第7页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第7页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories
represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing
before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.
Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her
hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the
revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to
stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the
dismal present.
All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud
indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality,
turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.
Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for
ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to
win any one's favour? Eliza, who, was headstrong and selfish, was
respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite,
a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her
beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to
all who, looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.
John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the
necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at
the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the
buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother
'old girl,' too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to
his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and
spoiled her silk attire; and he was still 'her own darling.' I dared
commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed
naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and
from noon to night.
My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received:
no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had
turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was
loaded with general opprobrium.
'Unjust!- unjust!' said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus
into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally
wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from
insupportable oppression- as running away, or, if that could not be
effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How
all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in
what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I
could not answer the ceaseless inward question- why I thus suffered;
now, at the distance of- I will not say how many years, I see it
clearly.
I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had
nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen
vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love