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Page 9
"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
altitude 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
sex 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.
You veil my heart with cloud;
Since faith is dim and blind,
I can but grope perplex'd and bow'd,
Seek till I find.
Yet bonds are life to me;
How else could I perceive
The love in each wild artery
That bids me live?
Jane's was not a rich voice, nor very sweet, and yet I fancied no
other voice than this could plead and argue quite so clearly and with
such nimble insistency--neither of bird, nor child, nor brook;
because, I suppose, it was the voice of Jane Eyre, and all that was
Jane's seemed Jane's only.
The music ceased, the accompaniment died away; but Mr. Rochester stood
immobile yet--a little darker night in that much deeper. When I
turned, Jane was gone from the room. I sat down, my face towards the
still candles, as one who is awake, yet dreams on. The faint scent of
the earth through the open window; the heavy, sombre furniture; the
daintiness and the alertness in the many flowers and few womanly
gew-gaws: these too I shall remember in a tranquillity that cannot
change.
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