Another long silence.
"Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with
grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror--for this still
voice was the pant of a lion rising--"Jane, do you mean to go one
way in the world, and to let me go another?"
"I do."
"Jane" (bending towards and embracing me), "do you mean it now?"
"I do."
"And now?" softly kissing my forehead and cheek.
"I do," extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.
"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This--this is wicked. It would not be
wicked to love me."
"It would to obey you."
A wild look raised his brows--crossed his features: he rose; but he
forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I
shook, I feared--but I resolved.
"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you
are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is
left? For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you
refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do,
Jane? Where turn for a companion and for some hope?"
"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope
to meet again there."
"Then you will not yield?"
"No."
"Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?" His
voice rose.
"I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil."
"Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on
lust for a passion--vice for an occupation?"
"Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it
for myself. We were born to strive and endure--you as well as I:
do so. You will forget me before I forget you."
"You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I
declared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change
soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in
your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a
fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no
man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor
acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?"
This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason
turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting
him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured
wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his
danger--look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong
nature; consider the recklessness following on despair--soothe him;
save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in
the world cares for YOU? or who will be injured by what you do?"