he did not leave for cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. he 1 his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a 2 yet implacable man can 3 on one who has offended him. without one 4 act of 5, one 6 word, he 7 to impress me momently with the conviction that i was put beyond the pale of his favour.
not that st. john harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness-- not that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been 9 in his power to do so. both by nature and principle, he was superior to the mean gratification of 10: he had forgiven me for saying i scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and i lived he never would forget them. i saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever i 11, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me.
he did not 12 from 13 with me: he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk; and i fear the 14 man within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure 8, in evincing with what skill he could, while 15 and speaking 16 just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had 17 communicated a certain 18 charm to his language and manner. to me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue 19; his tongue a speaking instrument-- nothing more.
all this was torture to me--refined, lingering torture. it kept up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which 20 and crushed me altogether. i felt how--if i were his wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my 21 a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime. especially i felt this when i made any attempt to 22 him. no ruth met my ruth. he experienced no suffering from estrangement- -no 23 after 24; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears 25 the page over which we both 26, they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. to his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid that 27 coldness would not 28 convince me how completely i was 29 and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this i am sure he did not by force, but on principle.
the night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset, and remembering, as i looked at him, that this man, 30 as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near relations, i was moved to make a last attempt to 31 his friendship. i went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; i spoke to the point at once.
"st. john, i am unhappy because you are still angry with me. let us be friends."
"i hope we are friends," was the unmoved reply; while he still watched the rising of the moon, which he had been 32 as i approached.
"no, st. john, we are not friends as we were. you know that."
"are we not? that is wrong. for my part, i wish you no ill and all good."
"i believe you, st. john; for i am sure you are 33 of wishing any one ill; but, as i am your kinswoman, i should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers."
"of course," he said. "your wish is reasonable, and i am far from regarding you as a stranger."
this, spoken in a cool, 34 tone, was 35 and baffling enough. had i attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, i should immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could. i deeply 36 my cousin's talent and principle. his friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me 37. i would not so soon 38 the attempt to reconquer it.
"must we part in this way, st. john? and when you go to india, will you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?"
he now turned quite from the moon and faced me.
"when i go to india, jane, will i leave you! what! do you not go to india?"
"you said i could not unless i married you."
"and you will not marry me! you adhere to that resolution?"
reader, do you know, as i do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? how much of the fall of the 39 is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?
"no. st. john, i will not marry you. i adhere to my resolution."
the avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.
"once more, why this refusal?" he asked.
"formerly," i answered, "because you did not love me; now, i reply, because you almost hate me. if i were to marry you, you would kill me. you are 40 me now."
his lips and cheeks turned white--quite white.
"i should kill you--i am killing you? your words are such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. they betray an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe 42: they would seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even until seventy-and-seven times."
i had finished the business now. while earnestly wishing to 43 from his mind the trace of my former offence, i had stamped on that 44 surface another and far deeper impression, i had burnt it in.
"now you will indeed hate me," i said. "it is useless to attempt to conciliate you: i see i have made an eternal enemy of you."
a fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth. that bloodless lip quivered to a temporary 45. i knew the steely ire i had 46. i was heart-wrung.
"you 47 misinterpret my words," i said, at once seizing his hand: "i have no intention to grieve or pain you--indeed, i have not."
most bitterly he smiled--most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. "and now you recall your promise, and will not go to india at all, i presume?" said he, after a considerable pause.
"yes, i will, as your assistant," i answered.
a very long silence succeeded. what struggle there was in him between nature and grace in this 48, i cannot tell: only singular gleams 49 in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. he spoke at last.
"i before proved to you the 50 of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. i proved it to you in such terms as, i should have thought, would have prevented your ever again 51 to the plan. that you have done so, i regret--for your sake."
i interrupted him. anything like a 52 reproach gave me courage at once. "keep to common sense, st. john: you are 53 on nonsense. you pretend to be shocked by what i have said. you are not really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so 54 as to misunderstand my meaning. i say again, i will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife."
again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion 55. he answered emphatically but calmly -
"a female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. with me, then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, i will, while in town, speak to a married 56, whose wife needs a coadjutor. your own fortune will make you independent of the society's aid; and thus you may still be spared the 57 of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join."
now i never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. i replied -
"there is no dishonour, no 58 of promise, no desertion in the case. i am not under the slightest obligation to go to india, especially with strangers. with you i would have ventured much, because i admire, 59 in, and, as a sister, i love you; but i am convinced that, go when and with whom i would, i should not live long in that climate."
"ah! you are afraid of yourself," he said, curling his lip.
"i am. god did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish me would, i begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide. moreover, before i 60 resolve on quitting england, i will know for certain whether i cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it."
"what do you mean?"
"it would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on which i have long endured painful doubt, and i can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed."
"i know where your heart turns and to what it clings. the interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. long since you ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to 61 to it. you think of mr. rochester?"
it was true. i confessed it by silence.
"are you going to seek mr. rochester?"
"i must find out what is become of him."
"it 62 for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and to 63 god for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. i had thought i recognised in you one of the chosen. but god sees not as man sees: his will be done--"
he opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. he was soon out of sight.
on re-entering the parlour, i found diana 64 at the window, looking very thoughtful. diana was a great deal taller than i: she put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
"jane," she said, "you are always 65 and pale now. i am sure there is something the matter. tell me what business st. john and you have on hands. i have watched you this half hour from the window; you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time i have fancied i hardly know what. st. john is a strange being--"
she paused--i did not speak: soon she resumed -
"that brother of mine cherishes 66 views of some sort respecting you, i am sure: he has long 67 you by a notice and interest he never showed to any one else--to what end? i wish he loved you--does he, jane?"
i put her cool hand to my hot forehead; "no, die, not one 41."
"then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? mary and i had both concluded he wished you to marry him."
"he does--he has asked me to be his wife."
diana clapped her hands. "that is just what we hoped and thought! and you will marry him, jane, won't you? and then he will stay in england."
"far from that, diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to 68 a fitting fellow-labourer in his indian 69."
"what! he wishes you to go to india?"
"yes."
"madness!" she exclaimed. "you would not live three months there, i am certain. you never shall go: you have not consented, have you, jane?"
"i have refused to marry him--"
"and have consequently 70 him?" she suggested.
"deeply: he will never forgive me, i fear: yet i offered to accompany him as his sister."
"it was 71 72 to do so, jane. think of the task you undertook--one of 73 74, where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak. st. john--you know him--would urge you to impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and unfortunately, i have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. i am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. you do not love him then, jane?"
"not as a husband."
"yet he is a handsome fellow."
"and i am so plain, you see, die. we should never suit."
"plain! you? not at all. you are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be 75 alive in calcutta." and again she earnestly 76 me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
"i must indeed," i said; "for when just now i repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of 77. he seemed to think i had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried: as if i had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother, and 78 regarded him as such."
"what makes you say he does not love you, jane?"
"you should hear himself on the subject. he has again and again explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. he has told me i am formed for labour--not for love: which is true, no doubt. but, in my opinion, if i am not formed for love, it follows that i am not formed for marriage. would it not be strange, die, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?"
"insupportable--unnatural--out of the question!"
"and then," i continued, "though i have only sisterly affection for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, i can imagine the possibility of conceiving an 79, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic 80 in his look, manner, and conversation. in that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. he would not want me to love him; and if i showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. i know he would."
"and yet st. john is a good man," said diana.
"he is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. it is better, therefore, for the 81 to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should 82 them down. here he comes! i will leave you, diana." and i hastened upstairs as i saw him entering the garden.
but i was forced to meet him again at supper. during that meal he appeared just as composed as usual. i had thought he would hardly speak to me, and i was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme: the sequel showed i was mistaken on both points. he addressed me 83 in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his ordinary manner--one 84 polite. no doubt he had 85 the help of the holy spirit to 86 the anger i had roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more.
for the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of revelation. it was at all times pleasant to listen while from his lips fell the words of the bible: never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full--never did his manner become so impressive in its noble 87, as when he delivered the 88 of god: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone--that manner a more thrilling meaning--as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the may moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and 89 almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new earth--told how god would come to dwell with men, how he would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away.
the succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially as i felt, by the slight, indescribable 90 in sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me.
"he that overcometh shall inherit all things; and i will be his god, and he shall be my son. but," was slowly, distinctly read, "the fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
henceforward, i knew what fate st. john feared for me.
a calm, 91 triumph, blent with a 92 earnestness, marked his 93 of the last glorious verses of that chapter. the reader believed his name was already written in the lamb's book of life, and he 94 after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of god lightens it, and the lamb is the light thereof.
in the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered--all his stern 95 woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with god, and resolved on a conquest. he 96 strength for the weak- hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were 97 from the narrow path. he asked, he urged, he claimed the 98 of a brand snatched from the burning. earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as i listened to that prayer, i wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, i was touched by it, and at last 99. he felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too.
the prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early hour in the morning. diana and mary having kissed him, left the room--in 100, i think, with a whispered hint from him: i tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey.
"thank you, jane. as i said, i shall return from cambridge in a fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. if i listened to human pride, i should say no more to you of marriage with me; but i listen to my duty, and keep 101 in view my first aim--to do all things to the glory of god. my master was long- suffering: so will i be. i cannot give you up to perdition as a 102 of 103: 104--resolve, while there is yet time. remember, we are bid to work while it is day--warned that 'the night cometh when no man shall work.' remember the fate of dives, who had his good things in this life. god give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken from you!"
he laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. he had spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover 105 his mistress, but it was that of a 106 recalling his wandering sheep--or better, of a 107 angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. all men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; whether they be zealots, or 108, or despots--provided only they be sincere--have their 109 moments, when they subdue and rule. i felt 110 for st. john-- veneration so strong that its 111 thrust me at once to the point i had so long 112. i was 113 to cease struggling with him-- to rush down the 114 of his will into the 115 of his existence, and there lose my own. i was almost as hard 116 by him now as i had been once before, in a different way, by another. i was a fool both times. to have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of 117. so i think at this hour, when i look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time: i was unconscious of folly at the instant.
i stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. my refusals were forgotten--my fears overcome--my wrestlings paralysed. the impossible--i.e., my marriage with st. john--was fast becoming the possible. all was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. religion called--angels beckoned--god commanded--life rolled together like a scroll--death's gates opening, showed 118 beyond: it seemed, that for safety and 119 there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. the dim room was full of visions.
"could you decide now?" asked the missionary. the 120 was put in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. oh, that gentleness! how far more 121 is it than force! i could resist st. john's wrath: i grew 122 as a reed under his kindness. yet i knew all the time, if i yielded now, i should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion. his nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated.
"i could decide if i were but certain," i answered: "were i but convinced that it is god's will i should marry you, i could 123 to marry you here and now--come afterwards what would!"
"my i prayers are heard!" ejaculated st. john. he pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, almost as if he loved me (i say almost--i knew the difference-- for i had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, i had now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty). i contended with my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. i sincerely, deeply, 124 longed to do what was right; and only that. "show me, show me the path!" i 125 of heaven. i was excited more than i had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader shall judge.
all the house was still; for i believe all, except st. john and myself, were now 126 to rest. the one candle was dying out: the room was full of moonlight. my heart beat fast and thick: i heard its 127. suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and 128. the feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but 129, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. they rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones.
"what have you heard? what do you see?" asked st. john. i saw nothing, but i heard a voice somewhere cry -
"jane! jane! jane!"--nothing more.
"o god! what is it?" i 130.
i might have said, "where is it?" for it did not seem in the room-- nor in the house--nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air- -nor from under the earth--nor from overhead. i had heard it-- where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! and it was the voice of a human being--a known, loved, well-remembered voice--that of edward fairfax rochester; and it spoke in pain and 131, wildly, 132, urgently.
"i am coming!" i cried. "wait for me! oh, i will come!" i flew to the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. i ran out into the garden: it was void.
"where are you?" i exclaimed.
the hills beyond 133 glen sent the answer faintly back--"where are you?" i listened. the wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland loneliness and midnight 134.
"down 135!" i commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black 136 at the gate. "this is not thy 137, nor thy 138: it is the work of nature. she was roused, and did--no miracle--but her best."
i broke from st. john, who had followed, and would have detained me. it was my time to assume ascendency. my powers were in play and in force. i told him to forbear question or remark; i desired him to leave me: i must and would be alone. he obeyed at once. where there is energy to command well enough, 139 never fails. i mounted to my 140; locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my way--a different way to st. john's, but effective in its own fashion. i seemed to 141 very near a 142 spirit; and my soul rushed out in 143 at his feet. i rose from the thanksgiving--took a resolve--and lay down, unscared, enlightened-- eager but for the daylight.
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