第330页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第330页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
'Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught
you know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you
hasten, who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have
nothing to do with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his
presence. You have lost your labour- you had better go no farther,'
urged the monitor. 'Ask information of the people at the inn; they can
give you all you seek: they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to
that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home.'
The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force self to
act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To
prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the
Hall under the ray of her star. There was the stile before me- the
very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted
with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I
fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course I had resolved to
take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran
sometimes? How I looked forward to catch the first view of the
well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew,
and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them!
At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing
broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I
hastened. Another field crossed- a lane threaded- and there were the
courtyard walls- the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still
hid. 'My first view of it shall be in front,' I determined, 'where its
bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can
single out my master's very window: perhaps he will be standing at it-
he rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the
pavement in front. Could I but see him!- but a moment? Surely, in that
case, I should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell- I am not
certain. And if I did- what then? God bless him! What then? Who
would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me?
I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the
Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south.'
I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard- turned its
angle: there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between
two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I
could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I
advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom
window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long front- all
from this sheltered station were at my command.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this
survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was
very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold
and reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from
my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in