第231页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第231页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave
him, it appears. I do not want to leave him- I cannot leave him.'
'How are you now, Jane?'
'Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.'
'Taste the wine again, Jane.'
I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before
me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an
inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind;
he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me
as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I
turned my face away and put his aside.
'What!- How is this?' he exclaimed hastily. 'Oh, I know! you
won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled
and my embraces appropriated?'
'At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.'
'Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will
answer for you- Because I have a wife already, you would reply.- I
guess rightly?'
'Yes.'
'If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must
regard me as a plotting profligate- a base and low rake who has been
simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare
deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of
self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in
the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw
your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself
to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are
opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no
desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking
how to act- talking you consider is of no use. I know you- I am on
my guard.'
'Sir, I do not wish to act against you,' I said; and my unsteady
voice warned me to curtail my sentence.
'Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to
destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man- as a
married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have
refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to
me: to live under this roof only as Adele's governess; if ever I say a
friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to
me, you will say,- "That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must
be ice and rock to him"; and ice and rock you will accordingly
become.'
I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: 'All is changed about me,
sir; I must change too- there is no doubt of that; and to avoid
fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections
and associations, there is only one way- Adele must have a new
governess, sir.'
'Oh, Adele will go to school- I have settled that already; nor do I
mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of
Thornfield Hall- this accursed place- this tent of Achan- this