Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and
seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall,
I asked, "What am I to do?"
But the answer my mind gave--"Leave Thornfield at once"--was so
prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear
such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the
least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most
glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I
could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly,
instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold
that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted
to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering
I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion
by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her
dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he
would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
"Let me be torn away," then I cried. "Let another help me!"
"No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall
yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand:
your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it."
I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless
a judge haunted,--at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My
head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from
excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips
that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I
now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had
been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even
little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had
sought me. "Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes," I
murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an
obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs
were feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on
to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up--I was
supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber
threshold.