Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 37.

The manor house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity,
moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in
a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of
it, and sometimes went there. His father had purchased the estate
for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house, but
could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious
site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the
exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation
of the squire when he went there in the season to shoot.
To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the
characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating
rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the
chaise and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even
when within a very short distance of the manor house, you could
see nothing of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy
wood about it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where
to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the
twilight of close ranked trees. There was a grass grown track
descending the forest aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and
under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the
dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it would far and farther:
no sign of habitation or grounds was visible. I thought I had
taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness of
natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I looked
round in search of another road. There was none: all was
interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage
no opening anywhere.

I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little;
presently I beheld a railing, then the house scarce, by this
dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were
its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch,
I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept
away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden beds; only
a broad gravel walk girdling a grass plat, and this set in the
heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables
in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front
door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked, as
the host of the Rochester Arms had said, "quite a desolate spot."
It was as still as a church on a week day: the pattering rain on
the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.
"Can there be life here?" I asked. Yes, life of some kind there
was; for I heard a movement that narrow front door was
unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange.
It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood
on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as
if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised
him it was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.

I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him to
examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was
a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check
by pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation,
my step from hasty advance. His form was of the same strong and
stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his hair was still
raven black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year's
space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled or his
vigorous prime blighted. But in his countenance I saw a change: that
looked desperate and brooding that reminded me of some wronged
and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen
woe. The caged eagle, whose gold ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished,
might look as looked that sightless Samson. And, reader, do you think
I feared him in his blind ferocity? If you do, you little know me.
A soft hope blest with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop
a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly sealed
beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet.

He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards
the grass plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused,
as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened
his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky,
and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him
was void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the
mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by
touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy
still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood. He
relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and
mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this
moment John approached him from some quarter. "Will you take
my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower coming on: had you
not better go in?" "Let me alone," was the answer. John withdrew
without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to walk
about: vainly, all was too uncertain. He groped his way back to
the house, and, re entering it, closed the door. I now drew near and
knocked: John's wife opened for me. "Mary," I said, "how are you?"

She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her
hurried "Is it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this
lonely place?" I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed
her into the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained
to them, in few words, that I had heard all which had happened since
I left Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I
asked John to go down to the turn pike house, where I had dismissed
the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I had left there: and
then, while I removed my bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to
whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House for the night;
and finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult,
would not be impossible, I informed her I should stay. Just at
this moment the parlour bell rang. "When you go in," said I, "tell
your master that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not give
my name." "I don't think he will see you," she answered; "he refuses
everybody." When she returned, I inquired what he had said.
"You are to send in your name and your business," she replied.
She then proceeded to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray,
together with candles. "Is that what he rang for?" I asked.
"Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is
blind." "Give the tray to me; I will carry it in."

I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The
tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart
struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and
shut it behind me. This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful
of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head
supported against the high, old fashioned mantelpiece, appeared
the blind tenant of the room. his old dog, Pilot, lay on one side,
removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being
inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when
I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded
towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it
on the table; then patted him, and said softly, "Lie down!" Mr.
Rochester turned mechanically to SEE what the commotion
was: but as he SAW nothing, he returned and sighed.
"Give me the water, Mary," he said. I approached him with
the now only half filled glass; Pilot followed me, still excited.
"What is the matter?" he inquired.

"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to
his lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down.
"This is you, Mary, is it not?" "Mary is in the kitchen," I answered.
He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where
I stood, he did not touch me. "Who is this? Who is this?" he
demanded, trying, as it seemed, to SEE with those sightless eyes
unavailing and distressing attempt! "Answer me speak again!"
he ordered, imperiously and aloud. "Will you have a little more
water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass," I said. "WHO is it?
WHAT is it? Who speaks?" "Pilot knows me, and John and Mary
know I am here. I came only this evening," I answered.
"Great god! What delusion has come over me? What sweet madness
has seized me?" "No delusion, no madness: your mind, sir, is too
strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy."
"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I CANNOT
see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst.
Whatever whoever you are be perceptible to the touch or I
cannot live!" He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and
prisoned it in both mine. "Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small,
slight fingers! If so there must be more of her." The muscular
hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder
neck waist I was entwined and gathered to him.

