Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 15.

Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one
afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds:
and while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me
to walk up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera dancer,
Celine Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called
a "grande passion." This passion Celine had professed to return
with even superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as
he was: he believed, as he said, that she preferred his "taille
d'athlete" to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.

"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of
the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an
hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage,
cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, etc. In short, I began the process
of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I
had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame
and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not
to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had as I deserved
to have the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one
evening when Celine did not expect me, I found her out; but it was
a warm night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I
sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so
lately by her presence.

No, I exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue
about her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left;
a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity. I was just
beginning to stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and
sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to open the window
and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight
besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished
with a chair or two; I sat down, and tookout a cigar, I will take
one now, if you will excuse me."

Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting
of a cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail
of Havannah incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on
"I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was croquant
(overlook the barbarism) croquant chocolate comfits, and
smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled
along the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera house,
when in an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of
English horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant city night,
I recognised the 'voiture' I had given Celine. She was returning:
of course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails
I leant upon.

The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame
(that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though
muffed in a cloak an unnecessary encumbrance, by the bye, on so
warm a June evening I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen
peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage
step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon ange'
in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of love
alone when a figure jumped from the carriage after her; cloaked
also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement,
and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched
porte cochere of the hotel.

"You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I
need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both
sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet
to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses
in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid
away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither
see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor
hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you and you
may mark my words you will come some day to a craggy pass in the
channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into
whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to
atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master wave
into a calmer current as I am now.

"I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness
and stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield,
its antiquity, its retirement, its old crow trees and thorn trees,
its grey facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal
welkin: and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it,
shunned it like a great plague house? How I do still abhor "

He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck
his boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to
have him in its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not
advance.

We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before
us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare
such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience,
disgust, detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict
in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the
wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and
triumphed: something hard and cynical: self willed and resolute:
it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he went on

"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point
with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech trunk a hag
like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres.
'You like Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she
wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all
along the house front, between the upper and lower row of windows,
'Like it if you can! Like it if you dare!'

"'I will like it,' said I; 'I dare like it;' and" (he subjoined
moodily) "I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness,
to goodness yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I
have been, than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart,
and the habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass,
I will esteem but straw and rotten wood."

Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock. "Away!" he cried
harshly; "keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!" Continuing
then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall
him to the point whence he had abruptly diverged
"Did you leave the balcony, sir," I asked, "when Mdlle. Varens
entered?"

I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well timed question,
but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he
turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his
brow. "Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw
my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to
hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating
coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate
its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed,
suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange that I should
choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady; passing
strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the most
usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his
opera mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you!

But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before:
you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to
be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind
I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not
liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique
one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would
not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better;
for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me." After
this digression he proceeded

"I remained in the balcony. 'They will come to her boudoir, no
doubt,' thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush.' So putting my hand
in through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only
an opening through which I could take observations; then I closed
the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet
to lovers' whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as
I resumed it the pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture.
Celine's chamber maid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table,
and withdrew.

The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed
their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens,' shining in satin
and jewels, my gifts of course, and there was her companion
in an officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a
vicomte a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met
in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him
so absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy
was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine
sank under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such
a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn;
less, however, than I, who had been her dupe.

"They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous,
mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to
weary than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table;
this being perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither
of them possessed energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they
insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way: especially
Celine, who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal defects
deformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to launch
out into fervent admiration of what she called my 'beaute male:'
wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me point blank,
at the second interview, that you did not think me handsome. The
contrast struck me at the time and "

Adele here came running up again. "Monsieur, John has just been
to say that your agent has called and wishes to see you."
"Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked
in upon them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice
to vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies;
disregarded screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions;
made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de
Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left
a bullet in one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of
a chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole
crew. But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me
this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps
she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written
in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she. Some years
after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child, and
ran away to Italy with a musician or singer.

I acknowledged no natural claim on Adele's part to be supported
by me, nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father;
but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e'en took the poor
thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here,
to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country
garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you know
that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera girl, you
will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you
will be coming to me some day with notice that you have found
another place that you beg me to look out for a new governess, etc. Eh?"

"No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or
yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a
sense, parentless forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir
I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly
prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess
as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as
a friend?" "Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in
now; and you too: it darkens."

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot ran
a race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock.
When we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her
on my knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she
liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into
which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed
in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her
mother, hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her
merits; and I was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her
to the utmost. I sought in her countenance and features a likeness
to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn of expression
announced relationship. It was a pity: if she could but have been
proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.

It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the
night, that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me.
As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary
in the substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's
passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were everyday
matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly
strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him
when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of
his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its
environs. I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but gradually
quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to
the consideration of my master's manner to myself.

The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute
to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. his deportment
had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at
the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling
hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed
welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me:
when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was
honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me feel I really
possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening
conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit.

I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with
relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open
to a mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and
ways (I do not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such
as derived their interest from the great scale on which they were
acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterised);
and I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered,
in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in
thought through the new regions he disclosed, never startled or
troubled by one noxious allusion.

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly
frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew
me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than
my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind
that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become
with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after
kindred: my thin crescent destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks
of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered
flesh and strength.

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude,
and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face
the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more
cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults;
indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He
was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description:
in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced
by unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably
so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting
in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and,
when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened
his features.

But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults
of morality (I say FORMER, for now he seemed corrected of them) had
their source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a
man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such
as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny
encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though
for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled.
I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and
would have given much to assuage it.

Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed,
I could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the
avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared
him to be happy at Thornfield.

"Why not?" I asked myself. "What alienates him from the house?
Will he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed
here longer than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident
eight weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose
he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine
and fine days will seem!"

I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any
rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and
lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I
had kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits
were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound
was hushed.

I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward
tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two.
Just then it seemed my chamber door was touched; as if fingers had
swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside.
I said, "Who is there?" Nothing answered. I was chilled with
fear.

All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the
kitchen door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his
way up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him
lying there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat:
I lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush
now reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return
of slumber. But it was not fated that I should sleep that night.
A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted,
scared by a marrow freezing incident enough.

This was a demoniac laugh low, suppressed, and deep uttered,
as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of
my bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin laugher
stood at my bedside or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I
rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed,
the unnatural sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind
the panels. My first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my
next, again to cry out, "Who is there?"

Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the
gallery towards the third storey staircase: a door had lately been
made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all
was still.

"Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?" thought
I. Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs.
Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt
and opened the door with a trembling hand. There was a candle
burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was
surprised at this circumstance: but still more was I amazed to
perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while
looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue
wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of burning.

Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr.
Rochester's, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought
no more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the
laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame
darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze
and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.

"Wake! wake!" I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and
turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost:
the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer;
fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled
with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant,
flew back to my own room, brought my own water jug, baptized the
couch afresh, and, by god's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the
flames which were devouring it.

The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which
I flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the
splash of the shower bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr.
Rochester at last. Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake;
because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself
lying in a pool of water. "Is there a flood?" he cried.

"No, sir," I answered; "but there has been a fire: get up, do;
you are quenched now; I will fetch you a candle."
"In the name of all the elves in christendom, is that Jane Eyre?"
he demanded. "What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who
is in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?"

"I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up.
Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who
and what it is." "There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch
a candle yet: wait two minutes till I get into some dry garments,
if any dry there be yes, here is my dressing gown. Now run!"

I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the
gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the
bed, all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet
round swimming in water.

"What is it? and who did it?" he asked. I briefly related to him
what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery:
the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke, the smell of
fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found
matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could
lay hands on.

He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more
concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had
concluded. "Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?" I asked. "Mrs. Fairfax? No; what
the deuce would you call her for? What can she do? Let her sleep
unmolested." "Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife."
"Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not
warm enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and
sit down in the arm chair: there, I will put it on. Now place
your feet on the stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going
to leave you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where
you are till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit
to the second storey. Don't move, remember, or call any one."

He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery
very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as
possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left
in total darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing.
A very long time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of
the cloak; and then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not
to rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's
displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more
gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet
tread the matting. "I hope it is he," thought I, "and not something
worse."

He re entered, pale and very gloomy. "I have found it all out,"
said he, setting his candle down on the washstand; "it is as I
thought." "How, sir?" He made no reply, but stood with his
arms folded, looking on the ground. At the end of a few
minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar tone. "I forget
whether you said you saw anything when you opened your
chamber door." "No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground."

"But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before,
I should think, or something like it?" "Yes, sir: there is a woman
who sews here, called Grace Poole, she laughs in that way.
She is a singular person." "Just so. Grace Poole you have guessed
it. She is, as you say, singular very. Well, I shall reflect on the
subject. Meantime, I am glad that you are the only person, besides
myself, acquainted with the precise details of to night's incident.
You are no talking fool: say nothing about it. I will account for
this state of affairs" (pointing to the bed): "and now return to
your own room. I shall do very well on the sofa in the library
for the rest of the night. It is near four: in two hours the
servants will be up." "Good night, then, sir," said I, departing.

He seemed surprised very inconsistently so, as he had just told
me to go. "What!" he exclaimed, "are you quitting me already,
and in that way?" "You said I might go, sir.""But not without
taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment
and good will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why,
you have saved my life! snatched me from a horrible and
excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were
mutual strangers! At least shake hands."

He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one,
them in both his own. "You have saved my life: I have a pleasure
in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing
else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the
character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it is
different; I feel your benefits no burden, Jane."

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his
lips, but his voice was checked. "Good night again, sir. There
is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the case."
"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some
time; I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their
expression and smile did not" (again he stopped) "did not"
(he proceeded hastily) "strike delight to my very inmost heart so
for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of
good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My
cherished preserver, goodnight!"

Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.
"I am glad I happened to be awake," I said: and then I was going.
"What! you WILL go?" "I am cold, sir." "Cold? Yes, and standing
in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!" But he still retained my hand, and
I could not free it. I thought myself of an expedient. "I think I
hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir," said I. "Well, leave me:" he relaxed
his fingers, and I was gone.

I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning
dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows
of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw
beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and
now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit
triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even
in fancy a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually
drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn
passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 16.>