naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat;
controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your
limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother- or father,
or master, or what you will- to smile too gaily, speak too freely,
or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be
natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with
you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and
variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a
curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid,
restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar
cloud-high. You are still bent on going?'
'It has struck nine, sir.'
'Never mind,- wait a minute: Adele is not ready to go to bed yet.
My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the
room, favours observation. While talking to you, I have also
occasionally watched Adele (I have my own reasons for thinking her a
curious study,- reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you
some day). She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a
little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it;
coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the
marrow of her bones. "Il faut que je l'essaie!" cried she, "et a
l'instant meme!" and she rushed out of the room. She is now with
Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in a few minutes she will
re-enter; and I know what I shall see,- a miniature of Celine
Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of-. But
never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a
shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it will be
realised.'
Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall.
She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of
rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it
could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a
wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk
stockings and small white satin sandals.
'Est-ce que ma robe va bien?' cried she, bounding forwards; 'et mes
souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!'
And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room; till,
having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him
on tip-toe, then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming-
'Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte; then rising,
she added, 'C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas,
monsieur?'
'Pre-cise-ly!' was the answer; 'and, "comme cella," she charmed
my English gold out of my British breeches' pocket. I have been green,
too, Miss Eyre- ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you
now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has
left me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I
would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang;
having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could
manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it
looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the
Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small,
by one good work. I'll explain all this some day. Good-night.'
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CHAPTER XV
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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 took out 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 muffled 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 sterness 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 chambermaid 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.