"Is it Jane? WHAT is it? This is her shape this is her size "
"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too.
god bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again."
"Jane Eyre! Jane Eyre," was all he said. "My dear master,"
I answered, "I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out I am
come back to you." "In truth? in the flesh? My living Jane?"
"You touch me, sir, you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold
like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?" "My living darling!
These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I
cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such
dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once
more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus and
felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."
"Which I never will, sir, from this day."

"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an
empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned my life dark,
lonely, hopeless my soul athirst and forbidden to drink my
heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling
in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled
before you: but kiss me before you go embrace me, Jane."
"There, sir and there!"' I pressed my lips to his once brilliant
and now rayless eyes I swept his hair from his brow, and
kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the
conviction of the reality of all this seized him. "It is you is it,
Jane? You are come back to me then?" "I am." "And you do not
lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a
pining outcast amongst strangers?" "No, sir! I am an independent
woman now." "Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"
"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."
"Ah! this is practical this is real!" he cried: "I should
never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers,
so animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered
heart; it puts life into it. What, Janet! Are you an independent
woman? A rich woman?"

"If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own
close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when
you want company of an evening." "But as you are rich, Jane, you
have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer
you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me?" "I told you I am
independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress."
"And you will stay with me?" "Certainly unless you object. I will
be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely:
I will be your companion to read to you, to walk with you, to sit
with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so
melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long
as I live."

He replied not: he seemed serious abstracted; he sighed;
he half opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I
felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over leaped
conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my
inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea
that he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation,
not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that
he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect
escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly
remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing
the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from
his arms but he eagerly snatched me closer. "No no Jane; you must
not go. No I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your
presence the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these
joys. I have little left in myself I must have you. The world may
laugh may call me absurd, selfish but it does not signify. My very
soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly
vengeance on its frame." "Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so."

"Yes but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I
understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be
about my hand and chair to wait on me as a kind little nurse
(for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which
prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought
to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none
but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come tell me."
"I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your
nurse, if you think it better." "But you cannot always be my nurse,
Janet: you are young you must marry one day." "I don't care about
being married." "You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was,
I would try to make you care but a sightless block!" He relapsed
again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and
took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to
where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me,
I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I
resumed a livelier vein of conversation.

"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting
his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed
into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux air' of
Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair
reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like
birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed." "On this arm, I have
neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the mutilated limb from
his breast, and showing it to me. "It is a mere stump a ghastly sight!
Don't you think so, Jane?" "It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your
eyes and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in
danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."
"I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and
my cicatrised visage." "Did you? Don't tell me so lest I should say
something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an
instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you
tell when there is a good fire?" "Yes; with the right eye I see a glow
a ruddy haze." "And you see the candles?" "Very dimly each is a
luminous cloud." "Can you see me?" "No, my fairy: but I am only
too thankful to hear and feel you." "When do you take supper?"
"I never take supper." "But you shall have some to night. I am
hungry: so are you, I daresay, only you forget."

Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I
prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were
excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper,
and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no
repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at
perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed
either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It
brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I
thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles
played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments
softened and warmed. After supper, he began to ask me many
questions, of where I had been, what I had been doing, how I
had found him out; but I gave him only very partial replies: it
was too late to enter into particulars that night. Besides, I
wished to touch no deep thrilling chord to open no fresh well
of emotion in his heart: my sole present aim was to cheer him.
Cheered, as I have said, he was: and yet but by fits. If a moment's
silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless, touch me,
then say, "Jane." "You are altogether a human being, Jane? You
are certain of that?" "I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester."

"Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly
rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water
from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question,
expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my
ear." "Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray."
"And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with
you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged
on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night
in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go
out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow,
and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again.
Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my
lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves
me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To morrow, I
fear I shall find her no more." A commonplace, practical reply,
out of the train of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure,
the best and most reassuring for him in this frame of mind.
I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they
were scorched, and that I would apply something which would
make them grow as broad and black as ever. "Where is the use of
doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal
moment, you will again desert me passing like a shadow, whither
and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards
undiscoverable? "Have you a pocket comb about you, sir?"
"What for, Jane?" "Just to comb out this shaggy black mane.
I find you rather alarming, when I examine you close at hand:
you talk of my being a fairy, but I am sure, you are more like
a brownie." "Am I hideous, Jane?" "Very, sir: you always were,
you know." "Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of
you, wherever you have sojourned."

"Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred
times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never
entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted." "Who the
deuce have you been with?" "If you twist in that way you will
make me pull the hair out of your head; and then I think you will
cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality." "Who have you
been with, Jane?" "You shall not get it out of me to night, sir; you
must wait till tomorrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know,
be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table
to finish it. By the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with
only a glass of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say
nothing of fried ham." "You mocking changeling fairy born and
human bred! You make me feel as I have not felt these twelve
months. If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit
would have been exorcised without the aid of the harp."
"There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you:
I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am
tired. Good night." "Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies
in the house where you have been?" I laughed and made my
escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. "A good idea!" I thought
with glee. "I see I have the means of fretting him out of his
melancholy for some time to come."

Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering
from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the
question: "Is Miss Eyre here?" Then: "Which room did you put her
into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything;
and when she will come down."I came down as soon as I thought
there was a prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly,
I had a view of him before he discovered my presence. It was
mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that vigorous
spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair still, but not
at rest: expectant evidently; the lines of now habitual sadness
marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of
a lamp quenched, waiting to be re lit and alas! it was not himself
that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he was
dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and
careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my
heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity I could.
"It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said. "The rain is over
and gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have
a walk soon." I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.

"Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not
gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing
high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than
the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated
in my Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a
silent one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence."
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence;
just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced
to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be
lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with
preparing breakfast. Most of the morning was spent in the open
air. I led him out of the wet and wild wood into some cheerful
fields: I described to him how brilliantly green they were; how
the flowers and hedges looked refreshed; how sparklingly blue
was the sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot,
a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse to let him, when seated,
place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he and I were
happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet.
He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms.

"Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered
you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you;
and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken
no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl
necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your
trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for
the bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute
and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now."

Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last
year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of
wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have
been to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated
his faithful heart deeper than I wished. I should not have left him
thus, he said, without any means of making my way: I should
have told him my intention. I should have confided in him: he
would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had
seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too
tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me
half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return,
rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world.
I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed to him.
"Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I
answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received
at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, etc.
The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed
in due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently
in the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was
immediately taken up. "This St. John, then, is your cousin?"
"Yes." "You have spoken of him often: do you like him?"
"He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him."
"A good man. Does that mean a respectable well conducted man
of fifty? Or what does it mean?" "St John was only twenty nine, sir."

"'Jeune encore,' as the French say. Is he a person of low stature,
phlegmatic, and plain. A person whose goodness consists rather in
his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue." "He is
untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to
perform." "But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means
well: but you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?"

"He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. his brain
is first rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous." "Is he an
able man, then?" "Truly able." "A thoroughly educated man?"
"St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar." "His manners,
I think, you said are not to your taste? priggish and parsonic?"
"I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste,
they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike."
"His appearance, I forget what description you gave of his
appearance; a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white
neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick soled high lows, eh?"
"St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with
blue eyes, and a Grecian profile." (Aside.) "Damn him!" (To me.)
"Did you like him, Jane?" "Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but
you asked me that before." I perceived, of course, the drift of
my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but
was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of
melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake.

"Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?" was
the next somewhat unexpected observation. "Why not, Mr. Rochester?" "The
picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming
contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo:
he is present to your imagination, tall, fair, blue eyed, and with a Grecian
profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan, a real blacksmith, brown, broad
shouldered: and blind and lame into the bargain." "I never thought of it,
before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir." "Well, you can leave
me, ma'am: but before you go" (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than
ever), "you will be pleased just to answer me a question or two." He paused.
"What questions, Mr. Rochester?" Then followed this cross examination.
"St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his
cousin?" "Yes." "You would often see him? He would visit the school
sometimes?" "Daily." "He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they
would be clever, for you are a talented creature!" "He approved of them yes."
"He would discover many things in you he could not have expected
to find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary." "I don't know
about that." "You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever
come there to see you?" "Now and then?" "Of an evening?" "Once or twice."
A pause. "How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship
was discovered?" "Five months." "Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies
of his family?" "Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near
the window, and we by the table." "Did he study much?" "A good deal." "What?"
"Hindostanee." And what did you do meantime?" "I learnt German, at first."
"Did he teach you?" "He did not understand German." "Did he teach you nothing?"
"A little Hindostanee." "Rivers taught you Hindostanee?" "Yes, sir." "And his
sisters also?" "No." "Only you?" "Only me." "Did you ask to learn?" "No." "He
wished to teach you?" "Yes." A second pause. "Why did he wish it? Of what
use could Hindostanee be to you?" "He intended me to go with him to India."

