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.