第291页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第291页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she
would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to
me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that
to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I
know.'
'Strange indeed!' I could not help ejaculating.
'While something in me,' he went on, 'is acutely sensible to her
charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they
are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to- co-operate
in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female
apostle? Rosamond a missionary's wife? No!'
'But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that
scheme.'
'Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid
on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the
band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering
their race- of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance- of
substituting peace for war- freedom for bondage- religion for
superstition- the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I
relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I
have to look forward to, and to live for.'
After a considerable pause, I said- 'And Miss Oliver? Are her
disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?'
'Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in
less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will
forget me; and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far
happier than I should do.'
'You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are
wasting away.'
'No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects,
yet unsettled- my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this
morning, I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I
have been so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three
months to come yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six.'
'You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the
schoolroom.'
Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not
imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I
felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in
communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male
or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and
crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their
heart's very hearthstone.
'You are original,' said he, 'and not timid. There is something
brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me
to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think
them more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger
allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour,
and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the