hours. I
had set out from Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and
early on the succeeding Thursday morning, the coach stopped to
water the horses at a wayside. In situated in the
midst of scenery, whose green hedges and large fields and
low pastoral hills. How mild of feature and verdant of

(04:14:44):
Hugh compared with the stern North Midland moors of Morton
met my eye like the lineaments of a once familiar face. Yes,
I knew the character of this landscape. I was sure
we were near my bourn. How far is Thornfield haul
from here, I asked of the ostler. Just two miles
ma'am across the fields. My journey is closed, I thought

(04:15:07):
to myself. I got out of the coach, gave a
box I had into the Ostler's charge to be kept
till I called for it, paid my fare, satisfied the coachman,
and was going. The brightening day gleamed on the sign
of the Inn, and I read in guilt letters the
Rochester arms. My heart leapt up. I was already on

(04:15:29):
my master's very lands. It fell again. The thought struck it.
Your master himself may be beyond the British channel for aught,
you know. And then if he is at Thornfield Hall
towards which you hasten, who besides him is there his
lunatic wife, and you have nothing to do with him?

(04:15:49):
You dare not speak to him or seek his presence.
You have lost your labor. You had better go no farther,
urged the monitor. Ask information of the people at the Inn.
They can give you all you seek. They can solve
your doubts at once. Go up to that man and
inquire if mister Rochester be at home. The suggestion was sensible,

(04:16:10):
and yet I could not force myself to act on it.
I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair.
To prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet
once more see the hall under the ray of her star.
There was the stile before me, the very fields through
which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted, with a revengeful fury,

(04:16:33):
tracking and scourging me. On the morning I fled from
Thornfield ere I well knew what course I had resolved
to take. I was in the midst of them. How
fast I walked, how I ran, sometimes, how I looked
forward to catch the first view of the well known
woods with what feelings I welcomed, single trees I knew,

(04:16:54):
and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them. At Last,
the woods rose, the rookery clustered dark. A loud cawing
broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me. On I hastened,
another field crossed, a lane threaded, and there were the
courtyard walls, the back offices, the house itself, the rookery

(04:17:18):
still hid. My first view of it shall be in front.
I determined where its bold battlements will strike the eye
nobly at once, and where I can single out my
master's very window. Perhaps he will be standing at it
he rises early. Perhaps he is now walking in the
orchard or on the pavement in front. Could I but

(04:17:38):
see him? But a moment. Surely in that case I
should not be so mad as to run to him.
I cannot tell. I am not certain. And if I did,
what then, God bless him? What? Then who would be
hurt by my Once more tasting the life his glance
can give me, I rave Perhaps at this moment he

(04:17:59):
is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on
the tideless sea of the South. I had coasted along
the lower wall of the orchard turned its angle. There
was a gate just there, opening into the meadow between
two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one
pillar I could peep round quietly at the full front

(04:18:21):
of the mansion. I advanced my head with precaution, desirous
to ascertain if any bedroom window blines were yet drawn up. Battlements,
windows long front, all from this sheltered station were at
my command. The crew's sailing overhead perhaps watched me while
I took this survey. I wonder what they thought they

(04:18:42):
must have considered. I was very careful and timid at first,
and that gradually I grew very bold and reckless. A
peep and then a long stare, and then a departure
from my niche and a straying out into the meadow,
and a sudden stop full in front of the great man,
and a protracted, hearty gaze towards it. What affectation of

(04:19:05):
diffidence was this? At first? They might have demanded, what
stupid regardlessness? Now Here an illustration reader. A lover finds
his mistress asleep on a mossy bank. He wishes to
catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her.
He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound.

(04:19:26):
He pauses, fancying she is stirred. He withdraws. Not for
worlds would he be seen? All is still? He again advances.
He bends above her. A light veil rests on her features.
He lifts it, bends lower. Now his eyes anticipate the
vision of beauty, warm and blooming and lovely in rest.

(04:19:49):
How hurried was their first glance? But how they fix?
How he starts, How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in
both arms the form he dared not a moment since
touch with his finger. How he calls aloud a name,
and drops his burden and gazes on it wildly. He
thus grasps and cries, and gazes because he no longer

(04:20:13):
fears to waken by any sound he can utter, by
any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly.
He finds she is stone dead. I looked with timorous
joy towards a stately house. I saw a black and ruin.
No need to cower behind a gate post, indeed to
peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was a stir

(04:20:35):
behind them. No need to listen for doors opening to
fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel walk the lawn.
The grounds were trodden and waste. The portal yawned void.
The front was as I had once seen it in
a dream, but a well like wall, very high and
very fragile, looking, perforated with paneless windows, no roof, no battles,

(04:21:00):
no chimneys. All had crashed in, and there was the
silence of death about it, the solitude of a lonesome
wild No wonder that letters addressed to people here had
never received an answer. As well dispatched epistles to a
vault in a church aisle. The grim blackness of the
stones told by what fate the hall had fallen by conflagration?

(04:21:23):
But how kindled? What story? Belonged to this disaster? What
loss besides mortar and marble and woodwork had followed upon it?
Had life been wrecked as well as property? If so,
whose dreadful question? There was no one here to answer it,
not even dumb sign mute token. In wandering round the

(04:21:44):
shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence
that the calamity was not of late occurrence. Winter snows,
I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains
beaten in at those hollow casements. For amidst the drenched
piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation, grass, And we'd

(04:22:07):
grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters.
And oh where meantime was the hopless owner of this wreck?
In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered
to the gray church tower near the gates, and I asked,
is he with Damer de Rochester sharing the shelter of

(04:22:28):
his narrow marble house? Some answer must be had to
these questions. I could find it nowhere but at the inn,
and thither ere long I returned, the host himself brought
my breakfast into the parlor. I requested him to shut
the door and sit down. I had some questions to
ask him, but when he complied, I scarcely knew how

(04:22:50):
to begin such horror, had I of the possible answers,
And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just left
prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery.
The host was a respectable looking middle aged man, you
know Thornfield Hall. Of course, I managed to say at last, yes, ma'am,
I lived there once, did you not? In my time?

(04:23:13):
I thought you were a stranger to me. I was
the late mister Rochester's butler, he added. The late I
seemed to have received with full force the blow I
had been trying to evade. The late gasped, is he dead?
I mean the present gentleman, mister Edward's father, he explained.

(04:23:34):
I breathed again. My blood resumed its flow, fully assured
by these words, that mister Edward, and why mister Rochester,
God bless him, wherever he was was at least alive,
was in short the present gentleman gladdening words, it seemed
I could hear all that was to come, whatever the

(04:23:56):
disclosures might be, with comparative tranquility. Since he was not
in the grave I could bear. I thought to learn
that he was at the antipodes. Is mister Rochester living
at Thornfield Hall? Now? I asked, knowing of course what
the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the
direct question as to where he really was. No, ma'am, oh, no,

(04:24:21):
no one is living there. I suppose you are a
stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what
happened last autumn. Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin. It
was burnt down just about harvest time, a dreadful calamity.
Such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed. Hardly any
of the furniture could be saved. The fire broke out

(04:24:43):
at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from
mill Cote, the building was one mass of flame. It
was a terrible spectacle. I witnessed it myself at dead
of night. I muttered, Yes, that was ever the hour
of fatality at Thornfield. Was it known how it originated?

(04:25:04):
I demanded? They guessed, ma'am. They guessed. Indeed, I should
say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not,
perhaps aware, he continued, edging his chair a little nearer
the table, and speaking low, that there was a lady,
a lunatic kept in the house. I have heard something

(04:25:24):
of it. She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am.
People even for some years was not absolutely certain of
her existence. No one saw her. They only knew by
rumor that such a person was at the hall, and
who or what she was it was difficult to conjecture.
They said mister Edward had brought her from abroad, and

(04:25:46):
some believed she had been his mistress. But a queer
thing happened a year since, a very queer thing. I
feared now to hear my own story. I endeavored to
recall him to the main fact. And this this lady, ma'am,
he answered, turned out to be mister Rochester's wife. The
discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was

(04:26:09):
a young lady, a governess at the hall that mister
Rochester fell in But the fire, I suggested, I'm coming
to that, ma'am, that mister Edward fell in love with.
The servants say they never saw anybody so much in
love as he was. He was after her. Continually they
used to watch him. Servants, will you know, ma'am, and

(04:26:33):
he set store on her past everything for all. Nobody
but him thought her so very handsome. She was a
little small thing, they say, almost like a child. I
never saw her myself, but I've heard Leah the house
maid tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mister

(04:26:53):
Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty. And
you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love
with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched. Well,
he would marry her. You shall tell me this part
of the story another time, I said, but now I
have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about

(04:27:13):
the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic missus Rochester
had any hand in it? You've hit it, ma'am. It's
quite certain that it was her, and nobody but her
that set it going. She had a woman to take
care of her, called missus Poole, an able woman in
her line and very trustworthy. But for one fault, a

(04:27:37):
fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons.
She kept a private bottle of gin by her and
now and then took a drop over much. It is excusable,
for she had a hard life of it. But still
it was dangerous, for when Missus Poole was fast asleep
after the gin and water, the mad lady, who was

(04:27:57):
as cunning as a witch, would take the key out
of her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and
go roaming about the house, doing any wild mischief that
came into her head. They say she had nearly burnt
her husband in his bed once, but I don't know
about that. However, on this night she set fire first

(04:28:18):
to the hangings of the room next her own, and
then she got down to a lower story and made
her way to the chamber that had been the governess's.
She was like as if she knew somehow how matters
had gone on, and had a spite at her, And
she kindled the bed there, but there was nobody sleeping
in it. Fortunately the governess had run away two months before,

(04:28:41):
and for all mister Rochester sought her as if she
had been the most precious thing he had in the world.
He never could hear a word of her, and he
grew savage, quite savage on his disappointment. He never was
a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her.
He would be alone too. He sent Missus Fairfax, the

(04:29:03):
housekeeper away to her friends at a distance. But he
did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her
for life, and she deserved it. She was a very
good woman. Miss adele A Ward, he had was put
to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry
and shut himself up like a hermit of the hall.

(04:29:25):
What did he not leave England? Leave England, bless you. No,
he would not cross the door stones of the house,
except at night when he walked just like a ghost
about the grounds and in the orchard, as if he
had lost his senses, which it is my opinion he
had for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he

(04:29:47):
was before that midge of a governess crossed him. You
never saw, ma'am. He was not a man given to
wine or cards or racing, as some are, and he
was not so very handsome. But he had a courage
and a will of his own, if ever man had.
I knew him from a boy, you see, And for
my part, I have often wished that miss Eyre had

(04:30:09):
been sunk in the sea before she came to Thornfield Hall.
Then mister Rochester was at home when the fire broke out. Yes,
indeed was he. And he went up to the attics
when all was burning above and below, and got the
servants out of their beds, and helped them down himself,
and went back to get his mad wife out of
her cell. And then they called out to him that

(04:30:31):
she was on the roof, where she was standing, waving
her arms above the battlements and shouting out till they
could hear her a mile off. I saw her and
heard her with my own eyes. She was a big
woman and had long black hair. We could see it
streaming against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and

(04:30:51):
several more witnessed. Mister Rochester ascended through the skylight onto
the roof. We heard him call Bertha. We saw him
a her, And then, ma'am, she yelled and gave a spring.
And the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement, dead, dead,
I dead as the stones on which her brains and

(04:31:13):
blood were scattered. Good God, you may well say so, ma'am.
It was frightful. He shuddered, and afterwards I urged, well, ma'am.
Afterwards the house was burnt to the ground. There are
only some bits of walls standing now. Were any other
lives lost? No, Perhaps it would have been better if

(04:31:34):
there had What do you mean, poor mister Edward? He ejaculated.
I little thought ever to have seen it. Some say
it was a just judgment on him for keeping his
first marriage secret and wanting to take another wife while
he had one living. But I pity him for my part.
You said he was alive, I exclaimed, yes, yes he

(04:31:57):
is alive, but many think he had done he did.
Why how my blood was again running cold? Where is he?
I demanded? Is he in England? I? I he's in England.
He can't get out of England. I fancy he's a fixture.
Now what agony was this? And the man seemed resolved

(04:32:19):
to protract it. He is stone blind, he said at last,
Yes he is stone blind? Is mister Edward? I had
dreaded worse? I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned
strength to ask what had caused this calamity? It was
all his own courage, and a body may say his
kindness in a way, ma'am. He wouldn't leave the house

(04:32:42):
till everyone else was out before him. As he came
down the great staircase at last, after missus Rochester had
flung herself from the battlements. There was a great crash,
all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive,
but sadly hurt. A bit Theme had fallen in such
a way as to protect him partly. But when I

(04:33:04):
was knocked out and one hand so crushed that mister
Carter the surgeon had to amputate it directly. The other
I inflamed. He lost the sight of that also. He
is now helpless, indeed blind and a cripple. Where is he?
Where does he now live? At Ferndean, a manor house

(04:33:24):
on a farm. He has about thirty miles off, quite
a desolate spot. Who is with him? Old John and
his wife? He would have none else. He is quite
broken down. They say, have you any sort of conveyance?
We have a chaise, ma'am, of very handsome chaise. Let
it be got ready instantly, And if your postboy can

(04:33:46):
drive me to Ferndean before dark this day, I'll pay
both you and him twice the higher you usually demand.
Chapter thirty seven. The manor House of Ferndean was a
building of considerable antique, moderate size and no architectural pretensions,
deep buried in a wood. I had heard of it before.

(04:34:08):
Mister Rochester often spoke of it, and sometimes went there.
His father had purchased the estate for the sake of
the game covers. He would have let the house, but
could find no tenant in consequence of its ineligible and
insalubrious site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the
exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for

(04:34:30):
the accommodation of the Squire when he went there in
the season. To shoot to this house, I came just
air dark on an evening marked by the characteristics of
sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating rain. The
last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise
and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even

(04:34:54):
when within a very short distance of the manor house
you could see nothing of it, so thick and dark
grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron
gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and
passing through them, I found myself at once in the
twilight of close ranked trees. There was a grass grown

(04:35:14):
track descending the forest aisle between war and knotty shafts
and under branch darches. I followed it, expecting soon to
reach the dwelling. But it stretched on and on. It
would far and farther. No sign of habitation or grounds
was visible. I thought I had taken a wrong direction
and lost my way. The darkness of natural as well

(04:35:37):
as of Sylvan dusk gathered over me. I looked round
in search of another road. There was none. All was
interwoven stem, columnar, trunk, dense summer foliage, no opening anywhere.
I proceeded. At last my way opened. The trees thinned
a little. Presently I beheld a railing than the house,

(04:35:58):
scarce by this day light distinguishable from the trees, so
dank and green were its decaying walls. Entering a portal
fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space
of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in
a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden beds, only

(04:36:19):
a broad gravel walk girdling a grass plat, and this
set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house
presented two pointed gables in its front. The windows were
latticed and narrow. The front door was narrow too. One
step led up to it. The whole looked, as the
host of the Rochester Arms had said, quite a desolate spot.

(04:36:43):
It was as still as a church on a weekday.
The pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only
sound audible in its visinage. Can there be life here?
I asked, Yes, life of some kind there was, for
I heard a movement. That narrow front door was unclosing,
and some shape was about to issue from the grange.

(04:37:04):
It opened slowly. A figure came out into the twilight
and stood on the step, a man without a hat.
He stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether
it rained dusk as it was, I had recognized him.
It was my master, Edward Fairfax, Rochester, and no other.
I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to

(04:37:26):
watch him, to examine him, myself unseen and alas to
him invisible. It was a sudden meeting, and one in
which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I
had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my
step from hasty advance. His form was of the same
strong and stalwart contour as ever, his port was still erect,

(04:37:51):
his air was still raven black. Nor were his features
altered or sunk. Not in one year's space by any
sorrow could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous
prime blighted. But in his countenance I saw a change
that looked desperate and brooding, that reminded me of some
wronged and fettered wild beast or bird dangerous to approach

(04:38:15):
in his sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold ringed
eye's cruelty has extinguished might look as looked that sightless
samson and reader. Do you think I feared him in
his blind ferocity? If you do, you little know me
A soft hope blessed with my sorrow that soon I
should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock,

(04:38:35):
and on those lips so sternly sealed beneath it. But
not yet I would not accost him. Yet he descended
the one step and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the
grass plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused,
as if he knew not which way to turn. He
lifted his hand and opened his eyelids, gazed blank and

(04:38:59):
with a straining on the sky, and toward the amphitheater
of trees, one saw that all to him was void darkness.
He stretched his right hand, the left arm, the mutilated
one he kept hidden in his bosom. He seemed to
wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay
around him. He met but vacancy. Still, for the trees

(04:39:21):
were some yards off where he stood. He relinquished the endeavor,
folded his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the
rain now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this moment,
John approached him from some quarter. Will you take my arm? Sir?
He said, there is a heavy shower coming on. Had

(04:39:42):
you not better go in? Let me alone? Was the answer?
John withdrew without having observed me. Mister Rochester now tried
to walk about vainly. All was too uncertain. He groped
his way back to the house, and, re entering it,
closed the door. I now drew near and knocked. John's

(04:40:02):
wife opened for me. Mary, I said, how are you?
She started as if she had seen a ghost. I
calmed her to her, hurried, Is it really you, miss,
come at this late hour to this lonely place? I answered,
by taking her hand, and then I followed her into
the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire.

(04:40:24):
I explained to them in few words that I had
heard all which had happened since I left Thornfield, and
that I was come to see mister Rochester. I asked
John to go down to the Turnpike house where I
had dismissed the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I
had left there. And then, while I removed my bonnet
and shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could

(04:40:47):
be accommodated at the manor house for the night, and
finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult, would not
be impossible, I informed her I should stay. Just at
this moment, the parlor bell rang. When you go in, said,
I tell your master that a person wishes to speak
to him, but do not give my name. I don't

(04:41:08):
think he will see you, she answered, he refuses everybody.
When she returned, I inquired what he had said. You
are to send in your name and your business, she replied.
She then proceeded to fill a glass with water and
place it on a tray, together with candles. Is that
what he rang for? I asked, Yes, he always has

(04:41:31):
candles broad in it dark, though he is blind. Give
the tray to me, I will carry it in. I
took it from her hand. She pointed me out the
parlor door. The tray shook as I held it. The
water spilt from the glass. My heart struck, my ribs
loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me and
shut it behind me. This parlor looked gloomy. A neglected

(04:41:56):
handful of fire burnt low in the grate, and leaning
over it with his head supported against the high old
fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. His
old dog Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of
the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being
inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I

(04:42:20):
came in. Then he jumped up with a yelp and
a whine, and bounded towards me. He almost knocked the
tray from my hands. I set it on the table,
then patted him and said, softly, lie down. Mister Rochester
turned mechanically to see what the commotion was, but as
he saw nothing, he returned and sighed, give me the water, Mary,

(04:42:43):
he said. I approached him with the now only half
filled glass. Pilot followed me, still excited, What is the matter,
he inquired. Down, Pilot, I again said. He checked the
water on its way to his lips and seemed to listen.
He drank and put the glass down. This is you Mary?

(04:43:04):
Is it not? Mary is in the kitchen, I answered.
He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but
not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me.
Who is this? Who is this? He demanded, trying as
it seemed to see with those sightless eyes, unavailing and
distressing attempt Answer me, Speak again, he ordered, imperiously and aloud.

(04:43:29):
Will you have a little more water? Sir? I spilled
half of what was in the glass? I said, Who
is it? What is it? Who speaks? Pilot knows me?
And John and Mary know I am here. I came
only this evening, I answered, Great God, what delusion has
come over me? What sweet madness has seized me? No delusion,

(04:43:52):
No madness. Your mind, Sir, is too strong for delusion,
your health too sound for frenzy. And where's the speaker?
Is it only a voice? Oh? I cannot see, but
I must feel, or my heart will stop and my
brain burst. Whatever, whoever you are, be perceptible to the touch,

(04:44:13):
or I cannot live. He groped. I arrested his wandering
hand and prisoned it in both mine. Her very fingers,
he cried, her small, slight fingers. If so, there must
be more of her. The muscular hand broke from my custody.
My arm was seized, my shoulder, neck, waist. I was

(04:44:35):
entwined and gathered to him. Is it Jane? What is it?
This is her shape, this is her size, and this
her voice? I added, She is all here, her heart too.
God bless you, sir. I am glad to be so
near you again. Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre was all he said,

(04:44:55):
My dear master, I answered, I am Jane Eyre. I
have found you out. I am come back to you
in truth, in the flesh, my living Jane. You touch me, sir,
you hold me, and fast enough. I am not cold
like a corpse, nor vacant like air. Am I my
living darling. These are certainly her limbs, and these her features.

(04:45:18):
But I cannot be so blessed after all my misery.
It is a dream, such dreams as I have had
at night, when I have clasped her once more to
my heart, as I do now, and kissed her as
thus and felt that she loved me, and trusted that
she would not leave me, which I never will, sir,
from this day, never will, says the vision. But I

(04:45:42):
always woke and found it an empty mockery. And I
was desolate and abandoned. My life dark, lonely, hopeless, my
soul athirst and forbidden to drink, my heart famished and
never to be fed, gentle, soft dream nestling in my arms.
Now you will fly too, as your sisters have all

(04:46:04):
fled before you. But kiss me before you go. Embrace me. Jane, there, sir,
And there I pressed my lips to his once brilliant
and now rayless eyes. I swept his hair from his
brow and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself.
The conviction of the reality of all this seized him.

(04:46:25):
It is you, is it, Jane? You are come back
to me, then I am. And you do not lie
dead in some ditch under some stream. And you are
not a pining outcast amongst strangers, No, Sir, I am
an independent woman. Now independent. What do you mean, Jane?
My uncle in Madeira is dead and he left me

(04:46:45):
five thousand pounds. Uh. This is practical, This is real,
he cried, I should never dream that. Besides, there is
that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and piquant as
well as soft. It cheers my withered heart. It puts
life into a dot. What, Janet, are you an independent

(04:47:06):
woman a rich woman? If you won't let me live
with you, I can build a house of my own
close up to your door, and you may come and
sit in my parlor when you want company of an evening.
But as you are rich, Jane, you have now no
doubt friends who will look after you and not suffer
you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me.

(04:47:29):
I told you I am independent, Sir, as well as rich.
I am my own mistress, and you will stay with
me certainly, unless you object. I will be your neighbor,
your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely, I will
be your companion, to read to you, to walk with you,
to sit with you, to wait on you, to be

(04:47:51):
eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy,
my dear master, you shall not be left desolate so
long as I live, he replied. Not he seemed serious, abstracted,
he sighed. He half opened his lips as if to speak,
he closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps

(04:48:13):
I had too rashly over leaped conventionalities, and he, like
Saint John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed
made my proposal from the idea that he wished and
would ask me to be his wife, an expectation not
the less certain, because unexpressed, had buoyed me up that

(04:48:34):
he would claim me at once as his own, but
no hint to that effect. Escaping him, and his countenance
becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have
been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly.
And I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms,
but he eagerly snatched me closer. No, no, Jane, you

(04:48:56):
must not go. No. I have touched you, heard you,
felt the comfort of your presence, the sweetness of your consolation.
I cannot give up these joys. I have little left
in myself. I must have you. The world may laugh,
may call me absurd, selfish, but it does not signify

(04:49:17):
my very soul demands you. It will be satisfied, or
it will take deadly vengeance on its frame. Well, sir,
I will stay with you. I have said so. Yes.
But you understand one thing by staying with me, and
I understand another. You perhaps could make up your mind
to be about my hand and chair, to wait on

(04:49:37):
me as a kind little nurse. For you have an
affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to
make sacrifices for those you pity, and that ought to
suffice for me. No doubt, I suppose I should now
entertain none but fatherly feelings for you. Do you think so?
Come tell me. I will think what you like, Sir.

(04:49:58):
I am content to be only your nurse if you
think it better. But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet.
You are young. You must marry one day. I don't
care about being married. You should care, Janet. If I
were what I once was, I would try to make
you care. But a sightless flock he relapsed again into gloom. I,

(04:50:19):
on the contrary, became more cheerful and took fresh courage.
These last words gave me an insight as to where
the difficulty lay, And as it was no difficulty with me,
I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed
a livelier vein of conversation. It is time someone undertook

(04:50:40):
to rehumanize you, said I parting is thick and long
uncut locks, for I see you or being metamorphosed into
a lion or something of that sort. You have a
faux air of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you. That
is certain. Your hair reminds me of eagles feathers. Whether
your nails are grown like birds claws or not, I

(04:51:02):
have not yet noticed on this arm I have neither
hand nor nails, he said, drawing the mutilated limb from
his breast and showing it to me. It is a
mere stump, a ghastly sight, don't you think so, Jane?
It is a pity to see it, and a pity
to see your eyes and the scar of fire on
your forehead. And the worst of it is one is

(04:51:25):
in danger of loving you too well for all this,
and making too much of you. I thought you would
be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm and my
cicatrized visage. Did you don't tell me so lest I
should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now let me
leave you an instant to make a better fire and

(04:51:46):
have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there
is a good fire. Yes, with the right eye, I
see a glow, a ruddy haze, and you see the
candles very dimly. Each is a luminous cloud. Can you
see me? No, my fairy, But I am only too
thankful to hear and feel you. When do you take supper?

(04:52:07):
I never take supper, but you shall have some tonight.
I am hungry, so are you. I dare say, only
you forget summoning Mary. I soon had the room in
more cheerful order. I prepared him likewise a comfortable repast.
My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease. I

(04:52:27):
talked to him during supper and for a long time after.
There was no harassing, restraint, no repressing of glee and
vivacity with him. For with him I was at perfect
ease because I knew I suited him. All I said
or did seemed either to console or revive him delightful consciousness.

(04:52:48):
It brought to life and light my whole nature. In
his presence I thoroughly lived, and he lived in mine.
Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy
dawn on his forehead, His lineaments softened, and warmed. After supper,
he began to ask me many questions of where I

(04:53:08):
had been, what I had been doing, how I had
found him out. But I gave him only very partial replies.
It was too late to enter into particulars that night. Besides,
I wished to touch no deep thrilling chord, to open
no fresh well of emotion in his heart. My sole
present aim was to cheer him, cheered as I have

(04:53:30):
said he was, and yet, but by fits, if a
moment's silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless. Touch me,
then say, Jane, you are altogether a human being. Jane,
you are certain of that. I conscientiously believe so, mister Rochester. Yet,
how on this dark and doleful evening could you so

(04:53:53):
suddenly rise on my lone hearth. I stretched my hand
to take a glass of water from a hireling, and
it was given me. I asked a question, expecting John's
wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.
Because I had come in in Mary's stead with the tray,
and there is enchantment in the very hour I am
now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary,

(04:54:16):
hopeless life I have dragged on for months past, doing nothing,
expecting nothing, merging night and day, feeling but the sensation
of cold when I let the fire go out of hunger,
when I forgot to eat, and then a ceaseless sorrow,
and at times a very delirium of desire to behold
my Jane again. Yes, for her restoration I longed far

(04:54:41):
more than for that of my lost sight. How can
it be that Jane is with me and says she
loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she
came tomorrow? I fear I shall find her no more.
A commonplace, practical reply out of the train of his
own disturbed ideas was I was sure the best and

(04:55:02):
most reassuring for him. In this frame of mind. I
passed my finger over his eyebrows and remarked that they
were scorched, and that I would apply something which would
make them grow as broad and black as ever, Where
is the use of doing me good in any way,
beneficent Spirit, when at some fatal moment you will again

(04:55:22):
desert me, passing like a shadow, whither and how to
me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable. Have you
a pocket comb about you? Sir, what for Jane just
to comb out this shaggy black man. I find you
rather alarming when I examine you close at hand. You
talk of my being a fairy, But I am sure

(04:55:44):
you are more like a brownie? Am I? Hideous? Jane?
Very sir? You always were, you know, humph. The wickedness
has not been taken out of you wherever you have sojourned.
Yet I have been with good people far better than you,
a hundred times better people possessed of ideas and views

(04:56:05):
you never entertained in your life, quite more refined and exalted.
Who the deuce have you been with? If you twist
in that way, you will make me pull the hair
out of your head, And then I think you will
cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality. Who have you
been with? Jane? You shall not get it out of
me tonight, sir. You must wait till tomorrow to leave

(04:56:27):
my tale half told? Will you know be a sort
of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table
to finish it by the bye. I must mind not
to rise on your hearth with only a glass of water.
Then I must bring an egg at the least to
say nothing of fried Ham, You mocking, changeling, fairy born

(04:56:47):
and human bread. You make me feel as I have
not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had
you for his David, the evil spirit would have been
exorcised without the aid of the harp. There, sir, you
are read up and made decent. Now I'll leave you.
I have been traveling these last three days, and I
believe I am tired. Good night. Just one word, Jane,

(04:57:11):
Were there only ladies in the house where you have been?
I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I
ran upstairs. A good idea, I thought, with glee. I
see I have the means of fretting him out of
his melancholy for some time to come. Very early the
next morning I heard him up and astir wandering from

(04:57:32):
one room to another. As soon as Mary came down,
I heard the question, is miss eyre here? Then? Which
room did you put her into? Was it dry? Is
she up? Go and ask if she wants anything and
when she will come down. I came down as soon
as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast, entering

(04:57:53):
the room very softly, I had a view of him
before he discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to
witness the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity.
He sat in his chair still, but not at rest expectant.
Evidently the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features.

(04:58:16):
His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched waiting to
be re lit. And alas it was not himself that
could now kindle the luster of animated expression, he was
dependent on another for that office. I had meant to
be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong
man touched my heart to the quick. Still I accosted

(04:58:37):
him with what vivacity I could. It is a bright
sunny morning, sir, I said, The rain is over and gone,
and there is a tender shining after it. You shall
have a walk soon. I had wakened the glow. His
features beamed. Oh you are indeed there, my skylark, come
to me. You are not gone, not vanished. I heard

(04:58:59):
one of your kind and hours ago, singing high over
the wood, but its song had no music for me
any more than the rising sun had raised. All the
melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane's tongue to
my ear. I am glad it is not naturally a
silent one. All the sunshine I can feels in her presence.
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal

(04:59:21):
of his dependence. Just as if a royal eagle chained
to a perch should be forced to entreat a sparrow
to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose.
I dashed off the salt drops and busied myself with
preparing breakfast. Most of the morning was spent in the
open air. I let him out of the wet and
wild wood into some cheerful fields. I described to him

(04:59:45):
how brilliantly green they were, how the flowers and hedges
looked refreshed, how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought
a seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot,
a dry stump of a tree. Nor did I refuse
to let him win seated, place me on his knee.
Why should I? When both he and I were happier

(05:00:07):
nearer than a part pilot lay beside us. All was quiet.
He broke out suddenly, while clasping me in his arms. Cruel, cruel, deserter,
Oh Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you
had fled from Thornfield? And when I could nowhere find you,
and after examining your apartment ascertained that you had taken

(05:00:28):
no money nor anything which could serve as an equivalent.
A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in
its little casket. Your trunks were left corded and locked,
as they had been prepared for the bridle tour. What
could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless?
And what did she do? Let me hear? Now? Thus

(05:00:50):
urged I began the narrative of my experience for the
last year. I softened considerably what related to the three
days of wandering and starvation? Because to have told him
all would have been to inflict unnecessary pain. The little
I did say lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I wished.
I should not have left him, Thus, he said, without

(05:01:13):
any means of making my way, I should have told
him my intention. I should have confided in him. He
would never have forced me to be his mistress, violent
as he had seemed in his despair, He, in truth
loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute
himself my tyrant. He would have given me half his

(05:01:33):
fortune without demanding so much as a kiss in return,
rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the
wide world I had endured. He was certain more than
I had confessed to him. Well, whatever my sufferings had been,
they were very short, I answered, And then I proceeded

(05:01:54):
to tell him how I had been received at moor House,
how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress see the
Accession of Fortune. The discovery of my relations followed in
due order. Of course, Saint John River's name came infrequently
in the progress of my tale. When I had done
that name was immediately taken up. This Saint John, then,

(05:02:16):
is your cousin. Yes, you have spoken of him often.
Do you like him? He was a very good man, Sir,
I could not help liking him. A good man? Does
that mean a respectable, well conducted man of fifty or
what does it mean? Saint John was only twenty nine?
Sir John Encore, as the French say, is he a

(05:02:38):
person of low stature, phlegmatic and plain, A person whose
goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice than in
his prowess in virtue. He is untiringly active. Great and
exalted deeds are what he lives to perform. But his
brain that is probably rather soft. He means well, but

(05:03:00):
you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk. He talks little, sir.
What he does say is ever to the point. His
brain is first rate. I should think, not impressible, but vigorous.
Is he an able man? Then? Truly able? A thoroughly
educated man. Saint John is an accomplished and profound scholar.

(05:03:22):
His manners, I think you said, are not to your taste,
priggish and parsonic. I never mentioned his manners, but unless
I had a very bad taste, they must suit it.
They are polished, calm and Gentlemanlike his appearance, I forget
what description you gave of his appearance, a sort of

(05:03:42):
raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth and stilted
up on his thick soled high lows. Eh, Saint John
dresses well. He is a handsome man, tall, fair, with
blue eyes and a Grecian profile. Aside, damn to me,
did you like him? Jane, Yes, mister Rochester, I liked him,

(05:04:06):
But you asked me that before I perceived. Of course,
the drift of my interlocutor, jealousy had got hold of him.
She stung him. But the sting was salutary. It gave
him respite from the gnawing fong of Melancholy. I would
not therefore immediately charm the snake. Perhaps you would rather

(05:04:27):
not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Air was
the next somewhat unexpected observation. Why not, mister Rochester. The
picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather
too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily, a
graceful apollo. He is present to your imagination, tall, fair,

(05:04:49):
blue eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell
on a vulcan, a real blacksmith, brown, broad shouldered and blind,
and lame into the bargain. I never thought of it before,
but you certainly are rather like vulcan. Sir. Well, you
can leave me, ma'am. But before you go, and he

(05:05:09):
retained me by a firmer grasp than ever, you will
be pleased just to answer me a question or two?
He paused, What questions? Mister Rochester then followed this cross examination.
Saint John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew
you were his cousin. Yes, you would often see him.

(05:05:29):
He would visit the school, sometimes daily. He would approve
of your plans, Jane. I know they would be clever,
for you are a talented creature. He approved of them. Yes,
he would discover many things in you he could not
have expected to find. Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary.
I don't know about that. You had a little cottage

(05:05:50):
near the school, you say, did he ever come there
to see you? Now and then of an evening once
or twice? A pause? How long did you reside with
him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered? Five months?
Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family? Yes?
The back parlor was both his study in ours. He

(05:06:13):
sat near the window, and we buy the table. Did
he study much? A good deal? What Hindustani? And what
did you do meantime? I learned German? At first? Did
he teach you he did not understand German? Did he
teach you nothing a little? Hindustani? Rivers taught you Hindustani? Yes,

(05:06:36):
sir and his sisters also, No, only you, only me?
Did you ask to learn. No, he wished to teach you. Yes,
a second pause, Why did he wish it? Of What
use could Hindustani be to you? He intended me to
go with him to India. Uh. Here I reached the

(05:06:57):
root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him.
He asked me to marry him. That is a fiction,
an impudent invention to vex me. I beg your pardon.
It is the literal truth. He asked me more than once,
and was as stiff about urging his point as ever
you could be, miss Eyre, I repeat it. You can

(05:07:17):
leave me. How often am I to say the same thing?
Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee when
I have given you notice to quit? Because I am
comfortable there? No, Jane, you are not comfortable there because
your heart is not with me. It is with this cousin,
this saint John. Oh. Till this moment, I thought my

(05:07:39):
little Jane was all mine. I had a belief she
loved me even when she left me. That was an
atom of sweet and much bitter. Long as we have
been parted, hot tears, as I have wept over our separation,
I never thought that while I was mourning her. She
was loving another. But it is useless grieving Jane, Leave

(05:07:59):
me go and marry Rivers. Shake me off, then, sir,
push me away, for I'll not leave you of my
own accord. Jane. I ever like your tone of voice.
It still renews hope. It sounds so truthful When I
hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget
that you have formed a new tie. But I am

(05:08:20):
not a fool. Go where must I go? Sir? Your
own way? With the husband you have chosen. Who is that?
You know this? Saint John Rivers? He is not my husband,
nor ever will be. He does not love me. I
do not love him. He loves as he can love,
and that is not as you love a beautiful young

(05:08:41):
lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because
he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife, which
she would not have done. He is good and great,
but severe, and for me cold as an iceberg. He
is not like you, Sir. I am not happy at
his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has

(05:09:03):
no indulgence for me, no fondness. He sees nothing attractive
in me, not even youth. Only a few useful mentalpoints. Dot.
Then I must leave you, sir, to go to him.
I shuddered involuntarily and clung instinctively closer to my blind
but beloved master. He smiled, what, Jane, is this true?

(05:09:26):
Is such? Really the state of matters between you and Rivers? Absolutely? Sir? Oh,
you need not be jealous. I wanted to tease you
a little, to make you less sad. I thought anger
would be better than grief. But if you wish me
to love you, could you but see how much I
do love you? You would be proud and content. All

(05:09:47):
my heart is yours, sir. It belongs to you, and
with you it would remain were fate to exile the
rest of me from your presence forever again. As he
kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect, my scared vision,
my crippled strength, he murmured regretfully. I caressed in order

(05:10:08):
to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking,
and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As
he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a
tear slide from under the sealed eyelet and trickle down
the manly cheek. My heart swelled. I am no better
than the old lightning struck chestnut tree in thornfield orchard.

(05:10:30):
He remarked, ere long, and what right would that ruin
have to bit? A budding would bind cover its decay
with freshness. You are no ruin, sir, no lightning struck tree.
You are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots,
whether you ask them or not, because they take delight
in your bountiful shadow. And as they grow, they will

(05:10:51):
lean towards you and wind round you, because your strength
offers them so safe a prop again, he smiled, I
gave him comfort. You speak of friends, Jane, he asked, Yes,
of friends? I answered rather hesitatingly, for I knew I
meant more than friends, but could not tell what other

(05:11:12):
word to employ. He helped me. Uh, Jane, But I
want a wife, do you, sir? Yes? Is it news
to you? Of course you said nothing about it before?
Is it unwelcome news? That depends on circumstances, Sir? On
your choice, which you shall make for me, Jane, I

(05:11:32):
will abide by your decision. Choose then, sir, her who
loves you best. I will at least choose her I
love best. Jane, Will you marry me? Yes, sir, a
poor blind man whom you will have to lead about
by the hand. Yes, sir, a crippled man twenty years

(05:11:53):
older than you, whom you will have to wait on. Yes, sir,
truly Jane, most truly sir, Oh my darling, God bless
you and reward you, mister Rochester. If ever I did
a good deed in my life, if ever I thought
a good thought, if ever I prayed a sincere and
blameless prayer, if ever I wished a righteous wish, I

(05:12:17):
am rewarded. Now. To be your wife is for me
to be as happy as I can be on earth.
Because you delight in sacrifice, sacrifice. What do I sacrifice?
Famine for food, expectation, for content, to be privileged, to
put my arms round what I value, to press my
lips to what I love, to repose on what I trust.

(05:12:40):
Is that to make a sacrifice. If so, then certainly
I delight in sacrifice. And to bear with my infirmities, Jane,
to overlook my deficiencies, which are none, Sir, to me,
I love you better now when I can really be
useful to you than I did in your state of
proud independence, when you disdained every part, but that of

(05:13:03):
the giver and protector. Hitherto I have hated to be helped,
to be led. Henceforth I feel I shall hate it
no more. I did not like to put my hand
into a hirelings, but it is pleasant to feel it
circled by Jane's little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to
the constant attendance of servants, but Jane's soft ministry will

(05:13:25):
be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me, do I suit
her to the finest fiber of my nature? Sir? The
case being so, we have nothing in the world to
wait for, we must be married instantly. He looked and
spoke with eagerness. His old impetuosity was rising. We must
become one flesh without any delay, Jane, there is but

(05:13:48):
the license to get. Then we marry, mister Rochester. I
have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian,
and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let
me look at your watch. Fasten it into your girdle, Janet,
and keep it henceforward, I have no use for it. It
is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, Sir, don't you

(05:14:12):
feel hungry? The third day from this must be our
wedding day, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels. Now
all that is not worth a philip. The sun has
dried up all the rain drops, sir. The breeze is still.
It is quite hot, do you know, Jane, I have
your little pearl necklace at this moment fastened round my

(05:14:33):
bronze grag under my cravat. I have worn it since
the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento
of her. We will go home through the wood. That
will be the shadiest way. He pursued his own thoughts
without heeding me. Jane, you think me, I dare say,
an irreligious dog. But my heart swells with gratitude to

(05:14:55):
the beneficent God of this earth. Just now he sees
not as man sees, but far clearer judges, not as
man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong. I
would have sullied my innocent flower, breathed guilt on its purity.
The omnipotence snatched it from me. I, in my stiff

(05:15:15):
necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation. Instead of bending to
the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course
disasters came thick on me. I was forced to pass
through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements
are mighty, and one smote me, which has humbled me forever.

(05:15:36):
You know, I was proud of my strength, But what
is it now when I must give it over to
foreign guidance as a child does its weakness of Late Jane,
only only of late I began to see and acknowledge
the hand of God in my doom. I began to
experience remorse, repentance, the wish for reconcilement to my maker.

(05:15:59):
I began sometimes to pray, very brief prayers. They were
but very sincere. Some days since nay I can number
them four. It was last Monday night a singular mood
came over me, one in which grief replaced frenzy, sorrow, sullenness.
I had long had the impression that, since I could

(05:16:20):
nowhere find you, you must be dead late that night,
perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock. Ere
I retired to my dreary rest. I supplicated God that
if it seemed good to him, I might soon be
taken from this life and admitted to that world. To
come where there was still hope of rejoining Jane. I

(05:16:42):
was in my own room and sitting by the window,
which was open. It soothed me to feel the bomby
night air. Though I could see no stars, and only
by a vague luminous haze, knew the presence of a moon.
I longed for THEE janet Oh. I longed for THEE,
both with soul and flesh. I asked of God at once,

(05:17:03):
in anguish and humility, if I had not been long
enough desolate, afflicted, tormented, and might not soon taste bliss
and peace once more? That I merited all I endured.
I acknowledged that I could scarcely endure more. I pleaded,
and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broken

(05:17:24):
voluntarily from my lips in the words Jane, Jane, Jane,
did you speak these words aloud? I did, Jane. If
any listener had heard me, he would have thought me mad.
I pronounced them with such frantic energy. And it was
last Monday night, somewhere near midnight. Yes, but the time

(05:17:46):
is of no consequence. What followed is the strange point.
You will think me superstitious, some superstition I have in
my blood and always had. Nevertheless, this is true, true,
at least it is that I heard what I now relate,
as I exclaimed, Jane, Jane, Jane, a voice. I cannot

(05:18:07):
tell whence the voice came, but I know whose voice
it was. Replied, I am coming. Wait for me, And
a moment after went whispering on the wind the words
where are you? I'll tell you if I can. The
idea the picture of these words open to my mind.
Yet it is difficult to express what I want to express.

(05:18:28):
Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood,
where soundfalls, dull and dies unreverberating. Where are you? Seemed
spoken amongst mountains, For I heard a hill scentd echo
repeat the words cooler and fresher. At the moment the
gale seemed to visit my brow, I could have deemed

(05:18:49):
that in some wild, lone scene I and Jane were
meeting in spirit. I believe we must have met you,
no doubt, were at that hour in unconscious sleep. Jane.
Perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine.
For those were your accents, as certain as I live,
they were yours, reader. It was on Monday night near

(05:19:12):
midnight that I too had received the mysterious summons. Those
were the very words by which I replied to it.
I listened to mister Rochester's narrative, but made no disclosure
in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and
inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything,

(05:19:32):
my tale would be such as must necessarily make a
profound impression on the mind of my hearer, And that mind,
yet from its sufferings, too prone to gloom, needed not
the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then,
and pondered them in my heart. You cannot now wonder,
continued my master, that when you rose upon me so

(05:19:55):
unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any
other than a mere voice and vision, something that would
melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and
mountain echo had melted before. Now, I thank God I
know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God. He

(05:20:16):
put me off his knee, rose and, reverently, lifting his
hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to
the earth, he stood in mute devotion. Only the last
words of the worship were audible. I think my maker
that in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy.
I humbly entreat my redeemer to give me strength to

(05:20:38):
lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto.
Then he stretched his hand out to be let. I
took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips,
then let it pass round my shoulder. Being so much
lower of stature than he, I served both for his
prop and guide. We entered the wood and wended homeward

(05:21:00):
Chapter thirty eight, conclusion Reader. I married him a quiet
wedding we had, he and I, the parson and clerk,
were alone present. When we got back from church. I
went into the kitchen of the manor house, where Mary
was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and

(05:21:22):
I said, Mary, I have been married to mister Rochester
this morning. The housekeeper and her husband were both of
that decent, phlegmatic order of people to whom one may
at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news
without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by
some shrill ejaculation and subsequently stunned by a torrent of

(05:21:46):
wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare
at me. The ladle with which she was basting a
pair of chickens roasting at the fire did for some
three minutes hang suspended in air, and for the same
space of time Toyo's knives also had rest from the
polishing process. But Mary, bending again over the roast, said

(05:22:06):
only have you miss well for sure. A short time
after she pursued, I seed you go out with the master,
but I didn't know you were gone to church to
be wed, and she based it away. John, when I
turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear. I
tell Mary how it would be, he said, I knew
what mister Edward. John was an old servant and had

