第272页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第272页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
these regions, the same attraction as for them- wound round my
faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.
Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished
and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the
path of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books
they lent me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in
the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought;
opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly.
If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.
Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous.
In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty
of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.
I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of
vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's
feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and
Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but
touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her:
I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar
pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual
affection- of the strongest kind- was the result. They discovered I
could draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my
service. My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised
and charmed them. Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together:
then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous
pupil she made. Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed
like hours, and weeks like days.
As to Mr. St. John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally
and rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One
reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was
comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time
appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered
population of his parish.
No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions:
rain or fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over,
take his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out
on his mission of love or duty- I scarcely know in which light he
regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his
sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile,
more solemn than cheerful-
'And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me
aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be
for the future I propose to myself?'
Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and
some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.
But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to
friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and
even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours,