第54页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第54页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from
her cheek.
On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd:
she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns's,
and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told
that to-morrow she should have half a dozen of untidily folded
articles pinned to her shoulder.
'My things were indeed in shameful disorder,' murmured Helen to me,
in a low voice: 'I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot.'
Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a
piece of pasteboard the word 'Slattern,' and bound it like a
phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and
benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient,
unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss
Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it
off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was
incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and
large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of
her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.
About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss
Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared
that what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple,
having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been
made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most
happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every
imputation. The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a
murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions.
Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work
afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I
toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my
memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise
sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in
less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I
learned the first two tenses of the verb Etre, and sketched my first
cottage (whose walls, by the bye, outrivalled in slope those of the
leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That night, on going to
bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot
roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont
to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of
ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands:
freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins,
Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering
over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wrens' nests
enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I
examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my ever being able to
translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot