第246页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第246页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
not mad- as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when
there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body
and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they;
inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break
them, what would be their worth? They have a worth- so I have always
believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane-
quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating
faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone
determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant
my foot.'
I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so.
His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment,
whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and
grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance:
physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the
draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul,
and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately,
has an interpreter- often an unconscious, but still a truthful
interpreter- in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his
fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and
my overtaxed strength almost exhausted.
'Never,' said he, as he ground his teeth, 'never was anything at
once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!'
(And he shook me with the force of his hold.) 'I could bend her with
my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore,
if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free
thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage- with a
stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it- the
savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my
outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the
house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call
myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit-
with will and energy, and virtue and purity- that I want: not alone
your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and
nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you
will elude the grasp like an essence- you will vanish ere I inhale
your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!'
As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at
me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only
an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled
his fury; I must elude his sorrow: retired to the door.
'You are going, Jane?'
'I am going, sir.'
'You are leaving me?'
'Yes.'
'You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My
deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?'
What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to