wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes
obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and
singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to
anything larger- when I found that I could not pass a single
evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that
kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because
whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once
coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile- when I perceived that I
should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant
would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable
temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting
orders- even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I
curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in
secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.
'Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some
strong words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman
upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her
character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices
sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check
them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and
what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those
propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an
infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading
agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate
and unchaste.
'My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four
years my father died too. I was rich enough now- yet poor to hideous
indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was
associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of
me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the
doctors now discovered that my wife was mad- her excesses had
prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don't like my
narrative; you look almost sick- shall I defer the rest to another
day?'
'No, sir, finish it now; I pity you- I do earnestly pity you.'
'Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of
tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of
those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous,
selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes,
crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But
that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole
face is full at this moment- with which your eyes are now almost
overflowing- with which your heart is heaving- with which your hand is
trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of
love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I
accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent- my arms wait to
receive her.'
'Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?'
'Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect
was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the
world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to
be clean in my own sight- and to the last I repudiated the
contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection
with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and
person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of
her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I
remembered I had once been her husband- that recollection was then,
and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while
she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife;
and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied
to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as
long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus,
at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.
'One night I had been awakened by her yells- (since the medical men
had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)- it was a
fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently
precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in
bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like
sulphur-steams- I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes
came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I
could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake- black
clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves,
broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball- she threw her last bloody
glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was
physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were
filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she
momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with
such language!- no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary
than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word- the thin
partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction
to her wolfish cries.
'"This life," said I at last, "is hell: this is the air- those
are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself
from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me
with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's
burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse
than this present one- let me break away, and go home to God!"
'I said this whilst I knelt down at, and unlocked a trunk which
contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only
entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the
crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the
wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second.
'A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through
the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and
the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I
walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst
its drenched pomegranates and pineapples, and while the refulgent dawn
of the tropics kindled round me- I reasoned thus, Jane- and now
listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and
showed me the right path to follow.
'The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed
leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart,
dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled
with living blood- my being longed for renewal- my soul thirsted for a
pure draught. I saw hope revive- and felt regeneration possible.
From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea-
bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened
thus:-
'"Go," said Hope, "and live again in Europe: there it is not
known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is
bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her
with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel
yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like.
That woman, who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your
name, so outraged your honour, so blighted your youth, is not your
wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is cared for as her
condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require
of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in
oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being. Place her
in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave
her."
'I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had
not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very
first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union- having already
begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the
family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening
to me- I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the
infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as
to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring
to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as
myself.
'To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such
a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to
Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third storey room, of
whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild
beast's den- a goblin's cell. I had some trouble in finding an
attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity
dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my
secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days- sometimes weeks-
which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from
the Grimsby Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed
Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only
two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed
have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise
knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good
keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it
appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing
profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and
baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never
failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses; once to
secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to
possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the
night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the
attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly
visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she
then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought
back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might
have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing
which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet
visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles-'
'And what, sir,' I asked, while he paused, 'did you do when you had
settled her here? Where did you go?'
'What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp.
Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the
March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its
lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent
woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at
Thornfield-'
'But you could not marry, sir.'
'I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It
was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I
meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it
appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free
to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found
willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of
the curse with which I was burdened.'
'Well, sir?'
'When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open
your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless
movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you,
and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart. But before I go
on, tell me what you mean by your "Well, sir?" It is a small phrase
very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on
through interminable talk: I don't very well know why.'
'I mean,- What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an
event?'
'Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?'
'Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to
marry you; and what she said.'
'I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I
asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in
the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in
one capital, then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in
Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with
plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own
society: no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a
woman amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and
German grafinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting
moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form,
which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently
undeceived. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either
of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me- for the antipodes
of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one
whom, had I been ever so free, I- warned as I was of the risks, the
horrors, the loathings of incongruous unions- would have asked to
marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation-
never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was my Indian
Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me
much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed
to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.
'Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of
mistresses. The first I chose was Celine Varens- another of those
steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already
know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two
successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered
