第343页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第343页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
preparing breakfast.
Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the
wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him 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, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both
he and I were happier near than apart? 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 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
bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and
penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now.'
Thus 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 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 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 to tell him how I had been received
at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, etc.
The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in
due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently in
the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately
taken up.
'This St. John, then, 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?'
'St. John was only twenty-nine, sir.'
'"Jeune encore," as the French say. Is he a 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