(05:22:30):
known his master when he was the cadet of the house.
Therefore he often gave him his Christian name. I knew
what mister Edward would do, and I was certain he
would not wait long neither, and he's done right for aught.
I know. I wish you joy, Miss, and he politely
pulled his forelock. Thank you, John. Mister Rochester told me

(05:22:51):
to give you and marry this. I put into his
hand a five pound note without waiting to hear more.
I left the kitchen, in passing the door of that sanctum.
Some time after I caught the words, she'll happen do
better for him, nor oniote grand ladies, and again if
she met one otch handsomest she's known fail and Barry

(05:23:13):
good natured, and I his een, she's fair beautiful. Anybody
may see that I wrote to Moorhouse and to Cambridge
immediately to say what I had done, fully explaining also
why I had this acted. Diana and Mary approved the
step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just give me
time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would

(05:23:36):
come and see me. She had better not wait till then, Jane,
said mister Rochester when I read her letter to him.
If she does, she will be too late for our
honeymoon will shine our life long. Its beams will only
fade over your grave or mine. How St John received

(05:23:56):
the news, I don't know. He never answered the letter
in which I communicated it. Yet six months after he
wrote to me, without however, mentioning mister Rochester's name or
alluding to my marriage. His letter was then calm and
the very serious kind he has maintained a regular, though

(05:24:17):
not frequent, correspondence ever since. He hopes, I am happy
and trusts I am not of those who live without
God in the world and only mind earthly things. You
have not quite forgotten, little Adele, have you, reader, I
had not. I soon asked and obtained leave of mister
Rochester to go and see her at the school where

(05:24:38):
he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me
again moved me much. She looked pale and thin, she
said she was not happy. I found the rules of
the establishment were too strict, its course of study too
severe for a child of her age. I took her
home with me. I am meant to become her governess
once more, but I I soon found this impracticable. My

(05:25:02):
time and cares were now required by another. My husband
needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted
on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit
of my visiting her often and bringing her home sometimes.
I took care she should never want for anything that
could contribute to her comfort. She soon settled in her

(05:25:23):
new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress
in her studies. As she grew up a sound English
education corrected in a great measure her French defects, And
when she left school I found in her a pleasing
and obliging companion, docile, good tempered, and well principled. By

(05:25:44):
her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long
since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it
in my power to offer her. My tail draws to
its clothes, one word respecting my experience of married life,
and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose
names have most frequently recurred in this narrative. And I

(05:26:07):
have done. I have now been married ten years. I
know what it is to live entirely for and with
what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blessed,
blessed beyond what language can express, because I am my
husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman
was ever nearer to her mate than I am, ever

(05:26:28):
more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
I know no weariness of my edward society. He knows
none of mine, any more than we each do of
the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms. Consequently,
we are ever together to be together is for us
to be at once as free as in solitude, as

(05:26:50):
gay as in company. We talk, I believe all day
long to talk to each other is but a more
animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed
on him, all his confidence is devoted to me. We
are precisely suited in character. Perfect concord is the result.
Mister Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union.

(05:27:14):
Perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near,
that knit us so very close. For I was then
his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally,
I was what he often called me, the apple of
his eye. He saw nature, he saw books through me.
And never did I weary of gazing for his behalf,

(05:27:36):
and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam,
of the landscape before us, of the weather round us,
and impressing by sound on his ear what light could
no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary
of reading to him, Never did I weary of conducting
him where he wished to go, of doing for him

(05:27:59):
what he wished to be done. And there was a
pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad,
because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation.
He loved me so truly that he knew no reluctance
in profiting by my attendants. He felt I loved him

(05:28:20):
so fondly that to yield that attendance was to indulge
my sweetest wishes. One morning, at the end of the
two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation,
he came and bent over me and said, Jane, have
you a glittering ornament round your neck? I had a
gold watch. Jane, I answered yes, and have you a

(05:28:42):
pale blue dress on I had. He informed me then
that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding
when I was becoming less dense, and that now he
was sure of it. He and I went up to London.
He had the advice of an eminent oculist, and he
eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot

(05:29:04):
now see very distinctly. He cannot read or write much,
but he can find his way without being led by
the hand. The sky is no longer a blank to him,
the earth no longer a void. When his first born
was put into his arms, he could see that the
boy had inherited his own eyes as they once were

(05:29:24):
a large, brilliant and black. On that occasion, he again,
with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment
with mercy. My Edward and I then are happy, and
the more so because those we most love are happy. Likewise,
Diana and Mary Rivers are both married alternately. Once every

(05:29:48):
year they come to see us, and we go to
see them. Diana's husband is a captain in the Navy,
a gallant officer and a good man. Mary's is a clergyman,
a college friend of her brothers, and from his attainments
and principles worthy of the connection. Both Captain Fitzjames and

(05:30:09):
mister Wharton love their wives and are loved by them.
As to Saint John Rivers, he left England, he went
to India. He entered on the path he had marked
for himself. He pursues it still a more resolute, indefatigable pioneer,
never wrought amidst rocks and dangers, firm, faithful and devoted,

(05:30:31):
full of energy and zeal and truth. He labors for
his race. He clears their painful way to improvement. He
hews down like a giant, the prejudices of creed and
caste that encumber it. He may be stern, he may
be exacting, he may be ambitious. Yet but his is
the sternness of the warrior great heart, who guards his

(05:30:54):
pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollion. Is the exaction
of the apostle who speaks but for Christ, when he says,
whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me. Is the ambition
of the high master Spirit, which aims to fill a
place in the first rank of those who are redeemed

(05:31:16):
from the earth, who stand without fault before the throne
of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb,
who are called and chosen and faithful. Saint John is unmarried,
he never will marry. Now himself has hitherto sufficed to
the toil, and the toil draws near its close. His

(05:31:37):
glorious son hastens to its setting. The last letter I
received from him drew from my eve's human tears, and
yet filled my heart with divine joy. He anticipated his
sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a stranger's
hand will write to me next to say that the
good and faithful servant has been called at length into

(05:31:59):
the joy of God Lord. And why weep for this?
No fear of death will darken Saint John's last hour.
His mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted,
his hope will be sure, his faith steadfast. His own
words are a pledge of this. My Master, he says,
has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly. Surely I

(05:32:23):
come quickly, and hourly I more eagerly respond. Amen. Even so,
come Lord Jesus. Piton Publishing House, presented Jane Eyre, author
Charlotte Bronte. Thank you for listening to this audio book.
We hope you enjoyed it. If you enjoyed this classic,

(05:32:57):
follow the show and leave a quick review. Join us
every Tuesday and Thursday for more Timeless stories

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Jane Eyre - Full Audiobook (Charlotte Brontë) | Part 3 of 3

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jane Eyre - Full Audiobook (Charlotte Brontë) | Part 3 of 3