"Ah! Here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?" "He
asked me to marry him." "That is a fiction an impudent invention to vex me."
"I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and
was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be." "Miss Eyre, I repeat
it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain
pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?"
"Because I am comfortable there." "No, Jane, you are not comfortable there,
because your heart is not with me: it is with this cousin this St. John. Oh, till
this moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me
even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we
have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought
that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it is useless grieving.
Jane, leave me: go and marry Rivers." "Shake me off, then, sir, push me away,
for I'll not leave you of my own accord." "Jane, I ever like your tone of voice:
it still renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back
a year. I forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool go."

"Where must I go, sir?" "Your own way with the husband you have chosen."
"Who is that?" "You know this St. John Rivers." "He is not my husband, nor
ever will be. He does not love me: I do not love him. He loves (as he CAN love,
and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He
wanted to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable
missionary's wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but
severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy
at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me no fondness.
He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth only a few useful mental points.
Then I must leave you, sir, to go to him?" I shuddered involuntarily, and clung
instinctively closer to my blind but beloved master. He smiled. "What, Jane!
Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers?"
"Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little
to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you
wish me to love you, could you but see how much I DO love you, you would
be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with
you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence for
ever." Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect. "My
scarred vision! My crippled strength!" he murmured regretfully. I caressed,
in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wanted to speak
for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from
under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.

"I am no better than the old lightning struck chestnut tree in Thornfield orchard,"
he remarked ere long. "And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding
woodbine cover its decay with freshness?" "You are no ruin, sir no lightning
struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots,
whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful
shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you,
because your strength offers them so safe a prop." Again he smiled: I gave him
comfort. "You speak of friends, Jane?" he asked. "Yes, of friends," I answered
rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant more than friends, but could not tell
what other word to employ. He helped me. "Ah! Jane. But I want a wife." "Do
you, sir?" "Yes: is it news to you?" "Of course: you said nothing about it before."
"Is it unwelcome news?" "That depends on circumstances, sir on your choice."
"Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision." "Choose
then, sir HER WHO LOVES YOU BEST." "I will at least choose HER I LOVE BEST.
Jane, will you marry me?" "Yes, sir." "A poor blind man, whom you will have to
lead about by the hand?" "Yes, sir." "A crippled man, twenty years older than you,
whom you will have to wait on?" "Yes, sir." "Truly, Jane?" "Most truly, sir." "Oh!
my darling! god bless you and reward you!" "Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good
deed in my life if ever I thought a good thought if ever I prayed a sincere and
blameless prayer if ever I wished a righteous wish, I am rewarded now. To be
your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth." "Because you delight
in sacrifice." "Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for
content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value to press my lips
to what I love to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then
certainly I delight in sacrifice." "And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to
overlook my deficiencies." "Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now,
when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence,
when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector."

"Hitherto I have hated to be helped to be led: henceforth, I feel I shall hate it no
more. I did not like to put my hand into a hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it
circled by Jane's little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant
attendance of servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy.
Jane suits me: do I suit her?" "To the finest fibre of my nature, sir." "The case
being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we must be married instantly."
He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising. "We must
become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the licence to get then we
marry." "Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its
meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at your watch."

"Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I have no use for it."
"It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel hungry?" "The third day
from this must be our wedding day, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels, now:
all that is not worth a fillip." "The sun has dried up all the rain drops, sir. The breeze
is still: it is quite hot." "Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this
moment fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it since the day
I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her." "We will go home through the wood: that
will be the shadiest way." He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me. "Jane!
you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the
beneficent god of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges
not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent
flower breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff
necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I
defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced
to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. HIS chastisements are mighty; and
one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength:
but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its
weakness? Of late, Jane only only of late I began to see and acknowledge the hand of
god in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement
to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere.

"Some days since: nay, I can number them four; it was last Monday night, a singular
mood came over me: one in which grief 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 prone to gloom, needed not
the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and pondered them in
my heart. "You cannot now wonder," continued my master, "that when you rose
upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than
a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence and annihilation,
as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now, I thank god!
I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank god!" He put me off his knee, rose, and
reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth,
he stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.
"I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy. I
humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life
than I have done hitherto!" Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that
dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder:
being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide.
We entered the wood, and wended homeward.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 38.>