This is S.
D.
Hudson Magic Jane Eyre Chapter 37 Continued No,
No,
Jane,
You must not go,
Said Mr.
Rochester,
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 and 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,
Jane.
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.
That ought to suffice for me,
No doubt,
But I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you.
Do you think so?
Come,
Tell me,
Jane.
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 someone took to re-humanise 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.
Your hair reminds me of eagle's 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.
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 can see a glow,
A ruddy haze.
And you see the candles?
Very dimly,
Each is a luminous cloud.
Can you see me,
Mr.
Rochester?
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 tonight.
I am hungry,
So are you,
I dare say.
Only you forget.
I summoned Mary and 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 repression 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 Mr.
Rochester's presence I thoroughly lived,
And he lived in mine.
Blind as he was,
Smiles played over his face,
Joy dawned on his forehead.
His liniments 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 thresh well of emotion in his heart.
My sole present aim was to cheer him.
And cheered as I have said he was.
Yet,
But by fits!
If a moment's silence broke the conversation he would turn restless,
Touch me,
And 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,
And your voice spoke at my ear.
Because I had come in in Mary's stead with the I answered.
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 into 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 now be that Jane is with me,
And says she loves me?
Will she not depart as suddenly as she came?
Tomorrow 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.
So I passed my finger over his eyebrows,
And remarked they were scorched,
And I would apply something which should make them grow as broad and as 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 to 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'm sure you are more like a brownie.
Am I hideous,
Jane?
Very,
Sir.
You always were,
You know.
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,
Mr.
Rochester.
Quite more refined and exalted.
Who the juice have you been with?
If you twist in that way you'll make me pull the hair out of your head,
And then I think you'll cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality.
Who have you been with,
Jane?
You shall not get it out of me tonight,
Sir.
You must wait till tomorrow.
To leave my tail half-told will,
You know,
Be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it.
By the by,
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 able to exercise without the aid of the harp.
There,
Sir,
You are read up and made decent.
Now I will 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?
At this,
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 yet to come.
