Part 2 (1/2)
”You are right,” she answered; ”that is a puissant battlecry, here and hereafter.”
Mr. Rochester rose hastily from his chair. ”The candles irk me, Jane.
I would like to be alone. Excuse me, sir.” He left the room.
Jane lifted a dark curtain and beckoned me to bring the lights. She sat down before a little piano and desired me to sit beside her. And while she played, I know not what, but only it seemed old, well-remembered airs her mood suggested, she asked me many questions.
”And am I indeed only like that poor mad thing you thought Jane Eyre?”
she said, ”or did you read between?”
I answered that it was not her words, not even her thoughts, not even her poetry that was to me Jane Eyre.
”What then is left of me?” she enquired, stooping her eyes over the keys and smiling darkly. ”Am I indeed so evanescent, a wintry wraith?”
”Well,” I said, ”Jane Eyre is left.”
She pressed her lips together. ”I see,” she said brightly. ”But then, was I not detestable too? so stubborn, so wilful, so demented, so--vain?”
”You were vain,” I answered, ”because--”
”Well?” she said, and the melody died out, and the lower voices of her music complained softly on.
”For a barrier,” I answered.
”A barrier?” she cried.
”Why, yes,” I said, ”a barrier against cant, and flummery, and coldness, and pride, and against--why, against your own vanity too.”
”That's really very clever--penetrating,” she said; ”and I really desired to know, not because I did not know already, but to know I knew all. You are a perspicacious observer, Mr. Brocken; and to be that is to be alive in a world of the moribund. But then too how high one must soar at times; for one must ever condescend in order to observe faithfully. At any rate, to observe all one must range at an alt.i.tude above all.”
”And so,” I said, ”you have taken your praise from me--”
”But you are a man, and I a woman: we look with differing eyes, each s.e.x to the other, and perceive by contrast. Else--why, how else could you forgive my presumption? He sees me as an eagle sees the creeping tortoise. I see him as the moon the sun, never weary of gazing. I borrow his radiance to observe him by. But I weary you with my garrulous tongue.... Have you no plan at all in your journey? 'Tis not the dangers, but to me the endless restlessness of such a venture--that 'Oh, where shall wisdom be found?'... Will you not pause?--stay with us a few days to consider again this rash journey?
To each his world: it is surely perilous to transgress its fixed boundaries.”
”Who knows?” I cried, rather arrogantly perhaps. ”The sorcery that lured me hither may carry me as lightly back. But I have tasted honey and covet the hive.”
She glanced sidelong at me with that stealthy gravity that lay under all her lightness.
”That delicious Rosinante!” she exclaimed softly.... ”And I really believe too _I_ must be the honey--or is it Mr. Rochester? Ah! Mr.
Brocken, they call it wasp-honey when it is so bitter that it blisters the lips.” She talked on gaily, as if she had forgotten I was but a stranger until now. Yet none the less she perceived presently my eyes ever and again fixed upon the little brooch of faintest gold hair at her throat, and flinched and paled, playing on in silence.
”Take the whole past,” she continued abruptly, ”spread it out before you, with all its just defeats, all its broken faith, and overweening hopes, its beauty, and fear, and love, and its loss--its loss; then turn and say: this, this only, this duller heart, these duller eyes, this contumacious spirit is all that is left--myself. Oh! who could wish to one so dear a destiny so dark?” She rose hastily from the piano. ”Did I hear Mr. Rochester's step by the window?” she said.
I crossed the room and looked out into the night. The brightening moon hung golden in the dark clearness of the sky. Mr. Rochester stood motionless, Napoleon-wise, beneath the black, unstirring foliage. And before I could turn, Jane had begun to sing:--
You take my heart with tears; I battle uselessly; Reft of all hopes and doubts and fears, Lie quietly.