第348页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第348页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
replaced frenzy- sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression
that since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that
night- perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock- ere I
retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed
good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to
that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.
'I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open:
it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no
stars, and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a
moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul
and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had
not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not
soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured,
I acknowledged- that I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and
the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my
lips in the words- "Jane! Jane! Jane!"'
'Did you speak these words aloud?'
'I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought
me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy.'
'And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?'
'Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the
strange point. You will think me superstitious- some superstition I
have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true- true
at least it is that I heard what I now relate.
'As I exclaimed "Jane! Jane! Jane!" a voice- I cannot tell whence
the voice came, but I know whose voice it was- replied, "I am
coming: wait for me;" and a moment after, went whispering on the
wind the words- "Where are you?"
'I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words
opened to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to
express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where
sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. "Where are you?" seemed
spoken amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the
words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my
brow: I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane
were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt
were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul
wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents-
as certain as I live- they were yours!'
Reader, it was on Monday night- near midnight- that I too had
received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which
I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made
no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and
inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my
tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on
the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its sufferings too