第25页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第25页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
'No, Mrs. Reed.'
'Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I
desire to be your friend.'
'Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a
deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what
you are, and what you have done.'
'Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be
corrected for their faults.'
'Deceit is not my fault!' I cried out in a savage, high voice.
'But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now
return to the nursery- there's a dear- and lie down a little.'
'I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon,
Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.'
'I will indeed send her to school soon,' murmured Mrs. Reed sotto
voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.
I was left there alone- winner of the field. It was the hardest
battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood
awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed
my conqueror's solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but
this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated
throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had
done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had
given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and
the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing,
devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and
menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the
flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent
condition, when half an hour's silence and reflection had shown me the
madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating
position.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic
wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour,
metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but I
knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the
way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting
every turbulent impulse of my nature.
I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce
speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than
that of sombre indignation. I took a book- some Arabian tales; I sat
down and endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my
own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found
fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the
shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or
breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt
of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which
was quite sequestered; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees,
the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet