第95页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第95页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest
billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into
relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and
large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set
with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my palette
could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart.
Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through
the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly visible,
whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.
The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of
a hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze.
Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight:
rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in
tints as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was
crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the
suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed
shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail.
On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint
lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this
vision of the Evening Star.
The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter
sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close
serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the
foreground, a head,- a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg,
and resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and
supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a
brow quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed,
blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were
visible. Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black
drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a
ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge.
This pale crescent was 'the likeness of a kingly crown'; what it
diademed was 'the shape which shape had none.'
'Were you happy when you painted these pictures?' asked Mr.
Rochester presently.
'I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in
short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known.'
'That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have
been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist's
dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you
sit at them long each day?'
'I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat
at them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length
of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply.'
'And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent
labours?'
'Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and