第112页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第112页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather
than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not
mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become
with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after
kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of
existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered
flesh and strength.
And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude,
and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the
object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering
than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I
could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud,
sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul
I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity
to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once,
when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library
alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked
up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But
I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of
morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their
source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a
man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than
such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny
encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though
for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I
cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would
have given much to assuage it.
Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I
could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue,
and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to
be happy at Thornfield.
'Why not?' I asked myself. 'What alienates him from the house? Will
he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer
than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight
weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be
absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine
days will seem!'
I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at
any rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and
lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had
kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were
depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward
tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck
two. Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers
had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery