<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
<p>He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He
deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel what
severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable man can
inflict on one who has offended him. Without one overt act of hostility, one
upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I
was put beyond the pale of his favour.</p>
<p>Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness—not
that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in his power
to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to the mean
gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his
love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and I lived he
never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they
were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke, they
sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me.</p>
<p>He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual each
morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within him had a
pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in evincing with
what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently just as usual,
extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval
which had formerly communicated a certain austere charm to his language and
manner. To me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye
was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument—nothing
more.</p>
<p>All this was torture to me—refined, lingering torture. It kept up a slow
fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed and
crushed me altogether. I felt how—if I were his wife, this good man, pure
as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a
single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest
stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate
him. No ruth met my ruth. <i>He</i> experienced no suffering from
estrangement—no yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than
once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they
produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of
stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as
if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely
I was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure
he did not by malice, but on principle.</p>
<p>The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about
sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man, alienated as he now
was, had once saved my life, and that we were near relations, I was moved to
make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I went out and approached him as
he stood leaning over the little gate; I spoke to the point at once.</p>
<p>“St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be
friends.”</p>
<p>“I hope we are friends,” was the unmoved reply; while he still
watched the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I
approached.</p>
<p>“No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.”</p>
<p>“Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all
good.”</p>
<p>“I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any
one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of
affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere
strangers.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” he said. “Your wish is reasonable, and I am far
from regarding you as a stranger.”</p>
<p>This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough. Had
I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left
him; but something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could. I
deeply venerated my cousin’s talent and principle. His friendship was of
value to me: to lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the
attempt to reconquer it.</p>
<p>“Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you
leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?”</p>
<p>He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.</p>
<p>“When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to
India?”</p>
<p>“You said I could not unless I married you.”</p>
<p>“And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?”</p>
<p>Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the
ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their
anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?</p>
<p>“No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.”</p>
<p>The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash
down.</p>
<p>“Once more, why this refusal?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Formerly,” I answered, “because you did not love me; now, I
reply, because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.
You are killing me now.”</p>
<p>His lips and cheeks turned white—quite white.</p>
<p>“<i>I should kill you</i>—<i>I am killing you</i>? Your words are
such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an
unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem
inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even until
seventy-and-seven times.”</p>
<p>I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind
the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another
and far deeper impression: I had burnt it in.</p>
<p>“Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to
attempt to conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.”</p>
<p>A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the
truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the steely ire
I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.</p>
<p>“You utterly misinterpret my words,” I said, at once seizing his
hand: “I have no intention to grieve or pain you—indeed, I have
not.”</p>
<p>Most bitterly he smiled—most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine.
“And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I
presume?” said he, after a considerable pause.</p>
<p>“Yes, I will, as your assistant,” I answered.</p>
<p>A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature
and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams scintillated in
his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He spoke at last.</p>
<p>“I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age
proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you in such
terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever again alluding
to the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for your sake.”</p>
<p>I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once.
“Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You pretend
to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked: for, with your
superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand
my meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if you like, but never your
wife.”</p>
<p>Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion perfectly.
He answered emphatically but calmly—</p>
<p>“A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me, then,
it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I will, while in
town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a coadjutor. Your own
fortune will make you independent of the Society’s aid; and thus you may
still be spared the dishonour of breaking your promise and deserting the band
you engaged to join.”</p>
<p>Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or
entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and much
too despotic for the occasion. I replied—</p>
<p>“There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. I
am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with
strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, confide in,
and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go when and with whom I
would, I should not live long in that climate.”</p>
<p>“Ah! you are afraid of yourself,” he said, curling his lip.</p>
<p>“I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish
me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide.
Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know for
certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving
it.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on
which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by some
means that doubt is removed.”</p>
<p>“I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you
cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it:
now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?”</p>
<p>It was true. I confessed it by silence.</p>
<p>“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?”</p>
<p>“I must find out what is become of him.”</p>
<p>“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my
prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not
indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen.
But God sees not as man sees: <i>His</i> will be done—”</p>
<p>He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was
soon out of sight.</p>
<p>On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very
thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand on my
shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.</p>
<p>“Jane,” she said, “you are always agitated and pale now. I am
sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have
on hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must forgive
my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly know what. St.
John is a strange being—”</p>
<p>She paused—I did not speak: soon she resumed—</p>
<p>“That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting
you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he never
showed to any one else—to what end? I wish he loved you—does he,
Jane?”</p>
<p>I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; “No, Die, not one whit.”</p>
<p>“Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so frequently
alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had both
concluded he wished you to marry him.”</p>
<p>“He does—he has asked me to be his wife.”</p>
<p>Diana clapped her hands. “That is just what we hoped and thought! And you
will marry him, Jane, won’t you? And then he will stay in England.”</p>
<p>“Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a
fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils.”</p>
<p>“What! He wishes you to go to India?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Madness!” she exclaimed. “You would not live three months
there, I am certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you,
Jane?”</p>
<p>“I have refused to marry him—”</p>
<p>“And have consequently displeased him?” she suggested.</p>
<p>“Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany him
as his sister.”</p>
<p>“It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you
undertook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong,
and you are weak. St. John—you know him—would urge you to
impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot
hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force
yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You
do not love him then, Jane?”</p>
<p>“Not as a husband.”</p>
<p>“Yet he is a handsome fellow.”</p>
<p>“And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.”</p>
<p>“Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to
be grilled alive in Calcutta.” And again she earnestly conjured me to
give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.</p>
<p>“I must indeed,” I said; “for when just now I repeated the
offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of
decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to
accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a
brother, and habitually regarded him as such.”</p>
<p>“What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?”</p>
<p>“You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained
that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He has told me I am
formed for labour—not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my
opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for
marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be chained for life to a man who
regarded one but as a useful tool?”</p>
<p>“Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!”</p>
<p>“And then,” I continued, “though I have only sisterly
affection for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the
possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for
him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in
his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become
unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the
feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by
him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.”</p>
<p>“And yet St. John is a good man,” said Diana.</p>
<p>“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings
and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better,
therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress,
he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave you, Diana.” And
I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the garden.</p>
<p>But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he appeared just
as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak to me, and I was
certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme: the sequel
showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed me precisely in his ordinary
manner, or what had, of late, been his ordinary manner—one scrupulously
polite. No doubt he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger
I had roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more.</p>
<p>For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of
Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen while from his lips fell the
words of the Bible: never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and
full—never did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity,
as when he delivered the oracles of God: and to-night that voice took a more
solemn tone—that manner a more thrilling meaning—as he sat in the
midst of his household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained
window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table):
as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page
the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—told how God would come to
dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised
that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more
pain, because the former things were passed away.</p>
<p>The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially as I
felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them,
his eye had turned on me.</p>
<p>“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and
he shall be my son. But,” was slowly, distinctly read, “the
fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”</p>
<p>Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me.</p>
<p>A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his
enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader believed
his name was already written in the Lamb’s book of life, and he yearned
after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the
earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need of sun or moon to shine
in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.</p>
<p>In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered—all his
stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a
conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers
from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the
temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He
asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning.
Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I
wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at
last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely:
others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too.</p>
<p>The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early hour in the
morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room—in compliance, I
think, with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my hand, and wished him a
pleasant journey.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a
fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I listened to
human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with me; but I listen to
my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim—to do all things to the
glory of God. My Master was long-suffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up
to perdition as a vessel of wrath: repent—resolve, while there is yet
time. Remember, we are bid to work while it is day—warned that ‘the
night cometh when no man shall work.’ Remember the fate of Dives, who had
his good things in this life. God give you strength to choose that better part
which shall not be taken from you!”</p>
<p>He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken
earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his
mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep—or
better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. All
men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; whether they be zealots,
or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be sincere—have their
sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St.
John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point
I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him—to rush
down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my
own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a
different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would
have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error
of judgment. So I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through
the quiet medium of time: I was unconscious of folly at the instant.</p>
<p>I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch. My refusals were
forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralysed. The
Impossible—<i>i.e.</i>, my marriage with St. John—was fast becoming
the Possible. All was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion
called—Angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together
like a scroll—death’s gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it
seemed, that for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a
second. The dim room was full of visions.</p>
<p>“Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry was put
in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far more
potent is it than force! I could resist St. John’s wrath: I grew pliant
as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I
should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion. His
nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated.</p>
<p>“I could decide if I were but certain,” I answered: “were I
but convinced that it is God’s will I should marry you, I could vow to
marry you here and now—come afterwards what would!”</p>
<p>“My prayers are heard!” ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand
firmer on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm,
<i>almost</i> as if he loved me (I say <i>almost</i>—I knew the
difference—for I had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had
now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty). I contended with
my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely,
deeply, fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. “Show
me, show me the path!” I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I
had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the
reader shall judge.</p>
<p>All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, were
now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the room was full of
moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb. Suddenly it
stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through, and passed at
once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock,
but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as
if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now
summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the
flesh quivered on my bones.</p>
<p>“What have you heard? What do you see?” asked St. John. I saw
nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry—</p>
<p>“Jane! Jane! Jane!”—nothing more.</p>
<p>“O God! what is it?” I gasped.</p>
<p>I might have said, “Where is it?” for it did not seem in the
room—nor in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the
air—nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard
it—where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of
a human being—a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward
Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.</p>
<p>“I am coming!” I cried. “Wait for me! Oh, I will come!”
I flew to the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into the
garden: it was void.</p>
<p>“Where are you?” I exclaimed.</p>
<p>The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back—“Where are
you?” I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland
loneliness and midnight hush.</p>
<p>“Down superstition!” I commented, as that spectre rose up black by
the black yew at the gate. “This is not thy deception, nor thy
witchcraft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did—no
miracle—but her best.”</p>
<p>I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It was
<i>my</i> time to assume ascendency. <i>My</i> powers were in play and in
force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave me: I
must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command
well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber; locked myself in;
fell on my knees; and prayed in my way—a different way to St.
John’s, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near
a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from
the thanksgiving—took a resolve—and lay down, unscared,
enlightened—eager but for the daylight.</p>
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