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with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your
manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble- a hovering doubt: you
did not know what my caprice might be- whether I was going to play the
master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too
fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my
hand out cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young,
wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and
there to my heart.'
'Don't talk any more of those days, sir,' I interrupted,
furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was
torture to me; for I knew what I must do- and do soon- and these
reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings, only made my
work more difficult.
'No, Jane,' he returned: 'what necessity is there to dwell on the
Past, when the Present is so much surer- the Future so much brighter?'
I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.
'You see now how the case stands- do you not?' he continued. 'After
a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in
dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly
love- I have found you. You are my sympathy- my better self- my good
angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good,
gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my
heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life,
wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame,
fuses you and me in one.
'It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you.
To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now
that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you;
but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared
early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before
hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to
your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now- opened to you
plainly my life of agony- described to you my hunger and thirst
after a higher and worthier existence- shown to you, not my resolution
(that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and
well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should
have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours.
Jane- give it me now.'
A pause.
'Why are you silent, Jane?'
I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my
vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a
human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was
loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must
renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable
duty- 'Depart!'
'Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise- "I
will be yours, Mr. Rochester."'
'Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.'